If all goes according to plan (JP, FI, FR)

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dicentra8
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If all goes according to plan (JP, FI, FR)

Postby dicentra8 » Thu Oct 04, 2018 6:28 pm

Hello! I'm Inês. For the moment my main target languages are (just) Japanese and Finnish.
There's no mysterious reason for learning those two, it was actually the typical: likes a band from that country a lot, starts reading about the country and gets more interested, suddenly feels the need to understand the language.
I also used to peek around the forum for a while before I decided to finally register. :oops:

Language's background:

English: I can't remember much about my English learning, or if at some point I struggled with it. I remember my first resource being the Magic English VHS tapes. I also attended extra classes with a native teacher who couldn't speak portuguese, therefore I had to talk in English.

French: Rusty, completely rusty! At the beginning I had no interest, it didn't help I had no choice than to have it for 3 years during high school. But then I started enjoying some movies and music.

Finnish: Was the first language I decided to self-study. Started before I went to Finland through the Erasmus Program (winter 2010). At the time I wasn't consistent so I decided to give up on it for good...until now. At the beginning of 2018 I decided to (re)start it. It's been slow but it's going better than the first attempt! Sometimes I feel like the fact I studied Japanese for a while before has helped with it.

Japanese: Started on August 2013. This one falls into the "really need to understand" and has been sort of my passion to learn and understand it. Never went to Japan. Thought that after 2~3 years I could pass the JLPT N2 but failed miserably. Last year I did the N3 level and passed. :D


Learning:

It usually takes me a while to find a resource/textbook I'm okay with it. During this time I just dive into any native material I come across and learn vocabulary from it.
This is sort of random about my learning but often I really like to change the languages order. For example with Japanese: the usual way would be to buy an english book (language I know better) for people learning Japanese. But I usually look for japanese books for people learning English and try to use it.
I'm very fond of: vocabulary & dictionaries.
I tried once to do my own exercises/tests but it didn't worked very well, that's one of the reasons why I also like workbooks a lot.
I might be a beginner in a language who can barely read a sentence, but that doesn't seem to stop me from using monoligual dictionaries from the beginning (with some help of google translate + other resources/dictionaries). That's usually because I get easily frustrated when the translations start being the same english word and it makes me even more confused.
The area that I tend to leave for last is, unfortunately, output (mostly writing my own thoughts or opinions in the TL). I always struggle with that and I've been trying to change it and do it more often.

Next: the plan (aka resources, mostly textbooks, I plan to use for now or I'm trying to finish)
Last edited by dicentra8 on Sat Sep 05, 2020 10:44 am, edited 1 time in total.
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dicentra8
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Re: If all goes according to plan (JP, FI)

Postby dicentra8 » Mon Oct 08, 2018 6:48 pm

List of main resources.
I wanted to post it after the introduction but then I noticed I was 2 chapters away from finishing the Speed Master N3 Vocabulary (Workbook). Suddenly all I could think was to (finally) finish that book. And now it's done. :D

Japanese:
- みんなの日本語2聴解
- 毎日の聞き取り vol.2
I started it but didn't finish it (yet).

Recently completed:
Try N3
日本語能力試験問題集N3語彙スピードマスター

Finnish:
- Hyvin menee! 1 + 2
Picked this one as the main textbook I'll use. I like the fact that they add a "Puhekieli" icon from the beginning of the book.
- Suomea Suomeksi 1 & Suomen Mestari
I’ll use these two mostly for the workbook/exercises, since they’ve got answers included.
- Assimil - Le Finnois sans peine
I'm actually curious to use it since I never did any of the Assimil courses.

Additional / Backup (might do, still not sure):
- FSI Conversational Finnish
- Kato Hei! Puhekielen Alkeet
Last edited by dicentra8 on Sun Nov 11, 2018 12:03 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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dicentra8
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Re: If all goes according to plan (JP, FI)

Postby dicentra8 » Tue Oct 09, 2018 3:50 pm

I really hope I picked the "right ones" this time. :lol:
When I started I tried to go with the Teach Yourself Finnish but that didn't last too long. Somehow I felt like the content was all over the place and I ended up wandering off.
Concerning Assimil, I really had no choice since there's only Finnish-French course available. My french is really rusty...more like I can understand if the sounds resemble something in portuguese. But I still would like to give it a try! Thank you! :D
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Re: If all goes according to plan (JP, FI)

Postby dicentra8 » Tue Oct 09, 2018 9:52 pm

I'm probably more excited than I should, but today I finally started Hyvin Menee! (just did the introduction chapter).
One of the first exercises: "Kuuntele ja toista numerot." (Listen and repeat the numbers) :shock:
There was also an exercise to listen and write some names of finnish cities. So far, so good.

I also learned a more unusual amount of new words from my own Memrise courses. I'll probably regret it tomorrow when I see the number of reviews. (p.s. - usually I just stick with a study session of 5 new words which I try to do every day)
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dicentra8
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Re: If all goes according to plan (JP, FI)

Postby dicentra8 » Tue Oct 16, 2018 9:58 pm

Things are going rather slow, I think. But they're going! I think it's because I'm trying to start most of the resources I said I would use (and avoid the "hmm, tomorrow"). I feel like I've been doing more Finnish than Japanese, so I'll try to make a summary.

Finnish:
- Hyvin Menee!1: Going to the second chapter. They take me a while to go over, maybe because the chapters from the last resources I've used were kind of quick/short. Being the person that loves to have audio (lots of it!), Hyvin Menee is a little disappointing on that. There's only audio for certain sections in a chapter.
- Suomen Harjoituksia 1 (aka Workbook for the Suomea Suomeksi 1): I started it 1 day ago. What Hyvin Menee lacks on audio, Suomen Harjoituksia makes up for it (so far)! Specially the introduction chapter "Foneettisia harjoituksia" is a good way to practice.

Japanese:
- みんなの日本語2(聴解): finished yesterday night the first chapter. They're usually quick. And... I missed みんなの日本語!! It's one of my favourite books, and their silly illustrations. :lol: For me, 1st edition is the one with the best audio (I checked the audio for the 2nd edition, for curiosity, and was slightly disappointed with it)
- Learned (added) a few more kanji cards from the deck I'm doing. I started using this shared deck, and then added some changes so I could practice writing the kanji using ankidroid's Whiteboard. It also shows the kanji with the stroke order font. At the moment I'm going over the kanji for the 4th grade.

I've also been trying to catch up with Memrise. I don't mean catching up with the reviews, it's learning the vocabulary I added soon (like the day after or 2 days later). Usually I check for examples to see how the word is used and then I add the word. If I wait too long, when I get to that word, I have to repeat the same work. So I'm trying to avoid that.
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Re: If all goes according to plan (JP, FI)

Postby cathrynm » Thu Oct 18, 2018 3:24 am

I need to find a good workbook for Finnish -- one with conjugations, because I'm still never sure. I feel like I need to drill on all these noun conjugations to get past beginner phase, and I haven't been able to force myself to do this, eyt.
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dicentra8
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Re: If all goes according to plan (JP, FI)

Postby dicentra8 » Thu Oct 18, 2018 2:46 pm

I'm at a very beginner phase (for Finnish) but I also need some kind of workbook to practice conjugations and so on. Mostly because I'm terrible with following or even just keeping the grammar rules in my head (without mixing everything).
I'm not sure about what workbooks to recommend. My plan for now is to use Suomen Harjoituksia 1 and try the FSI Convertional Finnish, and see how it goes. But I just got curious about it so I went seaching! I found one series called Harjoitus tekee mestarin (there's 4 books). It seems to have a lot of drills, a lot of sentences to fill in the blanks and write.

preview 1 / preview 2 (pictures are a little blurry)
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dicentra8
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Re: If all goes according to plan (JP, FI)

Postby dicentra8 » Tue Oct 23, 2018 5:39 pm

Had a tiny setback with Hyvin Menee but after calming myself down I decided to stick with it (for the moment). It was during a listening exercise, they used quite a few words that were never mentioned/taught in the textbook. Some of them I already knew from when I do "casual reading" with anything I come across. But a lot of them I was just...completely clueless. :(
I decided to just stick with it because I really like the variety of exercises that appear. Fill in the blanks, writing/production (reply to questions, create small dialogues based on what you learned), listening exercises. It's really nice to do them!

On the other hand, because I've been spending more time with Finnish, I feel like I've been neglecting Japanese lately. Since I have got a couple of books (3 to be more precise) that I never really started, it's time to finally start reading them. It's hard for me to pick books I really want to read, specially fiction stories. So 2 of the books are actually just japanese books about Marketing (my study field). One is about the Marketing basics and the other is about Web Marketing.
The other book is 4 short folklore stories about a character called Hikoichi and...it has got audio like an audiobook! :D

I also want to start doing some "immersion sessions". I think I really need to do that more often. I just need to check what resources I would use during that immersion period.
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Re: If all goes according to plan (JP, FI)

Postby Expugnator » Mon Oct 29, 2018 12:29 am

It's interesting how you have been reading about Marketing on your TL. Marketing was my field of study but I never actually worked on it. The only time I combined it with language learning was when I read French for Marketing, but I have nothing against reading on it for languages like German and Mandarin: for these I plan to do some business textbooks when I'm at a consolidated B2, and those textbooks tend to have sections on Marketing. Reading full books on Marketing aimed at natives is definitely more enriching, but what I have in mind can work as a transition while bringing on vocabulary that would end up being used within a Marketing professional context anyway.
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dicentra8
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Re: If all goes according to plan (JP, FI)

Postby dicentra8 » Mon Oct 29, 2018 12:31 pm

At the time I purchased the books, one of the main reasons I ended up picking books for native speakers was because I was really curious (still am) to see if there's big differences on how Marketing is learned in Japan, how they use it there and so on. So I started looking around japanese blogs that did reviews about their marketing books. Those books seemed more engaging, they've got a lot of images/diagrams that help explaining things.
Another reason was that I wanted to read something but I had no idea which book I should pick, so I ended up picking something "familiar" and that I had an interest on it.
If it wasn't for those reasons I would have done the same thing you just described, look for a business textbook and get vocabulary that I could use later in that context.
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