Language Journal: May 17th 2019
So, the past few days have continued to go well with my Kanji self-torture. I've only actually hit 2 new words so far this week that were mature that I screwed up.
And both I think were reasonable: 天然 and 緊急.
With 天然（てんねん）I screwed up the meaning. Mixing it up with "fresh" 新鮮 (しんせん). While the readings may be too similar, the two example sentences are. And for a North American, the sentence with 天然 was just more unnatural sounding to me. It was 天然魚はおいしい or "Wild fish is delicious", whereas the other word shows up in "Fresh fish is delicious".
I don't really think of fish as wild or not. I live in a landlocked Province in Canada. And I don't really have any experience with how that might affect taste. So, for me the context of the example sentence is just making it more difficult for the meaning to stick I think.
緊急 on the other hand. It hasn't been a super common Kanji. In fact looking it up on Jisho, it only shows up on 2 JLPT words in a common form; this one and 緊張. But, that other word I see often with just Kana and other times, if I get it at all, it is because of context and the second Kanji which shows up everywhere with the same reading.
And that is really where this exercise is supposed to come in. And, generally I think it is helping. By singling these words out the way that I am, imparts a lot more meaning to them. Firstly, writing them out, forces me to pay attention to the constituents of the Kanji, which helps me better distinguish it from similar one. Writing about the mistakes here helps me focus on why I think I failed on that word and adds more context. When I think a Kanji is rare, I typically head over to Jisho.org and find some other words containing that Kanji with that reading to see if I can't help associate it with more things that way as well.
I think I may have screwed up 1 or 2 of the words I've practised this way. But, since I'm only forcing myself to do this with mature cards I mess up during the week days, I don't redo this when I hit those issues yet. And, those times I did screw up again, I clearly remember that I could recall these things like the constituents, similar words, etc...
Harry Potter continues to go well. It is a juggling act between sitting down and devouring huge swathes of the book and making sure I don't burn out. New Box of Manga should be along in a week or so as well.
All in all, I think things are generally going well.
And both I think were reasonable: 天然 and 緊急.
With 天然（てんねん）I screwed up the meaning. Mixing it up with "fresh" 新鮮 (しんせん). While the readings may be too similar, the two example sentences are. And for a North American, the sentence with 天然 was just more unnatural sounding to me. It was 天然魚はおいしい or "Wild fish is delicious", whereas the other word shows up in "Fresh fish is delicious".
I don't really think of fish as wild or not. I live in a landlocked Province in Canada. And I don't really have any experience with how that might affect taste. So, for me the context of the example sentence is just making it more difficult for the meaning to stick I think.
緊急 on the other hand. It hasn't been a super common Kanji. In fact looking it up on Jisho, it only shows up on 2 JLPT words in a common form; this one and 緊張. But, that other word I see often with just Kana and other times, if I get it at all, it is because of context and the second Kanji which shows up everywhere with the same reading.
And that is really where this exercise is supposed to come in. And, generally I think it is helping. By singling these words out the way that I am, imparts a lot more meaning to them. Firstly, writing them out, forces me to pay attention to the constituents of the Kanji, which helps me better distinguish it from similar one. Writing about the mistakes here helps me focus on why I think I failed on that word and adds more context. When I think a Kanji is rare, I typically head over to Jisho.org and find some other words containing that Kanji with that reading to see if I can't help associate it with more things that way as well.
I think I may have screwed up 1 or 2 of the words I've practised this way. But, since I'm only forcing myself to do this with mature cards I mess up during the week days, I don't redo this when I hit those issues yet. And, those times I did screw up again, I clearly remember that I could recall these things like the constituents, similar words, etc...
Harry Potter continues to go well. It is a juggling act between sitting down and devouring huge swathes of the book and making sure I don't burn out. New Box of Manga should be along in a week or so as well.
All in all, I think things are generally going well.
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