Aozora's Log for Japanese and French

[Aozora]

I finished volume one of 恐怖コレクター (Kyoufu Korekutaa) and went on with volume 2. I'm almost done it, and then I'm going to read a fantasy novel called ミヤマ物語 (Miyama Monogatari). I think this is the most reading I've done in Japanese in this span of time, perhaps excluding manga. 3 novels in a month ^_^ It's becoming a habit to read before bed now.

[Aozora]

Lately I haven't been doing that much. I read some Japanese online (on 教えて！goo), and added some Japanese sentences from reading to my Anki. I transcribed a short blog entry from Japanesepod101 for listening practice--I'd like to do this regularly when I'm ready to fit it into my schedule.

I tend to get distracted and then overwhelmed by all the things I need to do and have trouble juggling all my resources. I'm going to rework my goals a bit and get some sense of clarity and direction. I picked up Michel Thomas French from the library, hoping it'd be easier to fit into my schedule than my textbook. Ideally I can listen to it while I work.


French:

Lingvist - 0:30hr
Michel Thomas French for Beginners - 0:30hr

Japanese:

Grammar studies - 1:00hr
Anki/wordlists - 0:30hr
Reading - 0:30hr

Total: 3:00hr per day

I want to focus on finishing Michel Thomas (it's 10 disks, so about 10 hours, not including repeated listening), Lingvist, and my Japanese N2 grammar studies and then change things up again. Let's see if I can keep up with this for a week or two!

[Aozora]

Yesterday I got pretty close to my goals.

Michel Thomas - 1:00hr
Lingvist - didn't have time for this
Anki/wordlists - 0:30hr
Jp Grammar - 0:50hr
Reading - 0:30hr

[Aozora]

Yesterday's study:

Michel Thomas - 1:00hr
Lingvist - 0:30hr
Grammar - 0:45hr
Reading - 0:45hr
Anki - 0:?? I added some MT production cards buy didn't review anything

I'm 34 pages into my new novel, Miyama Monogatari. It's a fantasy novel, and I have two volumes of it. So far, there is a lot of unusual feeling language (like archaic or a fantasy dialect), and some words have unusual readings. I decided not to worry too much about the unknown words, and just keep reading. Context makes it pretty understandable.

[Aozora]

Short update, I finished disk 5 of Michel Thomas French today. I feel like I'm getting a better idea of the syntax now.
I've been working on my Japanese grammar too, but not everyday.

[Aozora]

I think I'm just inherently bad at timing things. Anyway, here is yesterday's progress:

Anki- I did 50 new French cards, and added production cards for Michel Thomas disk 2

Michel Thomas - I finished disk 6

Jpn N2 grammar - I worked on this for at least 45 minutes, and I'm getting close to the end of the book

Reading - I read 25 pages of Miyama Monogatari


I feel like I did a lot, but I missed Lingvist altogether again. Evidently I scheduled more than I can handle even on a good day. I'm learning there's a big difference between motivation and discipline-- I think I've mostly been functioning under motivation, varying between wanting to learn 100 words a day, read 50 pages a day, etc and doing nothing. Tadoku motivated me to do a lot of reading, but once it was over I went back to not reading every day. I need to train my discipline so I can do a moderate amount of study every day, regardless of how motivated I am.

I think I will leave Lingvist out of my schedule until I finish Michel Thomas.

[Aozora]

I completed disk 8 of Michel Thomas French, that leaves 2 Review disks which I will likely do today (if possible--I listen while I work, but today's work might not be mindless enough). I'm also picking up the Language Booster and the Advanced course from the library today.

Overall I really liked the course and the method. I'm so used to listening to talks and documentaries while I work, it feels better to have the language explained to me verbally than to find time later in the day to sit down with a book or website and read about it. I felt after the halfway point in the course there was more time spent on introducing new grammar points than prompting various long sentences like at the beginning. I would have preferred to spend more time creating sentences with with the newly learned material. There was a point about "de le Verb" that I didn't grasp, and I think I'll need to study the usage of "en" more.

[Aozora]

I started watching some children's programs in French (7 episode so far, some Magic School Bus and My Little Pony). I can hear words and phrases here and there, including new words. Hearing words I know actually in use in different sentences is very helpful. I'm curious how my French will progress this way compared to my Japanese. I've been watching anime in Japanese for years, but my comprehension isn't as high as I'd like for genres outside of slice of life.

I also signed up for the Super Challenge for Japanese. 100 books doesn't seem like much when each book is only 50 pages... that's slightly more than one 200 page novel a month. It's easy to fall out of regular reading, though, so maybe the Super Challenge will help me keep at it. I'd like to do a half challenge for French, but I'm not confident enough yet, and I don't want to juggle submitting pages/minutes for 2 languages. I'll make a personal goal to read and watch things in French without worrying about Super Challenge requirements.

[Aozora]

I'm cramming some Japanese vocab leading up to May 1. I have about 350 words waiting for me in Anki--these words I gathered from my recent novels, and some of them I studied a little with wordlists a while back. I added sentence examples for many of the words as well, pulled from Weblio and some other sources (not often from the original novel because the original sentences tend to be long). I got through 70 words yesterday. Weblio dictionary link: http://ejje.weblio.jp/


I've also been reflecting a bit on how I learn Japanese vocabulary. I often go for "quick" methods like studying isolated words, in Memrise, or in Anki, or with Wordlists. But I'm feeling like I'm not learning these words very well overall. Some of them I just keep forgetting, or I don't recognize in other contexts (particularly abstract or technical words). I have a recurring problem of swapping kanji in jukugo when doing Memrise reviews--like tapping in 地産 instead of 産地 even thinking ちさん in my head. On top of that I don't have a feel for how these words are used and I couldn't use them myself. I'm thinking from now on I will avoid isolated vocab study and use sentences and full context as much as possible. Despite my urge to cram all the JLPT N1 vocab from lists, it would probably be much better to just study the words I find in my reading, and use more sentence examples to better learn those words.

[Aozora]

I got through some more Japanese vocab in Anki, 35 yesterday, and I think 35 the other day. I add sentences as I go, 1-4 sentences per word. I also drilled 24 words on paper flashcards, so that when they eventually come up in Anki, I'll be familiar with them already (and I'll add sentences at that time). The paper flashcard process was surprisingly easy, though I know Anki is better for review scheduling.


For the Super Challenge, I aim to read 15-20 pages a day, and watch 2 episodes (40 min) a day. Depending on the day, I may save up my movie watching for another day, or just watch less. I'll be watching anime for the most part as it is my favorite media source. Here's my SC page http://sc2016-17.language-learners.org/ ... e=Anonamul

Current reading material: Miyama Monogatari
Currently watching: Durarara! and Figure 17

I'm not sure if anyone is really reading or keeping up with my log ^^; If there is a format that people prefer I might try that, otherwise I'll just be updating as I feel like it.