julianjalapeno Wrote:Not to pick on you too much, but I would avoid claims like this. `Pretty much all of it` to most people sounds like over 85% comprehension which is huge especially in terms of novels and news.

I would not consider 85% or even 90% to be "huge".

Not this again....

ta12121 made some good progress in a short time, has unorthodox way of using SRS that seems to work for him and is brave enough to post his progress reports every 5 months for the same public scrutiny.

Whether he is exaggerating his abilities is anyones guess but I really appreciate even vague information on his progress since he usually relates to his own experience from 5 months back. Its not a e-peen contest on who is better at Japanese but a learners impression on his progress.

Personally I don't care if its 85%, 99% or 50% comprehension (I cant tell in % what my comprehension is so I'm not surprised he can't either) but I do want to know that his progress is slowing down and his general impression of his abilities.

Oh and I agree that 90% is not huge but I'd still love to understand that much. Huge starts with 99%.

90% is kind of tiny now that I think about it.

I will admit, the reason I must react strongly to someone beaming with confidence is because of my own insecurity (he doth protest too much or something).

So in all fairness, I'll post my own progress report here in a moment and will endure the slings and arrows that come my way (and maybe find some like-minded folk that are still having a hard time with this language).

If you do, then please try to do a video on youtube, so we can judge on our own.

And ta, Nuke Marine asked you to do that ages ago (for the naysayers). I didn't follow through, but I'm curious, so if you did, thank you for posting a link somewhere.

I know 90% of everything does sound vague. But I'll give examples. Let's say I'm watching a few anime episodes. Animes aren't hard to understand at all. As for comprehending them to every little degree. Even I still have difficulties. I can watch rurouni kenshin and get everything they are saying but some words tripped me here and there. But every-time I come back and back, I comprehend more and more. And my understanding get's boosted even more. This applies to various media that I keep listening to such as news,music,talk-shows,etc. Although translating will be another story, just from audio only can be annoying. But with text that barrier does go down but I've yet to fully gain translation abilities. For now I'm focusing on japanese ability as much as I can.

As for a video, what should I put up? Audio for me reading something in japanese? Something along those lines. I can't put up a japanese video in me speaking japanese just yet. I will eventually but I don't have the skills to pulll of speaking effortlessly. It's still bad on my end.

That would mean I need to buy a mic, anyone know any good/cheap ones?

Evil_Dragon Wrote:

julianjalapeno Wrote:Not to pick on you too much, but I would avoid claims like this. `Pretty much all of it` to most people sounds like over 85% comprehension which is huge especially in terms of novels and news.

I would not consider 85% or even 90% to be "huge".

It isn't, 90% of the language doesn't mean much. Even 95%. Although 99% means you basically understand every little thing and detail. Even I can't do that yet. Even for reading. I think for me to improve this, is simple. Just keep going. Eventually there will be a optimum point for reading/understanding where they reach that 99% mark. A means of showing this is simple. What stuff can I read/understand in the language. Coming from different sources(novels,newspapers,articles,shows,etc)

Fair enough. Or maybe an essay in Japanese?! a blog?
Anyway, your posts are inspiring, so it would be a shame to see you deconsidered.
In your own time.

raz789 Wrote:Kinda off topic, but before ta12121, you said something about you're SRS decks not being in English. Can you tell use what your native language is or the language that your decks are in.

As for the JLPT tests, I would love to see the results you'd get on past tests.

They are in japanese. My vocab is in english.(Uses an english translation when needed).
I'm using a new format. Basically high-context cards(not too big). It's a means for testing myself on reading passages in japanese from various media. Since one of my main goals is to be able to read japanese like it's nothing/understand it.

Asriel Wrote:I agree with julianjalapeno and Taurus -- While SRS stats and yada yada are nice, it's not until you do some outside source like JCAT or JLPT that you can really gauge yourself. Yeah, "pretty much all of it" is way too vague..I understood "pretty much everything" until i got to Japan and realized how much I didn't.

Plus, there's a big difference between "understanding" and "comprehending," so to speak. Like reading an article and thinking "oh yeah, that was a pretty simple read, I understood it," and then you have to answer questions about it -- and have no clue what the answers are. Watching a drama/anime/news and 'understanding it' doesn't really say how much you're comprehending the language, as there's so much context involved, and you don't have to interact with it, so your mind is free to guess and put the pieces together as it goes along.

I guess that's why I've always wanted to see test scores from you, as opposed to SRS stats, because it's a "better" gauge at testing how much you're actually comprehending.

also: I would definitely recommend starting some serious production training -- get yourself on lang8. You can believe all the input hypothesis that you want, but after seeing your little sentence, I'm pretty sure you'd progress faster by doing some output.

I agree totally. I've noticed from my experience. How the input=output goes. When I listen to a few sources. There are some things I can say easily from memory because it's short/easy to comprehend. Those ones go into my memory like nothing. Some of the longer ones take time but they do eventually go in. So for me, I have to focus on key aspects of output. Mastering the basics(shouldn't take too long on my end). then setting the plate up a bit by doing more production activities(learning keigo eventually).

EratiK Wrote:Fair enough. Or maybe an essay in Japanese?! a blog?
Anyway, your posts are inspiring, so it would be a shame to see you deconsidered.
In your own time.

I don't have the abilities to write an eassy as my output skills are bad. But I've been getting into the phase of focusing on it. As I'm pretty confident I can get really good in reading/understanding now.

ta12121 Wrote:As for a video, what should I put up? Audio for me reading something in japanese? Something along those lines. I can't put up a japanese video in me speaking japanese just yet. I will eventually but I don't have the skills to pulll of speaking effortlessly. It's still bad on my end.

That sounds good, and explain the content of what you read in English after (not direct translation, but you should be able to summarize something if you understood it).

I'm looking forward to getting a better idea of your progress, like others have said "I understand pretty much everything" is really vague, especially if you have a different idea of "understanding" than we do.

Regarding thurd's comment's and the "e-peen" contest, stats, percentages, etc...

The thing is, I kind of feel that when ta posts his skills, it's always "i can pretty much understand this and that." That's fine and all, and it's inspiring to see someone who can go from 0 to 'pretty much everything in this and that anime, drama, etc...' in such a short time.

But wouldn't it be good, if even only for his own sake, to take some standardized test to see how he is actually progressing? One of the most motivating things to me is looking at the N1 that I just took, and looking at the results that the Chinese people/ghindzra(sp?) put up to see how I stand up against it.
I know that I can watch drama, news, and interact in person with barely any trouble, but I got much more invigorated when I saw "gee, I might actually pass this test!"

So no, I'm not out to "prove you wrong" or "say that you're bad at Japanese" or "lying about your progress." I'm just trying to get you to get a 3rd party view on it. Frankly, I don't care too much if you post your score or not -- I just think that you'd get a more 客観的 view of your progress if you took some sort of test.

Asriel Wrote:Regarding thurd's comment's and the "e-peen" contest, stats, percentages, etc...

The thing is, I kind of feel that when ta posts his skills, it's always "i can pretty much understand this and that." That's fine and all, and it's inspiring to see someone who can go from 0 to 'pretty much everything in this and that anime, drama, etc...' in such a short time.

But wouldn't it be good, if even only for his own sake, to take some standardized test to see how he is actually progressing? One of the most motivating things to me is looking at the N1 that I just took, and looking at the results that the Chinese people/ghindzra(sp?) put up to see how I stand up against it.
I know that I can watch drama, news, and interact in person with barely any trouble, but I got much more invigorated when I saw "gee, I might actually pass this test!"

So no, I'm not out to "prove you wrong" or "say that you're bad at Japanese" or "lying about your progress." I'm just trying to get you to get a 3rd party view on it. Frankly, I don't care too much if you post your score or not -- I just think that you'd get a more 客観的 view of your progress if you took some sort of test.

I agree. I will post my results up just as soon as I can get my account approved. I agree that it is a way to show progress to myself as well as others. But for me I want to get it from a variety of sources if possible. One is from media and another is from tests as well. Media I mean: movies,talk-shows,reading articles,novels,newspapers(all general types of media in general). To show myself that I started out from zero to gaining the abilities to comprehend and read all these media to almost that "100%" range.

I know when I say "I can understand pretty much everything" does sound vague in any way you look at it. So what I will do in the future(after I post the results). Is state things directly as much as possible. Just to make everyone's lives easier as well as mine.

*applies for membership in ta12121 fanclub*

Here is your 10-month progress report. I did not see it linked anywhere.
http://forum.koohii.com/showthread.php?tid=5852

What I still cannot find and am looking for is （まだ探している物は） the method by which you can make 100 new cards per day in a reasonable amount of time. Which tools do you use?

jcdietz03 Wrote:*applies for membership in ta12121 fanclub*

Here is your 10-month progress report. I did not see it linked anywhere.
http://forum.koohii.com/showthread.php?tid=5852

What I still cannot find and am looking for is （まだ探している物は） the method by which you can make 100 new cards per day in a reasonable amount of time. Which tools do you use?

I like they way you think. Your hired! (lol joking). As for the 100 card per day. I'm re-working my srs now. So I'm deleting/re-tweaking the way I do things. So I am deleting a lot of cards I find that are not useful or something that is really common that there isn't the need for the srs to do(common kanji,counters,etc)

Just curious. How do you test/practice your speaking ability?
Have you ever been in Japan and thus in a "real-life speaking situation"?

chochajin Wrote:Just curious. How do you test/practice your speaking ability?
Have you ever been in Japan and thus in a "real-life speaking situation"?

Haven't been to japan(yet). As for the output practice, I actually haven't focused on that. But now I know I have to work on those skills. I know a few japanese people, so output-practice shouldn't be too bad, as I can just talk to them. But the downside is, they are busy majority of the time.

I was talking to this girl online but she didn't try to talk seriously. So I'm searching for more people["上手ですね"] was used too much....

I'm considering if there are any speaking classes near me. I know there is one but the price is pretty high.

I'm even considering taking some more japanese classes. But I haven't decided just yet. Since now I have a better grip on japanese learning. I can excel and enjoy it at the same time(hopefully).

I see
I was just wondering because I've often seen people (students of Japanese etc.) that could read books that were way beyond my level, but when it was about simple daily conversation they were suddenly lost.
Even during the JLPT last Sunday people who took the same level as me (N2) couldn't even understand what the examiner said or answer accordingly.
I think quite a lot of people overestimate their skills and are shocked once they come to Japan.
I think it's a good idea to use all of your "resources" back home to study that as much as possible.

chochajin Wrote:I see
I was just wondering because I've often seen people (students of Japanese etc.) that could read books that were way beyond my level, but when it was about simple daily conversation they were suddenly lost.
Even during the JLPT last Sunday people who took the same level as me (N2) couldn't even understand what the examiner said or answer accordingly.
I think quite a lot of people overestimate their skills and are shocked once they come to Japan.
I think it's a good idea to use all of your "resources" back home to study that as much as possible.

True. I agree with you completely for the speaking part. I still have trouble with speaking but I know it has nothing to do with my understanding/listening skills.

It's more that I just need to get out there. Reading isn't hard to improve, we just need to read more and try to understand kanji more. But for speaking it takes longer to speak than to understand.

I remember reading about the japanese language. One thing they said is the easiest thing to master is speaking. And the hardest to master is reading/writing. But I believe that these two things may be hard initially but it all comes down to putting in the time. I have no doubt if I focused on speaking more than anything else I'd improve greatly.

It always surprises me when you have people who are so far behind in their speaking skills. If you're doing self-study outside the country, I guess it makes sense...but I took classes at University, and most of us could speak a lot better than we could read.

Sure, if we put in the effort we could read some higher level material, but speaking was much more comfortable, because...it was just talking! Kind of like in English, except you gotta think a little harder.

I guess this post isn't contributing anything useful...But I guess I would suggest finding a class, or a teacher who knows how to ask you things, speak to you about things, and bring things out that you want to learn. Say you're working on a grammar point one day -- they'll know how to bring the grammar point out of you naturally... that, or make you output, and make sure it's correct.

ta12121 Wrote:I remember reading about the japanese language. One thing they said is the easiest thing to master is speaking. And the hardest to master is reading/writing. But I believe that these two things may be hard initially but it all comes down to putting in the time. I have no doubt if I focused on speaking more than anything else I'd improve greatly.

Just a thought -- but once you get around to speaking, I think you'll be surprised at how fast you pick it up. You already have a lot of knowledge behind it, you've just got to learn how to use it.

You might even need to learn to use "dumber" words, because people don't use tough words in normal conversation. 完売 vs 売り切れ and such --> I sometimes got made fun of because I would use too many "smart words."

The problem with reading/writing is that you have all those "smart" words that aren't used in conversation, and then you've got kanji on top of that. Nowadays with RtK and SRS it's easier than it was before, but it's still a lot tougher than just picking up speaking.

Asriel Wrote:

ta12121 Wrote:I remember reading about the japanese language. One thing they said is the easiest thing to master is speaking. And the hardest to master is reading/writing. But I believe that these two things may be hard initially but it all comes down to putting in the time. I have no doubt if I focused on speaking more than anything else I'd improve greatly.

Just a thought -- but once you get around to speaking, I think you'll be surprised at how fast you pick it up. You already have a lot of knowledge behind it, you've just got to learn how to use it.

You might even need to learn to use "dumber" words, because people don't use tough words in normal conversation. 完売 vs 売り切れ and such --> I sometimes got made fun of because I would use too many "smart words."

The problem with reading/writing is that you have all those "smart" words that aren't used in conversation, and then you've got kanji on top of that. Nowadays with RtK and SRS it's easier than it was before, but it's still a lot tougher than just picking up speaking.

A few japanese people said that "You will probably end up knowing more kanji than me". I agree with what he was saying now lol. I tend to focus on kanji,reading and understanding japanese in it's written form. I do listen a lot as well, so I do keep getting reinforcement in terms of listening. Listen,read,listen and then read again. I'm confident that my kanji knowledge will keep going up as well as my listening skills. Now if I can only say that about my output skills, then I'd be on my way to "mastering". But as usual, everything takes time. Lucky for me I have a huge interest(passion). So there won't be anything coming in the way of me succeeding.

Asriel Wrote:It always surprises me when you have people who are so far behind in their speaking skills. If you're doing self-study outside the country, I guess it makes sense...but I took classes at University, and most of us could speak a lot better than we could read.

I've found that, as you said, it really depends upon the environment that the student has to work with. In university classes the majority of the students are getting more speaking practice than reading/writing practice, due to all the class assignments and drills, and the fact that most aren't studying much outside of the classroom environment. Students who are doing it through self-study, however, often don't have the resources to get much speaking practice in. There aren't tons students at your own level to talk to, using the same vocabulary and grammar, like you'd get from a classroom. To get speaking practice they have to force themselves to either speak to themselves in monologues, or go out there and find Japanese friends who will indulge their studying.

Reading, on the other hand, is a very self-contained resource, not requiring any outside sources. You can just sit down, relax, and read. It's also more forgiving in that you can reread sentences, look up words, and not have any of the stress, anxiety, or embarrassment people experience trying to speak in foreign languages to natives.

Additionally, many learners of Japanese have fairly introverted personalities, in my experience, and reading is more appealing than the socializing required of speaking to them.