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Post by Bokusenou on Oct 22, 2013 1:35:11 GMT
Oh, that's cool I've never seen Inuyasha before! Maybe I'll look for it! It's long, and kind of goes nowhere, but I really liked the characters, so I put up with the plot. It's a long running shounen series like Naruto, so you might like it though.
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Post by Jembru on Oct 22, 2013 12:57:07 GMT
And if you don't mind me asking, how old are you... I just like to set proficiency age goals for Japanese (because you, from what I heard you are the best!) Hey, if you don't mind me advising you. Please remove any thoughts from your mind of trying to compare yourself to others, regardless of age. There are so many variables that will determine how long it takes an individual to study; - School or work demands - Japanese being available as a subject in school - Living in Japan or an area with a good Japanese population - Supportive parents - Pushy parents (who maybe think studying Japanese is a waste of time) - Self-confidence - Overconfidence - Health - Already having proficiency in another East Asian language. - Finance - Family or relationship commitments - Study methods See.. no one, regardless of our age, lives exactly where you do, has the family or school life you have and thinks exactly the same way you do. If someone seems to learn faster, there's a good chance that they just had more things in their favour, if someone seems to take longer than you, they most likely have way too much getting in their way: more obstacles to overcome. So compare yourself only to YOUR best, and strive to achieve THAT always. Don't try to compare yourself to someone who had the luxury of studying Japanese at school, or doing a year in Japan, or whatever other experiences people on this board have. @abby, I just checked out some of those videos on that Youtube channel. They're pretty talented teachers. Are they professionals? They're using methods I don't usually notice armatures use when they try to teach their native tongue to foreigners. Maybe they've just been doing this a while though. I even saw someone use the 'invisible time line' hahaha.. that takes me back to my teaching days ^^ I think I'll watch these when I do the ironing at work and Japanese TV isn't working!
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Post by MidoriAbby on Oct 22, 2013 20:55:26 GMT
JembruNot sure if they are professional teachers, but they're definitely good at it! I love the videos. Also, your advice to Jacob is perfect. As you know I'm 14, and I have friends in their 20s and 30s at Japanese club who I tutor, even though they've been studying longer than I have, but there is also a girl at my Japanese camp who is a couple months younger than me who is catching up to my level quite quickly, and I've heard adults who've only studied for a couple months speak with flawless pronunciation (some people just have a knack for that) so you really can't say "I can't learn because I'm too young" or "I can't learn because I'm too old" because neither is true whatsoever. In fact in your case you have so much time ahead of you, don't worry about it.
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Jacob
Junior Member
練習して、がんばりますね!
Posts: 95
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Post by Jacob on Oct 23, 2013 0:35:25 GMT
Yeah Thats a great way to think about it! Maybe I don't have enough confidence or time yet. Thx guys
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Post by Jembru on Oct 23, 2013 15:51:43 GMT
Jacob: For what it is worth, I fully 100% relate to how you feel. Just because I may be a little further along my Japanese journey than you are, don't believe for a second that I don't feel embarrassed every time I open my mouth to speak, or press 'send' on a Japanese forum post. It has been an on-going battle for me, to overcome my lack of confidence. I don't think I'll ever remove my fear, but I have learnt to grit my teeth and force myself through it. I've found offline better than online, because it's too easy for me to read into things people say and create in my mind, a scenario where they're laughing at me from their PCs. Face to face, I can see the kindness in their eyes, and hear the gentle encouraging tones when they say, 'don't worry, I understood you anyway it's fine!'. I make grammar mistakes in almost every single sentence I say. Silly things that I know are wrong as soon as I finish speaking, so I'm constantly correcting myself, sometimes even after the person replied to my question. Things like using the past tense to talk about something I'm doing next week, or even just the wrong word altogether. I make these mistakes because I refused to speak for far too long, so this is a consequence I have to just accept was my own fault, but will only correct itself if I seek out opportunities to use Japanese often enough. I think you're doing just fine. You keep on doing your best to use Japanese, which is way more than I could do when I was at your level. I was terrified to even join a Japanese forum, never mind take part in discussions back then. I can only do this here, with you guys, even now. I won't join the forum on Japanese pod 101 and don't even look at it, it terrifies me. As does lang-8, although I know I MUST start posting there. You guys, and my offline friends, are the only people I feel safe using Japanese around. You're already off to a better start than I had, so don't ever be discouraged. It's frustrating when you're learning, and feel like everything you say or do is wrong, but you must see it as a positive thing. If it helps, try to imagine every mistake you make is like an XP point in a game, and you can't become a master of the language until you have mega XP. This is what I started to do. I say to myself, 'I'm still 15,000 mistakes away from fluency, I had better start speaking then...' and it kinda helps! ^^ @midori: Yeah, they're cool videos, although I only saw 2 so far and unfortunately managed to pick lessons with words I already knew, but it was really helpful to listen to them try to define the words in Japanese. It was like a speaking Kotobank. LOL It's going to be a great way to remember new words, when I have time to sit down and watch! Thanks again for the link!
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Jacob
Junior Member
練習して、がんばりますね!
Posts: 95
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Post by Jacob on Oct 23, 2013 23:51:10 GMT
That was really motivational. And I totally agree. It embarrases me to talk to people in some cases
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Post by Bokusenou on Oct 24, 2013 3:06:45 GMT
JacobI guess I missed one of your posts somehow.
Are you asking me? Seriously? Hahahaha I've had to stop studying Japanese more times than I can count because life got in the way somehow or other! And after each time it took a while to recover. I'm still recovering from the last break, and currently only at around 70% of what I knew September of last year. I probably would have quit a long time ago if I didn't love Japanese lit and media so much that it would be sad for me if I couldn't understand them anymore! It's frustrating having to recover what I knew, knowing something somehow may get in the way again, and I would have to do it over again, like Sisyphus , whose punishment ordered by Zeus was to have to push a boulder up a hill, and it would always roll down after he finished, so he needed to push it up again, and again, forever.
Instead of many learners' progress stories: Start knowing nothing, make progress, end knowing a lot...Mine's closer to Sisyphus' story, only hopefully this will be the last time I need to recover from a break. Even though I love the language, dealing with the sinking feeling that I needed to start almost from scratch again and again is always frustrating until I get back to where I was. Anyway, what I'm saying is, have higher goals. I'm not a good person to base learning goals on. Like what Jembru said, base your goals on what works and is realistic for you.
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Post by Jembru on Oct 24, 2013 8:01:14 GMT
I'm the same as you Bokusenou! This last two years were the first time I stuck to Japanese for more than a few months without a massive break, and the first time I got beyond book 2 of Japanese for busy people (as the whole series is only a beginners course, that gives you an idea of were I was in my study before I returned). I'd also been studying German for about 2 and a half years prior to picking up Japanese again, so I had forgotten almost everything. I hate being asked how long I've studied Japanese, because it's impossible to work out. I guess 3 - 4 years altogether, but it's not the same as if I'd had 4 solid years studying as I did these last 22 months.
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Post by Bokusenou on Oct 25, 2013 3:35:10 GMT
Oh, I feel a little better knowing I'm not the only one. I also have trouble telling people how long I've studied (it seems like it's one of the first questions people ask when they know you're learning/know Japanese)...I've heard advice from people to cut your self-study year number in half when telling people how long, but I'm the kind of person who learns much better on my own than in a school classroom because I'm doing things for myself and not the grade (in classrooms what would uusually happen is I'd work hard->pass test/ace project->get A->have forgotten everything which I didn't use or discover myself by around two weeks after the course finished, usually having forgotten around 90-95% of the course content.) and I can go over things again or skip ahead as needed instead of following a classes pace. Speaking was the only thing which improved when I took classes, but it also got worse a lot of the time since most teachers I had tended to pair the best students in the class in terms of knowledge with the worst, hoping it would make them better, but it tended to have the opposite effect. So I'm not sure whether to add the time I was in classes, or not, since they weren't very effective for me. And I'm not even going to try to subtract all the breaks. I can't remember the start and end times for most of them anyway... As for resources, I realized recently that www.pixiv.net which I mainly knew as a fanart/art related site, has a fanfiction option ( click 小説 before hitting search) it works better for romance ones if you know a pairing name (usually the first kanji of the guy's name followed by the first of the girl's, or first few katakana if it's foreign) but for non-romance like I like to read, or if you don't care which pairing just put in the series name or abbreviated fan nickname and you will likely find a bunch.
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Post by Underlig on Nov 3, 2013 11:21:17 GMT
Oh Abby! That youtube channel you found is really good! thanks! I often use memrise.com, it's great
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Post by MidoriAbby on Nov 4, 2013 23:32:45 GMT
Underlig glad you like it ^^ I have an account on memrise but unfortunately I haven't really had the free time to properly use it. I should try more!
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Post by Jembru on Nov 12, 2013 8:03:58 GMT
There are some things members have recommended in the past (old forum again), that I didn't save and now can't find even with the search function, so I hope you don't mind me asking again. Bokusenou: You gave me a link a while ago for a website that was better than jisho.org for looking up example questions. I can't remember the name of this site. I think you may have mentioned two, but one had a lot of examples from non-natives so I think you said to take that one with a pinch of salt. Maybe I'm getting confused, but I'm pretty sure it was you who gave me the link. Jade: You found and shared a cool site that allowed you to order books from Japan's websites (for a fee of course ^^). Do you still have the link? Also for anyone who knows how Windows works: Dolly ran over my keyboard a while ago (she does it ALL the bleedin' time and if I leave the room for too long, I'll come back to find her sitting on the keys, cleaning herself and posting aersfffffffffffffffffffffff to whichever forum or application I was using) and now I don't have the bar that shows my favourites. I can see it only on the google menu screen when I first open my browser, and then it vanished. I only know how to save favourites by dragging the web address onto this bar, so basically, I can't save anything (not even gaiwa!!) right now, thanks to this mischievous moggie. Any ideas how I fix this? I've had this problem for a few months now.
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Post by Jade on Nov 12, 2013 8:11:06 GMT
Jembru - You're using Chrome? Hit the display button and click 'display favourites bar'. Done. White Rabbit Press - Books, toys, media, food, etc, etc. FromJapan - Shipping service, find the things you want to buy on Japanese websites and they'll order them and send them to you. Convenient when Amazon doesn't ship to your country 90% of the time. Kinokuniya - Books
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Post by Jembru on Nov 12, 2013 8:44:48 GMT
I don't seem to have a 'display' button. I looked in settings, and my keyboard but there's no display button. Well, I must have one somewhere, if Dolly managed to find it...
Anyway, thanks for the links! I'll save them as soon as I'm able! Also, if it's not getting too late, I'll be signing into chat/skype once I finish writing a reply to another forum (in Japanese, could be a while ^^)
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Post by Jade on Nov 12, 2013 9:09:13 GMT
No. You know where it says 'File', etc, etc? There should be a display one or something. I don't remember, I've had to stop using Chrome. Either that or hit the three lines near the top of Chrome and go into settings and try there.
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