ta12121
Member
From: Canada
Registered: 2009-06-02
Posts: 3190
I was wondering about this for a while. I'm sure people can agree that in the languages there are certain things that are general easier to understand then other parts. I was thinking that let's say one is srsing from j-music a lot, they would gain a considerable improvement in listening in terms of music. Let's say if one is srsing from anime, they would gain improvement in understanding anime. So to get to the point, let's say one srsing from a variety of things music,news,anime,drama's or if one focuses on one more then the other, would they gain improvement in understanding in that certain "field"?
I'm interested in what you guys have to say, because i';m sure everyone wants to improve the listening skills in drama's,music and news.
Anyone care to share there experience on this? if they have any?
Last edited by ta12121 (2010 February 20, 8:05 pm)
I think, for listening comprehension, you have to have a lot of things working together.
-You need a base of vocabulary and grammar to understand things in the first place, which you can get from reading as well as listening;
-You need to be able to parse sounds as words, which I think just comes from a lot of listening to things at your level or below your level;
-You need practice listening to a lot of different voices, accents, speech styles. For myself, I built up my listening skills watching anime where everyone is a teenager. I find middle-aged men oddly hard to understand! And it's not necessarily obvious that すっげえ is the same thing as すごい;
-You need practice listening to things in a lot of different genres. One basic difference between listening and reading is that listening is real-time. You can't hear a word and go back and think about what it means. So you need to be able to anticipate what's coming up, and I think the more you listen to a certain thing, whether that's "a drama about family relationships" or "news about crime," the more you'll get used to the words that are used in that context, and what could be coming up next.
So I think any listening that you do, that's comprehensible to you, will help your listening comprehension. But if you focus on one particular genre, you'll improve the most with that particular genre.
ta12121
Member
From: Canada
Registered: 2009-06-02
Posts: 3190
Interesting. I do have a vocab deck, and yea i am noticing an improvement in listening. It helps so much when saying the words, and then once you hear them in drama's or any native material, it will click and you will understand it no matter when you hear it.
I was over-analyzing abit, but it is true in general though. I agree with drama's as they are linked to real Japanese speech . And these you will hear in speech majority of the time.
I am starting to find sentences annoying nowadays. Vocab is more easier and effective. But i guess it depends on level. My sentence deck has reached 7500 as of now. My vocab deck has alot in there, but i'm only like 35% complete for that deck. I think for sentences i'll add it in small batches and vocab in larger. So an increased amount of vocab deck from different genres will lead to an improvement in general listening.
What i'm planning on doing, on my study week. Is get alot of scripts of drama's+music. and slowly add them into my sentence deck. As for vocab i'll get them from drama's,music,news,etc
So for vocab deck, i guess i should aim for 20,000-50,000 in a year? (These are huge numbers, so will take time lol)
Last edited by ta12121 (2010 February 20, 10:23 pm)
ta12121
Member
From: Canada
Registered: 2009-06-02
Posts: 3190
haha. well 50,000 is a big number. It is doable but yea i'll aim for around 20,000-30,000 as of now.
I'm definitely ambitious when it comes to Japanese. I've improved so much in these 6 months. I wish i started to use a vocab deck early on. Would've helped alot.
Last edited by ta12121 (2010 February 20, 11:20 pm)
ta12121
Member
From: Canada
Registered: 2009-06-02
Posts: 3190
interesting. Yea that makes sense. I don't think i'd get into pre-war literature, but classical literature or rare words i might want to get into. But first things first, basics and then different words ranging from news,music,drama's,etc.
Hmmm i think aiming for 30,000 is more realistic to do in 1 year. Although once summertime comes around i'll commit 100% to Japanese. Although i'm already committing a lot of time in it, but i could do more.
Last edited by ta12121 (2010 February 20, 11:39 pm)
mezbup
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From: sausage lip
Registered: 2008-09-18
Posts: 1681
Website
you'd have to learn just over 80 words a day to hit 30,000 over 12 months. You know with a vocab deck that's actually doable. Certainly makes learning 15,000 in a year (still an awesome number) quite easily achievable.
gotta bear in mind though that at something like 20,000 words known it'd be a lot harder to find 80 per day that you didn't know.
Last edited by mezbup (2010 February 20, 11:44 pm)
ta12121
Member
From: Canada
Registered: 2009-06-02
Posts: 3190
Yea that's doable. I usual do around 100 daily for vocab b/c i can do alot and learn alot as well. But with a sentence deck, i'm going only for around 50-70 max. Cuz the reviews are seriously killing me! lol. As for sentences, it's best when it's short. Vocab is short as it's only 1 word per card+decoding if needed. So it's a breeze to do it.
Last edited by ta12121 (2010 February 20, 11:49 pm)
ta12121
Member
From: Canada
Registered: 2009-06-02
Posts: 3190
lol. Well i was thinking of actually doing just that. But my level isn't high enough to show it off just yet. As for progress. I kept thinking i was getting anywhere with japanese, but people are like if you can understand anime and manga easily and understand drama's, you're improving a lot. But personally i still think i suck in japanese
Last edited by ta12121 (2010 February 21, 1:21 am)
Asriel
Member
From: 東京
Registered: 2008-02-26
Posts: 1343
Aijin wrote:
Anyone else feel like people's reportred progress on Japanese on the internet is a lot like people's reported penis size on the internet? Aka: take the actual number and multiply by 5?
I think this is probably very true in a lot of aspects (not just penis size, Japanese ability), and not necessarily always intentional.
I know that I'm not as good at Japanese as I would like to believe. But going to a student run bar and hanging out, playing darts, etc with the locals -- It's one of those things that seems to "inflate self perception" if not "boost confidence."
Incidentally, I've found that this is the best way to increase listening/speaking. Not necessarily grammar/vocab, but that's what studying is for...
Aijin
Member
From: California
Registered: 2009-05-29
Posts: 648
Nukemarine wrote:
Aijin, is it only on this forum you make random remarks about penises 
It was the first analogy that sprang to mind 
But I mean: 30,000-50,000 words in a year? 50,000 words would be a basic dictionary! I've met many extremely talented learners and linguistically-gifted individuals, but no one who could do anything near that. I just have trouble believing that there's just some conclave of language-learning savants tucked away on the internet! There's no way I learned even close to that amount of English vocabulary in a year, even when devoting myself delligently to studying it, and living here. Despite my vast amount of exposure and studying it took a long time to be able to not only recognize the English lexicon in hearing/reading, but being able to produce it instantly in speech and writing! No way a year.
kazelee
Rater Mode
From: ohlrite
Registered: 2008-06-18
Posts: 2132
Website
You can learn 2,000 in a month, so 20,000 is not impossible. It's just insane. Good luck.
aijin wrote:
Despite my vast amount of exposure and studying it took a long time to be able to not only recognize the English lexicon in hearing/reading, but being able to produce it instantly in speech and writing! No way a year.
Japanese isn't nearly as much a mind-f@&# as English. I speak it pretty much everyday and it still confuses the hell out of me. Hell, this paragraph is a prime example of how messed up this language truly is.
Aijin
Member
From: California
Registered: 2009-05-29
Posts: 648
But you can't simply take the number of items you can achieve in a small period of time, then multiply it into a year. The more items you add, the slower the progress becomes, as it requires more upkeep to maintain that knowledge. I suppose we need to define what is meant by "learned" thought. Putting a 食べる = to eat as a flash card, then recognizing it in the program is not learning it. In my opinion truly learned until you can recognize and understand all of its conjugations instantly, use it seamlessly, etc. The mind is infinitely better at recognizing things in the environment you are exposed to them and trained them in. So if a word is just getting appearing to you in a review in Anki, which I think is what most of you are talking about, then I wouldn't consider it learned. Nor if you forget it after not seeing it for a while is it learned. True learning takes a lot of time for the mind to build up the strong connections between a word, and what those syllables represent. 月 is just a string of syllables until you make the connection betwen 月 and moon. And even then it's an English definition in your head. Only after countless contexts and experiences of 月 does it truly become learned, and those things just take so much exposure and time.
I am not sure if what I am trying to express is clear in that paragraph. I used very simple examples, so it might not be the best for what I wanted to explain.
Basically, my test for if I have truly learned something is: if I haven't seen or used a word for a year, then suddenly see it, will I instantly recognize it and know the meaning? You know what I mean; in literature for examples there are plenty of words that you rarely come across, yet you still will know the meaning instantly when you see it, even if it's been two years since you've seen it last. Or, maybe look at it this way: if you were to completely stop studying Japanese for a long period of time, the vocabulary with the least neural connections/strength will be pruned. After a while of not using the language you'll forget words for 'melancholy' or 'zealous' and other things, but words like 私 and 月 you won't forget, because they are so deeply embedded into your linguistic consciousness, as it were. That depth of embedding is a sign of something truly being learned, I'd say.
