Learning Japanese From Zero

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golyplot
Black Belt - 1st Dan
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Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... 15&t=12230
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Re: Japanese listening from nothing: 2020 Log

Postby golyplot » Fri Jan 17, 2020 1:50 pm

This morning, I reached level 4 as expected. I nearly didn't make it, since I messed up the kanji twice (I put san instead of han for half, and got few and genius mixed up), but luckily, you only need 90% (28/31) to reach the next level, so my perfect record (since level 2, when I really started trying) is for now unbroken.

Anyway, I bought a one year subscription ($44.50). Time to see if I can hit level 60 in only a year. Of course, I'm sure I'll either mess up or cut back due to burnout long before then, but it's nice to have goals.
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golyplot
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Re: Japanese listening from nothing: 2020 Log

Postby golyplot » Sun Jan 19, 2020 3:19 pm

I continue to be very disappointed with Lingodeer. I figured out that the review option actually doesn't have an SRS at all. When you mark a question as "weak", "good", or "perfect", it just remembers the last value you marked, and when reviewing, it gives you the weakest 15 items for review. Except that everything starts as perfect, which means that if you mark something as "weak" or "good", it will just keep asking you that over and over until you mark it as "perfect". Talk about horrible design. The only way to make the review even slightly useful is to answer "perfect" for every question, whether you knew it or not, in which case you'll at least get a (presumably) random assortment of the questions you've covered to date. I really don't understand what anyone sees in that app. For that matter, it makes me wonder if the developers ever even tested it at all.

I also tried out LingQ, though I of course had no idea what I was doing. It mostly just served to show me that I didn't know any of the words, even in the most basic lessons.
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devilyoudont
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Re: Japanese listening from nothing: 2020 Log

Postby devilyoudont » Sun Jan 19, 2020 3:40 pm

My experience is that the web based reading apps like LingQ don't work very well for Japanese because there is something wrong with how their program divides sentences into words. I had a better experience with FLTR (https://sourceforge.net/projects/fltr/) which leaves it to the reader to divide sentences into words. However, some people do not like this program because it is Java based. Everything has it's trade offs.

I have no idea what the quality of the texts in LingQ are, but my guess would be that you won't be able to read much of anything, even books for little children, in Japanese unless you know the majority of "N5 Vocabulary" (https://jlptstudy.net/N5/?vocab-list) I personally wouldn't advice it unless you have a very high tolerance for unknown words, which some people do.

Edited to add:
Re: Lingodeer... I personally do not try to use the phrases from a course in an SRS program so this hasn't been an issue to me... But it occurred to me that some random out there on the internet may have solved your problem using Anki, and it turns out they have!

https://ankiweb.net/shared/info/1717455097

So you can just load up this deck in Anki and practice the Lingodeer sentences with a proper SRS system.

I may download the Korean version, and try out doing SRS alongside a course as well, so thanks for the idea :)
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AndyMeg
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Re: Japanese listening from nothing: 2020 Log

Postby AndyMeg » Sun Jan 19, 2020 7:31 pm

golyplot wrote:It occurred to me that this log might be misleading and/or boring to read, given that I intended to learn primarily by watching TV, but have spent most of my time to date on Wanikani. Of course, I always knew this was likely to happen - you have to build up a base before you can start watching media. So far I haven't found a good way to practice listening skills. I tried watching Peppa Pig in Japanese, but I couldn't even understand any of that. Of course, it's only been two weeks and Japanese is a notoriously difficult language, so it's not all that surprising either.

As you don't seem to be too familiar with kanji yet, and if you have Netflix, maybe you could start by watching some shows/animes with japanese audio-description and english subs. Even if you are more focused on the english subs most of the time, you'll still listen to plenty of japanese with the audio-descriptions (which are played when there's no dialogue going on).

Later, when you are more familiar with kanji, you could re-watch the same shows/animes, but this time replacing the english subs with japanese CC subs (which usually match the audio better than normal subs). Even though japanese is not my focus language at this moment, I'm currently doing this with two shows: a j-drama called "Erased" (僕だけがいない街) and an anime called "Forest of Piano" (ピアノの森); but I'm sure there should be more shows with both the japanese audio-description and the japanese CC subs available. ;)

Also, a great app for learning/practicing the japanese writing system (both kanas and kanji) is this one: Japanese Kanji Study - 漢字学習
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Beyond The Story 10 Year Record of BTS Korean version: 36 / 522

golyplot
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Re: Japanese listening from nothing: 2020 Log

Postby golyplot » Sun Jan 19, 2020 8:39 pm

AndyMeg wrote:As you don't seem to be too familiar with kanji yet, and if you have Netflix, maybe you could start by watching some shows/animes with japanese audio-description and english subs. Even if you are more focused on the english subs most of the time, you'll still listen to plenty of japanese with the audio-descriptions (which are played when there's no dialogue going on).



The problem is that currently, I basically can't understand any spoken Japanese at all, so I don't think that would be useful yet. There is of course a bit of a chicken and egg problem there.
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AndyMeg
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Re: Japanese listening from nothing: 2020 Log

Postby AndyMeg » Sun Jan 19, 2020 10:32 pm

golyplot wrote:
AndyMeg wrote:As you don't seem to be too familiar with kanji yet, and if you have Netflix, maybe you could start by watching some shows/animes with japanese audio-description and english subs. Even if you are more focused on the english subs most of the time, you'll still listen to plenty of japanese with the audio-descriptions (which are played when there's no dialogue going on).



The problem is that currently, I basically can't understand any spoken Japanese at all, so I don't think that would be useful yet. There is of course a bit of a chicken and egg problem there.

The first activity isn't meant for trying to understand japanese yet, it is more aimed at getting exposure to the language while you are doing an activity you enjoy. You just watch something you like in your target language but with subs in a language you already understand (so that you don't get frustrated for not understanding what's going on). And the audio-description helps you to get more exposure even if you don't understand a word of it yet. I'm doing this activity even with languages I haven't formally started studying yet (like thai). The main point here is to get exposed to the language doing an activity you find enjoyable until you reach a point in which you can do more challenging activities in your target language. At this stage, you can see this as a complementary activity to other more intensive activities (like WaniKani or working through a textbook). Exposure helps you to build familiarity with a language, and familiarity helps you to learn faster when you are doing a more intensive type of study.

After you watch something the first time with subs in a language you understand, you already know what's going on, so you can re-watch it without the subs or with subs in your target language and pay more attention to the spoken language (and/or to the TL subs), even if you don't understand anything of it yet. This is a way to continue building familiarity while you reach a more advanced level in the langauge.

And when you have a better level in your TL you can continue doing this activity and other variations of it in order to strengthen/assimilate what you have learned/seen in your more intensive type of language learning activities.
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Beyond The Story 10 Year Record of BTS Korean version: 36 / 522

golyplot
Black Belt - 1st Dan
Posts: 1726
Joined: Mon Jan 16, 2017 9:41 pm
Languages: Am. English (N), German, French, ASL (abandoned), Spanish, Dutch, Italian, Japanese (N2)
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... 15&t=12230
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Re: Japanese listening from nothing: 2020 Log

Postby golyplot » Sun Jan 19, 2020 10:53 pm

I'm already watching Sword Art Online with English subtitles. I've also been listening to a lot of Japanese music.
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seito
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Re: Japanese listening from nothing: 2020 Log

Postby seito » Sun Jan 19, 2020 11:40 pm

golyplot wrote:I continue to be very disappointed with Lingodeer.


The only app-based Japanese course (as opposed to tools for specific parts of the language, like Wanikani) I've found that I really like is the Jalup app. It's basically an adaptation of their Anki decks, but with all of the words on the backs of the cards hyperlinked to the cards that introduced them. And the linking was done by hand, so it links to the one that introduced the usage that applies to the current card.
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AndyMeg
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Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... 02#p201902
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Re: Japanese listening from nothing: 2020 Log

Postby AndyMeg » Mon Jan 20, 2020 12:10 am

golyplot wrote:I'm already watching Sword Art Online with English subtitles. I've also been listening to a lot of Japanese music.

This is great, then. :D

Have you tried watching something with japanese audio-description instead of normal japanese audio?

The difference between normal audio in your target language and audio-description in your target language is that with audio-description you get more exposure to the language within the same period of time, because it not only lets you hear the dialogues in your target language, but also describes what's happening in your target language. Audio-descriptions say things like "Hitomi climbs up the tree", "there's a big piano inside the room", etc. all in the target language (in this case, all in japanese)

Though it may take you some time to get used to watching things with audio-description.

I prefer TL audio-description over normal TL audio because it gives you more density of exposure to the language for the same amount of time spent watching it.

Just telling you about this in case you want to try it (if you already haven't).
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Beyond The Story 10 Year Record of BTS Korean version: 36 / 522

golyplot
Black Belt - 1st Dan
Posts: 1726
Joined: Mon Jan 16, 2017 9:41 pm
Languages: Am. English (N), German, French, ASL (abandoned), Spanish, Dutch, Italian, Japanese (N2)
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... 15&t=12230
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Re: Japanese listening from nothing: 2020 Log

Postby golyplot » Mon Jan 20, 2020 1:42 am

I've tried watching things in the past with audio description in other languages, and didn't like it much.
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