Jacob
Junior Member
練習して、がんばりますね!
Posts: 95
|
Post by Jacob on Jul 20, 2015 4:53:29 GMT
Jade Congrats on the job! Otome games sound like fun reading practice. What PSP ones do you like? I've got a PSP emulator on my phone, and while it can't handle more processor-intensive games, it's perfect for visual novels like Umineko no Naku Koro ni (which I should really get back into finishing at some point) because they're mostly static images. Jacob Wow, lots of good-looking books! I remember "Making Out in Japanese"! I didn't like the title, but it was a surprisingly good book to help me get the hang of casual Japanese. Agreed I do like to occasionally browse the casual sayings that it has.
|
|
|
Post by Jembru on Jul 24, 2015 13:00:07 GMT
Jacob Wow, lots of good-looking books! I remember "Making Out in Japanese"! I didn't like the title, but it was a surprisingly good book to help me get the hang of casual Japanese. Agreed I do like to occasionally browse the casual sayings that it has. I have a copy of it too, because we had it in our apartment in Japan and I have fond memories of flicking through it and memorising silly phrases from it. I have another similar book, although it's a bit naughtier (okay, it's MUCH naughtier), called 'Dirty Japanese; Everyday Slang from 'What's up' to F*ck off'. There's a lot of derogatory language in it that never made it past the editing of Making Out in Japanese. When a book opens with 'こんちゃ’、’ちわっす’ for basic greetings, you know you've stepped into a whole new level of street talk. ^^
|
|
Jacob
Junior Member
練習して、がんばりますね!
Posts: 95
|
Post by Jacob on Jul 30, 2015 21:51:36 GMT
What is funny is during the summer, I do not tend to use books as much as I think I will during the school year because of busy school usually makes me. So I will probably delve into the books like these more so than I have soon!
|
|
|
Post by Bokusenou on Aug 2, 2015 0:42:07 GMT
Jade Congrats on the job! Otome games sound like fun reading practice. What PSP ones do you like? I've got a PSP emulator on my phone, and while it can't handle more processor-intensive games, it's perfect for visual novels like Umineko no Naku Koro ni (which I should really get back into finishing at some point) because they're mostly static images. Jacob Wow, lots of good-looking books! I remember "Making Out in Japanese"! I didn't like the title, but it was a surprisingly good book to help me get the hang of casual Japanese. Agreed I do like to occasionally browse the casual sayings that it has. Yeah. Did you see the video where Bill Murray was fooling around with phrases from that book while promoting "Lost in Translation"? It was funny to watch him overdo it. (Video embeds aren't working for me at the moment) www.youtube.com/watch?t=56&v=2ttJ-c_A9zE
|
|
Jacob
Junior Member
練習して、がんばりますね!
Posts: 95
|
Post by Jacob on Aug 3, 2015 4:16:49 GMT
Agreed I do like to occasionally browse the casual sayings that it has. Yeah. Did you see the video where Bill Murray was fooling around with phrases from that book while promoting "Lost in Translation"? It was funny to watch him overdo it. (Video embeds aren't working for me at the moment) www.youtube.com/watch?t=56&v=2ttJ-c_A9zEThat is so funny!
|
|
|
Post by Jembru on Sept 28, 2015 18:41:55 GMT
Hi everyone. I hope you'll forgive me for posting about notebooks again. It's hard for me to think of much else to post about at the moment, as it's all that really changes for me this year. So I started some new notebooks last week! I actually filled my smaller one, that I write horizontally in and use when I'm studying from anything that isn't kokugo, around the end of July, so I started studying exclusively from my kokugo textbook until I'd finished the notebook. I finished it a few weeks ago, than I took a week and a half off work to help my mum redecorate. I gave myself a little break from studying then too (besides kanji, but that's another story ^^). During that time, I kept changing my mind between continuing onto the 3rd grade autumn-winter textbook, or jumping to 4th grade autumn-winter. In the end I went for the latter, essentially skipping two books, but steepening the gradient in difficulty and letting me start the 5th grade book next spring. Seeing as I'll hopefully have finished learning all the jouyou kanji by next year, it makes sense to hurry to the last textbook so I can start reading more grown-up things sooner. Anyway, you know me, I get very excited when I can use a new notebook! So once I'd decided which textbook to study next, I gifted myself a brand new matching set! I was smiling for days. My last notebook had a printed margin, which meant I couldn't start each line right at the top of the page, and so had less space to annotate beneath. I'm a little embrarrassed to show my handwriting, but.. kinda like this... This is one of the only pen entries in the old book, and the pencil ones don't show up very well. I only noticed after taking the picture that I'd written that Japnese letters are divided into 3 sections, then went on to list 4... not sure why I did that! >.< My new book however, doesn't have that printed margin, so I can fit much more on the page. I don't yet have a full page to share, as I'm just working through a story for now, but you can just about make it out on this picture... Incidentally, this 'desk' is actually a tiny little table I set up on the bedroom floor. I use a little alarm clock to time my study sessions these days and listen to music on a CD player. It means I don't need my PC on at all. It helps to force me to look up everything manually, and as that takes a bit more effort than using online dictionaries, it in turn puts me off double-checking everything. I'm not sure if anyone else does this, or if it's just me, but I noticed I waste a lot of time looking up things I already know, just because I might be wrong. I realised this isn't helping me to trust myself, so I'm steering myself away from this behaviour. This is probably one of the reasons I'm not around as much as I used to be though. I just don't spend as much time on my PC as I used to.
|
|
|
Post by Jembru on Apr 9, 2016 23:59:54 GMT
I think you all knew this was coming! My new study schedule has begun and that can only mean one thing; I have hoarded loads of lovely new books! I'm still waiting on my JHS kanji workbooks to arrive along with a grammar reference book I bought, and I am also using a few other reference books that I haven't included, but below is my main 'study stuff' for 2016-17. The cat thing and the manga file next to it are just books of stickers for decorating my notes btw. I kind of regret including them because I tried to make my theme a little more grown-up this year and the stickers drag down the over all look! Also, my main textbook is actually an elementary school textbook because I don't think there is an equivalent for middle school (citation needed ^^), and I still need reading material graded to my level anyway. So I'm just supplementing it with more challenging material and working through junior high school textbooks alongside it. The Best BitsThat is, the notebooks of course! Large; kokugo, pink; JLPT, orange; planner and general notes.The set I'm using is awesome. Not just because it matches this time either. The pages of the large book that I'm using for my kokugo notes has a separate section at the bottom so when I turn it on its side like I do for kokugo, I have a ready made panel to write new words in instead of drawing it like I used to. Of course it does mean if there aren't any new words I have to write a haiku there just so it doesn't look empty. ^^
The pages at the back are a different colour and design too, so I can keep my writing practice separate. The JLPT book isn't quite as elaborate inside bit I like the little flags at the bottom of the page that I can write my scores in, because so much of what I will write in there will just be tests followed by notes about the things I got wrong. Finally, the orange notebook. This has a section where I can write my study schedule in the front, which is then followed by a convenient place where I can record where I'm up to on various study sessions. I can check the planner first to see what I should study, then I can turn to the 'assignments' section and know instantly what needs to be done. It's handy because in the past I often moved onto a new section without finishing my previous notes! At the back of this book there is a place for notes (usefully separated by a removable divider that I can keep my stickers in!). Shadowing, Lingq and pretty much anything I study that isn't from a textbook goes in this section. My notes are colour-coded too, so I can instantly tell by the colour of the underlines/boxes and the stickers used, what study material the notes belong to! This is the last year my notebooks will be elaborately decorated. Next year will be my High School year (6th form to UK residents) and I've decided my Japanese-self will have to grow up then! I've already ordered a bunch of kokuyo campus files and refills after noticing them on some anime JP was watching last week.
|
|
|
Post by Bokusenou on Apr 17, 2016 19:54:40 GMT
|
|
|
Post by Jembru on Apr 22, 2016 1:04:04 GMT
I still can't get over how these things are free! Some of the apps I looked at were pretty big. Someone had to take the time to program them after all. I thought at first that maybe they were commissioned by the Japanese government and then provided free to schools like the textbooks, but it doesn't seem to be the case.
The rest of my textbooks arrived last week by the way! I don't have any photos but my textbooks are;
Junior High Grammar; This is a textbook and accompanying workbook. They're both visually attractive with glossy full-colour pages. The textbook is arranged as a series of 'lessons' followed by questions to check your retention, and then there are questions at the end of each chapter that cover all lessons, and then finally a big 'end of section' test (there is a modern grammar section and then a classical Japanese section). The classical Japanese section has lots of illustrations but the grammar is mainly just brightly coloured text.
What I like the best is that after each question there is a hint. I try to ignore the hint, but if I'm really not sure, the hints make it much easier to work through the book!
As for relevance though, I'm not entirely convinced. It's largely technical things about word order and so on rather than the kind of grammar learners of Japanese as a foreign language are used to. The workbook though, contains more practical exercises like combining sentences using particular structures and so on, which is more immediately useful for learners of Japanese.
Kanji Workbooks; I'm actually still working through the pokemon drill books, but I wanted something similar for junior high kanji. I'm not as bothered about being able to write JHS kanji form memory, but the drills are a good way to help reinforce my memory and they contain lots of example vocabulary. I could only get the books for 4th kyuu and 3rd kyuu (1st kyuu is the highest like the JLPT, but contains all non-jouyou kanji). The drill books are also from before the jouyou list was increased, so there will be characters missing anyway. The practice sentences use kanji from lower levels too of course.
The best thing about these books is that they have the answers written in red ink so you can use one of those red plastic sheets to cover the answers. I've wanted one of those sheets ever since I first saw them on Erin ga Chousen. Now I have two!! They work on orange, red and pink ink, so naturally I'm going to town with these colours in my notes now so I can test myself on key facts!
They also work on textbooks that weren't printed with words in red. If you block out words with a dark green marker pen, those words can't be seen when you cover the text with the red sheet. I haven't yet been able to bring myself to do this though!
|
|
|
Post by Jembru on Apr 30, 2016 12:49:15 GMT
This is the last year my notebooks will be elaborately decorated. Next year will be my High School year (6th form to UK residents) and I've decided my Japanese-self will have to grow up then! I've already ordered a bunch of kokuyo campus files and refills after noticing them on some anime JP was watching last week. The first package arrived yesterday! I've put them in a box that I'll put away until next year, but that wasn't before I took a few sneaky pictures. As I said, I was reminded that this brand exists and is the go-to stationary of Japanese high schoolers when I saw the books in an anime. Kokuyo campus products are amazing. They're so carefully manufactured with the needs of students in mind and the quality is excellent. I decided to go for a binder in the end, but you can also get smaller covers that let you bind your notes into smaller notebooks. I actually can't remember, but I think I ordered one of those so I can take just a small section of my notes to work with me rather than carrying around the whole binder. The refill paper I've gone for is printed not only with the dots on the top line like in the illustration above, but actually has small dots on the lines all the way down. This helps to keep your characters evenly spaced so that your notes are all uniform. The dots also help you to line up your paragraphs. Did you ever find that at school that if you tried to write without a margin the lines wouldn't line up along the left-hand side, but would start to drift to the right? The dots prevent that. You can also write boxes neatly using the dots. The file came with the paper with the dots only at the top, so I'll use that for translation practice as it will contain a lot of English sentences. There are two different finishes on kokuyo campus paper. The one I have is 'さらさら書ける', which was specially designed to make your pen flow quickly and smoothly, good for students taking notes in lectures and so on, and comfortable if you like to write in running script. For those who prefer to neatly print uniformly proportioned characters (I think of LittleGaijin's beautiful Japanese handwriting here), then 'しっかり書ける' is the best option as it helps to stop your pen from running off the page so that your lines stay straight and deliberate. I'll be using coloured pens next year, but no more childish stickers. From next year I'll be getting my grown-up head on, because after that year is out, I'll begin taking steps towards making my dream of using Japanese professionally, a reality. So there you go, only a month into using my new study stuff and already I'm planning for next April, and getting excited about my next set of stationary! Some people never change. ^^
|
|
|
Post by Bokusenou on May 5, 2016 0:03:07 GMT
JembruThose notebooks look awesome! Oh, and when you move on to high school material, definitely check out NHK高校講座: www.nhk.or.jp/kokokoza/They're actually used as lectures for Japanese high school students doing distance learning courses, and are really pretty neat. I'm starting with the kokugo ones, and then I'll eventually complete all the ones which interest me.
|
|
|
Post by Jembru on May 6, 2016 13:47:39 GMT
Thanks for the recommendation*. I actually watch an NHK show for kokugo already. I forget the name but I have it book marked so I can check when I'm at my pc (I'm sat in the garden right now enjoying the sun while it lasts). One of the presenters is a man in drag if that rings any bells? I think I've shared a link on Gaiwa before. Or maybe in the Line group?
*Random side-step here, but it just popped into my head. I only just picked up that in Japanese you can use '知っている' with お勧め. Like '何かお勧めを知ってますか。' I've always just used 'ある' which is more like the English. It's nice to learn a more uniquely 'Japanese-ish' way of wording things though! Maybe many of you already knew this, but I figured it's worth sharing anyway, just in case.
|
|
|
Post by Bokusenou on May 9, 2016 5:46:10 GMT
Jembru Ah, cool! Getting a head start on high school material, right? I'm watching the same show. (Anyone else who wants to give it a try can find it here: www.nhk.or.jp/kokokoza/tv/kokuhyou/index.html ) I like the guests & all the fun activities the high schoolers do. Since pretty much everything else NHK puts out is region-blocked, I'm really happy I can watch their high school course videos from outside Japan, and that there's so much there to watch! Right now I have like 6 of their courses I'm switching between. Pretty much I just pick the one I feel like watching most every day, and watch an episode of that. Maybe when I'm done with those I'll probably branch out into others, maybe the science or math courses. I never liked math, but maybe that's because I didn't learn it in Japanese. Japan's much higher ranked than the US in math, so maybe they know something the US doesn't about how to teach it. Also, neat find about お勧め!
|
|
|
Post by Jade on May 10, 2016 0:18:28 GMT
|
|
|
Post by Jembru on May 10, 2016 12:27:21 GMT
So much JLPT stuff!! What do you think of Soumatome btw? I see you have a fair few books. I only have the grammar one for N2. I really like the layout but I find the explanations sometimes lack important details about the nuance of expressions I've previously studied. It makes me worry that the structures that I didn't know before using soumatome have a greater depth or are unique to specific situations but I don't know because that kind of information is missing. It's putting me off wanting to buy other books from the series. Oh that reminds me, I have yet another new textbook too! I know, I know.. but let me explain! I have found a tutor who offers conversation lessons in the form of mini role plays. I don't know how often I'll be able to take lessons with her, but I figured it would be nice to be able to get some feedback now and then, and iron out some of my more stubborn errors. She has a copy of the textbook, but if I have my own I can skim over the material before I meet with her. It also means that when the students come back form Japan in September, we can get together in a cafe and do some role playing together for a bit extra practice. The book seems pretty basic to begin with. The first unit is 'ordering in a cafe', but it's not your basic Japanese 101 stuff. It puts you in scenarios where things go wrong and you need to negotiate your way through the situation. So you're ordering in a cafe, but your order is wrong, or it went to the wrong table and so on. It pushes you out of the comfort zone and encourages you to form longer explanations (ideal for me, because I'm great at finding the quickest, easiest and laziest way to get my point across). Also, if anyone here at Gaiwa happens to have, or come by a copy of this textbook, we can work through it together via skype! Bokusenou : Actually, the material in that series isn't that different from what they study at elementary and junior high. I think it's more that it builds on what the students have already studied (and if they're anything like I was in school, have forgotten by the time they reach high school). It reinforces my current study pretty well. I wonder why the educational programs aren't region locked? Not that I'm complaining of course. Maybe it's the same reason the Japanese school near me is allowed the same government-provided study materials as schools in Japan. So maybe anything designed for classroom use is available to ALL Japanese children, wherever they might be in the world! That would also explain why so many apps for students are free I guess! I'm pleased you have found some study material you're so motivated to use. There is a very noticeable difference in your spoken Japanese and I wonder if it's because before you weren't really studying. Not that you were bad before of course, but your speech was very smooth on Sunday! I hope I can keep up! (buries head in textbook...) The quality of NHK educational shows is very impressive. You actually WANT to keep watching! The Japanese they use is also easier to follow than regular broadcasts, so I was able to enjoy the shows 2 years ago, even thoguh I was still unable to watch anime without subtitles at the time! Oh and I hate maths too btw. There's an nhk maths series that I liked though, with a little dog in it. It was for elementary school though, so probably way below your level!
|
|