East Asian Study Group

An area with study groups for various languages. Group members help each other, share resources and experience. Study groups are permanent but the members rotate and change.
Woodsei
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Re: East Asian Team - 2017~

Postby Woodsei » Fri Mar 31, 2017 2:00 am

ロータス wrote:April Challenge is up!


Thanks, ロータス!
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Sizen
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Re: East Asian Team - 2017~

Postby Sizen » Fri Mar 31, 2017 4:35 am

A new challenge pops up and looks like I already finished it this morning. And it's not even April!

Today's reading was on the Semitic language branch of the Afro-Asiatic family, as I've been studying Hebrew recently. There were some unknown words, but it was mostly terminology relating to linguistics (咽頭音 [pharyngeals], 子音結合 [consonant clusters], 祖語 [protolanguage]), and I came across some familiar constructions that hadn't quite sunk in quite yet (~にちなんで名づける [to name after], 顕著な類似点 [striking similarities]). I've been trying to read about languages and linguistics in Japanese lately, so it's been getting much easier. This article was definitely easier for me than some other texts I've been reading, but I only have my persistent efforts to thank for that, I guess.
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Xelian
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Re: East Asian Team - 2017~

Postby Xelian » Sat Apr 01, 2017 5:17 pm

I know this is early, but I missed the February challenge so I really wanted to do the challenge for this month...

What a coincidence, I just started reading articles on my own (with a goal of reading at least 1,000 articles) to try and boost my Japanese progress, but for this month's challenge I'll read a couple new ones (so it's fair)!!

I used NHK News Web Easy to read some recent articles, published only a couple days ago.

The first one that caught my attention was this one about Rika-chan (Licca-chan dolls). Not about politics and looked easy to understand. http://www3.nhk.or.jp/news/easy/k10010929321000/k10010929321000.html
I hadn't seen 2 of the words from the article before, and recognized (but haven't memorized) 3 other words. Other than that, this was really easy and straight forward, so I read another article.

The second article is about HIV. I chose it because it looked interesting, though not the most fluffy of topics. http://www3.nhk.or.jp/news/easy/k10010929971000/k10010929971000.html
I didn't know 3 words, but recognized one that I've seen before (but haven't memorized it). It was a bit more complex to understand the details of this article than the first article, but not by too much.

I'm not sure when I'll switch over to the "real" NHK news, but I am really comfortable reading these easy ones for the time being~

Also, I updated my language log if anyone wants to take a look!!
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Sc27
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Re: East Asian Team - 2017~

Postby Sc27 » Thu Apr 13, 2017 5:34 pm

I finished up reading an article about a mummy wearing Adidas shoes (what in the odds haha).

Here is the link: http://khnews.kheraldm.com/view.php?ud= ... 42_BL&kr=1

This was the first time that I've tried reading a topic I'm familiar with in English, but not in Korean. There were a lot of words I didn't know since it's related to archaeology, so I had to look up many words in the dictionary. Still, I was able to understand most of what it was saying. It mentioned that there's currently a hot debate about a mummy that seemed to be wearing the original Adidas shoes with the red and black stripes, and the news article got into other points as well (where it was discovered, what had happened to it, etc).

Interesting observation, to say the least :)
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cathrynm
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Re: East Asian Team - 2017~

Postby cathrynm » Mon Apr 17, 2017 5:44 am

I guess I am doing the challenge. For me this is from our class assignment. This is just the start of it here, but does help just to get going, and to scan it with Rikaichan, which helps look up some words more quickly. Online is about the first 50% of my class assignment.

http://www.books-ruhe.co.jp/recommends/2003/07/zoo.htm

And here we go, with Japanese there are always more words. I learn them, and then I read something else with another big cache of new words. It does never end.

みせかける -- to pretend.
ぱっと -- suddenly
故意 -- intention.   Hmm, I'm used to 意思 for intention. Not really clear on the difference.
礼を言う --to thank.
目玉焼き -- sunny-side up eggs. (ooh, this is useful)
おさがり -- leftovers
ひしゃげる -- to be crushed
ぺちゃんこ -- crushed flat
じろじろみる -- to stare at
痣 -- あざ -- birthmark. (Actually wrong on the website, oops)
折檻 -- せっかん -- severe scolding, also wrong on the website, but correct in my class handout.

As for what's going on here, it's a girl, she's an identical twin and she's being treated unfairly by her mother, or so she says. (Possible unreliable narrator here.)
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tuckamore
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Re: East Asian Team - 2017~

Postby tuckamore » Wed Apr 26, 2017 8:26 pm

cathrynm wrote:http://www.books-ruhe.co.jp/recommends/2003/07/zoo.htm

I read this story several years ago and then again in the fall. This may have been my very first, authentic Japanese story that I read extensively (with the exception of occasional kindle look-ups) and actually finished.
cathrynm wrote:目玉焼き -- sunny-side up eggs. (ooh, this is useful)

And, if I remember correctly, I think I learned 目玉焼き from this book, too! :P I don't know if I have ever come across this word again, but it is such a vivid way to describe sunny-side up eggs, that I haven't forgotten it.
cathrynm wrote:And here we go, with Japanese there are always more words. I learn them, and then I read something else with another big cache of new words. It does never end.

Same here.
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cathrynm
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Re: East Asian Team - 2017~

Postby cathrynm » Thu Apr 27, 2017 5:23 am

That's quite a coincidence. My class we go through something about this length every week, and this week I just happened to pick this one to post here, which I've never done before. This must mean something! Maybe this is a favorite of Japanese language instructors? The story does seem to be famous, has many links when I googled it.
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Xelian
Orange Belt
Posts: 170
Joined: Tue Apr 05, 2016 7:19 pm
Location: Seattle
Languages: English (N)

Studying actively:
日本語 (B2)

Studying off and on:
한국어 (A2)
svenska (B1)
中文 (A1)
Tiếng Việt
Deutsch (beginner)

On the back burner:
Español (A2)
ASL (A1)
العَرَبِيَّة

Maybe some other time:
Български (A1)

Interested in:
Arabic (Egyptian, Yemeni), Hindi, Turkish, Thai, Tibetan, Nepali, Bengali, Urdu, Russian, Armenian, Greek, Kurdish, Farsi
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... 15&t=17163
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Re: East Asian Team - 2017~

Postby Xelian » Sun May 28, 2017 11:13 pm

ALMOST forgot about May's challenge... I'm glad I caught it on time!

So I've been going through Tobira this entire year in my 300 level Japanese class. As a result, I've read/worked through up to chapter 9, so I'm going to do a review on chapters 1-9, and the "Power Up Your Grammar"/"Power Up Your Kanji" workbooks.

The Tobira textbook is quite useful for an intermediate to advanced Japanese learner in many ways. My favorite features are that each reading has a vocabulary list, and from this vocabulary list they pick some kanji compounds/ any words with kanji in them and put those in a list as well. If you memorize all of these words and learn the kanji, you have a substantial amount of knowledge from that alone after each chapter. The chapter readings themselves are often very interesting and will teach you about Japanese culture and mannerisms in detail. My favorite chapters so far have been Chapter 1, Japan's Geography, Chapter 3, Japan's Technology, and Chapter 6, Japanese Life and Religion. I also enjoyed some of the additional readings in each chapter, such as in Chapter 8, there was a fun story about the Japanese play "Kusabira" and I loved that, haha. There are also grammar points at the end of each chapter, which I find useful, but not entirely understandable.

That brings me to my least favorite features. I would say that the grammar points are a bit lacking, in the sense that sometimes it's hard to understand them. I think a translation of the example questions would be useful. I actually can say that I hate the way that the "Power Up Your Grammar" workbook is structured. I think that going through the exercises in that book were a waste of my time, as I couldn't grasp that method of teaching. It is almost like you have to come up with stories on the spot, which also satisfy the requirements of the question. I resorted to just writing examples with the grammar points and had a lang-8 user check them for me so that I actually could learn them...

Another nearly useless feature was the fake conversations between two people. Yes, they had interesting vocabularies included, but they just made me cringe, especially because we had to recreate them but with our own, original situation, which also had to be logically correct, in class. That was my least favorite part of the book I think, but also just my least favorite part of my class, so maybe one would enjoy it if not forced into recreating it. But for anyone outside of a classroom environment, I feel it would be challenging to use this portion of the book for more than just vocabulary and learning about casual speech.

I did enjoy the "Power Up Your Kanji" workbook, but the thing is that you can look up kanji on Jisho and practice it in a kanji renshuu and get the same results. It would be great for someone without internet connection I guess, because all of the stroke orders and related words are right there in the book. The exercises in it are actually really cool and fun, so I'd still recommend it for someone who doesn't really have enthusiasm about kanji. For people like me, it was slightly trivial, because I love to practice kanji and don't need anything besides Jisho for extra support.

However, I have learned an incredible amount just in these 9 chapters, and would definitely recommend it, just not the extra grammar workbook, that was totally useless for me. Happy learning!
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Xelian
Orange Belt
Posts: 170
Joined: Tue Apr 05, 2016 7:19 pm
Location: Seattle
Languages: English (N)

Studying actively:
日本語 (B2)

Studying off and on:
한국어 (A2)
svenska (B1)
中文 (A1)
Tiếng Việt
Deutsch (beginner)

On the back burner:
Español (A2)
ASL (A1)
العَرَبِيَّة

Maybe some other time:
Български (A1)

Interested in:
Arabic (Egyptian, Yemeni), Hindi, Turkish, Thai, Tibetan, Nepali, Bengali, Urdu, Russian, Armenian, Greek, Kurdish, Farsi
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... 15&t=17163
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Re: East Asian Team - 2017~

Postby Xelian » Thu Jun 22, 2017 3:56 am

I know the leader of this thread is planning a trip, but I'm wondering if there's going to be a June challenge?

Thanks!
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Woodsei
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Location: United States
Languages: English (N), Arabic (N), Japanese (intermediatish)
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Re: East Asian Team - 2017~

Postby Woodsei » Thu Jun 22, 2017 5:43 am

I was wondering the same. I was thinking of making my goals for Tadoku this month my personal challenge, even though there isn't technically an official one up yet.
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