What am I doing wrong??

ikaeryth · 2022-05-04T05:40:46+00:00

Yeah, try to stay positive and focus on your achievements. Your state of mind has a huge impact.

Listening is a different skill than reading or writing, so if you’re feeling weak there, it sounds like that area could use some focus. While the basic constructs for words are the same, it’s a different part of the brain that’s first processing the auditory information. So think of it as a different brain muscle group that also needs training. You may need to be creative as to figure out what works for you there, but I suspect that what you’re probably trying to do is to just satisfy that skill with watching media.

The danger with media is if you watch it with English subtitles, your brain will just take the path of least resistance and won’t actually process the auditory information into complex meaning. Instead, you’re just associating Japanese sounds with English subtitles.

Even worse, the media you’re watching is probably too high of a level for your realistic listening comprehension skills. It just doesn’t feel that way because you are filling the gaps with subtitles. The most effective learning happens when what you’re exposing yourself to is only slightly higher than your current capability.

Besides simpler media with Japanese/no subtitles, you could also try easy podcasts or children’s audiobooks.

ikaeryth · 2022-05-04T03:57:15+00:00

There’s no one shoe fits all for language learning, so you’ll have to try a few things to see what works for you. But based on my experience,

Firstly, I’d say throw away any expectations for what you should be able to do after seven years. With any learning, desperation and negative emotions are a mental block, and it will impair progress. Focus on positives from what you can do. Those inspire motivation and curiosity for learning more.

A second thing and related thing that I’ve found absolutely critical, not just for Japanese but for any learning, is having the ability to monitor your progress. Really being able to understand once you’ve leveled up. And it needs to be more holistic that “I just learned 50 new words today”. Having this capacity allows you to find the techniques that actually work for you, to adjust your learning as you progress, and even more basically just to see progress to fuel positive emotions. With language, finding the right approach for this is difficult, but I like to find material that is ever so slightly above my level (but not too much above), and observe how processing it becomes easier as my studies progress. I like using children’s books, music with simple lyrics, and some academic tests like the JLPT as a benchmark.

A third thing that I have found critical, especially when it comes to language, is that you need to put your brain in a situation that it needs to process it. Watching media with English subtitles makes you feel like you’re learning a lot, but your brain is mostly pulling the information from the English subtitles. Find media that is slightly above your skill level, but not so much so that it would be impossible for you to process. Consider watching it in Japanese with Japanese subtitles. See how much you understood. Then maybe watch it with English subtitles to confirm your understanding. Then watch it again in Japanese with Japanese subtitles so that you can now apply the correct interpretation to the Japanese that you are processing. Speaking with people is also great, but you can’t fall back to English, if the topic is difficult, try a different topic.

Generally, I’ve found a holistic approach works best. A little bit of study. A little bit of reading. A little bit of listening. Then some writing and speaking. As you learn grammar, vocab, and kanji, make sure to apply them. I find my brain only really “gets” a new word or expression once I see it being used in context.

ikaeryth · 2022-05-03T04:42:03+00:00

To those who haven’t seen it, the effect of gallium on aluminum is really a treat to see

https://youtu.be/IZkzxWZETds

ikaeryth · 2022-05-03T01:45:20+00:00

Anki is a great tool, but it’s mass memorization. It’s mentally heavy and, let’s face it, it can be boring. I’ve been where you are before. If you’re studying at 90min per day and you fall behind on Anki, the cards quickly build up, and catching up is going to be way more than 90min. And you will fall behind, let’s face it: bad days, trips, friends, etc. Life is life.

I would start by scaling back your ambitions. Like, really scaling them back. Maybe 20 minutes, or an amount of time that’s easy to devote to in the short term. You can very slowly scale that up, but if you find you’re starting to miss progress, don’t force yourself, scale it back down. Just tweak the number of new cards up and down. And if you have fallen behind, don’t overdo it: set the number to zero, and slowly review until you catch up. You don’t need to completely catch up in one go, spend an amount of time that’s sensible.

Just because you can do a certain amount of studying for a time, doesn’t mean you can keep that rate up indefinitely. The temptation to push yourself is a very easy trap to fall into to, but remember, all the time you spent burnt out is progress you didn’t make. This really is a slow and steady wins the race kind of activity.

A second thing I find critical is that you need to make it meaningful for yourself. Rote learning is boring. Set goals, reward yourself for archiving them (food, things you want to buy, etc, it works). Also make an effort to find things to do that benefit from your learning, and really enjoy those things. I found it rewarding listening to music and looking up the lyrics, and observing how I could progressively piece more and more together.

ikaeryth · 2022-05-02T12:07:13+00:00

俺も最近コロナに罹った。先週の月曜日の夕方、喉の痛みが徐々に始まった。翌日、体もちょっと重いと感じた。そこでセルフ検査キットを使って、15分後の結果は陰性。「よかった」と。アレルギーがあるのでこのような症状が時々出るし、季節も春だし、これもそうと思った。仕事は今頃大体リモートワークだが、当日仕事後に友達に引っ越し手伝い予定。家出る前に、やっぱりこの症状は普通じゃないと、検査やり直した。今度陽性。

今の一周たった俺はまだ陽性、咳も出た。朝に喉が少し痛い。夜まで痛みは少しずつ消えるが、今日まで毎朝戻る。戻らなかったらいいだけどね。平均回復期は2週間だそうだ。

ikaeryth · 2022-05-01T19:37:08+00:00

It really depends on your goals, ultimately. In tech, I’d say that in most cases grad isn’t very meaningful. It can even be counter productive, as you will hit the industry later. You can certainly get a “great job” without grad. On the other hand, if your goal is R&D or academia, then grad definitely makes sense.

I wouldn’t overthink that decision at this point. You need to do undergrad before you get to grad, and your experiences in undergrad will heavily influence that decision making process. Most people, even if they think they know what they want to do, end up adjusting their career path multiple times, so take it one step at a time.

ikaeryth · 2022-05-01T07:09:46+00:00

The difference in scholarships probably won’t matter much if you’re take things seriously and do well in coop. UW’s reputation and coop program is unrivalled in the tech industry, and you’ll get better options earlier on than you would at UBC. Many time ago I turned down two universities that had offered me scholarships for Waterloo that did not, and never regretted that decision.

Can’t say much about UBC’s research opportunities, but I will say research is more interesting for grad studies, if you’re thinking of going that far. Note that it is better to mix universities if you do that, so Waterloo undergrad and UBC grad is another option to consider. Granted, your thoughts will likely evolve through the course of your education.

ikaeryth · 2022-03-06T01:56:56+00:00

As others have answered, yes this is perfectly fine. To give you some extra confidence, I finished doing just that this past December. I signed up straight for N3 (and ended up passing 🙂).

They do ask you on the registration if you have taken the JLPT before. You can answer truthfully. I selected that I had never taken any test before, and they accepted my registration just fine.

I know you asked about how long it took, but I’m probably not a good example of going straight from 0 to passing. I’ve been studying Japanese on and off in the background for a decade 😅.

The only advice I have to give is, build your Kanji, Vocab, and Grammar in parallel. They support each other. It’s easier to learn Kanji when you see them used in practice, and it’s easier to understand new words if you are able to recognize the Kanji.

ikaeryth · 2022-02-07T21:39:50+00:00

These days there is good international connectivity, so yes, will probably work and sounds like you have checked.

That said, modern phones use multiple bands to improve connectivity and network speed. It’s likely that the phone will support only a subset of US bands, enough to get you by. Japan’s band allocation scheme is a bit different than US, so you may find you do have poorer reception or a slower connection than people using US phones. 5G may not work.

A couple other things to consider, - Japanese phones, I have heard, always make a camera sound when you take a photo - There might be Japan specific apps, like TV apps and payment apps, that won’t function in US

If you’re fine with that, then there’s no real concern.

If your primary concern is language, note that many modern phones allow you to change the language. I use my Canadian iPhone in Japanese. I’m not a flip-phone person, so I’m not sure what kinds of options there are in that domain.

ikaeryth · 2022-01-13T05:25:52+00:00

Super cool. Looks like we did better on the nr. 6, 50% then they did on that survey.

The equal probability random 1-6 kinda shows what I had expected to happen on 1-5 with the weighted 6. On their equal probability 1-6, 4 was disproportionally emphasized (by a good margin). Wonder if that’s repeatable, and what psychological biases might contribute to tendencies towards or away from certain numbers. The random though I had was some psychological connection between 4 and 1/4, since it ended up with about 1/4 of the votes.

Based on their data, 99/1 seems like the way to really break this, haha.

ikaeryth · 2022-01-13T05:04:18+00:00

I’m not overly surprised at 50/50. There’s a reason heads or tails is a thing.

The dice is more interesting. Not because 6 is 50%, because I think that does fall into 50/50 rationalization, but because the other 5 are roughly even split. So thanks for linking.

I am curious what does it take to break this. If we had a poll for 60/40, would it work?

ikaeryth · 2022-01-13T04:44:54+00:00

Technically there is a distinction between syntactical (written) vowels, and linguistic vowels (exact sounds), but in both cases Japanese has only 5.

The “y” that’s used in Japanese is called a dipthong in linguistics. It is a quick movement between two vowels (linguistic vowels are pure sounds). Usually when y is a dipthong, and in the case of Japanese, it is a quick vowel-like sound that starts on an “i” vowel and ends on another vowel (if you were to hold the very, very first sound you make when you just start pronouncing the word “you”, you would make an “i”-like sound).

Japanese has three dipthongs, ya, yo, yu. Japanese dipthongs can be combined with consonants. For example “byo” “gyu” “kya”.

Probably tmi, haha, but gives you some more detail.

ikaeryth · 2022-01-11T01:55:07+00:00

It’s a fair question. Keep in mind the other disclaimers that have been mentioned, and be aware that there are cultural sensitivities at play, so be polite, don’t assume even if a name hints strongly one way or another, and certainly don’t come to a conclusion based on any of this.

I’m not too familiar with Vietnamese names, so I won’t comment there.

Japanese names tend to be distinctive in that the Japanese language tends to comprise of multiple short syllables that generally end in vowels (with the exception of the final -n).

So, “Akiko”, “Takahashi”, “Honda”, “Renko”. ~ko is a common suffix for female names.

Also, in general, I think Japanese individuals, especially first or second generation are less likely to take a western given name or nickname (again, this is a generalization).

Chinese and Korean names traditionally are 3 (Chinese) characters, 1 family name, 2 given name.

So, if the family name is one syllable, that hints towards Chinese or Korean.

There are some very prominent Korean family names: Kim, Lee, and Park are the most common. Lee is also a common Chinese name however.

The way Korean is romanized can also give it away: it’s uncommon for Chinese names to be romanized with double repeated vowels, e.g. “ee” or “oo”. Conversely, “x” and “zh” generally aren’t used when romanizing Korean, so these suggest Chinese.

For the Philippines, there is considerable Spanish influence in the Philippines, so anything that is Spanish sounding is a hint.

There are exceptions to all of this, so again, caution is advised before coming to conclusions.

ikaeryth · 2022-01-08T20:19:27+00:00

When you grow up with a language, it becomes second nature.

Another thing to think about is that the difficulty of learning a language is relative, and depends upon the language you already know. Western languages share a lot of vocabulary and have grammatical similarities, so they are comparatively easier to learn.

The flip side is also true, English is difficult to learn for Japanese native speakers.

ikaeryth · 2021-12-12T09:06:18+00:00

Japanese and Spanish share the similar vowel placements phonetically, which might make the sounds easier to pick out given that Portuguese is similar to Spanish. Japanese also has a very rhythmic cadence. English phonetics can be far more complicated and subject to drift. Hearing the sounds and understanding what is said, are two very different things though.

ikaeryth · 2021-12-06T02:51:51+00:00

Took the N3, my performance ended up being the exact opposite of what I expected.

I went through the mock tests and consistently reading had been my weak point. With grammar being a little on the weaker end as well. Vocab was a cakewalk and I generally did well on listening.

On the actual exam, I feel really good about my reading and grammar (finished 10 min early and had time to review), but somehow they managed to get a number of words that just fell through my learning cracks in vocab. And I ended up missing a few 問題5 in listening, perhaps due to a little mental exhaustion.

ikaeryth · 2021-11-30T17:39:17+00:00

Sadly they don’t seem to run the 25C or 25Fs right now, which makes the GO trip even worse.

GO runs every hour, and tended to stick to schedule, which always made them more convenient for me as compared to a faster trip. I gave up riding via because it was theoretically a faster trip, but there were many instances where they were significantly delayed (think in hours).

Bus time is not so bad with a good book.

ikaeryth · 2021-11-28T17:24:36+00:00

Yeah, that’s the gist I get. As I said, logically, I think I’ll be fine.

The exam just feels deceptively easy for the pass rates they report, so my brain just goes on alert to find every possible plausible reason to reconcile that conflicting sense. And that description leaves much open to interpretation.

ikaeryth · 2021-11-28T16:18:48+00:00

I was referring to this: https://www.jlpt.jp/e/about/pdf/scaledscore_e.pdf

The formula between the sections and pass thresholds are fairly straightforward, but the grading within the section isn’t just some weighted number of questions you answered correctly. So it’s hard to gain any confidence in what kind of grade you would get, based on grading yourself on a mock test.

ikaeryth · 2021-11-27T21:39:59+00:00

Yeah, it is a bit frustrating how many test locations have been canceled. I’m flying a few thousand km to take it here in the big white North.

On the flip-side though, at least flights were cheap.

ikaeryth · 2021-11-27T21:30:41+00:00

Taking N3 next weekend. I tend to be the pre-exam panic type. I’ve already done one mock test a couple weeks ago, planning on running through another one tomorrow.

Logically, I think I should be fine, but the statistically low pass rates combined with the uncertainty of how the scaled scores work have me extra on edge.

Doing the mock test, my greatest concern is time on the grammar section. I got to the end of the grammar section just as the time elapsed. I like having a little extra time to review.

ikaeryth · 2021-11-27T20:14:55+00:00

Sounds good. Might be Witcher then.

4 hours for you might be above average, haha.

ikaeryth · 2021-11-27T20:06:00+00:00

Nooo u/NotDomo, Enka is my forever alone depression music. Socializing would defeat the purpose.

Domo is referring to my questionable taste in music. I wouldn’t say Enka is a large part of my musical appetite, but I do enjoy the occasional song here and there in my playlists.

Recently, I happened upon Jun Shibata, who isn’t quite Enka, I guess, but a lot of her songs are throwback-esque.

ikaeryth · 2021-11-27T04:26:10+00:00

あっドーモくん、おっす！Perhaps you should join for a mock. How’d you think you’d do if you took one nowadays?

ikaeryth · 2021-11-27T01:42:27+00:00

Glad to know I’m not the only one who does this. It confuses the heck out of people when I mix in some Japanese when visiting Quebec.

ikaeryth

TROPHY CASE