Drp's Japanese (& other languages!) Log!

[drp9341]

Hello all, in an effort to hold myself accountable and also as an excuse to write down my language learning method for my own future reference, I am planning on starting this log!

Also, It's nice to be able to write down somewhere everything I've been doing with my languages, as no one I know in real life cares to hear the details of my language learning adventures!

I started learning Japanese in December 2015, right now it's April 12th, so it's coming on 6 months.

Here's why, when and how I started learning Japanese.

Japanese
I'll be graduating college in May, and I would like to do the JET program in 2017, as I think living in Asia would be a fascinating experience. I tried, albeit briefly, for 6 months to learn mandarin back in 2011, I got the gist of the spoken language, but ended up quitting due to the fact that my stuttering (which hinders my verbal communication rarely and minimally in non-tonal languages) was making it torturous to try to pronounce the words in the correct tone. Also, being a freshman at a huge State University with hedonistic tendencies, I was not willing to devote myself fully to learning a language as time consuming as Mandarin.

The only new language I have learned in the past 5 years to "basic fluency" (b1-b2ish) is Brazilian Portuguese, and that's mainly due to the fact that I had extremely favorable conditions. I have spent the last 5 years studying Speech Pathology, Psychology and Audiology, leaving my main languages (Italian, Spanish, French) to decay somewhat, except for intermittent usage during trips or randomly while home in the summers in NYC.

I decided that I wanted to take the fast track to learning Japanese, thus I decided to attempt to test out of Japanese 1. I went through and worked with the first 6 lessons of the Genki I textbook (which was what was covered in the first Japanese class.) In the 2 1/2 weeks leading up to final exams last December. I was told if I sat the test passed, and spoke with the department chair in Japanese I would be able to test out of the first class. Thankfully I managed to do very well on the written exam, and I managed to "bullshit" (not sure if we're allowed to curse?) my way through about a 10 minute conversation in Japanese, by memorizing phrases about my family, my major, where I live etc. I also learned how to say "uuummmm" and how to say "what's the word!" In Japanese. (These little tricks I learned from Benny Lewis's blog, which I've always found very useful despite the complaints of many detractors on the web!)

Then came winter break, and I focused on solidifying my knowledge of Genki chapters 1-5, I worked up to Assimil lesson 20-25-ish, and I started working on chapters 6 and 7 to get a head start on the new semester. I still was more or less unable to form my own sentences in Japanese at this point, and relied mainly on repeating sentences I had learned by heart while changing a word or two.

Since around January 20th I have been studying Japanese for about 3-4 hours a day outside of my 1hr a day class.

From around January till the middle of March my routine was as follows:
Class for 1 hour. Anki Core 200. Watch a half hour of Anime. Do homework. Study class (Genki) vocabulary. Study ahead 2-3 chapters and get alright at what it covers. Write down all new expressions, vocabulary, verbs I had been conjugating wrong etc. in a huuuuuge document on my computer, which I looked over frequently in order to not forget the new things I had learned.
During this time I did not focus on Kanji. I learned to recognize some Kanji through sheer repetition, and these Kanji that I recognize I began to incorporate into my writing instead of continuing to write in hiragana, although this was a small priority. The only Kanji I learned were the one's I needed to learn for my quizzes.

I went to office hours a few times and practiced speaking with the Japanese professors. By the end of February/March I was able to maintain a very broken conversation with a very sympathetic native speaker for nearly an hour without reverting back to English. I obviously made an atrocious amount of mistakes, and I treated these speaking sessions as a way for me to get some practice using Japanese for real life communication as well as a way to get instant feedback, (as I often am unsure if what I'm saying is correct or not!) Also, I believe it is good to get used to communicating in a language you don't speak well, as if you're comfortable speaking brokenly, you're going to be less likely to revert back to English. I witnessed Americans in those same sessions, who knew 10 times more than me, constantly revert back to English the second they didn't understand something.

However, the second week of March up until today, my Japanese learning seriously slowed down. For reasons unbeknownst, but I temporarily lost motivation to keep up with my rigorous Japanese learning schedule!


Return to the Romance Languages !!!!

As of the past 3 weeks, my Japanese studying has taken a backseat to Brazilian Portuguese, Italian, and Spanish. I have been hanging out with a Brazilian friend of mine who does not like speaking in English, (even though her English is definitely better than my Portuguese) I have been binge watching a Spanish Telenovela, and I am taking an upper division Italian course where it's only me the professor and another fluent speaker for an hour and a half twice a week, so I get to ramble in Italian for about 3 hours a week and write essays. I have also been using Lingq for Portuguese, as what the website offers is literally exactly what I've needed to improve my Portuguese without wasting time with learner materials meant for English or Spanish speakers! I have been working on these three romance languages for about 2-3 hours a day (not counting watching Spanish TV or news.) And I have been using my recently acquired knowledge of phonology and speech (thanks to my Speech Pathology degree!) to focus on improving my accent and ability to understand regional accents I previously had issues with. I have been working with all three languages within the same span of time, (rotating) every 25 minutes in order improve my ability to switch between all 3 languages while minimizing interference. It's been working!



During these past 3 weeks, my Japanese has been pushed to just the daily hour in class, and the 20 minutes a night I spend on homework. I do still do Anki about 3-4 days a week, but I am making very slow progress, focusing more on solidifying what I already know and learning Kanji as opposed to my prior "Pedal to the metal" approach.
AND TODAY THIS IS WHAT I DID!
I watched about 2 hours of my Spanish TV show, looking up a few words here and there.
I helped my roommate study for his Italian test.

Japanese
Today I studied all the colors, and used them in sentences in order to get used to the fact that some are nouns and some are adjectives, which is an extra something to pay attention to!

I then reviewed the short form (informal) verbs and adjectives in the past / present / negative / affirmative for about 20 minutes.

I then reviewed the vocabulary in Genki chapters 9 and 10 on the Genki Vocab App for the iPhone, (which is HIGHLY recommend for anyone using this textbook!) I shadowed all the vocab, as the app includes the word used in sentence, and recorded by a native speaker!!!

I reviewed chapter 10 grammar (superlatives!)
I reviewed chapter 9 grammar
I learned how to conjugate the potential form and how to use it.
I learned how to say "to try something out" and "to try to do something"
I learned some other uses for the volitional form.
I rewrote some of the sentences I was using to shadow if they included constructs that had started to fade from memory, (such at using the 「て」form when using more than one verb in sentence etc.)
and after I write this, I am going to use Anki then go to bed!

My Japanese doesn't seem to have deteriorated at all, despite the fact that I really cut back on the amount of time I spent on it these past three weeks!

Anyway, for tomorrow I plan on...

- using Lingq for Portuguese for 25 minutes (I'll use the Pomodoro timer so I don't get sucked into it and study for hours lol)
- review Genki chapter 9 & 10 vocab
- do the Kanji reading exercises for chapter 9
- Review the potential / "trying out" "trying to" constructions
- use Anki to review
- go hang out in Italian class for an hour and a half!
- go to my 1 hr long Japanese class.
- learn / familiarize myself with Genki Chapter 11 (and possibly 12) grammar.
- possibly see if any of the Genki workbook exercises are useful, and if so, do them!
- keep shadowing chapter 9 & 10 vocab and make example sentences with them! (I'll do this for as long as I feel like it.)
- Binge watch telenovelas on Netflix in Spanish occasionally looking up words / paying attention and listening for structures and expressions that I have not yet added to my active vocabulary!


お休みなさい！


PS: This is mainly to just share what I've been doing / remind myself what I've done and what I should do! If anyone has any advice on how I can make better use of my time, let me know! I greatly enjoyed sharing what I've been doing because I have no one to talk to about it in real life!

[drp9341]

I'm going to write in Portuguese about my experience with the Portuguese language, writing is by far my weakest skill in Portuguese, so this log will give me a good opportunity to track my progress and look back and see my improvement!

Eu comecei aprender o Português em janeiro 2015, não lembro exactamente porque eu quis aprender português, mas estou feliz que decidi estudar esta língua. Minha universidade não tem cursos do Português, não obstante eu fui capaz de aprende-lo. Eu já sabia falar o Italiano e o Espanhol e por isso aprender o Português não foi como aprender uma nova língua, senão acostumar-me a uma nova variedade do Espanhol ou Italiano.

Antes de estudar o Português podia lê-lo bem, eu já reconhecia e entendia a maioria da língua escrita. Por isso, e focalizei nos sons da língua. Eu utilizava vídeos no Youtube, (bookbox) e leia o texto enquanto escutava o áudio. Eu via desenhos animados (bob esponja!) para treinar minha compreensão oral. Também eu falava com meu amigo brasileiro por uma hora a cada duas semanas.

Em maio do ano passado eu fui ao Brasil por duas semanas e me diverti muito. Brasil é um pais incrível, e todos os brasileiros que eu conhecia eram muito amáveis, a verdade é que eu não vejo a hora de voltar ao Brasil. Agora, para treinar meu Português, eu tento falar com meus amigos brasileiros quando seja possível. Também cada dia eu tento ler ou escutar alguma coisa em Português. Com um pouco de sorte eu terei a oportunidade de ficar no Brasil por um pouco mais tempo no futuro!

Bom, já feito o Português, está na hora de estudar Japonês !

any Portuguese speakers reading this, correct away!