Tagalog + Swedish

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crush
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Re: Cantonese + MIA (Japanese)

Postby crush » Sat Oct 31, 2020 4:40 pm

Japanese
I've been mining sentences from Japanese with Noriko. The listening side is almost perfect, it's right around that 80-90% comprehension point where i can follow along with what she's saying (the interviews with other people are harder though). It's less useful for mining though as i probably understand 90-95% of the text. Still, it's good listening practice. I should listen to each episode several times, or at least three (once before reading transcript, once while reading, and once again after) but i generally just do the first two. The second round is when i mine the lesson. I've been listening to the earlier lessons while going for a jog though and it's much nicer than what i was listening to before as i can actually follow along.

Otherwise, still doing Anki (10 words a day), still reading the third Harry Potter book, and still watching Japanese-dubbed animated movies. Perhaps after finishing the third Harry Potter book i'll try going through a series or two of graded readers and then coming back to see how i fare. My experience with Noriko has made me hungry for comprehensible input :D

Cantonese
Today i stopped adding new words to Anki. I've gone through 800 words so far, though a good portion have turned into leeches. I just want to put more time and effort into the conversations as i think that has more immediate potential to improve my listening. Speaking of which, i've started conversation 10.

I did better with Glossika this week, i think i finished up to sentence 860. I do my reps while walking back after my jogs, so i try to position myself about 40-45 minutes away.
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crush
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Re: Cantonese + MIA (Japanese)

Postby crush » Sun Nov 08, 2020 2:43 am

Japanese
This week i had to fly out to California for onboarding stuff at my new job so it's been a bit hectic and didn't get as much as i would've liked done. However, as usual, i kept up with Anki reviews. I also watched the anime with possibly the world's longest title: あの日見た花の名前を僕達はまだ知らない (Anohana: The flower we saw that day). This anime was full of those shrill voices which just kinda bother me and make it hard to understand. But it was interesting overall, i hadn't watched an anime show in a while and it's nice to be able to slowly see that my comprehension has improved. I think going through Noriko's podcasts has helped a ton as it helps me get used to processing full sentences on the fly. Whenever i get my first paycheck in i'd like to try scheduling a class or two with her (or just sending her a ko-fi or something). It's been such an amazing resource and a huge confidence booster for me.

Cantonese
I did Glossika up to sentence 940 and have been watching a good bit of Cantonese-dubbed cartoons in the hotel room. Haven't listened to too many new conversations this week, i think i've finished 11 and should be starting on 12 when i get around to it. I'd like to go through a review of all the previous ones as well to re-catch those words that have escaped. Perhaps when i finish the video episodes (the first 18 episodes have corresponding videos, the last 11 episodes are audio only). Personally i don't find the videos very useful, perhaps it's nice to put a face to the voice but really they're just sitting there awkwardly in some warehouse talking, fidgeting with their hands and trying to make the conversation last 3 minutes, there's really no need for the visual component.
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vonPeterhof
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Re: Cantonese + MIA (Japanese)

Postby vonPeterhof » Sun Nov 08, 2020 7:22 am

crush wrote:I also watched the anime with possibly the world's longest title: あの日見た花の名前を僕達はまだ知らない (Anohana: The flower we saw that day). This anime was full of those shrill voices which just kinda bother me and make it hard to understand. But it was interesting overall, i hadn't watched an anime show in a while and it's nice to be able to slowly see that my comprehension has improved.

That title was considered long back when the anime first came out, but with the subsequent boom in light novel adaptations it's become rather unexeptional. From what I hear the names of LNs ended up that way because the oversaturation of the market meant that it would be tedious for the readers to pick up each and every book to read the blurb, so the publishers started using the title itself as a mini-summary of the premise. The boom seems to have subsided somewhat by now, but even in the current season you still get titles like this one. As for the voices, it always somewhat puzzled me that Menma was Ai Kayano's big breakout role even though she's never really done that sort of hyper-infantilized voice ever since; her go-to type overall seems to be the "supportive big sister" role.

If you liked Anohana, I would highly recommend the two movies that were made by the same director/writer/character designer team and set in the same town (the writer's hometown), 心が叫びたがってるんだ。 (a shorter name with a nonetheless comparable level of morphological complexity ;) ) and 空の青さを知る人よ. (Edit: and now I notice I've recommended both of those movies on your log before :oops: )
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crush
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Re: Cantonese + MIA (Japanese)

Postby crush » Sun Nov 08, 2020 6:39 pm

vonPeterhof wrote:If you liked Anohana, I would highly recommend the two movies that were made by the same director/writer/character designer team and set in the same town (the writer's hometown), 心が叫びたがってるんだ。 (a shorter name with a nonetheless comparable level of morphological complexity ;) ) and 空の青さを知る人よ. (Edit: and now I notice I've recommended both of those movies on your log before :oops: )

Yeah, i remember now that you've suggested them but i had forgotten about them so i'm glad you mentioned them again.

In other news, i started watching Durarara last night (which i believe is a another show that was recommended in my log earlier). It's pretty interesting so far, though tough to understand a lot of the characters. It's giving me similar vibes to Death Note for some reason.

Edit: Saw this video pop up today, it's a bit long but i found it pretty interesting:
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crush
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Re: Cantonese + MIA (Japanese)

Postby crush » Sat Nov 14, 2020 5:58 pm

Japanese
I watched a couple anime movies this week (the two that vonPeterhof mentioned), got a bit of reading done (started on Chapter 6 of the third HP book), listened to a couple Japanese with Noriko episodes, and did my Anki reviews. I also started watching Durarara but a lot of the dialog is hard to understand.

Cantonese
I think i've done through sentence 1040, it may be 1060. I'll probably have time to do today's 20 sentences as well. I'm also about done with conversation 12. I've kept up with watching Cantonese stuff each night, generally 45 minutes to an hour. I can have a conversation and follow along pretty well but watching a movie or TV show is just another beast entirely. It's pretty demotivating, i'm really not sure why my listening is so awful. I guess i probably had the same issue with Mandarin but that feels so long ago, it's hard to remember when hearing Mandarin felt foreign to me.

I also wish i could just focus on one language, but i'm not willing to give up after all the work i've put into Japanese and Cantonese is just so much more important/useful to me. I feel like being able to focus on just one or the other would be so much easier/effective. That's how i learned Spanish and Mandarin, the other languages i've studied simultaneously are all languages i never learned to a high level...
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Flickserve
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Re: Cantonese + MIA (Japanese)

Postby Flickserve » Sun Nov 15, 2020 2:43 pm

crush wrote:
Cantonese
I think i've done through sentence 1040, it may be 1060. I'll probably have time to do today's 20 sentences as well. I'm also about done with conversation 12. I've kept up with watching Cantonese stuff each night, generally 45 minutes to an hour. I can have a conversation and follow along pretty well but watching a movie or TV show is just another beast entirely. It's pretty demotivating, i'm really not sure why my listening is so awful. I guess i probably had the same issue with Mandarin but that feels so long ago, it's hard to remember when hearing Mandarin felt foreign to me...


I assume you are watching made in HK cantonese content for movies and TV shows. Honestly, don't worry about it too much. There's a huge step for learners to follow movies and TV shows. I am considered pretty good and yet find it really hard to pick up very local expressions.

For example, Stephen Chow movies are really really hard and the jokes and insinuations just pass right by. I have toyed around with the idea of getting a tutor to sit and listen with me watching the film and explain everything to me.

Have a look at this youtube channel

https://youtu.be/cyuz9uOknX0

"To make good on a promise" he said settle the ämount" speaking two words (I don't know how to write it down in characters)"(0.22s)

For this particular video, he talks a bit about Lan Kwai Fong (蘭桂坊). However, verbally he refers to it as 老蘭 (0.26) - first time I ever heard of it referred like that. I managed to guess it from the subtitles and my local HK knowledge.

I find this channel quite good in that this vlogger speaks quite clearly and has a humorous style.
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crush
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Re: Cantonese + MIA (Japanese)

Postby crush » Sun Nov 22, 2020 3:26 am

Flickserve wrote:I assume you are watching made in HK cantonese content for movies and TV shows. Honestly, don't worry about it too much. There's a huge step for learners to follow movies and TV shows. I am considered pretty good and yet find it really hard to pick up very local expressions.

Lately i've been watching Cantonese dubs of animated movies i've seen in English. I really don't know why it's so hard for me to understand, it still feels so foreign. I speak to my partner and watch at least something -- a movie, an episode or two of a TV show, etc. -- every day in Cantonese and can get by alright in conversations, but anything in video format is just hard. Sometimes i think i've made a ton of progress as what i'm watching sounds familiar and i can understand everything, then i realize i've just forgotten to change the audio track from Mandarin to Cantonese :lol: It's just so odd to me now that even Japanese feels more familiar and comprehensible to me than Cantonese.

Flickserve wrote:I find this channel quite good in that this vlogger speaks quite clearly and has a humorous style.

Sorry for not responding sooner, i watched a couple of the videos from this vlogger and while i don't see myself ever staying in a five-star hotel, you're right in that their speech is very clear. I still have trouble understanding, but this would be good material to practice listening with.

Japanese
I decided to try upping my new cards per day to 10 cards mined from Harry Potter and 5 cards from Noriko. I'm not sure if i'll keep this up in the long run, i'm afraid of reviews piling up again. Right now i'm at about 100/day, but using the DJT style cards my mature card retention has been far lower. Currently it's at a pitiful 48% (181 correct out of 371 total). It's not much so i'll have to wait until there are a good 1000 or so at least to really say. In other news, my retention for young cards has been steadily going up, at first it was also very low, like 60-70%. Currently it's at 83%. Learning which words to pick has helped a lot in this.

Despite the poor statistics, i feel like it's had a much larger effect on my overall language ability. Before i switched to this card style i also had much more time for immersing, but even so i feel like i'm spending less time with Anki and picking out and remembering the words i've studied more easily.

Cantonese
As my last couple posts (this one included) have expressed, i'm in a bit of a downer phase with Cantonese. It's harder for me to find level appropriate content and study material in general is harder to come by.

I started listening to conversation 13 and i think i did one or two days of Glossika, i started work back up this week and didn't have much energy for anything apart from watching a movie after work. I think those conversations are a real goldmine, i've just been too lazy to listen to them. I've noticed my understanding of new conversations has improved drastically (i can generally understand the main gist of the conversation the first time through, and have a pretty good idea of most of it after listening 4-5 times, before looking at the transcription), however i haven't noticed much crossover into the movies/shows i've been watching. At this point, my Japanese is almost at the point where i can just sit back, relax, and enjoy a (simple) movie, so i've been favoring Japanese more.
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crush
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Re: Cantonese + MIA (Japanese)

Postby crush » Mon Dec 14, 2020 2:50 am

Japanese
I haven't updated in a couple weeks. Not much has changed, with work being busier i haven't watched as much anime as i was before. I generally get my 30 minutes of intensive immersion in the morning and then maybe an episode or two in the evening. And i've only been getting about 30 minutes of reading per night. I've been jogging more regularly and have listened through episodes 1-50 so far of Japanese with Noriko. I can mostly follow along so it's been a nice choice. I haven't been sentence mining her podcasts anymore though.

For sentence mining, i've started watching the original Pokemon series in Japanese. It was one of my goals (i think i mentioned it in the first post) to relive a bit of nostalgia. I've watched about 30 episodes so far. I can understand most of it, not as much as i'd like though. I thought i might try to use this as my first "domain" as mentioned in the new Refold stages. Not sure about it. I'm already a bit bored with it so i may switch to shorter shows. I've been going through episodes i've already watched to do my intensive study. Stuff i can understand 80-90% is just way more interesting. I've been doing this for over a year now and i think i just don't like anime enough to enjoy it without a high comprehension level. I also don't think most anime shows lend themselves well to low comprehension rates as the scenes are largely static and dialog plays a much larger role than in western cartoons. I think i'm going to try to get through the first season (80 or 90 episodes i think), take a break for some slice of life shows, then come back at it again.

As a break from Pokemon i've been watching "Ping Pong the Animation". At first i wasn't too sold on it, but it's starting to grow on me. My comprehension is way lower than with standard slice-of-life stuff but the frequent dialog in Mandarin kinda makes up for that (funnily enough the Mandarin parts are probably what makes it harder for most other folks haha). I picked it mostly because it's short (11 episodes). I've watched 3 episodes so far and i was surprised when the last two ended as the time flew by.

Lastly, i've been considering what to do with after finishing this Harry Potter book. I've considered going through some graded readers before coming back to finish the Harry Potter series. Still not sure on that one. I'd like to be able to get most of my immersion from reading though as it's much more interesting to me. I never really cared much for TV.

Edit: Last night i finished chapter 10 of the third Harry Potter book. Not quite halfway through but almost.
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crush
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Re: Cantonese + MIA (Japanese)

Postby crush » Mon Jan 11, 2021 12:59 am

Japanese
Haven't updated in a while since there's not a whole lot to say. I just moved across the country and have been slowly settling into my new place. I've started reading a manga again (Yakusoku no Neverland) as part of a group thing (a "manga club" sort of thing), but i think i'm reading a lot more slowly than other folks. I just finished watching the anime (or first season, at least) and thought it was really great. I just finished the first volume of the manga (of 20, i believe) and it's pretty interesting, though difficult to understand at times. It's probably more apparent how much i don't understand in print than in the anime.

In other news, i finally bit the bullet on the ASK graded readers. I ordered the full set (sans level 0 which i figured would be a complete waste of time). Level 1 and 2 are probably also a waste of time, but it'll be nice to hold something in my hands and just read through it with almost 100% comprehension.

I've been continuing with the third Harry Potter book, but putting more time into the manga for now. I also signed up for Box of Manga, not sure how that'll go but again it'll be nice to have some stuff in my hands rather than read on an e-reader or my laptop. I'll probably start the graded readers (assuming they actual make it here) after finishing my current Harry Potter book.
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crush
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Re: Cantonese + MIA (Japanese)

Postby crush » Sat Jan 16, 2021 7:08 pm

Japanese
Ordered some manga off of Amazon Japan earlier this week:
Image

Can't believe how quickly it got here (two days!). The stuff i ordered from cdjapan (the graded readers) had a couple things that weren't in stock so i had to make a few changes to the order and i'm still waiting for that one to ship.

When i pulled the books out of the box, i picked them up the wrong way (as though they were English books, left to right) and was a bit confused at first until i remembered that Japanese books are read from right to left. The manga i picked up from Amazon Japan are:
  1. ドラゴンボール (Dragonball) 完全版 1-2: I read online that it's a decent manga for beginners and a more accessible story for folks who aren't generally interested in these sorts of manga/shows. I also heard that it's based off of 西游记 (Journey to the West) which i really enjoyed and i'm interested to see how how it goes.
  2. ドラゴンボールエスデイ (Dragonball SD) 1-3: I also read that this is a simplified condensed version of Dragonball which is probably better suited to a beginner. I'll probably start with this one since i never watched the show as a kid.
  3. 恋は雨上がりのように (After the Rain) 1-2: I watched the anime and really enjoyed it. I'm not sure how the manga will be as it's not an action-packed/fast-paced story, it might be something enjoyed more when i can pick up on the nuances of Japanese.
  4. しろくまカフェ (Shirokuma Cafe) Today's Special 1-3: I'm really not sure what the difference between the "bis" and "today's special" versions are. I think the version i ordered is the "new" stuff? I watched the anime and really enjoyed it, i'm hoping the manga won't feel to slow-paced for me.
  5. よつばと!(Yotsubato!) 1: Everyone seems to recommend this manga for beginners, so i picked it up.
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