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ariaintaiwan · 1 year

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Day 3: That Went Better Than Expected

Today was the first day of classes, and I wasn't nervous going in because I knew that today would be introductions and the like, and I've spent a lot more time speaking Chinese in Chinese classes than anywhere else, so when I have to only use Chinese everywhere, a Chinese class because the place I'm by far most comfortable in. After the introductions, we had a break, and during the break, I had the only bad thing of the day happen. It turns out we had two assignments before the first class and when I checked my phone yesterday it had only shown me one, so I didn't do the reading that I needed for the second part of class. Thankfully it wasn't a big deal since I had a bit of time to read the story during the break and the reading was mostly words I already knew so I didn't need to memorize a ton of vocab, but it was definitely embarrassing and I did slip up on one of the words when I had to read aloud. After the reading, we had a group assignment where we had to discuss our answers to some opinion questions that post them online as a group. It was mostly fine but we didn't have enough time to answer them after the discussion so that was a bit annoying. It was no big deal though since I at least understood the questions and instructions, and that was the last part of class since we didn't have the meetings afterward that we're going to have in the future. We got out of class at lunch time, so I left to go get lunch. I ran into a group of classmates and we started talking, and I ended up going with them. They were trying to figure out how to say something in Chinese, and I was able to help them. That surprised me as I generally don't think I speak very good Chinese, and I was expecting to be one of the worst on my program, but it turned out I was the one in the group who spoke the most Chinese. They kept asking me questions, and I was able to answer a lot of them, so they started calling me "teacher" which was really funny but also genuinely gratifying and a nice confidence booster. Before getting lunch, we stopped at a stationery store and explored for a while. I ended up getting some compression gloves for my hands since I've wanted them for a while and they were half the price that they are in the US. I tried them out and omg I love those things. I never thing that my hands hurt in my day-to-day life, but then I put those on and suddenly feel a ton of relief from pain I didn't know was there. I also got some utensils so next time I want to eat fruit, I don't need to go on an hour-long quest to borrow a Swiss army knife that's nowhere near big enough for the job. After we left the stationery store, we started walking towards the hotel and looking for a restaurant on the way, and we ended up at a hot pot restaurant. Ordering was a challenge as the person in our group who spoke the least Chinese also has a severe peanut allergy, so we had to ask about that. There were separate issues with ordering that I don't really know what were since two of the other people went to order and I didn't hear it, but I eventually went up to help them since by that point I had accepted that I was the one there who spoke the best Chinese even if I'm not particularly great at it. The staff didn't understand what I was saying the majority of the time, but we eventually got our food, and it was incredible. I went with three other people, and it was only about 16 USD to feed the four of us. Rice, drinks, and ice cream were all free. They even had a passionfruit slush that I had a good few cups of, but they also had tea, soft drinks, etc.

After eating, we started heading back to the hotel. On the way, we ran into some old Taiwanese men eating outside a restaurant, and one of them apparently lived in the US back in the 90s, so he started talking to us. He asked my friend where they were from and talked to her for a while before mentioning that his friend's son was single and living in Seattle if anyone was looking for a Taiwanese man, which was funny. After that, we split up because two of us wanted to go back to the hotel and the other two wanted to go to get more time on their phones since the SIM cards we got only last until July 1st. Once I got back to the hotel, I wanted to do my homework since I had to do today's as well as go back and do the assignment I missed, but I was super tired when I got back and ended up having a nap first. I woke up at about 6:30, did homework for the next 3 hours, and went to 7/11 for a late dinner. I saw two of the people who I had lunch with there as well as another classmate, and I ended up talking to them for a while before heading back to the hotel to finish my food and write this post. It's now 11:15, which, incredibly shockingly by my standards, is later than I've been up since I got to Taiwan, so I'm ready to finally get to bed. Hopefully I can sleep quickly since I need to get to class early tomorrow, and tomorrow's also the first day that I travel there alone instead of with a group, so I've gotta give extra time for figuring that out. I'm a bit worried about that since I had the nap earlier, but it should be fine.

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todomitoukei · 3 years

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hii! may i ask you a few questions about japanese since you speak it and i’m currently learning it? you don’t have to answer if you don’t want to 💕

I started learning Japanese last year and passed the N5 exam. I started N4 in mid December and honestly I’ve improved so much and I feel so motivated! Your translation posts inspire me to do my best because i really want to read manga in Japanese, especially Naruto.

So, my questions are:

1) When did you start learning Japanese?

2) At what level did you read manga in Japanese? or did you immediately start learning regardless of your skill level?

3) What were the challenges you faced when reading manga in Japanese?

4) At what level do you recommend we read manga in Japanese? My sensei said we can read manga targeted for elementary students after N4 and we can watch tv in japanese after N3

thank you for taking the time in answering this ❤️

Hi! Yes, Japanese-related questions are always welcome :)

First of all, congrats on passing the N5!! And I'm really happy to hear that my posts inspire you so thank you!

As for your questions;

1) Technically, I started a couple of years ago, but it wasn't consistent at all, so I would study a few weeks, or maybe a couple of months, and then go months without studying at all and by the time I decided to pick it up again, forgot so much I basically had to start all over (though a few basics were always still there!). When I picked it up again in 2020, I, fortunately, had a lot of free time (corona, obviously) and dedicated all of that to studying Japanese and since then, have been consistently sticking to it and that's when I actually started making progress.

So the short answer I always give people is that I've been studying since 2020 but I already had some basic knowledge at that point, meaning I didn't fully start from scratch.

2) I didn't start out by reading manga and also wouldn't recommend doing so. There are a lot of graded readers out there that I would recommend, or even better, my favorite and most helpful resource: Satori Reader. There are lots of stories on there that all come with audio so you can hear the pronunciation, and it also comes with an integrated dictionary feature, meaning you can click every single word and it will tell you what it means, including entire grammar explanations. Plus, you can add words to your own personal deck to study again later.

I highly recommend Satori Reader for the start, because it really helped me get used to reading whole paragraphs and since the vocab/grammar is explained in context, it's easier than looking them up online or in a generic dictionary.

As for when I actually started reading manga? Pretty much when I was around your level, so while studying N4 material. This brings me to the next question of what the challenges were -

3) When starting to read, the most important thing is making sure it's suitable for your level. If you google "japanese manga for beginners" there are a lot of recommendations. Personally, I started with yotsuba& because it's about a little girl and her day-to-day life. That way you "only" have everyday vocab, unlike with other genres that may have more specific vocab (i.e. if there's fighting, there's everyday vocab AND additional fighting-related words, etc.) so it's a lot easier.

4) Okay, I feel like I already answered this above lol, but hmmm I would say your teacher is right. Most people recommend using comprehensible input, which means consuming content that you understand roughly 80-90% of. That way, you will always learn something, but it won't be overwhelming.

I do think, though, that starting to consume content in your target language will always be overwhelming at first, so if you just make yourself aware of the fact that you won't understand everything and that that's okay, you're good and it's gonna be better than if you waited longer to ensure that you understood more.

Especially when watching anime or tv shows (and also with manga of course) having the visuals is also always going to help you, so even if you didn't understand a lot, you'd be able to follow the story due to the visuals.

Reading is easier, though, because you can just go at your own pace so I agree that focusing on reading more at first is better.

So, I guess to sum it up: honestly? I say just go for it! Start reading, go slow and you'll immediately notice what you're struggling with. Write down any new words + grammar and make sure to study those after. You will also learn so much and it's gonna be easier to remember because you learned it in context and a lot of words and grammar points will just come up repeatedly so you will remember them sooner or later through that constant exposure.

Anyway, I hope this helped! But also feel free to ask more if you have any other questions :)

#ask #not bnha

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langvillage · 4 years

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Langblr Gang Presents

Langblr Gang Year End 90 Day Challenge #tl90days

While the year feels unending we can assure you, 2020 will be ending, quite soon actually!

With everything going on this year, studying your target language may have gotten pushed aside. We are inviting you to join us in a 90 day challenge, starting from 2 October 2020 and running till 31 December 2020, to close out the year strong and set a good foundation of learning and progress in your target language into the new year.

The challenges will be weekly as opposed to daily, but will feature tasks you can complete daily if you are up for it! The goal for these 90 days will be to learn vocab, grammar, culture, and to practice speaking. We know, speaking is the toughest for a lot of us, but we’re all in this together.

That is all for now! The first weekly challenge will be posted a couple days in advance to accommodate for time zones, so keep your eyes peeled.

#langblrgang #tl90days #langblr #langblr challenge

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rigelmejo · 4 years

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Unrelated completely, regarding listening reading method:

I am genuinely so excited to test the listening reading method out wholeheartedly. When I looked up the method, few people were trying it with Chinese, and of the people I saw a lot were beginners with less vocabulary than I have which I think both made the task harder for them and made their progress look different than I imagine mine will.

For example, in my first attempts using listening reading method, I noticed I picked up a TON of words I could already read, and a TON of phrases I could already read but didn’t properly “chunk” until I heard them aloud. Whereas the beginners tended to document picking up entirely new words, and not understanding much of any paragraph for the first several chapters. Whereas again, because I had more vocabulary, my first chapters I listening reading method did I heard a TON of individual words/followed the main gist, and it took several chapters for me to start finally understanding full phrase chunks and sentence chunks together. I 100% think the listening reading method can work with mandarin, I just think since few people have tried it and shared the experience, I’m going to find out how much it can improve someone’s mandarin myself...

I saw people who did listening reading method with german, and Dutch, who like the creator of the method ended up going from 0 to B1-B2 listening and sometimes-reading* skill in 3-5 months (reading skill tended to depend on how much they focused on the actual text during target language audio/target language text portion). The people with the most success usually already had a foundation of several hundred or a couple thousand common words, and had seen some grammar summarized beforehand (both of which I have already done with mandarin). I’m extremely curious how far the listening reading method can take my reading skills specifically - since the method mainly improves listening, and reading is simply affected a bit as a consequence of picking up new words/reading target language text along with the audio during one of the steps. With Chinese I suspect I’ll have to do more Hanzi learning, and reading-only work like intensive reading, to supplement my reading skills. However I already do a lot of intensive reading, so maybe that will keep the skills relatively even.

I do know that only couple dozen hours of listening reading method already boosted my listening skills a TON. So listening reading method definitely improves listening skills, as it is intended to. The actual method suggests learners listen read through an entire novel in a week or two, then do another novel etc, at least 3 novels though potentially more - and redoing some novels again from the start if desired. For my kind of novels - like Guardian by Priest, that means 106+ chapters, 800+ pages, 30 minutes audio a chapter (53 hours for the English text-chinese audio portion, another 53 hours for the Chinese text-chinese audio portion, and lets say half as many hours to read it in English 26.5 hours). So that is 132.5+ hours to listen read to Guardian. The listening reading method assumes you do a few books, so let’s say around 3 books, 396 hours (roughly 400 hours). Well... no wonder people saw such improvements! 400 hours of listening to comprehensible input in a European language will get an English speaker quite far into learning. Most European languages according to FSI take around 600-750 hours for an English native speaker to learn. Listening reading method would fill a huge chunk of those hours, and if you focus on the reading portion too, then that should definitely at least be a solid foundation into B1 I can imagine.

Listening reading methods creator also tends to do these in 6-12 hour reading bursts per day - which I absolutely never do because I’m lazy and unable to focus on things for too long usually without switching things up. But like I’ve mentioned, even me just doing maybe 12 hours of listening reading method so far, in small 30 minute to 2 hour chunks, has been enough to make noticeable improvement in my listening comprehension. If someone is already intermediate and just wants to improve their listening skill, I think they’d see fast results like I have regarding their listening skill dragging up closer to their reading skill level.

When I read the listening reading method creators website, they sounded like 10 hours was about how long it took (for beginners in a language) to start parsing individual words and recognizing them, 30 hours to start hearing word chunks and phrases they could understand, and 60-100 hours to start comprehending a majority of the words.

I am therefore very curious what my rate of improvement will be. I do feel chinese study using the listening reading method at least for listening skills will see similar levels of improvement. I’m wondering if my listening skills will improve a bit faster, since I’m already past the “progress at 30 hours” mark expectations wise - I can hear many individual words, can hear many sentence chunks/phrases, and just struggle to follow some full sentences and catch brand new words until I’ve heard them several times. I do very much want to completely go through Guardian with this method - for many reasons lol. 1. Because I’ve been wanting to read it in english and I’ll have a chance to use that for study which is cool, 2. Because I’ve been wanting to read it in chinese and this makes it doable/more comprehensible for my current skill level (aka following along to the audiobook I will read at a less slow pace/comprehend more since the English will be fresh in my mind, compared to if I just read it extensively on its own), 3. Avenuex made a beautiful audiobook I adore and I’ll have an excuse to listen to it while actually comprehending everything since I’ll have the English and Chinese novel to look at while o read! So... once I’m through Guardian, I’ll be able to answer for myself what over 100 hours of progress doing the listening reading method produce, how well it works when using a book with a more complicated/high vocab style - which is sort of priest, reading challenge wise, and the kind of novel the listening reading method creator recommends using. Also, I’ll have read Guardian! ovo)/ and I will have read a full priest novel, so I’ll have picked up words by my favorite author that will hopefully make other priest novels easier to read (the same reason Tian Ya Ke may be helpful).

———-

Another thing people who have tried the listening reading method suggest doing first (particularly if studying a language much different than your native language, but for any language tbh). The creator of the method suggested: knowing a few hundred to a few thousand common words, and having looked at a grammar guide or overview prior. That’s something anyone who’s already a bit of a beginner, to low intermediate, probably has done or is doing. In addition, some people who have done this method suggested using something like sentence audio flashcards (in English and target language audio) and listening to them a few times, repeating them, until one felt comfortable with them. Generally common word/grammar ones, and you could do “listening reading” with those sentences too (reading them while listening to the audio). This would serve as a primer to learn the basics comfortably before going into listening reading novels. They suggested doing yjis would make the method work better - they got to B2 in Dutch in a handful of months of intensive listening reading by doing this beforehand and they think it helped a lot. While I think it’s not necessary, I do think of listening reading is hard, then getting a basis beforehand as a beginner and/or covering a easier basics common language material first will help. I use the Chinese SpoonFed Audio files which basically amounts to the same thing but no reading (if I used the flashcards still, it would include reading). So I do have some sentences/phrases/words I have a good listening foundation for already. Also, as mentioned, I do read, so for many common words and Hanzi I already can read them. I do think this advice is very good for beginners though, if they want to see noticable results sooner (versus 30-50 hours into listening reading before they start learning significant amounts - basically it just means they’d do 30-50 hours prestudy instead of basic common words/grammar, to make the listening reading initially less difficult). A total beginner could dive right into listening reading (just like my chaotic self first started to try to read Chinese knowing 500 words and brute forcing mdzs and guardian a few paragraphs at a time), it just means it’ll feel more difficult at first for a while, and they’ll be mostly learning basics for a while first before they build enough of a basis to comprehend more. Which is fine. It all just comes down to how much incompréhensibilty can you personally tolerate without giving up. The creator of the method? Can tolerate a TON. Me? I can tolerate a brutally large amount, surprisingly, but usually I need to comprehend had least the main idea and that’s a minimum of like 40-60% depending on which parts I’m comprehending. Most people will feel it’s unbearable until they can comprehend at least 80-90% (and I certainly PREFER material I comprehend that much of). And most people ideally are comfortable once they understand 95-98% (think reading a book in your native language with some unknown words you can figure out easily from context, or graded readers made to feel this easy with around this many unknown words for you to figure out in context, or maybe manhua/manga/comics once you’re a pretty decent intemediate level in a language etc).

#January progress #listening reading method #rant #I am genuinely like #so excited #as soon as I’m in the right mood to do it #I can’t wait to #because it’s just like a bunch of stuff I wanna do #!!!!!!#and I really do think the method has merit #since I discovered it and at the Least #combined some of its points into my regular study routine and reading #it’s improved my listening skills a LOT

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omoi-no-hoka · 4 years

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Hey! I saw your blog today and I love it very much!! I see you're an open person so, I also have a question: HOW does one survive studying japanese at uni?? I'm in my first year and only my second (online haha) semester and we started out with Minna no nihongo 1 but we're supposed to finish Minna 2 by the end of this semester, same with Basic Kanji book 1 in the first sem and now Basic Kanji Book 2, all while also learning mostly of Japan's history and others in this semester. Exams will kill me

Hello! I’m glad you’re enjoying my blog! I am open to a fault lol. Let me recount my meandering journey through uni, illustrating my feelings through gifs of Noel Fielding because he is my celebrity crush.

Uni is such a difficult time for so many people, trying to figure out who you are now and who you want to be later. It wasn’t until my senior year that I realized what I wanted to do. I started writing out my university experience and it got super long, so allow me to just summarize my “Lessons Learned” here and you can read the rest if you want to know all the dirty deets lol. I double-majored in Japanese and English, so I think that my experience can perhaps be useful to people who are majoring in things other than Japanese as well.

Hard-Learned Lessons from Uni

Do not choose a course of study because it is “practical.” Choose it because it is something you love. Seriously. Nothing is more important than this point. Do not choose a major because “I’ll make a lot of money” or “My parents are telling me this is good for me.”

If you are learning multiple languages at once, you must give your brain time to organize what you learned from one language lesson before moving on to the next. You can do this by waiting a couple hours between lessons, getting up and walking around, studying one language in different space from the other, etc. Otherwise, it all becomes a terrible mess in your head.

It’s okay not to know what you want your career to be. It’s okay not to have a specific plan. Life works out one way or the other.

I know how expensive uni can be. (It’s been six years since I graduated and I’m still making hefty loan payments.) But don’t feel like you have to take a full courseload every single semester and graduated asap, particularly if the classes are hard and/or you are working. I took the maximum credit hours allowed every semester on top of working RIDICULOUS hours and it nearly killed me at one point. I’m not kidding.

It is not unusual to have an identity crisis and/or mental breakdown. Take care of yourself. Know when you are nearing breaking point. Seek out the help of professionals. Most universities have psychiatrists and therapists that will see you very cheaply.

Surround yourself with good people and look out for each other.

Do not rely on substances to ease your suffering because sometimes the remedy becomes the malady. Not saying you should avoid all parties or anything square like that, but just don’t be one of those people that parties every night and gets in over their head.

Let me preface this by stating that I’m an American, and our universities are stupid because they force us to take a ton of “general education” courses that are irrelevant to our majors, and many students spend their first couple years taking only a couple courses related to their majors and minors, and try to focus on getting those stupid gen eds out of the way.

Year 1: Oh Shit, This Is Harder Than I Thought It Would Be

I come from a town of less than 2600 people. Our high school prepared its students for the following career paths:

joining the military (boys only)

becoming a farmer (boys only)

welding, carpentry, or other practical jobs (boys only)

becoming a housewife (girls only)

So basically I coasted through high school never having to study anything because it was one great big joke, only I thought I was like super duper smart because I was in the top five of my graduating class of 48. LOLLLLLLLLL

I entered university as a German major, Japanese minor. (Japanese was not offered as a major at my uni). I had never studied German previously, but I studied Spanish and French in high school and I just had this feeling that German and Japanese were the languages for me.

The first semester, I had Japanese 101 and German 101 back to back, in the EXACT SAME CLASSROOM. I can’t stress enough how much of a mindfuck it was to go from thinking about Japanese for 50 minutes, having a 10 minute break, and then trying to switch your brain to German. IN THE SAME ROOM. It actually gave me headaches to try and make that mental jump. Managed to pull through the year with A’s in both, but German was much more of a challenge to me than Japanese. Which was really unexpected.

I also flunked several gen eds because I didn’t give a shit about them and skipped them and got placed on academic probation and was nearly kicked out of uni because of my poor grades

Basically, I was such a weeb that I had watched enough anime with subtitles and sung along to enough anime songs that I had absorbed about 90% of the first year’s worth of Japanese vocab and grammar through osmosis. I really did have the power of God and anime on my side.

Year 2: The Year of the Mid-Midlife Crisis and Mental Breakdown

There really is no gif that will encapsulate the level of turmoil I went through that year. I looked really hard for one, trust me.

It became apparent very quickly that I could not keep up with German. I ended up dropping it early in the first semester, which meant I had to choose a new major. Thinking of what would be practical to pair with a Japanese minor, I went for International Business for a semester, took Accounting, and realized that I HATE The Man, corporate bullshit, and also numbers as a concept.

All I knew at this point was that I liked Japanese but couldn’t make it a major. I also knew I didn’t want to transfer universities. So I kept taking gen eds, just barely passing them because to this day I cannot bring myself to put effort into something I do not care about, and also taking more classes related to my Japanese minor. It was the Japanese classes that saved my GPA and kept me from getting kicked out of uni.

At the same time, I took a creative writing course because that’s been a hobby of mine since elementary school, and I kinda thought about an English major, but then was like, “Eww I don’t wanna be forced to read books I don’t give a shit about. And also, what will I do with that degree?”

Also, at the same time, I was working full time, and often getting stuck working from 2 pm to 7 am (Yes, 15-hour shifts, because the overnight dude would call in sick last minute and I’d be begged to cover his shift), and then dragging myself to classes and drooling on the desks because I’d fall asleep.

Also also, I started to have possible hallucinations? To this day I don’t know what was going on, but either I was legitimately going crazy, or there was a demon following me around and being quite rude to me, making light fixtures fall and shatter inches from my head, throwing papers around my room, opening and closing doors, turning lights off and on, coming to me in dreams and doing some really, really traumatic things to me in them, and just standing in corners staring at me at all hours of the night. Had me so scared that towards the end of the school year I was waiting to sleep until sunrise, when it would go away. And no, I was not using any mind-altering substances of any sort. Not even going out and getting drunk.

So, yeah. Year Two was a hard one that I can’t believe I pushed through. Probably the darkest year of my life, I’d say. What got me through it? An unhealthy amount of energy drinks, friends, and my love of Japanese. Also Aerosmith.

Do I still see that demon? No. He vanished when the school year ended and I moved out of the dorms. Do I believe in the supernatural? Yes, to an extent. Do I think that what I was seeing was actually a demon? I honestly don’t know. I have had actual supernatural experiences verified by multiple witnesses, and a few years before Year 2, several friends and myself had seen an entity similar to what was following me around. But this one in Year 2 only did things when I was alone. So it could have all been in my head, and I will never know.

Since then, I have been diagnosed with general anxiety and also a form of insomnia that keeps me from sleeping through the night, and I know that my anxiety manifests itself in psychosomatic ways. In other words, my mind will take my anxiety and turn it into a physical symptom that feels real in every way, but is actually not occurring. So far it’s manifested as: sensitivity to sunlight, the symptoms of a stroke or heart attack, half of my face going numb, and headaches in my left eye. Once I realize that the symptom is just my anxiety, I can force myself to ignore and overcome it. But then my anxiety finds a new form to manifest, and the cycle repeats a few months later. It could be that my stress caused me to see this demon for a while.

Should I have consulted a psychiatrist and gotten help? YEP. If you find yourself struggling like that, seek help please. 💕

Year 3: Adrift But Afloat

I moved out of the dorms and into an apartment with my best friend, a Japanese girl I met in the dorms freshman year. I will call her Setsuko. Setsuko is basically the reason I graduated uni. She memorized my class schedules and took copies of exam dates, woke me up, forced me to go classes instead of skipping, forced me to go to the library and study with her, and cooked me dinner most days since she didn’t have to work like I did. I can’t express enough how much she did to improve my life outside of school and work, and how much that improved my mental health. She also acclimated me to lots of subtle things about Japanese culture just by living with her, and this helped me later when I moved to Japan. Thank you, Setsuko. 一生の恩人。

I was still doing those bullshit 15-hour overnight shifts way more than I should have, and also had the maximum courseload.

The Japanese classes got a lot more difficult in Year 3. But I loved them. They were the only classes I never skipped. I took more classes towards the minor like Buddhist Philosophy and Japanese History, which I really enjoyed. While polishing off more gen eds, I thought over what to do with my major.

My family and friends all told me that I should become an English teacher. I had always been good at words and at explaining things. But I didn’t really like the idea of being a high school teacher. I became an English major, though, because I knew that I didn’t hate English. Took grammar classes and HOLY SHIT did I hit my stride.

I realized that I didn’t like English lit. I liked linguistics. So I focused heavily on all grammar and linguistics courses, taking the bare minimum of literature courses required for the major. My GPA improved substantially.

Yet I still was consumed with this nagging fear. It was Year 3 and I still had no fucking idea what I wanted to do when I graduated.

Year 4: Clarity At The 11th Hour

Urged on by my “Don’t you dare get one of those stupid arts degrees that won’t get you a paycheck” parents, I decided that the most “practical” degree would not be “English,” but “English Education.” I began taking the English Ed classes with linguistics, grammar, and second language acquisition classes. The goal was to become a qualified English high school teacher who could also do ESL (since I had Spanish and Japanese under my belt more or less).

At the same time, I entered into Independent Study for Japanese with two other students. We were tasked with reading Izu no Odoriko, a classic short story. Independent study was its own beast. It required a lot more concentration and work on my part, obviously. But because Japanese was my first and foremost passion, I centered my efforts on those courses, and then on the others.

The process of getting certified to be an English teacher was lengthy and expensive in my state. This meant my graduation would be further prolonged, and I was worried about money, because I was already about $50,000 in debt at the time, despite working those fucking overnight shifts all the time that were eating me alive.

Then, during the summer vacation when my 4th year ended, I got a scholarship and went to Japan to study abroad. Education majors had the option to study abroad in several countries, and as luck would have it, one of them was Japan, and it was Setsuko’s HOMETOWN! The study abroad program itself was the first month of summer vacation, and Setsuko said, “Okay, just come stay at my house for the rest of summer vacation!”

Never have I said “yes” quicker in my entire life.

On the train headed from Sapporo to the town where I would be actually staying during my studies, I looked at the lush rice paddies and mountains in the distance and my entire heart just hummed with this “This is where you’re meant to be.” I knew then and there that I would move to Japan upon graduation.

What would I do there? Well, teach English, obviously.

My three months in Japan effectively aligned my entire life. My path had materialized before me. It was a roughly hacked, hard-to-see path through thick underbrush, but I could see it nonetheless.

Year 5: Let’s Hurry It Up, I’m Ready To Live

Come Year 5, all of my Japanese classmates that had been with me since freshman year were gone and I was alone. My professor taught me Classical Japanese through independent study, and it was the must grueling course I took my entire five years there. But I found it invaluable and am eternally grateful to him for teaching me, because you see Classical Japanese a lot more than you’d think you would in everyday life. Particularly in formal settings.

I still wanted to get certified to teach English in American high schools, because while I knew I wanted to go to Japan for now, I didn’t know if I wanted to spend my entire life there and I wanted a solid job opportunity when I came back to the states at some point.

However, the more education courses I took, the more I saw that the American education system was just as full of red-tape and The Man’s bullshit as corporate America, something else I rebuke with every fiber of my being. I also realized I’d need to take a 6th year of university, and that just wasn’t financially feasible for me. So I switched to a plain old English major with a heavy focus on linguistics and second language acquisition, and continued classical Japanese.

I took the remaining 3 gen eds online in the summer, graduated, popped up to Chicago to do a month-long intensive course to get the CELTA (Certificate in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages issued by Cambridge.) It’s the most widely accepted and revered certification for teaching English as a foreign language.

So in the span of five years, I graduated with a Bachelor’s Degree in English with a focus in linguistics and SLA, and what is technically a major in Japanese Studies. 40 credit hours were required for a major, and I completed 42 credit hours tied to my minor, so while it isn’t listed on my diploma as a major, I did the coursework. I also got a CELTA Pass B, which only 20% of applicants achieve and never expires. The grand total for all of this was roughly $100,000 USD in loans.

Post-Graduation

The week I came back to my hometown from Chicago with my CELTA in hand, I packed my suitcases, threw a going-away party, and then flew to Sapporo, where I began my first job after uni, teaching English to children aged 0-18 at a private English conversation school. I did that for three years before changing careers and becoming a Japanese-English translator/interpreter for a global company.

So how useful have my choices during university proven to be?

I’m sure I don’t have to explain that studying Japanese helps me tons with translating Japanese to English or living in Japan lol

Studying English grammar, linguistics, sociolinguistics, and second language acquisition has allowed me to recognize minute nuances that can make the difference between a successful and unsuccessful business negotiation when interpretation is necessary.

My background in education also means that I know how to present information clearly, concisely, and in a way that engages the audience. I am known as “The PowerPoint Pro” at work lol.

I also have a keen eye for performance evaluation, behavior analysis, and improvement action plans.

I offered English conversation lessons to coworkers for over a year, and now that is being done in other branches across the company! (Well, they were before COVID haha.)

I DO NOT RECOMMEND WORKING THE HOURS I WORKED WHILE IN SCHOOL. My grades suffered and I wish I had worked less and focused more on classes. However, by working 15-hour shifts and doing full days of classes, I developed a very good tolerance for overtime, which comes in handy in the Japanese workplace. Just last month I had three 15 hour days in the same week. Sweet, sweet overtime pay.

All of these facets have culminated in me earning a pretty nice promotion to 正社員 seishain back in February, which means I get nice benefits and basically my job is guaranteed until I die or the company goes under.

Should I decide to return to America someday, I will probably not go into the education field. Too much red tape. I will likely continue translation/interpretation for companies, because it isn’t too difficult and pays well. Though ideally I’d love to just make a living sharing cool information about Japanese and stuff, and maybe writing those stories that are bouncing around in my head when I should be working haha.

Do I think the debt is worth it?

Well, I don’t think I had any other option than to take out those loans. I didn’t have the means to learn the things I wanted to learn unless I went to university.

Unless Japanese work visa requirements have changed, you are required to have a bachelor’s degree in order to obtain my sub-type of work-visa, so I needed a degree of some kind no matter what.

Frankly, if I hadn’t gone to that university and met my best friend Setsuko, I don’t think I’d be where I am right now, living the life I am now. So just having met her is worth any price to me.

Paying off all the loans is daunting, especially when yen is weak to the dollar. There were months I had to ask my parents for help, especially early on. But now I’ve got multiple loans paid off, my salary has increased, and the “omg i have money and no supervision so I can buy whatever I want” idiocy has mostly gone away. But I did get a super sweet pair of blindingly silver Converses a couple days ago that I definitely didn’t need

Do I have any regrets regarding my time at university?

I still regret dropping Old English for a stupid English Ed class. Seriously, how cool would that have been? But I still have the textbook, workbook, and I contacted the professor last week and she was kind enough to send me a syllabus. God bless her. So now I’m working on that bit by bit, which is fun.

I wish I hadn’t been such a cocky, naive idiot my first year. Thinking I could just “show up for tests” was the stupidest thing. It messed up my GPA, and my parents forbade me from retaking classes so I couldn’t go back and fix my mistakes. I think I graduated with a 3.4 overall GPA out of 4, but my English major GPA was 3.9 and my Japanese GPA was 4.0. So it’s pretty frustrating to have those gen eds and my dumbfuckery mar my transcript like that.

I really didn’t party at all. Most all of my friends were straight-laced Japanese exchange students, and I was also working ridiculous hours so I just didn’t really have the time. A part of me feels like I missed out on that part of the college experience.

Recently I’ve been putting more effort into improving my creative writing by reading a lot of books on the subject. Not a small part of me wishes that I had gone with a Creative Writing major instead of English major, because I still would have studied all the grammar and linguistics. Then again, I do believe that creative writing can be self-taught.

I wish I hadn’t worked as much as I did. There were a lot of times I couldn’t complete assignments or I missed lectures because I was just so drained. It wasn’t even good money.

Well...I did not intend for this post to become as long as it has. I’ve been cooped up in my apartment with nothing but two goldfish for company for over a month now and I think I’m a bit stir-crazy. Thank you to anyone and everyone who bothered to read all of this and become my therapist for a bit haha. Love you all. Stay safe and well. 💖

#study japanese #learn japanese #university #college #study tips #mental health #love you all #asks are open #stay well #noodle-of-sunshine #noel fielding #studyblr #college study tips #university struggles #college struggles #study english #study english education #study linguistics

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thatwritergirlsblog · 5 years

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How my English degree helps me with creative writing

I've had a lot of questions regarding my English literature degree, and most of them come down to whether it was worth it for someone pursuing a career as an author of fiction. Rather than answering that question head on (because it's subjective), I'm going to explain the ways in which that degree does help me in my writing:

1. Well-read

When you are an English lit major, you have to read A LOT. I love reading, but I have never read as much as I did in those three years of studies.

I truly believe that the best way to improve your writing is to read, which means that anything that forces you to read a lot of fiction is going to help with your writing.

Another bonus is that I had to read widely, exploring genres that I wouldn't necessarily have read on my own. And cross-pollination is extremely important is you want your stories to be well-rounded.

It also forced me to read with attention and to interact with the text. When you're reading a book for university, you have to pay attention to each sentence. It teaches you to read in a much deeper way, which sticks around long after you've finished your degree.

2. Themes

Not everyone wants their writing to address a real-world issue. Not everyone wants to change the world with their writing. But a lot of authors do - and I am one of them.

My major was technically called "English literary and cultural studies", because every book we studied was linked to social justice/humanitarian issues.

Analyzing books in these ways made me understand my own writing from the perspective of a literary critic.

Not only did it give me ideas for important themes I'd like to address in my writing, it showed me how to do that.

I have a much deeper understanding of using diction, metaphors, motifs, allegory, characterisation etc in to get a theme across without sacrificing story.

And I utilize this skill every time I write.

3. Confidence

This one is very subjective. So, I'm just going to share my experience.

Writing is a thankless job. You don't often get recognition or validation and it can become taxing.

So, when I did a creative writing elective and my stories were highlighted by the lecturer, and I got 90% for my final project, my confidence grew tenfold.

Yes, I did well in creative essays in high school and I performed well in some writing competitions, but that wasn't a patch on how I felt after being validated by someone with a PhD in creative writing. (I know this sounds elitist, but that's what I felt)

It's amazing to have that assurance, to know that my writing talent isn't just in my head. It's not just my mom telling me I'm good and me going on and on believing that I am.

Furthermore, having a degree in English literature makes me feel so much more equipped to share my writing advice. Yes, having that degree by no means makes me an expert on writing, but it offers a sense of credibility that I wouldn't have experienced otherwise.

4. Vocabulary

So, none of my classes ever involved language studies. We weren't given vocab lists to study.

But, my vocabulary improved sooooo much. That's because I was in a class, every single day, where highly-trained academics were speaking about intellectual topics.

There are so many words I came into contact with that I would maybe have read in a book once if I'd never done my degree.

This helped immensely in being able to express myself clearly, in knowing the precise words I need to get a point across. Even in everyday conversation, I find myself using strong words rather than babbling in an attempt to express my thoughts. (Most of these words are ones that most people know, but wouldn't necessarily think of when engaging in everyday conversation)

This also really helps when writing, since precise expression is extremely important in fiction. If you can use one good word rather than four ordinary ones, your prose will thank you for it.

And no, I'm not talking about chugging out synonyms like a walking thesaurus and using high-brow words. Just words like "juvenile" or "ephemeral" etc. These are words I knew before, but that wouldn't have come to mind spontaneously, as they do now.

5. Time management

This isn't specific to studying English, but rather applies to all somewhat-challenging tertiary qualifications.

I was doing my pre-law degree whilst majoring in English, being in a sorority, and working on my WIP. It was hectic.

But it taught me (to a degree) how to handle more than one project/priority at a time.

I'm nowhere near being an expert on time management, but I'm better than I was before university.

And, since most writers do not write full-time, this is a useful skill to have.

That's it. There are probably other things, but it's difficult to know what contributed to which aspects of your current knowledge/skill, since 18-30 is a period of many changes and lessons. But I hope that this can answer some of your questions :)

Reblog if you found these tips useful. Comment with how your own studies/experiences helped with you writing. Follow me for similar content.

#writing #writeblr #writers #write #writing advice #writing's hard #writerblr #writing community #life of a writer #amwriting #writer #writing tips #writers of tumblr

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wilstudies · 5 years

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Get a grade 9 in a language GCSE!

Please note:

1. These tips are almost entirely applicable to any AQA language at GCSE. 2. Modern Foreign Languages at GCSE Level is anywhere from A2 to B1 (dependant on the tier and grade) on the CEFR scale, but, there is no official equivalent.

In November 2018, whilst in Year 10, my teacher saw that I was excelling in French, with my extensive knowledge of tenses and idioms. So, she proposed that I’d do the January mocks, alongside Year 11, despite not knowing more than half of the subject content. Then we’d see where I’d go from there.

I followed the AQA exam board, higher paper. Specification. You can find the Kerboodle textbook I used, here.

Here’s what I did:

Throughout the year, I was also studying the Year 10 content (Theme 1 - Identity and culture) in class.

In my own time, each month I’d cover one or two units, completing the more challenging activities on each page of the textbook. Luckily, each unit was only 4 double-page spreads long.

In January I completed my mocks. This was the first time I had ever sat in an exam hall, so it was really daunting to be doing it with a bunch of kids who were older than me, even though I knew I had enough knowledge. Overall, I got a secure grade 8, in my mocks, despite not knowing half of the course content.

I also did “pre-exam mocks”, two weeks before each exam. These consisted of specimen papers which are notoriously harder, so my results looked almost exactly the same as past papers, which was upsetting as I couldn’t see that I’d actually improved. But practice is practice!

MY ACTUAL GCSE RESULT:

With a lot of work. I managed to achieve a grade 9 (the top mark, higher than an A*), which was insane. I’m so, so proud of myself, and grateful for all of the teachers that supported me!!!

^Edit from 25/08/2019.

LISTENING

In my opinion, listening is based purely on practice and knowing the exam technique that works for you.

To practice:

frenchpod101 intermediate listening comprehension

Going through every specimen track and listening activity I could find - pausing it after each sentence, saying it once in French, then translating it into English. I’d do this in the shower, on the way to school, wherever.

Know your vocab!

My exam technique:

In the 5 minutes reading time: underline keywords and themes in the questions. This time goes very quickly, but I’d also try to jot down a few synonyms in the French section too.

Multiple choice questions: the process of elimination; key vocab; negative and positive tonality and opinion words - watch out for negative structures!

Completing the sentences: note down words said in French or translate each sentence into English in your head, then remember it when it comes to writing it down.

French section: fill each sentence with key French words that you hear. Don’t worry about accents, unless it helps you determine the word.

Remember each track plays twice.

READING

The January Mock: I didn’t know much of the course content, so I struggled with the translation. I also circled and placed a question mark near any words I didn’t know, as it was a mock and my teacher would be able to note down any translations for me. I think what boosted my grade, to a 9 for this paper, was knowledge of grammar.

T/F/NM questions are usually a gamble. Just look for explicit information and know your negative formations.

Texts change their minds often: look out for counter-arguments and opposing exclamations

Use the method of elimination for multiple choice: rule out if there’s no mention. Be wary that a text can mention an option, but say it wasn’t that.

Texts often refer to things mentioned prior.

If you know a certain type of texts are your kryptonite (it was the classical stories with dialogue, for me), then download as many of that genre as you can. Understand the way speech and dialogue works, and the structure, before you tackle the vocab.

Many say skim read and don’t read the whole thing, but I found it easier to translate big chunks in my head as I went along and lightly annotate each text, which just comes with practice.

WRITING

Top tip: don’t go any more than 10% over word limits!!!!!!! Teachers say they have to mark all of it - no they don’t. If you do double the word limit, your last few bullet points could come after the cut-off point, cutting off access to half of the marks!!!

90 WORD - 99 words maximum! About 20-25 words per bullet point.

150 WORD - 165 words maximum! About 75 words per bullet point.

Which brings me to mention, that you must cover every bullet point: those are your content marks, which cover about half the marks of each question.

90 WORD Question (16 marks)

Content - 10 marks: Making sure your writing covers each bullet point enough.

Quality of Language - 6 marks: Using interesting vocabulary, such as “malheureusement”.

Stick to about one page.

If you’re giving an opinion, great, just stop there. If you explain it too much, you risk going over your word limit.

150 WORD Question (32 marks)

Content - 15 marks: Every. Bullet. Point. Detailed.

Range of Language - 12 marks: get in those adjectives, idioms and grammatical structures!

Accuracy - 5 marks: correct basic tense conjugations (present, past, future simple/future proche)

In order to hit all of these I came up with a mnemonic checklist, and it scored me full marks in a specimen paper I did for my teacher! And I made it into a cute phone background, so I’d start to remember it, I still can now, hehe! You can find it here. If that doesn’t work, then download it here.

SPEAKING

Know your question words! (x)

For the roleplay and photocard, my teacher printed off me a load of practice cards in bulk and annotated two or three every day, using the planning techniques mentioned below.

Roleplay - 2 minutes; can be any theme.

When planning, try to avoid writing out answers, but just keywords and gaps for you to fill in with pronouns or articles etc.

Keep it brief, one sentence per bullet point, but cover each part of each bullet point.

Photo card - 3 minutes (aim to speak for at least 2).

Plan with a small spider-diagram of nouns, opinions, anecdotes etc. for each known question.

Use one or two prepped anecdotes for the prepared questions - e.g. where you went last year, who with, what you did.

For the unknown questions, keep it short and sweet and fill up any time with opinions and reasoning.

General conversation - 5-7 minutes.

Lie and make up stories! Be creative and use the words and structures you know.

I was a little extra and I prepared every theme as flashcards. You can’t get away with only revising your chosen theme!

I made flashcards that could cover several types of questions: I had bullet points of topics and keywords on one side and a sample paragraph on the other.

Pretty sure I made about 80 flashcards oops.

I also went through the mark scheme and see which areas I could secure marks in and which areas I needed to improve.

VOCAB

Learning vocab is SO important!

I started by making spreadsheets of jumbled word lists from the specification and doing a colour-coded match up.

You can access a pdf of all of the vocab grids here. There might be the odd word missing due to copy-pasting errors, but if so, don’t stress, just look it up in a dictionary and note it down - sorry in advance!!!

Then with the vocab that I had to look up in a dictionary, I added to a Quizlet and wrestled it into my noggin.

You can find the Quizlet here.

Remember that:

sauf - except

puisque - since

presque - almost

GRAMMAR

To me, learning tenses was like learning formulae for maths. So find a way to learn rules like that, if it’s easier for you.

e.g. Conditional Tense = subject + (future/conditional stem + imperfect ending)*

*note that future stems are the same as conditional stems.

Know your DRMRSPVANDERTRAMP verbs, and their past participles. These verbs go with ÊTRE and always agree with the subject.

Know your auxiliary and irregular verbs.

MUST KNOW: avoir, être, aller, faire, vouloir

HELPFUL: devoir, pouvoir, vivre, boire, voir, dire, savoir

OTHERS: mettre, prendre, venir, écrire, lire, recevoir

I learnt these by making flashcards, and then brain dumping them on paper over and over again until they stuck - my teacher thought I was insane, madly scribbling away.

Memorise some key structures that can be used in writing and speaking.

If you want 7+ structures, find them here.

MISC TIPS

Always write notes about improvements and errors in practice papers and mocks.

Find a native french internet friend.

In my opinion, music, movies and TV shows aren’t great for revision. However, if you begin to understand them, they are a great confidence boost.

I highly recommend the Skam France series, which you can find with and without les sous-titres (subtitles) here.

And here’s my french music playlist on Spotify.

MORE ASSISTANCE

I’m happy to offer my assistance to anybody who needs it, pop me a dm or an ask if you think others will find it useful too.

Here’s some ways I could help:

Finding some resources about a certain topic (videos, worksheets, mindmaps) - I have them all backed up hehe

Sending you some of my past answers

Sending you pdf of my general conversation/irregular verb table flashcards

Marking practice answers

Talking to you in french

Etc. etc.

Thank you for reading! Please reblog to help any others that might find this useful. If any of the links are faulty, please pop me a dm, and I’ll get them sorted asap!! 🥐

-Wil x

#french #gcse #langblr #studyblr #study #gcses #french language #lovelybluepanda #wilstudies #studies #etudier #francais #emmastudies #a level #b2 #b1 #cefr #masterpost #masterlist #advice #a2

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linguafrencha · 1 year

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Day 37

Воля (noun, f.) - will

Отказать (verb, perf.)- to refuse

Оказаться (verb, perf.) - to turn out

Хранить (verb, imperf.) - to keep/store

Кожа (noun, f.) - skin

Вверх дном - upside down

Ранить (verb, either aspect) - to hurt/wound

Безразличный (adj.) - indifferent

Прощать (verb, imperf.) - to forgive

Вестись (verb, imperf.) - to be in progress

Напоказ -on display/for show

Достойный (adj.) - worthy

Ошибаться (verb, imperf) - to make mistakes

Прежде - before

Становиться (verb, imperf.) - to become

Song: Хорошая by ASAMMUELL

#langblr #langblog #learning russian #russian langblr #russian vocabulary #russian langblog #russian vocab #90 day vocab challenge

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blacklinguist · 5 years

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100 hours of French : COMPLETE!

I loathe French. I loathe it so much, because I’ve been trying to conquer it for five years, over five separate attempts [2014, 2015 in HS, 2016 preparing for CLEPs, late 2016 in class, 2018 over summer], and coming up empty every time. So, I decided to have a personal challenge, and reach B1 over 100 hours of quality studying, by May 1st.

Initially:

My CEFR level according to just an online test on Kwiziq:

... was a very low A2. nothing to write home about!

my passive grammar knowledge wasn’t much better:

What did I do?

As some of you already know, I had a system for getting my vocabulary back up to snuff, and its detailed methodology post can be found: right here. I started doing this a few weeks before I decided to shoot for 100 hours, and finished about three weeks before I hit 100 hours.

However, this isn’t all I did. Here’s how my study time broke down:

Listening comprehension: Around 50% of the 6000 minutes I spent studying [50 hours], were spent on listening comprehension. This was very important to me, because I had never been able to watch anything in French, or listen to anything, and understand it. I knew I was going to have spend a lot of time on pronunciation and French media. I still can’t watch a French movie without subtitles [obviously!], but I can listen to News in Slow French and understand around 80%? So that’s pretty cool.

how I strengthened listening comprehension:

Language Transfer: Introduction to French [6-8 minutes each]

Coffee Break French: Seasons 1-3 [15-25 minutes each]

News in Slow French [15-25 minutes each]

Movies + shows: I spent 25 hours watching stuff in French, and learning a lot of colloquial language and specialized vocabulary that I wouldn’t have stumbled upon myself! 90% of these, I also have vocabulary lists for [those helped me pay attention, pausing and writing down vocab to look up later].

things I watched:

French movies on Netflix: The African Doctor, Il A Tes Yeux

French series on Netflix: A Very Secret Service

Netflix Originals with French Audio and Subtitles: e.g. Watership Down, The Unicorn Store, How It Ends

Writing/grammar:

Most of my writing was covered with my vocabulary system. After that ended, I kept a language journal for the next month, with the starter post detailing what I would write about. Most of those posts can be found in my #language journal tag. Sometime in March, I also borrowed Teach Yourself: French Grammar from my library, because of all the resources I own myself... I have zero French stuff. I posted some notes from that book, and made a lot of reference posts in my language journal.

how I studied grammar:

Teach Yourself: French Grammar [there’s a newer version now, but I worked with the one I linked]

Lingolia: French [grammar site]

Lawless French [grammar site]

ElearningFrench [mini course based from FSI]

Français Avec Pierre [Youtube channel, he also has a blog and courses--i think those are paid--to see, 7-10 minute videos he does with his wife, all captioned!]

Laddering ! [for one week, I studied Japanese via a French course, so I got a lot of practice with that]

Discord server [Putting this here because I often posted questions and received help from my friends, so definitely have some way to check yourself!]

a lot of other things, but this was the majority of my grammar study..

When did I do this?

An unspoken rule for myself was that I didn’t want to actively study French past 8 pm. I usually studied from 9-11 am on weekdays. Some days I would keep going until 2 pm, but usually I had work. Occasionally, I’d study for half an hour or so on my lunch break. Then, another hour as I listened to podcasts on my commute.

In total, the challenge took 72 days, 11 of which I actually didn’t do anything, so more like 61. This means I averaged 1 hour and 38 minutes of French studying per day. I had zero desire to max myself out. I just wanted to make sure whatever I studied, I was paying attention! Plus, I needed time to prepare for work and keep up with my students in other languages, so having French on the brain all the time would’ve hindered me.

So, what about now?

Now, I test as this on the CEFR level:

and this is my grammar ranking:

Can we say, success?! I got back to B1, and not a LOW B1, but actually fairly decent ! I’m at the point now where I can write in French pretty quickly and, I’m right on the cusp of being able to explain my way around concepts that I don’t yet have the vocabulary for.

So yeah, challenge over! Now, I’m back to studying Japanese via French so that I can retain that knowledge, and I’ve switched my phone over to French. I need to get back to writing letters in French to keep up with that, but overall I’m very happy with my B1 again, and feel more confident in my skills.

If you have any questions, feel free to shoot me an ask!

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atinylanguagelearner · 1 month

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Day 5 / 90

Challenge: 90 day vocab challenge.

Book: Wierusz i Nikt by Paweł Wakuła

I've finally gotten to open the book, but it started pretty much the same as the cover did - so this one has more individual sentences.

Ród = bloodline, family, house (m)

Herb = coat of arms (m)

Opowieść = story (o + locative) (f)

Syn = son (m)

Wielki = great, large

Rabować = to plunder

Miasto = city (n)

Palić = to heat, to smoke, to sear

Wieś = countryside, village

Porywać = to kidnap

Potężny = powerful

Dawny = old, distant, ancient

…którego (acc) bracia (pl) dali pocątek znakomitemu (dat) rodowi z herbem (instr) Wierusz - jest ta opowieśc.

…(the knight) whose brothers gave the start to the great house with the Wierusz coat of arms, is this story about.

…syna (gen?) wielkiego (acc) Jagiełły…

…the son of the great Jagiello…

…rabowali miasta (pl), palili wsie (pl) i porywali ludzi (pl).

…they plundered cities, burned villages and kidnapped people.

Był to rycerz z potężnego (gen) rodu...

He was a knight from a powerful family...

#90dvc #language learning

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languaholic · 5 years

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Hi everyone!

So here is my proposal to make the most out of the last 100 days of the year. First of all, you don’t have to review lessons/pages every day if you don’t want to, I am doing it because it helps me learn things better.

The point of this challenge is that you dedicate at least 10 minutes every day in getting better at expressing yourself in another language and little by little increase your exposure so you are also more fluent.

To start this challenge, check the options below and decide if you either want to follow the order, skip some or change them for others. Just find what fits your rhythm better and register it so you can look at your progress ;)

Don’t forget to tag your posts with any of these:

100 Days Express Yourself Language Challenge

100 Days Language Learning Challenge

100 Days Language Studies Challenge

And let’s start!

1. Sing a song or read a poem in your target language

2. Translate into your native language the chorus of a target language song

3. Find some interesting idioms used in your target language and write them down illustrating with examples

4. Translate a quote from your native language into the target language

5. Get a list of some irregular verbs that are difficult to you and create sentences with each

6. Describe in your target language something you like or something you find fascinating

7. Watch a short video with the subs of your target language

8. Make a theme vocab list in the target language of the episode you watched and place examples under each word

9. Read an interesting article in the target language and try summarizing it in a few lines

10. Play an audiobook in the target language for ten minutes and write down the words you deem interesting and/or important to review later

11. Make a bucket list in the target language

12. Describe an item you need in the target language

13. Translate a few quotes into the target language

14. Describe your plans for winter vacations

15. Watch a TED talk with the target language audio and/or subs

16. Print a picture you like and write about it

17. Make a vocab list of things you love and add examples

18. Read a short fairy tale

19. Write about food you like

20. Summarize a movie, tv show, book, fanfic, etc. that you enjoyed

21. Find some jokes in the target language

22. Talk about someone you admire

23. Write about a place you would like to return to

24. Write about a dream you recently had

25. Make a vocab list of things you hate and add examples

26. Listen to some songs you like and record yourself singing along

27. Translate a comic or book or fanfic page from your target language into your native language (it can be a panel or a paragraph, etc.)

28. Listen to a podcast in the target language (duolingo has some options)

29. Watch a short in the target language or with the T.L. subs

30. Translate a song from the target language into your language

31. Read the news in your target language

32. Select some topics that you feel are difficult in your target language and use them making sentences or re-explaining them in the target language

33. Find some verbs with different meanings and illustrate the meanings with more examples

34. Write about a place you want to visit

35. Make a vocab list of things you fear

36. Read some riddles and try to find the answer

37. Select some words that sound the same but are different things (homophonous) and illustrate them with examples

38. Write a few sentences of what makes you anxious

39. Take a photo of the weather and describe it

40. Write a letter in the target language to a loved one who is no longer with you

41. Read a poem in your target language and record it

42. Find some proverbs and/or sayings in the target language and write them down

43. Make a list of yes/no questions in the target language

44. Find instructions for something in the target language and try following them

45. Make a vocab list of common swear words

46. Write in the target language an idea you disagree with

47. Write an argument about why you disagree with the idea above

48. Read some pages of your favorite book in the target language and write down the words you don’t understand

49. Read something light and make a list of WH questions in the target language about the reading

50. Make a review of a book, song, tv show, or movie

51. Write in the target language an idea you whole heartedly agree with

52. Write why you agree with the idea above

53. Make a top ten of things you like and write why in the target language

54. Print some pics of food you want to try and describe it in your target language

55. Make a vocab list with examples of things that bring you joy

56. Get your hands on some favorite quotes and translate them in the target language

57. Watch a documentary in the target language (or with the subs in the T.L.)

58. Write in your target language about something that obsess you

59. Translate into your target language a paragraph of something happy

60. Recite a dialogue of a movie, tv show, book, fanfic, etc. you like and record it

61. Talk in your target language about something that troubles you

62. Listen to a playlist in your target language and sing along (follow the lyrics if you need them)

63. Write some reflections in your target language about love

64. Select a constellation which story you like and write about it in your target language

65. Make a vocab list of slang in the target language

66. Check out a site in your target language and write down the words you find difficult

67. Find an actor/actress/singer/artist whose native language is your target language and write down some phrases they’ve said you liked

68. Check out videos of grammar topics you would like to delve into

69. Read out loud a fanfic or short story in your target language (250 words is recommended)

70. Write down a topic you would like to debate about and some main points about it

71. Develop the points of the topic you want to discuss

72. Create a speech with the points from the task before and read it out loud

73. Watch an episode of a TV show (I recommend it lasts 25 minutes or less) with the audio and subs of your target language

74. Check some funny videos in your target language (find some youtubers whose spin is comedy)

75. Select a song you like in another language different to the target language and translate it into your target language

76. Write in your target language about something you hate

77. Write about the music you like

78. Make a schedule you can follow next week

79. Play an agility game that includes a simultaneous physical and mental exercises in your target language (like jumping the rope for five minutes while reciting the irregular verbs or prepositions, etc.)

80. Check out a video in your target language that explains something you find interesting or exciting (can be a tutorial, a tour around somewhere, etc.)

81. Create a set of instructions in your target language to cook something

82. Make a vocab list of words that only exist in your target language

83. Translate into your target language a paragraph of something sad

84. Reflect in your target language about something that makes you super proud

85. Describe in your target language a scent you like

86. Watch an animated movie in your target language with subs in your native language

87. Tell or write something nice to your loved one(s)

88. Explain a grammatical law you find fascinating to someone

89. Write in your target language about something you miss

90. Lay down in the grass or somewhere where you can look up at the sky and come up with shapes and write them in your target language

91. Go to your favorite fanfic site, select the stats you want, and read a fic of 1,000 words written in your target language

92. Write in your target language a reflection about time

93. Make a short story with your pet(s) (or favorite animal) as your main character

94. Talk in your target language about a memory that marked you

95. Create your own language learning master post

96. Write a language overview in your target language

97. Write down in your target language what you feel when you think about longing

98. Get a book in your target language (short is recommended) and start reading it

99. Explain something you find fascinating in your target language to someone

100. Write down your purposes for next year and why they are important to you in your target language

And that’s it folks!

Good luck to the community who will try this, and please feel free to modify any of the points given. The point of this is to have fun while being constant in learning a language and get to create the habit of studying while learning how to express better in another language ;)

See you all at the end of the year!

#langblr #studyblr #100 days of languages #100 days of productivity #100 days of language learning #language learning #French learning #100 Days Express Yourself Language Challenge #100 Days Language Learning Challenge #100 Days Language Studies Challenge #TheChallenge

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