Japanese and Chill

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golyplot
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Re: Japanese and Chill: Devilyoudont's 2020 Log (Wanderlusting EO, ES, and KO)

Postby golyplot » Wed Mar 25, 2020 2:23 am

ryanheise wrote:Last time I was on LingQ, I found that after you exhaust the limit of lingqs that you can create, deleting previous lingqs doesn't give you any more. And once that happens, you can no longer click on words to use the integrated dictionaries. So if you intend only on using the free trial, and knowing what the lingq limit is, you could try just not creating any lingqs at all, and just use the known/unknown classifications. i.e. white/blue colours. It's not ideal, but then you would still be able to use the integrated dictionary and the trial wouldn't become crippled.


I actually tried this once. Unfortunately, they make it so easy to accidentally create LingQs. If you so much as breathe heavily on your keyboard, you'll have already hit the free trial limit and made the site useless.
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devilyoudont
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Re: Japanese and Chill: Devilyoudont's 2020 Log (Wanderlusting EO, ES, and KO)

Postby devilyoudont » Sat Mar 28, 2020 2:58 pm

golyplot wrote:
ryanheise wrote:Last time I was on LingQ, I found that after you exhaust the limit of lingqs that you can create, deleting previous lingqs doesn't give you any more. And once that happens, you can no longer click on words to use the integrated dictionaries. So if you intend only on using the free trial, and knowing what the lingq limit is, you could try just not creating any lingqs at all, and just use the known/unknown classifications. i.e. white/blue colours. It's not ideal, but then you would still be able to use the integrated dictionary and the trial wouldn't become crippled.


I actually tried this once. Unfortunately, they make it so easy to accidentally create LingQs. If you so much as breathe heavily on your keyboard, you'll have already hit the free trial limit and made the site useless.


Honest and truly the Lingq trial is bad enough that having no trial at all might be a better situation.
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golyplot
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Re: Japanese and Chill: Devilyoudont's 2020 Log (Wanderlusting EO, ES, and KO)

Postby golyplot » Sat Mar 28, 2020 7:44 pm

Without the trial, you can't instantly look up words on the site, making it considerably less useful.
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devilyoudont
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Re: Japanese and Chill: Devilyoudont's 2020 Log (Wanderlusting EO, ES, and KO)

Postby devilyoudont » Sun Apr 05, 2020 7:40 pm

Mostly focused on reading still.

Working remotely 95% of the time now. This Friday me and my husband discussed setting up time for us to be separate from one another despite being in the same house. We get along well, share many of the same interests, etc. However, being in some kind of shelter in place situation for weeks is a kind of difficult situation for any relationship. My plan is to put my alone time towards language study. I'm studying less every day because my routine has been so disrupted. Hopefully this will help recoup some of that.

Japanese

Lingq detects that I know 2473 words.

Mostly I've been working on JLPT Stories N2. N2 is the level where I find I have to read a sentence 2 or 3 times to get the meaning apparently. While N4 was more difficult for me than N3 in terms of listening, I did not have any trouble with the sentences. So N2 is probably what I should actually be studying as it presents a challenge for both listening and reading. However, these are materials that I can understand if I apply myself. I only have 1 lesson left for N2, and I want to review all of the previous lessons in each level before I attempt N1. However, I want to try N1 as well to see how difficult it is at my current level once that's done.

I joined a discord server for Japanese/English language exchange. This is a chatroom that actually has both Japanese and English speaking participants. There are also voice chatrooms, and that is something I am somewhat looking forward to attempting to get into.

It's much easier for me to hang out in a chatroom and either lurk or comment occasionally, rather than talk to someone 1 on 1. Once I get used to a community, I start commenting more, and then sometimes I make friends from the community. A 1 on 1 scenario is generally pretty nerve-wracking for me. However, I hope that by doing this, I will gain more courage when it comes to 1 on 1 conversations.

For the time being, I've been trying to read any Japanese message sent by Japanese native speakers that I see, and answer newbie questions whenever I can.

Seeing other people studying also motivates me to study more.

Esperanto

Lingq detects that I know 1657 words. This more or less means I have finished the first 4 chapters of "Ĉu vi kuiras ĉine?"

We are getting to a point where we are starting to establish conflicts in the victim's life, so things are getting off the ground. Still haven't fully ruled out suicide yet.

I also joined an Esperanto discord server. The good thing about this server is that it's not as active as telegram groups, so it's not able to be as distracting as telegram. The bad thing about it is that most of the text chat seems to take place in English... in other words questions from komencantoj. Doing my best to help where I can. Voice channels seem to be active, so I am hoping that activity is in Esperanto... New microphone just arrived so I will probably be finding out this week whether it's a good place for me to practice Esperanto.

Spanish

Had a halting conversation in broken Spanish.

Korean

Restarted Lingodeer for Korean.
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devilyoudont
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Re: Japanese and Chill: Devilyoudont's 2020 Log (Wanderlusting EO, ES, and KO)

Postby devilyoudont » Sun Apr 12, 2020 7:15 pm

Japanese

Lingq detects that I know 2643 words. As expected, the N1 JLPT stories have a step up in terms of grammar and vocabulary that is pretty tough for me. It nearly removes the desire to read for me, because the grammar can be at times completely above my level. However, I already read half of the N1 JLPT stories this week, and I'll have gone thru all of them I'll get a sense of accomplishment for doing that. For whatever reason, going thru one of these stories is generally more difficult than going thru the tale of the Bamboo Cutter or what have you. I've paired completing 1 N1 story with reviewing 1 N5 story to give myself a little boost.

I downloaded the Tandem App and had about 3 text conversations going in mostly Japanese at some point. This is something I would like to keep doing, however it's kind of hard for me to keep up a 1 on 1 conversation with a stranger in English... This is something I need to get over.

I started reading thru Minna no Nihongo because it's something I see suggested so often. I more or less just want to give myself an idea of whether or not Minna no Nihongo is a course I definitely should be recommending to people who don't want to use Genki. I may or may not do the trial of Bunpro for the same reason.

Esperanto

Lingq detects that I know 2413 Esperanto words. I read another Chapter of "Ĉu vi kuiras ĉine?" I also started reading "Gerda malaperis." Gerda is not really useful for me at this level, but I'm checking it out for the same reason I'm checking out Minna no Nihongo. I recommend Gerda all the time to people who want to start reading, so maybe I should have read it myself. I read four chapters of Gerda.

I spend probably 2 hours over several days in voice chat at the Esperanto discord. This is a great exercise for me, even tho approximately half of the time was spent helping komencantojn (speaking as slowly as possible, pausing between each word, etc etc). I also did some text chat on there, and I muted the English channel as I don't really need a place where English is spoken.

I'm making better progress on Ĉu vi kuiras ĉine than any book in Japanese, and also better progress on it than the book I am reading in English... I really wanted some book like this for Japanese (An engaging detective novel written in plain, non-literary language). This genre is popular in Japan so finding one should not be difficult. Unfortunately, all of the ones I know are famous, and therefore quite literary. In the end, my husband bought me 2 comic books for my birthday instead: 名探偵コナン (Detective Conan) and 金田一少年の事件簿 (The Kindaichi Casefiles). These are coming from Ebay, so it's anyone's guess when they will arrive.
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devilyoudont
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Re: Japanese and Chill: Devilyoudont's 2020 Log (Wanderlusting EO, ES, and KO)

Postby devilyoudont » Mon Apr 20, 2020 1:49 am

Just a short update this week

Japanese
-Lingq detects I know 2926 words
-Finished reviewing all of the JLPT stories with Lingq
-Found a new book to read in the Lingq library: 三姉妹探偵団 It's a detective novel, and it's not too far above my level. It starts in media res, so I already read more than I intended to.
-Stopped listening to NHKラジオニュース for now, can't bear to listen to more about coronavirus right now
-No progress on chatrooms for Japanese, or for Tandem. Right now, my level is just not good enough to enjoy these, but it feels tantalizingly close

Esperanto
-Lingq detects I know 2561 words.
-I did another chapter of Ĉu vi kuiras ĉine, and maybe another 2 of Gerda malaperis. At this time, I am planning to finish out both even tho I'm not learning new words from Gerda. I more or less want to see what level of Esperanto Gerda builds up to. I guess I could just jump ahead to the very end, but I dunno. Why not actually read a book most serious Esperantists have read
-The nice thing about the discord server I found is that people actually use the voice channels and use Esperanto in them. They have scheduled voice events pretty often as well. The less nice thing about the server is that the text channels are really English heavy. There's no reason why a number of the channels should be dominated by English, but it seems like a quarter of the server is people who don't like Esperanto. Why such a person should want to hang out on an Esperanto server is anyone's guess. For text chat, I guess I really need to make my way back to telegram. The downside of telegram tho is that it's a huge productivity drain on me doing literally anything else.
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devilyoudont
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Re: Japanese and Chill: Devilyoudont's 2020 Log (Wanderlusting EO, ES, and KO)

Postby devilyoudont » Sun Apr 26, 2020 8:21 pm

Japanese
Finished the prologue of 三姉妹探偵団. I'm really enjoying this book so far.

Ling detects I know 3046 words.

Esperanto
Read a chapter of "Ĉu vi kuiras ĉine?" I'm not sure how many chapters they are, but I'm hoping this starts to pick up soon because I feel like nothing has happened in like three chapters, and the book is a bit too indulgent on the Esperanto tendency to go off on tangents about linguistics.

Finally gave in and rejoined telegram. Great to talk to old friends again. Then there is the immediate frustration that people who don't know about the US but insist on talking about the US. Like, I get that the US deserves this because we put ourselves in literally everyone's business... but the sheer number of people who want comment on how something is in the US, without ever having been here or being even vaguely aware of social issues within the US... I dunno, maybe either read a book, or stick to how the US impacts your own country? It's frustrating to me because I have always lived in situations which are completely normal situations in the US, but these kinds of things don't get much international attention.

Spanish
One benefit of being in Esperanto chats is I randomly chat in Spanish again.
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Re: Japanese and Chill: Devilyoudont's 2020 Log (Wanderlusting EO, ES, and KO)

Postby devilyoudont » Sun May 03, 2020 2:12 pm

Japanese
Lingq detects I know 3320 words.

I finished Chapter 1 and 2 of 三姉妹探偵団... Chapter 1 was more or less raising the stakes, and chapter two was kind of developing the other two sisters rather than just the middle sister Yuriko. Sometimes this book makes very fast transitions and I momentarily get lost (a conversation is happening between A and B, no one else is there. Suddenly C reacts and we are now in a conversation of B relating the conversation with A to C and D). However, otherwise I think this book is a pretty good level for me.

Something kind of interesting is that I've inadvertently proven the more controversial parts of the Heisig theory to myself by doing all this reading... here are two situations:

肯く - I knew this kanji only by Heisig keyword... I quickly came to attach it's meaning in context (nodding to agree) and it's reading うなずく with this kanji.
訊く- I knew this word, but have never studied this kanji. Despite seeing it over and over again, without it in front of me I can't even picture this kanji in my mind. I only recognize it in the exact context of dialog tags, probably nowhere else.

I would like to study kanji again, but right now, I just don't have the time to continue with my etymology project. Within that project, I think I have already learned everything which may be used as a semantic component or is a pictogram. After all, such kanji are generally fairly easy to write, and no kanji I have left to study has fewer than 8 strokes.

I tried out Wanikani, but I just can't justify the price or the amount of time right now... I would need to get to level 20 before I start seeing kanji I don't know, god knows when I would be regularly learning new kanji. Realistically knowing myself and that I will miss some SRS sessions, I imagine it would take me about 3 years to go thru the program. This means a lifetime membership is most cost effective.

I also tried an anki deck from the Kodansha Kanji Learners Course... but I'm immediately aware that these cards have too much information on them. What I need is a keyword on the front, and the stroke order on the back + a reminder of my mnemonic (previously I used the actual etymology of the glyph as a mnemonic)... I have already proven that having a mental dictionary entry linking the keyword and the kanji is enough for me to start linking actual meanings and readings to the kanji (肯く proves it).

Wanikani does this kind of stuff better than most shared anki decks in my experience... Because each "card" tests 1 thing only, and it is pass fail... so the Wanikani user is never in the frustrating position of marking a card wrong because the card tested 5 things (kanji form, onyomi, kunyomi -- both transitive and intransitive, and example vocabulary) and they only got 4 out of 5 right. The KKLC deck I found is exactly the opposite, even testing multiple onyomi on a single card.

So, I've put together a plan that kind of looks like this:
-Test self on Heisig Kanji Keywords
-Remove Kanji that were written correctly... if I got it right after this amount of time, this is a kanji that I've internalized to the point where I do not need to study it
-Generate Flash Cards with only the keyword on the front and the stroke order on the back.
-Depending on the number of cards generated, study some extremely low number of new kanji each day... I am thinking around 5 new kanji a day.
-Study the cards creating mnemonics out of the glyph etymology which I have already learned (this should prevent me from having to re-memorize radicals as having a different keyword than what I already know)
-See where I am next time Wanikani does a huge sale
-If I'm doing well stick with this, if I'm struggling buy Wanikani... maybe spending a fortune on this is the motivation I actually need to complete this project.

I have so far this week tested myself on 40% if the the joyo kanji. From that 40%, I have generated 276 flashcards. My expectation is that very shortly now, I will only know the first couple of kanji in a set... (in other words, Heisig will teach 耳, I will know a few like 取 and 最, but there will be a bunch more that I don't know. My expectation is that I will need to study about 60% of the joyo kanji -- either due to only really knowing the kyoiku kanji inside out, or making small errors while writing which I would like to tighten up--but the week it will take me to isolate those which I actually need to study from those which I truly already know will save me a huge amount of time in the long run if I'm gonna study 5 new cards a day.

Of course none of this helps for 訊 specifically as it is not a joyo kanji, but I think it will improve my retention of new vocabulary attained thru reading overall.

I'm also considering making my etymology deck public... it teaches all of the Kyoiku kanji by glyph origin, as well as any joyo or jimeijo kanji which are used as components within the Kyoiku kanji. For me, this allowed me to jump into authentic works for children and teens and learning the real etymology kept things interesting for me. Maybe there are 1 or 2 other people on earth who would be interested in studying this way :lol:

Esperanto
Ling detects I know 3170 words.

I finished another chapter of Ĉu vi kuiras ĉine? Another suspect was introduced, but I have a feeling this one is a red herring because he's just a little too likely.

Spent more time helping komencantojn in chatrooms. Chatroom time was limited this week due to preparations for trying to give my husband a decent quarantine birthday.

Spanish
Lingq detects I know 619 words.

I spent a bunch of time this week searching for an authentic Spanish book which would be easy enough for me to read it. Based on this list I selected Esperanza renace. Unfortunately, this is actually translated from English. I'm hoping that this translated work may prep me for Allende's La ciudad de las bestias, which in turn may prepare me for La casa de los espíritus and then more modern Spanish literature for adults.

Gosh the plan for Spanish is so much more straightforward than the plan for Japanese :cry: Either that means it's an unrealistic plan, or Spanish will really be that much easier than Japanese.
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tungemål
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Re: Japanese and Chill: Devilyoudont's 2020 Log (Wanderlusting EO, ES, and KO)

Postby tungemål » Sun May 03, 2020 3:20 pm

Kanji:
Why do you want to spend more time studying Kanji? If I understand you correctly you can read all the characters, but you forgot how to write some of them. Do you need to write in longhand? I did the Joyo Kanjis the Heisig way but since I don't write anymore I probably gradually forget how to write. Now I use my Heisig keywords only for reference.

I would by the way be interested in your etymology deck. Do you mean that you found the etymology for all the kyoiku Kanji?
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devilyoudont
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Re: Japanese and Chill: Devilyoudont's 2020 Log (Wanderlusting EO, ES, and KO)

Postby devilyoudont » Mon May 04, 2020 2:20 am

tungemål wrote:Kanji:
Why do you want to spend more time studying Kanji? If I understand you correctly you can read all the characters, but you forgot how to write some of them. Do you need to write in longhand? I did the Joyo Kanjis the Heisig way but since I don't write anymore I probably gradually forget how to write. Now I use my Heisig keywords only for reference.

I would by the way be interested in your etymology deck. Do you mean that you found the etymology for all the kyoiku Kanji?


It's because I can't read all the characters, I think I probably know 40% really well (know on-yomi, kunyomi, meaning, some vocabulary that uses the kanji, and how to write it), there's probably another 20-30% that I am familiar with for some reason or other (meaning I probably only recognize the kanji in 1 context... likely to be the onyomi when paired with another specific kanji). And then there's a final chunk which I don't know at all.

I've tried a lot of approaches to learning all the kanji over the years... my issue with learning Kanji in context (IE just sort of picking them up from reading) is that for whatever reason, my mind tends to focus on the phonetic cue in the kanji, and I don't remember the semantic cue. In other words, without specifically studying individual kanji, all kanji which have 寺 as a phonetic component (じ) tend to all be merged into a single kanji in my brain. On a practical level, this means that when there is an exception to the rule (期待), I tend to fail to notice if if I'm just reading to myself (thank god for audio books?!). At some point in time, I'd like to pass the N1, so being able to distinguish between visually similar kanji is eventually necessary.

I have failed out of multiple mnemonic based methods (Heisig, etc) simply because I think it's boring and because I'm not good at creating memorable mnemonics.

I spent all last year studying kanji and it resulted in a six grade level boost to my ability to read... I just don't have time to continue making my own flashcards using authentic character etymologies so I stopped doing this. I'm thinking Heisig x Lingq = finally no longer needing to study kanji.

The etymology deck is too large to be shared on Anki Web... I made it available on google drive for now: here

Edit to add: I forgot to say that handwriting helps me remember things better, and that due to writing kanji, I feel that I've gotten better at reading other people's handwriting.
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