+- kanji koohii FORUM (http://forum.koohii.com)
+-- Forum: Learning Japanese (http://forum.koohii.com/forum-4.html)
+--- Forum: General discussion (http://forum.koohii.com/forum-8.html)
+--- Thread: Voices Of Authority: Speak!! (calling all 2007-2008 members) (/thread-4774.html)
Voices Of Authority: Speak!! (calling all 2007-2008 members) - IceCream - 2010-01-08
So, all you guys who've been around for a long time now, especially the ones who've been studying Japanese daily, or a lot, for around a year and a half, 2 years (or more) (after finishing RTK)...
I'd be really interested to hear from you all! (if you've written about the things you've done a billion times already, just linking a good post is fine ：)
mm, the things i'm interested in most, are:
1. what range of things have you done to learn japanese?
2. out of these things, which do you think have been the most useful? Which do you think you would skip out now, with all the techology and ideas that have come up since?
3. how have your opinions on learning japanese changed and become refined over time, and what were the reasons for the changes?
4. hows it going?
Voices Of Authority: Speak!! (calling all 2007-2008 members) - aphasiac - 2010-01-08
What about the 2006 members?
But yes, I'm interested too.
Voices Of Authority: Speak!! (calling all 2007-2008 members) - kazelee - 2010-01-08
@天才ちゃん
I do the things you do. Cept for reading manga. I never was a comic fan. I tried Death Note because I like the movie. I just got bored with it.
http://forum.koohii.com/showthread.php?pid=84745#pid84745
http://forum.koohii.com/showthread.php?pid=84409#pid84409
Question: What makes you think we are the voices of authority? The only voice of authority, when it comes to learning, is the individual. It is the individuals responsibility to decide what information he/she takes in and what information he/she disregards. Why? Because I said so, damn it!
Voices Of Authority: Speak!! (calling all 2007-2008 members) - nest0r - 2010-01-08
kazelee Wrote:Question: What makes you think we are the voices of authority? The only voice of authority, when it comes to learning, is the individual. It is the individuals responsibility to decide what information he/she takes in and what information he/she disregards. Why? Because I said so, damn it!Hmmph, easy for you to say. "Moderated by kazelee." You used to be one of us, but now you're with The Man.
I Like Turtles
Voices Of Authority: Speak!! (calling all 2007-2008 members) - kazelee - 2010-01-08
nest0r Wrote:Hmmph, easy for you to say. "Moderated by kazelee." You used to be one of us, but now you're with The Man.Interesting...
You went there... didn't you? You just had to go and go there. Now look what you've made me do.
Voices Of Authority: Speak!! (calling all 2007-2008 members) - Nukemarine - 2010-01-08
Ice Cream,
I think the "Survey: Where are you at" thread http://forum.koohii.com/showthread.php?tid=3202 answers most of these questions plus some for many of us. Wouldn't mind seeing if people can give updates every six months or so in that thread though.
Kazelee, I'd argue that Japanese natives such as Aijin and Masamo who are able to explain their language and other aspects of their culture in an understandable manner could qualify as legitimate voices of authority. Too bad Ice Cream hogs up all their time ^_^
Voices Of Authority: Speak!! (calling all 2007-2008 members) - nest0r - 2010-01-08
kazelee Wrote:Without even an 'edited' marker. Such blatant fascist power. Even worse, more insidious, than Hitler. I will have to go through my comment archives and check them against what I haven't deleted here now. Sigh. ;pnest0r Wrote:Hmmph, easy for you to say. "Moderated by kazelee." You used to be one of us, but now you're with The Man.Interesting...
You went there... didn't you? You just had to go and go there. Now look what you've made me do.
Voices Of Authority: Speak!! (calling all 2007-2008 members) - mezbup - 2010-01-08
IceCream Wrote:ahahahaRight behind ya.
oops. i've even written in that thread... maybe i should start srsing thread titles ;p
rrrr i wish i could hog their time againlately they're not around so much
@kazelee: didn't you know, anyone with over 1000 posts is a Voice Of Authority.
so.........close......... >.<
mmm turtles.
Voices Of Authority: Speak!! (calling all 2007-2008 members) - TaylorSan - 2010-01-08
Quote:...didn't you know, anyone with over 1000 posts is a Voice Of Authority.You're almost there Ice!!!!
EDIT:What about LENGTH - we need a word count! LOL.
"quality over quantity man....."
Voices Of Authority: Speak!! (calling all 2007-2008 members) - QuackingShoe - 2010-01-08
I don't feel like this post is aimed at me, but I'm bored enough to answer, so.
1. Texbooks; RTK; website guides; countless bits of software for all purposes, but mostly for flashcards; Japanese Language articles on English wikipedia; Japanese Language articles on Japanese wikipedia; Rosetta Stone 2 and 3; Anki; manga; movies, anime, drama; transcriptions of anime and drama; light novels; video games; chats with natives; warning labels on automobiles.
2. Reading and watching everything are the best tools. And a dictionary. Learning software of nearly all kinds is for the birds. It's what you do when you don't feel like putting in the mental effort to actually learn something.
I found that I had the most pure enjoyment and learned the broadest amount of vocabulary and grammar and just... 'thought patterns' when I decided I couldn't handle mining or SRSing anymore and was going to take a break to do nothing but play a stupid visual novel. It ended up being the first game I ever played all the way through, I learned a ridiculous amount, and had tons of fun. I made a few staggering attempts to get back into the old patterns of sentence mining and anki reviews after that, clearing thousands of backlogged cards to catch up to where I was, but finally gave up the ghost and haven't looked back since. I don't know how well things have been progressing since then; I have no metric. But I'm doing now in the language what I've wanted to do all along.
3. I thought language was something you needed a course to teach you. I thought you needed to memorize everything you saw when you saw it, and I thought you needed to understand everything you came across as you came across it.
I've come to decide that language, like many things, is something that it's best to get a very broad, hazy picture of, and slowly fill in over time. It's not a linear path. It's like painting a picture or writing a novel. You start making a patchy layer, hitting spots here and there, then start another patchy layer, and keep going until you're done. You can't just start off painting an eye and then paint a head and a body and a landscape around it. You can't write one draft of a novel, from start to finish. You start broadly, you fill it in over time, deepening your understand of the same subjects with every pass. You ignore what you don't understand, and focus on what you do.
4. S'alright.
Voices Of Authority: Speak!! (calling all 2007-2008 members) - mezbup - 2010-01-08
QuackingShoe Wrote:warning labels on automobiles.Oh so true but someone had to say it.
Voices Of Authority: Speak!! (calling all 2007-2008 members) - fairykarma - 2010-01-08
Have any of you been reading complex books, preferably nonfiction? If so, please talk about that.
---
Quick way of gauging people's progress.
1. What are your SRS stats?
2. How many adult Japanese books have you read so far?
-----
Me.
Approx Start Date: Jan 2009
2500 sentences. (I did not do Heisig. This was a personal choice that I don't regret. It's not something I recommend unless you are fully committed to studying Japanese EVERYDAY. Not 24/7 but at least 4 hours or more per day. I've been going about 10-12 hours per day during Winter break.)
My sentences come from numerous sources:The Bible (Ecclesiastes, Job, Psalms), Jim Breen's thing, eow.alc.co.jp, dic.yahoo.co.jp, etc.,
I got bored of mining randomly in December and have now started reading.
50 pages into Twilight. (Don't read this book.)
27 pages into Jared Diamond's Collapse
30 pages into Watchmen
I have no major problems understanding grammar asides from subtle things I didn't deliberately study. My main problem is vocabulary. That can be dealt with through gradual SRSing.
My personal thoughts.
1. It's HARD. It's for the most part been completely mind-numbing because the material I would prefer to read doesn't exactly show up in beginner level stuff. The material I like is dark dark stuff.
Genocide, wars, famine, ecological crises, crime, disease, government corruption, raw cynicism, apocalyptic sci-fi etc.,
2. I think people need to define exactly why it is they're learning a language. My goal is not so much, "fluency". If that's your goal fine, it's not mine. Haven't visited Japan, never will. I just want to have read 5-10 Japanese books by the end of the year. With each successive book, less referencing to English version, and less dictionary use. Hell, if I can read Murakami over and over and just savor his books in the language they were originally written it, that's fine. There are also some Spanish and German authors I want to read over and over in their native language, but that comes later.
Disclaimer: I have to mention that I have not been aggressive at all in listening to Japanese. I have no real interest in Japanese media or hearing spoken Japanese. I find anime boring (apart from some sophisticated stuff like Ghost in the Shell, Ergo Proxy, Samurai Champloo.) Same goes for movies (strange movies with dark, sober but nostalgic atmospheres like Hana-Bi I like.), TV shows(tried many times, no interest), music (Tried, but don't truly like any of it.), or news. It's the same with English, I just prefer text. One thing I do enjoy listening to is the particularly "charismatic" and deep male voices or somewhat deep female voices (Motoko from GIS ex.), what I call a "strong" voice. It's hard to find those though. In English, people like Morgan Freeman have that voice. So does Takeshi Kaneshiro to some extent.
Do I ever plan on speaking? Maybe.
Voices Of Authority: Speak!! (calling all 2007-2008 members) - kazelee - 2010-01-08
fairykarma Wrote:50 pages into Twilight.Banned.
Voices Of Authority: Speak!! (calling all 2007-2008 members) - bodhisamaya - 2010-01-08
IceCream
Registered: 2009-05-08
Posts: 977
Tobberoth,
I think you have a potential challenger.
Users by post count
Voices Of Authority: Speak!! (calling all 2007-2008 members) - mezbup - 2010-01-08
kazelee Wrote:A search for harry potter brings up 4 pages of results and one mention of twilight results in the banhammer. lololololololol. *waves wand* banhamarius!fairykarma Wrote:50 pages into Twilight.Banned.
Voices Of Authority: Speak!! (calling all 2007-2008 members) - mr_hans_moleman - 2010-01-08
1. I've done it all. Everything I've done in L1 I have also done in my L2(Japanese of course). I even look up erotic material in Japanese just like I used to do in English when I was younger.
2. Read Manga right away. It's fun and and it's easy.
If I can travel back in time and meet myself, I would tell him "You are as good looking as you will be 2 years from now" and also "Finish RTK fast. Finish it in less than 3 months!"
3. I thought my Japanese a year ago was good. One month ago I was like "Damn, I'm fluent as hell". I realized that I will never be satisfied with my Japanese. I get better over time, but my standards also get higher. I bet 2 years from now, I will once again think that my Japanese is good and then I will tell myself "If you are so good, then write a novel in Japanese then". It will continue like that forever.
4. Khatz is the Prince of Japanese. I am the King.
Voices Of Authority: Speak!! (calling all 2007-2008 members) - Squintox - 2010-01-09
The sudden importance of forum-age is scaring me.
I doubt they're much ahead of you, Ice Cream, you learnt a lot in that 8 months.
Voices Of Authority: Speak!! (calling all 2007-2008 members) - nadiatims - 2010-01-09
1.
RTK1/RTK3 using this site's SRS. Learned one onyomi for each kanji.
Reading junior high school library books/manga/magazines/kid's books/novels, various jlpt study materials, grammar guides etc.
listening: occasional anime/ drama (only watched through one drama series), national geographic videos (recorded from the website using wiretap pro for osx), experimented with various podcasts(jpod101), smartfm, a lot of japanese music
writing: writing down newly encountered words for later study. I used to use keyring vocab flashcards for this purpose (100yen at your local コンビニ), writing keitai mail in japanese.
Speaking: talking to various japanese friends/students/coworkers, shopping etc.
Finally figured out a srs methodology that works for me (namely: one deck, short phrases but no sentences)
free language classes for foreign residents (useless)
language partner
2. Most useful:
-RTK1 and onyomi.
-extensive reading of native material.
- extensive listening to native materials eg the national geographic videos/ music/ recorded anime/tv/youtube etc.
-SRS (for vocabulary/short phrases/idioms)
-japanese friends
semi useful:
-JLPT study materials, grammar guides
-RTK3 maybe
least useful:
-free language classes (don't bother)
-language partner
-jpod101 (waste of time)
-non-electronic flashcards(too much of a pain in the arse)
3. I've learned to stop relying on a dictionary and just accept a certain degree of uncertainty, which allows me to better enjoy and therefore spend more time on native materials. I've learned that grammar explanation is unnecessary 90% of the time and often incorrect. I've learned to keep it simple. Your 'study' should be simple to maximise the time spent on actual learning. Nowadays all I do is read/listen to native materials while noting down new vocabulary/phrases/idioms in a notebook. Later I add those items to my one srs deck. No multiple decks/no taking things from spreadsheets/ no dicking about searching for subtitles etc.
4. pretty good.
Voices Of Authority: Speak!! (calling all 2007-2008 members) - shneen - 2010-01-09
1. I've been at this for over 7 years..... so lots! haha. Started with 3 years of Japanese in college... moved onto self study when I ran out of courses. That was a really hard transition... although it got much easier after I graduated and didn't have to focus time on other coursework.
I've done textbooks, RTK, lots of JLPT prep material, used the newspaper a lot. I used to watch a lot of drama... although more for entertainment than for studying (ie, didn't look a lot of stuff up.... only if it was a word or something that came up a lot). I also used to joke that everything I knew about Japanese conversation I learned from ainori... haha....
2.
Really helpful:
Anki - holy crap, I wish I would've had access to something like this as a student. It's fast, efficient, and I can control what goes in it.
RTK - I've long stopped reviewing and have some trouble recalling some stuff when I'm writing.... but the process has by far done more for my kanji recognition than anything else I've done to learn kanji.
Talking to people - I learn more from a night out drinking with friends than I do in most textbooks.
The コラム section of the newspaper - When I was a bit more diligent student, I used to clip this out (almost) every day, paste it in a notebook and look up all the words I didn't know. Great vocabulary booster - although some of it was a bit obscure.
Not so helpful:
Sentences method - didn't work for me...
Watching or reading something for the explicit purpose of "mining" : Drives me batty. I'd much rather watch or read something for enjoyment. If there's an unknown word or grammar construction that pops up enough, I'll look it up. But otherwise I leave it be, because stopping all the time ruins the fun for me.
3. I don't think it matters what methodology you decide to follow or even so much as what learning material you prefer... if you're not willing to go out and get your hands dirty and actually try to produce and speak the language, I don't think you'll get very far.
That you can overcome SO many shortcomings in things like grammar and vocabulary by learning how to describe things... and how to understand those descriptions. I think that's one of the major reasons I can understand just about anything that's thrown at me - because if I forget a word - I describe it in Japanese. And if I don't understand something a speaker is talking about - I get them to describe it in Japanese (not always possible, depending on the situation). For me, this really unlocked the door of being able to communicate and be understood.
And QuackingShoe hit the nail on the head. Every time I read someone posting about how "X doesn't make sense" or "Explain wa and ga to me RIGHT NOW!" I just want to hand them a chill pill. If something new doesn't make sense right away - try to get a general idea of what's going on if you can and move on. Because for the most part, if you're seeing something in a textbook/hearing it in everyday conversation, you're going to hear it again... and eventually the light bulb will click on and it'll make sense. I laugh at myself when I think of a time when I struggled with things like wa vs ga; the whole ageru/morau/kureru stuff; passive voice, etc... because it's stuff that with enough exposure becomes completely second nature... and you won't even have to think about it.
4. Not bad. I'm not nearly as good about studying as I used to be... after passing JLPT 1 I've sort of gone on an extended vacation from actively trying to cram material into my brain. I still speak/use Japanese every day though... but for the moment I'm comfortable with the level I've reached and don't have a huge active desire to devote as much time to studying new material as I once did..... I need a new 資格 exam to study for, I guess
