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.
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LunaMoonsilver
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Joined: Mon Jan 04, 2016 6:09 pm
Location: Nottinghamshire, UK
Languages: English (N), German (C1), Mandarin Chinese (B1), Spanish (A2), Polish (A0)
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... 15&t=17648
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Re: East Asian Study Group

Postby LunaMoonsilver » Tue Jan 02, 2018 1:21 pm

Hi, all! Can I join the group too? I'm putting at least some focus on Mandarin this year and I just posted my 2018 log (https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... =15&t=7476). (Trying to stay away from Japanese/Korean for now, but I know that won't last long...)

I like the look of the January challenge; one of my main goals for Mandarin is to learn more vocab, so a goal for me of 150 characters seems fairly reasonable... I hope! ;)
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Nyrag
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Good enough: Russian (N), English (C1)
On hold: French (B2), German (Intermediate), Mandarin (beginner)
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Re: East Asian Study Group

Postby Nyrag » Thu Jan 04, 2018 10:37 pm

Hello everyone! Could you please add another fellow Mandarin learner to the list?

I have been studying Chinese (Mandarin) willy-nilly from May 2017, and I have just returned from my weeklong trip to China, Harbin. The main goal was to see the country and re-ignite my interest in the language. Mandarin is going to be my priority (language-related) in this year, and I hope to improve it and perhaps to pass HSK 4 or even HSK 5 in November.

I think I will contribute to the thread with some of my thoughts after the trip to Harbin:
1. Learning characters is EXTREMELY important, I know about 200-700 of them (not sure exactly how to count that, but I know almost all the HSK 1-3 and some HSK 4 characters) and it helped me so much while being in China. Without characters I would had been going in blind, but I could understand what is written in some labels, instructions, menus, maps, etc. - although, not much.
2. Is listening comprehension the most difficult part of Chinese, or have I just been studying wrongly? Most likely, the latter, but I could ask pretty much everything I know about (a little bit), but I understood replies only when people spoke super slowly.
3. Even basic knowledge of Mandarin helps immensely in China, the Harbin population in general is monolingual, and I would not have learnt nearly as much about their culture and country without my rudimentary language skills.
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pucko
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Languages: Norwegian (N), English (fluent), Japanese (beginner)
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... 560#p95560
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Re: East Asian Study Group

Postby pucko » Sun Jan 14, 2018 6:04 pm

Hello! I was wondering if I could get added?
I'm a Norwegian living in Norway who's self-learning Japanese.
I currently don't have access to classes and have very very few self learning resources available to me in my native language (Norwegian), but I have no problem learning through english as its basically my second language, and need some help picking what english-japanese resources I should invest in!
I'm also brand new to this forum (and forums in general) and I see "language log" being mentioned a lot? :o
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Xenops
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Languages: English (N), Danish (A2), Japanese (rusty), Nansha (constructing)
On break: Japanese (approx. N4), Norwegian (A2)
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... 15&t=16797
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Re: East Asian Study Group

Postby Xenops » Sun Jan 14, 2018 6:38 pm

pucko wrote:Hello! I was wondering if I could get added?
I'm a Norwegian living in Norway who's self-learning Japanese...I'm also brand new to this forum (and forums in general) and I see "language log" being mentioned a lot? :o


Welcome to the forum! :D I’m sure you can join us. I like the Genki books myself.

You don’t have to have a log, but it’s nice for the rest of us to follow your language learning journey. You can also see what Japanese resources I use.

Have fun!
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dampingwire
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Location: Abingdon, UK
Languages: Italian (N), English (N), French (poor, not studying), Japanese (studying, JLPT N3)
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Re: East Asian Study Group

Postby dampingwire » Sun Jan 14, 2018 7:26 pm

pucko wrote:need some help picking what english-japanese resources I should invest in!


There's plenty of free stuff to invest time in before you invest money.

NHK do a nice beginner course (although it's changed since I used it ... hopefully it's still OK).

They also do Easy News, which is some of their real NHK News simplified for learners (and kids).

Tae Kim is an easy starting point before you tackle something more serious.

Good luck. 頑張って!
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Monox D. I-Fly
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Re: East Asian Study Group

Postby Monox D. I-Fly » Mon Jan 15, 2018 1:35 pm

ロータス wrote:It's Jan 14/15, halfway through the month, how is everyone doing on the challenge?

I got 12 new words. My target is only 1 new word per day, after all. So, my target for this month is only 31. Sorry if my target is too low.
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Xenops
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Posts: 1444
Joined: Mon Nov 30, 2015 10:33 pm
Location: Boston
Languages: English (N), Danish (A2), Japanese (rusty), Nansha (constructing)
On break: Japanese (approx. N4), Norwegian (A2)
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Re: East Asian Study Group

Postby Xenops » Mon Jan 15, 2018 8:44 pm

Monox D. I-Fly wrote:
ロータス wrote:It's Jan 14/15, halfway through the month, how is everyone doing on the challenge?

I got 12 new words. My target is only 1 new word per day, after all. So, my target for this month is only 31. Sorry if my target is too low.


Well, I might be postponing my Japanese studies for a while, so since you have a goal and are maintaining progress, I'd say you are doing quite well. :)
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Finolia
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Re: East Asian Study Group

Postby Finolia » Mon Jan 15, 2018 9:22 pm

Hello! :) I'd like to join with Vietnamese, if possible.
I've been following the group for a while now and thought why not just join ^^"

I also gave the January challenge a go - my estimated vocabulary is about 600 (in 1 year... I was kind of sad when I realised this ^^" but oh well, better than nothing :D). I only have one memrise course with numbers so I, well, estimated the rest ^^ I already learned about 50 new words this month! Which is incredible in regards to my progress last year xD I hope I can continue like this. That said, I'll be satisfied with another 50 words, which makes 100 in total this January.
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pucko
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Languages: Norwegian (N), English (fluent), Japanese (beginner)
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... 560#p95560
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Re: East Asian Study Group

Postby pucko » Tue Jan 16, 2018 10:11 pm

dampingwire wrote:
pucko wrote:need some help picking what english-japanese resources I should invest in!


There's plenty of free stuff to invest time in before you invest money.

NHK do a nice beginner course (although it's changed since I used it ... hopefully it's still OK).

They also do Easy News, which is some of their real NHK News simplified for learners (and kids).

Tae Kim is an easy starting point before you tackle something more serious.

Good luck. って!


Thank you!! I have listened to the NHK world podcast but I had no idea it had an accompanying site! I'll definitely check it along with Tae Kim!

And if I understand correctly to do my language log I just have to start a thread on the language log board, right?
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Nandemonai
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Posts: 147
Joined: Tue Jul 28, 2015 10:32 pm
Location: Tokyo
Languages: Dutch/Flemish (N), English (fluent), Japanese (fluent)
Actively studying: Mandarin (intermediate), German (beginner)
On break: Korean (beginner)
Language Log: viewtopic.php?f=15&t=1684
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Re: East Asian Study Group

Postby Nandemonai » Thu Jan 18, 2018 3:12 am

I'm still catching up with some languages so I won't be introducing too many new cards this month. I'll probably do more than this but my goal is to at least learn a 100 new cards among all my languages.
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