Japanese Language Log

Continue or start your personal language log here, including logs for challenge participants
bolaobo
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Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... 15&t=19845
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Re: Japanese Language Log

Postby bolaobo » Fri Aug 13, 2021 11:28 am

genini1 wrote:The course made several choices I'm not a fan of in terms of vocabulary and grammar and most importantly when I got to the last part of the first book it congratulated me on being, 'inseminated with Japanese.' It's sort of difficult for me to trust the decisions they are making when it comes to learning Japanese when they use English like that. I definitely don't want to go around Japan and tell people the equivalent of 'I'm inseminating you' by mistake.


I know this is an old post, but keep in mind that Assimil: Japanese with Ease is basically a direct translation of the French "sans Peine". I have both versions, and the English is often very literally translated from the French with no changes to structure and some awkward vocab choices. In the French version they use imprégner which is more often used figuratively than "inseminate" is.

I think it's a good course, but the English version seems to have been very sloppily, literally adapted from the French. I don't think it's fair to use that to judge the quality of the Japanese.
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genini1
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Posts: 93
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Languages: English (N), Japanese
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Re: Japanese Language Log

Postby genini1 » Sat Aug 14, 2021 1:15 am

bolaobo wrote:
genini1 wrote:The course made several choices I'm not a fan of in terms of vocabulary and grammar and most importantly when I got to the last part of the first book it congratulated me on being, 'inseminated with Japanese.' It's sort of difficult for me to trust the decisions they are making when it comes to learning Japanese when they use English like that. I definitely don't want to go around Japan and tell people the equivalent of 'I'm inseminating you' by mistake.


I know this is an old post, but keep in mind that Assimil: Japanese with Ease is basically a direct translation of the French "sans Peine". I have both versions, and the English is often very literally translated from the French with no changes to structure and some awkward vocab choices. In the French version they use imprégner which is more often used figuratively than "inseminate" is.

I think it's a good course, but the English version seems to have been very sloppily, literally adapted from the French. I don't think it's fair to use that to judge the quality of the Japanese.


The issue for me is that I don't know the Japanese well enough to judge it. It could be perfect or it could have small errors, but as a language learner I have to take it on faith that they are correct. The English I do know well enough to judge though and the English is pretty sloppy. If I'm being fair the product is perfectly useable and I'm sure theres no huge issues, but I have so many other resources that dropping one that is somewhat sloppy seams reasonable.
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bolaobo
Orange Belt
Posts: 237
Joined: Fri Mar 05, 2021 5:48 pm
Location: Pennsylvania
Languages: English (N), Mandarin Chinese, German, French
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... 15&t=19845
x 1089

Re: Japanese Language Log

Postby bolaobo » Sat Aug 14, 2021 12:54 pm

genini1 wrote:
bolaobo wrote:
genini1 wrote:The course made several choices I'm not a fan of in terms of vocabulary and grammar and most importantly when I got to the last part of the first book it congratulated me on being, 'inseminated with Japanese.' It's sort of difficult for me to trust the decisions they are making when it comes to learning Japanese when they use English like that. I definitely don't want to go around Japan and tell people the equivalent of 'I'm inseminating you' by mistake.


I know this is an old post, but keep in mind that Assimil: Japanese with Ease is basically a direct translation of the French "sans Peine". I have both versions, and the English is often very literally translated from the French with no changes to structure and some awkward vocab choices. In the French version they use imprégner which is more often used figuratively than "inseminate" is.

I think it's a good course, but the English version seems to have been very sloppily, literally adapted from the French. I don't think it's fair to use that to judge the quality of the Japanese.


The issue for me is that I don't know the Japanese well enough to judge it. It could be perfect or it could have small errors, but as a language learner I have to take it on faith that they are correct. The English I do know well enough to judge though and the English is pretty sloppy. If I'm being fair the product is perfectly useable and I'm sure theres no huge issues, but I have so many other resources that dropping one that is somewhat sloppy seams reasonable.


Fair enough, you seem to have made great progress since then. Congrats!
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Perfectionnement Arabe: 11 / 70 New Arabic Grammar: 30 / 51
Le Grec Ancien: 15 / 101
Hindi ohne Mühe: 44 / 54
Le Persan: 85 / 86
Le Turc: 19 / 71
Tobira: 3 / 15

genini1
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Re: Japanese Language Log

Postby genini1 » Sun Aug 29, 2021 3:14 pm

It's been a pretty busy time for me so I haven't achieved as much as I would like since last posting. I moved at the end of July and I've been working quite a bit more, but I still try to make time. Unfortunately as far as reading goes I only made it through half of the first volume of Bofuri: I Don't Want to Get Hurt, so I'll Max Out My Defense. (痛いのは嫌なので防御力に極振りしたいと思います) The novel itself isn't particularly difficult, but it does have a lot of video game terms, fantasy terms, as well as generally made up terms for the novel which slowed me down. Mostly I've been reading manga instead though. I've been hopping around in my collection, but I've been trying to read a volume a day which I've been able to mostly accomplish. My hope is that with September my schedule will cooperate more and I'll be able to get more time to read books, but if not I'll have to see about trying to force it somehow.
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genini1
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Re: Japanese Language Log

Postby genini1 » Fri Oct 01, 2021 2:55 pm

Occasionally in my studies I will come across a sentence or word that just makes me stop and think, 'what the heck is that?' and yesterday it was a sentence from a Udemy lesson. Specifically it was その仕事は一気に終わらせなければならないですか。Or more specifically the 終わらせなければならない part which is a single word that has had multiple endings tacked on to it including a conditional, asking permission, and the causative. It's not particularly hard when you sit down and break it down, but the thought of trying to figure it out when someone says it is still far beyond me. Even written down with a translation it took like 5 minutes to break it down.

Otherwise my studies for the last month have been iffy unfortunately. I have been having problems at work with staffing and when that happens I have to pick up the slack which means more hours. The good news is that it seems to be resolved now so hopefully I have more time. I haven't been completely idle though and have made time for 30 minutes a day of reading Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire which is where I left off in the series after reading the first three volumes in Japanese. This one is longer than the last three at almost twice the word count of the last book, but it's still reasonably interesting. It's odd going back to an actual novel after reading so many light novels as the writing style is fairly different, but it's better really.

I've also been doing various study programs as I have time. Specifically I have some JLPT courses on Udemy that I have been going through again. They aren't amazing, but being able to hear all the grammar points is nice for reinforcing and you can't have too much reinforcement in my opinion. I also signed up for jpod101 again to have some more audio background noise in general. Not sure how much it helps, but it can't really hurt.

For the upcoming month I want to set a more hardcore goal though to try and get back into learning again. To that end I've set a personal goal of 3 episodes of anime (or tv in general) a day, 1 volume of manga a day, and 10% of a light novel each day. Depending on the difficulty of the work chosen that's 3-5 hours a day which is doable, but a stretch for me, but I'm determined to turn October back into learning a lot month.
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genini1
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Re: Japanese Language Log

Postby genini1 » Sun Oct 10, 2021 6:13 pm

The next day after posting my new daily goal it became obvious that I overreached again which is something of a bad habit. I gave up on reading a manga per day but kept my 3 episodes of TV and 10% of a novel goal which I've managed to reach every day. For TV I've been flitting about watching different animes trying to find something that catches my attention, but so far nothing has been particularly great. Depending on the show I can mostly understand it without any subtitles though which is pretty nice. For books I read Kuma Kuma Kuma Bear volume 10 which wasn't bad but wasn't great either. It was pretty easy though which is what I usually look for in that series.

Speaking of books Amazon.jp is currently (through 10/14/21 Japan time) having a sale on kindle books. Some of them are 50% off so I picked up a few well known light novels that I had my eye on reading at least eventually. Specifically I picked up この素晴らしい世界に祝福を, 幼女戦記, and やはり俺の青春ラブコメはまちがっている (as well as some others) which were on sale for like $3 per volume. I'll probably look through and see if they have anything else interesting, but there's thousands of light novels and a lot of them are pretty bad really.
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genini1
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Re: Japanese Language Log

Postby genini1 » Mon Nov 01, 2021 4:51 pm

October ended up being a pretty good month. I had to adjust my original prospects from the beginning, but I ended up following through to the end of the month finishing Kuma Kuma Bear volume 10, Amagi Brilliant Park Volume 2, and Harry Potter 1 and 2. The Harry Potter novels I had already read in Japanese, but I wanted to reread them and you can't have too much reinforcement in my opinion. It also worked as sort of a self test to see how much vocabulary I actually remembered from the first go through almost a year ago and I had most of it down. I averaged about 3 look ups per page about half of which were from not remembering the reading but knowing the meaning.

I also watched a lot of anime although most of that was watching the first few episodes of something before moving on to something else. I got through about 20 episodes of Naruto before I just got bored and had to quit which is what happened the last time I tried to watch it too although I only lasted like 5 episodes last time. I did enjoy Mushoku Tensei which is currently airing, but there were only 12 episodes out when I was watched it which was only 4 days (I watched 3 episodes per day).

For November I am going to try and read some of the books I bought last month from the light novel sale (which amazon.jp is doing again until the 11th if anyone is interested). I have a bad habit of buying things and then not using them which I'm trying to kick. Particularly since I just reread Harry Potter again rather than any of the brand new books I literally just bought.
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genini1
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Posts: 93
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Re: Japanese Language Log

Postby genini1 » Thu Dec 02, 2021 3:42 pm

The last month really sort of flew by for me. Between work, holidays, and other things going down I had less time than I usually have for my hobbies, but I tried to continue October's trend. Specifically I tried to get Anki (which is a flashcard system for anyone who might not know) to work for me. Previously I've tried several times, but generally gave up after a few days because I found making the cards to be too tedious. I still find making the cards tedious, but my current method has basically been to find the first 10 sentences a day I don't immediately know and put that on the front with the English translation on the back. My hope is that by using the method I can increase my reading speed. In particular I want to be able to immediately recognize common words and phrases without having to think about them at all like I do in English. I can do this with some words/phrases and Japanese already, but if I want to read for enjoyment I'll have to get a lot faster.

For TV unfortunately my VPN no longer seems to work with netflix so I've been trying to work with the few series on netflix that have both Japanese audio and subtitles. Specifically I've been watching Komi Can't Communicate (古見さんは、コミュ症です) which is a pretty cute anime about a girl who has problems speaking due to anxiety. Very much a slice of life anime, but probably one of the best I've found.
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genini1
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End of Year Recap Spectacular Bonanza

Postby genini1 » Sat Jan 01, 2022 3:40 pm

The year has officially come to a close and now begins the time for reflection and self-recrimination.

My original goal at the start of the year was to pass the JLPT N2 exam, to read one book per week, to read 1 volume of manga per day, and to watch one episode of TV per day. As with most of the goals I've set this proved to be way more than I was actually willing to do and so I failed most of it pretty hard. With Covid still ongoing taking the JLPT exam is somewhat difficult so I didn't even attempt the test, but after taking a practice test and going through review books I feel safe in saying I wouldn't have passed anyway. For media I had to sit down and try to remember what I actually read/watched, but I only ended up at around 40 volumes of manga, 15 books, and some TV episodes (which I find harder to classify because I've watched a lot that I didn't really understand so do I count that?) which puts me well shy of the goal.

As for successes though I completed the 2021 Language Learning Challenge to spend at least 30 minutes a day on learning with only 3 days missed early in the year. There were quite a few times I spent just 30 minutes reading before bed to get the time in, but it still counts.

For the year going forward I have set myself a simpler and easier goal which is to read one book per week. This is still a stretch from what I am doing now, but is much more attainable than last years goal. In addition I want to increase my technical proficiency with more review books so I'll be going through the shin kanzen master N2 series.

I've also been wanting to begin study of another language, but don't want to detract from my Japanese studies. I have no particular need for another language and getting to fluency in Japanese would be the most helpful at this point since I could enjoy media more then. If I can stick with spending more time studying then I might add some amount of additional language studies this year. 30 minutes a day of German would be the most likely.
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genini1
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Languages: English (N), Japanese
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Re: Japanese Language Log

Postby genini1 » Sun Jan 09, 2022 4:22 pm

First week done and book one finished.
Book 1: 豚公爵に転生したから、今度は君に好きと言いたい or Because I’ve Been Reincarnated as the Piggy Duke, This Time I Will Say I Like You Volume 1.
I'd previously read the book in English and knew that it was fairly simple so I decided to start with this series for my reading goals for the year. The book itself is a very typical wish fulfillment isekai story so don't go into it expecting anything ground breaking, but it's generally fun. Trying to read the magic/fantasy elements was somewhat of a pain, but it's not as bad as Overlord or Re:Zero even. It's a more difficult book than the Kuma Kuma series, but one I'd still put in the good for people starting out to read.

For the next week I'll be reading Volume 2 and will continue until I either hit Volume 10 (the most current) or get bored and try a new series.

I've also restarted my German studies. I picked up a book German Grammar for Beginners by My Daily German off of amazon and have been doing one lesson (30 total) each day. I spent 2 semesters in high school learning German, but that was over 15 years ago and my memory of the language is spotty so I'm starting over from the beginning. I remember the alphabet, how to pronounce everything, articles, and a smattering of vocabulary but some of the things I've totally forgotten like how to decline adjectives and the like so to the beginning I go. German is very much a side project though so I'm devoting 30 minutes a day to it, but no more.
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