Aozora's Log for Japanese and French

[Aozora]

I'm so focused on Japanese, I can't make time for French. How do people do it?

By missing many precious hours of sleep, in my experience.

But I love my sleep ;_;


Japanese

I finished reading Online! I felt like there should be more volumes, and indeed there is a long series. I may buy more in the future. I just started Princess Academy. Princess Academy doesn't have furigana for everything but seems to use fewer kanji. It's a hard cover book so that might be why there's less furigana. I attempted to read this book years ago but it was too much work. This time it feels very easy After this one I might try a harder book.

In Anki I've reached 572 cards seen with 1077 unique kanji distributed across them. Again these cards are just gathered from my novels, random content on the internet, and a few phrases from Sou Matome N1 vocab.


French

I tried listening to the Michel Thomas Language Booster yesterday, but, wow the format is different enough that it was pretty much useless for me. He went very fast from one phrase to another, I would have to pause every few seconds and take notes to get anything out of it (I'm not going to do that). It's almost like listening to an audio of a phrasebook. I might take a look at the transcript and see if I can add some stuff to my Anki deck and just try the Advanced course which I think has a student again. I also downloaded a French Anki deck with 5000 words with audio and sentence examples, and a 10 000 card deck with audio sentences (audio plays, with the writing on the other side of the card). We'll see how much I use them!

[Aozora]

Japanese

I studied some vocab today in Anki and added some more cards. I also watched a few episodes of anime with Japanese subtitles, and took notes for all the phrases that had new words/interesting wording. I'm surprised how nice and clear the voice acting is, I can tell how the kanji words are read by listening so I don't have to use a dictionary. I'll get a little reading in this evening too.

[Aozora]

Japanese

In Anki I'm at 751 words and 1189 unique kanji in my usual deck. I also did 25 words from a Japanesepod101 vocab deck yesterday. I've been listening to Jpod101 lessons and decided to un-suspend words from the lessons I've listened to. I just started on the upper intermediate lessons. I like how the hosts discuss and explain things in Japanese for the most part, but without some review, I won't really learn the new words.

I'm only 57 pages into Princess Academy. It's a bit demotivating to sit down hoping to read 40 pages, but end up stopping at 13 or so. I'm not sure why it's going so slow aside from feeling tired in the evenings. I stopped drinking caffeine and started getting up earlier, so maybe my body is just adjusting to that. I read a volume of manga to try and make up some pages (which turned out to be another slow read).

[Aozora]

Are you still adding sentences to your Anki deck or have you gone back to just studying vocab? Also are you still using the Goldlist? I see you use papercards before studying the words in Anki but havent seen you talk about the your Goldlist lately.

I dropped the Goldlist method because it was tedious... I decided I would rather get a good thorough feel for what a word means than to vaguely remember it from a list I looked at 2 weeks ago. I'm still adding sentences to my Anki cards. Most cards have 2-3 sentences on them, and often there are new words in those sentences, so it's like 1-3 new words plus exposure review for the other words in the sentence. It feels a lot more effective, though it takes longer to review. Yesterday I used paper flashcards to drill some isolated kanji form my recent vocab--it doesn't feel entirely out of context because I already know at least one word that uses them. Some kanji are really complex but are only used in one word (example 顰蹙する　- ひんしゅくする - "to frown at"). I don't always use paper flashcards before Anki, but those words I did use them for are sticking really well.

[Aozora]

Japanese
In Anki I'm at 818 cards with 1277 unique kanji among them.

I've reached 100 pages with Princess Academy. Yesterday I was pretty immersed in the story, it should be easier to keep reading now.
I watched some more anime with Japanese subs, pausing and taking notes as I go. One episode was pretty everyday casual speech and I understood everything, but another episode had a ton of formal and technical speech and I had to take a lot of notes. I'm considering making subs2srs decks for dense episodes so I can really work on my weak areas. Not only do I miss speech with unknown technical words, but it can be hard to process technical sentences in real time even when I know the words. My reading ability is much smoother since I started this log, however.

I forgot to mention I started rereading Juu-ni Sai on the weekend. I got 78 pages in but haven't read any of it during the week. I feel my reading speed is much improved.

[Aozora]

I started using Subs2srs and made Anki cards for two anime episodes so far. After I reviewed all those cards and deleted stuff I ended up with about 200 cards. These cards are in a different deck from my other Japanese deck, but I made regular vocab/sentence cards for some of the words too. I feel this should help with processing sentences with lots of 熟語 plus I'm learning new words too. I'm making cards for another episode right now...

[Rebecca]

Hi Aozora!

Another French learner here! I really admire you for trying to fit in more than one language - it sounds like you are managing it really well.

It's interesting to read your thoughts on the Michel Thomas courses. I'm coming to the end of the Foundation course which, like you, I found useful. I have access to the other courses, but wow - the Language Booster sounds very different! I may give that one a miss!

[Aozora]

Hi Aozora!

Another French learner here! I really admire you for trying to fit in more than one language - it sounds like you are managing it really well.

It's interesting to read your thoughts on the Michel Thomas courses. I'm coming to the end of the Foundation course which, like you, I found useful. I have access to the other courses, but wow - the Language Booster sounds very different! I may give that one a miss!

Hello! The Language Booster course might be more helpful for someone willing to sit down and pause and take notes (I can't say for sure, though). I try to multitask while I listen so if I'm not being slowly spoon-fed, it just doesn't sink into my head. Although taking notes and "trying to remember" goes against how Michel Thomas is supposed to work. I wonder how it went for other people.

[Aozora]

Japanese
I got a fair amount of input today. I watched/listened to videos on youtube and played a 3DS game in Japanese for a while. I did my Anki reviews, 25 new cards as well as my Subs2srs reviews. I also finished going through the third Subs2srs episode. It was quite dense and now I'm at 400 subs cards total (I already deleted some more from the first two episodes). I'm a little concerned about how the reviews for this deck will pile up, but I also want a ton of listening repetition. Cards from the first episode are already easier to understand.

[Aozora]

Japanese

In my regular Anki deck I have 867 cards seen with 1339 unique kanji among them. I haven't added more to my Subs2srs deck yet, but the reviews are so out of order now that it's a little confusing to review.

I got a lot of listening in yesterday, about 4 hours. I watched anime and listened to a few Sokoani podcasts. I also watched a bit of a variety show. I remember in the past I couldn't follow podcasts or variety shows but now I can so my listening and overall Japanese must have improved My comprehension isn't perfect but I can follow and enjoy the content.

I read about 25 pages yesterday as well. I'm a little behind in my reading since I missed a few days or had days when I only read a few pages.