unrelatedwaffle's language log

[unrelatedwaffle]

I'm extremely happy to have found this forum. No one I know in my life is as enthusiastic about language learning as I am, and it can get pretty lonely. I'm inspired by everyone else's ambitious logs and would like to put some of my goals and practices in a log as well.

I've been learning both French and Japanese since about age 12 (18 years now!). I spent high school and college learning French in school, and went to graduate school for French linguistics, so my French is very academic and though I can read almost anything with about 85% comprehension, my listening comprehension is quite poor. I spent a summer in Montreal while doing dissertation research and it's a place I consider moving long-term, so I'm especially interested in Québécois.

My top goals for French are
*read all of the French novels I have in my backlog (I buy a lot at Half Price books and then dilly-dally on reading them), adding new vocab to Anki from my notebook
*learn tons of vocabulary, including idioms and slang
*improve listening comprehension by watching YouTube videos that have target-language subtitles and doing lyricstraining.com regularly
*Work through Le québécois en dix leçons by Alexandre Coutu

I learned Japanese from anime and manga as a teen, then took classes and studied abroad in college, and have studied independently and gone back on vacation several times, and have translated professionally on and off. My listening comprehension is pretty good for most situations, but I'd like to learn more high-level vocabulary to be able to keep up with any situation and really be an elite speaker. I know about 1900 kanji (the Japanese RTK mod for Anki is the best thing ever), but I add new ones to Anki as I come across them in new vocabulary. I passed JLPT 2-kyuu back in 2009 before the redesign, and I'd like to take the 1-kyuu next December.

My top goals for Japanese are
*Work my way through the 1kyuu Shinzen Master series and pass the 1kyuu JLPT
*Add vocabulary I come across in manga and write in my notebook to Anki, as well as from the 15,000 Japanese word frequency list at manythings.org
*Drill kanji for words I know but often forget how to write (mixing up with homophonic kanji)
*Read articles on goo.ne.jp or other blogs
*Read short stories
*improve listening comprehension by watching YouTube videos that have target-language subtitles

Looking forward to being more active in this great community!

[DaveBee]

Welcome to the forum Waffle!

I'll be interested to read about your progress through the Coutu book.

[unrelatedwaffle]

Japanese
Yesterday I watched a Japanese YouTube video about silly wishes people made for the Tanabata festival with and without captions and added about 15 words to Anki from it.
I reread Volume 23 of 君に届け.
Got through all my Japanese decks in Anki (forwards, backwards, individual kanji, kanji through vocab).
Today I watched/listened to 5 minutes of a book on tape on YouTube about psychology (眠りながら聴くマーフィー) without captions, then with captions. I added 20 words to Anki from it.

French
Yesterday I got through a big chunk of my French deck backlog in Anki (I've been sick for a few weeks and have fallen behind).

[baobab]

Hi, welcome to the forum!

I'm also currently studying for the N1, using the 新完全マスター series. With only 1 month left until the exam and a lot of material that I still haven't looked at, I'll slowly have to start to prioritize

At the moment I'm still quite relaxed about it because I didn't find the N2 exam that difficult, but at that time I was studying in Japan so I had a lot more input. Also there's a lot of material in the N1 that I don't really encounter that often in my general reading (especially grammatical patterns). So yeah, still got a lot of work to do! 頑張りましょう！

[unrelatedwaffle]

I've had some relatives in town this week so I haven't been keeping up as well as usual, but I did watch a Japanese YouTube video on Friday about the International Olympic Committee. The target-language subtitles were not timed properly, so it was too difficult to follow and add new words on rewatch. I've been keeping up with my Japanese decks but my French decks have fallen way behind, just because I don't have an hour or so a day to devote just to that. I'm doing my best to use downtime to fit in a few cards.

[unrelatedwaffle]

Yesterday I spent 2 hours adding translated English subtitles for a funny Japanese video I'd seen that had Japanese but not English subtitles, also translating the title and "about" section. It was really fun and a great exercise. I highly recommend it. I'm also slowly but surely chipping away at my Anki backlog. Looking forward to carving out some more time for French next week, once that backlog is less daunting.

[unrelatedwaffle]

I took out a Japanese novel from the library over the weekend and read the first three pages. The last time I attempted adult fiction I wasn't able to read very far at all, but there were only 10 or so words I didn't know in that chunk. I'm very excited by this.

Added a bunch of words from visual dictionaries to Anki, chipping away at the backlog!

[unrelatedwaffle]

Today I finally cleared my Japanese Anki backlog. I added all the words that I've had scattered in various notebooks to a Google doc and on Wednesday I added a chunk to Anki.

Today I also did the first 2 test sections from Shin Kanzen Master N1 Goi book and scored 20/20 on the first section and 18/20 on the second. I guessed correctly that 配偶者 is used by an outside observer (so not as a replacement for 夫・妻) but 夫婦喧嘩 is a set phrase I wasn't familiar with so it was a good distractor and I fell for it. I've learned the vocab for the next two sections so I want to do those too before I start some laundry and dishes.

I've also made some good progress on my French Anki backlog, but it's going to take me likely another week or so to be all clear. Then I'll be able to read Harry Potter 4 in French!

[unrelatedwaffle]

I've been making it through 2-3 pages of Cow House every day. The book is due back at the library on the 13th and I already renewed once, so I'd like to make it through at least page 30 before returning it.

I teach a small group of friends Japanese once a week and another friend French once a week, so it gives me extra practice.

My Japanese Anki load is manageable now (about 300 cards a day, which I can knock out in around 20-30 minutes), and I've demolished two of my three French decks down to 50-90 cards a day. I still have one French deck left at 1000+ cards, which I hope to slog through this weekend.

I need to add some novels to my holiday wish list!

[unrelatedwaffle]

I've always toyed with the idea of doing a subs2srs deck, because listening is my weakest skill in both French and Japanese, but the decks are so large that it stressed me out (I sync across devices and my phone does not have enough room left to house a 1.5 GB piece in Anki!). But I realized I could make a new profile and only do subs2srs decks on my computer, isolating them from the sync!

I also modified the default for the deck I downloaded, which was to show a screenshot, play audio, and show the target language transcription on the front, then the English translation on the back. Instead I have it show the screenshot and play audio only on the front, and show transcription and translation on the back. I think this is a much better way to learn, at least at an advanced level, where you may only get tripped up on 1-2 words per sentence. I'm excited to see how this improves my listening comprehension and I will report back.