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Post by Jembru on Oct 21, 2014 20:26:21 GMT
Hmm, sorta. I mean, I quit Japanese for around 4 years before having another go. Since then, I haven't gone longer than a few days without studying, and I need to have a good excuse not to. When I'd studied before, I hadn't really gotten so far. I had a vocabulary of somewhere around 500 words or so. The last thing I'd studied before quitting was chapter 5 of Japanese for Busy People II, and that lesson was the plain past tense of verbs!! ^^ So I was no where near the level you had reached. My advice probably wouldn't be of any use at all then sadly. Just in case though, all I did was started from the beginning of that textbook again. I had forgotten almost everything because I'd been studying German during my break. All the same, it came back very quickly. It took me a month or so to get my Japanese back to where it had been before I quit. Again though, I was still very much a beginner when I'd quit. When you mentioned being bored of the same old stuff, I totally identified with you. I too got stuck studying the same stuff over and over. I didn't trust myself to know the material well enough to warrant moving on to what I considered more advanced material. Mainly this is because I'd rushed in the early days. I was too excited by all the new grammar so rushed through my textbooks in a matter of months. I hadn't given myself time to digest what I'd learnt and actually be able to use it any more than being able to explain the structure in English. So later on, I became the opposite of this. Sticking to safe material (for the last 5 months of last year, I was studying from the beginners and lower-intermediate lessons of Japanese pod 101 ^^). I created a situation where I was bored of the same old material, but at the same time scared to move on. If I were at your stage though, that is, having passed N2, I think I'd start by running over some past N2 papers. Just to trigger that 'oh yeah!' and get back into the swing of the language. I would then roll up my sleeves and start biting into that elephant that is N1 material. Oh and treat yourself to a nice set of notebooks! I decorate my pages with stickers and use different coloured pens. It's a small detail, but at least for me it makes me want to study, to have a reason to use my books and pens. Other small but by no means insignificant things I do that help me are... - I use scented simmering crystals in my study area and only burn them while I'm studying. This creates a subconscious trigger in your mind that tells you 'it's study time' -I use a timer. I HAVE to study in 40 minute blocks. If there is an interruption I pause the timer. I don't check facebook or gaiwa while the timer is ticking either. It stops me procrastinating. By pausing it when I'm distracted, I get to see how much of the last 3 hours I REALLY spent studying ^^ - I have a perfume that I keep by me when at my desk. If I'm having a good day where my Japanese is flowing or I'm catching most of what I hear.. or just generally feel optimistic about my Japanese, I spray this. In a similar way to the room scents, this creates a mental link between the scent and feeling good about my Japanese. I can then wear this perfume when I hang out with Japanese speaking friends, or in any situation where I want my Japanese to be at its best. - This one is new but.. I read that exercise is actually good for your memory (it turns out it's more to do with the gyrations), so I do this before every study session -> youtu.be/VyKLQXOj0ts I don't know if any of this will help you, but it's been helpful for me for sure!
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Post by Princess on Oct 25, 2014 6:35:01 GMT
Wahh, such a cool and informative topic! My eyes are bugging out after a really long day but I want to come back to this and read in depth of everyone's posts and jot down ideas.
Jembru, simmering crystals has to be THEE most amazing idea anyone could ever think of! I think that subconscious trigger would work really well for me! I'll probably use an essential oil that is recommended for studying.
Regardless, you guys are all at a way higher level than me, haha! I've only self studied...minus the short summer class I took this past summer but it was more of a study group and the other two students were at a way higher level than me too, but I won't blame it on that, I'll blame it on the fact I didn't study much or utilize the class to the fullest extent. The teacher will be my teacher for this upcoming semester as I'm trying to get some generals done before I go to TUJ in May (the dates for both overlap by a week, so I'll have to OK it with the teachers first and take finals early) and she is so incredibly adorable! Anyways, so I'm trying to test out of her Japanese Beginning One class and test into the latter half next semester. It's the cheapest metro community college in the state (also is just blocks away from my apartment) so it's a pretty basic class and they don't learn any kanji.
I took the midterm on Wednesday and I'll find out how well I did on Monday but I am so amazed at how I was able to understand pretty much all of it except for the specifics of the book they were learning from that I didn't go over. I just looked over time, numbers, and money that day as well as the specific vocab. (I had heard りんご a million times before but I guessed orange LOL! Apple dummy!) It was so crazy cuz I've barely studied since the mini class I took this past summer and somehow I've learned basic sentence structure pretty well considering I had such a hard time with it during the class! (or maybe I just can figure out enough of the vocab to piece together the sentence, I don't know hahaha) I'm going to study my brains out (although I think I just need a C to pass?) and probably take the final at the end of November so I can register early.
Looks like I'm writing a book too, haha, this is why I love forums. People on facebook yell at you for long posts!!! Might I add for any beginners reading this, I'm not totally a "beginner beginner" because I've been listening to Japanese for years (anime, dramas, music, etc) as well as trying to learn on and off (you know, wapanese in 7th grade? "That is so kawaii desOO!" "Gomene I didn't mean to trip you!" "Omg you are such a baka!") hahaha as embarrassed as I am for all that I did get quite a few things to stick.
My study time:
~Especially when I haven't been studying much, I always start with my Flashkana app (on Google Play) and just refresh my memory. ~Now aside from the first part, I don't actually have a set schedule of what I do. So far I've found translating the kana to be the best kana practice (flashcards can get very old, very fast! Translating keeps your brain going whether you know what a word means or not) ~Now this is the study time I'd LIKE to do, once I finally get regular again: 10 kanji a week, 10 vocab a week, 5 verbs a week. Now this is a minimum and if I feel like I can tackle more, I will. Especially when I'll be tackling more in college a week. ~On my to do list: I'm going to put post its on as many things in my apartment as I can including the meaning, romaji, kana and the kanji (although I will not force myself to memorize the kanji, it's good to get familiar with seeing it on an object) ~Books, books, books! I have an obsession with books! I don't feel like I can do much more than introduce myself right now, so I like to drown myself in memorization and recall until I have enough vocab to actually put a sentence together. (A wa B desu. Okay great, doesn't help if I can't think of any vocab haha) Also, I just love reading. ~That's another thing. I cannot WAIT until I know enough to even start reading kids books!!!! I love reading!
My biggest problem is just starting to study and not procrastinate. Honestly, once I get started, I CANNOT STOP. When I finally picked Japanese back up again, I studied everyday for almost 4 hours and I enjoyed EVERY second of it! I only stopped because of my bleeding eyeballs! (no, they weren't actually bleeding). I love studying Japanese because I love languages in general (Spanish was the only option in my small town and although I wasn't super interested in Spanish countries, I still enjoyed it).
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Post by Princess on Oct 25, 2014 6:35:38 GMT
Ugh, sorry for the book reply, haha.
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Post by Jembru on Oct 25, 2014 18:42:17 GMT
No worries! You may have noticed already, but I'm quite long-winded myself. ^^
Actually, I started off using aromatherapy too. I have used the same study blend since I did my A-levels (2 drops each rosemary, lemon and geranium). But I now theme my study courses (I use 'course' for want of a better word.. it's basically that whenever I achieve a long-term goal and set a new one, I totally change my stationary, mascot and symbol.. I also call shorter term plans 'courses' too though, so I confuse myself a bit ^^), and that includes the scent I'll use.
For example. My long term goal from Jan 2013 until August of this year was to be able to join in with everyday conversation. It's a bit vague, but having had a reality check after making my goal for 2012 'fluent by 2013' (crazy, I know that now..), I needed something more achievable. So I went for being able to at least hold something resembling a conversation past the basic 'how are you stage?' stage. The symbol I used was a rose and my mascot was Hello Kitty. Rose oil is expensive, so I decided to burn simmering crystals instead to make my study area smell of roses. I had a rose body spray too, which is how the perfume thing started.
Then at August, having realised I was indeed able to stay in Japanese for most of the night when out with friends (although often resorting back to English after 10-20 minutes is the conversation is just 1:1), I switched to my new aim which is to be able to read and write Japanese well enough so that from January I can study from texts written in Japanese and keep all my notes in Japanese. My mascot is Kuromi and my scent is coconut. Again, the crystals are better for this than actual coconut oil (my perfume is tahitian holiday from Avon ^^).
I'm in a very similar boat to you I think. I am entirely self-taught too, other than a few 1:1 sessions I had with a native speaking teacher.. although this lady later became a good friend of mine, and I have other Japanese friends living locally. I don't get to hang out as often as I'd like, because I work nights, and so does one of my friends, but I at least get to test my progress on them now and then, which is handy.
If it's starting that is the hard part, how about giving yourself a set time? So at say, 7pm every day it is 'Japanese time'. You can study for 10 minutes or 2 hours.. but it's making sure you sit down at this time that is the important part for now.
Just be a little wary of sitting for several hours without breaks. As much as you might be enjoying yourself (and that does help memory), no matter how good a brain you have, it is limited to how much new information it can process in one go. You wouldn't eat all your daily calories in one meal (okay, some might, but you get my point), because your stomach wouldn't handle it. Your brain is the same. Without short rests you won't retain much past the first and last thing you studied, making long sessions very wasteful in the long run. Okay, preacher hat is off now, sorry about that. ^^
Good luck in your studies. Lets both do our best and achieve our language dreams!
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Post by 魔 on Oct 26, 2014 1:25:38 GMT
Here's some of the sites I've been using.
I found kanjibox a few days ago, and have mainly been using that.
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Post by Jembru on Mar 14, 2015 1:52:32 GMT
I'm really loving these kokugo textbooks. I'm frantically trying to finish the book I'm currently using because the new school year starts at the start of next month, so I want to be able to start 3rd grade then! These textbooks contain a lot of seasonal references so it would be nice to work through them at the right seasons. Wait.. I want to write this in Japanese for some reason.. I've started here now so I'll just write it and then translate.. 国語の教科書で学習のは最高だよ!面白くて楽しいし。来月の上旬の中には日本の学校のほとんどは新年度が始まるので、その時に3年生用の本を始めたい。この本には季節関係のことがたくさんあるので、正しい季節に使えたいと思う。だから、とりあえず他の勉強方法を放っておいて必死に2年生に一冊を済ませようとしてる。 この教科書の部分の一つは「先生に読んでもらって、むかし話を楽しみましょう。」っていう部分だ。先生が読むべきだから、言葉がなし、画像だけ出ているのさ。私にはやっぱり先生はいないんだよね。そうして、ユーチューブで同じ話を調べってみた。 見つかったよ! There is a section where you're meant to listen while your teacher reads a story. Because the teachers meant to be reading it, there aren't any words in the book, just images. Obviously, I don't have a teacher, so I tried looking for the story on youtube and found it! それで、本に表せた画像を見ながら、この話を聞くことが出来た、結局!けん玉を作ったり、感想文を書いたり、話を聞いたりして、様々な楽しいことをやりながら、日本語を上達させることができるので、国語教科書が大好きだよ! So I got to listen to the story while looking at the pictures in the book! ^^ I really love these books.. I've done all kinds; making a kendama, written book reports listened to stories.. kokugo textbooks rock! The downside of this is that I've kinds let all the other study methods I was using, fall to the wayside. Just while I'm finishing 2nd grade though. I have much longer to work through the next books, so I'll fit them around my other study methods.
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Post by Jembru on Oct 22, 2015 9:51:54 GMT
I'm watching this a lot at the moment; www.nhk.or.jp/rika/karasu/?das_id=D0005110301_00000. It's only 10 minutes long, but there's a lot of cool sciency questions to get you thinking. It's aimed at elementary and middle school age, so it's not very in depth, but it's still interesting. The Japanese is nice and simple so I think most learners should be able to at least get the gist of what is going on.
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Post by Princess on Oct 24, 2015 13:03:55 GMT
Ayye eeee! Oh my god, I can't believe I'm reading my last reply on this almost exactly one year later!! Funny how much has changed but I can't say I studied the hardest, haha!! I tested into that class, which helped a lot but when I actually got to Japan it was a whole different story. There was like a month gap in between my class and Japan and I didn't study at all. I was so scared to say anything when I first got here, it was hard to even order katakana word food! LittleGaijin was such a big help, love you Anna! I didn't bother trying to test out of the beginning Japanese class here at TUJ but it's way too easy and I know mostly everything...and I'm frustrated it's not normal conversation so I can't actually use most of it//sound silly if I did. I'm debating on what I should do but I think I'll take some language school classes after classes once our finances get more roomy after next summer. Until then, self study!!!!!!! Any tips on breaking the shy barrier on speaking? I can write basic sentences but blank so hard when it comes to speaking, I say something really embarrassing instead. fail sauce ;.;
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Post by Jembru on Oct 24, 2015 16:53:19 GMT
Any tips on breaking the shy barrier on speaking? I can write basic sentences but blank so hard when it comes to speaking, I say something really embarrassing instead. fail sauce ;.; First of all *HUGS*. It's good to see you pop by Princess! Secondly, this is something I have personal experience of myself, so maybe I can help? What follows is an edited post I made on another forum when a user there was complaining about his inability to verbalize in the languages he studies, and I think it's just as relevant here; Ah, the so-called ' perfectionist paralysis'. The symptoms actually worsen the longer it goes unchecked, because the more you know, the longer you've studied, the harder it is to accept that your performance is less than perfect. It had me in its grasp for a very long time, and in fact, even now I sometimes clam up in front of people who've never heard me speak before. Self-learners are particularly vulnerable to perfectionist paralysis because they are often not in a position to use the language with other speakers. This leads them to skip the physical training of their vocal chords. Head knowledge doesn't automatically lead to the muscle memory required to take those words and grammar rules out of your brain and make smooth and comprehensible verbal communication. Speech is even processed in an entirely different part of the brain to your memorised vocabulary and phrases. So unless you make time in your study schedule to force yourself to speak (and trust me, it will be an uncomfortable process to begin with), you'll be stuck in that feedback loop of trying to speak, blundering, feeling embarrassed and then reinforcing your anxiety around speaking. Once you start practicing a language regularly, you start to notice patterns and even form your own unique set of 'go-to' phrases that just roll off the tongue. These easy fillers buy you time to think about the words you don't know so well, shortening the 'um, um,' pauses, and keeping your speech flowing. BUT they only appear when you step away from the textbooks and start using the language, speaking aloud. I recommend starting off with the shadowing technique while on your own, and then move onto keeping a video journal (an article on how I carry out this process is coming soon, to watch out for that!). It won't fix things over night, but it WILL help, I promise! Breaking the cycle of perfectionist paralysis comes from realising that you don't need to wait until you know every last word, every idiom, every grammar rule, before you can speak fluently. One can be 'fluent' with surprisingly low vocabulary, so long as they've mastered the physical skills of conversation. Just look at speakers of your native language, there will be those who like to use big fancy words, and there'll be those who get through life just fine without using, or even understanding much of that vocabulary. Yet you wouldn't say they weren't fluent in their mother-tongue. To illustrate this in context, yesterday I came by a word I didn't know in Japanese. It was kyoukyuusha (供給者). This means 'supplier' which is a business word, and as I don't do business in Japanese, it's hardly surprising that I didn't recognise it when I heard it. However, if I'd needed this word in a conversation for reasons unknown, I'd have a few options. I could take an estimated guess that like so many words in modern Japanese, the Japanese pronunciation of the English would work and just say 'sapuraiyaa' (and in fact I checked and this word, written 'サプライヤー', does indeed exist and according to jisho.org even made it into the 'common words' category, so would definitely have been understood). Or I could do what I often do and say '業界には材料や商品を配る人' which is basically, 'the person who distributes goods or materials'. Maybe I'd throw in a raised eyebrow or bashful giggle to show that I didn't know the proper word (the Japanese are experts at picking up on subtle hints, because of linguistic and social conventions around being direct). Or I could word it as a question, 'what do you call the person who...'. In many cases, I've found that you can get by just fine without drawing too much attention to the fact you didn't know the word, just by circumventing the word altogether like this. With practice, you become a master of saying what you can, rather than what you'd ideally like to. Forgive the plug, but I wrote a 4 part series of articles about language exchange, that goes into a bit more detail about how to break the cycle of fear when it comes to communicating in a foreign language, and includes tips for helping you to develop your conversation skills. Maybe you'd like to check it out? Part one, IntroductionPart two, Exchanging face to facePart three, Exchanging onlinePart Four, practicing with other learners
Hope this helps you Princess!
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Post by Princess on Oct 25, 2015 11:47:20 GMT
Jembru *hugs*!!! I didn't mean to be away for so long, but after I got here I kinda stopped watching all my jvloggers and being on Japanese sites because I was getting a mega Japan dose (and I also haven't been studying very much). I'M TOTALLY THAT PERFECTIONIST mixed with being so quiet, no one hears me! I feel like foreigners here are so outgoing that I get a bit washed away sometimes. I'm frustrated that I don't know/speak more even if I could understand what they said. That shadowing sounds legit and I'll do just that! Luckily I have roommates that speak Japanese well so I only have myself to blame but I'm that kinda person that worries what other people think way too hard. So I always feel like I'm wasting someone else's time if I'm trying to sadly say something I know it's not true or even if it is, it's only going to severely hinder my learning. I love Japanese and want to become really good at it one day but I also want to learn many languages as well, so my slow approach to this is defeating my confidence. I feel like if I could get to a place where I speak more fluidly, even if I don't know many words, I'd be a lot happier and quicker to speak because I as a person love asking questions and learning. But maybe that's just wishful thinking and my tendency to think the grass is always greener... But I won't let myself get down! And I'll use all those links and ideas! It'd really help if I just cracked down and set aside time every day to work on Japanese. Even art, which I love dearly, I don't work on much. I'm not a very habitual person (except for FB and instagram, those are definitely habits, har har) I JUST WISH I WAS MORE DEDICATED. ill get there. thank you for the advice jembruuuuuuuuuuuuuuu
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Post by Jembru on Oct 26, 2015 0:09:00 GMT
Princess, I can't begin to tell you how much I identify with you. I was pretty much exactly the same as you when I first tried to learn Japanese. All I did was read a grammar book over and over, and thought that would magically make me fluent! In Japan, I didn't make any attempt to study because I had that whimsical 'when you live in a country, you'll pick up the language by osmosis' attitude. The only reason I have worked so hard THIS time, is that I regretted being so lax in my previous efforts. It frustrated me to think that I had this ambition, and had I only worked at it in my early twenties, I'd be fluent already. The quiet voice too.. this was me until, gosh, last year. I had this horrible thing where I'd say something in a sheepish voice, the other person wouldn't catch what I'd said so ask me to repeat it, and I'd panic thinking I must have said it wrong. Then came the blushing and sweating! It was another learner. A wonderful girl from Indonesia, who kindly took me under her wing and became my 'language parent'. She helped me to find my confidence and we would meet up with two Japanese friends in a cafe, where I'd observe how she handled herself in conversations, and pick up her good habits (the photo in the article I linked previously, of us sitting around a table in a cafe is from this time). She came as a huge blessing. I wish I could tell you it will only take a few months. If you really are as similar to me as you appear by your posts though, I'd advise bracing yourself for a rocky road ahead. There'll be periods of rapid growth, and they're great, but there'll be periods where you feel like nothing is changing, or worse, you're even digressing. I still get this. I still find conversation difficult, especially 1:1. In fact, I made a video journal earlier this evening and I was terrible. I just couldn't seem to organise my thoughts into clear sentences, and spoke very slowly. As I type this, my confidence is at rock bottom. Ask me in a few days though, and I might well tell you that even if I never progress from my current point, I'm content (words I used only a few weeks ago). Did you see our announcement about the Gaiwa Line groups? I'd love you to join in, even if only the English one for now. That way you can let us know if you're having a bad day, or can't find the motivation, and I can say the things I wish someone had said to me in my darkest moments. I eventually found my wonderful language parent.. I think everyone needs their own language parent, or better still, a language family! Oh and did you see my post containing my recent language hacks? I include a few techniques for controlling my anxiety in speaking situations. They're not fool-proof, but they've made a significant difference. Learning languages doesn't come naturally to me, so I rely heavily on tricks and hacks. There are a few language hacks I tend not to share publicly though, as candid as I try to be. Not because I don't want others to share the benefits, but because I'm a little embarrassed to admit. If you're curious though, send me a PM and I can tell you my most secret of secrets. ^^
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Post by Bokusenou on Oct 26, 2015 20:50:53 GMT
Jembru's given a lot of great advice already, so I'll just add a few tips which helped me: Don't worry about trying to impress people. You can't make people like you, and trying can make you nervous, which can lead to more mistakes. If people like you that's great. If they don't, then they won't be much fun to be around anyway, so try to relax and be yourself. Related to the last tip, find a way to relax, and get used to using it. Sometimes when I'm super nervous and getting frustrated I just pause, take a deep breath in and out, and then continue. Imagining a time when you were super happy might help too.The cause of blanking out during talking is usually related to nervousness. If you can relax yourself, then that's half the battle. Practice in advance. If you know that you're going to need certain phrases in advance, practice them until they're second nature, like an actor memorizes lines. Let them know you're nervous. Sometimes when you're nervous because of speaking, people might think you don't like them. If you really can't find a way to rephrase what you want to say,Let them know that you can't think of the right word right now. Japanese people know it's hard to speak in Japanese for English speakers, and are usually very understanding. Some of the tips were inspired by the Japanese version of this video: m.youtube.com/#/watch?v=92S8QWY_X5IWhich really changed the way I thought about speaking in Japanese. (Big, big thanks to Jembru, who told me about ComicalReina's youtube channel!)
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Post by Jembru on Oct 27, 2015 12:42:06 GMT
Some of the tips were inspired by the Japanese version of this video: m.youtube.com/#/watch?v=92S8QWY_X5IWhich really changed the way I thought about speaking in Japanese. (Big, big thanks to Jembru, who told me about ComicalReina's youtube channel!) You know, I'd almost forgotten about Reina. I too took quite a lot of inspiration from her videos. Which reminds me, I've been posting in this thread but haven't actually described my daily routine for this year anywhere? That's oddly un-Jemish. Around this time last year (where is the time going??), I made a thread called All Work and no Play Make Jembru a Dull Girl in the bilingual section. In this I declared that I was no longer going to push myself with demanding schedules, but instead created 4 simple rules (which are listed under my avatar to remind me always!). My schedule is far more relaxed, but it isn't entirely without structure. There are things I'll do depending on the day, simply to make it easier to decide what to study. So.. every week day morning after work, I do speaking practice. This will either be shadowing, or drilling useful phrases from my phrasebook. I spend no more than 20 minutes on this. If it's a weekend, then JP will be off work, so instead I go through Remembering the Kanji. So realistically, this means I'm really only shadowing 2-4 times a week. I limited my 2 largest anki decks; the main deck and kanji deck, to only 100 reviews per day. This has made anki a lot more manageable, although I only tend to get through all of my reviews on a work night. I'll do my deck for new vocabulary, and usually the picture deck, in bed when I wake up. This just leaves the main deck, kanji and the two Japanese only decks (the latter are synonym and antonyms). Once I get the cleaning/laundry out of the way at work, I make myself a cuppa and sit down on the sofa to rattle off the remaining reviews. Or rather... I DID.. My sudden discovery of the magic of line is distracting me from this, so that recently I've been failing to reach 100% by the time the next day starts (which I have set as 6am, but is now 5am because of the end of daylight saving). Before work, I always do my kokugo book. For this I sit at the dining table or on the bedroom floor, and I like to listen to cheesy Japanese music on my CD player. I also use an alarm clock so I don't study for more than 40 minutes without a break. As time is short, after that break, I move onto my review section. At work, I have my Pokemon kanji drill workbook. I don't have time to do it every night, as I sometimes have paperwork or training manuals to do, but on a quiet night, I'll sit at the dining room table and do some writing practice. The book gives you sentences in hiragana and you have to write them down with kanji, the idea is to keep doing it until you get every one right, then you move onto the next drill. So I guess it would be quite possible to make your own worksheets like this if you fancy giving the method a try. I'll also often take a book that I can have beside me and just dip into if it's quiet (although again. Line is starting to replace this). I used to only be able to do memrise on my PC, or on the laptop at work, but now I have a better phone, I sit and do that while I'm waiting for the residents to start getting up. On days off, I'll study from lingQ, News in Slow Japanese or one of Nihongo no Mori's grammar lessons (which I follow up by finding the structures in my JLPT textbook and doing the exercises). If JP is busy in the evening, I'll sit at the dining table and use my juku book. This is for improving Japanese kids' writing skill so that they can write better essays. It groups sentence patterns into similar functions (I'm currently working through paraphrasing, つまり、たとえば、このように、ようするに、AとはB、BそれがA、and いわば). If possible, I check in the grammar dictionary Chocopie gave me, to see if the structure is only used in formal situations/writing, or can be used in conversation (the majority is formal, but there are often spoken equivalents). The most important thing for me is reviewing. I used to be indiscriminate in what I'd add to anki, but now, if I didn't remember it after the session, I'll just have to hope I remember it next time I meet the word. Review is the same whatever I study from. I divide my note pad into 3 columns. I write down the word I didn't know in the first column, then I have a guess at what it might mean (and how to read it if it was kanji only), in the middle column. Then when I've finished the section I was doing, I look the words up (if kokugo/juku, I do this using a Japanese only dictionary, for anything else, J-E is fine). I put the correct definition in the final column. Then at the very end of the session, I flip the paper over and try to recall as many words as I can. In my notebook, I write a 'summery' section where I write down the words I was able to recall to that (I permit slight mistakes if it seems like I had the right idea), as well as any grammar or interesting phrases that have stuck in my head from the session. In the case of kokugo, I'll add these words to my vocab book and try to define then in my own words in Japanese. Then whatever I've studied from, the recalled words go onto anki. Doing it this way reduced the amount of new words I'm learning each week. but of those I AM learning, they move much more quickly into my active vocabulary so it's more efficient. If a word I couldn't recall was important enough, it will pop up again and I'll get another chance at adding it to my vocabulary! Finally.. I'm using line quite a lot. I'm back in touch with one of my students from when I was teaching in Japan, and I chat with other learners a lot more too. In some ways it is distracting me from my usual routine, but conversation practice, especially written, was lacking before. I'm hoping that being able to chat in Japanese at any time day or night, will help my Japanese to improve a little faster than before. This all looks complicated, but actually, study takes up way less of my free time these days. Everything listed is optional. If I don't feel like doing anything, I don't have to. So it's all far more relaxed than in previous years!
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Post by Jembru on Mar 6, 2016 3:23:57 GMT
Well, with only a few weeks to spare, I have finally completed by study program for April 2016-17!! I'm dead excited to get started. Not my 'current' daily study routine, but it's so similar to what I'm doing now that I thought I'd share anyway.
My routine will be largely like last year's study with a few changes, most of which I implemented into my current study recently and love so much that I want to continue with them next year.
- I've changed my 4 golden rules to 'Immersion, Simplicity, Review and Joy'. I dropped 'Relevance' because the fact I'm studying from authentic resources that I find personally appealing, coupled with the way I review, kinda filters out the words that aren't meaningful to me. - My new 'lesson plans' that is, the steps I follow while studying, include a lot of reviewing. Having discovered what a huge difference reviewing makes to my ability to retain new information, I'm emphasising this aspect of study above all else. Only adding to anki those words and phrases I correctly recall after a study session is making anki reviews so much easier. It's rare that I fail a card that was added after I started this method. The only exception to the rule is words that come up in menus on my PC or in games, as I kinda need to know them. - I've shrunk my study time right down to 20 minute slots to allow for maximum retention and so that my reviews are frequent enough to be affective. - Now that I can vaguely read, I can finally make use of much more authentic material, and hope to use it more and more as my reading improves! - My video journal has been replaced by an audio journal, simply because it takes up less memory on my phone or PC than (my videos are frequently over 10 minutes long these days, and sometimes over 20 minutes.. because I ramble ^^). So my routine goes something like this..
Upon waking = 20 minutes of anki While pottering around tidying and getting ready = watching a lets play or drama on the PS4. If out and about = Listen to LingQ podcast mp3s On a day off with free time = 2 or 3 study sessions (precisely what I study is determined by my daily study plan) Busy day off = dip into anki when I get a spare minute. Evening before work = 1 or 2 study sessions At work = anki, books, magazines, drama, DS Before bed = shadowing, audio journal Sunday = when possible, voice chat on Skype! Anytime = chat in Japanese over Line, Skype, Facebook or text message. or hang out with Japanese friends.
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