Handa's Japanese log

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handa
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Re: Handa's Japanese log

Postby handa » Sat Jun 03, 2023 9:56 am

Finished Japanese 2 with my final grade being A. I have doubts whether or not that accurately reflects my abilities but this spring has been difficult with reccuring illnesses and stress in life, so I'm very happy anyway. I still have the zoom meeting with some students from my class and some from Japan that I have to prepare for. Very nervous, very much looking forward to being done with it. Did the placement test for my exchange in autumn and probably overestimated my skills during the initial evalutation because the questions I got were very difficult and I feel like I didn't do very well, though my final grade has somewhat remedied this for now. I think that's it with the uni-related updates.

I've returned to the comfort of textbooks and the structure they bring to studying, starting Nihongo chûkyû J301 about a week ago. I do think the texts in it are quite difficult to parse and there are a lot of new vocabulary needed to make sense of them, so I have to make an effort to really take my time and digest what I'm reading.

The plan for now is Nihongo chûkyû J301 and the rest of Basic Kanji Book Vol. 2. This is some of the resources used in Japanese 3 and I want these done during summer. I'll be adding new vocabulary to Anki. Though I've fallen behind on reviews, I really think Anki helps with vocabulary learning because I do feel the difference when I'm not being diligent with it. It's not perfect, it's not the most fun but for me it does work.
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handa
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Re: Handa's Japanese log

Postby handa » Sun Jun 04, 2023 9:48 am

I survived the zoom-meeting. It was very awkward but not worth the amount of stress and anxiety I built up in anticipation of it. I managed to say a few things, and I understood a lot of what they said. All in all, I'm glad that I did it and I'm very glad that I can leave it behind now.

I'm on chapter 3 of Nihongo chûkyû J301 right now. I've been studying the main text, trying to make sense of it. There's this sentence: 「チャペックが描いたのはヒト型のロボットで、人間に代わって労働をする存在として示された。」The various parts of the sentence were clear in their meaning but it took me some time to put it into a coherent thought. Not very elegantly I translated it as: "What Capek had drawn was human-like robots, and these were depicted as replacing (or in place of) humans as labour-performing beings." I think it was the word 存在 that made me stumble. I know it means 'existence' but it seems it can refer to a being or entity.

Also, a very convenient expression that showed up in the text: ~から分かるように, "as you can see from..."
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handa
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Re: Handa's Japanese log

Postby handa » Tue Jun 13, 2023 4:38 pm

Slowly working through J301 and I'm finding it a bit annoying. There are too many exercises that I can't check the answers for on my own. There's an answer key but most of the exercises are about coming up with your own solutions, rather than there being one correct choice. I understand there's merit in encouraging one to use the language but I don't like it and I just can't engage with it because I can't check for sure that I did it right. These types of exercises also trips up the workflow because I end up spending too much time trying to come up with answers that would fit the sentence rather than focusing on what I'm actually supposed to be learning, if that makes sense.

Right now I'm thinking of only studying the main texts and the grammar explanations, skipping the exercises. I don't really like skipping ahead but at this rate I feel like I kind of have to.

I like working with textbooks since I appreciate the structure it gives me, but the exercises often feel like the weak point of most of them.
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handa
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Re: Handa's Japanese log

Postby handa » Tue Jun 20, 2023 12:00 am

Did the JLPT N3 practice test after reading golyplot's recent post about it. Thought "why not" and decided to give it a go. I was curious and wanted to see how I would manage it. The results are as follows:

Vocabulary: 23/33
Grammar and reading: 27/39
Listening: 18/27

My total score was 68, quite a bit away from the passing score of 95, but I'm kind of happy anyways.

Edit: Will say in response to the following posts that I'm a bit confused over the way JLPT tests are scored so I might have fumbled slightly with the terms. I tried to read up a bit but I remain uncertain.

Edit 2: Read up a bit more on the score calculation. Still slightly confused but I think you change the total amount of questions into 60 and then multiply the number of correct answers with the number required to turn total amount into 60. You do the same for each section. There seems to be a lot more going on in the actual calculation, like patterns and stuff, but this is like a rough estimate. I could be wrong again. But I did that and got ≈ 123, which is the same as the result I got using a JLPT score calculation tool. Which would be a passing score if I had 19 correct answers in each section, which I don't. So 123/180? I'm not sure.
Last edited by handa on Thu Jun 22, 2023 5:51 am, edited 2 times in total.
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golyplot
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Re: Handa's Japanese log

Postby golyplot » Tue Jun 20, 2023 3:40 am

lavengro wrote:But I assume from your numbers that the practice test you did is scaled down from a full-size test. On your numbers, total potential points are 99 across the three sections of the test, and you scored 68, which is a titch over 68%.


AFAIK, they are full length tests, but Handa is giving the number of questions, not the score. The JLPT produces the final score through an inscrutable process which is not explained anywhere, so all we can do is see how many questions we get right. There's no way to know how your results on the practice tests would compare to scores on the actual test.
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Re: Handa's Japanese log

Postby lavengro » Tue Jun 20, 2023 4:50 am

golyplot wrote:
lavengro wrote:But I assume from your numbers that the practice test you did is scaled down from a full-size test. On your numbers, total potential points are 99 across the three sections of the test, and you scored 68, which is a titch over 68%.


AFAIK, they are full length tests, but Handa is giving the number of questions, not the score. The JLPT produces the final score through an inscrutable process which is not explained anywhere, so all we can do is see how many questions we get right. There's no way to know how your results on the practice tests would compare to scores on the actual test.

Apologies golyplot and Handa, I deleted my post at the same time golyplot was responding to it, so there is a disconnect. What you say golyplot makes sense.
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handa
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Re: Handa's Japanese log

Postby handa » Thu Jul 20, 2023 5:07 pm

Just got back from a trip abroad to visit relatives so the last 10 days have been spent hearing Albanian day in and day out. A bit of a immersive environment one could say. Used the idle moments here and there to either review my Japanese anki decks or read through Colloquial Albanian. About 7/15 chapters through it. I do like this new version more than the old one from 1997 that my mother bought many years ago. It's a bit more approachable, if that makes sense.

Albanian is very much a heritage language. I used to speak a lot more when I was little. I can still understand a lot of the everyday language you'd use towards a child but anything more and I quickly lose track of the conversation. I can't speak at all because I'm too afraid of making mistakes, a fear I lacked as a child. My relatives are from Macedonia so they speak a certain Gheg dialect that is quite different when it comes to grammar/vocabulary/pronounciation, which makes learning it just a bit more annoying. My mother had the same issue when she tried to study Albanian.

One slightly funny thing that I learned though: the word "nesër" which I've always thought meant later, actually means tomorrow. Twenty-four years old and I hadn't realised this until now. :lol:

Japanese suffered a bit during this trip but I've managed to keep up with the anki reviews, if only barely. I have quite a lot of them at this point and it usually takes about 1 hour. I might need to thin out the decks eventually. I want to keep going with anki for vocabulary because I really do feel like it helps but I don't want it to become overwhelming.

Grammar-wise, I sped through An Integrated Approach to Intermediate Japanese, only reading the grammar parts and taking notes after chapter 5 (+adding all new vocabulary to an anki deck). Right now, my plan is to work on Tobira a bit more thoroughly. I hope the texts will be a bit more fun to read and work with than those in AIATIJ. Might go back to it later.

I have a lot to do now in preparation for my university exchange but I'll be going to Japan in September! I finally got the definite approval at the end of June but the trip to Macedonia required more immediate focus. I'm looking forward to it but I'm also very scared to be honest. I'm not very confident, and quite anxious which has probably been evident in my posts on this forum over the years. But it's a great opportunity for me and I can't let that fear stop me.
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Re: Handa's Japanese log

Postby golyplot » Wed Jul 26, 2023 2:39 pm

Is it me or did you have another post on your log recently that just disappeared?
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handa
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Re: Handa's Japanese log

Postby handa » Wed Jul 26, 2023 5:51 pm

golyplot wrote:Is it me or did you have another post on your log recently that just disappeared?

Yes but I deleted it myself. I want to write a better post later.

Edit: It was about textbooks and how I work with the texts and dialogues in them, and a bit about how I'm doubting my current ways, if you didn't read it.
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handa
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Re: Handa's Japanese log

Postby handa » Fri Jul 28, 2023 9:54 am

On chapter 3 of Tobira right now. The unfortunate thing is that the exercises in the book are all the way I described the ones in J301 to be and there's no answer key to check even examples of answers. I realise however that these types of exercises are the inescapable at the low-intermediate level and up. After all they're supposed to encourage active production, I think.

I've been thinking about how to best work with the texts in the book. One of my usual go-to previously has been to copy the text into my notebook. In my mind, it helps me slow down and focus on the words, grammar etc. on a deeper level but the texts are getting quite long and this process is starting to feel like a timesink when I'm not even sure it's the best use of my time and energy. My thoughts right now is that is that I just try to read the texts a few times, sometimes in combination with the audio, sometimes only listening to the audio. Read the questions and instructions more for input than anything. I want to have worked through Tobira once before my exchange and then have time to review my notebook to see what I've forgotten.

I will say though that Tobira is quite appropriate level-wise (at least when it comes to comprehension :oops: ). What makes the texts difficult for me right now are some of the longer sentences where it's easy to lose track of things, but focusing, rereading and taking some time to digest those sentences clears any confusion.
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