Japanese Language Log

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genini1
Yellow Belt
Posts: 93
Joined: Mon Aug 24, 2020 12:21 am
Languages: English (N), Japanese
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Re: Japanese Language Log

Postby genini1 » Tue Jan 18, 2022 4:40 pm

My German studies are progressing slowly, but steadily. I've set aside 30 minutes a day that I split into two 15 minute blocks. 15 minutes I spend on grammar exercises and the like while I spend the second 15 minutes on learning words from a frequency list to increase my vocabulary. Most of the grammar is still just review which makes it a lot easier, but I'm also not in a huge hurry so the rate I'm learning is fine for the moment.

For Japanese I finished Reincarnated as the Piggy Duke Volume 2 which was basically the same as the first volume in terms of complexity. As usual the sections about magic were a lot harder than the general story, but not too bad. It's kind of interesting how some fantasy novels are more difficult in their fantasy aspects than others. Harry Potter for example was fairly easy to read magic wise because it never really tries to explain magic and when it is used it's almost always in essentially English words. Piggy Duke however goes much further in depth and uses a lot more traditionally Japanese words and the like.

For the next week I am planning to continue my German studies at 30 minutes a day and read Volume 3 of the Piggy Duke series. I've also been doing some of my review books for the JLPT as I have time/inclination.
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genini1
Yellow Belt
Posts: 93
Joined: Mon Aug 24, 2020 12:21 am
Languages: English (N), Japanese
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Re: Japanese Language Log

Postby genini1 » Wed Mar 02, 2022 3:59 pm

It's been about six weeks since I updated my log and that's mostly because there wasn't much to update. Life got in the way with a new business venture, a vacation, and some other general things which led to my dropping German again. Eventually I'll pick it back up, but at the moment a lack of time and lack of driving interest make it easy to set aside.

For Japanese all I've really done was listen to music/TV shows in the background while doing other things plus my general reading. Specifically I read the first three volumes of 私、能力は平均値でって言ったよね! (Didn't I say to make my abilities average in the next life) which is a fun light novel. It's one of the easiest in terms of vocabulary/grammar only being beaten by Kuma Kuma Kuma Bear in my experience, but is better written than Kuma Kuma. Highly recommend it for those looking to get into reading light novels. I also read 賢者の弟子を名乗る賢者 (She professed herself pupil of the Wise Man) and ティアムーン帝国物語 ~断頭台から始まる、姫の転生逆転ストーリー (Tearmoon Empire) neither of which were very good so I stopped after a single volume. As a side note the naming conventions of Japanese light novels is very odd. They are often extremely long titles requiring 10-20 words in English, but what is even odder to me are the changes that happen in translation. She professed herself pupil of the wise man is almost a 1 to 1 translation of the original title, but Tearmoon Empire as a title leaves off quite a bit of the original.
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genini1
Yellow Belt
Posts: 93
Joined: Mon Aug 24, 2020 12:21 am
Languages: English (N), Japanese
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Re: Japanese Language Log

Postby genini1 » Sun Apr 03, 2022 4:36 pm

The past month hasn't been worth much for language learning due to a trip out to Las Vegas for a convention and a bender of reading English novels. I found one of those top 100 books lists and I'd read quite a few of them already, but decided to reread the few I particularly enjoyed (Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Animal Farm, Game of Thrones) and read the others that were listed, but never picked up before like Jurassic Park which was a lot better than I expected it to be. Some of the scifi/fantasy stuff was at least solid, if dated, like the Hyperion Cantos or the Dragonriders of Pern and a few were headscratchers that I thought were awful like the Earthsea Cycle.

For language learning I did a bit. Generally I do all my reading on my kindle, but I didn't have it on my trip so I read the second Harry Potter book on my phone which I have on there somehow. I didn't finish it, but read a decent chunk while I was sitting around at various times. I also read through Kuma Kuma Kuma Bear again after Golyplot mentioned starting it. This time going through for intensive reading rather than extensive as I usually do. I marked out all the words I didn't know and made a gold list for them and did similar with any grammar I didn't recognize. There wasn't a ton grammatically, but there were enough words I still didn't know that it was frustrating since this is my third read through of the book. In particular a word like 果汁 (kajyuu, meaning fruit juice) was bad because it shows up about 20 times in the book and isn't a difficult word yet I kept messing it up. I ended up writing it out 50 times to try and force myself to remember it which seems to have worked. That or I just got so frustrated it burned itself in to my memory. Either or really.
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golyplot
Black Belt - 1st Dan
Posts: 1726
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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 Language Log

Postby golyplot » Sun Apr 03, 2022 10:49 pm

Did you try jpdb.io? It has a deck with vocab from Kuma Kuma Kuma Bear, although I haven't tried it myself.
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genini1
Yellow Belt
Posts: 93
Joined: Mon Aug 24, 2020 12:21 am
Languages: English (N), Japanese
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Re: Japanese Language Log

Postby genini1 » Mon Apr 04, 2022 1:38 pm

golyplot wrote:Did you try jpdb.io? It has a deck with vocab from Kuma Kuma Kuma Bear, although I haven't tried it myself.


I've never seen that one specifically, but I've looked into similar before. I've just never been able to keep up the anki habit so it always ends up being a few hours of setting things up and then giving up after a day or two. Usually just writing things down in my notebook is enough to get me to at least remember a word in the same context I've seen it previously.
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genini1
Yellow Belt
Posts: 93
Joined: Mon Aug 24, 2020 12:21 am
Languages: English (N), Japanese
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Re: Japanese Language Log

Postby genini1 » Sat Apr 09, 2022 4:15 pm

For this week I read Kuma Kuma Kuma Bear Volume 2 again which didn't take very long. There were a few words I didn't remember, but overall only a few I actually needed to look up. 果汁 came up multiple times again which made me glad I went out of my way to remember it. I also had a bit of an issue with 昼食 and 朝食 which mean lunch and breakfast respectively and are pronounced cyuusyoku and cyousyoku. They are quite common in books so I learned them quite awhile ago, but I started mixing them up and then once I started mixing them up I'd doubt my memory even when I thought I was right about them and look them up again. Not the biggest deal in the world since I can always remember which one means what, but the readings tripping me up always slows me down.

I also read Farming Life in Another World (異世界のんびり農家) which was a fun read. The premise being someone is moved to another world and all the want to do there is farm and is giving a magical tool for it. It had a lot of vocabulary I didn't know so I'll have to go back through and reread it at some point to solidify it. Words for hoe, drill, sawdust, big tree, saw, axe, seeds were very common. The grammar was pretty simple though.
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golyplot
Black Belt - 1st Dan
Posts: 1726
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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 Language Log

Postby golyplot » Sat Apr 09, 2022 4:57 pm

I wonder if the fact that 朝 looks similar to 潮 would make it easier to remember? I guess I had the advantage that I learned 朝食 long before I encountered 昼食 for some reason.

Then again, I'm not one to talk, since I recently mixed up 石 and 右. :oops:
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genini1
Yellow Belt
Posts: 93
Joined: Mon Aug 24, 2020 12:21 am
Languages: English (N), Japanese
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Re: Japanese Language Log

Postby genini1 » Wed Apr 27, 2022 1:23 pm

Recently I've been considering my strengths and weaknesses in Japanese and came to the conclusion that vocabulary is currently my biggest problem. While I still regularly encounter grammar I don't know in my readings I generally have to look up 5-10 words per page in each book I am reading. With the kindle this is fairly quick as it takes about 3 seconds, but 30 seconds per page over 200 hundred pages is almost two hours extra per book with just looking up vocabulary. Particularly frustrating are the words I am not 100% on. Often I will recognize a word and its meaning, but not its reading or I will remember the reading, but am not certain I am remembering it correctly. In these situations I have to stop and look the word up to make sure I'm remembering correctly as I don't want to reinforce a false reading (which I have done before).

I spoke with another learner about this problem and they recommended Anki to me. Since my goal is to become familiar with a lot of vocabulary and to become confident with their readings it was probably the perfect thing. I've tried it in the past, but always gave it up after a few days as either boring or not helpful enough. Since it seems like the best thing for me at the moment I've been devoting more time to it and less to my usual reading activities. Specifically I downloaded an N3 vocabulary deck with about 1,000 cards to learn and have been going through that. About half the words are ones I already know with about a quarter of the cards being ones I know the reading of or know the meaning, but not the reading. The remainder I have to try and memorize, but a lot of those are ones I at least vaguely recognize from my readings.

For reading I only read the first two volumes of My Hero Academia. I recently picked the set up and while I generally prefer to only read completed manga I watched a lot of the show trying to train my listening so I figured I might as well give it a go and see how different it is from the aime.
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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 Language Log

Postby golyplot » Wed Apr 27, 2022 1:35 pm

Have you considered JPDB.io? I like it a lot better than Anki, and it also has pre-made vocabulary decks for a lot of web novels, as well as N3, etc. decks.
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genini1
Yellow Belt
Posts: 93
Joined: Mon Aug 24, 2020 12:21 am
Languages: English (N), Japanese
x 305

Re: Japanese Language Log

Postby genini1 » Wed Apr 27, 2022 3:44 pm

golyplot wrote:Have you considered JPDB.io? I like it a lot better than Anki, and it also has pre-made vocabulary decks for a lot of web novels, as well as N3, etc. decks.


I didn't know they did that. I knew that it ranked anime/novels and had some pre-made vocab decks for them, but I hadn't known they actually had an srs type deal.
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