Jimjams German Journey

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Jimjam
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Posts: 86
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Location: Canberra, Australia
Languages: English (N), Japanese N4, German B1
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Jimjams German Journey

Postby Jimjam » Wed Dec 30, 2015 3:06 am

To start, I know pandemonious isn't an actual word but it should be!

The focus of my log will be on Japanese and German as they are my 2 true loves in regards to languages. I have been studying Japanese since 2011, but haven't really put too much effort into it so i'm only at a low intermediate level (around n4-n3 or B1). I will be going into 3rd year japanese at university next year and am in the process of applying for a year long exchange to Japan from september. If that goes through, my japanese should improve drastically (in theory) as I will be studying japanese language classes while there. Last year in class we used genki 2 and Basic Kanji Book 1 and 2. I am rather comfortable with most of the grammar (just need to practice those damn causatives and passives) but the kanji are not so good. We did 1 BKB a semester (each with 250 kanji) but the last 100 kanji of BKB2 are self study for before next semester. I'm still working on BKB1 at the moment, trying to fully internalise all of them. It wouldn't be a problem if I didn't have to be able to write all of them but unfortunately for me, I do.
Next year, we will be using a textbook entirely in Japanese with a different lecturer who is notorious for being less lenient for slower learners so I will really need to get it together. We will also be using Intermediate Kanji Book 1, though i think thats spread out across the 2 semesters.

With german, i have been flirting with it on and off for about a year and have gotten to roughly an A1 level. Now that I have decided to stop french (at least for now), my focus will be back on german. If I can get myself to not be lazy and stick to a schedule, I would love to get back into assimil. I have gone over the first 30 lessons numerous times without making much more progress. I have been doing the same thing with my other main resource, german demystified. I am rather familiar with the first 8 lessons but the next one is on past tense so since its such a heavy lesson, i've sort of just held back and only glanced at it a few times. These 2 resources together are rather enjoyable and I find i learn a lot from them so my current plan with german is to finish both of them and see where it takes me.

I apologise for this mess of a first post but I suppose it lives up to the title.
Last edited by Jimjam on Thu Dec 15, 2016 1:12 am, edited 3 times in total.
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Jimjam
Yellow Belt
Posts: 86
Joined: Sat Jul 18, 2015 4:14 pm
Location: Canberra, Australia
Languages: English (N), Japanese N4, German B1
Language Log: viewtopic.php?f=15&t=1789
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Goals for 2016

Postby Jimjam » Wed Dec 30, 2015 3:50 am

As someone who loves to set goals and plan things out (though i never really stick to them but oh well), I thought i would list my goals for next year and for my first ever TAC, which I have signed up for with Japanese.

Japanese

My large goal for the year will to finally get to N3 on the JLPT.
(Its not too far from where I am currently if i put in some study every day so we'll see how that goes)
I would also like to internalise all of the kanji from the 2 BKB and the IKB, taking my kanji knowledge to roughly 750 characters. This should hopefully allow me to start reading a little more than I can now.
Which leads on to my next goal of reading a whole book. To some that might not seem like much but to me it's huge. I have the 1st harry potter which I have read most of the first chapter, but there are so many kanji I don't know so my comprehension level is pretty low.
I would also like to improve my listening to the point that I can listen to things like podcasts or japanese radio and be able to keep up. No necessarily get 100% comprehension, but I wouldn't exactly complain if that happened :lol:

German

My large goal for german is to get it to around B1, or somewhere that I am able to use it comfortably for simple things like reading stories and articles, and watching german videos and movies. Though I will take what I can get, so as long as I get it further than where I am now, I'll be happy.
My immediate goals are to finish assimil german with ease, and work through german demystified.


These are just the goals I can think of off the top of my head while I have some downtime at work. They will definitely chop and change throughout the year but that should be good to start with.
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zebracoupe
White Belt
Posts: 20
Joined: Mon Aug 03, 2015 12:46 am
Languages: Japanese (C1), German (B1), Russian (just beginning)
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Re: Jimjams Pandemonious Journey - Japanese and German

Postby zebracoupe » Fri Jan 01, 2016 3:52 am

How are you learning your kanji? The thing that really broke the back of them for me was a combination of Anki and one of the RTK decks floating one.
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Jimjam
Yellow Belt
Posts: 86
Joined: Sat Jul 18, 2015 4:14 pm
Location: Canberra, Australia
Languages: English (N), Japanese N4, German B1
Language Log: viewtopic.php?f=15&t=1789
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Re: Jimjams Pandemonious Journey - Japanese and German

Postby Jimjam » Sun Jan 03, 2016 5:13 am

Hi Zebracoupe,
I have tried both anki and heisig and neither really worked for me with kanji. I learn much better from writing things down so I am one of the few (or so it seems) who prefer rote memorisation.
I have used anki for vocab with mixed results but ended up not really sticking with it as it didn't keep my interest enough. I still use it occasionally on my phone but not often.
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Rotasu
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Posts: 247
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Languages: English (N),
日本語 (A1)
Language Log: viewtopic.php?f=15&t=1354
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Re: Jimjams Pandemonious Journey - Japanese and German

Postby Rotasu » Sun Jan 03, 2016 5:20 am

How will you be improving your listening for Japanese? I'm stuck at where I can read the dialog and understand it just fine but listening to it without the transcript leaves me confused. Its like once I hear a word I"m not familiar with, the whole sentence is lost.
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Gone

Jimjam
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Posts: 86
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Location: Canberra, Australia
Languages: English (N), Japanese N4, German B1
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Re: Jimjams Pandemonious Journey - Japanese and German

Postby Jimjam » Sun Jan 03, 2016 5:35 am

I have been rather busy the last few days with long work days, and family visiting so I haven't done too much study. I've done a fair bit of revision on duolingo for german and have been pleasantly surprised by how much the tree has grown since I last checked. I also tried the reverse tree of english for german speakers. It went surprisingly well but that's mainly due to it predominately being translating into english and transcribing english sentences.
I also went through my german vocab flashcards and made some new ones. Premade flashcards are a godsend! They save so much time so I don't have to spend hours cutting out cards. Other than that, I have flicked through some chapters in Hugo's German in 3 months but nothing substantial.
Japanese has unfortunately been ignored recently. I think it being associated with the stress of university makes we want to study it a less but that should be fixed once i'm back at uni with my friends in my Japanese class. Being in class always brings my love for japanese back but it's not until late february!
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Jimjam
Yellow Belt
Posts: 86
Joined: Sat Jul 18, 2015 4:14 pm
Location: Canberra, Australia
Languages: English (N), Japanese N4, German B1
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Re: Jimjams Pandemonious Journey - Japanese and German

Postby Jimjam » Sun Jan 03, 2016 6:16 am

Hi Rotasu,
Since I am already somewhat comfortable with the language, watching more japanese tv should do the trick, which is good because I have been meaning to finish attack on titan for a while now. I'll also be speaking a lot of japanese when I get back to uni both in class and in the japanese club, which will help improve my listening.
One of the best things you could do to try is to watch something which has a simpler dialogue and get used to hearing the words you do know and slowly building the ability to understand at a faster pace. I personally did this by binge watching dragon ball z. I'm not too big on anime but they can be quite useful to help with japanese so i'm not complaining. :lol:
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AiyaLianxi
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Re: Jimjams Pandemonious Journey - Japanese and German

Postby AiyaLianxi » Sun Jan 03, 2016 7:20 am

If you have a bit of $$, I totally recommend Mastering Japanese by Ear, わくわく文法. I used it in my third year of uni and it is a book and CD combo of just audio tests, getting progressively more difficult. Also features a few of those causative verbs you're worried about.

If low on $$, listening to the daily news podcast, seeing how much you can understand, and then glancing at the English headlines for Japan, and seeing how much makes sense.

This site: http://www3.nhk.or.jp/news/easy/ is also great. News stories with rōmaji, and you can have it read aloud, too. Helps with both reading and listening if used well.

I have the same problem with kanji. I have to write them out a thousand times to remember them, it seems.

As for the teacher with no patience, you'd be surprised by how quickly and intensely you learn when the teacher and textbook give you no English. It's a huge bump, but it took me from bumbling intermediate plateau to real conversation and writing essays.

Good luck, and I'll give you more ideas tomorrow! I know you've got this.
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Jimjam
Yellow Belt
Posts: 86
Joined: Sat Jul 18, 2015 4:14 pm
Location: Canberra, Australia
Languages: English (N), Japanese N4, German B1
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Re: Jimjams Pandemonious Journey - Japanese TAC 2016

Postby Jimjam » Wed Jan 06, 2016 12:44 am

AiyaLianxi wrote:If you have a bit of $$, I totally recommend Mastering Japanese by Ear, わくわく文法. I used it in my third year of uni and it is a book and CD combo of just audio tests, getting progressively more difficult...

Thanks for the recommendations! I've heard about the NKH easy news so many times but for some reason I never actually looked at it until now.

I haven't done too much studying recently. I've been doing my fair share of duolingo but thats it for german, unfortunately.
For japanese, I read through one of my graded readers which was great because I can finally read a story and understand it fully, though I do wish I had gotten the next grade up as it doesn't pose any challenge which is a little disappointing.
I did get a little confidence boost yesterday though; I decided to look at an "intermediate grammar" book yesterday that the last time I looked at back in 2012 I knew almost nothing in it, but this time around I have know pretty much all of it. Though I wouldn't classify some of it as intermediate grammar, it was nice to see how much I have improved since I am now in the stage where you don't feel like you are improving much at all.

Once work slows down, I'll finally have more time to relax and get back into my studies so I can't wait. Just a few more weeks to go.
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Jimjam
Yellow Belt
Posts: 86
Joined: Sat Jul 18, 2015 4:14 pm
Location: Canberra, Australia
Languages: English (N), Japanese N4, German B1
Language Log: viewtopic.php?f=15&t=1789
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Re: Jimjams Pandemonious Journey - Japanese TAC 2016

Postby Jimjam » Sun Jan 17, 2016 12:48 pm

I haven't done much, if any, study recently. This is the busiest time of the year for work so I've been overwhelmed and haven't had any desire to study but now that work is starting to slow down, so am I. Tonight I finally had the urge to get my Japanese books out. I didn't do anything substantial, mainly just revision, but it was really nice and relaxing to finally get back to it.
I've been thinking of ways I could study outside of my uni textbooks as a way of seperating it a little from the stress of Uni and making it more of a hobby again So I might try my hand at intensive reading. It's a little hard because of the kanji but the books I plan to use have furigana. I'm plan to start with penguins parallel text short stories until I get used to reading Japanese more then I'll start on Harry Potter again. I've read 1 or 2 chapters of it but I didn't get a lot of the words.
Knowing my lazy tendencies, I may not get around to this for a while but at the moment I can keen to try it.

This isn't much of an update but I just wanted to let everyone know I'm still around and I don't plan to leave anytime soon.
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