Jae's Journey (JA, ZH, KO)

[JaedMonkey]

Greetings earthlings. My name is Jae and I'm a long term lurker who is mostly new languages. I decided to start this language log because I am preparing for formal (language) studies in the new year and would like to get ahead. I've been studying bits and pieces of languages for a while now but have finally made it a goal of mine to really incorporate language learning into my daily life. The languages I'll be focusing on will be Japanese, Chinese Mandarin and a little bit of Korean when I have the time.

Resources
Assimil, Glossika, Textbooks, Memrise, Duolingo, Native Media

Methods
SRS, Scriptorium, Shadowing and Daily Immersion


A typical day may look something like this,

Morning

- Watch some Television in target language while having morning coffee and waking up.
- Review everything on Memrise. Learn 5-10 new items for each language and/or course.
- Use the Scriptorium method to go through 20 sentences per language.
- Follow up with at least 10 minutes of shadowing texts for each language.
- Spend another 20 minutes specifically writing Kana, Kanji, Hanzi, Hangul and/or Hanja.

Daily Commute

- Listen to music, podcasts or lesson audio.
- Finish Memrise reviews if I was unable to finish.

Evening

- Review and learn lessons on Duolingo.
- Read through textbooks such as Genki, NPCR or Integrated Korean.
- Watch Television or listen to more music.
- On weekends try to write blog entries in target language and if possible communicate with locals.

My current level for all my languages are beginner, but people have to start somewhere.

I look forward to continuing this log and following everyone else's journey. Good luck!

[JaedMonkey]

Welcome to the forum.

I would not recommend learning Chinese and Japanese at the same time. Maybe focus on one until you are intermediate and then come back for the other two. Learning Hanzi and Kanji at the same time seems like you are adding extra difficulty for yourself. Maybe JP & KR since their grammar is almost exactly the same or ZH & KR since KR has many elements of ZH in it.

Your typical day schedule looks great though and you should check out The Real CZ's old log. He is the only one I know that studied all three. Have you checked out the Lingodeer app? I have enjoyed it greatly over Duolingo (for KR).

Thanks for the welcome. I already know around ~1200 Kanji so I assumed learning the Kanzi would be alright at this point. I probably should have made it clear in my original post that as of next year I'll be taking both Japanese and Chinese at University so I won't be able to put either on hold. Korean is just something that I'll learn when I need a change of pace from the other two. Thanks for the link to The Real CZ's I'll be sure to check it out as well as the Lingodeer app.

[JaedMonkey]

Japanese

The textbook I've chosen is Genki for obvious reasons (most popular and the chosen series for my university). I plan to get through at least 2-3 lessons per week while reviewing the vocabulary courses on Memrise as I go along. In addition, I've been refreshing my Kanji memory on Memrise too and plan to re-start Remembering the Kanji so I can focus on writing not just recognition. As for my writing and listening. Writing out Genki sentences seems to be going well but there aren't that many so I've had to mix in the vocabulary to get some practice for all the new words. Listening has mainly been in the form of playing Genki dialogue/other tracks on loop throughout the day as well as watching Anime in the morning.

I guess I should probably add some of these:

RTK: 600 / 2042
Genki: 3 / 23
Duolingo: 4 / 40

Chinese

My Chinese practice this week has been limited to Memrise only. I've started the official Memrise course as well as HSK 1 vocabulary and the first 500 characters. Today I will be getting hunting the box containing my New Practical Chinese Reader Vol. 1 so I can begin going through the lessons at one per week.

Korean

At the moment I'm just practicing written Hangul to get myself familiar while I wait for free time.

[JaedMonkey]

Japanese

I've had a busy week so I've mainly been reviewing Genki and writing a few pages of sentences from the book each day. The workbooks are kind of annoying and require me to pretend I'm talking to a classmate but as I am a bit weird that's okay.

I moved from Memrise back to Anki. The problem with Memrise is that you need a premium account for offline use and I'd also like to customize the way my card is presented. I reset my Remembering the Kanji deck and will be starting from scratch to focus more on writing. As of now I have the keyword on the front with the kanji on the back. If it's a new Kanji or a Kanji I have forgotten, I will write it down at least 10 times in the correct order while reciting the story/mnemonic as well as Heisig's keyword.

Spending 500 lessons reviewing Kana I already know on Duolingo hasn't been fun but thankfully I completed most of those lessons this week too. Duolingo may end up being the only place I use SRS for vocabulary because my brain dislikes learning new words in isolation and out of context. Perhaps I will move on to Clozemaster when I complete my tree.

As for listening, I've watched a couple of anime episodes and at least 10 hours of Japanese TV via the wonderful site MioMio. I also listen to Genki dialogues as much as possible during my daily walk/commute.

RTK: 600 / 2200
Genki: 4 / 23
Duolingo: 9 / 40

Chinese

I found my New Practical Chinese Reader books and have been working on the first lesson. My listening comprehension for Chinese is abysmal so If I plan on getting anywhere I really need to spend twice as much time on listening to Chinese than I do Japanese. Similarly to Japanese, I just started learning a fresh Remembering the Hanzi deck in Anki as well.

RTH: 10 / 3225
NPCR: 1 / 50

Korean

Another week of practicing Hangul. No plans on picking up a textbook for Korean just yet but maybe in the new year.

[JaedMonkey]

A small update: I had a real life situation this week so I've only been practicing what I know each day. I feel stroke order is slowly getting easier to feel what is right or wrong, and I am enjoying the English -> Kanji order in Anki as it seems to be much easier to learn. Duolingo is pretty cool but I feel that I fail on English grammar more than Japanese I also got some real life experience talking to Japanese students on the tram, it was fun even though all I could say was basic phrases

[JaedMonkey]

Thankfully my real life has stabilized (for now) so I was able to slowly get back into a routine this week. But, now it looks like I've given in to some of my ADHD and OCD tendencies which have led me to add a couple more languages to play with. I know not much will happen and my progress will be slow but I don't mind, I find them all interesting regardless of my level.

Japanese

I spent the majority of my time this week studying Japanese. No new Kanji as I am just reviewing previously learned Kanji in my Anki deck until I catch up. Duolingo isn't really introducing that much vocabulary so I'll be starting a core 2k/6k/10k deck to use along side it until I start Clozemaster (post-Duolingo & Genki). Listening is going well as always with Japanese as I am an otaku

Genki: 8 / 22
Duolingo: 10 / 27
Remembering the Kanji: 600 / 2200

Chinese

I had problem getting the dialogue audio on to my phone to listen to so I had to hold off until earlier in the week. I also began using LingoDeer (thanks ロータス) which I've found to be a really useful supplement. Tones are still killing me but I can't expect much when I should be listening far more.

LingoDeer: 1 / 45
Remembering the Hanzi: 30 / 3225
New Practical Chinese Reader: 2 / 50

Korean

Nothing new

French

My girlfriend speaks French and suggested I pick up some super basic French to please her... so.. I can't say no. I will be mainly practicing it with her daily while progressing through Duolingo and a grammar book (which I've yet to pick).

Duolingo: 1 / 41

Italian

I know a tiny bit of Italian and thought it would be fun to review stuff on Duolingo so I've added that too.

Duolingo: 2 / 39