Nandemonai's log (Mandarin, German, Tadoku)

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Nandemonai
Orange Belt
Posts: 147
Joined: Tue Jul 28, 2015 10:32 pm
Location: Tokyo
Languages: Dutch/Flemish (N), English (fluent), Japanese (fluent)
Actively studying: Mandarin (intermediate), German (beginner)
On break: Korean (beginner)
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Nandemonai's log (Mandarin, German, Tadoku)

Postby Nandemonai » Thu Dec 10, 2015 11:36 am

I haven't posted in my language log on the old HTLAL for a year now and have decided to start one here now. 2015 was a pretty strange year for my language goals. I was planning to go on a semester abroad in Hangzhou for the fall semester. However, I ended up in Seoul, South-Korea and have put my Mandarin studies on a hold. Right now I'm focussing on Japanese and Korean.

In July (2015) I passed the JLPT N2 with a pretty good score considering I didn't study much for it: see below for exact scores.

I decided to give the N1 a shot because the JLPT is very cheap to take here in Seoul. I didn't expect to pass at all. I was only able to finish studying the grammar for the test, but nothing else. I didn't do so well on the test. I wasn't sure about a lot of questions and ended up making educated guesses more often than I would've liked. I've decided to let the JLPT be for what it is for now. I might try again in a year or two.

For Japanese I will just keep doing what I've been doing, although I'll try to up the pace a little more. I've only finished reading six books in Japanese this year, more than likely this will be seven by the end of the year. I've noticed there are still gaps in my vocabulary so I might work on that as well with a slow pace. A couple hundred words per month is more than enough for me. I will also try to read more editorials on the Asahi website. I joined the Japanese club this semester and have had the opportunity to speak Japanese more frequently. Too bad there's no Japanese club/meetups back home.

Here in Seoul I've started attending Korean classes and have acquired very basic Korean. I've attended some extra optional classes as well. In my free time I've been working through some textbooks to learn Korean for Japanese speakers. This has been helping me a lot to see the connections and differences between the two languages. I plan to keep studying when I get back, although on a slower pace.

My Mandarin has gotten really rusty the past 6 months. I tried to speak with some of my Taiwanese friends here but it's no use. My level in it is not high enough yet. In January I will put a lot of effort in bringing it back up to where I left it at in June. Most likely I will be able to attend my Mandarin classes again somewhere in January-February.

That's it for now. I will try and update once every month because I don't think I'll have more to post than that. I will try to join the TAC if there's one this year for my languages.

J-CAT scores archive

2019 December
Listening 80 (+2)
Vocabulary 66 (+9)
Grammar 43 (-17)
Reading 77 (+17)
Total 266

2017 December
Listening 78 (+6)
Vocabulary 57 (+4)
Grammar 60 (+1)
Reading 60 (-12)
Total 255

2017 May
Listening 72 (-5)
Vocabulary 53 (-5)
Grammar 59 (-6)
Reading 72 (+4)
Total 256

2016 May
Listening 77 (+18)
Vocabulary 58 (-5)
Grammar 65 (+8)
Reading 68 (+15)
Total 268

2015 January
Listening 59
Vocabulary 63
Grammar 57
Reading 53
Total 232

JLPT scores archive

N1 - 2021 December - PASS
Language knowledge: 60/60
Reading: 49/60
Listening: 52/60
Vocabulary: A
Grammar: A
Total: 161/180

N1 - 2017 December - PASS
Language knowledge: 31/60
Reading: 32/60
Listening: 40/60
Vocabulary: A
Grammar: B
Total: 103/180

N1 - 2015 December - FAIL
Language knowledge: 28/60
Reading: 30/60
Listening: 30/60
Total: 88/180

N2 - 2015 July - PASS
Language knowledge: 40/60
Reading: 50/60
Listening: 44/60
Vocabulary: A
Grammar: A
Total: 134/180

N4 - 2012 December - PASS
Language knowledge: 60/120
Listening: 33/180
Vocabulary: A
Grammar: B
Reading: A
Total score: 93/180
Last edited by Nandemonai on Sat Jan 06, 2024 11:00 am, edited 13 times in total.
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Nandemonai
Orange Belt
Posts: 147
Joined: Tue Jul 28, 2015 10:32 pm
Location: Tokyo
Languages: Dutch/Flemish (N), English (fluent), Japanese (fluent)
Actively studying: Mandarin (intermediate), German (beginner)
On break: Korean (beginner)
Language Log: viewtopic.php?f=15&t=1684
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Re: Nandemonai's log (Japanese, Korean, Mandarin)

Postby Nandemonai » Tue Dec 22, 2015 6:46 pm

Time for another update. My semester in Korea has ended and I'm left with about two weeks to spend in Seoul. I've been using that time to hang out with my friends here and catch up with my language studies, which have been going well so far.

I've caught up with Anki for Korean, and almost done with Japanese (which should only take one or two more days at this pace). I haven't started with catching up on my Mandarin decks yet, but will most likely start doing that once I've got a good rhythm going for Japanese and Korean. I'm still haunted by infrequent large amount of reviews due my inconsistent adding of cards. I'd like to avoid creating more of these in the future. For Korean I'm now adding about 5 to 10 new sentence cards a day.

Two days ago I decided to get started on the Yotsuba&! volumes I have in Korean and have read about 8 pages so far. It's really hard but I'm learning a lot from it. Biggest problem for me is the grammar. I still miss a lot of essential basic grammar patterns. I have to look up new patterns all the time. Hopefully I won't have to do it as much anymore by the end of the first volume.

I went to a bookstore in Seoul called Kyobo and picked up a couple more books and Korean translated manga to bring home with me. I'm still trying to find some books in Mandarin to buy as I couldn't find them in a bookstores here in Seoul or Belgium. I might have to look around online for that.
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Elenia
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Finnish?!
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Re: Nandemonai's log (Japanese, Korean, Mandarin)

Postby Elenia » Tue Dec 22, 2015 10:26 pm

I'm planning on gently starting with Korean in the New Year, so I'll be following your log :)
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Nandemonai
Orange Belt
Posts: 147
Joined: Tue Jul 28, 2015 10:32 pm
Location: Tokyo
Languages: Dutch/Flemish (N), English (fluent), Japanese (fluent)
Actively studying: Mandarin (intermediate), German (beginner)
On break: Korean (beginner)
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Re: Nandemonai's log (Japanese, Korean, Mandarin)

Postby Nandemonai » Mon Dec 28, 2015 11:44 pm

Elenia wrote:I'm planning on gently starting with Korean in the New Year, so I'll be following your log :)


Thank you, I'll be following yours too.

I've managed to keep up a week of consistent studying. Nothing too much, about 30-90 minutes a day, usually around an hour. I've caught up with my Japanese anki reviews and am now working on the backlog for Mandarin. I've found out that it really helps to set a limit to your reviews when you have a huge backlog to work through. You won't get as many huge spikes later on. I'm pretty excited to be approaching 10,000 mature cards on Anki with all my languages combined.

I'm putting everything I do on a google docs spreadsheet to keep track of things. I've put in a section to keep track of studying streaks for different activities as an attempt to make my study efforts more consistent. There's no set time I have to put in, just a little bit every day, even if that's only 5-10 minutes.

I've come across a pretty interesting spreadsheet by Stu Jay Raj & others. It includes a very basic wordlist in a bunch of languages. You can find it here: http://stujay.com/wordlist/. I'll be studying the Korean/Mandarin words that I'm still missing while studying the relation of those words with the Japanese. Hopefully it'll give me a little more insight in the connections between the three languages.

I think I'll be posting my activities like this at the end of the week for the TAC next year.

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Dani
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Languages: Studies: Chinese (B1)
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Re: Nandemonai's log (Japanese, Korean, Mandarin)

Postby Dani » Thu Dec 31, 2015 6:01 am

I'm always in awe of somebody who tackles the "big" three Asian languages, so good luck with those. Please keep us updated, I try to read all the Mandarin logs (and steal every interesting piece of media that gets mentioned).

Are you planning on joining the Output Challenge with any of those? I'm asking, because there's barely anyone doing it for Eastern languages and you definitely are far enough along in Japanese, so it wouldn't be painful.

加油!
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Corrections are always welcome!

2016
Writing
● Speaking
: 0 / 75000
: 9 / 3000 min
● Reading
● Watching
: 25 / 10000 pages
: 0 / 0 min

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Nandemonai
Orange Belt
Posts: 147
Joined: Tue Jul 28, 2015 10:32 pm
Location: Tokyo
Languages: Dutch/Flemish (N), English (fluent), Japanese (fluent)
Actively studying: Mandarin (intermediate), German (beginner)
On break: Korean (beginner)
Language Log: viewtopic.php?f=15&t=1684
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Re: Nandemonai's log (Japanese, Korean, Mandarin)

Postby Nandemonai » Thu Dec 31, 2015 9:15 am

Dani wrote:I'm always in awe of somebody who tackles the "big" three Asian languages, so good luck with those. Please keep us updated, I try to read all the Mandarin logs (and steal every interesting piece of media that gets mentioned).

Are you planning on joining the Output Challenge with any of those? I'm asking, because there's barely anyone doing it for Eastern languages and you definitely are far enough along in Japanese, so it wouldn't be painful.

加油!


I'm not really interested in joining the Output Challenge at this moment. I've only got a limited amount of time to put into my studies and doing that challenge will leave me with not enough time to put into the other languages. Lately I've been having Skype conversations with friends in Japanese and this is more than enough for me. I take a very input based approach to learning and only take output to the next level once I really need it (like when I went to Japan, or had to speak with the people from the Japanese club in Korea, etc).

I'll be posting more about Mandarin next month. I'll be reviewing all my Mandarin and will catch up with the stuff I missed in the past semester so I can join my Mandarin classes again. I've subscribed to your log as well!
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AiyaLianxi
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Joined: Sat Dec 05, 2015 8:12 pm
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Re: Nandemonai's log (Japanese, Korean, Mandarin)

Postby AiyaLianxi » Tue Jan 05, 2016 1:16 am

How is the start of 2016 treating you? I know you said you'll post once a month, just checking in.
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Nandemonai
Orange Belt
Posts: 147
Joined: Tue Jul 28, 2015 10:32 pm
Location: Tokyo
Languages: Dutch/Flemish (N), English (fluent), Japanese (fluent)
Actively studying: Mandarin (intermediate), German (beginner)
On break: Korean (beginner)
Language Log: viewtopic.php?f=15&t=1684
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Re: Nandemonai's log (Japanese, Korean, Mandarin)

Postby Nandemonai » Tue Jan 05, 2016 12:37 pm

AiyaLianxi wrote:How is the start of 2016 treating you? I know you said you'll post once a month, just checking in.


Pretty good, I've just have been a bit busy getting everything done because I moved back to Belgium. I haven't been able to do much language related stuff the past few because of that.

I've finally finished Sword Art Online 2! Been reading this one for the past couple months, but it really took a while for me to read it. I've now started Kino no Tabi 4. That one should only take me a couple days to finish as it's rather easy for me now. Will catch up with my little Anki backlog from the past few days today.

Stats for 2015#53:
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PolyglotMaya
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Joined: Sun Dec 27, 2015 7:49 pm
Location: Toronto, Canada
Languages: English (N), Russian (N), French (advanced fluency), Japanese (JLPT N3), Spanish (intermediate)
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Re: Nandemonai's log (Japanese, Korean, Mandarin)

Postby PolyglotMaya » Tue Jan 05, 2016 10:14 pm

日本語の勉強も頑張りなさいね ^^

I'm only at an N3ish level myself (not certified) so I have to admit I'm a bit jealous.
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: 9 / 200 French active listening

: 464 / 2000 Japanese kanji

User avatar
Nandemonai
Orange Belt
Posts: 147
Joined: Tue Jul 28, 2015 10:32 pm
Location: Tokyo
Languages: Dutch/Flemish (N), English (fluent), Japanese (fluent)
Actively studying: Mandarin (intermediate), German (beginner)
On break: Korean (beginner)
Language Log: viewtopic.php?f=15&t=1684
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Contact:

Re: Nandemonai's log (Japanese, Korean, Mandarin)

Postby Nandemonai » Wed Jan 06, 2016 2:04 am

PolyglotMaya wrote:日本語の勉強も頑張りなさいね ^^

I'm only at an N3ish level myself (not certified) so I have to admit I'm a bit jealous.


N3 is a very high level already in my opinion. It took me 5 years to get to that level, and it was harder than going from N3 to N2 in my opinion. At that point I started reading A LOT of Japanese stuff. I got comfortable with reading manga and read (more like struggle through) my first light novel during that time. Reading + Anki was key for me. Good luck!
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