#may progress

[rigelmejo]

Language Updates! May 25, 2022

My health is still being mean but hopefully it'll turn. As expected, I'm not studying much.

But I did get the urge to study again. So I did. And it went in an odd direction (for me) so I feel like documenting it.

First the Japanese stuff - I got into playing Final Fantasy 7 again, and video games always remind me how much I want to learn Japanese, so the urge to study kicked in gear lol. As of now I'm not doing anything big, I'm too tired lately for big goals. I am playing Yakuza 0 now and having fun picking up the words I do know. And learning some words, mainly though just refreshing my memory on things I already knew like 少し,あるんだ, zenbun matte etc. Some sentences I fully understand! Most I know a couple words, some I only hear omae lol. As one would expect.

I'm also listening to Glossika Japanese again (as review so the old files I've heard already). So not much listening, at the beginning again lol, but everything is coming back fast. So that's good.

I also bought Koisenu Futari today and started reading it on Kindle. It's like 249 pages and my reading speed says I'll finish in 8 hours, which honestly is amazing to me since usually I read too slow to Ever finish a novel ToT in a foreign language (unless it's french). I read 7 pages and it's clear to me on some level I remember the grammar i learned i jusr don't explicitly remember it if it makes sense. Like I know what's a noun or verb or how the verbs conjugation affects meaning but I'm not able to say exactly whats going on. Basically it's readable, thankfully, cause my brain still remembers how to interpret the grammar. I still credit forcing myself to do 600 Clozemaster Japanese sentences last summer for all the grammar comprehension improvements tbh, it really truly helped me get used to real world sentences and the variety in them (versus textbook sentences). Anyway so far its nice! It's to my happiness an easier read (difficulty wise) with a lot of Kanji I know so I also can kind of cheat and guess the meaning on a lot (I'm mainly looking up Kanji pronunciations/confirmations of definition and hiragana words). But I will say :c kindles Japanese to English dictionary sucks So I'm glad i recognize the Kanji a bit.

Basically, I'm back into Japanese a bit. I also found some audio dramas with eng subs I'd like to listen to that I was going to months ago, maybe yest Listening Reading Method with. But tbh my attention span is short and I don't think I can focus for 1.5 hours to get through them (though Nier Replicant Audio drama AND mdzs Japanese audio drama are on youtube which are both very cool and i do eventually wanna get to ToT)

Now for the out of character portion. So ive been watching kdramas. Live Up to Your Name, Mr Sunshine, Tomorrow, My Country the New Age, etc. As you do. And it turns out... when I listen to something long enough I really want to learn something. So I looked into learning Korean a bit.

I want to preface with!!! If YOU are brand new to learning Korean, like comprehensible input/nature method learning methods, I highly recommend going to Learn Korean in Korean YouTube channel and just Devouring all the videos made by that guy. THAT is a well made course where you can genuinely learn through comprehensible input for the basics and some surface conversational stuff (possibly more). I watched 1 of his videos once knowing zero Hangul and not caring if i learned and learned how to introduce myself. His videos are GOOD.

That said... mejo is a messy person who doesn't follow their own advice, and despite me KNOWING I love that specific learning material... I'm not using it. Why? Because watching YouTube videos requires consistent focus and i just cannot reliably focus on something for several minutes right now. I can't do long periods of focused study at the moment. Even though I know if I binged his channel I'd learn a lot.

So what is mejos plan to learn korean?

Well studying Hangul is step 1, which I've done before and have done the past few days again. Now I'm practicing just kind of seeing it in practice (like in textbooks etc) to get used to properly reading it and remembering. As my motivations for wanting to learn korean are Extremely Shallow right now - I'd just like to know some lines in kdramas when I watch, maybe absolute MOST I'd like to have a convo in korean like hi how are you do you draw (and in a world I'll never live in... enough to read Korean guardian translation but let's be real its not gonna happen.. probably). I have no intense need to learn to read Hangul. I'm gonna pick it up anyway, since it's everywhere and reading it is ultimately critical. But books with romanization are my friends right now so I can compare romanization to the Hangul to test my reading of the Hangul, and to learn words with an approximate pronunciation instead of absolutely no idea if i picked a moderately close pronunciation up (if theres only Hangul and I read a,syllable wrong I'm gonna learn words wrong lol).

So I found Teach Yourself Korean (or some equivalent type book) on archive.org for free. And am reading it. It covers Hangul, and then simple surface level conversations like your typical beginner textbook (hi, how are you, my name is, i work at, I study, I want to eat x etc). It works fine for some Hangul reading practice and getting a chance to look at sentence structure. Realistically I know korean is SOV and a really Great help would be a textbook that does literal word by word translations cause my brain likes seeing that but I'm not putting tons of time into this. (Also sadly? I KNOW there's a cool korean textbook out there whixh starts with english but in korean sentence structure then adds more korean words, like comprehensible input for korean but also intuitive grammar instruction. And i DONT know the name so I canr find it ;-; if you know the name of the textbook I'm mentioning please message me).

For words, i was going to just be brutal to myself and hop right into Clozemaster Korean. That was utterly impossible lol! With very poor Hangul reading skills you are screwed in clozemaster, there's no romanization to help you sound anything out. Also you don't hear audio until after you answer, also the diffetent grammar structure is not explained even minimally in Clozemaster. So I have realized. Yes, yes you really do need to be upper beginner or above to use Clozemaster reasonably comfortably. Unless you're learning a language with similar grammar and a similar alphabet like French or Spanish then maybe you could jump right in as a complete novice if you were up for the challenge (I can read some Spanish, I could probably push through clozemaster Spanish to study and learn more vocab even though it would be brutal). I realized clozemaster is just NOT helpful as a complete beginner in korean with zero grammar knowledge. Now normally, I'd dive right in and spend 1 week to 1 month reading a grammar guide summary of the language so I have a vague idea of what I'm looking at verb noun adjective subject object particle wise etc at all times. But as I mentioned, im exhausted lately, i cant do intensive focused reading for hours which a grammar guide would require of me. Also... to be honest, I find it an interesting experiment to go into a language totally unprepared. I was prepared for all the other languages I studied to some (minimal) degree since i studied literally all of them as a teen at least a little (japanese, Spanish, French, German, mandarin). While it's not much, it does mean if there were ever 6 months of struggling with sound or writing system or what the heck does a verb look like in z language, i got a little practice prior to diving in more as an adult.

So. What to do. Well I know for me, comparing sentence structure truly helps me grasp grammar the best. It's why clozemasrer Japanese helped me SO much with grammar, it's why one of my fave japanese textbooks is Japanese Sentence Patterns, it's why Spoonfed Chinese anki deck ans audio files help me so much. Seeing and hearing a sentence in both languages helps me figure out where words go in each, how they conjugate, what phrases are different completely etc. Unfortunately anki and memrise sentence decks in korean would make me exhausted, as i can't do the hours long intensive focus I need for flashcards personally at the moment. Clozemaster has a radio mode (to help make it easier on me) but clozemaster sentences start TOO hard compared to educational made sentences which tend to start artificially simple but help clarify the sentence structures before adding complexity gradually. Well i was like... glossika Korean might work. Turns out I'd downloaded the old glossika korean audio files a year ago so I put them in a place I could listen to. And that's going to be my primary setup for study probably. I doubt I'm going to pick up much, certainly not at the slow rate I've got to study right now. But if I DO learn anything then I'm putting in a good word for comparative 2 language audio flashcard type study materials. They worked EXCELLENTLY for me for chinese listening comprehension, increasing vocabulary, grammar patterns, but i used them as an upper beginner who could read some stuff already. Korean would be my first time trying to use glossika with a language I can't already read some things in (aka comprehend basic stuff to a decent level when reading already). We will see if i pick up much. But I can already tell it's easier for me to figure out new words than clozemaster korean, so glossika is easier for a beginner to use for sure. (Personally I do Not recommend modern glossikas subscription model I hate the flashcards but tbh i canr do flashcards often, I prefer the old glossika audio lessons they used to make so that's what I use whenever i say glossika).

So yeah, my plan for korean right now is: glossika korean audio files (dual language audio of sentences starting simple then progressing), and Teach Yourself Korean book read through. Maybe some other stuff, but this is easiest.

A side note: I am sad to report the FSI korean course audio files on archive.org are Only korean. I say thus because FsiS chinese course audios read the English aloud, then rhe chinese, then the drill directions then the drill answers. So you can basically do the entire course entirely through audio (which is great if visuals are an issue for you, or so it can be done without needing to look if say you're walking or working, and the book is mainly pinyin so it's not a huge loss to just use the audio files). So I was expecting the korean FSI course audio to also have all that - which would have made it serve the "simple sentences with dual audio to compare and pick up words and grammar" function. But there's no English in the audio, so i found the korean glossika audios instead. (In a pinch FSI courses are yes dry, but very good introductions to several languages. I like their tone drills a lot for chinese.)

Another side note: sad to report that unlike Japanese and Chinese I am not aware of the really cool niche textbooks yet. Like in Japanese, I have textbooks specifically suited to me - ones that focus on sentence patterns, 2 that teach through reading and progressive difficulty, Kanji mnemonic books. Same for chinese - I have an old grammar book that writes a way I understand, 3 comprehensible input massive graded readers that increase in difficulty, some more graded readers by difficulty, a 500 most common hanzi book with a bunch of words that use them underneath, parallel texts, a wonderful hanzi mnemonics book, a wonderful chinese intro book that covers 1000 words (which isn't ideal but i appreciate the author and irs better than one textbook I found which only teaches 200 words total yikes). I learn well with comprehensible input books like graded readers/stuff that makes you learn by trying to understand, and with comparisons of sentence structure with a LOT of common words so I pick them up. Like I mentioned above... I know a korean textbook exists that writes the English in korean word order then gradually adds in more korean words too, I am very interested in finding it if anyone knows the name or has heard of it before.

[rigelmejo]

Read 8 pages of one of the novels @staidwaters remmendedいもうと by 赤川次郎. Now granted kindle still says I have 12 minutes left cause I read slower than a snail ;-;

Anyway confirmed what I expected. The hardest words for me are hiragana ones since I have a super deficit of Japanese vocabulary. The Kanji words I can guess like 70% of the time their rough meaning, the grammar on tje adjectives and verbs mean I can recognize vaguely what their purpose is if I know or can vaguely guess rhe Kanji attached. But pure hiragana words? Yikes

Some are like very, just, all, some (all helper words I Need to learn but don't recognize at all yet), and then some are verbs or nouns that just get regularly spelled in hiragana I guess so I don't recognize them at All.

;-; me and hiragana words ;-;

Anyway in happier news a 30 minute time line to read 1 chapter isn't actually fully awful? When I started Chinese it took 1.5 hours to read a chapter, and still takes me 8-11 minutes for a pretty normal 5 page chapter of priest. So 30 minutes a chapter is actually better speed than when I started reading chinese. And it says the book will take me maybe 10 hours. However... when I read the last thing in Kindle it gave up estimating cause I got so slow so it might do it again lol.

Also my comprehension ain't great. I know Mika and a nurse are in a hospital, there's a cab in the rain in the dead of night, someone - mika? - took the cab to the hospital? Mika is either a patient or also works at the hospital as a cleaner, and her and the nurse are cleaning but the cleaning bag went missing? They don't have an umbrella. I assume they're looking for the bag? They checked the security camera but didn't see anyone. (Like I said I'm not totally sure what's going on just following the broad strokes)

[rigelmejo]

I thought I'd show off the Clozemaster improvements.

Below is an example of a japanese/chinese conjugate where the same characters mean effort in both cases.

I can click to expand the sentence explanations. Or I can click into the words to get details about the Japanese Kanji, word, origins (and explanation of grammar if it's a verb), and scroll up or down to see the chinese explanation (or in some cases the Korean one if it's also a word in korean). So this new click-words feature is a nice way to dig into background on words, and in multiple languages if you're studying a multiple with characters. The non highlighted words can also be clicked on for explanations which is cool.

[rigelmejo]

notes to myself basically, on how i study languages (so far, there’s always gonna be better ways i don’t know of yet lol):

learn 500-1000 common words asap, read a grammar guide that provides overview asap - like the first 3 months. If a full grammar guide doesn’t exist that’s concise (hi japanese ;-;) find a basics grammar guide at least and read that (pimsleur, websites, genki, tae kim, youtube). Specifically within the common words, at least look at the ‘300 common word tumblr to say things’ language vocab list. That list is good for me starting some kind of active vocab/expressing ideas.

if its got a different writing system, look up the alphabet in 1st month (kana for japanese, cyrillic alphabet for russian etc, pinyin for chinese). listen to pronunciation guides, and write and/or mnemonics to learn those asap.

if its got characters (like chinese, japanese), learn 300-500 super common characters ASAP (first 5 months). 

After month 3, learn up to 2000 common words (hi srs flashcard programs like anki and memrise, common word lists, graded readers), and up to 2000 characters. Not all these need to be done with srs flashcards/focused study, but get TO recognizing this many as soon as u can. Goal is get to this by month 8-10. But depending on how much i can overall understand without doing this, i may not learn All of these words by then (but ideally i should).

By 500-1000 words (and 500+ characters if needed), so after 3-5 months, start trying to immerse in what I WANT to do - so reading, watching (maybe listening, maybe games). I don’t have to do it much, but do it a bit to remember what I learned and also motivate myself to study more.

Months 5-8 somewhere between 1000-2000 words, start trying to write/say basic things to myself or on apps with others. Probably will be a mess, don’t have to do it much. Do it enough to have motivation to study more - see where I’m lacking skills. I may need more grammar explanation, or more vocab, or notice a big issue in my pronunciation etc.

Around month 8-10, around 2000+ words studied (although it may be less or more depending on what I’m comfortable with), ramp up immersion a lot. As soon as its mildly tolerable, ramp it up a LOT. Look up words when immersing as often or not often as desired, goal is to always follow at least the bare minimum main idea (and more details if possible/if I wanna put in the effort to look more up). Now I can start learning new words primarily from this. 

Reading skills - during immersion do intensive reading to learn more vocabulary quicker, extensive reading to improve overall comprehension. Do SRS flashcards/focused graded readers/word-list prep for stuff I read as needed, to speed up how much vocab I learn (if I’m learning too slow for my preference lol). Ways to make extensive reading easier: read graded readers, read show subtitles in target language while watching show, textbooks built to increase info taught in context, read stuff I’ve read translations of first, read stuff I have prior context for (I saw the show/heard already with english transcript etc), Listening reading method, read extensively what I’ve read intensively before etc.

Listening skills - start extensive listening to audio (for overall comprehension improvement). Start intensive listening where I hear words and lookup definition and/or learn word pronunciation with explanations. So start listening to audio flashcards for building a base of learned words/phrases (chinese spoonfed audio files, japanese core 2k audio, japaneseaudiolessons.com, SRS flashcards if they have audio only ones too, Coffee Break French, audio for Francais par le methode nature etc). To make extensive listening easier: start with watching/listening to shows I’ve already seen subs for, shows in general (visual context helps), comprehensible input audio (like comprehensible input french youtube, Learn Korean in Korean youtube, Dreaming Spanish youtube etc), listen with a transcript then listen without, Listening reading method, listen to things I have prior context for like audiobook of something i read/audio drama of show i’ve seen. Do some shadowing (shadowing audio flashcard files is easy and reliable tbh). 

Production skills (I am not here yet) - in general I’ve found making myself write more, talk more, to myself (like journals and practice convos) and to others, tends to improve my active vocabulary. Especially when I try to communicate about topics i’m bad at (so making myself look up those words and write/say them to put them back into active vocab). At this point I’m guessing more explicit grammar drill practice might help, people correcting me, shadowing a lot. Maybe practicing translating to that language/from it, to practice building active vocab? I’m not sure what will help most here tbh as I’ve never gotten far in this area. (For chinese, studying pronunciation more in depth and doing more listening/shadowing, and pronunciation apps, helped a lot with pronunciation itself but not active production yet). 

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i’m currently mostly just doing 8-9 for chinese right now - building reading skills, building listening skills. Varying what i do. For production skills i’m guessing there’s a ton of varied things i can do right now or later, i’m just not entirely sure what they’d be. i have not tried/troubleshooted those skills much before when studying. All i know for sure is the more i make myself use the language in Varied topics, the more i get an active vocabulary (aka writing journals, making self-convos, and doing language exchanges help in a basic way). No idea how to improve grammar though in ways that’d work well for me. so right now my skills lean heavier toward comprehension, less skill in any production. Studying chinese taught me a lot about how i learn listening skills though...which is valuable as i barely had practice learning HOW to study them when i studied french or japanese before.

troubleshooting wise - this is the rough trajectory i went through in chinese, that has worked okay for me. looking at it helps me see where i ‘slowed down’ my progress in other languages i studied.

for french - i did very LITTLE listening practice, and had few ideas of how to work on it at the time. Now I would probably do listen with transcript then without, and shadowing, to work on listening skills. And watching shows/videos with subtitles (if possible), then without subs. And very little speaking practice - same deal as listening, i did a little at some point realizing it was a weak area but not enough work on it. I also did very LITTLE production practice like language exchanges. i had few reasons to produce language, and so the few times i needed to i could mostly rely on super common words or look things up when writing. i know i’d need to do more to work on production. so i was very unbalanced - large reading comprehension, low pretty much every other skill.

for japanese... i did a lot in retrospect i wish i’d redone different. and i do it different now. i did not read/watch a grammar guide - and i still freaking need to (or at least get clear grammar exposure like nukemarine’s LLJ course’s tae kim portions). japanese has grammar i find very hard to figure-out through exposure so this holds me back a lot. and lack of immersion to both motivate me to study MORE and to practice reading/listening skills. ALSO lack of common words - i learned like 800 hanzi rough-meaning through RTK, and maybe 500 words in genki... and no wonder it wasn’t enough lol! i think nukemarine helped back years ago, because it forced me to study grammar and vocab, listening and reading, in a structured way (similar to how genki helped me in the very start before i quit using it). and japaneseaudiolessons.com helped because it made me practice listening and gave me comprehensible listening with definitions. that in combo with me really starting to immerse and TRY to read/listen at year 2+ is when i finally made some progress because i was doing things that work for me - finally. and now that i’m coming back to japanese, i’m starting to apply all those things again that were finally working. 

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anyone have any tips on how to improve production skills? Both active vocabulary, and how to both practice speaking/writing broadly AND how to fix grammar errors. 

For active vocab and general writing/speaking I know just talking more/writing more helps. But I can only tend to catch grammar errors if I run it through a translator first to compare how the translator phrases it to how I did (which can create a LOT of errors if the translator is Wrong), or if someone corrects my grammar error (which relies on other people - and preferably a tutor since i dont want to bother people who aren’t paid to correct - so what can i do on my OWN?). 

The big thing is with grammar, I can only think to either go through beginner courses Again from the start and do the writing drills and copy the patterns to internalize them? So I could correct my basic writing/speaking but not necessarily when I start speaking/writing creatively, unless I find textbooks/workbooks that eventually go into intermediate material (and of course finding textbooks/online exercises that provide correct answers so i can compare my attempts to the correct ones). Aside from either a tutor, or trying to find well made free online courses with exercises with answers provided, i’m not sure how to improve grammar production. If I write out sentences i read, would that internalize being able to ‘copy their grammar correctly’ when i write? if i shadow correctly said speeches/videos, would that help drill ‘correct grammar’ when speaking? (And be less boring then doing FSI speech drills). Basically I’m trying to find some ways (creative or not) to improve grammar in production. Improving active vocabulary seems pretty straightforward to me (make myself use it, look up words until they come natural to me - but if u got any other fun ways to improve active vocab i’d love to hear!). But I don’t know how to improve grammar when you are NOT in a class structure, have no teacher/tutor, and already have a base level of comprehension. As in like? I can read fine, but when writing I can’t tell if what I produce is grammatically correct or not - and again I can run it through a translator sometimes to try and ‘check’ but since translators make errors, my ‘corrected example’ isn’t always reliable to use as something to emulate for ‘correct form.’

[rigelmejo]

gonna be honest i think a huge weak point of immersion based learning methods (specifically ones like massive immersion approach/Refold and AJATT) is learning good production skills. In general these study approaches say explicit grammar instruction is unneeded (though you might choose to seek it out). So in general, you’re learning grammar through exposure. And word use through exposure. I think these study methods work well for comprehension skills, and that the study methods they use to learn grammar implicitly enough to understand it (srs flashcards, looking things up, etc).

But for a few reasons I think they aren’t super great for learning good production skills (and some of these reasons just apply to general self-studying languages in general):

A lot of people who DO these study approaches, and record their experiences, are beginners/intermediate. And since these approaches say do NOT focus on production until you have a high comprehension level, there’s just not much documentation of what to even DO during the production skills learning process. In general it is doable to find examples of individuals who have successfully done methods like Massive Immersion Approach enough to comprehend X material in a language, and who have explained what they did and their comprehension milestones. So it is feasible to copy their study plan and expect a similar result. 

But for production skills, there are less examples of people who’ve successfully learned to produce to the level of fluency they are satisfied with, and to find examples of them explaining specifically HOW they worked on those production skills.  I can think of only 2 examples of people I’ve seen who did mia and then ‘somewhat’ worked on production skills - Khalifa who studied Spanish (he did frequent tutoring sessions with lots of speaking practice to improve his production skills - https://youtu.be/lqxWYAGDQy0), Luke Truman (he produced language and did language exchange from the beginning of his learning and throughout - https://youtu.be/dDZgec6uzMs). In both of these examples - the people learned production skills by producing language with a language partner often (sometimes a tutor) to smooth out production skills. This does not particularly tell us if they could pass a language fluency test with their production skills, use their production skills professionally or in classes in that language, or if they’re still working on production skills (if so how much longer did they take tutoring sessions, how did they structure the sessions, and did they do any Other exercises to improve production skills?)

Since its hard to find what people even do during this production phase of learning in such approaches, its hard to see if it’s successful and by how much. Hard to see what pitfalls they have to work on addressing, hard to see what methods people do AT the production stage to improve and solidify their production skills. In general it is just HARD to see what steps people are even meant to take during this production stage if using these language learning approaches. In the examples I mentioned above, I’ve seen people practice production by simply TRYING once they reach a certain level of comprehension skill, and trying often. But that doesn’t address improving mistakes/issues with production. 

For accent - Shadowing has been mentioned in mia as an activity to do to improve production accent (which is a practical activity to improve that skill). For grammar mistakes and correction, mia’s Matt has mentioned making srs anki cards for grammar points he notices he can’t produce or think of and then drilling/studying them. This indicates looking up correct grammar points explicitly at some point - or does he just look at example sentences? Also this indicates still using anki cards, so is the solution to just continue drilling sentence examples even for production skills? 

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From what I can tell, the methods for working on production seem to be:

Get a tutor. Start practicing speaking at least weekly. Also do language exchanges if possible. (only a tutor might explicitly address helping you notice and improve errors)

Start shadowing (improves accent, and I do think this is a free study method that would help)

Make more srs anki cards to drill any sentence patterns you don’t seem to know how to say well/notice you’ve made errors on (so continue the srs anki approach that you used in comprehension learning stage - what I dislike here is this is still potentially implicit study of grammar, so for example if you made the mistake to/too/two in english it would be studying example sentences instead of reading an explanation of when to use which to/two/too which seems more confusing/harder to quickly grasp for the kind of learner I am).

I am guessing here - but if planning to take a language test (like the JLPT, HSK, CEFR) get a test-prep textbook/guide/site/worksheets/practice-tests and work through it. I can’t remember if I’ve seen anyone do AJATT or MIA and then take the JLPT test, but most youtubers I’ve seen who have taken the test in general got a prep-textbook or course ahead of time to study and prepare. 

So. If I were going to apply developing production study skills to myself, what might that look like? Since I don’t like using srs flashcards much, and I hate learning from examples when there’s quicker ways to get a correction. 

What I might try to do in future for production skills:

*Shadowing - pretty self explanatory. Improve listening skills, improve accent. (And maybe if I’m lucky it will help with active vocab a little? Although I’ve seen no specific studies on that).

*Write more often in language - easy ways to do this include journaling (journaly is a thing?), so I have time to look up words I want to use (might help active vocab expansion) and think about my grammar. Strategies that might help grammar here could include looking at language sentence patterns (grammar/sentence pattern book/website), and practicing substitution (using other words relevant to me, while practicing a sentence pattern as a journal entry). This could help me practice from generally ‘correct’ grammar form, while also helping my active vocab and learning how to say what I generally think of saying.

*Use a test-related textbook/site and work through it doing the exercises. (Like the HSK books I have). While not super fun, I think this is the closest way to get classroom-like benefit of doing correct grammar patterns with aids to refer back to.

Language exchange - aiming to talk/write more. This would be free, and simply production practice (would help with active vocabulary, might only be practice for other skills). 

Paid: see a tutor weekly. Would help like language exchange, likely be more targeted since less time spent in english, and more likely to receive feedback on mistakes.

*Paid: test-related courses (like the coursera courses, or Chinese Zero To Hero* courses: https://chinesezerotohero.teachable.com/). Benefit would be more videos, possibly more support, and exercises specifically with direction and aids to refer back to. (I’ve had Chinese Zero to Hero courses recommended to me)

* starred ideas I think would be most likely to help. 

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For me:

For free things, I think journaling based on sentence-pattern sentence examples would work very well. So read a grammar textbook/sentence-pattern guide/site/textbook then do a journal entry emulating that point with words I want to put into active vocab. I think that activity would put my already-owned study books to good use, and allow me to practice production/active vocab/correct grammar.

I also think working through a test-oriented site/book would help - I have pdfs of some so this is something I could do for free, and it would be something I could combine with journaling like the idea above. This would also be more progressive/organized more according to difficulty (which could bore me or alternatively help me build good habits from the bottom up). 

Shadowing and language exchanges I already do a little, and plan to do more once I start focusing on production more. I think for paid options - the test-oriented courses may actually help the most with the concern I have for ‘improving overall grammar.’ Tutors can help with production practice, more focused than some language exchanges, so tutors may help eventually too but not in that ‘explicit grammar improvement’ way I want to be able to mostly study and fix myself. 

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So I think, ultimately, what my study plan is going to look like for production skills:

1. Continue improving comprehension skills. Add shadowing more, over time. (language exchange if desired)

2a. Once comprehension is in a good place, pick a book I have (sentence patterns if I have one, or HSK oriented textbook) and go through it doing practice journal entries for each example. Try to use words in the example book, and words in general I think I’d want to use. (Continue shadowing, and immersion in general for comprehension skills).

2b. If I can stick to doing this, work through a book/site. If I cannot stick to this (boredom, badly organized book, etc?) then look at paid course options at that point (Chinese Zero to Hero?) in case a class-style organization/commitment will push me to complete it better. (Continue shadowing, and immersion in general for comprehension skills).

Then After all that, practice away lol.  

[rigelmejo]

My dudes wasabi Japanese is so cool this site is so cool literally my dream site ToT (thank u @yue-muffin for all those free reading links <3 which is what included wasabi Japanese)

I know what I’m doing after I finish reading Japanese in 30 Hours! (I might keep reading Reading Japanese for fun too just cause... I might as well we will See).

So like curse me if, when I say I will, it makes me not lol. I hope I DO actually do this. Because it sounds so much more clicks-with-me right now than my alternate study plan (which was Nukemarine memrise - which I WILL eventually do ToT I plan it ok, and tae Kim’s grammar guide - which I’m happy to replace with any grammar guide I’ll finish fucking reading tbh).

1. Remembered bilingualmanga exists and I am making no commitments to read anything (tho I have 4 mangas open and an urge to read them for the first time in years since I read yotsuba earlier and followed it). But I will say it’s quite cool I could um read and look words up (ditto for just regular iOS word lookup and Japanese scripts... I’d say ditto for Animelon too and I DO recommend it but I’m just not really an anime watcher).

2. Wasabi Japanese has a: a grammar guide. So my ass is gonna try reading it (in my defense it has audio which I find marginally nicer than the other sources I’ve been looking at... like I literally read Japanese in 30 Hours aloud audio helps me... also why I suspect in part Nukemarine’s decks help they make me listen a lot). https://www.wasabi-jpn.com/japanese-grammar/wasabis-online-japanese-grammar-reference/

3. Even better (to me) wasabi Japanese has b. A grammar drills lesson course that has you shadow and practice SENTENCE PATTERNS AND GRAMMAR. I was literally considering buying a Japanese shadowing textbook for just this purpose (but that textbook was random phrases whereas this is targeted sentence patterns). Also I learn best by just fucking seeing sentence patterns so I kind of suspect an activity like this would click with my brain better than actual grammar guide reading (tho grammar guide reading gives me a useful overview of what to start noticing). Like I literally own the book Japanese Sentence Patterns just cause it was the only thing that clicked... Bonuses about this lesson course wasabi Japanese has: it’s me Doing stuff, I learn best just Doing tbh (it’s why just brute force reading clicks well with me lol). And better, Doing stuff in a streamlined way so I can not bumble as long lol and I have reference if I’m confused (Also why I like graded readers). Info: https://www.wasabi-jpn.com/japanese-lessons/how-to-proceed-with-the-instantaneous-composition-method/ The lessons: https://www.wasabi-jpn.com/japanese-lessons/materials-for-japanese-lessons-intensive-reading/

4. Wasabi Japanese has lessons through stories, listening reading and shadowing. Phenomenal. Both the perfect chance to test if Listening Reading works some more (which I’m currently into), and to actually DO some things I wanna do like read and practice listening (versus Nukemarines memrise courses which are just flashcards, or playing Japanese video games which is... doable but too draining to be enjoyable or efficient yet). I’m excited. How to use: https://www.wasabi-jpn.com/japanese-lessons/japanese-lessons-how-to-proceed-with-read-aloud-method/ Actual lessons:. https://www.wasabi-jpn.com/japanese-lessons/fairy-tales-and-short-stories-with-easy-japanese/

5. Assuming you’re better at Japanese than me - wonderfully wasabi Japanese has a course I could use, right after finishing that last one, at a slightly more difficult level, with manga: https://www.wasabi-jpn.com/japanese-lessons/materials-for-japanese-lessons-intensive-reading/

6. Alternatively, want a different N3 course that’s radio program based? Here it is: https://www.wasabi-jpn.com/japanese-lessons/materials-for-japanese-lessons-read-aloud-method/ so yeah, wasabi Japanese looks like a quite nice alternative to flashcards or a textbook if a babe just wants to learn from stories with audio for a while ToT

7. Also I am again contemplating the benefit of just playing audio in the background more. Will I do it? I don’t know. I’d love to play SpoonFed Chinese audio, Japaneseaudiolessons, and Japanese core 2k audio on in the background. As it’s all comprehensible input I know I’d mostly pickup if I just heard it enough to Review it (whereas rn I just hear each audio file once ever on a walk then never again cause I have little time for focused audio only listening). But I feel bad when I play them in the bg and don’t fully listen ;-;. Ah the dilemma. Truly though they’d help so much if I played them in the background I know it... as of this month as an experiment since reading The Word Brain, I’ve been listening to SOME Chinese audio more. Specifically Guardians audiobook, a random Chinese hp audiobook, Alice in wonderland audiobook, silent reading audiobook. You would not believe how much it’s been noticeably helping. Usually it’s avenuex’s Guardian audiobook and every time I catch a bit of it casually in the bg while working, I’m blown away I understand clearly what I didn’t the time before. In particular I’m probably having the most improvements in this novels comprehension, since I’m Listen Reading Method with it too. But like... the first time I focused listened to it during L R? I caught everything with difficulty during the only-chinese audio but English text step 3. And then listening alone only caught the main story beats/scenes (which was already a major improvement for me). Now when working I can actually catch the paragraphs about Guo Changcheng’s family, his uncle, going to McDonald’s - these are details I very specifically remember being the ones I could NOT catch doing listening only the first time post L R. So after idk 3-6 listening of this chapter, just listening again in the background (since L R takes too much time I’m lazy I only do L R once), I’ve made this much progress. I only saw the full definition of everything ONCE one time during L R step 3 once. But just listening more I catch more and more. And of course, as I catch more the unclear parts become easier and easier to maybe figure out. All I know is I severely underestimated the benefit of repeated listening - at least when (at one point once) you comprehended the material. So considering this... I think now with hindsight, yes listening to condensed audio of a show or just a show, that you’ve seen before with English subs/dual subs/in target language and looked unknown words up, in the background probably could help. If at one point you comprehended it before. (So for me Guardian cdrama is hella on this list lol). With hindsight yeah, repeated audio of an audiobook chapter or audio drama you followed the target language subs for before, or that you could read but not hear alone, would probably help listening skills. Definitely my audio flashcard files where they’re literally Built to be comprehensible since it’s English then target language each line. So... yeah in hindsight more audio, even background audio, can help. Guarantee when I’m not L R with the guardian audiobook I’m barely even listening. And still I find myself catching parts of it.

8. My roommate got too excited about Final Fantasy 14 and informed me it’s free to play now.. which I didn’t know. So of course I foolishly looked up if I could play it in Japanese on a PlayStation and looks like answer is probably yes and I am sorely tempted...

9. It’s gonna be wild for me looking back on may progress at the end of the month because: I did almost nothing I planned, I got demotivated then intensely motivated, I’ve done a ton ToT, I also did a ton of Japanese immersion which?? I’m not even counting?? I don’t track my Japanese immersion yet because like... it’s not my priority right now. I read a ton of manhua the other day and just forgot to log it. I watched some of the woh concert and just did not count it, I read a surprising amount of Japanese this month for someone “not studying it much” yet (aka maybe more than I read last time I studied Japanese??). I did a lot of L R method I didn’t even track, I did a ton of background listening and I’m not tracking just hoping for the best. Did I finish 小王子 this month or last month? Whatever month that was I read like 4 Chinese books. I just remembered I read like 3 Japanese graded readers but didn’t count them cause they felt too simple to count (only 28 pages each). I watched 10 Cure Dolly Japanese grammar vids tho not sure how much help it is long term. Whatever time I did the Japanese video games had to count for something even tho it was draining af. Anyway my point is just... count on me to not do what I planned but be more productive when I do that. All that said: I’m more productive when I set plans even if they aren’t always followed, so I’ll keep making them lol. I think I just needed to hit that turning point of “do anything you want, just continue to do something” instead of “complete this first!” (Although I’m still aiming to complete things - or at least go for progressively challenging things). I dunno... I want to say I want to consider just trying to finish things imperfectly just finish them (to motivate me to finish my Hanzi books, Japanese books, courses I find). But knowing me.. I have no idea what will get me to keep going. Just need to remember it’s ok to do it imperfectly. Just need to remember to place what I will care about and actually do, as priority over what it is I think “must be fully done.”

[rigelmejo]

Some PHENOMENAL output-skill developing advice permalink: https://www.reddit.com/r/languagelearning/comments/nd0yhu/a_personal_approach_to_language_learning/gy8ussx/

[–]RyanSmallwood

I'm not personally prioritizing output atm, but I think Vladimir Skenderoff has written some interesting stuff on how to start outputting from an input first approach/mentality , although his advice is targeted mostly at English learners who have access to certain resources that might be harder to find for other languages, and probably get more input than most other learners.

From what I remember he says that to start outputting from input you have to be able to read fluidly, as in if you record and listen to yourself reading aloud without stumbling over your words too much. I think he suggests reading is better for learning to output than listening because you subvocalize which helps you practice recalling the sounds.

He also suggests using monolingual learner's dictionaries which use a limited defining vocabulary (for English available starting at 2000 words), which increases your input of the most common words a lot while reading about things you're interested in, and also teaches you how to re-word and explain things differently.

Then to actually start output, he recommends writing before speaking, because you can think more and make sure you're composing correct sentences. He recommends writing in environments where you can copy native speakers, like comments sections and forums, so you get lots of input about the subject you want to start outputting on and then can immediately apply it. He also suggests if there's sentences you're unsure of, googling the phrase or part of the phrase in quotes and to see if native speakers use the same expression, while also getting more input of similar sentences to the ones you want to say that you can immediately apply.

Again haven't tried it myself, but I think he has some useful advice I'd definitely try when I want to start outputting.

-- my dumb notes below -- o3o)/

Ok, he seems to mention ideas that make me think shadowing may help - that's speaking mimicking the audio, and recording yourself. I imagine reading aloud after shadowing would also be like he said. Maybe that helps transfer passive vocab/understanding into the ability to actively use that vocab/grammar better. This Re-Reading Technique I saw recently also seems to suggest something similar: https://youtu.be/JTWKpNy96EM

Good to know it might actually help output! I wasn't sure how much it might help output.

I may also try a monolingual dictionary more, reading aloud in general more (and shadowing), and mm yes writing. I write a tiny bit right now, but its mostly chatting. I do find writing environments where I can copy native speakers make life much easier - if my active vocabulary is lacking, or I forget the 'best' way to word something, I can usually find an example of the word I wanted in what another person's saying. (Last night I couldn't remember 原来 when trying to describe 'original' like 'original hair color' until someone used the word first, now its easier to remember in that situation).

Thank you for these ideas! I'm going to look Vladimir Skenderoff up. These are some good activities to try when its output time more.

---

So plans to start improving output eventually:

More shadowing (particularly in Listening Reading Method - step 4 shadowing step 5 translating, when you can reference the correct form yourself after the fact and check your errors... and shadowing with my 2 shadowing pronunciation apps)

Reading aloud, when I feel I’m reading well (Re-Reading Technique is excellent for this and includes shadowing too https://youtu.be/JTWKpNy96EM)

Using a monolingual dictionary (may help with active vocab?)

Do writing output - particularly with forums/comment areas (often can get active vocab reminders from others writing), and look up phrases you’re unsure about to see the correct examples.

[rigelmejo]

Study Plans May 2021

bold - priority

italic - less important

Chinese - short term (listening/reading):

Continue Listening Reading Method Guardian

Continue reading chinese - ideally some extensive and some intensive (currently reading in Pleco is intensive, Guardian is partly extensive when I do L R Method step 2 or read the print version)

Continue listening to Spoonfed Chinse Audio (I’m getting there!)

Continue adding background chinese listening to my day (lets get to 1,500 hours! Which I suspect is not as far as I think, considering all that cdrama watching probably counted, and I can generally parse some words I ‘know’ when listening and also parse some unknown words enough to look them up - and I can parse more words each time when I re-listen to things).

*priority here is L R Method, in general just strengthening reading and listening skills.

long term (listening/reading, with more shadowing and *hanzi solidifying):

L R Method more, and read in general more - so what I’ve been doing, but hopefully get to more books.

Shadowing with L R Method more.

SHADOWING more - both in general and using my pronunciation apps on my phone (general putonghua app and Chinese Pronunciation Trainer - both of which allow recording so I can compare my own pronunciation)

Experiment with the Re-listening technique (7 steps, a lot of shadowing, compatible with l r method)

Experiment with step 5 of L R Method - translating pieces to and from english/chinese.

Read through Alan Hoenig’s Chinese Characters and READ the mnemonics! write down mnemonics for sound/tone, and practice writing the hanzi (just write it in the book I’m begging you just DO THIS - it should take 1 month or 2 if you can just be dedicated). Basically focus on hanzi solidifying (specifically recognizing radicals, remembering pronunciation).

*idea is to start incorporating more production activities (shadowing, writing, translating)

longer term (grammar solidifying, production of grammar/vocab, *hanzi solidifying):

Start one of my physical Chinese grammar books - probably Chinese Basic Sentence Patterns (or my Textbook, just start one). Prioritize reading through. If reading is accomplished, do journal entries where I practice the sentence patterns/words - and/or do the textbook exercises. (Basically prioritize grammar solidifying, production skills/active vocabulary). *Ideally use a physical book I have so I don’t get distracted (only use a digital HSK book IF you’re studying FOR that test please ;-; )

FINISH Alan Hoenig’s Chinese Character’s book (at MINIMUM read through it i’m begging).

Likely still reading, and L R Method (if I like any audiobooks which lol I can think of a lot) - for these months it would take background to grammar-book work.

priority: solidifying grammar/hanzi, improving written production skills

---

Japanese - short term (vocab/grammar primarily from Nukemarine LLJ):

Continue Nukemarine LLJ courses (make an effort to use mnemonics to remember more kanji/pronunciations, shadow sentences)

READ Tae Kim’s grammar guide (I know I took it off but I GENUINELY need to read a grammar guide it helps how my brain thinks stuff... I can put this step off but if I FEEL like grammar, please go do this over any video or new grammar resource!)

AS DESIRED, check out lets plays, Game Gengo (specifically his grammar vids), game scripts, cure dolly (*LIMIT this one as not priority), playing games. Basically no need to make immersion a priority (as I think 2000 base vocab is what will make immersion more Productive), but doing it to maintain interest and do something when I don’t feel like studying is nice.

*priority here is pretty obvious - get through as much of Nukemarine’s LLC memrise courses as I can asap. In general I think my life will get easier once I do more of it...

long term (I should have 9-10 of nukemarine’s LLJ courses completed before these):

FINISH Nukemarine’s LLJ courses.

Listen to more Japanese - core japanese audio files, japaneseaudiolessons (pick one to start with, listen to it once I’m done with Chinese Spoonfed Audio) - the point is to use this to reinforce vocab/learn vocab, practice listening hours more.

Start playing video games in japanese more regularly, reading things I want to read more regularly. Lets plays more regularly, etc. So more everyday immersion. 

Transcribe rest of Japanese in 30 Hours (not priority, but fun)

*Read through my Japanese Sentence Patterns (I honestly might understand this better than any grammar guide).

*Read my learn to read japanese books (note - if I start this I should consistently read and finish it, hence best to start this after Nukemarine’s LLJ is completed/near complete).

* = activities I may save for MUCH longer term. I think whether I do them sooner or later depends on ease of immersion. If after Nukemarine, immersion is still painfully difficult, then I should probably read one (or both) of these books asap.