Motivation and Discipline: Spanish and Japanese Log

[kelvin921019]

Spanish: Anki, Assimil, Glossika, Spanish Unlimited
Japanese: Lingodeer, Assimil
It's lesson 42 of Assimil and it's almost have. I have started to get in touch with the parts which fear a lot of beginner, subjunctive, preterite and imperfect. I think the problem at the moment is that I haven't listened to a lot of sentences with subjunctive and past tense. My ears are pretty much trained well in catching the present tense conjugation. I do have some difficulties listening to future tense (often confuse the -ré, -rás, -rá with le, las and la). Lesson 42 touches upon the concept of Saber vs conocer which is seems to be odd to me as “conocer” has never appeared in any of the main text before this lesson (except in footnote).

One thing I have to learn to let go is my perfectionist syndrome in doing each Assimil lesson. Sometimes I should just let go the words which I clearly would rarely use in my life (such as leñador: woodcutter, el trampolín: the diving board, ayuntamiento: Town hall) but the truth is, these words are now in my brain waiting for the day they will be used.

Turn out I have been learning the 2 fastest languages in the world. Japanese is not a big problem for me because I’ve been listening to it for many years. However for Spanish, even something that I should have known sometimes would turn into incomprehensible slur when it’s spoken by a native. When I go to youtube, I can start to hear “distinct” sounds from the speakers if they are pronounced clearly and are from Spain. Of course, I'm still far from "clicking" and I can’t comprehend more than 50% of the contents and even if so, I can only identify individual words but can't get the meaning of the sentence as a whole. I find it difficult listening to the teenagers talking, they just talking too fast and sometimes just slur through words. Also, apart from the Spanish spoken by Spanish people or Mexican (they pronounces the words rather clearly), I find other accent difficult to comprehend. One day I watched a video spoken by an Uruguayan and I can’t figure out what they're talking about without subtitles. Probably I should first master the Spanish accent first before moving to other accents.

Spanish unlimited: As expected, the materials are way above my level and I can only do 2-3 pages of transcript every go before I feel dizzy. But I think it's very useful for me to get exposed to more words and it's likely to be the case when I start reading Harry Potter.

There's also something that starts to worry me for both Spanish and Japanese concerning the use of cognates. While cognates help me a lot in comprehension, I find it kind of hinders my ability to learn the actual word. Sometime if the word carries other meaning (like suficiente means enough) I find it very hard to connect the word with its "new" meaning, unless it is humourous enough to remember it (like embarazada or constipado). It appears to me that the ability to infer meaning kind of incapacitate my ability to learn new things.

[kelvin921019]

Well, JLPT is cancelled because of the pandemic. So good news is I no longer need to regret my decision of enrolling N5 (because I think I should have done N4 instead).

Spanish: Anki, Assimil, Glossika, Spanish Unlimited
Japanese: Lingodeer, Assimil

The best way to learn grammar is to listen to tonnes of sample sentences containing that conjugation or grammatical item. Clearly so far there isn't much sentences with past tense and subjunctive, so they still sound like incomprehensible slur to me. I have spent a lot of time doing lesson 43 yesterday as everything sounds so foreign to me even after I can recite the entire lesson. The sound doesn't "make sense" at all and just sound like a "cue" for me to retrieve the meaning of the sentence from my memory. Luckily, lesson 44 is rather easy and I can take a break from my fear that things get escalated so quickly.

Also continue watching La Chicas de Cabel, things start to become recognisable, even those spoken by Marga and Pablo, the characters one of his/her characteristic is speaking extremely fast. Sometimes I will pick a small segment and re-listen to it 3-4 times, first time with English subtitles, second time with Spanish sub to test on how much I can understand, then re-listen until I can understand without looking at subtitles.

Japanese. My N3 soumatome arrive today and it is unexpectedly thin. I just put in on my desk so as to serve as a reminder. Once again, I read a lot on Watanoc and NHK Easy News. These two are both good resources for doing Listening-reading. However, Watanoc is better in learning because it uses less Kanji so I can't take advantage of my Chinese root to cheat. In any event, I'm focusing on understanding Japanese now by learning vocabularies and grammar only and reading / listening activities will be limited. The main reason is to avoid confusion between Japanese and Spanish, not about the words or phrases, but about how things are presented.

As a side note, I often do Pimsleur while running. I do 1 - 2 lessons in a row so it would be either 30+ mins of running or up to 1 hr of running. After I switch to do Assimil, I clearly stopped this running habit and as a result I get fat. As mentioned in the previous post, I have started hitting the gym (reopen recently) and the time become more and more packed.

[kelvin921019]

Spanish: Anki, Assimil, Glossika, Spanish Unlimited
Japanese: Lingodeer, Assimil

Spanish Assimil:
I have learnt a lot of vocabularies in relation to car (el volante, el acelerador, los pedales del freno y del embrague, el salpicadero). I think the only context I'm going to use these is when I rent a car in Spain and it breaks down midway. Wait, but there's no "el embrague" in an automatic transmission car....

I usually can tolerate some tiny typos or mistake in the book. Also sometimes the translation is not accurate enough, I can just look up dictionary to make sure I can understand the meaning better. However, today I have encountered in the exercise the phrase "She's sitting in front" but the answer key is "estaba sentada escuchando". That's a bit frustrating as I have been looking on web on why "escuchando" is translated as "in front" and turn out it's only a mistake.

It really encourages me a lot when I randomly stumble upon a youtube video in Spanish and realize that I can understand 30 - 40% of that video. I think that my comprehension and listening improved a lot over the past month thanks to Assimil though. The lack of vocabulary is still a big problem for me if I wish to attain solid B1 level by the end of this year. One thing I like about Assimil is that it forces me to memorize a bunch of new words every day. I start thinking how I should move forward 2 months later to my Harry Potter reading exercise,
(1) Read few pages of the book, look up every word I don't know and mark it on the book
(2) Re-read the few pages with audio
(3) on the second day, re-read the pages with audio (I got my inspiration from Luca: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ukZWfC0nl8g)
Not sure if it's a good idea to dive straight into Harry Potter though.

Due to work commitment, cannot do anything more than watching Netflix. It takes me 3 days to finish reading the transcript of another episode of Spanish Unlimited Podcast. The grammar is fairly simple, but I have to look up the dictionary many times for the vocab. Anyway, my aim is just to understand and recognise as much as I can. I'm going to listen to the podcast many time in the coming few days.

LingQ: I used to do a little bit of casual reading on it. But I stop using it when I have used up all my free LingQs. In the end I think the purpose of the mini-stories are more or less similar to what Assimil offers.

Japanese:
I think I will just do one official N5 mock paper next month and declare that I have attained N5 level. Then, I think I will just move on to N4 stuff. I have spent some more time on Watanoc and NHK easy news and I am considering subscribing Satori reader after halfway into my N4 studies.

I am still going through the lessons which I have previous went through in my failed attempt using Assimil Japanese alone. My verdict is that it is not functioning well, at least for a language learning beginner like me. Japanese grammar differs so much from the European languages and the book is not doing well enough in pointing out the tiny features in the structure. Clearly I have noticed much more grammatical features in the text after I have taught myself some more N4 grammar.

[vegantraveller]

Japanese:
I am still going through the lessons which I have previous went through in my failed attempt using Assimil Japanese alone. My verdict is that it is not functioning well, at least for a language learning beginner like me. Japanese grammar differs so much from the European languages and the book is not doing well enough in pointing out the tiny features in the structure. Clearly I have noticed much more grammatical features in the text after I have taught myself some more N4 grammar.

Assimil Japanese has unfortunately not been very well conceived for the absolute beginner. It takes too many things for granted and simply doesn't explain many structures, while it is better suited for someone with a solid foundation of the basics.
I am using it right now, it's been perfect to acquire new vocabulary and master the complexities of Japanese syntax, but I would not recommend it for someone who's just started the language.
On the contrary, the Assimil courses in European languages are usually very well written, and suitable for those taking up a new language.

[kelvin921019]

Assimil Japanese has unfortunately not been very well conceived for the absolute beginner. It takes too many things for granted and simply doesn't explain many structures, while it is better suited for someone with a solid foundation of the basics.
I am using it right now, it's been perfect to acquire new vocabulary and master the complexities of Japanese syntax, but I would not recommend it for someone who's just started the language.
On the contrary, the Assimil courses in European languages are usually very well written, and suitable for those taking up a new language.

Yes, the first time I did Assimil Japanese I used it exclusively and hope that I can pick up the grammar by its intuitive approach. But the grammar note is so lacking that I can't pick up too much. I guess for more veteran language learners it may still be possible but it's definitely not the case for me. I am now treated it as a graded reader to boost my vocabulary and get myself familiarize with the sentence structures which I have learnt.

[kelvin921019]

Spanish: Anki, Assimil, Glossika, Spanish Unlimited
Japanese: Lingodeer, Assimil

I thought I can’t finish my stuff today but I managed to do Assimil on bus and used my phone to prepare Anki card. Slow, but it works. It turns out that I don't need to write down the words by hand in order to remember them well.

I have also worked out a way to find interesting non-Spanish content (Anime, for the likelihood that the language would also be easier) dubbed with Spanish audio and english subtitles. Dubbed content are generally more beginner friendly as they tend to be less colloquial in the translation.

Japanese listening is not doing well for me. I tried to listen to a children toy commercial which I accidentally bumped into when doing shopping, unfortunately I couldn't understand anything. Clearly even children commercial is still too difficult for me. So I tried a short sample N4 test on JLPT website to test on my level. Just to see if whether the commercial is above N4 level or I'm overly confident about my listening skills. The results turn out to be like this:
- Language / Word: 100% (one of which by guessing, so may be actually it's 80%)
- Grammar: 4/6 (66%)
- Listening: 100% (I can understand about 90% of the content)
So it's that the toy commercial is too difficult for N4. The test result also agrees with my observation that my vocabulary knowledge and listening skill is more or less at mid N4 level, but I need to work hard on grammar.

[kelvin921019]

Spanish: Anki, Assimil, Glossika, Spanish Unlimited
Japanese: Lingodeer, Assimil

After wanderlusting a lot on the learning method. I go back to Ikenna, the origin of why I decided to embark on the journey of learning languages. His suggestion are more practical, at least to me.

Pure native Spanish materials is too hard for me at this moment. People talk fast and a bit slurry, and also using more colloquialism. So, the practical approach I learnt from ikenna is to find dubbed materials which I have previously enjoyed. So I chose "Friends" dubbed in Spanish. It has 10 seasons so it won't run out of materials soon, it's more casual and leisure as compared to the suspense in "Las Chicas Del Cable" and "La Casa Del Papel". Although the voice over sounds a bit awkward, the language is less colloquial and are spoken in a clearer manner.

One thing I noticed is that my improvement after each lesson is less significant as compared to the earlier lessons. I’ve been more accustomed to the most common words and therefore there’re less “A-ha” moment for me when consuming native materials. There's kind of an unsettling feel of getting stuck. The “endorphins” arising from learning every Assimil lesson become lesser and lesser and there are more and more frustration when the audio of a lesson still feel foreign to me after the 30th listen. I think that’s a bottleneck which I have to pass through before I "click" in the language.

One thing I’m do more consistently is Spanish unlimited. I’m still sticking to doing at most one podcast per week as the content is way above my level. However, I think more challenging material would be conducive to improve my grasp of the language. I was a bit tempted to use Anki to reinforce the new words. However, it may not be a good idea just in case the word will be covered more comprehesively in Assimil

Not much going on Japanese. Just keep sticking to the schedule (at most with some extra watanoc). The focus now is to get Spanish “done” first.

[kelvin921019]

Spanish: Anki, Assimil, Glossika, Spanish Unlimited, Netflix "Friends"
Japanese: Lingodeer, Assimil, Watanoc

I have decided to start writing on Langcorrect (Thanks to devilyoudont) and I tried writing something in both Spanish and Japanese. In the end, no one will know I know a language if I cannot use it to communicate with the natives. That's why I have put a lot of emphasis on listening and speaking / writing. For the time being, I wish to at least know how to form proper sentences in writing before I start speaking with a tutor, which, in my opinion, is "instant writing".

My first attempt feels so terrible and I feel like I have never learnt the language at all. Clearly there's a very huge gap between translating sentences and forming your own. It takes me 10 or more attempts to write every sentences and the end product is purely unsatisfactory for me. I forced myself to use as much new things I've learnt as possible but in the end I go back to my "comfort zone", which are the words I've learnt in Pimsleur for Spanish, and words I learnt from my 10+ years of anime / variety binge watching for Japansese. On the bright side, at least I have made myself aware of this early enough. [Fun fact: after I have started Spanish, my English starts to become more "reflexive", like "I have made myself aware"]

Second thing I have made myself aware is that it is more difficult to form sentence in Japanese as compared with Spanish. I think this is probably due to the complexity in sentence structure for Japanese. I can borrow quite a lot of structures from English when I'm writing in Spanish but I have to learn everything from scratch in Japanese.

Fortunately, I got some encouraging feedback from the Spanish article. Probably they're just being nice as I am clearly a beginner. In the meantime, I have reached the middle of Assimil Spanish. However, there won't be "active wave" because I have started in long time ago and I don't find active wave helpful in view of the SRS in anki. Instead, writing on Langcorrect would be my "active wave" exercise.

I have borrowed for myself a lot of N3 practice books from my friend and I put them neatly on my shelf just to serve as a motivation. After Lingodeer and Assimil, these are the books I'm going to use:
- Tobira
- Sou-matome Grammar

As to Spanish, I have bought Short Stories in Spanish: New Penguin Parallel Text (Spanish and English Edition), and hope that this serves as the transition from Assimil to Harry Potter.

I have some temptation to flirt with Russian and learn cyrillics. But I manage to control myself from wanderlusting.

[kelvin921019]

Spanish: Anki, Assimil, Glossika, Spanish Unlimited, LangCorrect
Japanese: Lingodeer, Assimil, LangCorrect

As to older version of Assimil Spanish: I have tried a bit of the older version Assimil Spanish and turned out after 50 lesson of the 2014 one (of course with lots of extra reading), I don't have much problem understanding most out of a few randomly picked lessons. On the other hand, I am so pleased about purchasing 2014 because the audio of the older one is not that good. Even at lesson 30 they still talk slowly. Furthermore, I think the 2014 one is more structured with more explanations.

Active wave: Due to the bilateral translation schedule and Anki, it's basically no need to follow the "active wave" schedule as prescribed by the book. Anyway, I can just speed run it.

JLPT: I have officially done with N5 materials after finishing an official mock exam with almost full marks. I have taken a bold attempt in trying a N4 paper vocabulary and kanji part. It's clearly harder than N5 and some questions really test on whether you have accurately remember the exact pronunciation of the word (like for 店員, there are options likeてんいん,ていん;日記, there are options like にっき and にっきい).

Writing in Spanish and Japanese: I continue with some more writing and I try to write something longer. I feel better with writing in Spanish. I can formulate general structures of sentences but I just need to learn more vocabulary / phrases and absorb more grammar. As to Japanese, every sentence structure is different from any language I already know and I have to search for appropriate structures from those which I have learnt. Often times, I just don't have the structure and pattern and have to resort to presenting things in a drier or duller manner.

I have written entries about learning languages, as clearly it's what I'm thinking all the time as a wanna be polyglot. But I don't want to limit myself to this topic only. I am looking for some topics good for beginners to write. Just wonder if there's a list or something.

[kelvin921019]

Spanish: Anki, Assimil, Glossika, Spanish Unlimited
Japanese: Lingodeer, Assimil, Watanoc

I watched a confession by a youtuber about quitting one of the two languages he's studying (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0k47m5UZ6L0) It makes me think what I'm going to achieve. Probably, being a B1 or low B2 is not what I essentially aim for in the end. My newly started experience in writing makes me realize how stressful and frustrating it is when you have the idea you cannot express with some level of precision. Although there are lots of languages in my bucket list, I am planning not to rush it. However, with my burning desire to learn Russian, I guess first I'm going to get to conversational fluency in Spanish and Japanese (so low B2 and N3 respectively), and then bring Russian to conversational fluency next year (provided that the first goal is achievable). Then, I spend sometime just focusing on each of the languages in rotation (while putting others in maintenance mode) slowly hammer each language to a C1 level. Not sure if it's just wishful think or else, but it's my plan.

Anki: I am not sure what happen with my "active review deck". I use default setting but today it gives me 7 review. I just add a new lesson everyday, and only press "good" (except the first time), but somehow anki threw 3 consecutive lessons at me today.