Hestia's Log (FR, JP)

[Xenops]

I hope your internship goes well, and gives you plenty of time for your language work!

When you do study Japanese, have you given a thought to using textbooks in French? I have the Assimil Hindi textbook and surprised myself by how easy it was to work with explanations in French. Assimil has a Japanese textbook, and they also have an advanced book (C1) called Le Japonais du manga http://fr.assimil.com/methodes/le-japonais-du-manga. Studying your L3 via your L2 means you don't have to neglect your French while studying Japanese.

Nice! The manga book is in my price range, too.

Though I confess, I have the same problem as PeterM with French courses: I have six boxes of Japanese learning materials--but these are all in English, what's wrong with having ones in French, too?

[Xenops]

I'm still recovering to U.S. time. I haven't gotten studying done--mainly brainless cleaning of the apartment so I can study and function. Hopefully today will be more useful.

I'm feeling conflicted about Japanese. As I said in a earlier post, I felt that God wanted me to take a break for some undetermined time (starting last summer). To remove any temptations, I avoided any entertainment with the Japanese language (I would still read English translations of manga, however). Since my recent missions trip to a restricted country, I've had a better understanding of what it means to love a people for Christ rather than just love their culture. On the other hand, Japanese is is very hard: it's in the category that's hardest for English speakers:

http://www.effectivelanguagelearning.com/language-guide/language-difficulty

And French, and other European languages, are among the lowest ranking...Japanese also doesn't mesh with my plans with moving to Europe. The recent missions trip also alerted me to a sensation that was absent in previous international excursions: the sensation of being a foreigner, and not being able to blend into the culture. I would surely feel this if I end up in Japan. But I tell myself: "I don't need to figure this out right now".

Something else the missions trip taught me: I don't need to be a solely career missionary to be supported by a denomination, say Baptist churches. The missionaries on the trip were supported as students or as business people, and they had their own careers along with being a missionary. The full-time missionary might be out of vogue. What made this means to me is that perhaps I go to another country, work in my chosen career, part-time as a missionary, and not abandon my U.S. citizenship. Maybe I don't have to officially emigrate. But I tell myself: "I don't need to figure this out right now".

I'll work on French, and see where the Lord leads.

[Xenops]

I start internships tomorrow. And then in August, comes a job and an income! Woot!

The break from French was about a month, and the question that greeted me was: where do I jump back in? Do I start FiA from the beginning? No, too much work in the workbook for that. Review the audio? That sounds reasonable. Practice audio? That sounds reasonable too, so that's what I've been doing for review, jus the first part of each chapter where you parrot the professeur or the étudiants. I can do a little at a time, as I get bored to tears; though parroting and doing yoga poses makes it more interesting. I'll also continue on in chapter 7, which I barely begun before my break. I'm also filtering through over two hundred Anki cards:

I'm currently feeling good about Japanese: as I posted in another thread, "if you have it, you can use it". I also started rewatching Shingeki no Kyojin (Attack on Titan), and I forgot how amazing the opening track is:


Since the anime follows the manga pretty closely, I have been looking at the manga in the original language and mining for words there, with hopes of hearing them in the show. Currently all of my Japanese study materials are at the other end of the state, so I am hoping that I can get some mailed to me.

[jeffers]

Though I confess, I have the same problem as PeterM with French courses: I have six boxes of Japanese learning materials--but these are all in English, what's wrong with having ones in French, too?

After 30 years of collecting resources I've never used, you'd think I would learn my lesson right? Don't collect courses in languages you'd like to learn "some day", and don't buy books until you are actually ready to use them. We get a certain amount of satisfaction from buying books and courses, but it's an illusory satisfaction; we somehow feel like we've achieved something when in fact we've just purchased the means to achieve it. However, though I've improved, I still don't really follow this advice.

[Xenops]

I found two wonderful French resources:

https://fr.ilini.com

This has videos for different levels, and they have French subtitles, and if you register to get a *free* account, you can download the transcripts and translations. It's like what Yabla used to offer for free (but now they only have clips for free).

http://frenchyourway.com.au

This native speaker from France makes podcasts, and she has notes on her blog (where the link goes to) as to which words and phrases she uses in the French Your Way podcasts, so you don't have to look up words.

Conversely, I found that podcasts that I had discovered earlier (Learn French by Podcast and Learn Japanese Pod are charging exorbitant prices for their materials--the latter wants 179$ for 6-month access to all of their stuff. Fortunately I have their 100+ earlier podcasts before they pulled them behind the payment wall, I just need to look up what they're talking about (I wonder if I can access the PDF's if I only do a trial period).

I discovered that I need some sort of weekly goals, or I won't progress very much. For Japanese, I've picked learning the katakana for reals: hiragana I never had much issue with, but katakana doesn't stick in my mind. For practice, I try to translate characters' names:

ロザモンド。グレー Rosamond Grey
アルジャーノン。サバジュ Algernon Savage
リチャード。スノ Richard Snow
アブサロム。ブラクヲド Absalom Blackwood
メレヂス。スプナー Meredith Spooner
ベンジャミン。ワイルス Benjamine Wiles

and here's one I don't know how to change her last name into katakana:

エリサベス。スアツチャー Elisabeth Thatcher

How do you transcribe a word that starts with the [th] sound?

I need to figure out obtainable goals for French--ones that wound't burn me out. Maybe one French in Action chapter over two weeks? I'll think about it. I'm also taking ideas from Gabriel Wyner's blog post https://fluent-forever.com/japanese-radical-deck/ about tackling the writing system early, and not putting it off. That reminds me, I found a wonderful podcast series for learning bushu, the radicals that make up kanji: https://itunes.apple.com/us/itunes-u/bushu-the-kanji-makers-japanese/id438294617?mt=10 (also free)

Corrections are welcome, too.

[smallwhite]

マーガレット・ サッチャー
Margaret Thatcher

Note the solid and centre-aligned 中黒 dot.

If you use the JLPT katakana word list to practise katakana, you can learn katakana, transliteration and JLPT vocab at the same time.

[Xenops]

マーガレット・ サッチャー
Margaret Thatcher

Note the solid and centre-aligned 中黒 dot.

If you use the JLPT katakana word list to practise katakana, you can learn katakana, transliteration and JLPT vocab at the same time.

Thank you for the visit and the correction. I'm not sure how to make the center dot on American keyboards (or even foreign ones?)

Let's see: マーガレット • サッチャー

It's a big dot, but that's an improvement. I pushed alt/option and 8.

Does the JLPT vocab lists correspond pretty well to what's on the test?

[smallwhite]

Thank you for the visit and the correction. I'm not sure how to make the center dot on American keyboards (or even foreign ones?)

I went to Wikipedia English version to search "Margaret Thatcher",
then went to the Japanese version of that and got "マーガレット・ サッチャー".

To find out about that dot, I copied the dot from "マーガレット・ サッチャー" above and searched Wikipedia with it,
got "Interpunct",
which mentions "1.9 Japanese" and "3 Keyboard input".

Does the JLPT vocab lists correspond pretty well to what's on the test?

I don't know, sorry.

[Xenops]

Thank you for the visit and the correction. I'm not sure how to make the center dot on American keyboards (or even foreign ones?)

I went to Wikipedia English version to search "Margaret Thatcher",
then went to the Japanese version of that and got "マーガレット・ サッチャー".

To find out about that dot, I copied the dot from "マーガレット・ サッチャー" above and searched Wikipedia with it,
got "Interpunct",
which mentions "[urlhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interpunct#Japanese]1.9 Japanese[/url]" and "3 Keyboard input".

That's a great idea! Thank you!

You know, if you made a language log, I would read it avidly: you're like a treasure box that lets out goodies in small amounts

[Xenops]

I'm adjusting to "working" forty hours a week again, and trying to figure out the best times to study. For a while I would get home, eat, and feel the need to go directly to bed; I learned that if I drink enough during the day, and have a light dinner, I do not have this problem. Restraint is the key! Related to that, I recently discovered that my sensitivity to gluten disappeared: I no longer get the brain-fog I usually get when I eat bread. On one hand this is a relief, on the other it makes sticking to a ketogenic diet more challenging, as now I have the regular thought " I can eat anything!" Regular contact with patients with diabetes helps tame my food lust, however: avoid lots of carbs now so I won't be obligated to avoid them later, at a higher price. I also find my complexion is much better when I avoid carbs and dairy (no zits!)

I'm finally taming my French Anki stack again: currently there's only 94 cards to review. When I returned to the States, it was closer to 300. The Genki stack is slowing growing. My Genki books and other Japanese books from home are now in the mail.

I've been plugging slowly at the French in Action chapter 7. I've spent more of my French time during double-duty: studying for my medical laboratory science boards and using French vocab. Nucleoli are, expectedly, nucléole; however, nucleus is noyau (one looks like a more recent addition). I'm impressed with the Linguee dictionary app on my phone.

For Japanese, I've mostly reviewed the hiragana and katakana (kana). When I get my books, I expect to do more. Also some Pimsleur: I love the Japanese Pimsleur course, it might be my favorite Pimsleur Course.

For other news, I'm working with a medical professions recruiting company to find a job in the Portland area. I recently talked about my issues with Idaho and wanting to possibly leave the country, and the friend said, "you know, you just might have issues with your state, rather than the whole country". I had suspected this for a while, but the friend made it more obvious to me. Perhaps if I moved to a more populous area, with more single young people, more things to do and with native speakers, I would be more content. I've struggled with the idea, "moving somewhere won't make me more content: if I'm discontent, I'll be discontent anywhere I go". I've also lived with a Puritan view of Christianity for a long time, and I'm only recently breaking free of it. This past year and a half has really shown me that God does care about my happiness to some extent. As to why I am allowed to live in a privileged country while others starve in others, I am still greatly puzzled, and probably will be for the rest of my life.