alaart's log (Chinese, Korean)

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alaart
Green Belt
Posts: 338
Joined: Sat Aug 03, 2019 6:58 am
Location: Kaoshiung
Languages: DE (N), EN
B1: NL, JP, PT (BR), ZH
A2: KR
A1: ES
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... hp?t=10867
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6WC Day 1

Postby alaart » Sat Feb 01, 2020 2:58 pm

Thanks for reading, I can have deep conversations, if the talking partner is willing to be patient and let me talk around some words I don't know, but yes it is difficult at a party and in groups. German humor is maybe quite difficult due to the heavy use of irony, I miss it a bit.

Today I watched the 10th (?) episode of the drama 結婚できない男, the episode is 45 minutes, but it took me 1h 47 minutes to go through the episode. Probably due to pauses, repeats, and looking up of Kanji or words. I studied all the new words (about 50) in Anki, and I kept on working on all the vocabularies I have added recently.
I have my final Japanese exam on Monday, and did some Kanji writing. Writing proved extremely helpful, I think. And I will try to write a bit here and there every day, to enforce memory of those Kanjis I keep forgetting.

After that I started to watch this TED talk, about a house wife searching for a purpose, and starting a company. I started working on it a bit, but had no time - will continue tomorrow.

In the evening I went out with other exchange students, and a Japanese student explained to me the whole menu and differences of food in a 焼き鳥 Bar, quite cool, I feel enlightend.
5 x

alaart
Green Belt
Posts: 338
Joined: Sat Aug 03, 2019 6:58 am
Location: Kaoshiung
Languages: DE (N), EN
B1: NL, JP, PT (BR), ZH
A2: KR
A1: ES
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... hp?t=10867
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6WC Day 2

Postby alaart » Sun Feb 02, 2020 3:18 pm

All Japanese, reached my goal of 5 hours today - so far so good.

I read the subtitles of the TED talk yesterday in LingQ, and watched it afterwards again. Reviewed a lot of Anki, and studied the new words. I practiced a bit of writing, and reviewed grammar and exercises of this semester, because we have a Japanese exam tomorrow. I watched the penultimate episode of 結婚できない男. I wanted to read some news too, but couldn't find the energy.
2 x

alaart
Green Belt
Posts: 338
Joined: Sat Aug 03, 2019 6:58 am
Location: Kaoshiung
Languages: DE (N), EN
B1: NL, JP, PT (BR), ZH
A2: KR
A1: ES
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... hp?t=10867
x 1026

6WC Day 3

Postby alaart » Mon Feb 03, 2020 3:18 pm

Studied a lot of Vocabularies in Anki today, but this was easy because I had a long commute and also some free time in University. Did a bit of writing, and I had a Japanese exam - which probably went bad.

I also finished the last Episode of 結婚できない男 , so I finally finished a whole drama. The last episode was easier, I watched an 1 hour episode in just 1 hour 16, so not much too look up. That probably also means I should maybe move to more difficult material. I haven't decided, maybe some more TED talks, or news reading.. will see.

Still on track with 5 hours daily.
1 x

alaart
Green Belt
Posts: 338
Joined: Sat Aug 03, 2019 6:58 am
Location: Kaoshiung
Languages: DE (N), EN
B1: NL, JP, PT (BR), ZH
A2: KR
A1: ES
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... hp?t=10867
x 1026

6WC Day 4

Postby alaart » Tue Feb 04, 2020 1:58 pm

Was busy today, I wanted to study a bit in the evening, but was too tired.

instead I watched some casual videos, around 45 minutes:
About Kaminoseki, nuclear power plant construction site
about Kanji learning
Another one about life improvement - I think I'm growing a bit weary, of all those people telling their lifes and how they struggled, and succeeded. I wanted to watch something, not about a person, but about culture, or a subject or theme. So I started watching this about glass molding, but it was too difficult too watch it casually, I imported it to LingQ, will study, and rewatch it tomorrow.

I wasn't obsessed with understanding everything today, that's good :) - another step towards letting go of perfectionism.
1 x

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tungemål
Blue Belt
Posts: 947
Joined: Sat Apr 06, 2019 3:56 pm
Location: Norway
Languages: Norwegian (N)
English, German, Spanish, Japanese, Dutch, Polish
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... 15&t=17672
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Re: alaart's log (mainly JP/CN)

Postby tungemål » Tue Feb 04, 2020 5:15 pm

Thanks for the tips. How do you find these japanese-language videos? The "Kanji is Story, Art and Toy" is excellent for language learners, with english and japanese subtitles, plus he speaks very clearly.
0 x

alaart
Green Belt
Posts: 338
Joined: Sat Aug 03, 2019 6:58 am
Location: Kaoshiung
Languages: DE (N), EN
B1: NL, JP, PT (BR), ZH
A2: KR
A1: ES
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... hp?t=10867
x 1026

6WC Day 5

Postby alaart » Wed Feb 05, 2020 3:40 pm

tungemål wrote:Thanks for the tips. How do you find these japanese-language videos? The "Kanji is Story, Art and Toy" is excellent for language learners, with english and japanese subtitles, plus he speaks very clearly.


Yes, that video was good, I generally find foreigners often easier to understand than natives - the same for Chinese, were I studied 大山, and could understand him way before I could understand native material, and for Portuguese I watched a lot of foreigner channels on youtube - like "Amigo Gringo". I wonder what it is? The, pronunciation or the lack of dialect? It really is better for me.

How to find them? There is this long TED Japan list on youtube, it seems a lot of the videos are not subtitled - so I just click through them quickly, until I find one that is subtitled and watch it, if it is somewhat interesting - if not I move on.


Today I didn't have much motivation to study, so instead I went for more input and watched, I guess something like a late night show, called 「田村淳の地上波ではダメ!絶対!」on netflix, this is a show from 田村淳 this guy, apparently a comedian, and moderator - I have seen him before and he is quite funny, so I checked him out.
The show is from 2015, and they mostly talk about sexual topics: There was a sort of interview about a women, behind a cover, and she talked about why people betray their spouses, and how she betrayed her spouse. The second segment showed like a store in a red light district, with a kind of sexual work out, where they interviewed the girls, the owner and the customer.
Then there were two non-sexual segments: One was about Japaneses journalism ranking rather low in comparison to the rest of the developed world, and in the last segment wallets from famous brands that viewers bought abroad, but might be fake, were checked by experts, and destroyed with a scissor in case they weren't real. The experts explained, how they can tell an item is fake or not.

The show is 1 hour , but it took me 2 hours and 15 minutes with pausing, and looking up Kanji / vocabulary.

I quickly glanced into the second episode: It has a serious part again, about homeless people, and again 2 sexual topics - I guess the show is like all the time, not sure if I will continue to watch.

Picked up maybe around 50 vocabularies from this, and studied all new words in Anki. Since the beginning of February already 250 words accumulated, will continue with this input-based/review learning style.
3 x

alaart
Green Belt
Posts: 338
Joined: Sat Aug 03, 2019 6:58 am
Location: Kaoshiung
Languages: DE (N), EN
B1: NL, JP, PT (BR), ZH
A2: KR
A1: ES
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... hp?t=10867
x 1026

6WC Day 6

Postby alaart » Thu Feb 06, 2020 3:14 pm

Today, first I tried to read NHK, an article about the Corona Virus. I mean I got the general picture, but too many words I don't know, far too difficult and I felt tired really quickly.

So I moved to something simpler, and watched this Drama 「お義父さんと呼ばせて」 on Netflix, it is about a couple of a 26 old women, and a 51 year old company worker, which want to get married. But the father of the girl, a very successful business man, deems him unworthy and freaks out, also because of the age difference. The first episode was 1 hour, but took me about 3 hours (!) to get through, which resulted in over 100 new vocabularies in Anki..

I studied all new words, together with the reviews which amounted to like 700 cards or so today. Man I hate Japanese, why - so many vocabularies every time? Give me a break... if I keep learning through input, I feel vocabulary will explode even further..

alaart wrote:My Japanese Anki decks now counts around 2700 cards since May. So my vocabulary must be increasing somehow.


This quote is from January 5th, the Anki deck now has over 4000, so apparently I have attempted to learn more than 1000 new words this month... god save me, I hope this time I will have more success than with Chinese a year ago, when all those vocabularies and hours and hours I put into Anki, somehow where forgotten after just a 2 month break from Chinese.
0 x

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dicentra8
Orange Belt
Posts: 117
Joined: Fri Sep 28, 2018 5:07 pm
Location: Portugal
Languages: Portuguese (N), Japanese (JLPT N3), Finnish (beginner), French (beginner)
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... =15&t=9114
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Re: alaart's log (mainly JP/CN)

Postby dicentra8 » Thu Feb 06, 2020 6:59 pm

alaart wrote:I studied all new words, together with the reviews which amounted to like 700 cards or so today. Man I hate Japanese, why - so many vocabularies every time? Give me a break... if I keep learning through input, I feel vocabulary will explode even further..
I've got a similar issue when I'm learning vocabulary. I have a hard time containing myself because I want know most of them. I've been trying to add a word only if I've seen it a 2nd~3rd time while reading other articles. It kind of helps to decrease the amount of words I have to go through.
0 x
"I have to watch the time I spend playing Tetris very carefully."

alaart
Green Belt
Posts: 338
Joined: Sat Aug 03, 2019 6:58 am
Location: Kaoshiung
Languages: DE (N), EN
B1: NL, JP, PT (BR), ZH
A2: KR
A1: ES
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... hp?t=10867
x 1026

6WC Day 7

Postby alaart » Fri Feb 07, 2020 2:09 pm

dicentra8 wrote:
alaart wrote:I studied all new words, together with the reviews which amounted to like 700 cards or so today. Man I hate Japanese, why - so many vocabularies every time? Give me a break... if I keep learning through input, I feel vocabulary will explode even further..
I've got a similar issue when I'm learning vocabulary. I have a hard time containing myself because I want know most of them. I've been trying to add a word only if I've seen it a 2nd~3rd time while reading other articles. It kind of helps to decrease the amount of words I have to go through.


Yeah, I will try to shift towards more input, and less review and studying gradually. In particular those Dramas, they should have a limited amount of words, that eventually just stick. The problem is, I actually want a high Anki-review amount, for filling those boring commutes, where I have to travel 2h plus per day in the subway here in Japan. And usually, that's just perfect - but now in my vacation, it suddenly is annoying. I guess I have to stick to it, or maybe I will just de-active cards or something.. who knows.


Today I had to teach German, and I had to prepare because I had to explain phonetics and also had to come up with some exercises. I didn't even bother at learning the words in Japanese, I just drew pictures. - took me a while. I studied some older Decks in Anki, and reviewed all cards. Now I just tried to continue the drama (which I like), but I'm too tired, and if I'm tired I just have to look up too many characters, and don't understand anything - will leave it at that today..
2 x

alaart
Green Belt
Posts: 338
Joined: Sat Aug 03, 2019 6:58 am
Location: Kaoshiung
Languages: DE (N), EN
B1: NL, JP, PT (BR), ZH
A2: KR
A1: ES
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... hp?t=10867
x 1026

6WC Day 8

Postby alaart » Sat Feb 08, 2020 4:06 pm

Not much study hours, but it was a productive day nevertheless. I went shopping and bought JLPT2 material, will work through the books in the future. I watched a bit of drama, and studied a bit of Anki. Then I went to an exchange student event, and to a party.

I spoke some Spanish, I tried to speak some Chinese with a girl from Shanghai, but I was immediately interrupted by the surrounding people that asked me questions about where I learned Chinese.. °_° I really wanted to speak Chinese though..

Also spoke to people from India, Malaysia, the US, Vietnam and Spain - but all in English or Japanese.
3 x


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