Aozora's Log for Japanese and French

[Aozora]

Japanese

I did 51 words in Memrise. Those words were pretty tough and used a lot of brain energy... plenty of 4 kanji phrases like 新進気鋭 and 内柔外剛. I did a little listening. I'm hoping to try a little LR with The Time Machine tomorrow.

French

After my complaining, I decided to use the Memrise course that requires typing. I'm not making as many typing mistakes today, maybe I was tired and feeling too much in a rush yesterday. I did about 37 words today. I took notes for chapter 11 in my textbook and read a few of the early reading sections. It's much easier now with several chapters of grammar in my head. My thoughts on the grammar is that past participle looks like a pain challenge and has a lot of little things to remember regarding word order, spelling, avoir vs être, agreement, etc. I think this will take the most work to remember. Hopefully some reading will help with that.

[Aozora]

I've been distracted by other things this week and had less time for languages. I'm pretty unhappy about that but it can't be helped.

Japanese

I did 83 words in Memrise since my last update. I listened to The Time Machine without reading anything. I understood the story but sometimes my mind wandered and I missed bits, and I could tell there were a lot of words I didn't know. Next time I'll follow along with the English text and see how much I missed. This story is mostly description (telling not showing) so it's not the most enjoyable.


French

I did 110 words in Memrise since the last update.

[Aozora]

Japanese

Working on reviewing vocab and my articles. I watched some stuff as well.


French

I worked on Assimil on Sunday. For lessons 5-9, I listened, listened while reading, and wrote down the dialogues. Overall I listened to each lesson 3-4 times. My comprehension was good. If I had started this cold, without some grammar, vocab and reading experience, it would have been more challenging (in an unpleasant way).

[Aozora]

French

I did 53 words in Memrise.
I reviewed some grammar, read some passages in chapter 3 of my textbook, and I also read some beginner stuff on LingQ. Back in February I had tried LingQ but my level was so low that even the introductory lessons were too difficult (note I haven't been studying regularly since February, that's just when I picked up French again). I can read them now and more. It's a good feeling. Now I can practice reading things at my level and solidify what I've been studying.


Japanese

Took some notes from Sou Matome N1 Goi. About 30 words with short examples. I was able to skip over many words which I already knew. Good to know N1 material overlaps a lot with stuff I've already learned.

[Aozora]

It's been a while since I updated. For Japanese, I did 90 more word+examples from Sou Matome N1. I worked on reviews, but not much else. I was at an anime convention over the weekend and found a set of 11 light novels in Japanese. I'm pretty happy about that find as it's rare to find Japanese manga and books to purchase in my city (and if I find something it's not usually a title I want). The series is Suzumiya Haruhi --I read the first volume years ago but never got a hold of the rest until now.

[Aozora]

Japanese

I did 118 more words from Sou Matome N1. I also started reading again for Tadoku yesterday. I'm 25 pages into Suzumiya Haruhi no Yuuutsu. I wrote down the new words as I came across them and so far I've got 48 new words to learn :O I want to study them by the end of the day. Usually I just mark the words in the book and look them up later, often after I've read the whole book. This time I want to build my vocab as I go, and hopefully some of it will repeat. There are a lot more new words overall compared to the 5-6th grade level novels I was reading. It'll be too overwhelming if I let them pile up.

[Aozora]

Japanese

I've reached page 70 in Suzumiya Haruhi no Yuuutsu. I studied those 48 words from the other day and wrote down a further 57 that I'll try to drill later today. I also finally resumed reading Princess Academy.
For listening, in the past two or so weeks I listened to two radio dramas (5 hours total) and I watched a 25 episode season of anime. I've also been listening to Japanesepod 101 lessons again.

[Aozora]

Japanese

I've reached page 159 in Suzumiya Haruhi, and I've drilled 121 words since the last update. I have a nice routine going right now, reading 25-30 pages a day and drilling the new words with paper flashcards before they pile up. I'm curious how things will be once I've read a few books in the series--will the amount of new words decrease? And if so will that benefit transfer to my other light novel series?
I've also read 43 pages of Princess Academy since I resumed reading (not looking up words for this one).

[Aozora]

Japanese

I finished reading Suzumiya Haruhi no Yuuutsu, . The novel was good. I understood it much better than the first time I read it years ago. I collected roughly 410 words to study from it, but I still have a little over a 100 words to drill. I'm thinking I'll read Kagerou Days vol 3 next, and Suzumiya vol 2 after that. Then I can make my way through the two series.

French

I got a hold of "Le français par la méthode nature" and read the first 4 chapters. For those who don't know, it's a monolingual 1000+ page reader that takes you from the basics up to... I'm not sure how advanced, actually. It's all in French, no translations. It looks promising so far, but I'm curious how it will handle introducing more complex grammar and words.

[Aozora]

Japanese

I reached page 110 in Kagerou Days vol 3. Early on there were a lot of new words, I think the author was trying to be relatively wordy with some descriptions. Things have leveled out now and I'm only finding a new word every other page or so. I'm getting some good repeated exposure to the grammar point と言わんばかりに. Seems to be a favorite of this author ^^