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I finished season 4 yesterday and have just made a start on season, I’ve been noticing the word じゃない a lot lately in the things I’ve been watching/listening to and within a couple of pages of season 5 I now know what it is.:-)
Thanks Mark Weber! I’ll look those over.
@Neil – One thing we, as in Japanese learners, miss out on is being able to be in Japan and see stuff in context. I very quickly figured out what じゃない was in Japan because the speakers body language told me. We tend to not get level of feedback in media. If you get a chance to go to Japan for any amount of time I would do it. I find that even if I don’t actively study while I’m there I notice huge bursts of improvement in my studies when I get back.
@hey
It would be nice to go someday, finances allowing.
And there goes season 3. This one was considerably harder than S2, katakana was surprinsigly painful to overcome, and the first two verb lists wasn’t easy as well. And, for some reason, the kanji seemed easier than before, weird
Anyways, now I’m gonna just review season 3 decks for 2-3 days and fire up S4.
@AdvancedWind – I can’t stress this enough. In fact, I should address this to everyone…
@Mina – If you are practicing katakana it can be the easiest part of your entire Japanese study career. This website:
http://www.manythings.org/japanese/kana/
has two links:
http://www.manythings.org/flvb/movies1.html
http://www.manythings.org/flvb/movies2.htmlI used them to learn katakana rapidly. It gives you English movie titles, but displays them in katakana. Even if you’re only strong a on few of the kana in the name you’ll have a good chance of getting the answer right. As a result you quickly see the correct sound for the ones you don’t know. Also, over time you’ll see how some of the stranger katakana get used in the wild. You will not regret using this to learn or practice katakana. If only hiragana had a way to be so easy to learn. :)
The only problem I have with the movie titles one, is all you need is the first kana and you know which title it is. Half way through I started only reading the first one’s and just clicking what I thought would be right, and they all were.
It would be better if they tried to make all the answers similar with just a few wrong characters to trip you up.
Congrats to Neil and Advanced on finishing your seasons.
がんばって！
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This reply was modified 12 years, 2 months ago by
Aikibujin.
Just finished season 6, after returning from a TextFugu seasons break (but not from Japanese language or the Anki decks). It didn’t take long because I had picked up most of the grammar elsewhere. Really helped consolidate it though, especially nominalization. Still, pronouncingられる is going to take some serious time and hard work. Feels like a tounge twister.
What’s the longest string of consecutive ‘r’ sylables in the japanese language?
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This reply was modified 12 years, 2 months ago by
Astralfox.
Although not an ‘r’ syllable, I can’t say the following consecutively without messing up:
あたたかい、あたたかかった、あたたかくない、あたたかくなかった
How about adding a なってきた on that too ;) I hated getting used to that.
あたたかくなくなってきた
or some real tongue twisters
スモモも桃も桃のうち
すもも も もも も もも の うち。or my fav
生麦生米生卵。
なまむぎ なまこめ なまたまご。-
This reply was modified 12 years, 2 months ago by
KiaiFighter.
My favourite is
赤パジャマ黄パジャマ茶パジャマ
あかぱじゃま きぱじゃま ちゃぱじゃま
I’m wrapping up season 3, excited to get into season 4. But it’s really discouraging that I still can’t understand most of anything I see written by natives and I have little to no hope of understanding a conversation without extreme context clues – and even then I can only guess. I don’t actually KNOW.That is, I have a Japanese friend who will suddenly switch to speaking in Japanese, after we have been talking in English. If the topic is consistent, and I know a few of the words and grammar points she uses, I’ll usually be able to guess at what she’s saying. Otherwise, I’m left saying “え！？もう一回？” And even when she repeats it slowly, I sometimes (usually?) can’t get it. ;___;
It’s also discouraging that most of the topics I CAN understand and engage in are so basic, like talking about what I ate today, which is hardly interesting. So seeing other people here saying that they still can’t understand much after completing TF…makes me sad. u__u
I’m not expecting to be fluent, but it’d be nice to be able to engage in more interesting conversations, even if I’m making silly mistakes here and there.
Any other good sources to help speed up my studies? I’m hoping to study abroad next year, so it’s imperative to me that I learn at least conversational level before then. I don’t want to be struggling at that point; I’d rather be able to focus on my classes as much as possible.
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This reply was modified 12 years, 1 month ago by
Miki.
Finished season 2. Tomorrow I start season 3. I’m not doing the kanji, though. Doing it in WaniKani.
@ Miki
You just got to stick at it. Put in the hard work now and you will reap the rewards later. Depending on how much time your able to spend on studying, you could in theory learn a lot of grammar and vocab in a short amount of time for the writing and reading side. However, listening and speaking will take longer.
Aside from your studies, watch as many Japanese shows and movies you can, and listen to podcasts and music as much as possible. Make Japanese friends on Lang-8 and talk with them in Japanese over Skype. That’s really all you can do before you go there.
No one will expect you to converse perfectly. Your not a native and you haven’t been studying for that long (going by your TextFugu level). Don’t worry about it. Just try and do some of the above I recommended each day, and you will notice improvements over time.
So do you think it’s better to study more vocab or grammar? I’ve heard you can understand Japanese even if you don’t understand grammar so well. But I tend to like grammar more, since you can practice it a lot. According to my Japanese friend, my listening comprehension is very good (But you know how Japanese people are..Though she’s pretty honest with me). If I’m going to understand it at all, I can usually get it at normal speed no problem. If she has to repeat herself, I probably just don’t know what she said and won’t get it anyway, regardless of how slow she repeats it. (My speaking is another matter entirely though..ha..)
I listen to Japanese music every day, in fact – all I listen to is Japanese music. I’ve removed all English songs from my phone (with the exception of a select few – and I mean, very few. Like 3 songs if even..). I’ve been considering getting some podcasts and watching more dramas, but I feel like the passive listening does little for me. Maybe I’m mistaken though and just don’t realize that it helps. I’m not sure. I also talk with my Japanese friend every week, sometimes several times a week if our schedules permit. Though most of our conversations are English, she does try to throw Japanese in to help me every time we talk. I notice that if we say something every single time we talk (like asking if we had a meal, what we ate and if it was good. Asking what time we woke up, etc.) then eventually it becomes second nature for me and I get better at the conversation.
I’ve been studying for about a year now but I haven’t gotten very far, being a college student with a busy schedule. And of course, trying to maintain a 3.9 (so I can study abroad). OTL
Would you say that podcasts or dramas help more than music does? I always hear people recommend podcasts before anything else. Are any of these more efficient than the others? Because music doesn’t seem to help me all that much, although I do get happy if I can understand a phrase or something from it.
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This reply was modified 12 years, 1 month ago by
AnonymousConsidering music ignores grammar and warps pronounciation on words to fit the tune, yeah, it’s probably not as effective as dramas or podcasts. People only recommend podcasts because there are no subtitles, and there is no general noise like action or music to distract you, just talking.
If you’re worried about passive listening, watch a drama with Japanese subtitles (D-Addicts), it’ll force you to both A read and B listen attentively to match what you here to what you read.
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This reply was modified 12 years, 2 months ago by
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