Tuckamore: slow growing and gnarly (Japanese, French & Thai)

Continue or start your personal language log here, including logs for challenge participants
tuckamore
Orange Belt
Posts: 138
Joined: Sat Nov 19, 2016 6:41 pm
Languages: English (N), Japanese (intermediate), French (intermediate), Thai (beginner), Swahili (beginner)
x 299

Re: Tuckamore: slow growing and gnarly (Japanese, French & Thai)

Postby tuckamore » Thu Jan 26, 2017 9:00 pm

In yesterday’s post, I mentioned how I have a stack of vocabulary that I’m deciding what I should do with and that I’m considering getting back on the Anki horse. But, what I have in mind for Anki is not straightforward, nor may it be practical. Before I get to my scheme, a little background on what led me here.

First, when listening to Read Real Japanese, I would listen to each phrase multiple times until I could listen to it easily and fluidly. Sometimes I would have to slow the audio down and then ramp it back up gradually before I could hear all the mora and easily listen at natural speed. However, in phrases that had unfamiliar vocabulary or grammar, I sometimes never felt I got to the point of ease in listening, or at least this ‘ease’ would not last. Most importantly, I felt that I would never recognize this word in another spoken context. Often, though, I felt that all I needed to do to ‘get’ this word was to hear it in a few more contexts, at different speeds, with different emphasis, etc. Incessantly repeating the same audio track wasn’t going to help.

Second, I’m just beginning to realize that it is a tad easier for me to learn words in Japanese through audio than reading alone. They stick better. And, words learnt from audio seem to transfer more easily to reading than words learnt through reading transfer to listening. Of course, I’m referencing text that goes with the audio, so it’s an unfair comparison. But, on the whole, I’m actually learning the word through repeated listening.

Third, I’m also beginning to realize that it is vocabulary that is holding me back in reading, not kanji. Until recently, I had mistakenly thought kanji was the biggest obstacle to reading Japanese with ease, but it is not so. Indeed, kanji adds another layer of opaqueness, but my biggest hurdle is lack of vocabulary. Insufficient vocabulary must be limiting my listening, too. So, I’ve been asking myself: how do I want to go about improving my vocabulary?

Fourth, when I was sick a couple weeks ago, I played around with Delvin Language (delvinlanguage.com). Delvin Language is a website where you learn words through video clips of native material through SRS. For a given word, they have several video clips from different native sources. When I was going through some of the words, I thought: this is what I want to do with my vocabulary list! I think my listening and scope of vocabulary would soar with an approach like this. Unfortunately, this website is limited in words that are currently available.

So, I was wondering, how practical would it be for me to make something like this myself: use substudy to create a database/corpus of audio sentences to use in Anki. I would have one large master deck, which I would primarily use as a database. Then, I would make a separate, smaller deck from this master deck. The smaller deck would include only those cards that have the words I’m interested in. (This smaller deck could be the master deck with all cards suspended except those cards of interest. Whatever the scenario, in this post I’ll refer to it as the smaller deck.)

Cons:
- will require a large number of videos with japanese and english subs (I suspect 100s of hours to be effective)
- a lot of time to create the master deck
- time to create the smaller deck by searching for each word I’d like to know for exporting (unsuspending) from the master deck
- search challenge increases when words can be written in kanji or kana (double search for the same word)
- words of interest may not even be found in this database
- would return to the daily grind on Anki
(- will be limited to the spoken word. I put this in parentheses, because I’m not sure if this is a con or a pro?)
I’m sure there are several more cons, but these are what I’m most concerned about.

Pros:
- a perk of japanese is that I have large access to videos with japanese and english subs
- will do very little editing (if any) in the master deck — e.g. if audio doesn’t match subs, then it will just be deleted if it ever reaches the smaller deck
- can keep updating the master deck, and importing cards with new words of interest into the smaller deck
- could use MorphMan to order cards in the smaller deck to optimize learning (I benefited from MorphMan a long time ago)
- I’ve watched a lot of J-drama over the years. So, I can limit my database to familiar content, and still have a lot of resources to draw from
- most grammar points at my stage seem to be surrounded around functional words/vocabulary. So, I’d also be able to search for new ‘grammar words’, and easily include these grammars in the smaller deck. (I’m not sure what to call it. It’s not grammar in terms of overall sentence structure, particle usage, or verb and adjective forms, etc.. Instead it seems to be focused on the grammatical function of certain vocabulary — ? Excuse my ignorance if there is a term for these words/types of grammar.)
- I do benefit from the daily grind on Anki
- if successful, potential to hear the same word said by different voices, in different contexts, at different speeds, etc.

This is the sort of Anki adventure that I’m mulling over. The time to set this up is my biggest concern — specifically creating the Anki cards. If it goes as I dream it would, then I wouldn’t be writing this out as I know I’d benefit tremendously. But, there are always unseen snags and I fear I’m underestimating how much work it would take to set this up. On the other hand, in a previous Anki deck, I entered >7000 sentences myself and I’d put that time in again — I credit this deck from helping move me out of beginner to intermediate. As a feeler for how practical this could be, I searched about 250 different japanese subtitle files (each file represents 1 episode) for a few dozen words that are on my list. I was pleased with the number of hits I got for each word (although some words had no hits). Feel free to be a critic.
0 x
: 10000 / 10000 10000 Japanese pages
: 1510 / 10000 the next 10000 Japanese pages

User avatar
emk
Black Belt - 1st Dan
Posts: 1620
Joined: Sat Jul 18, 2015 12:07 pm
Location: Vermont, USA
Languages: English (N), French (B2+)
Badly neglected "just for fun" languages: Middle Egyptian, Spanish.
Language Log: viewtopic.php?f=15&t=723
x 6318
Contact:

Re: Tuckamore: slow growing and gnarly (Japanese, French & Thai)

Postby emk » Fri Jan 27, 2017 8:46 pm

I saw your log while searching for my old subs2srs thread to update it. :-)

tuckamore wrote:So, I was wondering, how practical would it be for me to make something like this myself: use substudy to create a database/corpus of audio sentences to use in Anki. I would have one large master deck, which I would primarily use as a database. Then, I would make a separate, smaller deck from this master deck. The smaller deck would include only those cards that have the words I’m interested in. (This smaller deck could be the master deck with all cards suspended except those cards of interest. Whatever the scenario, in this post I’ll refer to it as the smaller deck.)

This is what Judith Meyer did with a Japanese TV series, and it's where I got the idea. :-) A TV series is definitely the biggest bang for your buck, especially at the beginner or low intermediate level. At more advanced levels, the problem is that only one line of dialog in 25 or 100 is useful, which means that you need to prepare far more video for the same results.

The daily grind is less grindy with substudy or Sub2SRS cards, because they're basically disposable and because of the "earworm effect." I think that the earworm effect is pretty amazing: I have barely done anything with Spanish in the last year, and before that, my total effort was about 100 hours starting from nothing. And just for fun, I pulled up my audio MP3 of episode 1 of Avatar, and I can still understand the dialog that I studied with sub2srs. A language with that small an effort investment shouldn't come back that fast! So I'm delighted to see that my Spanish is not lost.

This is one of my pet theories about language learning:

emk wrote:Understanding a language is a combination of two things: an earworm, and a lucky moment when you can figure out what it means.

Of course, speaking a language is another problem, and reasonable comprehension will sadly not produce effortless output. I wish there were clever answers for that. :-)
1 x

tuckamore
Orange Belt
Posts: 138
Joined: Sat Nov 19, 2016 6:41 pm
Languages: English (N), Japanese (intermediate), French (intermediate), Thai (beginner), Swahili (beginner)
x 299

Re: Tuckamore: slow growing and gnarly (Japanese, French & Thai)

Postby tuckamore » Fri Jan 27, 2017 11:00 pm

emk wrote:A TV series is definitely the biggest bang for your buck, especially at the beginner or low intermediate level. At more advanced levels, the problem is that only one line of dialog in 25 or 100 is useful, which means that you need to prepare far more video for the same results.

Thanks for stopping by and sharing your thoughts, emk. I agree with every point you make. I had used Subs2srs in the past with huge success. Now, I'm toeing the line from intermediate to advanced (or at least I'd like to think I am) and, if I were to use audio+subs+Anki, I would have the specific goal of mining native audio for specific vocabulary that I want to hear in different contexts. So, as you say, I would "need to prepare far more video for the same results", and this is where I'm questioning the practicality of my proposal.

I'm thinking I may spend some time this weekend doing a dummy run with about 10 hours of video. I think there is a way to use Morphman that could automate selecting (or prioritizing) cards based on a word list. If I could semi-automate selecting cards from the master database based on a word list (rather than searching for each word individually), then I will have less reservation in moving forward.
1 x
: 10000 / 10000 10000 Japanese pages
: 1510 / 10000 the next 10000 Japanese pages

tuckamore
Orange Belt
Posts: 138
Joined: Sat Nov 19, 2016 6:41 pm
Languages: English (N), Japanese (intermediate), French (intermediate), Thai (beginner), Swahili (beginner)
x 299

Re: Tuckamore: slow growing and gnarly (Japanese, French & Thai)

Postby tuckamore » Wed Feb 01, 2017 12:08 am

The first month of the year is wrapping up and I’ll give myself an A for effort. I’m not sure if my progress reflects my effort, as I’m not very efficient. But, I’ll keep trying.

Japanese

I’m finishing up the last story in Read Real Japanese: Fiction — かける by 多和田葉子. It is a terrific story for Japanese learners at my level. It is only 2 pages, but it is jam packed with different uses of かける。For example, the first sentence:
枕にカヴァーをかけ、ブラウズにアイロンをかけ、掃除機をかけ、洗濯機をかける主婦の仕事にはあまり縁のない私でも、朝食のトマトには塩をかけ、原稿を書くためにめがねがかけ、椅子に腰をかける
When I read it a while ago, my level was not high enough to appreciate the play on words. I don’t remember, but I’m thinking I was lost in the weeds with grammar points and vocabulary. This time round, no problem. I could enjoy the playfulness and wit. Despite knowing most all the vocabulary, though, listening the first time through was difficult. This is because it isn’t much of a story in terms of plot and characters, so I didn’t have much context to go on. Also, she uses phrasings such that I doubted I had understood them correctly until I confirmed it by looking at the translation. For example:
楽天主義にエンジンをかけ… or 七に七をかけ三で割る夢の中ではいつも橋を渡りかけてやめる。
In the last example, I understood “in a dream of 7 times 7, divided by 3….”, but I didn’t believe my understanding was correct. According to the ditty that introduced this story in Read Real Japanese, what I read was only a short version of a longer story. I think I may enjoy and learn from working through the full version.

I always falsely think I’ll have more time to work on languages during the weekend. But, I never do. I tend to get the most done during the week. I think the structure of the weekdays favours this. So, my plan of experimenting with some dramas in anki didn’t happen. I need to create a couple hour window to do this.

French

Nothing really new to report here. I’m still doing the same things I’ve been doing. For French in Action, I’ve modified my approach a bit where I do the Mise en œuvre again after working through the entire lesson. At some point for future lessons, I may benefit from reviewing the video, but right now this is sufficient.

Ah, yes, I almost forgot to mention…pronunciation. I need to really work on differentiating the vowel sounds in vu and vous. A couple lessons back in French in Action, this was the pronunciation focus and I got the test completely wrong. The thing was, I didn’t think I was guessing. I thought I was hearing the difference. Back to the drawing board on that one. I’m getting better with French Rs. I struggle most in multi-syllable words where ‘r’ ends a syllable, but not where ‘r’ ends the word. In words like ‘pardon’, ‘aujourd’hui’. Rs at the end of words don’t generally give me that much trouble, but I’m noticing I cannot get them right in ‘jour’ and ‘pour’. Must be the ‘ou’ + ‘r’ combination. The other issue I have with R is that sometimes, I just don’t make any noticeable sound. I think all the mouth bits are in the right place, but no appreciable sound comes out, or I have to really force it to get any sound out (and it sounds forced). Other times, it is smooth as can be. Not sure what the issue is. But, I can definitely see progress over the month, so I’m going to keep at it. One place I’ve really seen improvement is with ‘dr’ combinations like in voudrai. It was really hard for me at the start of the month, but now it is much easier.

Thai

I listened to some of the audio for the Maanii Books (http://ressources.learn2speakthai.net) and rediscovered what a great listening resource this is. As I understand it, these books were originally created to help Thai kids learn to read. And, over at Learn2SpeakThai, they have made audio for the first 5 books, available for free. For books 1-4, the audio is presented in two ways. One audio track for each chapter/lesson at normal speed and then a separate track for each sentence at slow speeds. I am questioning myself on why I didn’t use them right at the beginning of my Thai studies. I knew about them, checked them out even. But, I didn’t use them? Why not? Did I mistakenly think they were only for improving reading comprehension? If so, I’m a dummy. With the audio, glossary, and english translation for each sentence, they are a great listening resource. There is even the option to hide the transliterations.

This week I also was playing around a little bit with how I want to review the first 1000 sentences, but what I had envisioned isn’t going to work. I was making things too complicated. So, I’m just going to make things simple.
1 x
: 10000 / 10000 10000 Japanese pages
: 1510 / 10000 the next 10000 Japanese pages

tuckamore
Orange Belt
Posts: 138
Joined: Sat Nov 19, 2016 6:41 pm
Languages: English (N), Japanese (intermediate), French (intermediate), Thai (beginner), Swahili (beginner)
x 299

Re: Tuckamore: slow growing and gnarly (Japanese, French & Thai)

Postby tuckamore » Sat Feb 04, 2017 10:01 pm

I did it! :D Finally. I read my first book in Japanese. At last. 15 years to the month after I started learning Japanese. :oops: (Embarrassing to write that out.) I am clearly not a model for aspiring language learners. But, hey, I read a book in Japanese!

I now wonder what was I doing during those 15 years?
3 x
: 10000 / 10000 10000 Japanese pages
: 1510 / 10000 the next 10000 Japanese pages

tuckamore
Orange Belt
Posts: 138
Joined: Sat Nov 19, 2016 6:41 pm
Languages: English (N), Japanese (intermediate), French (intermediate), Thai (beginner), Swahili (beginner)
x 299

Re: Tuckamore: slow growing and gnarly (Japanese, French & Thai)

Postby tuckamore » Fri Feb 10, 2017 8:49 pm

A bit of a lull in my studies this past week because we got some decent snow to play in over the weekend and I was travelling during the week. I mostly just read, did a tiny bit of French in Action, and a tiny bit of Glossika. Next weekend, I’m taking a long weekend to play in the snow again. So, I’m hoping to rebuild a little momentum before my mini-holiday.

Reading (Japanese and French )
First thing I had to do to was choose another book. I still want to use French as a crutch for reading Japanese, so it had to be something I could get in both languages. (After so many failed attempts at reading Japanese, I’ll be a bit gun shy about going it alone with Japanese for a while.) I thought about another Murakami book — to reap whatever benefits there may be from sticking with one author. But, because I’ve just read two of his books back-to-back in French plus one of these in Japanese, I’m a bit Murakami-ed out right now. In googling around, I found a handy list of recommended Japanese books available in French, and was reminded that Ikebukuro West Gate Park by Ira Ishida (池袋ウェストゲートパーク -- 石田 衣良) was translated into French. Two years ago, I almost bought the audio wanting to try an L-R type exercise with English text and Japanese audio. But, it wasn’t ever translated into English. At the time, I was disappointed that it was available in French but not English. But now, it turned into an opportunity to read something not available in my native tongue, but in both of my core target languages.

Right off the bat, this book is so much easier than any book I’ve tried to read in Japanese. Pleasantly so. Actually, I think the difficulty/ease of reading it in Japanese in on par with reading it in French. It’s written in a very conversational tone. Even descriptions are conversational. There is a lot of street language, which I’m surprisingly comfortable with in Japanese. But, not so much in French, which makes it more challenging than the other books I’ve read in French. It is a first person narration, with a stream-of-consciousness style. The narrator is recounting past events — while this is very straightforward to follow in Japanese, my command of tense in French is weak and so I can get tripped up.

One of the harder bits in the Japanese version is that a lot of words typically written in kanji are written in kana, even worse, a lot of words usually written in kanji or hiragana are written in katakana. For example, it took me a while before I figured out that エライヒト was simply 偉い人. Because of this, my katakana reading is getting much better and I’m forced to reap meaning from ‘sound’ rather than sight-reading. There is a conversation in kraemder’s log about kanji being a crutch that can hinder listening — I am totally a victim of this. So, hopefully, the more I see things like エライヒト, the more the meaning of words will be extracted independent on kanji.

Thai
Reflecting on advice from Bakunin, I’ve been searching for some easy to follow videos in Thai. I’m not having any luck, yet, with something that will keep my attention. I’ll keep looking and once I find something, I will start to include a bit of native Thai listening/watching into my week. I’ll do this along with Glossika. Although Glossika is not native listening material, it is comprehensible input. I’m wrapping up the GSR files for the first 1000 sentences and I can feel how certain sentence patterns have become almost instinctive.
1 x
: 10000 / 10000 10000 Japanese pages
: 1510 / 10000 the next 10000 Japanese pages

tuckamore
Orange Belt
Posts: 138
Joined: Sat Nov 19, 2016 6:41 pm
Languages: English (N), Japanese (intermediate), French (intermediate), Thai (beginner), Swahili (beginner)
x 299

Re: Tuckamore: slow growing and gnarly (Japanese, French & Thai)

Postby tuckamore » Tue Feb 14, 2017 9:41 pm

Reading in French and Japanese continues

In a previous entry I said that the difficultly/ease of reading Ikebukuro West Gate Park (池袋ウェストゲトパーク) in Japanese is on par with the French. The further along I get, the more this seems to be true. The French helps orient me to the larger picture, (which is extremely helpful when I move on to the Japanese), but I actually get more nuance and detail from the Japanese. So many times I’ve puzzled over a French phrase, to only be struck with how simple and obvious it is to me in Japanese. I noticed very little of this in my last book — the French was by far easier than the Japanese. But, the last book had more literary-type descriptions and used more standard language — at least in Japanese (I can judge this for Japanese, but I cannot for French).

This shows me a few things.
First, casual/street registry in Japanese is easy for me in the written form. It’s hard for me in French. I seriously lack more casual and slang vocabulary in French… or just vocabulary in general. For Japanese, I have not been ‘taught’ many of the patterns and shortenings used in very casual speech (especially male type speech patterns used in the current book) from course books or conversation tutors. But, I just seem to know it. I’m actually surprised by the extent of what I just seem to know. This must result from watching so many hours of TV series in Japanese. I’m wondering if documentary types would help bridge the gap to reading more descriptive text?
Second, I’d wager that, for reading, my Japanese is not worse than my French. The biggest obstacle in Japanese is lack of transparency in vocabulary. Flip this, and cognates can give me a false impression that I read french better than I probably really do. When cognates are lacking, it hurts. I still have a long way to go with French.

Some other things:
- On Lesson 15 of French in Action. Lessons now require greater focus, but they are not hard. Challenging, yes; hard, not yet.
- On lesson 3 of French Pimsleur II. Over the month I’ve been using Pimsleur, I’m finding great improvements in my pronunciation. It still is dreadful, but much less dreadful than before. I appreciate the slow and repetitive format because it allows me to focus and adjust my pronunciation. I would be frustrated if I were only doing the spoken bits in French in Action without Pimsleur as a complementory aid.
- On Lesson 9 or 10 of Integrated Approach to Intermediate Japanese. Listening to the dialogues is amusingly easy. How nice to listen to something I have 99% comprehension of, and to learn that last 1% from context. Would love to reach this point in real-world listening! The workbook exercises….well, I’ll talk about them another time.
- I’ve implemented my Anki idea about hearing specific words spoken in different contexts. I greatly rely on subtitles and MorphMan. I’ll talk about this more in another post.
- Per usual, watching a Japanese drama almost daily. But, sadly I haven’t watched Hélène et les garçons in several weeks. I needed a break from it and I was too lazy to find anything else as a replacement. I need to listen more in French. After my mini-holiday, I am going to try again.
- Since I finished the Fiction volume of Read Real Japanese, I haven’t been doing any intensive listening or reading (outside of what is in Integrated Approach to Intermediate Japanese). I was going to start the Essay volume this week, but for that, too, I’m going to wait until after I’m back from my holiday.
- On Day 96 of Glossika Thai. I’m very happy with this method, despite its faults.
0 x
: 10000 / 10000 10000 Japanese pages
: 1510 / 10000 the next 10000 Japanese pages

tuckamore
Orange Belt
Posts: 138
Joined: Sat Nov 19, 2016 6:41 pm
Languages: English (N), Japanese (intermediate), French (intermediate), Thai (beginner), Swahili (beginner)
x 299

Re: Tuckamore: slow growing and gnarly (Japanese, French & Thai)

Postby tuckamore » Wed Feb 22, 2017 7:24 pm

Not much to report for the last week. A bit here and there. After 2 trips in 3 weeks, my routine is slow to come back. This always happens to me, and is not restricted to language study. Exercise, cooking, general household chores, etc, are all impacted. So, my goal is to try to get back into my routine by the end of the week — otherwise I don’t care whether I progress or improve this week.

Update on Anki/Substudy/(subs2srs)/Morphman project

Because I don’t have much to report in way of a summary for this week, I thought I’d give an update on my anki doings for Japanese. I’m writing this for my benefit, so I have a record of what I did/am doing. But, if anyone wants to hear more, let me know. I’ve returned to anki (after avoiding it for years) with the fixed goal of hearing specific vocabulary (vocabulary selected by me) said by different voices, in different sentences/contexts. My main tools are substudy and Morphman. So far, it’s working out great and just as I had wanted! The ‘just as I had wanted’ bit is surprising as I was weary that my expectations were not realistic.

The largest obstacle was creating a large enough database/deck. My original intent was to only use my own materials from TV series that I’ve watched. But, that would take a long time to get enough material loaded into anki for this plan to be practical. So, to give myself a head start, I download several premade subs2srs decks, which include anime and dramas that I have not seen before. I think the tradeoff is worth it — a large database with unwatched shows versus a small database with watched shows = moving along versus at a standstill. After using these pre-made decks to get me started, each week I’ve been adding one episode of a series that I’ve previously watched. I use substudy for this. Most of the pre-made decks don’t include English translations. But, so far this is not a problem as I can understand the Japanese audio or subs, and it does not impact the defined goal of “hearing specific vocabulary in different contexts.” Right now, I have 40,000+ cards in this deck, but only ~2000 have the vocabulary I wanted to hear.

Once I had a database/deck to work with, I used Morphman to help me identify cards that contained words in my vocabulary list. Currently, my vocabulary come from Read Real Japanese: Fiction. For each story in this book, I made a list of target words and imported each word list into Morphman. I then merged each separate word list to create a master vocabulary database (which I’m calling mastervocab.db). Then, I used the MassTagger feature in MorphMan, which puts a ‘hasMorph’ tag for all cards that contain a word in the mastervocab.db. I suspend all cards in this enormous deck, except for those with the ‘hasMorph’ tag. I also use the n+1 feature of Morphman to order my cards, but for my purposes, I don’t think this is even needed.

This routine is quite simple. The main caveat in making the mastervocab.db is to check each separate word list after it is imported into Moprhman, but before merging it with mastervocab.db. I’m not sure how Morphman will parse words — it may split up compound verbs or hack off ‘particles’ from something that I would consider one word. If this happens, then I run the risk of every sentence with に or 行く or 物 or something else common being unsuspended and it would defeat the purpose of my targeted vocabulary list. So, I inspect each word list after it is imported into Morphman. If I found words/morphs that I didn’t want in my mastervocab.db, the easiest thing to do would be to be able to save a modified word list after deleting the word/morph from within the Morphman window. But, I haven’t been able to do this. I can delete the word, but the word list (database) does not update. Instead, what I do is copy the word list from the Morphman window after I delete the unwanted words/morphs, paste it into a text file, and then reimport this word list into Morphman. It's simpler than it sounds. It is important though to have the “Results as 1col morpheme” checked in Morphman before deleting unwanted words. Otherwise, all the other bits of information will be included when you go to paste it into the text file.

All in all, it took me about 2-3 hours to get this routine up and running (large thanks to the pre-made subs2srs decks available for Japanese). Importing a new episode every week is probably another 15 minutes of hands on time each week. (With 2000 unsuspended cards, I probably don’t need to include more series for a while, but I’d like to slowly have this deck become one which is mostly material from series that I’ve watched.) The great thing about this system is that I can easily keep updating the mastervocab.db with new word lists, which I plan to do. And, I’m already benefiting from hearing certain vocabulary over and over in different voices.

Because morphman doesn’t include phrases (or rather it would break up phrases into individual morphs/words — such as 手に入る would then become 手, に, and 入る, each as a separate word), I could expand my work flow to search for specific phrases within Anki’s search bar and add the ‘hasMorph’ tag this way. But, I have enough material for now, so I’m not considering it. I may change my mind if there are certain phrases/collocations I really want to included in my study, but right now, it’s not worth the extra effort.
1 x
: 10000 / 10000 10000 Japanese pages
: 1510 / 10000 the next 10000 Japanese pages

tuckamore
Orange Belt
Posts: 138
Joined: Sat Nov 19, 2016 6:41 pm
Languages: English (N), Japanese (intermediate), French (intermediate), Thai (beginner), Swahili (beginner)
x 299

Re: Tuckamore: slow growing and gnarly (Japanese, French & Thai)

Postby tuckamore » Tue Feb 28, 2017 7:24 pm

I more or less succeeded in getting back into the groove over the past week. Somethings remained untouched, but tomorrow begins a new month.

French

- Chapter 17 of French in Action. I love this course! :D :D
- I’ve begun listening to the radio dramas Learning By Ear provided by DW. They are for a French African audience. I find they are perfect for my level. I can easily follow, even if I don’t catch everything. This is the first native resource (audio) that I don’t need to strain to understand. If needed, the older episodes have french transcripts (and english) and the newer ones have english. I don’t know why the newer ones don’t have french, too? I’m excited that they also have swahili for whenever I decided to pick it back up. I wish something such as this existed for Thai!
- The quantity of cognates between French and English continues to amaze me. Based solely on vocabulary, one could think that English was a romance language.
- I haven’t done any pronunciation work with Pimsleur since I came back from my trip. It’s one of the things I haven’t quite been able to bring back into my routine. I really should, because I can tell my pronunciation with FIA exercises is much better when I’m working with Pimsleur. Most noticeable, I’ve had a large set back in my R.

Japanese

- It’s been a month since I finished the Fiction volume of Read Real Japanese, and I had thought I would have been deep into the Essay volume by now. But, I haven’t even taken the book off my shelf. oops! So, I haven’t done any intensive listing and reading this month. Tomorrow begins another month and I’d like to get cracking on this book.
- My Anki listening experiment is going great. I study 10 new cards a day, on most days. I’m really liking this set-up and routine. Actually, I don’t even need an SRS for my needs. But, anki is the easiest way to put this material into practice. (If I could export the audio with the Japanese subtitle as the title of the mp3 file… or, if there was a way to merge separate audio tracks, and automatically create an .srt file, where the subs (taken from Anki) are timed to the duration of each original audio file… then, I may not use Anki at all.)
- I hope to finish 池袋ウェトゲートパーク/Ikebukuro West Gate Park this week. When I first started this book, I had found the Japanese was easier than the French in many aspects, but now the French has surpassed the Japanese. I guess it just took me some dozens of pages until I got used to the writing style. I’ll probably start volume 2 next.
- I would like to read 300 pages in Japanese in March. I don’t usually declare goals like this to myself, even if I think them. Nor do I count pages, hours, etc. But, let’s try. My larger desire, but I’m not declaring it as a goal just yet, is 500 pages a month. For reading to become easier, I know I need to accumulate pages and pages of reading. By day’s end, I will have read a little over 200 pages this month.

Thai

- I finished GSR 1 of Glossika. That’s 1000 sentences. I am going to start on GSR 2 tomorrow.
- There are 3 main Thai resources I have my eyes on for branching out: the Cat Cartoons, Learn Thai with Maanii, and the audio resources that Bakunin has created (Thai Recordings and SEA Illustrations). Each of these resources come with audio + text, and Cat Cartoons and Maanii come with English translations. Among the 3, I may start with Cat Cartoons by working with one episode a each week. At womanlearnthai.com, Sean Harley is creating Thai and English transcripts for this cartoon series. Each episode is about 1 minute long and there are currently 72 episodes completed. Base on the few I’ve looked at, they seem to teach something about Thai culture or even specifics about language use (in the context of something cultural?).
- I’d really like a set of videos I could watch extensively, but I did not have any luck finding anything to my liking and level. So in the meantime, I’m hoping that the resources above will become a bridge to opening up more native resources.
0 x
: 10000 / 10000 10000 Japanese pages
: 1510 / 10000 the next 10000 Japanese pages

tuckamore
Orange Belt
Posts: 138
Joined: Sat Nov 19, 2016 6:41 pm
Languages: English (N), Japanese (intermediate), French (intermediate), Thai (beginner), Swahili (beginner)
x 299

Re: Tuckamore: slow growing and gnarly (Japanese, French & Thai)

Postby tuckamore » Tue Mar 07, 2017 5:49 pm

It’s been a lazy week. I did touch on all 3 languages most every day, but not doing anything that required focus. I have to accept that these sorts of weeks pop up every so often.
-I didn’t start the Essays volume of Read Real Japanese as intended. But, it is now smack dab in the middle of my desk and I have put the audio on my phone. So, I’ve made some steps in the right direction
- I didn’t start GSR 2 for Thai as intended. With my back to back trips and finishing GSR 1 shortly after the last trip, I lost my right-before-bed habit of listening to one of these files. Once I start, I know I’ll quickly get back into the groove. But, starting can be the hardest part.
- The worst of all from this week is that I didn’t do any listening in French except for French in Action. I need to make sure this doesn’t happen again.

On a more positive note…

Japanese
I finished the first volume of 池袋ウェトゲトパーク and have started the 2nd volume. (Yay! second book ever in Japanese!) In the French sequel, translations are comprised of selected stories from both the 2nd and 3rd volumes of the Japanese. So, I’m going solo with Japanese for the stories not translated into French. This includes the first chapter volume 2. So far so good. I’m following the events, but everything is a bit more vague than when I have the French crutch.

Generally, my passive understanding of transitive and intransitive verb pairs is OK. They never hinder meaning. But, if I really wanted to translate or ‘get’ a sentence, I’d have to pause to think them out. The benefit with Japanese is that these pairs are basically the same word with a twist. So with help of the particle and context, the meaning is usually clear. But this also serves as a negative for me because the pairs are so similar, I never really learn what is what. (It seems similar to ESL speakers who confuse I’m bored and I’m boring.) In the past, I’ve stared at lists of these verb pairs trying to find some pattern, and never got anywhere. I’ve accepted that exposure is the only way to learn these pairs (memorization would not work for me here). Well, I just discovered that verbs ending in す are mostly (always?) transitive! This discovery immediately lifted the haze in some phrases. I don’t even need to consciously think about す = transitive, as my brain just seems to know this now.

Thai
Although I didn’t return to Glossika yet, I did take up the CatCartoons as talked about. I’m still working my way through episode 1. It’s only 1 minute long, but my Thai level is low and my time for Thai is short. So I don’t get far. I’m listening to it on my phone using the app CloneReplayer, which allows me repeat short chunks over and over and to slow down the audio. I play with the speed a lot, gradually going back and forth between slower and faster speeds. In addition to the transcripts and translations on womenlearnthai.com, for the first 20 episodes, there is a vocabulary list broken down by each sentence. I think this is a terrific resource.

I’ve also started up with learning to read again. When I first started my Thai studies I learned to read using Becker's Thai for Beginners. To say I was able to read is a stretch, but I could fumble my way through a string of text, tones and all. So, what I’m doing right now is mostly review. I have forgotten all my compound vowels (which I never really mastered the first time round), what class a consonant is, and how the tone marks behave with each consonant class. The last two, though, I did know well, so I just need some practice. I had stopped trying to read Thai because it was too hard to decipher the script without any grasp on vocabulary or syntax. Too many unknowns. But, I think I'm ready to try again. (Note on Beck's Thai for Beginners, I generally didn't like this book for learning Thai, but I give it 5 stars for teaching me how to read.)

French
This language was the biggest loser this week. I cannot remember doing anything in French besides French in Action and Ikebukuro West Gate Park. I may have listened to Learning by Ear earlier in the week, but I honestly cannot remember. I will be starting lesson 19 of French in Action today or tomorrow. My original goal was to finish it by the end of the year. But, making this much progress in 2 months, I’m tempted to try for 9 months. That would be about 35 lessons in 7 months. I can feel my pace steadily decreasing, but 5 lessons a month seems reasonable. We’ll see how March goes.
1 x
: 10000 / 10000 10000 Japanese pages
: 1510 / 10000 the next 10000 Japanese pages


Return to “Language logs”

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: niphredilorn and 2 guests