Kelvin's RU, JP, ESP log <- In this order

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dampingwire
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Re: Kelvin's JP, ESP, RU log: Looking for a better title to this log

Postby dampingwire » Wed May 05, 2021 11:27 pm

kelvin921019 wrote:Quick update

The language learning has become more and more tougher for me (as expected and foreseen), just a quick summary of why things are spiraling out of control (will update the full details later)
- Going through 5-6 grammatical N2 items everyday is demanding
- I start forgetting quite a lot N2 words (the forget rate is around 10% daily)


I found that the easiest way (for me, at least) to get the grammar patterns into my head (a little bit more than before) was to drop the sentences from 日本語総まとめ, 新完全マスター and みんなの日本語 into Anki and work my way through them. The first two I found ready made (as CSV files iirc) on a forum somewhere, although I did have to enter みんなの日本語 ones by hand (so I only have the ones I found interesting or had worked through in a tutorial). 15,000+ active sentences does help to cement in a bunch of patterns (and it helps with vocab too).
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新完全マスター N2聴解 : 94 / 103新完全マスター N2読解 : 99 / 177
新完全マスター N2文法 : 197 / 197TY Comp. German : 0 / 389

kelvin921019
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Languages: Cantonese (N)
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Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... 15&t=16306
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Re: Kelvin's JP, ESP, RU log: Looking for a better title to this log

Postby kelvin921019 » Thu May 06, 2021 3:40 am

dampingwire wrote:
kelvin921019 wrote:Quick update

The language learning has become more and more tougher for me (as expected and foreseen), just a quick summary of why things are spiraling out of control (will update the full details later)
- Going through 5-6 grammatical N2 items everyday is demanding
- I start forgetting quite a lot N2 words (the forget rate is around 10% daily)


I found that the easiest way (for me, at least) to get the grammar patterns into my head (a little bit more than before) was to drop the sentences from 日本語総まとめ, 新完全マスター and みんなの日本語 into Anki and work my way through them. The first two I found ready made (as CSV files iirc) on a forum somewhere, although I did have to enter みんなの日本語 ones by hand (so I only have the ones I found interesting or had worked through in a tutorial). 15,000+ active sentences does help to cement in a bunch of patterns (and it helps with vocab too).


Thank you!
Indeed I have left the revision task to the magic anki. One of my deck is just a home-made translation -> Tobira / 新完全マスター selected sentence cards (because doing back and forth translation of all 20+ sentences for each chapter everyday + all the revisions will probably break me). My work flow will be (1) do the exercises and read the chapter (2) doing forward translation and backward translation on a google doc (3) throw the translated sentences into anki

What frustrates me the most is the tight schedule which I have "accidentally" decided to follow as I have decided to take N2 exam this July. So I can only cram all the things into my head within a rather short period of time :lol: :lol: What worse is that the grammatical items are more subtle and the difference between the items / expressions become finer and finer so it takes more effort absorbing these materials.
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golyplot
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Re: Kelvin's JP, ESP, RU log: Looking for a better title to this log

Postby golyplot » Thu May 06, 2021 1:59 pm

kelvin921019 wrote:The language learning has become more and more tougher for me


* Language learning has gotten tougher and tougher for me. ("Become" is also acceptable here but sounds a bit more formal. You don't need the "the" here, and "more and more tougher" is a big mistake.)


kelvin921019 wrote:Russian also starts to ramp up its difficulty.


* Russian is also starting to ramp up its difficulty.

kelvin921019 wrote:Worse things is that I now slacked quite a lot because I have spent excessive amount of time on anime and youtube. It can be useful but the fact is that since I can start enjoying anime without sub (comprehension rate of about 80%+) I started exploring a larger library uncontrollably. That compromise all the serious studies.


* The worst thing is that I've been slacking quite a lot because I've been spending excessive amounts of time on anime and Youtube. It can be useful, but the fact is that since I can now enjoy anime without subtitles, I've started exploring a larger library uncontrollably. That compromises all my serious study plans. ("Uncontrollably" sounds a bit weird here, but I'm not sure if there's a better way to say it without rephrasing things)


P.S. There's no shame in watching lots of anime. You aren't compromising your studies, because that is studying!
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kelvin921019
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Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... 15&t=16306
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Re: Kelvin's JP, ESP, RU log: Looking for a better title to this log

Postby kelvin921019 » Thu May 06, 2021 5:19 pm

Japanese
[thank @golyplot for the corrections, the amount of basic grammatical errors I have committed is a perfect illustration of my recent lack of attention in basically everything. I am recently watching ようこそ実力至上主義の教室へ]

Originally I wished to talk a bit about my N2 studies but it's pretty much the same as my N3 schedule except that I have to double the effort in the studies because things are less straight forward. One big problem is that about 50% of the N2 grammatical items I've so far learned are rather 硬い. It means that unless I start reading some serious books in Japanese now it's rather unlikely that I will bump into these items in anime or by reading youtube chat comment or articles. It also means that I have to rely heavily on the magic of Anki.

One thing I tried is to watch news on youtube. Both the vocabulary and the grammatical items used are rather 硬い, but in the meantime they're still too difficult for me. Or alternatively I just rely on the Chinese and Japaness cognates.

I think I have around 80% comprehension rate for Anime without sub. As compared to Spanish, I can easily distinguish between syllables and I can easily identify the words that I know and those I don't. The next step I think I should move onto TV series because no one speak like those characters in Anime. I'm not talking about the extremely "cute" voice and unusual mannerism. I'm referring to the fact that the character speaks clearly in Anime but in real life people tends to slur thing with a lot of colloquialism.
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kelvin921019
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Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... 15&t=16306
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Re: Kelvin's JP, ESP, RU log: Looking for a better title to this log

Postby kelvin921019 » Tue May 18, 2021 2:45 am

Short Update
I now continue the traditional of complaining my workload

I think I have underestimated the effort spent on meeting my schedule (once again). Everyday I spend 1 hour just creating the cards from the "2500 (but actually 1500) vocab" book and another 1 hour working on Russian.

I hope I can complete chapter 17 (or hopefully 18) of the Penguin book (I also need to read up a bit on verb of motion and the declension of numbers) before going full speed into Assimil.

I'm still finding space to do the listening and reading NKZM. Perhaps I'm going not to spread the workload across days but to do them during weekends.
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kelvin921019
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Languages: Cantonese (N)
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Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... 15&t=16306
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Re: Kelvin's JP, ESP, RU log: Looking for a better title to this log

Postby kelvin921019 » Wed May 19, 2021 10:49 am

Japanese: NKZM N2, N2 2500 vocab
Spanish: Reviewing B2 materials
Russian: NPRC, Pimsleur 2


Finally I have time to do a general update on every languages. I am now hitting quite a lot of set backs in every languages (including English, which I realize that I need to find sometime in the future to work hard on it and deal with all possible stupid mistakes.

Japanese
I have whined quite a number of time that N2 stuff are pretty difficult. I am now only anticipating a safe pass but not high score on July. I have finished studying all individual grammar items in N2 NKZM and now halfway through the 2500 (but actually 1500) vocab book. I rely heavily on anki but the stat tells me that I am struggling (12% of "again").

I havn't had much speaking practice as it's quite difficult to book a lesson with my tutor recently (he's quite fully booked) but I have spent quite a lot of time absorbing native materials a.k.a. binge watching anime.

Spanish (I'm going to write in English for efficiency)
I have notice something on my listening. I was watching quite a lot of telefe segments recently and I noticed that I can comprehend like 80-90% of what new anchors / youtubers say but almost nothing by a ordinary citizen interviewee. I am finding a way to absorb more Spanish spoken by ordinary people otherwise I might face a lot of problem if I go to Spanish speaking countries one-day. It's not problem of vocabulary (just partly) because I understand what they're saying if there's subtitles.

Another thing is that my speaking is still a mess. I have almost 50 hours of speaking practice since the start (which turn out to be little) but I can't form sentence longer than simple ones correctly. The fact is that I can't process the correct structure (in particular the tenses and the IO/DO) when it starts to get a bit complex. This is a major problem I need to deal with if I wish to get to C1 because I may need to give spontaneous response instead of prepared speech (which is less of a problem to me).

Russian
I manage to deal with a A1 DELE paper and a N5 paper after 4 months of work in Spanish and Japanese but it's clearly not the case for Russian. I tried some internet A1 Russian tests and I can barely finish 2 questions. It really shows the problem of a language without "anchor". I managed to finish A1 paper after I have finished Lingodeer part 1 of Spanish + halfway through Pimsleur 2 (of course with extra reading) and therefore it's normal to expect I can do the same after 14 chapters of Penguin and halfway through Pimsleur 2. It's clearly not the case. I'm going to try again after I have completed Pimsleur 2 and perhaps 17 to 18 chapters of Russian.

Up till now, what bothers me the most is not the grammar, which to me makes more sense than English actually, but instead the vocabulary which I can only remember them without any "help" from English or Chinese (or Spanish / Japanese). Of course listening is definitely something I need to work extremely hard on because my ears aren't accustomed to spotting the declension. I hope Assimil will do the magic.

After Assimil, my current plan would be:
- Complete the rest of NPRC
- Work on "русский язык в упражнениях" (it takes me 30 seconds to figure out the prepositional plural of "exercise")
- Complete a reader (A2 level) - likely to be "Short Stories in Russian for Beginners" (or if there's any other better book?)
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kelvin921019
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Languages: Cantonese (N)
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Re: Kelvin's JP, ESP, RU log: Looking for a better title to this log

Postby kelvin921019 » Mon Jun 07, 2021 6:21 am

Japanese: NKZM N2, N2 2500 vocab
Spanish: ???
Russian: NPRC, Pimsleur 2


I recently got my first dose of vaccine and what came after is 1 full week of tiredness. I'm also overwhelmed by work and hardly has time to update this log. It's also mainly because there's nothing to update. I have been faithfully following my own designed schedule and it's going a little bit smoother than expected. I should have about 10 days to work on past exam papers before the actual exam.

After 4 July (the JLPT exam day), I will probably take 1 to 2 weeks to "cool down" my anki decks (I'm working on 200+ reviews everyday for Japanese) before moving on to Assimil Russian. I am still a bit scare about whether Assimil Russian would be effective or not because the language is exceptionally difficult.

I'm currently trying some native-oriented informative podcast in Japanese. Quite surprise to find that I can following the discussion (better than Spanish) except I cannot understand almost every technical terms even if the topic they're discussing is one I am quite familiar with :lol: :lol:
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kelvin921019
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Re: Kelvin's JP, ESP, RU log: Looking for a better title to this log

Postby kelvin921019 » Tue Jun 08, 2021 2:31 am

short update on N2 NKZM
I have finally finished NKZM N2 book with 16/22 and 17/22 for the final 2 test. I think I can answer about 50% of the answer with confidence but the rest I rely on my hunch. Not good but not bad taking into account I have only started N2 materials 3 months ago.

I still don't have a clear idea of the grammatical items. Although I have tried using bidirectional translation with Anki, my brain simply can't fully digest that much grammatical items at all. I would say the Japanese "grammar" is shallow but broad. By shallow I mean that there are only a few building blocks and are quite straight forward and by broad I mean they rely heavily on 文型 (sentence patterns) to express things that are sometimes straight forward in other languages.

It is also worth mentioning the fuzzy nature between 文型 (sentence patterns) and vocabularies. In Tobira they often count certain interjections or adverbs as 文型 (e.g. 結構) but these adverbs are sometimes count as a vocabulary item. Anyway, it's just whining on how difficult this language is.
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dampingwire
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Re: Kelvin's JP, ESP, RU log: Looking for a better title to this log

Postby dampingwire » Tue Jun 15, 2021 9:54 pm

kelvin921019 wrote:I still don't have a clear idea of the grammatical items. Although I have tried using bidirectional translation with Anki, my brain simply can't fully digest that much grammatical items at all.


I entered all the KZM N2 sentences (and N1 and N3 sentences) into Anki. That helped with knowing what the grammar item is supposed to mean. I'm not sure it helped with all the subtleties, but at least when I come across an N2 piece of grammar I at least know roughly what the sentence is trying to say. That also helps with the multiple choice questions as I can usually eliminate a couple of options immediately.
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新完全マスター N2聴解 : 94 / 103新完全マスター N2読解 : 99 / 177
新完全マスター N2文法 : 197 / 197TY Comp. German : 0 / 389

kelvin921019
Green Belt
Posts: 388
Joined: Mon Apr 13, 2020 12:11 pm
Location: Hong Kong
Languages: Cantonese (N)
Chinese Mandarin (Semi-Native)
English (C1-2)
Spanish (B2)
Japanese (N1)
Russian (B1)
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... 15&t=16306
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Re: Kelvin's JP, ESP, RU log: Looking for a better title to this log

Postby kelvin921019 » Thu Jun 17, 2021 3:40 am

dampingwire wrote:
kelvin921019 wrote:I still don't have a clear idea of the grammatical items. Although I have tried using bidirectional translation with Anki, my brain simply can't fully digest that much grammatical items at all.


I entered all the KZM N2 sentences (and N1 and N3 sentences) into Anki. That helped with knowing what the grammar item is supposed to mean. I'm not sure it helped with all the subtleties, but at least when I come across an N2 piece of grammar I at least know roughly what the sentence is trying to say. That also helps with the multiple choice questions as I can usually eliminate a couple of options immediately.


Thank you!
I have been working on "500 Practice Questions for the JLPT" book and it is a helpful review of the learnt grammatical items. The questions are simple enough to help me consolidate the learnt grammatical items (at least in terms of recognition) and fill the gaps in my knowledge because apparently even KZM N2 does not cover all items appear in the N2 Soumatome / other popular JLPT prep books.
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