Re: Tuckamore: slow growing and gnarly (Japanese, French & Thai)
Posted: Fri Mar 10, 2017 8:28 pm
I have exciting things to report! Both reinforce to me that the power of listening should not be undermined.
#1 I never had an interest in the JLPT and so have no idea where my Japanese skills fall on the JLPT scale. But, lately, I’ve been wondering where I stand, especially in terms of vocabulary. The more I read, the more and more I am convinced that vocabulary is my biggest obstacle to proficiency. Until recently (that is, until starting this log), for about 5-6 years off and on, my only ‘studying’ was watching TV series. Because I’m not studying grammar, vocabulary, etc, at my desk, I’m insecure and lament that I should putting in more hours of proper toil. I’ve seen awesome improvement in my listening — which is, of course, something to celebrate in itself! I won’t deny myself that achievement. But, where does my vocabulary stand? What about my grammar? Although I don’t care about testing at a certain JLPT level, deep down, I’d like to think that I could sit for the N2 with little prior effort. With these thoughts in mind I did the sample questions for N2 on JLPT’s website.
They were surprisingly easy! If these 15 sample questions are truly representative of the N2, I could probably pass it with no prep. Compared to my daily TV listening, the listening was a piece of cake — remarkably so. For the grammar and structure-type questions, at first, I thought they were going to stump me because I never ‘learned’ or ‘studied’ what they were testing. But, the right answer just seemed right; the other answers just seemed wrong. I only did the first reading because I didn’t feel like reading passages that I have no interest in (I hate doing that in English as well). That one, though, went without a hitch — again, the answer seemed obvious. I’m stoked and reassured that I know some Japanese! You really can assimilate a foreign language with enough input. Of course, years ago, I had put in some serious toil with learning kanji, vocabulary, grammar, dissecting ’learn to read Japanese-type books’, etc., which I’m sure gave me a nice base from which to more easily benefit from the input. And, perhaps, I would be much further along if I studied from JLPT targeted materials. But, the feeling of ‘the answers are obvious’, without need for analysis, has to be from so much input. I’ll try the sample questions for N1 next, but I want to ride this wave for a while before testing myself again. I suspect N1 will not go well. Nothing here changes anything in terms of vocabulary and difficulty of reading native materials, but it is a great motivator .
#2 Tones were my biggest concern when I took up Thai. Some weeks ago, heeding some words from Bakunin, I started to focus on just hearing and understanding the language, less on tones. I can now say that it is OK to stop obsessing over tones. I'm relearning to read and... Something amazing has happened! When I see the transliteration and the English meaning, I automatically hear the correct pronunciation in my head, tone and all. If I'm sounding out a word (in my head) I know from Thai script, and I get the tone wrong — it won’t ring a bell. But, once I look at the English translation, the pronunciation with the proper tone immediately jumps out. Even then, I’m not focused on the tone itself, but the overall sound. It is fantastic. I have to credit Glossika with this as it has been the main material I’ve used to study Thai. I’ve put in 100+ hours (50+ hours with GMS files when I first started, and 50 hours over the last half year with GSR 1). My listening skills would likely be better off if I put those hours into listening to native material, but I think this ’tonal’ understanding would be much slower to gain using faster native speech. So, it’s a trade-off and I’m OK with it.
#1 I never had an interest in the JLPT and so have no idea where my Japanese skills fall on the JLPT scale. But, lately, I’ve been wondering where I stand, especially in terms of vocabulary. The more I read, the more and more I am convinced that vocabulary is my biggest obstacle to proficiency. Until recently (that is, until starting this log), for about 5-6 years off and on, my only ‘studying’ was watching TV series. Because I’m not studying grammar, vocabulary, etc, at my desk, I’m insecure and lament that I should putting in more hours of proper toil. I’ve seen awesome improvement in my listening — which is, of course, something to celebrate in itself! I won’t deny myself that achievement. But, where does my vocabulary stand? What about my grammar? Although I don’t care about testing at a certain JLPT level, deep down, I’d like to think that I could sit for the N2 with little prior effort. With these thoughts in mind I did the sample questions for N2 on JLPT’s website.
They were surprisingly easy! If these 15 sample questions are truly representative of the N2, I could probably pass it with no prep. Compared to my daily TV listening, the listening was a piece of cake — remarkably so. For the grammar and structure-type questions, at first, I thought they were going to stump me because I never ‘learned’ or ‘studied’ what they were testing. But, the right answer just seemed right; the other answers just seemed wrong. I only did the first reading because I didn’t feel like reading passages that I have no interest in (I hate doing that in English as well). That one, though, went without a hitch — again, the answer seemed obvious. I’m stoked and reassured that I know some Japanese! You really can assimilate a foreign language with enough input. Of course, years ago, I had put in some serious toil with learning kanji, vocabulary, grammar, dissecting ’learn to read Japanese-type books’, etc., which I’m sure gave me a nice base from which to more easily benefit from the input. And, perhaps, I would be much further along if I studied from JLPT targeted materials. But, the feeling of ‘the answers are obvious’, without need for analysis, has to be from so much input. I’ll try the sample questions for N1 next, but I want to ride this wave for a while before testing myself again. I suspect N1 will not go well. Nothing here changes anything in terms of vocabulary and difficulty of reading native materials, but it is a great motivator .
#2 Tones were my biggest concern when I took up Thai. Some weeks ago, heeding some words from Bakunin, I started to focus on just hearing and understanding the language, less on tones. I can now say that it is OK to stop obsessing over tones. I'm relearning to read and... Something amazing has happened! When I see the transliteration and the English meaning, I automatically hear the correct pronunciation in my head, tone and all. If I'm sounding out a word (in my head) I know from Thai script, and I get the tone wrong — it won’t ring a bell. But, once I look at the English translation, the pronunciation with the proper tone immediately jumps out. Even then, I’m not focused on the tone itself, but the overall sound. It is fantastic. I have to credit Glossika with this as it has been the main material I’ve used to study Thai. I’ve put in 100+ hours (50+ hours with GMS files when I first started, and 50 hours over the last half year with GSR 1). My listening skills would likely be better off if I put those hours into listening to native material, but I think this ’tonal’ understanding would be much slower to gain using faster native speech. So, it’s a trade-off and I’m OK with it.