Learning Japanese From Zero

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golyplot
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Re: Learning Japanese from zero by listening

Postby golyplot » Sun Dec 25, 2022 4:49 am

メリークリスマス みんな!



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Re: Learning Japanese from zero by listening

Postby księżycowy » Sun Dec 25, 2022 10:25 am

Haven't seen Toradora in a while. Nice.
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Re: Learning Japanese from zero by listening

Postby golyplot » Sun Dec 25, 2022 3:38 pm

księżycowy wrote:Haven't seen Toradora in a while. Nice.


Neither have I, unless you count last night, when I rewatched ep19 in honor of Christmas.
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Re: Learning Japanese from zero by listening

Postby księżycowy » Sun Dec 25, 2022 3:49 pm

I've been thinking of rewatching it, unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on one's outlook) I've been trying to catch up on new (to me at least) shows. It is nice to rewatch older stuff every now and again though, so eventually I'll get around to it.
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Re: Learning Japanese from zero by listening

Postby golyplot » Sun Jan 01, 2023 5:37 am

I've been doing (at least) 13 new cards on JPDB every day since October 28th. At first it was trivial, but the review load has naturally grown higher and higher over time. Starting today, I decided to only do 10 new cards a day instead, which will hopefully help slow the rate of growth in review load a little.

Image


---

I read the rest of ふわふわ日記 ch12 on Wednesday and ch13 this evening.

翔が助手席のドアを開けてくれた。

I was surprised to see that "passenger seat" is apparently "assistant seat" in Japanese.



しかし、それはサクランボではなく赤リンゴと青リンゴのセットだった。

I was really confused here at first, due to the use of 青 to refer to green apples. Obviously, I already knew that 青 was used for green things in ancient times and that it still shows up that way in some words (e.g. 青葉), but I don't think I've ever seen it used by itself in casual speech like this, especially to refer to apples rather than stuff like leaves, so I didn't make the connection at first and thought it was talking about blue apples.

「あっ、そうだったのか! どうしてサクランボなのに赤と緑なんだろうって不思議だったんだ。」

Even odder is that not long afterwards, Syo refers to the same object as 緑!
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Re: Learning Japanese from zero by listening

Postby golyplot » Mon Jan 02, 2023 6:47 am

Three Year Update

Well, it's another year older and wider and slightly better at Japanese. It's hard to tell during the day-to-day slog, but I've definitely improved. The main difference this year is that I've been practicing reading more, and it does feel like it has gotten easier over time. I also took the practice N3 test today and while it is always a slog, it does feel like I could actually pass it now for the first time. The one disappointment is speaking - I haven't made any progress learning to speak Japanese and still have no idea what to do there.


JLPT
Six months ago, I (re)took the practice 2012 N3 test and did badly enough that I ragequit and decided that the JLPT is stupid and artificial and I should stop worrying about it and just do what I feel like without measuring my progress that way. However, in honor of reaching the three year mark studying Japanese, I decided to spend the day taking the practice 2018 N3 test (the one I hadn't taken before) anyway to judge my progress. The results were actually relatively good:


Vocabulary: 31/35 (time: 29/30m)
Reading and Grammar: 32/39 (time: 106/70m)
* Grammar: 18/23 (46m)
* Reading: 14/16 (58m)
Listening: 16/28
* Task-based comprehension: 3/6
* Point-based comprehension: 2/6
* Summary: 2/3
* Utterance expressions: 4/4
* Quick response: 5/9

The big surprise was the grammar section. I've taken practice JLPT tests many times over the years, at N5, N4, and N3 levels, and every single time, I've been killed by the grammar section. For comparison, when I took the other N3 test six months ago, I only got 12/23. This time, it was still very difficult and I had to guess a lot, but I somehow did much better. Perhaps all my reading and Japanese study has rubbed off into somewhat more subconscious grammar ability.

I also improved in reading, which makes sense, since I've been studying it so much. When I took the other practice N3 test last year, I got 13/16, so it might not seem like a huge improvement score-wise. But it's worth noting that a year ago, I spent 81 minutes on it, whereas it only took me 58 minutes this time (of course, different tests aren't directly comparable, but it's useful as at least a ballpark demonstration of progress).

I've also improved on the vocab section (compared to 28/33 a year ago and 23/33 six months ago). As usual, I had to guess a lot towards the end, but a surprising number of my guesses ended up being right. And I do think that a year of drilling vocab on JPDB, Wanikani, etc. has helped.

As for listening, that's always been my weakest section apart from grammar, and today was no exception. It is odd how my relative performance on the different subsections changed a lot. For example, I got a perfect score on Utterance Expressions, usually my worst, and did worse on the ones that I did well on before. But I think a lot of that is just randomness. I do wish I knew a way to train to be better on JLPT listening sections. You'd think I'd be better than this, given the sheer amount of time I've spent listening to Japanese over the years.


One caveat is that I'm not exactly replicating the official test conditions. I took each section of the test over the course of the day with many breaks in between, unlike the real test, and I took my time to see how I could theoretically do when it is just testing knowledge and I'm not under time pressure. On the Reading and Grammar section, I took more than the actual time allotted, which means that if this were a real test, I would have had to just go more quickly and/or guess on some, which might have reduced my score. But as far as using a practice test to measure progress, I think this is more useful anyway.


Vocab

This year, I started using JPDB to study vocabulary. It takes a while to get used to and is often frustrating, and in fact I went so far as to ragequit and delete all my decks back in October, before starting over again. But I have learned a fair bit over the year, and I'm currently doing 10 new cards a day.

I've also continued doing Wanikani, although lately, I haven't been putting much time into it and instead have been focusing on JPDB. I finally burned through most of my review backlog on WK and went from level 46 to 48.

Reading

This year, I started trying to read stories on Shousetsuka ni Narou. I spent several months struggling through いつも通りの日常で、、君からすれば, the first Japanese web novel I've ever finished. More recently, I've read most of ふわふわ日記 with somewhat less struggle. I recommend it as a native Japanese story that is relatively easy to read, but it might also be my slowly improving Japanese skills kicking in.

I've also continued slowly going through Satori Reader, aiming to read one chapter a day.


Speaking

Besides reading, my other goal for the year was to develop basic speaking skills. Unfortunately this one was a complete failure. As mentioned in my previous update, I planned to use Italki to develop speaking skills, starting in August this year. After considerable procrastination, I finally did do two trial lessons on Italki, but they didn't go well, and now I'm at a loss for what to do. Any suggestions?

As I wrote before, I think my main problem is that I have a very low tolerance for making mistakes or not knowing how to say something, which makes it difficult to start speaking. Another major frustration I found in Italki is that I didn't even know how to express my wishes or explain what I wanted to the teacher. And I also have the problem that when I'm not confident about how to say something (which is most of the time), I tend to just awkwardly trail off or just stay silent.

Sometimes I wonder whether it would be better to start by focusing on writing and getting that corrected by natives, but I'm not sure how well that would go, and it doesn't directly help with speaking. Does anyone have any experience with this?

Podcasts

This year, I continued listening repeatedly to Noriko and Utaco's podcasts in the background, just like I've been doing for several years now. I'm not sure how much it actually helps, but I suppose it can't hurt. By the way, does anyone have suggestions for other podcasts I should try? I've been meaning to add some to the rotation for a long time, but never gotten around to finding any new ones I like.

Anime

This year, I continued watching Anime with English subtitles, mostly for entertainment. I watch it with subtitles so I can actually understand everything and enjoy the show, and thus it is of dubious educational value, but I do try to recognize bits of the Japanese dialog in between reading subtitles, and I do occasionally learn things this way.

For example, I first encountered the word 許す (yurusu) on Wanikani back in my first year, where it was taught as "to allow/permit". However, while watching anime, I noticed that it often sounded like they were saying it when the subtitles showed them saying stuff like "I'll never forgive you" and I deduced that it also refers to forgiveness. And thus, I was able to correctly guess vocab #20 on the practice JLPT today due to knowing that it means "to forgive".

Anyway, since I've watched a ton of anime this year (Den-noh Coil, Komi Can't Communicate, Glass Mask, Kotaro Lives Alone, Blue Period, Forest of Piano, The Orbital Children, Steins;Gate, The Promised Neverland, Romantic Killer, Children of the Whales, Rascal Does Not Dream of Bunny Girl Senpai, and possibly others I've forgotten about), I thought it would make sense to offer my recommendations.

I recommend Komi Can't Communicate, The Promised Neverland (s1 only - I've heard s2 is terrible), and Romantic Killer. Dishonorable Mention goes to Forest of Piano, which is boring and I recommend avoiding it.
Last edited by golyplot on Sun Jul 02, 2023 5:36 am, edited 1 time in total.
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golyplot
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Re: Learning Japanese from zero by listening

Postby golyplot » Tue Jan 03, 2023 6:51 am

One interesting coincidence - when I went for a walk yesterday morning (on New Years) and started up Noriko's podcast again, the very first thing I heard was her talking about New Years (in 2021). That was an odd coincidence.


Also, I watched the Japanese dub of the song Hellfire last night and was surprised to see that in the Japanese version, the "Beata Maria"s were translated as ああマリア様. This was especially surprising since the French and German versions of the song left the beata Marias intact, and if anything the Japanese dub tends to include more English unchanged, rather than less.

Image


Also, I finally got the chance to watch the last episode of Rascal Bunny tonight after weeks of delay.
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Re: Learning Japanese from zero by listening

Postby Sumisu » Thu Jan 05, 2023 2:15 am

Speaking

Besides reading, my other goal for the year was to develop basic speaking skills. Unfortunately this one was a complete failure. As mentioned in my previous update, I planned to use Italki to develop speaking skills, starting in August this year. After considerable procrastination, I finally did do two trial lessons on Italki, but they didn't go well, and now I'm at a loss for what to do. Any suggestions?

As I wrote before, I think my main problem is that I have a very low tolerance for making mistakes or not knowing how to say something, which makes it difficult to start speaking. Another major frustration I found in Italki is that I didn't even know how to express my wishes or explain what I wanted to the teacher. And I also have the problem that when I'm not confident about how to say something (which is most of the time), I tend to just awkwardly trail off or just stay silent.

Sometimes I wonder whether it would be better to start by focusing on writing and getting that corrected by natives, but I'm not sure how well that would go, and it doesn't directly help with speaking. Does anyone have any experience with this?



It can be difficult to find the right teacher. I would recommend finding someone you are compatible with as a conversation partner, rather than thinking of it as pure learning/teaching exercise. After all, even in English we won't necessarily get along with someone just because we are capable of communicating with each other fluently. In my case, I found someone who was roughly my age with whom I had some interests in common.

Some conversation ideas are describing things you did that day or the previous day, i.e.

先生: What did you do this morning?
生徒: First, I ate breakfast.
先生: What did you eat for breakfast?
生徒: I ate eggs and bacon.
先生: Did you drink anything?
生徒: I drank coffee.
先生: How is the weather where you are?
etc.

One of my favorite things to do is to watch a show or read an article in Japanese and attempt to describe the plot/details to my teacher, with them asking questions as we go along. This can take up a good amount of time. Make sure to practice a little bit in your head what you will say beforehand.

You can probably say a lot more than you think, as long as you are willing to express yourself in these simple kinds of sentences.

Another thing for me is that I'm not afraid to switch to English if things get too awkward. I do it every single lesson multiple times. Some people are opposed to this, and even request that their teacher never use English. I don't understand this at all, especially if it's going to hold you back from speaking. Some Japanese speaking is better than no Japanese speaking in my opinion.

One last thing I just realized after my most recent lesson, which went terribly. It had been a while since I had had a lesson, and I was struggling to speak. I realized after the lesson was over that I had been translating from English in my head before speaking. It's always better to produce an authentic Japanese sentence rather than try to translate from English, even if your Japanese sentence sounds primitive and doesn't provide the nuance you desire. I'm going to forget this again in the future I'm sure. This is a long process. But one thing I learned from Steve Kaufman and have now confirmed for myself is that the only way to get better at speaking is to speak - a lot.
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golyplot
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Re: Learning Japanese from zero by listening

Postby golyplot » Thu Jan 05, 2023 6:05 am

先生: What did you do this morning?
生徒: First, I ate breakfast.
先生: What did you eat for breakfast?
生徒: 毎朝overnight oatsとりんご一個をたべました。これはオッツと牛乳混ざって冷蔵庫にいれて夜中まま残ってという食事です。
先生: Did you drink anything?
生徒: 水だけ
先生: How is the weather where you are?
今日は大変な嵐です。しかし、これは異常です。ここで天気がほんとんどいいんです。

How'd I do? Of course the difference between writing and speaking is that I was able to think about those responses for a long time, and even then I probably messed up considerably.



Sumisu wrote:One of my favorite things to do is to watch a show or read an article in Japanese and attempt to describe the plot/details to my teacher, with them asking questions as we go along. This can take up a good amount of time. Make sure to practice a little bit in your head what you will say beforehand.


Would this be a case where it makes sense for you to try to write something in advance? It seems hard to spontaneously talk about if you aren't already comfortable with it and know all the words and phrases, etc.


Sumisu wrote:I realized after the lesson was over that I had been translating from English in my head before speaking. It's always better to produce an authentic Japanese sentence rather than try to translate from English, even if your Japanese sentence sounds primitive and doesn't provide the nuance you desire.


This "advice" can be seen everywhere anyone has ever talked about language learning, and I hate it so much. It is confusing a consequence of proficiency with a cause of proficiency. If anything, it is actively harmful, because it tells people they shouldn't try speaking unless they're already fluent. It's like the whole fiasco about teaching kids to read English, where phonics is empirically the best teaching method, but people keep falling for fads thinking "proficient English readers aren't sounding out words letter by letter, they just recognize them by sight, so why don't we teach kids to do that directly and skip the useless phonics nonsense?"

---

In other news, I passed 4k known words on JPDB today! I also finished reading The Neighbor on Satori Reader. I'm planning to catch up on The Jam Maker and John and Friends before tackling the "Advanced" stories on the site.

Also, I read ふわふわ日記 ch14 this evening.
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Re: Learning Japanese from zero by listening

Postby Sumisu » Thu Jan 05, 2023 9:49 pm

golyplot wrote:
Sumisu wrote:One of my favorite things to do is to watch a show or read an article in Japanese and attempt to describe the plot/details to my teacher, with them asking questions as we go along. This can take up a good amount of time. Make sure to practice a little bit in your head what you will say beforehand.


Would this be a case where it makes sense for you to try to write something in advance? It seems hard to spontaneously talk about if you aren't already comfortable with it and know all the words and phrases, etc.



I usually write down a few words and phrases that were important in the story/article so I at least have those to anchor on. I might also make a short list of topics I'd like to discuss to make sure I have enough material for the hour. But I don't think you want to write down too much either, because you don't want to turn it into a reading/regurgitation exercise. Sometimes I write a bunch of stuff down and still run out of things to say. Other times we end up talking about something I hadn't even planned to discuss. The latter conversations are the best ones, but they are fairly infrequent for me. I dread every single upcoming lesson. But sometimes they go well and I surprise myself. I keep doing it because it's the only way I can improve my speaking, not living near any native speakers.
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