jean5429 - Japanese Quest

[jean5429]

Hello!

I am new to this forum, but I have been reading HTLAL for a long time, and when I found this one, I register and started reading everything, so I decied to share and register my learning experience here, which consists in keep evolving with my English, make some progress with my basic Japanese and starting Spanish.

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Japanese:
I've been struggling with Japanese for many years by now, I think I am in touch with the language since 2004, but never even learned the basic kanas until 2014, when I really started to work seriously on that language.
Last year, I was able to finish the N5 test (December,2015), just to see how I was going with the studies, and now I've changed my study plan completely. I did 1 year of weekly classes with a Japanese teacher, those classes lasted 1 hour each and I have changed to a self- study plan.
I am studying with the method from Japanese Level Up website: [url]jalup.com[/url], it turns our language study in a game-like experience, which is fun in my case, since I like the game enviroment (I've studied computing development at college focused on game development).

My goal is to get a good score at JLPT N3 in December/2017.

Right now, I have a daily study plan, I would love to hear from you guys if there is anything that might help, such as materials or other sources, or any study that I might be missing:

1. Review ANKI decks, divided into two groups: Kanji (From Remembering the Kanji) and Phrases from the jalup.com website
2. Add new 30 Kanji (reading their key word from the book Remembering the Kanji) and 30 phrases to the deck and review them, those phrases have audio and furigana
3. Listen to an episode of Anime/Drama previously wathced (I usually watch 1 per week) - audio only
4. Listen to as much as I can of background Japanese (that is based on passive listening theory from jalup.com, just to get used to listen to Japanese)

Besides that, I haven't been doing anything else on my Japanese studies. I followed that study for a month or so in the past, but after an event happened in my life, I stopped these studies. I am starting over.
Since I messed up with all of the decks, I am stating from the beggining, which won't be that bad, I was at kanji 700, I can catch up them very quickly now, because I still have them fresh in my mind.

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English:
I also have other Anki deck used for English, which is only a few words that I encounter with while reading English books, whenever I find a new word, I put into that "English Words" deck and review them when asked. It works pretty well, because I can always remember these words when I find them again. Which opens space for a question, should I add the meanings of the word or should I add the context in which I found it, a phrase?
For English, my goals are:

1. Review English Words deck
2. Read a book monthly

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Spanish:
I've also started to get in touch with Spanish, but nothing really serious by now, I've only been doing Duolingo to see how it feels, but as a native Portuguese speaker, it is pretty close to my language, which is good and easy, but I can also try to use Portuguese grammar rules into it (I still don't know the difference at this point). But it is just a small step, by now I really want to focus on Japanese.

Thanks for reading
I will try to update this log weekly, and I would like to hear tips or recommendations on this.

[jean5429]

It has been a week since I first posted here, so I want to share some update:

English:
I've finished a book that I was reading already, and that is this month's book: Mastermind: How to think like Sherlock Holmes, which is more a psichology book, very interesting, using the Watson vs Holmes approach to thinking to give examples of how we can improve our own way of thinking.
For next month, I will start the book Mists of Avalon, book three, I've already finished the first two, time to get back and finish that story , which has 4 books.
It is kind of difficult for me, because it has many words that aren't used too much in English.

Japanese:

1. Reviewed ANKI every day, including weekends
2. Anki: Added 180 Kanjis 30/day (I don't add new cards on weekends), since I started it again, it has been pretty easy until now.
3. Anki: Added 180 new phrases-cards (60 phrases), which has three of the same sentence, but each focusing on a specific part of it on the front side: Meaning/Actual sentence/Audio, so I think it is a very solid way of studying, since it uses the same sentence three time to learn everything on it,
4. I've listened to the same episode of Sword Art Online anime 5 times (which is the first episode), I think I could understand it better as I listen more to it. I am going to the second episode now
5. I've got in the JALUP NEXT Alpha, which is a program from [url]jalup.com[/url] website, that is just an optimzed ANKI for Japanese only. Right now, I am studying three decks in that plataform: Kana reading, Phrases and Kanji. Kana reading is really as a plus for faster reading, I really don't need to study it anymore.

*Sword Art Online is an anime about a virtual reality role playing game, in a near future, the users got stuck in and cannot log off from the game, if they die in the game, they die in real life. Pretty fun, but also game related. Have I mentioned that I am a big fan of games?

Spanish:
Still haven't continued on it with Duolingo, planning to do some daily exercises this week.

Other
So, to keep track of my studies, I like to use an app called "Habitica", which turns our daily tasks in a RPG-like game. As I said before, I really enjoy gaming, so I turned my studies into a gaming environment, which is pretty fun.


With this app, I can set my 'daily tasks', and keep track of it, so I can ensure that I don't forget any of them, which is just like as any to-do list.


The gaming part is that each task you finish gives you some experience points and coins, the rewards which you can buy with those coins, can also be setted on the app:

There is also another cool feature, equipment that can give you special 'powers' to get more coins and experience, and also other gaming features like pets, mounts, abilities, just things to make it seems like a game.
I use it not only for studies, but also for other daily tasks that I think I need to remind myself about, for example to drink water at work,hehe, and also to study music notes and any other thing that I want to do remember to do daily.
We can set those tasks to be active only in specific days, so for example I have to add new cards from Monday to Friday, but I have to review them everyday.

In sum, it is a game-like to-do list, I wanted to share it, maybe someone can make use of this tool

Thanks for reading

[Xenops]

Hello! Japanese is a very fun language, hopefully I'll return to it in the future. I must recommend this approach to kanji: https://www.amazon.com.br/Lets-Learn-Kanji-Introduction-Components/dp/156836394X/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1482274030&sr=1-3 It's where you learn the radicals of the kanji, rather than memorizing 2000 kanji.

I'm learning French, after having taken high school Spanish, and aside from nuances, not a lot of grammatical differences that I can find.

[jean5429]

Hello! Japanese is a very fun language, hopefully I'll return to it in the future. I must recommend this approach to kanji: https://www.amazon.com.br/Lets-Learn-Kanji-Introduction-Components/dp/156836394X/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1482274030&sr=1-3 It's where you learn the radicals of the kanji, rather than memorizing 2000 kanji.

I'm learning French, after having taken high school Spanish, and aside from nuances, not a lot of grammatical differences that I can find.

Thank you for your recommendation Xenops, I will search about this book and try to get these 250 radicals. So, in sum, you learn those 250 radicals, and then build up all of the 2.000 kanjis with them? Sounds easier

That's good news about French! hehe.
As a native speaker of Portuguese, Spanish has been already pretty close, with some major differences and difficulties.

[jean5429]

Hello guys! Time for another update here

This week has been quite busy, but I haven't failed on my task, I mean, Quest!

English:
I have been reading Mists of Avalon book three, 30 min. a day, planning to finish it before the end of January. I've read 25% of the book already, so if I end it too soon, I am also going to read Book Bour in January.
I've also been reading 'news in levels' on level 3 everyday, which is a website that provide daily news in english divided on 3 difficult levels, pretty good source.

Japanese:

1. Reviewed ANKI every day, including weekends
2. Anki: Added 150 Kanjis 30/weekday. Total: 330/1901
3. Anki: Added 150 new phrases-cards. Total: 331/1000
4. Still listened to the first episode of Sword Art Online anime.
5. JALUP NEXT: Added 30 new kana reading practice cards per weekday. Total: 197/228
6. Started a new deck on Anki which is based on Genki I and II, added 30 to 60 cards daily, total 240 cards added. It has still 1047 unseen cards, when I am done with them, I am going to start studying an intermediate deck on Jalup NEXT which is Japanese- Japanese only Total: 240/1287

Spanish:
7 days streak on Duolingo, finally started it, and it has been really easy. Right now, I am not really focusing on that, it is just like a hobby to get a good start when I really start to study Spanish.

Overall, this week has been pretty difficult to keep my daily studies because of the holidays, but I am really satisfied with what I've done until now. I wish to keep on these studies to reach a level which I feel good on Japanese.
When I reach that level, I will relax a little bit on Japanese studies and focus more on Spanish for a few months.

Thanks for reading

[galaxyrocker]

How are you using Anki for Kanji? Is it just the Kanji on the front then the English translation(s) on the back? I tried doing it this year (2016) and quickly got bored of Anki, but I might try again if I can find a novel way to spice things up.

[jean5429]

How are you using Anki for Kanji? Is it just the Kanji on the front then the English translation(s) on the back? I tried doing it this year (2016) and quickly got bored of Anki, but I might try again if I can find a novel way to spice things up.

I am using a modfied version of the Remembering the Kanji deck from the website jalup.com. He removed some cards that weren't kanji.
I don't know if you can see the image, but it has the English key-word and a Japanese word for the given kanji on one side, and I have to remember the kanji and how to write it, which is the answer.



For me, it is fun to learn kanjis using the book Remembering the Kanji, but depends on your personal tastes, it might be boring. There are other ways to learn it, but I found that those decks are faster.

[galaxyrocker]

How are you using Anki for Kanji? Is it just the Kanji on the front then the English translation(s) on the back? I tried doing it this year (2016) and quickly got bored of Anki, but I might try again if I can find a novel way to spice things up.

I am using a modfied version of the Remering the Kanji deck from the website jalup.com. He removed some cards that weren't kanji.
I don't know if you can see the image, but it has the English key-word and a Japanese word for the given kanji on one side, and I have to remember the kanji and how to write it, which is the answer.



For me, it is fun to learn kanjis using the book Remering the Kanji, but depends on your personal tastes, it might be boring. There are other ways to learn it, but I found that those decks are faster.

I can't see the image, but I'm aware of Hesig's method in RTK. Didn't suit me well, sadly. Thanks though.

[dampingwire]

My goal is to get a good score at JLPT N3 in December/2017.

Right now, I have a daily study plan, I would love to hear from you guys if there is anything that might help, such as materials or other sources, or any study that I might be missing:

1. Review ANKI decks, divided into two groups: Kanji (From Remembering the Kanji) and Phrases from the jalup.com website
2. Add new 30 Kanji (reading their key word from the book Remembering the Kanji) and 30 phrases to the deck and review them, those phrases have audio and furigana
3. Listen to an episode of Anime/Drama previously wathced (I usually watch 1 per week) - audio only
4. Listen to as much as I can of background Japanese (that is based on passive listening theory from jalup.com, just to get used to listen to Japanese)

Listening to things is (IMHO) certainly a good idea.

I used the Memrise N5, N4 and N3 courses on the way to JLPT N3. I used the website, but if I were doing it again I'd probably download the courses and import into Anki (using two independent SRS was a bit awkward at times). I grabbed some N5/N4/N3 lists from the web (there are plenty!) and mangled them with a script to remove kanji that were supposedly N2 or above. That way I could learn useful vocabulary with the kanji as required.

http://delvinlanguage.com/login/ was not around (or I had not found it) when I was working towards N3, but I've dabbled occasionally and found it useful.

Are you using any textbooks? I worked through みんなの日本語初級 for N5 and N4 and then moved on to 本語総まとめ and 新完全マスター for N3 and above. Various people at work (most of whom are starting from scratch) are using Japanese for Busy People; you might find Book 1 a little basic.

There's lots of Japanese drama and anime on the web. [url]crunchyroll.com[/url] will sell you a subscription, but if you don't care about HD and don't mind not being able to turn off subtitles, you can watch for free. You might want to use AdBlock to kill the rather intrusive adverts!

NHK Easy News is quite useful (until you can transition to the full NHK News website). There's even a subredit that offers occasional translations.

A final suggestion would be to look for Japanese material on youtube: I've tried the nihongonomori JLPT lessons quite useful. I need to watch and re-watch to get much benefit from the grammar points, but even just listening for comprehension (without necessarily trying to learn the specific grammar points) is beneficial for me.

[jean5429]

A final suggestion would be to look for Japanese material on youtube: I've tried the nihongonomori JLPT lessons quite useful. I need to watch and re-watch to get much benefit from the grammar points, but even just listening for comprehension (without necessarily trying to learn the specific grammar points) is beneficial for me.

Wow！Thank you very much! That's a lot of good advice here, I am sure look at all of those options!
I had a subscription for Crunchyroll for a time last year, but I wasn't able to understand a word at that time, I am sure I could get more words now.
I actually tried a few courses on Memrise, is this a good app? I don't mind in using them both is that's the case, I'll try to look at the courses you've mentioned.
I've also never heard about NHK easy news, it is really interesting!

Thank you very much, that's a lot of information to look at