Language Journal: January 21st 2019
The hardest part about learning a new language for me is; following my own advice.
I've been at this for 2 years. I've written things down that I think should help. And I've seen many of those prove to be true over and over again. And I still find myself hitting pitfalls.
My recent problem has been trying to turn my manga reading into something it isn't; a primary learning mechanism. I haven't learned anything which tells me it would be wrong to use manga as a primary learning mechanism. But, that isn't how I'm using it, and I'm not doing it in a way which would be conducive.
Basically, I was skimming through the manga, but as I did so, I was writing down the words or phrases I got caught on or doubted myself on with the plan to study them or re-read and see which ones I was picking up over time. Let's be blunt... this is a REALLY good strategy to pick up the aspects of language which you can learn from reading manga. THAT isn't the problem.
The problem is, I'm still doing my flashcards daily, and I couldn't really stick to this. Even worse, I've been struggling with the volume of flashcards lately already. Trying to make this practice part of the norm would be catastrophic. So, while I don't see anything wrong with the approach in general, it is simply too time consuming on top of what I'm already doing.
I've gone back to basics so to speak. I'm treating the manga more as a semi-passive learning tool used primarily for enjoyment and measurement. What I've discovered already by re-reading some of my manga is that a lot more sticks with me than it feels like at the time. So, I'm benefiting anyway. But, even if the only value were reinforcing what I already know and having some indirect way of measuring my progress to add on top of enjoying reading... that is quite a lot of value.
Also, while there is a lot I can learn from manga, it isn't a particularly good sole source learning material. It is mostly informal and uses a lot of very extreme stereotypes and some funky language people don't really use. So, I'm not even truly tempted. The draw, more than anything, is learning some of the figures of speech and common grammar bits. Japanese has a lot of stock phrases and stock ways of expressing certain things.
Because I'm not serious about even attempting to make it a primary source of my learning, I've really got to stop making it more than it is. If my flashcards get done to a point where the daily load drops off and I need something to back fill, then it might be OK to play with this idea more.
For now though, the best thing is to not put more pressure on me study-wise and just use this as a means of enjoyment within my broader plans to learn Japanese.
On an exciting side note. I've started playing with the idea of turning my desktop into a Plex server. I've moved the BluRays I own there and that should make it a lot easier for me to access that media and play it in Japanese. What I'm kind of geekily excited about is, some of the Harry Potter movies we own have Japanese audio and subtitle tracks. But, I should also be able to play my Miyazaki films in Japanese with no subs.
The thing I've re-learned at the end of all of this; it's OK to want to put more effort into the language learning process. But, it is important not to make too much of it feel like practice or work. I need to keep that core, stable amount of effort going every day and not have other things I'm may not be as committed too eating into that.
I've been at this for 2 years. I've written things down that I think should help. And I've seen many of those prove to be true over and over again. And I still find myself hitting pitfalls.
My recent problem has been trying to turn my manga reading into something it isn't; a primary learning mechanism. I haven't learned anything which tells me it would be wrong to use manga as a primary learning mechanism. But, that isn't how I'm using it, and I'm not doing it in a way which would be conducive.
Basically, I was skimming through the manga, but as I did so, I was writing down the words or phrases I got caught on or doubted myself on with the plan to study them or re-read and see which ones I was picking up over time. Let's be blunt... this is a REALLY good strategy to pick up the aspects of language which you can learn from reading manga. THAT isn't the problem.
The problem is, I'm still doing my flashcards daily, and I couldn't really stick to this. Even worse, I've been struggling with the volume of flashcards lately already. Trying to make this practice part of the norm would be catastrophic. So, while I don't see anything wrong with the approach in general, it is simply too time consuming on top of what I'm already doing.
I've gone back to basics so to speak. I'm treating the manga more as a semi-passive learning tool used primarily for enjoyment and measurement. What I've discovered already by re-reading some of my manga is that a lot more sticks with me than it feels like at the time. So, I'm benefiting anyway. But, even if the only value were reinforcing what I already know and having some indirect way of measuring my progress to add on top of enjoying reading... that is quite a lot of value.
Also, while there is a lot I can learn from manga, it isn't a particularly good sole source learning material. It is mostly informal and uses a lot of very extreme stereotypes and some funky language people don't really use. So, I'm not even truly tempted. The draw, more than anything, is learning some of the figures of speech and common grammar bits. Japanese has a lot of stock phrases and stock ways of expressing certain things.
Because I'm not serious about even attempting to make it a primary source of my learning, I've really got to stop making it more than it is. If my flashcards get done to a point where the daily load drops off and I need something to back fill, then it might be OK to play with this idea more.
For now though, the best thing is to not put more pressure on me study-wise and just use this as a means of enjoyment within my broader plans to learn Japanese.
On an exciting side note. I've started playing with the idea of turning my desktop into a Plex server. I've moved the BluRays I own there and that should make it a lot easier for me to access that media and play it in Japanese. What I'm kind of geekily excited about is, some of the Harry Potter movies we own have Japanese audio and subtitle tracks. But, I should also be able to play my Miyazaki films in Japanese with no subs.
The thing I've re-learned at the end of all of this; it's OK to want to put more effort into the language learning process. But, it is important not to make too much of it feel like practice or work. I need to keep that core, stable amount of effort going every day and not have other things I'm may not be as committed too eating into that.
Comments
Post a Comment