The Kuji Khronicles - JA, PT

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kujichagulia
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Re: The Kuji Khronicles - JA, PT

Postby kujichagulia » Fri May 12, 2017 4:26 am

I'm quite a negative person. Lately I'm reading other people's logs, and people are always so positive about their language progress, as they should be. People will write something like this: "I read five pages of [book], and I could understand 20% of it. I'm so happy!" Meanwhile, if I'm reading a book, I would probably think something like this: "I read five pages of [book], and I could only understand 20% of it. Wow, I have so far to go. This is going to take forever."

This attitude is especially troublesome for my Japanese studies. I think that is because I live in Japan and am surrounded by native Japanese speakers. People are having (really loud) conversations in Japanese in my office as I type this! (Don't worry; I'm on lunch break.) When I hear my co-workers or other people speaking native Japanese at normal speed, I think, "Wow, I want to be able to speak like that!" Then I think, "I'll never get to that point. I can only understand 30% of what they're saying!"

That is a damaging attitude to have. Why am I comparing myself to native Japanese speakers? That is a battle I'm going to lose every time. I need to accept that I will never speak Japanese as good as a native speaker. I won't be mistaken as a native speaker, anyway, because I don't look Japanese. I'm not going to fool anybody. :lol:

Anyway, I shouldn't compare my 30% comprehension to someone with 100% comprehension. Rather, I need to compare myself to "yesterday's kujichagulia." OK, so yesterday I understood 20% of the pages I read in that book. Today, I understood 21%. That is progress. I'm on the right track. I'm the best in the world. Tomorrow, it's gonna be 22%.
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kujichagulia
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Re: The Kuji Khronicles - JA, PT

Postby kujichagulia » Tue Oct 17, 2017 6:03 am

JAPANESE
I used to go to a website called NHK News Web Easy, with daily news stories written in simple Japanese. However, I realized last month that I have outgrown that website. After watching me read several news articles in a row in which I knew all the vocabulary and grammar, my wife suggested that I start reading regular news articles. I can get the gist of many of the news articles I read, but there is a huge gap between NHK News Web Easy and regular news articles meant for natives, and it can be a struggle. So I'm looking for other reading sources.

I'm trying to find websites that appeal to my interests and are written in my target languages. Lately I've been into minimalism (i.e. clearing out all unnecessary things in your home, budget, daily routine, life in general, etc.), and I came across a website called 持たない暮らし、使い切る暮らし。 Loosely translated, it means "A life without keeping anything, a life in which you use stuff completely." Some of the suggestions on that page are extreme minimalist, but on the other hand, the Japanese is colloquial and challenging enough that I can learn a lot of new stuff. The vocabulary is probably more useful to me than what I can find in news articles.

While my understanding of Japanese has been increasing, I feel stagnant in my ability to produce Japanese. Often I can understand what someone says to me, but I need time to think about what to say back to them. I need output practice. I've stopped writing, and I think I need to start writing again. I find it boring writing about what I do each day, perhaps because my life is boring. :lol: But I do have an "ultimate writing topic" spreadsheet on my computer that I compiled a while back. I can press a button on my keyboard, and it brings up a random topic. I should use that more often.

PORTUGUESE
I'm embarrassed to say that my Portuguese studies have been almost non-existent since June or so. It's probably not a coincidence that it happened at the same time I stopped chatting with people from Brazil on Tandem and WhatsApp. So, recently I've reconnected with some of the people I used to chat with often. That has helped increase my motivation to work on my Portuguese.
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Re: The Kuji Khronicles - JA, PT

Postby kujichagulia » Thu Feb 22, 2018 4:50 am

I've battled consistency problems over the last few months. I was staying away from the forum in an effort to really prioritize my time, but seeing as that didn't work, I'm back. I think reading about other people's studies really motivates me. I'm really inspired by Expugnator's log and how he can manage to study so many languages, even while juggling a job and a family. If he can do that with 10+ languages, I should be able to do that with two.

One problem I have is that I want everything to be perfect. I want to just go to work, come home, eat, and then work on my target languages. But life is not that simple, and I have to learn how to deal with that. One day, I might be able to do a lot of language tasks, but the next day other things interfere and I can't do what I did the day before. Life ebbs and flows, and instead of complaining about it, I need to accept it and work with it. Yeah, some days I won't be able to do DLI, or read that article I have saved up. That's fine. It doesn't mean all is lost.

As far as this log is concerned, my immediate goal is to start posting here daily, or at least Monday to Friday, about my language activities, similar to what Expugnator does in his log. I don't know if I can actually do that, or if it will even help my consistency problems, but it's worth a shot.

The Winter Olympics are taking place in Pyeongchang, South Korea, and so I've dropped my usual Japanese activities to just watch the Olympics in Japanese. I probably spend about 30 to 40 minutes a day on average watching the Olympics in Japanese. I've been doing that since the Olympics began.

However, at work the students have started final exams, and I've come to a "dead period" in which I don't have any pressing matters at work - no lessons to create and plan, no essays to grade, etc. So I've used a bit of my work time to catch up on the blog I talked about before called 持たない暮らし、使い切る暮らし。 I really like that blog. It's better than reading the news because it is written colloquially, and I can find a lot of new phrases I can put to use in my spoken Japanese.

With Portuguese, I've mainly put off all other activities to push through DLI. When I say "push," I mean do DLI lessons during my morning and afternoon train commute. Each way is only 20 minutes, so I can do about 40 minutes of DLI each day - when I am not sleepy or dead tired. The train is the easiest time for me to put on my headphones and listen to the audio, although I can't really do the drills in a loud voice on the train. It's better than nothing, though.

When I have time, I'll go through a video on YouTube from something called Easy Portuguese. (I do the same with Easy Japanese, too.) So far, they're interesting.
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Re: The Kuji Khronicles - JA, PT

Postby kujichagulia » Mon Feb 26, 2018 12:22 am

I took Friday off from work so that my wife and I could go to a hot spring about an hour by car from our house, so the weekend was longer than usual. I can hardly do any language activities on the weekend other than passive or extensive activities, so I didn't do much in the way of structured study the last three days. I did watch a lot of the Olympics, of course - Japan did well, by the way. Now that the Olympics have finished, I need to go back to less interesting ways to get Japanese input. :)

I'm still reading 持たない暮らし、使い切る暮らし。My goal is to read one article a day, since it seems that she puts out that many articles daily. Right now, I probably read on average one article a week. Some days, other things grab my attention, and it slips my mind. Of course, I didn't read any articles over the weekend.

I'm thinking about what other interesting activities I can do for Japanese. I have a TV at home with nothing but Japanese TV channels, of course, but Japanese TV is terrible nowadays. No dramas or other shows really strike my fancy. I have been recording a show called 男子ごはん (Danshi Gohan, or "Man Meals"). As you can tell from the title, it's a show about cooking for men. I have some interest in cooking, and the show format looks nice. It's two men - one is a cook - who talk about a recipe and other things while the cook is cooking. The language is colloquial, and the food looks good. I've stockpiled recordings on the hard drive on my TV, but for some reason it's hard for me to sit down and watch TV these days. It would be nice if I could transfer the recordings to my iPad or phone, then I could watch it somewhere other than my living room. But I'm not about to give up. I'm determined to make 男子ごはん a part of my weekly routine.

On the other hand, my Portuguese study is pretty streamlined right now. My main goal is getting through DLI. I've just started Volume Six. I have all eight volumes of DLI Portuguese Basic Course, and I believe Volume Six is the last volume with audio. The preface to Volume Six said that once the student has finished the volume, they will have finished the intermediate phase of the course, which is Volumes Four, Five and Six. That's funny; I don't feel anywhere close to being at an intermediate level in Portuguese.

Anything other than DLI is relatively unimportant right now, but I listen to a lot of radio from Brazil. It's fun to do during my train commutes when I'm too exhausted to push through DLI, but I also play radio when I'm doing chores or other activities at home. I found some YouTube channels that show news programs from Globo TV and other channels in Brazil. From time to time, I check out some of the articles at espn.com.br, but of course I can't understand a lot. And also from time to time, I chat with my chat buddies from Brazil.

Speaking of chat, that is one thing that bothers me at the moment. I use the Tandem language exchange app to find chat partners, and I used to use HelloTalk. It's easy to find Brazilians to chat with, but it's difficult to find Japanese people to chat with. I can simply open the Tandem app, and after a while I'll get messages from several Brazilians eager to talk with me. However, I never get messages from Japanese people. I once decided to be more proactive and contact Japanese people myself. However, I found it a chore to keep the conversations going. I got the feeling that people were talking to me to be nice, but they didn't really want to talk with me. I would often get short, curt answers to my questions.

One time, I started a conversation with a Japanese lady, but she quickly said, "You are friendly, but I'm worried about learning Jamaican English." I don't know why she assumed I was Jamaican.

Anyway, it's disappointing for me because I had hoped that by using Tandem, I could easily find people to practice Japanese with. Even though I live in Japan, it's difficult for me to find people that will speak to me in Japanese. There's no shortage of people that want to speak to me in English, but I don't want to do that without getting some Japanese practice in return. I don't think I'm going to reach the next level of Japanese without opportunities to speak Japanese more.

However, I'm not going to end this post with a depressing tone. I'm happy that I have clear ideas about what activities I want to do with my languages. I think my strategy is good. I just need to work on my consistency. I need to do quality study each day, and I'm confident that I will become able to do that.
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kujichagulia
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Re: The Kuji Khronicles - JA, PT

Postby kujichagulia » Tue Feb 27, 2018 12:39 am

Interesting...

Literally minutes after I posted yesterday about having trouble finding Japanese partners on Tandem, a Japanese lady sends me a message. Then, another lady sent me a message! I spent several minutes yesterday chatting with them in English and Japanese. Hopefully they can turn into regular exchange partners.

Other than chat, for Japanese yesterday I did some sample questions for the JLPT N2 and N3 exams. (N2 is comparable to C1, maybe, while N3 is more comparable to B1. Someone correct me on that if I'm wrong.) The reason is that a co-worker took the English equivalent of N1, which is basically a native-like level, and he was wondering what the Japanese test was like. So I did some questions for him. The N3 test questions were relatively easy for me, but the N2 was quite tough.

At the gym last night, I watched some Easy Japanese videos on YouTube while on the exercise bike. I spent half an hour watching videos.

I didn't get to reading an article from 持たない暮らし、使い切る暮らし。 yesterday. It's hard to do that at the gym, and I couldn't do it at home because my wife wanted to talk about some things.

It was a productive day for Portuguese, on the other hand. I worked on Lesson 51 of DLI on the way to work. I also read an article at the NHK World Português website during my lunch break. That was unusual. I also chatted with my pals in Brazil, and I listened to a lot of radio.
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Re: The Kuji Khronicles - JA, PT

Postby kujichagulia » Wed Feb 28, 2018 12:14 am

More of the same. In the morning, I did some Portuguese DLI Lesson 51 on the train. Actually, I think that was all I did in Portuguese yesterday. I did chat with some people from Brazil, but in English.

For Japanese, I read an article from the blog 持たない暮らし、使い切る暮らし。 I also wrote two islands for the Islandhoppers challenge, although I haven't posted them there yet. I'm planning to write a few for Portuguese as well. I chatted with some people in Tandem as well. I'm trying to form some long-term Japanese language exchange friends.

I'm spending a lot of time trying to decide if I want to go ahead and do the Free and Legal Challenge and in which language. I've had a strong interest lately in trying one more time to learn French, which was my first love. I took one year of French in high school and two in college, but never really achieved anything more than a comfortable A1 despite passing the classes. And now I've nearly forgotten all of it. I still have a strong interest in France and Canada, so I think I will restart my French studies sometime in the future.

However, I'm getting a strong challenge from Chinese (Mandarin). I live in Osaka, which gets a ton of Chinese tourists. You go to the major shopping areas and you can hear Chinese everywhere. Also, there's a teacher in the English department who is really good at Mandarin, having studied it during her university years. So there is someone I could theoretically speak with in Chinese. In addition, I went to Hong Kong last year and really enjoyed it, and I'm going there again in a couple of weeks. Of course, they don't really speak Mandarin in Hong Kong, but learning Mandarin is probably good to do before learning the more difficult Cantonese. They speak Mandarin in Taiwan, which is another Chinese-speaking area I'm interested in.

So, French or Chinese? And am I even in a situation where I can add another language? Ah, first world problems.
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Re: The Kuji Khronicles - JA, PT

Postby kujichagulia » Thu Mar 01, 2018 4:28 am

I reinstalled duolingo on my mobile devices yesterday, and I loaded courses for Chinese, French and Korean. I did the first Chinese lesson (now I can say ní hǎo) and I tried to “test up” in French, but to no avail. I guess I forgot too much from my school days. I haven’t touched the Korean course yet.

The purpose of that was to dabble a little in preparation for (possible) participation in the Free and Legal Challenge. If I formally decide to do one of those languages, I’ll probably start out by doing duolingo anyway. It’s free, fun, and well-organized. The plan is, if I enjoy learning on duolingo, to move on to an FSI/DLI course. I’m a little wary of doing the FLC, as I said before, because I’m trying to focus on consistency in my first two second languages. On the other hand... the FLC sounds like fun, so why not give it a try?

I did see that the goal is to get to A2 level in a year. I’m not sure if I can do that because I don’t want to spend too much time on it. However, maybe I could do my own, unofficial mini-FLC.

I realized that I’ve basically learned Portuguese from scratch to barely A2 using free resources (although it’s taken me six years to get to this point!). Proof that it works?

Speaking of Portuguese, counting this morning, I have put together 12 straight weekdays of doing DLI during my morning commute. It’s been a long time since I’ve studied that many (week)days in a row. Consistency, baby!

I’m doing a lot with my languages at work since spring break has started, and I won’t go back to my normal, hectic work schedule until late March. However, I want to start a consistency streak at home. It is always difficult for me to do anything at home consistently, but if I can do more at home, I’m not affected as much by my work schedule unless I’m doing overtime. OK, so that is my next challenge. I’m calling this one the HCC (Home Consistency Challenge). :D
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kujichagulia
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Re: The Kuji Khronicles - JA, PT

Postby kujichagulia » Fri Mar 02, 2018 12:53 am

ロータス wrote:For Korean, I recommend Lingodeer. For Chinese, either HelloChinese or ChineseSkill. Since you already know JP, Korean will be easier for you because the grammar is very similar. Good luck if you end up joining that challenge with either of these two languages :D

Thank you for the recommendation! I’m still not sure which language I want to do, or if I really want to go through with the FLC, but if I do, these will come in handy.

=============
I didn’t do a lot with Japanese yesterday. It was graduation day at the school where I teach, and the day was filled with ceremonies and talking to graduating students and encouraging them. Sometimes we spoke in Japanese, but it was mostly English, as I had taught them to speak English as much as possible.

What I did do was get off to a good start in my HCC! I read 15 minutes of a Japanese article at home. That’s my challenge, by the way: spend 15 minutes doing some intensive Japanese activity at home each night. That may not sound like a lot, but when you are trying to build habits, you need to start small. And to be honest, sometimes my nights are so busy that it’s amazing if I am able to squeeze in 15 minutes of intensive study.

Other than the article, I did my Japanese Anki reviews.

For Portuguese I did DLI this morning on the train. That’s 13 straight weekdays, if you are counting at home. I finished the drills for Lesson 51, and all that’s left to do is the narrative. For some reason the narrative, which is about the history of Brasília, seems to be the easiest-to-read DLI narrative I’ve had for some time. I also did a duolingo lesson and did a little chatting on Tandem.

For the pre-FLC, I did a lesson of Chinese, one of French, and one of Korean. The Korean lesson just taught me my first three letters of hangeul, so I didn’t learn any words or phrases. But if I learn Korean, I have to start from the beginning.
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Re: The Kuji Khronicles - JA, PT

Postby Serpent » Sat Mar 03, 2018 11:37 am

kujichagulia wrote:So, French or Chinese? And am I even in a situation where I can add another language?
:roll: Plot twist: I actually don't think it's the right time to add more languages :? Sorry, kuji.

Maybe it's time to reread this wikia article http://learnanylanguage.wikia.com/wiki/ ... me_time%3F
It specifically mentions challenges too. While you have other reasons to learn these langs, it does seem like the FLC is your main reason... and it shouldn't be ;) Sorry, iguanamon :P It's a wonderful challenge. I'm sure it will prosper. I chuckle when I remember how I honestly thought the first SC would be the only one. I bought so many books that I still haven't read many of them (ok, you won't have this problem).

Remember how you chose Portuguese. It was supposed to be a fun distraction from Japanese. If it's no longer fun, something needs to be fixed, but it doesn't seem like you would've considered a new language if it wasn't for the challenge?
Not to mention that you've been making changes to your routine (this is also mentioned in the wikia).

That said, if your workload is currently lighter than usual, there's nothing wrong with dabbling in Mandarin (or French*). Just remember that it's not always going to be like that. (And if you actually want to learn Cantonese, hopefully some forum members can offer advice)
*but as a false beginner you might not benefit much from that :? I'm obviously biased but how about reading something on the history of the Romance languages? :D

Obviously that's just my view of your situation though :)
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Re: The Kuji Khronicles - JA, PT

Postby iguanamon » Sat Mar 03, 2018 1:20 pm

Serpent wrote:
kujichagulia wrote:So, French or Chinese? And am I even in a situation where I can add another language?
:roll: Plot twist: I actually don't think it's the right time to add more languages :? Sorry, kuji. ... It specifically mentions challenges too. While you have other reasons to learn these langs, it does seem like the FLC is your main reason... and it shouldn't be ;)...

First of all, welcome back! It's good to see that you are advancing through DLI Portuguese. You are well poised to actually finish it now! Once you do finish it, then you can start to really leverage native Portuguese materials to your benefit and it will happen quickly. You'll be able to read books and watch tv and films and use them for learning. You'll be able to speak with natives better and consolidate what you've learned. Once you get to B2, you won't have to worry anymore about losing what you've gained. You are closer than you think. These last volumes of the DLI course are very useful, even without any audio. You don't need it. You have your internal voice already. If you can keep up your pace with the course you can finish it soon and benefit from what you've learned from it!

Secondly, well, since you asked, I'm with Serpent (big surprise!). I don't think you should try the Free and Legal Challenge right now, sorry! Why? Irrational Exuberance. You have already proven that you can do the FLC, pretty much, with what you've done with Portuguese so far. You have nothing to prove. If the challenge proves popular and successful, I'll restart it yearly, or someone else will pick up the torch and run with it. Then, you can participate with a language, and your experience learning it under almost FLC conditions, under your belt.

Normally, I cringe when I see someone who's trying to learn two languages at the same time as a monolingual. Their odds of success in taking either one of them to a high level are quite low. I don't criticize them for it unless they complain about not reaching a high level and start asking for advice about how to do that. Even then, I don't tell them to drop language X. There's nothing wrong with dabbling and never reaching a high level in any second language. Your situation with Japanese and Portuguese is unique as opposed to most of the other learners here on the forum. You live and work in Japan, so daily exposure to Japanese is a given and your reason for learning is a given as well. You wanted to learn Portuguese partly as a way to see some success in language-learning and as Serpent says, as a distraction from the brutal grind of learning Japanese... which I totally understand. Adding another language right now will distract from advancement in both languages at a critical juncture. Come back to it after you get Portuguese to B2. You're probably at B2 equivalent in Japanese. Maybe you should think about taking the NLPT test for Japanese next year or later this year. There's nothing like a deadline to concentrate the mind.

So yeah, doing the challenge just for the sake of the challenge in your situation I don't think will help you. You already know how to do it. Keep on rocking with what you're doing in Japanese and Portuguese. That's impressive enough!
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