Crawling to a brutal JLPT beating in December 2023

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lavengro
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Re: Crawling to a brutal JLPT beating in December 2023

Postby lavengro » Mon Dec 19, 2022 3:31 am

seito wrote:For listening practice, I would strongly recommend Nihongo con Teppei on YouTube. There are several playlists of well-designed audio podcasts there for learners. The beginner series has over 700 now.


Many thanks seito for the recommendation! I have bookmarked it for myself definitely for the future, but at present I do not have enough oral vocabulary internalized to follow this. I have been poking around a bit at a couple of the Complete Beginner videos at Comprehensible Japanese, which are better matches for my diminished present ability.

https://www.youtube.com/@ComprehensibleJapanese/playlists
Last edited by lavengro on Mon Dec 19, 2022 3:38 am, edited 1 time in total.
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lavengro
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Re: Crawling to a brutal JLPT beating in December 2023

Postby lavengro » Mon Dec 19, 2022 3:34 am

golyplot wrote:

I'm surprised you didn't link the famous shooting scene from Lost In Translation:

Love it!

golyplot wrote:Anyway, I watched the Newsroom scene you linked, and I'm disappointed that I could only understand a little bit of the Japanese, despite being at a much higher level than you.


I did not remotely understand any of the Japanese, I relied on English subtitling. I have seen comments that some have found Olivia Munn to have quite an accent when speaking Japanese, which I think she was taught when very young when her father or stepfather was posted in Japan.

I was able to understand her bilingual executive producer quite well, when he was communicating both in English and in Yelling.
Last edited by lavengro on Mon Dec 19, 2022 5:07 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Crawling to a brutal JLPT beating in December 2023

Postby lavengro » Mon Dec 19, 2022 3:37 am

Week 2 non-summary - the week that never was

Life unexpectedly and aggressively got in the way this past week, pre-empting almost any studying other than poking around in a limited way at Wanikani. The anticipated brutal beating in one year's time just started looking even more brutal.
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Re: Crawling to a brutal JLPT beating in December 2023

Postby golyplot » Mon Dec 19, 2022 5:54 am

lavengro wrote:
seito wrote:For listening practice, I would strongly recommend Nihongo con Teppei on YouTube. There are several playlists of well-designed audio podcasts there for learners. The beginner series has over 700 now.


Many thanks seito for the recommendation! I have bookmarked it for myself definitely for the future, but at present I do not have enough oral vocabulary internalized to follow this. I have been poking around a bit at a couple of the Complete Beginner videos at Comprehensible Japanese, which are better matches for my diminished present ability.

https://www.youtube.com/@ComprehensibleJapanese/playlists


For what it's worth, I gave up on Teppei due to getting annoyed by the intro music he played over some of his later episodes (in the 500s, IIRC), and have mostly been listening to Noriko and Utaco* since.

*Utaco's is much harder, so I don't recommend it for you yet.
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Re: Crawling to a brutal JLPT beating in December 2023

Postby lavengro » Mon Dec 26, 2022 6:51 am

Week 3 summary

Date is now set for JLPT testing (all levels) – December 3, 2023 - so only a scant 49 weeks (343 days) left.

I decided mid-week to change from Tae Kim to Genki 1 for learning grammar.

Wanikani
– completed level 7, partway through level 8. Keeping my overall accuracy rate microscopically north of 90%, but it has been on a downward trend lately. I have now cleared more than 1000 items (radicals, kanji, vocabulary items) through at least to the Apprentice level.

Mango Languages
– finishing off Chapter 2 of Unit 1. Matching well in some respects with Pimsleur at present in terms of vocabulary and sentences.

Pimsleur
– Completed units 4 and 5 of Pimsleur, and reviewing earlier units. Still freezing up mentally when trying to follow the opening full-speed dialogues. I can follow along with all the words and the sentence structures as presented in the core of each lesson, but going back over a second (or third or tenth time) to review the initial conversation, the speed and the lack of a pause for the neurons to catch up convinces my brain that this is entirely beyond me and mentally I just check out and go to my happy place.

I assume (because I have to) that this will get better over time.

Genki
- I have the second edition of Genki 1 rather than the current third edition. Poked around at some reviews comparing the two – don`t think a change is necessary, though if I were to purchase a version from scratch, it would be the third edition.
- Also using the following site for online exercises (there is a clickable option for 2nd v. 3rd Genki editions)
https://sethclydesdale.github.io/genki-study-resources/lessons-3rd/#lesson-1
- Followed up with (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h4wYWkN ... 12k17HEoxR – Youtube series by “TiKini Andy” paralleling Genki 1 (second edition) – there is a similar playlist for the third edition Genki 1 (link)

Additional

Watched Million Yen Women, [ 100万円の女たち], a 12 episode Netflix series – watched with Japanese audio and English subtitles. Was able to catch some greetings vocabulary which I had just covered in Genki (I am leaving, please come back, I am home, welcome home, etc) as the characters were frequently entering and leaving Shin Michima’s residence (at least for most of the series). And also “sorry” (すみません), since the main character is always apologizing.

Quite interesting, I really enjoyed it. Despite the relatively slow pacing, keep buckled in for a twisty ride.



Apologies if there are any spoilers in the Japanese language voice-over – I have no idea what is being said and could not find a subtitled version of the trailer. If you were inclined to watch this, best to do so without reading up on it much (there is a definite spoiler in the review comments in imdb.com, for example.
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Re: Crawling to a brutal JLPT beating in December 2023

Postby lavengro » Mon Jan 02, 2023 2:23 am

Week 4 summary confession

Some limited study but mostly took the past holiday week off, with the specific goal of resting in aid of building up an inexhaustible reserve of energy for use in a pending madcap 48 week relentless attack on the Japanese language in 2023.

I started tracking study time again as of January 1st - partly for motivation, partly to ensure I am investing time in each of my four current resources but mostly to work out projections of how much time will be required to get through all that I would like to complete prior to the JLPT testing on December 3, 2023: Wanikani (to level 30), Mango Languages (all 658 lessons), Pimsleur (all five levels) and Genki 1 and 2 and to make sure I am on track to finish.

I also poked around a bit this past week to find some listening exercises, and started with this video, which demonstrates actual N5 listening audio and the level of understanding expected – all of which seems impossibly beyond me at present without the assistance of subtitles (which are added to this video for the review second pass through the audio).



This video provides subtitles during a second pass through the listening only section of the test, for study purposes. I will try to include some specific listening practice each week, in addition to the audio which arises from Pimsleur and Mango Languages.
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lavengro
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Re: Crawling to a brutal JLPT beating in December 2023

Postby lavengro » Mon Jan 09, 2023 12:34 am

Week 5 summary

Core Resources

Working through my core learning resources (Wanikani, Mango, Pimsleur and Genki 1), though a little more slowly than hoped. Currently on level 9 of Wanikani – I have been watching my accuracy progressively edge down, which has a bearing on rate of progress. Still clinging as narrowly as possible above 90% - at an overall accuracy of 90.01% (95.47% meaning accuracy across the radicals, kanji and vocabulary items, but only 84.49% for kanji and vocabulary readings). Pimsleur is now easier for me – not sure why I was having a meltdown previously over the short dialogues.

Additional materials

Listening practice

I spent a fair bit of time this past week tracking down listening practice opportunities that work for me, and eventually came across this youtube playlist from a reddit.com/r/LearnJapanese post recomendation: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLJov1NnDE_N_92MtmRyQknjavXa1oLSuM

It is perfect for me – well-produced N5 level audio, with a script (including furigana above kanji) as well a short crib notes on some of the vocabulary items. I am not able yet to understand the narratives, but I am finding these really helpful for training my ear. A plus is seeing kanji in the script that I have already learned the meaning and reading of pop up from time to time. There are quite a lot of N5 clips, as well as N4 and other clips.

Media

I have never considered myself much of an anime or manga person at all, but had never really given them much of a try in the past and I am determined to give both a good try now. Using my very modest google-fu powers and from helpful recommendations from others in this forum and elsewhere, I am putting together a list of anime and animated features which appear of interest and which are available for me on either the internet or on streaming services. Turns out Netflix Canada has way more Japanese language anime than initially shows up via a Netflix search for Japanese language productions, and now that I have been watching anime on Netflix, a tonne of additional material is popping up spontaneously in the suggested titles areas. For anime or other animation, initially (and likely for much of this year) it will be with Japanese audio and English subtitles.

This past week I have been watching (Japanese language; English subtitles) the Netflix series The Way of the Househusband – tales of the former Yakuza member Tatsu, the feared Immortal Dragon. Completely addictive, it is hilarious!



For manga, I anticipate starting with the Crystal Hunters series (deliberately written for learners and with grammar/vocabulary notes) a few months down the road once I have a little more grammar under my belt.
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Re: Crawling to a brutal JLPT beating in December 2023

Postby golyplot » Wed Jan 11, 2023 4:32 pm

My mom and I tried watching The Way of the Househusband, but stopped halfway through the first episode as it had already gotten repetitive. It's hard to see how they can keep the concept fresh with such short sketches.
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Re: Crawling to a brutal JLPT beating in December 2023

Postby Xenops » Wed Jan 11, 2023 5:12 pm

I recommend Monster for those starting out in anime, also Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood. Both are on US Netflix.
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lavengro
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Re: Crawling to a brutal JLPT beating in December 2023

Postby lavengro » Wed Jan 11, 2023 5:36 pm

golyplot wrote:My mom and I tried watching The Way of the Househusband, but stopped halfway through the first episode as it had already gotten repetitive. It's hard to see how they can keep the concept fresh with such short sketches.

Honestly, anyone who yells angrily at a Roomba vacuum cleaner for not attacking the corners has a fan in me for life!

Xenops wrote:I recommend Monster for those starting out in anime, also Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood. Both are on US Netflix.

Thanks Xenops! I have now put both on my list. I note that Monster is available on Netflix Canada, but apparently the anime version of Fullmetal Alchemist was removed within the last couple of years from Netflix Canada. What remains are non-animated real actor movies: Fullmetal Alchemist; Fullmetal Alchemist: Revenge of Scar; and Fullmetal Alchemist: the Final Alchemist.
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