Language Journal: May 21st 2019
Another week starts. With any luck, my latest batch of Manga will arrive this week.
My progress in Japanese is, from a flashcard standpoint, stagnating. And, I think that is an OK thing. I'm entering a transition phase. In fact, I'm slowly entering the stage I really WANT to be in. The stage where, soon, my primary form of linguistic reinforcement will be reading materials. I'm pretty near the stage of deleting my decks which don't contain any audio. My reading level is getting up there.
Basically, when it comes to readings I only make mistakes in 2 general categories; new cards and rare words. Now that I'm reading Manga and books in Japanese, the common words are getting cemented rather well. So, once a word makes it into my short term memory... it generally stays. The exceptions are the words I rarely see. New cards are the obvious category. But, even there, my accuracy rating is higher than it would likely be if I was learning new words purely through wrote memorization of each individual word.
In short, even new words are being helped along by the wealth of language information I've already acquired. With Japanese this can come from things like a word having the same Kanji as another, and using a known reading for the Kanji and sharing elements of the meaning. Some of it though, I suspect is simply patterns my brain is picking up subconsciously in the language. There are sounds and combinations of sounds I feel like have a particular connotation. Patterns like that.
About that stage I WANT to be in. That stage is when my primary form of reinforcement of the language comes from native language materials rather than teaching materials. When I can rather comfortable read books, online articles, navigate my phone and the likes all in Japanese. And, when I can also do the same with listening.
I have a slight problem with that plan. Books can be consumed at my own pace. But listening materials are harder to digest that way. I need a strategy for that still. Which is why I specifically mentioned deleting the decks without audio. The audio decks can still be useful for listening practice.
As for why I want to get to that level. It is pretty simple. I also want to learn French (and other languages). But, it is quite overloading to be trying to learn two different languages at the same time using the same approaches. Anki started feeling like a chore. And I kept shrugging off the French cards.
Once I can watch anime, listen to podcasts and read native materials with more confidence and speed I'll be able to ramp up my studies and either reduce my Anki usage for Japanese or remove it entirely. And, on top of that, reaching this level will make learning feel like something else. It should make it fun and natural. Which should free me up a lot more to invest in learning another language like French.
Anyway, getting there. I still expect it to take time.
Anyway, since my last post, today was the first day with new problem words:
My progress in Japanese is, from a flashcard standpoint, stagnating. And, I think that is an OK thing. I'm entering a transition phase. In fact, I'm slowly entering the stage I really WANT to be in. The stage where, soon, my primary form of linguistic reinforcement will be reading materials. I'm pretty near the stage of deleting my decks which don't contain any audio. My reading level is getting up there.
Basically, when it comes to readings I only make mistakes in 2 general categories; new cards and rare words. Now that I'm reading Manga and books in Japanese, the common words are getting cemented rather well. So, once a word makes it into my short term memory... it generally stays. The exceptions are the words I rarely see. New cards are the obvious category. But, even there, my accuracy rating is higher than it would likely be if I was learning new words purely through wrote memorization of each individual word.
In short, even new words are being helped along by the wealth of language information I've already acquired. With Japanese this can come from things like a word having the same Kanji as another, and using a known reading for the Kanji and sharing elements of the meaning. Some of it though, I suspect is simply patterns my brain is picking up subconsciously in the language. There are sounds and combinations of sounds I feel like have a particular connotation. Patterns like that.
About that stage I WANT to be in. That stage is when my primary form of reinforcement of the language comes from native language materials rather than teaching materials. When I can rather comfortable read books, online articles, navigate my phone and the likes all in Japanese. And, when I can also do the same with listening.
I have a slight problem with that plan. Books can be consumed at my own pace. But listening materials are harder to digest that way. I need a strategy for that still. Which is why I specifically mentioned deleting the decks without audio. The audio decks can still be useful for listening practice.
As for why I want to get to that level. It is pretty simple. I also want to learn French (and other languages). But, it is quite overloading to be trying to learn two different languages at the same time using the same approaches. Anki started feeling like a chore. And I kept shrugging off the French cards.
Once I can watch anime, listen to podcasts and read native materials with more confidence and speed I'll be able to ramp up my studies and either reduce my Anki usage for Japanese or remove it entirely. And, on top of that, reaching this level will make learning feel like something else. It should make it fun and natural. Which should free me up a lot more to invest in learning another language like French.
Anyway, getting there. I still expect it to take time.
Anyway, since my last post, today was the first day with new problem words:
- 苦み（にがみ）
- For some reason I keep wanting to call this one くろみ
- 要する（ようする）
- I couldn't think of this reading, just 要る（いる）. I knew it was wrong, but I couldn't come up with the right one. I typically see this written in Kana alone.
- 実験（じっけん）
- Got the reading and a decent definition. But, didn't specifically think of it as an experiment or test. Rather, I just looked at it as carrying out a task.
- 次女（じじょ）
- Mistakenly thought it was "eldest daughter" instead of "second daughter".
- 人種VS人類（じんしゅVSじんるい）
- These look the same (to me), and have similar meanings. So I screw up the readings a lot.
- 展開（てんかい）
- I got this one in English, and reversed the Kanji.
Comments
Post a Comment