Languages and Life: Gary's log (Italian, Spanish, German, Japanese, bits of French)

[garyb]

Sfuqua gave a very enthusiastic review of a new Shogun TV adaptation.

Thanks for the link; I missed sfuqua's post when catching up with the forum after my trip! I've been hearing good things about Shogun from friends and colleagues, so it's definitely on my list. It's a rare time when a TV show that people I know are into is also relevant to my own interests, so I'm gonna make the most of it

[golyplot]

the first thing I noticed was the first two characters 明日, meaning "tomorrow". The word itself is a super-basic one that I learnt in the first few days, and while I hadn't "officially" been taught the kanji form yet I had encountered it enough in the wild to recognise it. But... I knew it as "ashita", not "asu". So I figured it must just be a less common alternative reading. I mean, there are so many ways to pronounce 日 that finding another is hardly surprising. And guess what, the very next morning it came up in my WaniKani lessons, complete with that reading.

EDIT: after writing this I watched some more Erased, and the main character used "asu" at one point. Funny how once you learn something you start to see it everywhere.

Interesting. I went through WK in my first year, but I didn't learn "asu" there. I only first discovered it when I started reading Harry Potter last year.

Perhaps WK just didn't have that reading listed back in 2020, but it could also just be due to the effect where you can only really learn one reading and meaning for each word on WK, the one you type in in answers. Even if the lessons list alternate meanings and readings, you're not actually going to learn them. And of course, "ashita" is absolutely ubiquitous in actual Japanese, so you're just going to learn that one anyway.

I actually did watch Erased (the anime, not live action), but didn't notice "asu" there. But of course, it's hard to notice a word you don't know! The only reason I finally learned it from Harry Potter is that the books have furigana on every word, so I was able to see that they were writing "ashita" but reading it "asu" for some bizarre reason.

[Sizen]

The only reason I finally learned it from Harry Potter is that the books have furigana on every word, so I was able to see that they were writing "ashita" but reading it "asu" for some bizarre reason.

There are a good few time related words in Japanese that have alternate readings in more formal contexts: 昨日（さくじつ）、明日（あす）、昨夜（さくや）、後（のち）off the top of my head. Sometimes it's just a completely different word/kanji pair: 去年 vs. 昨年. If you're reading the news, you can be pretty sure the intended reading is one of the aforementioned.

[garyb]

Japanese

I heard a couple more uses of "asu", this time in Yakuza. I'm gathering that it's relatively common in formal-ish contexts: a patient talking to a doctor as in Erased; news and weather reports as WaniKani says; meetings between mob bosses... Yes, that does mean I've been playing too much Yakuza again. When I play it for too long, any pretence of it being useful for my Japanese goes out the window and I stop concentrating on the dialogues. I'm getting close to the end of the game but I don't plan to play any more of the series until I'm a good bit better at Japanese and I can actually claim that it's a useful activity. Maybe once I reach that magical N4 point at the end of Genki 2 which is where experienced learners say that native material really starts to become approachable.

I'm also close to the end of Genki 1. The final lesson has explained that mysterious "んです" form that I had been seeing everywhere recently, as well as a few other gaps. My feeling at this point is that I know so much yet so little, and I'm aware of some big gaps that I've not formally covered like conditional phrases and time expressions like "since" and "ago" and "in" that I've found to be absolutely essential for most conversations. However I have picked up some sense of these just through WaniKani and input, and they seem simple enough once you get your head around 後 meaning "behind" in the spatial sense but "ahead" in time and 前 being the opposite (thinking of it as "before" in space and time helps). I might look them up in my Dictionary of Basic Japanese Grammar in advance of Genki 2 hopefully covering them.

Anyway this feeling is completely natural since with Japanese there's just so much to learn and a single beginner textbook can only cover a certain amount in a certain order. I also feel that I don't even really remember a lot of the material that [i]has[/b] been covered, so I can do some revision while I wait for the books to arrive. Maybe I'll look into Cure Dolly again: it might make more sense now. But it's basic language so it'll come together with more exposure and study.

Maybe I'll also get onto WaniKani level 10 by the weekend, which would be another big milestone. (EDIT: just reached it now! That was earlier than expected.)

Another Japanese observation that I've been meaning to write about: I was in a sushi restaurant a few weeks ago and it was decorated with lots of Japanese posters and banners, mostly food-related: free reading practice! But I found the writing style on some of them very hard to read. Not just unknown kanji, but also some simple Hiragana written in ways where the parts were joined up as if the brush hadn't been lifted between the strokes.

For example, there was one that said たこ, a word that I know well having visited Osaka and eaten all the takoyaki, but I was only able to decipher it because there was a big picture of an octopus next to it. I know it's also common for kanji to be written in a joined-up way in handwriting and on signs that are going for a traditional look. I'm sure I remember golyplot commenting how shop and restaurant signs in Japan were often very hard to read. I've also seen all sorts of contortions of Katakana characters, often when going for a modern/futuristic look.

Reading different styles of characters isn't something I need to practice urgently, but I definitely should do it before I next visit Japan! I know that some of the Kana practice apps let you choose different fonts.

Others / General

I'm still more motivated for German than Spanish so I'm leaning into that. Mostly just input and making audio cards.

The audio card thing is still very much an experiment in progress, and a couple of thoughts I'm having at the moment are that many of the cards just don't have enough context (this might be where recording a bigger chunk of audio would help) and that Anki's default FSRS intervals really don't feel suitable for this type of card. Nowhere near enough repetition when the purpose is to "create earworms". That's one thing that Migaku's own system did better: more repetition early on. I think I remember emk commenting on how these kinds of cards need quite different interval settings from the ones for other types of card. I'll try playing around with that.

I've also been thinking that my method of following my current interests, rather than what I "should" be doing, is quite correct. I've said in the past that I had regrets like spending too much time on languages rather than more "useful" or "rewarding" pursuits like work and music, but now that I'm in another phase where languages are my main interest I don't feel bad about following what I felt like doing at the time. Especially since I did my share of work and music in the last few years. I've barely picked up my guitar this year, which is a shame but I've just not felt like it so why force myself? Especially when there are other things that do have plenty motivation for and am enjoying, like Japanese.

That's just how I work. There's a lot to be said for enjoying the present, and I'm sure I'll have more music phases in the future. It all balances out in the long term. I might jump between interests, but I mostly do get deeply into them for good lengths of time; I'm no dabbler. Although recently my secondary language has been swinging between German and Spanish a bit more often than I'd like.

I should have quite a bit of free time over the next few months. No travel plans, not too much going on socially, and even when work gets busier it mostly stays 9-5. So I'm planning to keep up the Japanese efforts and get through a good chunk of Genki 2, and make some progress with German too. I might go to some language meetups, just to get out of the house a bit if nothing else. The German one hasn't been happening much recently as the organiser has been busy, but it should be back sooner or later, and there are some more general ones too. I also want to enjoy the weather, so any study activities that I can do sitting outside are good! Reading, listening, and anything that can be done on a phone are obvious ones, but it's not unusual to see students in the park working on laptops so I could join the cool kids. I even saw a guy practising bass with headphones and a laptop; we really do make the most of the sun when we have it here! Spreading out my Genki books on a picnic blanket might be a bit hard, though.

[garyb]

I finished Genki 1 yesterday, ahead of schedule!

I also took a look at some YouTube channels aimed at beginner learners. I think that was inspired by part of leosmith's reply to "Japanese - How do I start?", "Listen to as much level-appropriate stuff as possible, and mix in a little real native material, like Netflix with Japanese subtitles".

I wasn't keen on all of the advice in that thread: am I so old-fashioned to think that using materials specifically designed to teach the language in a structured way and sensible order is a good thing, at least at the very beginning and if it's an option, rather than just figuring it all out from input and grammar references? Most of the recommendations seemed far more appropriate for a learner who already has some foundation, like I do now. I don't like to dispute advice from people at a much higher level than mine, but I do wonder if being at a high level can make you lose sight of what it's really like to be a complete beginner. A bit like all the people who claim they learnt English "just from TV and movies" and ignore the formal learning that got them to the point of actually being able to learn from TV and movies. I've certainly given bad advice to beginners in the past because of that, so now I'm more hesitant.

But anyway, my point is on taking some of the advice I did like, especially now that I'm less "absolute beginner" and more just "beginner" so some types of input are now much more level-appropriate than others. I've often avoided YouTube stuff aimed at beginners because (as I think I've said before here) so much of it is has very slow and unnatural speech that isn't really any easier to understand than slow and clear but natural speech but is much more painful to listen to. For example, the "Super Easy" episodes of Easy Languages and the very ironically-titled "Natürlich German". Although I know that "slow and clear but natural" is a hard balance to find.

But as usual, the Japanese get it right! I just checked out the first few channels listed on Comprehensible Input Wiki and there was some good stuff. I watched a few videos, for example buying cakes in a cake shop and Everyday phrases throughout the day and I was pleasantly surprised by how much I understood, only checking the English subtitles now and again. Although in the cake video, the other speakers (like the cashier) were much harder to understand than the main narrator since they weren't making the same effort to be easily comprehensible. Some videos did fall into the thematic vocabulary trap, especially "Comprehensible Japanese", but even that isn't always a bad thing in small amounts.

A big annoyance is that these videos often have hard-coded subtitles instead of properly using YouTube subtitles which would make it easier to choose just the language you want and to use tools like Language Reactor. Some do have YT subs in addition to the hard ones, or at least quite accurate auto-generated ones, but they just end up overlapping. I know that's sometimes a deliberate commercial choice, for example Easy Languages offering non-subtitled videos to premium members only. But with good, freely-available content, I can't really complain.
(EDIT: I just discovered that you can click and drag YouTube subtitles to avoid the overlap. Now that's a revelation!)

These might not be quite as engaging as films and series, but they do have their own appeal (especially when they bring back pleasant memories like eating cakes in Japan) and the fact that the percentage of language that I actually recognise is far higher makes them both more satisfying and more useful. I'd do well to focus more on that type of content going forwards. Especially since I recognised that too much input above my level was a mistake I made with German.

Now would be a good time to write a zero-to-A1ish Japanese progress report, which I'll do later in a separate post.

On the German side, I listened to the latest Easy German podcast, where they went through a website that asks questions about political policies and recommends which parties to consider voting for based on your answers. It was tough; a good reminder of the oft-stated fact that "advanced" topics like politics are much easier in Romance languages because much of the vocabulary is English cognates, while in Germanic languages the words are very different!

Between that and another recent episode about slogans on political posters, I did get curious about the many different parties in Germany, especially compared to here where we do have some smaller parties, but the voting system ensures they rarely get any traction compared to the big two or three (although I know that this is a European parliament election which can't really be compared to national ones). So I decided to go through the questionnaire myself and see which ones I should hypothetically consider if I were in Germany. With a lot of help from WordReference and Google Translate. But the resulting parties were all over the place, and I didn't really like the sound of any of them!

[garyb]

With finishing Genki 1 and reaching WaniKani level 10, I thought it was a good time to reflect on my progress now that I'm at, or at least close to, an A1 / N5 level.

I started learning at the start of November 2023; it's now May 2024.

I always had a casual curiosity about Japanese culture and wanted to visit the country and explore the language sooner or later; I never got deeply into the typical stuff like anime and games or history although I dipped my toes in now and again. Then last year I finally visited Japan (with my partner at the time, who already spoke Japanese well) and I fell in love with the place and was inspired to learn the language too. So it suddenly jumped up from my someday list to my main focus!

Since starting, I've had a few trips away and busy or tough periods in life but also some very quiet and productive periods, and I've done at least a bit of work on Japanese every single day. On a busy day I might just keep up with WaniKani, which can take 15 to 30 minutes, but on good days I can do a few hours of study and listening. I'd struggle to give a daily average. I'm quite happy with my progress so far and a lot does just come down to daily consistency and always managing to catch up and get back into the routine when I've started to fall out of it.

My general approach

So far I've tried to aim for all-around proficiency: listening, reading, writing, speaking. I'm not speaking with people yet and am not in a big rush to, but I've still tried to practise producing language right from the start which has influenced my material choices and methods. I could have reached a "theoretical" N5 level more quickly if I hadn't cared about output, or equally I could have gone more slowly and worked through everything with a tutor to activate it more, but this balance suited me.

There are good arguments for doubling down on reading and kanji first since it unlocks so much material and makes it easier to acquire vocabulary, and I don't have strong feelings on how early one should practise output and I think it just comes down to preferences and needs. But I prefer a holistic approach and I don't want to delay speaking for too long, even if I don't have an immediate need for it. I won't claim that this is the most efficient method, but it's what I like.

Also, I have a very vague idea of visiting Japan again next Spring.

What I've done so far

Core resources

• Tofugu guides to Hiragana and Katakana and their quizzes and Anki decks. Learning the basic scripts was an obvious place to start.
• The first few units of DuoLingo. I could've skipped this, but I wanted to get a taste for the language before investing in a real course. It was good for learning some basic words and sentence structures and making them stick, but after that it started introducing a lot of new language without adequate explanations so I dropped it. I'm not a Duo fan in general these days, but I've only heard good things about its system for learning scripts; I had already learnt them with Tofugu but Duo could have been a good alternative.
• Michel Thomas Basic and Advanced. Again this wasn't really necessary, but it front-loaded some useful structures and vocabulary and gave me a feel for speaking early on which was very motivating. It also made Genki go more smoothly since I had been exposed to many of the structures already. It did get hard to follow towards the end of Advanced, and I don't remember that material very well now. Pimsleur could have been another good option for this purpose, but I've always personally preferred MT.
• Genki 1 textbook and workbook. My main focus for most of the time. Very good overall, although at times the grammar explanations could be better, especially its categorisation of verbs. It's designed for classroom use but it's fine for self-study. I've worked through it quite comprehensively, including writing the workbook exercises on pen and paper and doing the extra reading and writing lessons.
• WaniKani: I figured I was going to have to grind kanji and vocabulary sooner or later so I might as well do it from the beginning. Out of the various kanji-learning methods, WK seemed like the best candidate for me because it's structured and somewhat holistic, teaching kanji as part of words as well as individual characters. I just wish there had been clearer instructions on how to use it properly, taking the interval times into consideration, which would've helped me get through the first few levels much more quickly. All that can be found easily enough in the docs and on the forum, but still, it should be made unmissable for new users. I've been getting through each level in around two to three weeks, which is slower than many people but is still quite a commitment. Ten new lessons most days, and two review sessions (or more short ones depending on my schedule). It's about the limit of what's sustainable and fits in with my attempt at a balanced learning approach.

Optional extras

• ToKini Andy's Genki video series: an often-recommended companion to the textbook which provides clearer grammar explanations and more examples, especially with informal language. At times he introduces too much language that's not in the book in order to make the dialogues more realistic and fun, which can feel overwhelming but I don't worry too much about unknown language.
• Hiragana: Forbidden Speech: an RPG computer game designed to teach the alphabet and some vocabulary and grammar. It was genuinely quite entertaining and taught some useful material for understanding native media and informal language that I otherwise might not have encountered until much later. I wouldn't recommend it as a way to actually learn Hiragana, there are better ways, but it's good for practice. In fact I would've preferred it if it had focused less on just Hiragana and had shown words as they're normally written (katakana and kanji where appropriate, with furigana). Overall though, for a "fun" resource it's better than it ought to be.
• Renshuu (website and mobile app): Mixed feelings. The user interface is cluttered and the reviews can become too much too quickly, but both can be tamed through the settings. I'd never use it as a main resource, although some people do, and I dropped its grammar exercises because they tend to have too much unknown language other than the grammar point. But it's a handy way to get in some extra revision of Genki vocabulary (with audio and example sentences) and kanji, so it's a keeper. It beats having to make Anki cards or use low-quality pre-made decks.
• Ringotan: a mobile app for practising writing characters (all scripts) and stroke order, with SRS. Writing isn't a big priority for me although it is something I want to be able to do decently, so I just try to spend a few minutes per day on this and am happy to skip it if I'm low on time. I wouldn't use it as the only way of practising handwriting, there's no substitute for putting pen (or pencil, in my case) to paper, but it's a good complement to that.
• Films and TV, including Netflix with Language Reactor. Some live action and some anime. Seeing language being used in context is useful and motivating, and there's no shortage of good content in Japanese. But as I said in my last post, I'd like to add in more level-appropriate material now.
• JapanesePod101's original Beginner podcast series: dialogues with explanations. I wouldn't say I've learnt lots from it although I've picked up some words here and there, and I could get a lot more from it with more focused work and using the supplementary materials, but I'm just using it as an accessory since I'm already well covered for focused study. It's quite fun and light, if cheesy at times, and has some cultural insights too.

Current ability

Reading and writing

Lots of people online claim that you can "learn" Hiragana and Katakana in a week or a day or an afternoon. I'll quote golyplot's much more realistic take in "Japanese - How do I start?":

Even if you cram them at the start, you won't actually learn and remember them until you've done massive amounts of reading to reinforce it. This happens much faster with hiragana than katakana, because katakana are rarer. Also, some of the rarer and trickier characters will take much longer to internalize.

That's far closer to my experience. My kana reading is still quite slow although I see consistent gradual improvement. My past experience with other scripts (Greek and Cyrillic, which are closer to Latin) was similar. Similar for kanji reading: just slow but steady improvement, and some characters stick much more easily than others.

I started writing by hand after a few months. I believe that it's helped with my reading, and before starting to write I couldn't even picture characters in my head even if I recognised them when I saw them. But it's hard to quantify how much, or say whether it would be worthwhile for a learner who doesn't care about handwriting in itself. I also just find handwriting quite satisfying and enjoyable and think it's a cool skill to have, and one I'd feel incomplete without.

I've mostly got the hang of writing kana, although I have to double-check occasionally. Even in kana, some characters are far more common than others. I can write quite a few common and simple kanji without thinking, and I've mostly got the hang of some more complicated ones that are in very common words like 曜 (in days of the week) and 達 (as in 友達, the most common word for "friend" even if 友人 is quicker to write!).

I also think that watching more material with dual subtitles recently has helped me to read faster.

Listening

I'm still mostly just picking out words and sentences I know here and there and not understanding much in between, which is expected at this level and I'm always happy when I do understand significant chunks. Many of these in-between parts are grammatical things like particles and connectors and verb endings, while others are obviously just unknown words. Material aimed at learners is starting to become quite accessible, as I wrote about in my last post.

Grammar

I've not found Japanese grammar too challenging so far. It's just different, and there's a lot to learn and remember. As I said a couple of posts ago, I still have many very basic gaps in my knowledge just because they've not been covered in my resources yet, although input has given me a rough feel for some more things. No real concerns here.

I have a copy of A basic dictionary of Japanese grammar, and I'm aware of grammar-focused resources like Cure Dolly and Bunpro, but I've just not felt any need for them yet and earlier on I didn't have the context to even find them useful. Now might be a good time to explore them though, since I could do with more practice and consolidation of what I've learnt so far.

Next steps

Mostly just continuing what I've been doing!

• Revise some of the Genki 1 material
• Start Genki 2
• Watch more level-appropriate comprehensible input videos
• Not a priority, but I'd like to make my Hiragana handwriting a bit neater and prettier, and avoid bad habits. A nice video on writing the characters
• Just a maybe: look at some N5 practice papers. I've no intention of taking the exam, but just to see if there are any obvious gaps in my knowledge.

Speaking-wise, I still feel it's too early and there's too much stuff I don't know, even for me, but I do like the idea of starting to practice more as I reach more of an advanced-beginner level especially since I might go to Japan next year. I'll probably look at tutoring when I'm towards the middle or end of Genki 2.

My optimistic and excited part says that if I've got to around this level in around half a year then I could get to N4 in a similar amount of time, but then my experienced language-learner part reminds me that each stage tends to takes at least twice as long as the previous one and far more at higher levels (EDIT: that's not really accurate and is based on my Romance language experience where I had a huge head start for the early levels). Things should go a bit more smoothly now that I know the absolute basics and my reading is getting faster, but I doubt that that'll compensate for the sheer amount of stuff to learn.

In any case, the next big milestone will be finishing Genki 2 and maybe getting to around level 30 in WaniKani, with no set timeline. Based on everything I've read, that should be around the point when the language will really start to come together and I'll know enough kanji and vocabulary to start to use much more native material.

[golyplot]

I wasn't keen on all of the advice in that thread: am I so old-fashioned to think that using materials specifically designed to teach the language in a structured way and sensible order is a good thing, at least at the very beginning and if it's an option, rather than just figuring it all out from input and grammar references? Most of the recommendations seemed far more appropriate for a learner who already has some foundation, like I do now. I don't like to dispute advice from people at a much higher level than mine, but I do wonder if being at a high level can make you lose sight of what it's really like to be a complete beginner. A bit like all the people who claim they learnt English "just from TV and movies" and ignore the formal learning that got them to the point of actually being able to learn from TV and movies. I've certainly given bad advice to beginners in the past because of that, so now I'm more hesitant.

That's certainly a danger, but I did start learning Japanese from nothing only 4.5 years ago, and I think I can still remember it pretty well, especially because I kept a log. And while I tried all sorts of things, I think it would be most accurate to say that I pretty much did "just figure it out from input and grammar references". Of course, in the early months it was a huge struggle and I couldn't even read dumbed-down stuff aimed at beginners. But it's not like I ever used Genki either (perhaps things would have been easier if I had, who knows?). The only meaningful "structured learning" I did was Wanikani.

[golyplot]

My optimistic and excited part says that if I've got to around this level in around half a year then I could get to N4 in a similar amount of time, but then my experienced language-learner part reminds me that each stage tends to takes at least twice as long as the previous one and far more at higher levels. Things should go a bit more smoothly now that I know the absolute basics and my reading is getting faster, but I doubt that that'll compensate for the sheer amount of stuff to learn.

I don't think it's actually exponential, but even N5 is harder than you might think so if you haven't taken a practice exam yet, you may be in for a rude awakening.

In my case, I passed the N2 after four years. If it were really exponential, that would imply that I was already at N5 after only three months which definitely wasn't the case.

[garyb]

I wasn't keen on all of the advice in that thread: am I so old-fashioned to think that using materials specifically designed to teach the language in a structured way and sensible order is a good thing, at least at the very beginning and if it's an option, rather than just figuring it all out from input and grammar references? Most of the recommendations seemed far more appropriate for a learner who already has some foundation, like I do now. I don't like to dispute advice from people at a much higher level than mine, but I do wonder if being at a high level can make you lose sight of what it's really like to be a complete beginner. A bit like all the people who claim they learnt English "just from TV and movies" and ignore the formal learning that got them to the point of actually being able to learn from TV and movies. I've certainly given bad advice to beginners in the past because of that, so now I'm more hesitant.

That's certainly a danger, but I did start learning Japanese from nothing only 4.5 years ago, and I think I can still remember it pretty well, especially because I kept a log. And while I tried all sorts of things, I think it would be most accurate to say that I pretty much did "just figure it out from input and grammar references". Of course, in the early months it was a huge struggle and I couldn't even read dumbed-down stuff aimed at beginners. But it's not like I ever used Genki either (perhaps things would have been easier if I had, who knows?). The only meaningful "structured learning" I did was Wanikani.

That's reasonable, I'm probably being a bit unfair and too influenced by my own preferences, and you certainly wouldn't be the only person who successfully learnt it that way. As a beginner you'll end up covering much of the same material whichever path you take, and I like to be guided through it but maybe for some the figuring-out is all part of the fun.

I don't think it's actually exponential, but even N5 is harder than you might think so if you haven't taken a practice exam yet, you may be in for a rude awakening.

Most likely Especially since I did say that I still don't feel I have a good grasp on what I've covered so far. I might look at example questions later today.

In my case, I passed the N2 after four years. If it were really exponential, that would imply that I was already at N5 after only three months which definitely wasn't the case.

Yeah, damn, I think I'm letting my Romance-language experience especially Italian influence my thinking too much again. Of course the beginner levels go much faster than the higher ones when you already know a related language or two. It's hard to measure with my German since my studies have been so on-and-off and my level is still quite low, but it's felt much more linear so far. Otherwise I'd be looking at an extremely long time to get to B2 or even B1.

[golyplot]

If you want to take a practice exam, they have two past exams from each level on the official website. If you need more than that, you can find an unofficial upload of every past exam if you search Reddit.