Ask around, and I’m sure almost everyone will say that they have tried learning one (or more) foreign languages before.
So why is it that many of them won’t succeed?

The road to successful foreign language (FL) is a long and tiring one. Just imagine:

1. for every word in your current vocabulary, you have to learn another one (that’s the perfect picture)
2. new concepts/words that have no equivalent in your current vocabulary
3. a whole new load of grammar rules
4. pronunciation

And that’s only the bare minimum.

Don’t forget, languages are inseparable from their cultures. How confidently can you say that you speak a language when you know nuts about their culture? For example, will you be able to understand the reasons for the existence of  numerous speech styles in Korean if you don’t know anything about their culture?

Foreign languages are ‘foreign’ since they aren’t spoken in the community around us. Except for those who are lucky enough to go for immersion programs and the like, we are studying in a vacuum. Modern technology has contributed alot to increasing the rate of exposure we get to the FL.

• Online tutorials/resources
• videos/podcasts
• MSN/Skype etc – you just need a headset! ^^

but it’s still limited.

—————–

(I think I’m going out of point soon if I’m going to ramble on..)

So is there a secret formula to successful FL learning? I don’t know (: But here’s my take on it.

Genuine interest

Interest and passion drives you on and propel you forward in the long journey of language learning. ‘Necessity’ works too. If you are forced by circumstances to ‘need’ to know a language, you can possibly do well too. You will still complete the journey, albeit it being a less enjoyable one. Interest in the language itself and it’s culture/people usually goes hand in hand. But even if you start out with only one, you will soon gain interest in the other side too. I first started out with an interest in Korean dramas, but now that passion has extended to the Korean language, food, people, culture, history, music (the list goes on..).

Trust me, the passion builds on.

Alot of us have taken language classes in school. But most of us never managed to progress beyond that elementary stage. We study, we learn. After exams, all the knowledge is thrown out.

my experience:

I’ve taken elementary Spanish classes for 1 semester. I learnt alot, I studied. But I realised that there’s always something lacking. I don’t feel motivated to learn more and go beyond what’s taught in the classroom. I’m studying just to pass the exams. >< At one point in time, it became more of a chore.

Same with Japanese. I have no interest in the culture. Even though many people tell me that Japanese is similar to Korean and hence I’ll probably have an easier time mastering it, I just have no motivation to do so. I don’t really watch J-dramas, I don’t listen to j-pop. (I like Japanese food though XD) I’ve tried learning Jap but I’ll just end up neglecting it after a while.

I really admire and respect polyglots alot.

Commitment

With interest, you are more likely to commit. I know. It’s hard to find time and sit down and actually study. Especially for working adults, you are probably dead tired when you reach home. But I still believe that if you are committed, you will still succeed. Probably you will take a longer time, but you will still attend your goal. (:

———-

There’s no short cut in language learning. Every bit of effort adds up. So what makes this seemingly endless journey a worthwhile one?

The unexpected surprises you get along the way, the sense of achievement as you learn more and more. Before I started learning Korean, I always thought that learning a FL is a straightforward process. You enroll into beginners’ classes, you study the textbooks, do the practices etc and once you complete the advanced courses, you know the language.

So wrong.

There’s so much more to be gained. And so much more to be learned.

———-

For me, this journey has not exactly been a smooth sailing one. There are people who questioned and even ridicule(?) my ‘obsession’ with Korean, people who discouraged me, some sacrifices to be made, turning points in my life.. I’m not so comfortable with spilling out everything on my blog, but it’s been a difficult journey. (Not that everything is attributed to Korean though (: ) Sometimes I question myself too, but I’ll never give up.

okay. I know I’ve totally digressed!!

On a happier note, I wish all of you a happy and enjoyable learning journey!! ^^

I have hit a plateau. After seven years of learning Spanish I have no idea how to improve. I am able to communicate well and can read what I want to read, but I am by no means fluent. I know there are gaping holes in my abilities and that many of my errors have fossilized. As I look to the new year and the desire to grow in fluency I want to establish concrete goals and habits that will help me toward those goals, but I have no idea what will be helpful.  I use it every day, read every day, and do a little writing.

I may start working through the behometh that has been sitting on my shelf for years: Modern Spanish Grammar: A Practical Guide but I have never been able to work my way too far into it without getting bored. I also have a couple of the Practice Makes Perfect series that I am thinking of working through.

Easy to see there is a problem, hard to fix it. Here is to hoping that after this year I will stop getting weird looks for the odd constructions I creatively introduce to the Spanish language.

A Merry Christmas to all that read this blog.

Nowadays, most of what is on this blog is about learning Korean, yet I’m not trying to forget about Japanese. I’ve just gone to the JLPT site to check out the new format. Unlike the old exam format that covers a certain scope of materials with regards to the relevant level, this time round, the new format has no fixed scope. On the bright side, I thought this is a wise move, as learning a language is about communication, so there is no fixed scope, and I’m sure you know a person can say anything when communicating. In many ways I do look forward to the new format, where it is said that N1 is tougher than JLPT1, be it reading and listening. I had a good experience taking JLPT1 since it gave me a feel of how the exam is like.

Anyway, The scoring system for the new format is also a bit different, in the past, if one actually fails one section but has high scores for the other sections, the person might be able to pass as long as the total score exceeds the total passing score. The new format, however has a breakdown of scores for each part, so unlike past years, one might just fail even if the person has achieved high scores for the other sections. Well, in general, JLPT 4-2’s passing requirement is 60%, while level 1, 70%. At the moment, the exam board has yet release what is the passing requirements for all the levels.

Regardless, we all know that exams aren’t everything, coz learning languages is so much more. Let’s work hard in knowing more about the languages we are learning!

Currently I’m listening to a variety of things in Korean. I’m actually beginning to enjoy listening to Korean more than anything., though I’m not sure most of the time what I’m listening to (though I know I’ve actually said that for the thousandth time). There’s a lot of making out the sounds of the words, I know that I’m still not exposed to the language well enough, so I need to make up for this lack by exposing myself more to this language.

Currently, I’m listening to “Sogang Korean program, Novice I” lesson 1 while referring to the scripts.I learned that “this” and “that” in Korean when put with a subject marker changes, for example,

이것+이=이게

This is something really new to me, somehow it felt like a chemistry equation, when one puts one thing with another, you get something that is a combination of both. I’ve not encountered anything like that in any of the languages that I’ve learned. So I think this is REALLY interesting.

On top of that, I’m learning how to type Korean now. This to me, is 1 of the biggest challenges. I’m sorta reminded of the first time I learned how to type Japanese, taking a really long time to figure out where is each of the character. I think I need more practice to get the hang of typing it. I learned that the consonants are on the left of the keyboard while vowels are on the right. But I think I take too long a time to locate where is what, sometimes it makes me want to laugh at myself for my complete lack of speed.

I realized some similarities in terms of grammar between Korean and Japanese when I’m trying to figure out the sentences. I’m not going to put in the romanization for Korean or Japanese because I always feel that romanization hinders the progress of learning any language. I find it interesting that the fact that although Korean and Japanese have totally different characters systems, but they are quite similar in so many ways. Well, I’ve listed some examples I found while learning Korean.

아나씨 and アンナさん

“さん” and “씨” probably means the same thing, a form of polite address (regardless of gender).

아나예요.

アンナです。

“예요”and “です” are the same thing, a polite form of ending a sentence.

멕시코사람

メキシコ人

In the above case, for example Mexican, “멕시고”+”사람”=”멕시고사람”, “メキシコ”+”人”=”メキシコ人”, so if I wanna say that I’m a Singaporean, so it will be 싱가포리사람?

Lol~ I am actually enjoying all these!

Anyway, this is the beginning for me, learning a new language. There’s still  a lot of things I don’t find familiar, and I don’t know SO many things, but it’s good fun to learn new things. I’m sure like learning Japanese, I will learn more about the culture (something which I really love). I know I will make many discoveries along the way!

I’ve used Pimsleur, Rosetta Stone, and LingQ in the past, but Assimil is the best for learning a language from scratch. I’ve been learning French (French with Ease) for the past week, and though I have fifteen weeks to go still, I am so far amazed by the results.

I just went into Starbucks for a hot chocolate and an asiago bagel, with cream cheese. Please don’t criticize me for going to Starbucks. This was a last minute decision made after sitting in the sauna at my gym for thirty minutes, which included twenty minutes extra for the one shower with hot water, because the woman using it did not recognize that while she was wasting our very valuable resource, I was slowly dehydrating, losing precious minerals in the process into an evaporating puddle on the sauna floor, and I simply had no other recourse than to go to Starbucks and refuel, lest I pass out on 4th Street with no one to save me.

Well, while I was waiting in line for Starbucks, there was a woman behind me speaking French into her cell phone. And I have to say, it was the most beautiful sound I have ever heard, especially now that I understand nearly 80% of it. And this is after only one week!

Here is what she was saying:

What do you mean you have to work late tonight? You son of a bitch, you’re always working late! It’s because of her, isn’t it? That dragon lady, Genevieve? Don’t lie to me! There is something going on, I know it! Did you say you wanted one shot or two? 

What is amazing about this program is that so far, my vocabulary list has been the following:

le frommage — cheese
la fontaine — fountain
un briquet rouge — a red lighter
deux bières blondes — two light beers
and
Où est le mètro San-Michel ? — Where is the San-Michel metro?

So I had to do a lot of filling in the blanks, especially considering her conversation did not contain a single vocabulary word, but I know that that is more or less what she said.

I’m still listening to Korean101 in the train whenever I’m commuting. Of course, I prefer listening to it when I’m in front of my pc, so that I can refer to the scripts. What I’m attempting differently this time, is that I’m not forcing myself to learn anything, like trying to make out the alphabets or remembering the grammar. This time, I’m trying to listen to as much Korean as I can. On top of that, I’m reading the Korean from a book, and yes, not remembering grammar rules. I have to admit I am not the sort who memorise grammar rules, be it English, Chinese or Japanese. So whenever someone asks me to explain the specific terms like particles, past participle, and things like that, I’ll be like, “What’s that?” The way I like a language is through immersion. Even when I was studying for my JLPT exam, I just try to read as many sentences for that particular rule. I hate memorising things, so I’m not afraid to say it. Yet I guess not everyone learns in this way.

Why do I blabber so much about all these? Coz today, I came across a really interesting site on learning Korean, that’s similar to All Japanese All the Time. It’s great to find such a site. Well, I think it’s great to find it. And through this site I came across The Linguist On Language. Well, what I really enjoy about this site is that Steve Kaufman holds a different view on learning languages. He does not believe that one should rush to speak. This view is actually in contrast to what my previous 先生 believed in. My previous 先生 believed in this view that if you can’t speak properly, you can move onto learning more difficult vocab or grammar. But what Steve proposes one shouldn’t focus oneself on speaking. He holds a really interesting view. And through this view, I did realise that everyone has his or her way of learning languages. So how one learns a language and is effective from it, might not work for another.

Well, as I’m learning a new language. Through learning Japanese, I have realised that there are some methods that work for me, and some that don’t. I hope to find more methods that work for me from learning Korean.

I’ve started learning the Korean alphabets. I find it really interesting that the Korean alphabets are a little like the English alphabets. If one knows the alphabets, then one can more or less make out the pronunciation, although I know that there are changes when some alphabets are being put together. This system does make it easier to learn Korean, or at least shorten the time to learn it. I just remember that when I was reading about the Korean alphabet system from Wiki, I learned that Hareye said that a stupid man can learn the Korean alphabets in 10 days~ Well,  I might be one of those stupid men, lol! I realised that it’s easier to learn this system when looking at it, and listening to the pronunciation.

Speaking of listening, I’m also listening to things in Korean, although I have no idea what the person is saying, but it is an attempt on my part to get used to the sounds of Korean. Since I have past experience in learning a foreign language, I want to try learning things in a different way this time. In the past I always focus more on reading, in a way, it does help me improve my vocab bank of the language, but I realised that overemphasis on a certain aspect of the language is dangerous, as a language is more than just one aspect, since it’s listening, reading, writing and speaking. To put it simply, yes, communication, understanding others, and making oneself understood.

Well, I want to touch about the similarities of Korean and Japanese. At the moment, I still do not know much about Korean, but I shall make the comments based on my observations. Well, I realised that the pronunciations are a little similar. Unlike Chinese, which has many sounds, Korean and Japanese do not have so much stress in the sounds. Perhaps this poses a problem for those know Chinese as one might unknowingly stress at the wrong point, making one sounds odd when pronouncing a word or conversing. Perhaps this makes it easier for Japanese to learn Korean and vice versa.

Differences? Japanese has 3 different sets of characters, hiragana, katakana, and kanji. Korean has 2? (correct me if I’m wrong) Hangul and Hanja. So in terms of spending time to write, learning Japanese is perhaps a bit time-consuming. The interesting thing is the pronunciation for hiragana and katakana is the same~ Just that katakana is used for foreign language. Though there has been alternative use for katakana, like trying to get the attention of readers. I’m not sure if kanji is like hanja, but I guess when I learn more Korean, I can comment more.

It’s been a while since I’ve done anything for my Japanese. Seriously, I feel at a loss for not doing anything. I guess Japanese has become a part of me, or it’s in me before I realised it!

I attempted to do my own listing of 副詞 not because of the exam, but because I want to know the language more. Remember the last time, I post all the 副詞 that can be found on wiki? I’m actually doing a listing on all the 副詞 that can be found on this site. I’m also using this chance to revise those 副詞 I know. I’m taking my time to build up the list and taking my time to read up on things again.

Just finishing watching the Japanese drama, “おひとりさま”. The reason I watched it, because Big Bang sang the theme song for this drama~ lol~ So I kinda wanted to find out what the drama is about. Well this drama’s pretty easy to understand as compared to “不毛地帯” that had some difficult terms. The setting of  “おひとりさま” is basically set in a school environment, so I guess you can sorta understand that the Japanese used is pretty day-to-day terms.

As usual, today, I wrote my afterthoughts about the drama after I had watched it in Japanese. I find such way of expressing my thoughts easy since I can write about things I like and enjoy. The only thing I hope is that I can continue to have time to do this. I hope I can get better at writing stuff and soon, I can write faster and longer.

「おひとりさま」ってうドラマを見ていた。

このドラマのテーマ私にとってすごく面白い～

独身の幸せがあるけど、恋愛したいね。

まあ～　5年間恋愛しなかった。この気持ちはわかりましたね。

独身の私、わがままのところが時々がでてしまったね。

自分好きなことがやって、全然回りの人の気持ち気にしない。

時間が経って、もっとわがままになってしまった。

本当にこれかいいのか？

独身の勇気があるけど、他の人と一緒の勇気消えてしまったっていうね。

人生は難しいかな？

本当に難しいのは私はそう思わない。

もっと簡単に、自分の心をきいて、このとおりを生きてるんだね～

多分これが一番と思います！

Hi~ Everyone~! It’s been some time since I’ve wrote on this blog, I must say, not having to study for exams seems to be having a strange effect on me. Well, these days, I hardly am reading any textbooks at all. All I do is reading websites that in Japanese or books in Japanese, watching Japanese dramas, watching youtube, or tudou~ and enjoying all those interviews done in Japanese. I’m catching up on watching Big Bang stuff on youtube and tudou. I have to admit maybe I do have an advantage over those who don’t know Japanese when I watch the interviews, the only downside perhaps is not knowing Korean… So today, I wrote my thoughts about a particular interview I watched, which is in Japanese, in Japanese of course. I was a bit surprised to write so much stuff on them, most of which are fangirl thoughts~ lol!!  It’s not really serious talk, so for those who understand Japanese, please bear with the fan talk~ lol~

Anyway, I’m posting the below contents on my ameba as well~

皆さん、こんばは～

さっき、BIG BANGのインタビューを見てた～

BIG BANGの皆さんすごくかわいいと思ってた。

あまりインタビューじゃないね～　すごく仲良し～

特にD-LITEさんはTOPさんのことが話したとき、寿司のことね～　このパートが見たとき、笑ってしまった。

D-LITEの話に対してG-DRAGONは意外な反応を示しちゃった。

後ろに倒れて～　まあ～　このシーンを見たとき、ぜんぜん我慢できなくて、笑っちゃった。

ね～BIG BANGのことばかり話してしまってね～

二年前、偶然YOUTUBEからBIG BANG の韓国語の歌を聞いて、韓国語がぜんぜんわからないけど～

この一瞬間BIG BANGの歌が好きになった。

これから、BIG BANGの歌がずっと好きですね。

このグループは他のグループに比べてほとんど違うと思う。

メンバーなり自分のスタイルが持ってて、自分の個性が示して、本当に特別のグループと思います。

今、日本にはじょじょに有名になれ、本当に嬉しい。

BIG BANGの皆、今日本の市場のために、今一生懸命に日本語勉強してる～

まあ～私も日本語勉強上達ために一生懸命に勉強を努力します！

Getting the right resources to use during your study of foreign languages is essential to your success in them.  When I say “right resources” I don’t only mean resources that are popular.  For example, one should not buy Rosetta Stone as a language learning resource simply because of its popularity (or in my personal opinion, at all) especially if it doesn’t fit you as learner.

Resources should be both comprehensive of a language and easy to work through.  You should be motivated by the process according to the type of resources you use because it is a fact that resources can contribute to either making or breaking your motivation in a language, especially if its full of grammar rules that tend to put the learner off of the language.

As a result of my research, the primary language learning resources that I will consult as I attempt to acquire these five languages are Assimil Method Resources, Made Simple Resources and Teach Yourself Resources.  Below, I will include 3 videos done by a very accomplished polyglot named Professor Alexander Arguelles.  His Youtube videos are substantive and they talk indept about the uniqueness and credibility of the methods that I’m going to be using to learn the 5 Languages of Italian, French, Spanish, Indonesia and German.

To be continue…

Assimil Method Resources.

Made Simple Resources

Teach Yourself Resources

I’ve not been doing much things recently since I’m rather busy with my work. But I’m trying to make use of the leftover time to start learning some Korean through podcasts from Korean 101 and via reading. I attempted to record my voice to hear how I sound in Korean~ It’s great fun! I’m not sure but I kinda enjoy sounds of Korean. Though I only know nuts about it, but I am enjoying myself.

During this amount of time, I realised that there are good websites in Japanese that teach Korean. And there is one in particular which I really like~ This site talks about self learning Korean, and also talks about the downside of studying in school. An interesting point mentioned on this website is the point of listening, speaking, reading and writing. Many times, many people think that one can separate these, yet they are in fact all linked. When one listens to a particular language more, naturally, it becomes easier to speak the language and then read it, and write it. Therefore the balance between these four parts is important. As someone who learns a language, I have to admit that I tend to spend most of my time reading, thus the other parts are affected in a way. And this site talks about shadowing, a term I’ve always heard when it comes to learning languages.

In many ways, it’s good fun since I get to learn Korean while learning Japanese at the same time, since the sites that I go to, most of them are in Japanese.

I once spoke to high school students about immigration on a Multicultural Day. The following is rewritten to suite this blogg.

Einstein said: Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree it will spend its whole life believing it is stupid. It is worth thinking about his words: The bottom line is we all have a talent.

I was born and raised in Hungary and lived there in a multicultural city until I was 23. It was a great experience to be exposed to the costumes, music, dancing, and the food of German, Gypsy, Croatian, Serbian, and Hungarian cultures. But school was painful for me. I got picked on a lot and I don’t remember what hurt me more; being made fun of for my German roots or for having freckles and being skinny. I think they all cut deep because they were about things I was not able to change and were also a fundamental part of me. Unfortunately it was not only the kids in school who made rude and belittling remarks but also adults. There were many people who liked to feel good by making others feel bad. So I got picked on because we were poor, because our house was in a bad shape and any reasons people could find. I was lucky that there were always a few people who saw me for who I was and they loved me despite of my circumstances. I can thank them for my sanity. It is a fact, that when children lack love and care, they either die or they become mentally ill. I maintained and treasured those few friendships and still love and value those few old friends, who were my friends when not many people were. Thirty some years later we still love each other.

When I left Hungary I lived in a hotel with many immigrants. One of my neighbours was a lady from Africa. Let’s call her Daisy. She was there with her cute little son, whom we’ll call Sammy, who must have been about 2 years old. Sammy was very cute and we quickly started to like each other. When he heard my door open he ran over to see me and sometimes stayed with me for hours. He needed me, because his mom did not have much patients with him and I enjoyed his smiley, bubbly playful cute personality. I played with him, entertained him and loved him very much. He started calling me mom and I first felt embarrassed and pointed at his mom and said “this is your mom, Sammy”. I was afraid Daisy would be hurt, but she thought it was funny that her son had 2 moms. One day someone from the hotel said: “You know Teri, you are a fine person, but tell me, why are you friends with that black woman?” I was so shocked; I didn’t know what to say. I wondered why this guy was judgmental with Daisy, and wondered if he judged her for her color or her drinking. Those were two things everyone knew about in as small community.

Coming to Canada was a big move and quite the adventure. I figured I left all the judgmental people in Europe. Unfortunately that is not how it works. There are some here as well, luckily in much smaller numbers.

A few years after arriving here I got divorced and was single for awhile and one of my favorite things to do was to go to karaoke bars. I enjoyed the music, the dancing, the company of the regulars and of course the spotlight when it was my turn to sing. In the beginning I thought I must have been the prettiest woman because the guys were buzzing around me like bees on flowers. But when their opening sentence wasn’t about my appearances I’ve realized I had something else on my side. The very same thing I used to think was my worst enemy: my accent. Some people looked at me funny because of it, some were rude, condescending but these guys loved it. I have been here for 19 years now and sometime I feel like an alien but most times I accept that I have an accent and I may never lose it. It is a part of me.

I was talking with a friend at a party about languages and he asked me if I ever went to school to learn English. I told him I’ve only gone for a month because some of the Chinese students had a hard time learning the pronunciation of the language and we kept repeating the same materials over and over again. My friend said: “You should have heard them speak Hungarian. I’ve met many Chinese people in Hungary and they did really well with our language.” So I said: “I guess it is easier for them to learn Hungarian than it is to learn English.” A third friend who witnessed all this yelled out: “I can’t believe you guys said that.” She thought it was offensive and discriminating. First I didn’t know what hit me, and then I thought about it. I talked about an observation I made. I knew certain sounds are hard for certain people to pronounce and I didn’t think I was discriminating. I have a hard time with Chinese and Japanese sounds for example. I knew my intentions were clean but I obviously crossed a line here. This is how easy it is to offend someone and I later learned that what we do afterwards makes a huge difference. Do we get righteous? Do we apologize? I think a sincere apology can go a long way.

A few years ago, my partner Neil and I had the opportunity to spend 9 months in Hungary. It was great for me to be with my family and old friends and I was happy that Neil could meet everybody. Neither of us worked there, so we were free to do anything we wanted to. Neil spent hours each day studying the Hungarian language and people just loved him for trying. Most tourists expected Hungarians to speak their language. Well, not Neil. I think he was popular because he tried. He realized how little knowledge it takes to communicate.

One of the biggest honors is when you speak another person’s language. You don’t need many words. Most of the communication is done with hand and feet and maybe a few gestures and intuitively on a feeling level. A simile is a smile in most countries. So if you travel please try to learn at least a few words in the language spoken in the country you go to. You may be fine with your English but I can guarantee you that your experience will be much more personable if you try talking with people in their own language.

In my life I have met many people, have been to many places, have been exposed to violence, cruelty, abuse and I would like to spear you the gory details of how cruel humans can be. You can see all that on TV and read abut it in the paper. But I can tell you this: no matter where I was I always met nice people who treat each other with honor, dignity and respect. No matter who we are or what we do we all want the same: we want to be loved; we want to be treated with honor and dignity. And if you can do everything and anything you do in life with honor and dignity you will have the basics to be content no matter if you are a janitor, a mechanic, a nurse, a teacher, a secretary or the prime minister.



So, I’ve been doing a little research on the amount of words that one must know to be able to effectively communicate in a language.  I’m doing this because I realize I have to make goals in order to accomplish what I want to do.  In a few days, I’ll be posting up my language learning goals however, as it stands now, I want to make sure that what I will do is in fact do-able and that I will enjoy it.

So, how many words?  Well, that is a tough question.  It depends on the difficulty of the language itself.  One of the articles that I read on this subject which was really interesting and delved into this topic on the basis of past research was an article entitled Vocabulary Size, Text Coverage and Word Lists.   A bit technical at first but really substantive.

Let’s face it, languages are made up of vocabulary, which becomes sentences which become the ideas that we want to express.  In order to do that, we need lots of words.  Some may argue that you should not learn word lists.  Well, I believe that vocabulary is the easiest thing to acquire in a language.  Everything else including pronunciation, grammar and fluent usage comes with much practice.  And then, you still need words.  Language is about communicating and to increase your vocabulary is to increase your ability to communicate.

Therefore, it will be my goal to learn between 2,000 to 3,000 most useful vocabulary words in the 5 languages that I am learning.  To accomplish this I will learn 30 to 50 words per day over the 2 month period of learning these languages.  I have found an amazing flashcard programme online that I love and I’ve used continuously for one, because of its simplicity and ease of usage.  You can download the CueCard programme for free if you want, I high recommend it for practicing vocabulary.

Here is a Youtube video by Steve Kaufman that I think explains some of the other questions that I may not have answered here.  Until next time, keep practicing!

After a long while, I’ve finally started writing in Japanese! Not a long post, for those that understand Japanese, please give me comments. I wanted to write a longer post, but I got home pretty late, so am pretty tired… Hope to write a longer post the next round~

http://ameblo.jp/creativityjapanese/

I just started a new blog in Japanese to practice writing Japanese. I used to have one in Mixi~ but I hardly go there now, on top of that, Mixi is only restricted to a smaller reading crowd, since those who are in the Mixi group won’t be able to read it. I decided to start writing blog in Japanese again, as exam is no longer an issue for me, and I do want to start on things I enjoy.  I’ve not started writing it yet, since I want to sit down and think about what I should really write for my profile and things like that. I’m pretty much excited in getting down to this!

Today, I came across this article written by a Japanese 先生. Really well-written. It’s actually about studying Japanese. He/She mentioned about the things that a person should do when it comes to studying Japanese, like making sentences and memorising texts. I’m not pro for the memorising texts, but I think making sentences do help. So I think I shall incorporate that to my Japanese blog.  But I will post the things I’ve written on that blog on this space as well, with the hope of drawing a larger crowd of Japanese who might chance upon the blog entry and helping me correct the errors.

Gonna go to bed, cos finally I’m going back to work tomorrow~!

Good night everyone~! おやすみ～

I’ve recently stated my intentions of learning 5 Foreign Languages to a level of near fluency in one year.  You might still be wondering just how the heck am I going to do it.  Like I said before, it’s both simple and complex.

It is a task that requires nothing but one thing.  Motivation!  Motivation is the key to learning any foreign language no matter what language it is because when the going gets tough and you want to quit, you must have something to fall back on or you will give up.  Motivation is the essential key that will ensure my success with these 5 Languages.

What will I do to stay motivated, you may ask?

• Listen to music that I enjoy in the target language!
• Watching programmes that I enjoy in the target language!
• Find interesting people who share my love of languages and are willing to help!
• Find resources that are suited to fit my language learning methods!
• Be involved in the language learning community!
• Communicate with native speakers using online chats and forums!
• Watch Youtube videos of people who have achieved the goals that I want!
• See myself already in attainment of the 5 Languages that I wish to acquire!
• Have fun with the Languages!

Here is a Youtube video that is very inspiring.  It showcases all the individuals who are in pursuit of languages on Youtube and is an awesome motivational tool for anyone aspiring to attain the same goal.  Some of these individuals have achieved languages flawlessly while others have done it with much effort.  Either way, there was work involved and that is always something that must be remembered.  You must work hard but have fun at it!

I’ve started watching 不毛地帯 and while watching it, there was a scene where one soldier spoke to the lead guy and he said, “貴様 (きさま)”~ I always hear this term especially during animation. So I decide to do a check on the meaning of this particular word. There’s actually 2 meanings to it, and there are totally different!

I enjoy this drama a lot, as I get to learn things like 敬語 (as there’s many hierarchy-related stuff), 関西弁 (cos the corporation that the lead works in is a 関西 company~) On top of that the cast is fantastic. It’s only the first episode and I’m really enjoying it, well, I’m looking forward to more~

JLPT 1 exam is over!

Some thoughts about what I thought about the paper~

Vocabulary section was ok. Manageable on the whole.

listening, tricky~ the format was a bit different this time, I must admit I was caught off guard for the questions with the pictures. I realised that there were 2 pictures for some pictures, and I didn’t know where to look… But the questions without pictures were ok, and the last question for this part, I actually burst out laughing cos it reminded me of some gundam animation~ I know I’m not supposed to laugh, I mean it’s an exam but~ I couldn’t help it, but it did help reduce some exam stress, I guess.

Reading comprehension and grammar. Mixed feelings~ Reading, I felt was pretty much tricky. Grammar~ Well, I think I made a few mistakes. On the whole, this paper, I managed to finish ON time. Well, for this section, I usually finished way before time during the mock exam, and had time to check my answers, but this time, I couldn’t, I finished everything on time.

On the whole, I have to admit that, listening is still my weakest link. So I’m going to continue to work hard on this aspect even after the exam. Well, I know there are still many aspects of the language I’m lacking at~ So it’s not the end, I’m going to continue to work hard~ Taking this exam exposed me to what I’m lacking in~ so yeah~ I supposed other than just listening to news, I want to expose myself to watching more drama and listening to talk shows, and variety shows to brush up on listening.

Fighting~ I’m so loving Japanese~ but I wanna start on Korean soon as well~ lol!

I came across this interesting article on learning a language through repetition. I shall not say much about it~ since this method works for me~ Have a read~ Enjoy~

Today I went to All Japanese All the Time again. What’s really cool about this site is that Khatzumoto always updates his site so there’s always new things to read from his site.

What I read today is his article on the way we read. It’s a really well written article about the way we read, I love the bit when he talked about buying more books and discarding. It kinda feels like building on what you have and then destroying what you have learned, and building again. I think I have learned a great deal from his article, and I think I will apply what he said to my reading.

Today, I went and made a list of 副詞 in the format that 先生 did. It was hard work though there were not so many 副詞, still it was a great experience just doing. These few days I’ve been reading the notes on 動詞, いー形容詞, な形容詞, 敬語！I’m sure a lot of you guys know that I do not fancy 敬語 but after some revision, I’m making sense of it, though I know I properly need to read up even more about it (and there are period Japanese dramas that only use 敬語~ so it might be a good thing I start watching them!) Anyway, it feels funny because these days I feel like a full time student studying for some major exam. I’m a bit worried about falling into the trap of just results~ Regardless, I’m going to tell myself to enjoy the experience of THE test~ like knowing how much I know~ so yep~ I’m just going to enjoy the process~ q^o^p

なんか～ ついに不安な気持ち溢れてしまった～

でも昨日突然フィーソンの言葉が思い出したの

君が一番だから

それで自分のことが信じてね

そうですね～

自信のこと信じてて大丈夫だ～

楽しみ～がんばり！

I’m pretty much used to watching Japanese news off the usual site I go to, yet today, out of boredom, I went to google other similar sites, and found an interesting site, 日本テレビ. This site also offers streaming, yet the thing I love about this site is that it’s more interactive, because they have discussions from experts. Well, the downside is that there is no scripts to refer to. Still I enjoyed myself totally watching the news.

Apologised for the lack of entries, I have been busy with studying Japanese for the past few days. These few days, I have been busy with the vocabulary. Learning new things like 副詞, and revising いー形容詞, なー形容詞 and 動詞~ I’ve been doing these since last Friday. Though I really want to do them in details, but due to the lack of time, I will do them after I’m done with the exams. But I did spend a lot of time reading up on 副詞 and I did learn a lot of things after spending about 4 hours on that. But I know there must be a lot more 副詞 than I thought there is. I went to do search on the internet and found that wikipedia offers a list of 副詞, but I’m not sure if this is the full list, or probably there’s more than I thought there are.

Anyway, I’m also doing  lots of practice questions, be it vocabulary, grammar and listening. Speaking of which, I discover a really nice website that have all the past JLPT past year papers. I discovered that after I’ve registered, I can download the papers and audio free. It’s really helpful, I attempted listening to the 1991 questions, and found them really tricky, yet they are done in such a way that it’s really realistic. So in a way, I’m still enjoying myself~ The thing about the listening part is we only get to listen to it once, so if you missed it, that’s it. So I’ve learned to jot down points for my own reference. And before I knew it, the paper that I had to jot down notes, was soon filled with scribbles. One thing I’ve learned is writing fast enough, many times, I still couldn’t write fast enough. Still, I know I must learn~ ;p

Well, shall end my post here. Well, if I do see anything interesting, I’ll update you guys! Till then~