Japanese Language Log

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genini1
Yellow Belt
Posts: 93
Joined: Mon Aug 24, 2020 12:21 am
Languages: English (N), Japanese
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Re: Japanese Language Log

Postby genini1 » Mon Nov 28, 2022 3:51 pm

I am finally back from Japan. Technically I got back last week, but losing a day to flying and catching up with all the things I let go while I was gone for 3 weeks took awhile plus thanksgiving really put me behind. Unfortunately while I was gone I did not do much in the way of active studying other than about 10 minutes a day of iknow flash cards while I was on the train. I did of course use Japanese a lot wherever I went so it's not a huge gap in my learning, but I did come back to a lot of reviews I need to catch up on. Hopefully I can be caught up by December 1st.

For the trip itself I didn't need as much Japanese as I expected. In the big cities almost everything was in Japanese and English although there were a few museums and the like that only had Japanese. I could generally read them, but it took a lot more time than I really wanted to spend so I ended up walking through a lot of the ones that were like that. I did learn that my listening/speaking skills were even worse than I thought and I already knew they were pretty terrible. Most of the people I interacted with either spoke English or were easy enough to pantomime with though.
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golyplot
Black Belt - 1st Dan
Posts: 1726
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 Language Log

Postby golyplot » Fri Dec 02, 2022 6:25 am

Pantomime seems like it would be pretty painful, but I guess if you're forced into it, you'll find a way.

I'm reminded of the 3:37-4:06 segment of this classic Cyprien video. Unfortunately, I never learned how to talk with my hands like he apparently does.

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kraemder
Green Belt
Posts: 323
Joined: Fri Aug 28, 2015 12:10 am
Location: Tucson, Arizona
Languages: English (N)
Japanese (JLPT N2)
German (read several books)
Spanish (read a couple books)
Korean (studying for about a year semi seriously)
Language Log: viewtopic.php?f=21&t=1204
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Re: Japanese Language Log

Postby kraemder » Sat Dec 03, 2022 10:31 pm

genini1 wrote:
For the trip itself I didn't need as much Japanese as I expected. In the big cities almost everything was in Japanese and English although there were a few museums and the like that only had Japanese. I could generally read them, but it took a lot more time than I really wanted to spend so I ended up walking through a lot of the ones that were like that. I did learn that my listening/speaking skills were even worse than I thought and I already knew they were pretty terrible. Most of the people I interacted with either spoke English or were easy enough to pantomime with though.


I don't know your level but when I was in Japan I had a similar experience. I was at an N2 level and I was thinking I should do everything in Japanese and technically I could fight my way through it but museums have a lot of information to take in regardless and adding Japanese on top of that didn't seem worth it when they had English an option.
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genini1
Yellow Belt
Posts: 93
Joined: Mon Aug 24, 2020 12:21 am
Languages: English (N), Japanese
x 305

Re: Japanese Language Log

Postby genini1 » Tue Jan 10, 2023 5:00 am

Another year has come and gone and it's time for the annual reflection and restart. Specifically this last year has been almost entirely on vocabulary and I have felt my vocabulary grow quite a bit. I reached 6,000 words known on Iknow and combined with words from other places I'd estimate my vocabulary around 8-9k words. Unfortunately my other skills did not grow as much. My listening is still in a similar place and my grammar has improved due to some Bunpro usage, but not as much as I had hoped. My skills are a bit all over the place and if I had to take a JLPT test right now I'd say I might be able to pass N2 Vocabulary, but would be lucky to hit N3 with reading and listening would probably be an N4. To deal with this problem I have come up with a plan.

Spend more time with the language.

It's a rather inherently simple plan, but I need to implement it. This last year I did about 30 minutes a day of vocabulary work every day, but other than some sporadic times I did not really advance anything else. Even just simply reading more books would show a massive improvement and so I am committing to reading 1 book per week. Depending on the book it takes me between 10 and 20 hours to read right now so I'll be starting with simpler ones and hoping to transition to more difficult ones as I go. To start this last week I reread Kuma Kuma Kuma Bear Volume 3 which is one of my favorite books I've read so far. Previously I had read this series to around Volume 7 or 8 before stopping but this time I will be reading the entire series.

2023 Time so Far:
Reading 10 hours
Vocabulary 4.5 hours
Grammar 2 hours
Listening 1.5 hours.
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genini1
Yellow Belt
Posts: 93
Joined: Mon Aug 24, 2020 12:21 am
Languages: English (N), Japanese
x 305

Re: Japanese Language Log

Postby genini1 » Sun Jan 22, 2023 5:59 pm

Another week and I'm already behind where I intended to be. Originally I wanted to read a book a week and as of today I am at 2.5 books per week. I still have the rest of today to catch up (I measure the week starting on Mondays and it's noon Sunday right now), but I probably won't get more than 20% of the book read. Not an impossible amount to catch up on this upcoming week though so hopefully I can do that.

One of the reasons I'm slowing down a bit though is because I am spending more time intensively reading. Generally when I read a book I sort of get the idea and move on. This is quite a bit easier with books I've already read like Harry Potter which looking back I more or less skimmed the book rather than actually read. It makes reading a lot more enjoyable and fluid, but it also makes reading new material harder because I can't fill in the gaps of my understanding with prior knowledge. Fortunately I have access to the English translations of Kuma Kuma Kuma bear so it's easier to verify my understanding and look up unknown grammar points.

I've also been enjoying JPDB a lot. Specifically I've enjoyed using the blacklist button a lot more liberally. I never liked using the blacklist (or leech or suspend) feature of SRS before because I always felt like I wasn't sure if I should or not. Maybe it's a common word I should learn or maybe I'll never see it again. JPDB has a kind of neat feature that tells you how often a word will appear in a work or in a series. It makes it a lot easier to just blacklist a card when I see that across the entire Kuma bear series it shows up twice. No reason to let it impede my other studies.

2023 Time so Far:
Reading 35 hours
Vocabulary 12 hours
Grammar 4 hours
Listening 7 hours.
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