Language Journal: September 10th 2018
So, my business trip is done. I'm at the end of my 3rd week since I got my first box of manga and I'm through 3.5 books. The end result is about what I suspected it would be; my grasp of general conversation words is strong and my vocab is somewhere between bad and ok. There is a whole wealth of words that sneak up on me when I start hitting topics in books surrounding more specific topics though.
I had been scared a bit of 「ちぇみ三兄弟」 because it is virtually devoid of Furigana except on proper names. But, since it is largely a very generalized slice of life type story... once the I got the names out of the way, I've been tearing through it. In fact, I read that half a book in a single night in the span of maybe an hour or two.
By comparison 「僕だけがいない街」regularly took me that long to finish just a single "chapter". And that is a pretty crazy comparison because when I don't know, or I'm not sure about a word in Chemi then I often need to try and look up the words using the radicals to find the right Kanji. Whereas, with Erased, I would just plug the Furigana in. In the end, looking up a single word in Chemi takes as much as 3 times longer.
The average probably isn't that high, but the point is, to be able to get through half a book when I'm looking up totally new words without the Furigana in the same amount of time it takes me to get through just 1-2 chapters in another book which DOES have the Furigana is insane. Erased is littered with legal terms, sci-fi concepts, crimes, specific jobs, specific school terms, etc... so it contains a LOT of words which aren't all that common and thus haven't shown up in my learning resources yet.
Anyway, enough ranting about specific differences.
I'm pleasantly surprised with the sheer amount of each book that I've been able to just flat out read. By that I mean, I know how to read it aloud. For those coming from a language with an Alphabet this might sound whack for a person who is almost 2 years into studying. But, Kanji in Japanese are nutty.
I would say I'm at about 95% in these books in terms of reading it aloud. Based primarily on Chemi, since the other books basically spoon feed the rest. As far as being able to extract some semblance of a literal translation, I'm probably closer to 75-85%. And as far as being able to fluently read, I'm maybe around 65-75%. If you rip out the grammar as problems though, I'm probably back up to 90%.
Of course, I can't rip out the grammar. I'm going to have to get serious at some point and flash card myself to death with Japanese grammar decks.
I'm still creating my own decks from the books. But, I'm a bit indecisive on what to make cards out of. I have some competing problems at the moment. I want to get far enough ahead to keep ahead of my Box Of Manga subscriptions. At the same time, I want to produce as much self-guided training materials as possible. Manga is a lot like songs in that they are encoded with meaning beyond a simple translation. They help give a richer meaning to the words and make them easier to commit to memory as well.
Anyway, my current pace is just barely fast enough to keep up with the deliveries, in theory. Also, while it isn't as efficient as reinforcing with the flash cards while I go, I should still be slowly picking up the grammar and words as well. And thus, my pace should improve as I go as well.
Well, that is what I have for now. It has given me a bit to think on. I'll probably prioritize grammar over vocab when making flashcards, except when I think the vocab point is important. Like 補習 which I'm sure I'll see again.
I had been scared a bit of 「ちぇみ三兄弟」 because it is virtually devoid of Furigana except on proper names. But, since it is largely a very generalized slice of life type story... once the I got the names out of the way, I've been tearing through it. In fact, I read that half a book in a single night in the span of maybe an hour or two.
By comparison 「僕だけがいない街」regularly took me that long to finish just a single "chapter". And that is a pretty crazy comparison because when I don't know, or I'm not sure about a word in Chemi then I often need to try and look up the words using the radicals to find the right Kanji. Whereas, with Erased, I would just plug the Furigana in. In the end, looking up a single word in Chemi takes as much as 3 times longer.
The average probably isn't that high, but the point is, to be able to get through half a book when I'm looking up totally new words without the Furigana in the same amount of time it takes me to get through just 1-2 chapters in another book which DOES have the Furigana is insane. Erased is littered with legal terms, sci-fi concepts, crimes, specific jobs, specific school terms, etc... so it contains a LOT of words which aren't all that common and thus haven't shown up in my learning resources yet.
Anyway, enough ranting about specific differences.
I'm pleasantly surprised with the sheer amount of each book that I've been able to just flat out read. By that I mean, I know how to read it aloud. For those coming from a language with an Alphabet this might sound whack for a person who is almost 2 years into studying. But, Kanji in Japanese are nutty.
I would say I'm at about 95% in these books in terms of reading it aloud. Based primarily on Chemi, since the other books basically spoon feed the rest. As far as being able to extract some semblance of a literal translation, I'm probably closer to 75-85%. And as far as being able to fluently read, I'm maybe around 65-75%. If you rip out the grammar as problems though, I'm probably back up to 90%.
Of course, I can't rip out the grammar. I'm going to have to get serious at some point and flash card myself to death with Japanese grammar decks.
I'm still creating my own decks from the books. But, I'm a bit indecisive on what to make cards out of. I have some competing problems at the moment. I want to get far enough ahead to keep ahead of my Box Of Manga subscriptions. At the same time, I want to produce as much self-guided training materials as possible. Manga is a lot like songs in that they are encoded with meaning beyond a simple translation. They help give a richer meaning to the words and make them easier to commit to memory as well.
Anyway, my current pace is just barely fast enough to keep up with the deliveries, in theory. Also, while it isn't as efficient as reinforcing with the flash cards while I go, I should still be slowly picking up the grammar and words as well. And thus, my pace should improve as I go as well.
Well, that is what I have for now. It has given me a bit to think on. I'll probably prioritize grammar over vocab when making flashcards, except when I think the vocab point is important. Like 補習 which I'm sure I'll see again.
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