Learning Japanese From Zero

Continue or start your personal language log here, including logs for challenge participants
Christi
Orange Belt
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Languages: Dutch (N), English (C1), German (B1), Korean (high A2-low B1?)
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... php?t=7574
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Re: Japanese listening from nothing: 2020 Log

Postby Christi » Fri Jan 10, 2020 7:16 am

golyplot wrote:
For me, "Daily Supplies" is greyed out, and clicking on it does nothing.


I think this might be a bug. Those tests are meant to see if you can skip a few lessons if you want to. See if you can report it and they will fix it. Or perhaps installing the app will help.
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2020 resolution words learned: 472 / 1000
Pages read at end of 2020: 220 / 1500

golyplot
Black Belt - 1st Dan
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Joined: Mon Jan 16, 2017 9:41 pm
Languages: Am. English (N), German, French, ASL (abandoned), Spanish, Dutch, Italian, Japanese (N2)
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... 15&t=12230
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Re: Japanese listening from nothing: 2020 Log

Postby golyplot » Fri Jan 10, 2020 3:23 pm

ロータス wrote:From your screenshot, it shows you are using the website (which last time I check was in beta) and not signed in which means you dont have a membership to do all of Lingodeer.


Actually, I am signed in (you can tell by the deer icon in the top right corner), and the web version does require a subscription for everything past the first lesson, just like the app.

Anyway, I reported it as a bug as Christi suggested. We'll see what happens.

Also, I just reached level 3 in Wanikani. I think I'm getting the hang of how it works.
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golyplot
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Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... 15&t=12230
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Re: Japanese listening from nothing: 2020 Log

Postby golyplot » Fri Jan 10, 2020 8:41 pm

Oops, I didn't notice that. Anyway, I can assure you that it looks exactly the same when I am logged in except that the login button is replaced with a deer icon.

Edit: Here's a screenshot of me logged in. As you can see, it looks exactly the same.
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seito
Yellow Belt
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Languages: English (N), Japanese (N4/N3)
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Re: Japanese listening from nothing: 2020 Log

Postby seito » Sat Jan 11, 2020 4:24 am

ロータス wrote:I have never used Wanikani but from what you wrote, it seems that they only let you do a set amount of kanji a day? You cant increase it? What amount is it set to?


The SRS levels in Wanikani are named and you have to get each radical to "Guru" to unlock the kanji that use it. Then you have to get each kanji to guru to unlock the vocab that uses it. When 90% of the kanji for a level have reached guru, the next level unlocks and all of the radicals at that level and any of the kanji and vocab that only use items you've already guru'd become available.

It's designed to limit burnout and give people the psychological rush to keep going. That said, the number of reviews can still become enormous.
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golyplot
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Re: Japanese listening from nothing: 2020 Log

Postby golyplot » Sat Jan 11, 2020 4:48 am

I was pretty cocky after going from level 2 to level 3 in only four days, but then I discovered that the SRS intervals on levels 1 and 2 are half as long as every subsequent level, and thus levels 4+ take twice as long. Assuming I understand how it works correctly, I could potentially reach level 4 next Friday morning, assuming I do everything perfectly.

I keep hearing from the people on higher levels that it quickly ramps up, but meanwhile, here's what the first couple levels feel like.

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golyplot
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Re: Japanese listening from nothing: 2020 Log

Postby golyplot » Sun Jan 12, 2020 6:40 pm

I decided to try out the Lingodeer Android app, to see if it is any better than the web version. Strangely, the Languages lesson was marked as 1/2 in the app, despite showing as 2/2 on the web. Once I completed the second part, the next lesson unlocked on both web and mobile. So at least that bug is sorted now. The mobile interface is marginally less annoying then the web version, so I'll continue using that for now. I guess I've been dragged kicking and screaming into the language learning app market. I always got sad when people used the Duolingo app because the web version is infinitely better and I thought you'd have to be mad to do Duolingo without a proper keyboard. But Lingodeer seems to be mobile-first, meaning the web version is just an inferior version of the mobile experience and you can't use your keyboard anyway.



Update: Tonight, the level 1 kanji that I mastered a week ago came up for review again on Wanikani. They were surprisingly hard to remember. Embarrassingly, I forgot the on-yomi readings for four of them (七入下女), so those will go back into the frequent review rotation. If it's this easy to forget old material, I can see why people say it gets harder once reviews of the old material starts piling on top of new lessons.
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seito
Yellow Belt
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Re: Japanese listening from nothing: 2020 Log

Postby seito » Mon Jan 13, 2020 7:51 am

golyplot wrote:I was pretty cocky after going from level 2 to level 3 in only four days, but then I discovered that the SRS intervals on levels 1 and 2 are half as long as every subsequent level, and thus levels 4+ take twice as long. Assuming I understand how it works correctly, I could potentially reach level 4 next Friday morning, assuming I do everything perfectly.


There are a number of high levels that are fast levels for a different reason. If 90% of the kanji on a level don't have a prerequisite radical on the same level, then you can complete 90% of the kanji in 3 days, 10 hours. Personally, I throttle my lessons, so those levels aren't any faster than regular levels.

With a limit of 100 apprentice items at a time, it takes me about two weeks to finish a level.
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golyplot
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Re: Japanese listening from nothing: 2020 Log

Postby golyplot » Tue Jan 14, 2020 6:59 am

After learning white person (hakujin) and the kanji outside (gai) on Wanikani, it occurred to me that gaijin is probably just outside + person. In fact, I bet that will be a volcab on Wanikani as soon as I guru "outside". It's cool to see patterns like that. It was also cool to learn that the Inu in Shiba Inu is Japanese for dog.
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golyplot
Black Belt - 1st Dan
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Re: Japanese listening from nothing: 2020 Log

Postby golyplot » Thu Jan 16, 2020 2:56 am

It occurred to me that this log might be misleading and/or boring to read, given that I intended to learn primarily by watching TV, but have spent most of my time to date on Wanikani. Of course, I always knew this was likely to happen - you have to build up a base before you can start watching media. So far I haven't found a good way to practice listening skills. I tried watching Peppa Pig in Japanese, but I couldn't even understand any of that. Of course, it's only been two weeks and Japanese is a notoriously difficult language, so it's not all that surprising either.

Anyway, I was messing around with the Lingodeer Android app today, and noticed the review section, which reads out sentences and then lets you try to guess the meaning. At the bottom are buttons for "Weak", "Good", and "Perfect". Presumably that's tied to some sort of SRS. I've never used Anki before, but I understand it operates similarly. Anyway, it seems like a decent way to practice listening skills, so I'll probably try that out some more.

I learned "ginko" from Lingodeer today. I remember back in the day, I read about a Ponzi scheme masquerading as a bank in SL named Ginko Financial. Now I know that ginko is literally Japanese for bank. It's cool to see connections like that.


Edit: Tonight, I watched ep4 of Sword Art Online (eng subs). I think I recognized the word 夕べ, a word I learned from Wanikani. Admittedly, I was only able to recognize it because "evening" showed up in the subtitles at the same time, but it's still the first time I managed to recognize a non trivial word (i.e. not 私, あなた, です, ありがとう, or stuff like that).
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ryanheise
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Re: Japanese listening from nothing: 2020 Log

Postby ryanheise » Thu Jan 16, 2020 9:07 am

Hi golyplot

I've found your log really interesting to follow so far.

If you intended to learn primarily by watching TV, have you ever tried LingQ? It has a very similar philosophy where you learn by jumping straight into media consumption, where you learn something not because it's in a lesson plan, but because you need to know it in order to get to the end of the current chapter of the story, and you are motivated more to find out what happens next in the story.

I think the "Who is She?" story is quite effective for beginners, and you can actually try it out for free. Last time I checked, you need to pay after you create a certain number of "LingQs" (saved words or expressions). I think there is a built-in SRS for your saved LingQs. The integrated dictionary I've heard is similar to what the LWT tool provides for free, although I'd say the difference is that LingQ comes with a large library of audio content with transcripts.

Personally, I went through the "Who is She?" story and found it entertaining and suspenseful enough to keep me pushing through it, although after that, I switched to anime (which comes with captions) and then podcasts. Although I didn't know about it early on, there is quite a good podcast called JLPT Stories which has a mix of stories at different levels, where those marked as N5 are at the beginner level.

Thanks for pointing out Peppa Pig, too. My niece loves this show, and it never occurred to me that there was a Japanese dub, but sure enough there is. I still enjoy watching kids' content, and there's a lot you can pick up on in the language uniquely from kids' content. If you ever wondered how Japanese adults can see all phonology in terms of moras, e.g. さん is one syllable in English but TWO moras in Japanese, you can watch kids shows and see numbers get introduced to kids and pronounced like SA--NN. For example, if you hear the numbers taught in song, you might hear the SA and the NN on two different pitches in the melody, and this is just how they view phonology.

By the way, I can see how even Peppa Pig could be challenging in the beginning, but I wouldn't necessarily say it's too difficult a place to start (or at least some episodes) if you had tools like those that are in LingQ or LWT to help you work your way through it.
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