Aozora's Log for Japanese and French

[Aozora]

Japanese

I've been reading 恐怖コレクター again, and I'm 144 pages in. It's an easy read so I'm hoping to improve my reading speed. I did a little more flashcard review.



I also found an old secondhand book on French idioms called 700 French Idioms by J. Dale Miller and Kaylinda B. Essig. I'm thinking it'll be a decent resource for learning phrases and idioms, especially compared to googling "French idioms."

[Aozora]

French

I've been reading on Lingq since my last update, and I worked on Memrise a little today. I want to get some grammar drills in, but I'm dragging my feet about doing it.

Japanese

My last update was a long time ago. I did finish rereading 恐怖コレクター since then and I worked on the never ending vocab review.

One of my weaknesses with Japanese is speaking. When I try to speak out loud I stumble over my words and speak rather slowly. Even when I practice reading aloud I can't produce the speech as quickly as the native audio I'm following. I decided to work on my speed and fluidity (and accent?) by reading passages aloud repeatedly and shadowing smaller snippets in audacity. I'm using the book Read Real Japanese (essays) and the accompanying audio for now. Hopefully if I do this regularly, my speech production will improve? If it doesn't improve through practice I don't know what else would work ^^; I'm also going to try describing my day out loud before I go to bed.

[kraemder]

It looks like we're at a similar level of Japanese. I'm also not so happy with my speaking speed. In general, I'm blissfully unaware of this but I recorded myself just doing s stupid monologue and wasn't so happy at all with my speed. I might be slower than you. I thought about doing monologues before bed too but haven't followed through. I think a lot of why I'm slow is just that I want to use more advanced grammar and vocabulary and that has to slow anyone down, since they're not just speaking the first thing that pops into their head. It sounds like you've really got the reading thing going well for you though.. sticking to books and finishing them instead of getting distracted like I do all too often.

[Aozora]

Thanks for your response, kraemder I know that feeling trying to produce a complex sentence on the spot and it just comes out slowly.

French

I read and listened more on Lingq. I'm feeling progress; it's getting easier to read long sentences, and I can follow the audio better than even a few days ago.

Japanese

I did three sessions for practicing my speech. Repeating a phrase over and over, I can get up to native speed and actually shadow. The effect fades by the start of the next session, but not completely. The process is basically taking a phrase or sentence (ex 僕は噓をつくのは得意ではない, the first sentence of the book), isolating it in Audacity, and repeating it with the audio until I can match the audio. Sometimes I have to break a phrase down further if there's a string of syllables that are difficult to say quickly.

[AndyMeg]

My favorite way of training my speaking fluency is using J-Dramas or anime. This method is more enjoyable with a partner, but even alone can be a lot of fun:

1) We watch the part of the dorama (or anime) will be studying that day, but we don't pay attention to the subs, only to the sounds and the general context.
2) We read the japanese script for that part and look for anything we don't understand (new vocab, grammar, etc.)
3) After we get a good grasp of the script meaning, we contrast it with the official subs.
4) Then we divide roles and read our part of the script trying to imitate the actors' pronunciation and intonation.
5) We listen to the part again and then role-play some more.

I do this once a week with a friend. I also recently did this with my sister (I was teaching japanese to her so I gave her the kana version of the script because she is an absolute beginner), but we role played the same segment for about three days (once a week) and by the third week we were very close to the actors' pronunciation, intonation and speed. The segment we practiced was about 2 or 3 minutes long. It was really fun!

[Aozora]

That does sound like fun I wish I knew some people who are learning Japanese.

[tuckamore]

Hi Aozora. Looks like we have similar language profiles. I'm also learning Japanese and French -- I've been learning Japanese for a long while and started studying French only about a month before you.

How's the shadowing going with Read Read Japanese: Essays? For the past couple months, I'd worked my way through Read Real Japanese: Fiction, and when the mood strikes me I have put certain phrases on infinite repeat for shadowing. My approach is very haphazard, though. I would like to have more structure in how I do this. Are you cherry picking what phrases you'd like to shadow, or are you going through an essay, line by line? This week, I'm moving on to the Essay's volume for intensive reading and listening, and will probably wind up shadowing some of the same phrases as you.

[Aozora]

Hi tuckamore, we do have similar language profiles

I'm going through the whole first essay from the start, and I move on from a phrase once I can shadow it in time with the audio a few times. Some phrases are easier to shadow than others (and I don't know which ones to focus on until I get to them). I haven't gotten through the entire essay yet. Hopefully in a few weeks I can report back on how it actually works out for me. This seems like something that needs time to improve on.

[AndyMeg]

That does sound like fun I wish I knew some people who are learning Japanese.

You can find some people online. Maybe on italki or similar sites. Then you could practice via Skype.

[Aozora]

Maybe if I had a microphone and the courage to talk to people online


French

I read quite a bit on LingQ today, and I signed up the the 90 Day Challenge on LingQ too. I did some vocab on Memrise. For the 90 Day Challenge, I'm not sure how I'll get my listening hours up since the audio for the lessons is usually only 1-5 minutes long. I wonder if I can count listening time from outside of LingQ?

Japanese

I did some more shadowing practice. I had a bad day where I couldn't really keep up with the audio and had to quit, but today I tried again and it was very good. I could get on speed with the audio very quickly compared to before.
I also started rereading the children's novel Online!