Sumisu's Japanese Log

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Sumisu
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Re: Sumisu's Japanese Log

Postby Sumisu » Sun Dec 19, 2021 3:51 am

I've been putting off studying my Intermediate Japanese textbook, because I decided I wanted to create Anki cards for the two chapters that I'd finished before moving on. Then I realized that I still haven't gotten around to creating cards for Genki Chapters 19-23. I've always used a pre-made deck for Genki, but it unfortunately only covers the first 18 chapters. So now a month has gone by because I've been dreading creating all of these cards. Today I finally began. I created about 15 cards covering Chapter 19, selecting sentences with unfamiliar vocabulary and/or kanji. The whole process probably took about 30 minutes. It was a good use of time because simply re-reading all of these sentences is good practice, and now I know I'll be seeing them again repeatedly until the end of time I stop using Anki.

With six chapters left to go, I could be finished with this in just one week, with only 30 minutes of work per day. The hardest part for a procrastinator like myself is always getting started. I got started today; hopefully I'll keep pushing forward from here.
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Sumisu
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Re: Sumisu's Japanese Log

Postby Sumisu » Thu Dec 23, 2021 3:57 am

I finished making Anki cards for Genki Chapters 20 and 21 over the last couple of days: three chapters down, four to go. I also found a cool news story that links to this article:

https://sousaku-kanji.com

It's a contest where people use their creativity to create new kanji (創作: original/creative work). Both of the winners were really creative, but I loved the one from the 6-year-old:

img_12th_01-2.gif


The reading he gave it is にじ, which is the word for rainbow. So it's the number 7 plus 色 (color): 7 colors. However, scrolling through the runners-up made my head hurt, as it gets quite a bit more complicated and nuanced.
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golyplot
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Re: Sumisu's Japanese Log

Postby golyplot » Thu Dec 23, 2021 6:25 am

My favorite custom kanji was the "social distancing" kanji someone made last year which modified the sit kanji (座) by having the two people sitting on opposite corners.
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Sumisu
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Re: Sumisu's Japanese Log

Postby Sumisu » Thu Dec 23, 2021 9:27 pm

golyplot wrote:My favorite custom kanji was the "social distancing" kanji someone made last year which modified the sit kanji (座) by having the two people sitting on opposite corners.


I think I may have seen that one now that you mention it. There was also a "kanji of the year" that happened in the last week or two, but it was 金, which I thought was kind of boring, although it makes sense given the Olympics.
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Sumisu
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Re: Sumisu's Japanese Log

Postby Sumisu » Sun Jan 02, 2022 12:42 am

I've finally finished making Anki cards for the seven chapters of Genki and Intermediate Japanese that needed to be done, so I can now begin Chapter 3 of Intermediate Japanese. Unfortunately I'm still behind on creating cards from my last italki lesson from two weeks ago, so that's still hanging over my head. I did the vast majority of this work while on vacation with family last week, and I've slowed down considerably since then. It was good to spend a good two to three hours a day, maybe even more, doing intensive study and reading. I could feel my Japanese improving almost right before my eyes. Now that I'm back home with all of my normal responsibilities I won't have as much time, but I'm going to try to remember this feeling of improvement, and will try to fit in some longer study sessions if an opportunity to do so presents itself.
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kraemder
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Re: Sumisu's Japanese Log

Postby kraemder » Sun Jan 02, 2022 6:01 am

Sumisu wrote:
golyplot wrote:It's funny how the brain works. Part of our lesson involves me reading texts that I've never seen before and today, while I was able to read many more complex kanji, I accidentally read 万 ("man"=10,000) as 五 ("go"=5). I've known both of these characters literally since day one, as has any Japanese learner. But that's what I love about italki or any other interaction with a native speaker. Sometimes you produce a crazy obscure word out of nowhere and surprise yourself, and other times your mind goes blank trying to think of the very simplest thing. It's a great way to get a handle on what level you're at.


I consider myself pretty fluent at Japanese (I don't sound great but I can talk your ear off). Except when my mind blanks on occasion. I still wonder why I'll forget a word like 電車 still mid conversation of all the words I could forget.
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Sumisu
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Re: Sumisu's Japanese Log

Postby Sumisu » Mon Jan 10, 2022 1:27 am

I had the minor milestone this morning of coming across the word 行脚 (あんぎゃ: walking tour; traveling (on foot); pilgrimage). The あん reading for 行 was the last I hadn't encountered, and I now know words for all of the on and kun readings for this kanji. What was even better though, was I ended up using this word during my italki lesson this morning, so hopefully it will stick without me having to create a new Anki card. My teacher was impressed that I produced this somewhat unusual word, although I stumbled around as usual for much of the rest of the lesson.
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Sumisu
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Re: Sumisu's Japanese Log

Postby Sumisu » Fri Feb 04, 2022 4:29 am

I haven't posted in a while, as things have been a little quiet for me language learning wise. I'm in a kind of maintenance mode at the moment, spending about 30 minutes a day with the language. It's a bit frustrating to not be progressing much in the language, but I am not allowing it to slip away either. I think what I need right now is to set a tangible goal that I can work toward, something that does NOT involve taking an exam, although I do plan on taking the ALTA at some point down the road. I think for now I'm going to set daily small goals, such as: read a news article; watch a 20 minute video; listen to an entire podcast episode. My attention span has been short lately and I need to focus long enough to do these simple tasks.

Tonight, I read a four-paragraph article from the 日経新聞, looking up any words I didn't know, and then reading the entire thing aloud. This resulted in my latest kanji confusion: between 畜 and 累. Both of them have the rice field, and both of them also have the first three strokes of "thread." I've seen 累 quite a few times, mainly in 累計, but have almost never seen 畜. So when I came across 畜産品 in the article, my brain kind of glitched. The only cure for this is hours and hours and hours of reading...
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Sumisu
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Re: Sumisu's Japanese Log

Postby Sumisu » Fri Mar 18, 2022 2:56 am

Over the last couple of weeks, I've shifted my focus to listening comprehension, which is my weakest skill. I hate the fact that my listening comprehension is so poor, which causes me to listen even less. But I've made a push recently and have been listening to Noriko, NHK News, and Japanese music. In addition I've been watching a bunch of YouTube cooking videos, and recently started watching ドリフ 大爆笑, which is a comedy series that ran for many years, mostly in the 80s and 90s. I'm really enjoying the show so far, and have watched several hours just in the last couple of days. Some skits are funnier than others, but I'm finding I can learn a lot about Japanese culture through comedy, which is a genre I have avoided up until now. I know that the only way to get better at listening is to do lots of it, as painful as it may be. I hope that I can maintain the binge I'm on for as long as possible.
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golyplot
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Re: Sumisu's Japanese Log

Postby golyplot » Sun Mar 20, 2022 3:33 am

I'll have to check that out. So far my favorite Japanese Youtuber is ハヤトの野望, who does gaming videos.
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