I just did it, and it is terrifying. 2283 cards to review. :S

It's obvious that people here are biased against output. I could personally deal with functional conversation quite fine at the 3 month mark, which is actually when I met my girlfriend. Sure, I was living in Japan studying Japanese in class 4 hours a day, but I was under the impression that people here generally thought going to Japan isn't such a huge advantage.

So yeah, it might not be odd that he has a hard time dealing with conversation, but it's not facepalmable. If he trains those abilities, there's nothing odd with being able to hold a simple conversation at 3 months.

Well, let's see how I go. I have only done about 60 reviews so far of these new cards, but what is interesting is that I am accurately producing (writing and speaking) probably 98%. These are my really mature cards though and are very simple just like 저는 의사예요 I am a doctor. Be interesting to see how I go with some of the younger cards.

You might find this, on 'comprehensible output', interesting: http://forum.koohii.com/showthread.php?tid=5163

thegeelonghellswan Wrote:Krashen is wrong then I guess...

Mezbup, that is something I have been thinking of, but been reluctant to do as I will instantly have 2200 new cards to review...

I think I am going to do it though. It makes more sense to me. Thanks guys.

thegeelonghellswan Wrote:I just did it, and it is terrifying. 2283 cards to review. :S

She must be a really special "young Korean lady"

thegeelonghellswan Wrote:Krashen is wrong then I guess...

As I understand it, Krashen's language acquisition theories are meant to be applied in a classroom setting, with output limited to "low anxiety" situations, and input limited to material just above the student's current level of competence. It might be possible to adapt his theories to self-study, but I don't think it's been done yet.

I don't like this whole "All input leads to magical perfect output."

It reminds me of when I would study for the SAT Verbal and see all that vocab. I would understand the words when I saw them (well, some of the time) but damned if I ever used it in real life.

Now then, pardon me while I abscond from this message board.

thurd Wrote:

thegeelonghellswan Wrote:Krashen is wrong then I guess...

Mezbup, that is something I have been thinking of, but been reluctant to do as I will instantly have 2200 new cards to review...

I think I am going to do it though. It makes more sense to me. Thanks guys.

thegeelonghellswan Wrote:I just did it, and it is terrifying. 2283 cards to review. :S

She must be a really special "young Korean lady"

Haha, I think you have the wrong impression. I have so much time, money and effort invested in learning this language. I also have the desire to finally see something out to the end. I have quit university several times and am only now going to graduate this year, having taken 8 years (my goodness it hurts to write that). I have had some adventures along the way, but a large reason it took so long was because of a lack of commitment.

@ nestor. Thanks for that link, was some good stuff.

As an interesting aside - there was a few times growing up where I knew a word and could read it, but had never heard anybody say it, so I pronounced it wrong. In both the words; almond and salmon I would pronounce the silent L (I don't know how I hadn't heard these words...), I also pronounced the word aficionado wrong. So it was only when I produced these words that my pronunciation was able to be corrected...

Output cards aren't a great solution. I did over 1500 of them before I deleted them. You have to spend twice as much time using anki, which ends up very demotivating. You should be aiming to maximise your exposure, and doubling your SRS quota doesn't exactly help that. If you don't double it, you're always going to be understanding far less words than you would be without output cards, which makes your exposure less effective.

Then you have the issue of equating English phrases with Korean ones. Among the many disadvantages of this is the fact that you won't necessarily remember the words in conversation just because you can remember them from the English "triggers" in your deck. Even though I could remember them well when reviewing, I found that I would still need to gain exposure to and try using words myself in order to become proficient with them.

It was easier to remember words after doing output cards (when there wasn't confusion between words that mean the same thing in English), and it definitely has its merits, but was my valuable study time best spent doing that instead of the alternatives? I tend to remember words from memorable scenes in shows and what not a hell of a lot easier. I think you need to consider these things before rushing into output cards. Remember you're going to be doing your reviews every day for the foreseeable future...

thegeelonghellswan Wrote:Kazelee are you suggesting that I shouldn't even be speaking yet?

Something like that.

At three months the things you learned when you first started have barely suck in, let alone any material that came after. The conversation would be mostly composed simple things like, "Hi, how are you, how do you feel." As long as it took you to read those examples is about as long as the conversation would last (long pauses aside).

A plus is that you got some good listening practice, though.

Build up your repertoire a bit more (more sentences/shadowing). Shadow some korean shows. If you can find raw korean subs for a show, that's even better. You can shadow while reading.

Language, like most other things, is all a matter of time. 3 months is a very very short time.

kainzero Wrote:I don't like this whole "All input leads to magical perfect output."

Where is this quote from? Either this is a huge straw man or someone has really warped the message.

@Kazelee
I think he's referring to khatz. Who states a good quality of input=good quality of output. Which hasn't been happening for me just yet.....
But my problem is that sure i can understand what people are saying, but for some reason it's hard to reply back, or i do reply back but it's not correct. So at the moment output isn't so good yet.

thegeelonghellswan Wrote:Krashen is wrong then I guess...

Mezbup, that is something I have been thinking of, but been reluctant to do as I will instantly have 2200 new cards to review...

I think I am going to do it though. It makes more sense to me. Thanks guys.

I don't know if it's possible with Anki, but perhaps there's a way to have the "production" cards have the same schedule as the "recognition" cards. This way, you're slowly re-introduced to these with the smoother spacing you already established.

I did this when I created recognition cards for RTK but didn't want to lose out on 1 year of scheduling built into my production. Problem was, Resolve had to do that for me. As this was over a year ago, the current version of Anki may do it.

Anyone know a simple way to do this with Anki now? Well, besides duplicating the deck, switching card types of existing cards, then importing both into the same deck.

PS: I never recommend Native to Target language cards. You're better off just doing subs2srs for 20 hours worth of various dramas.

So, I have done about 200 production cards. It is time consuming and I am not sure if it is going to help. I am writing theses cards out and making very few errors. On one card I wrote 책사 instead of 책상 des instead of desk, but the mistakes are very few and far between, another time I could not remember the word for Nun, which is a word I have never encountered outside of my deck so far.

It seems doing input only has given me a high percentage of accuracy when producing mature cards within the confines of the SRS. I guess my young cards would have a much lower accuracy, but that is only natural.

When I think about my own experience with English I have read probably 1000 times more material than I have ever produced, yet my English is fine. I am going back to input only cards.

thegeelonghellswan Wrote:So, I have done about 200 production cards. It is time consuming and I am not sure if it is going to help. I am writing theses cards out and making very few errors. On one card I wrote 책사 instead of 책상 des instead of desk, but the mistakes are very few and far between, another time I could not remember the word for Nun, which is a word I have never encountered outside of my deck so far.

It seems doing input only has given me a high percentage of accuracy when producing mature cards within the confines of the SRS. I guess my young cards would have a much lower accuracy, but that is only natural.

When I think about my own experience with English I have read probably 1000 times more material than I have ever produced, yet my English is fine. I am going back to input only cards.

haha, yea it that is true. You will know and read more things then you ever write in you're lifetime. So same can be applied to Japanese. But i would suggest you maintain a study amount of production in both speaking/writing if possible. It will help you later on. I doubt you want to get to the point where you're fluent in reading,understanding,speaking but cannot write much. You want all SKILLS! in the language!

I think it takes at least a year before you can carry out basic conversations without sounding like an obvious foreigner studying a mystical language.
I think you're on the right track... if you can pick out a few words in each sentence, I'd say that's pretty good. Keep in mind that responding/reproducing is usually hard to get used to.

Keep up the immersion. Bear through the frustration of feeling like an idiot.
It's completely natural for learning Korean.

Dudes and dudettes, I done been thinkin lately...

When I crammed Anki sentences for JLPT2 I learned how to read kanji a lot better which gave me access to all kinds of new stuff that was too difficult before. But I didn't get any better at speaking; in fact I remember remarking to friends that I was starting to talk like a wang with all my new-fangled college boy words.

But getting on the phone and making mistakes like saying こんやく (dark gelatinous jp food) instead of 今日の予約, or making people laugh in Japanese and feeling good, or walking into a store and learning a new word from the cell phone guy from context makes me feel good. It's really time to up the experience/seriousness level in my opinion and not the sentence quantity or rate. I've come to appreciate Khatz's advice about making it a life decision.

It's very easy to do that in Japan, but it's more of a challenge but equally, if not more important to do it elsewhere. You need to have EXPERIENCES in your L2. OP's first Korean Skype taught him/her more than 3 weeks of studying hardcore with Anki or watching dramas ever would - his/her whole knowledge base is being re-evaluated and learning course being potentially shifted by that one encounter. You're onto something, but you should have chosen a shorter forum name so I could address you directly.

Yes, I would agree that it wasn't certainly revelatory and made me re-evaluate my studies...

coverup Wrote:But getting on the phone and making mistakes like saying こんやく (dark gelatinous jp food) instead of 今日の予約

Sorry for nitpicking, but こんやく is an engagement, i.e., a promise of marriage. The food you mentioned is こんにゃく, which can imply fapping for a strange reason. I'm correcting this minor typo because they're totally different in meaning and because when I pronounced them with my fake English accent, they sounded exactly the same even though they're completely different sounds in Japanese.

magamo for the win! but i get the experience points from being corrected!

magamo Wrote:こんにゃく, which can imply fapping for a strange reason.

Somebody showed me a picture-based こんにゃく tutorial before. It involved slicing it in a certain way and then putting it in the microwave, at which point it's ready for something that makes the reason behind the implication more obvious :|

@Javizy - mmm, it's what's for dinner! haha

Recently I've been feeling a bit bored when talking to Japanese people because I don't know much Japanese friends/contacts who I share enough common interests with. Guess I gotta find them.

If it makes u feel any better, I've been studying Japanese off and on for about 3 years and I'm just starting to feel comfortable in conversation. Give it time. (and no I don't study 24hrs/day)

You've only been at it 3 months so settle down you'll get it. I've been at Japanese about 22 months now and conversation is not a problem, it starts to really stick after the first year or so, and I'm going for the JLPT 1 this year, was going to try it last year but missed the registration, I'll be at a round 2 and a half years at JLPT 1, I'm sure you'll reach the equivalent within around the same time if not sooner. Just keep at it bro, quitting is the biggest thing, if you don't quit you're bound to succeed.

I would recommend considering the following:

You need an outside method of analysis that really measures your strengths and weaknesses.
For instance
Preparation: Create a list of questions that you can rate yourself 1-10 on.
1. Record your conversation <--- you should really do this either way.
2. Do a brief analysis using your sheet after you finish talking. <--- do not listen to the recording!
3. 3 days later listen to your conversation on the audio recording. Review your analysis again and write in new scores for each point.
4. Now on the back of the piece of paper brainstorm as many ways as you can to improve on your good points and 2 points for each weak point.

IMPORTANT
Your analysis sheet should have 70% positive questions to 30% negative. This is essential as you want to walk away feeling ok, at the minimum, in regards to your performance. Additionally, positive points can have comment boxes (no negative talk allowed in these); negative points do not have comment boxes as you shouldn't overwhelm yourself with negativity early on - you are 2-3 years too early to be getting negative on yourself, young one!

A great set of questions would be: "What did I really nail during this conversation?", "How would I rate the quality of that during this conversation?", "Did my conversation partner seem to enjoy talking to me? Where they talking a lot? How much from 1 to 10?" <--- you can create a graph or just store your sheets and look back on them later (I assure you it will be motivating to see how far you've come in such a short time, especially if you use the same sheet.)

Remember, your MOTIVATION, all the way in to upper intermediate Korean, is the MOST IMPORTANT QUALITY you MUST MAINTAIN!!! I see it all the time with people in the English learning industry. They come, try a bit then give up: they, basically, think they suck and lose the most important quality they have - their motivation - which results in them spending a lot of money for something that they never really give enough time to develop - don't be that guy! You gave 3 months of your life. Now, man up and give 3 years! Anything else would be disrespectful to yourself.

Try visiting here. Benny has quite a few good ideas that really focus on production.

Remember an honest evaluation is not one just off the top of your head. If you don't have proof on paper that you suck, refuse to believe it.