Language learning
Hi all,
As you may be aware I speak fluently Spanish (mother tongue) and English (I live in the UK) and I being learning Japanese now for a few years, but being doing it not in the most efficient way and haven’t being so focus on my study so is being taking me a really long time to get to the level I’m now. But since I being reading more and watching videos in Youtube about all this polyglots that exist and their tip on learning languages, I decided to continue studying Japanese using the methods I being reading about it and also I will start studying Korean and record my progress and the methods I being using to learn it.
Well as a first post on the many post I’m planning to write, I will go through what I’m doing at the moment at Japanese and what is my start plan for Korean. So I will start first with Japanese:
Japanese
Regarding Japanese, I’m now trying to concentrate to learn to read and write (but focusing on reading) Kanji as to be able to read articles in the internet or books in Japanese you need for sure to know all the Kanji.
For the Kanji at the moment a primary use the “Kanji in Context” books. This series is composed of a reference book that contains all the standand kanji (1947 kanji) and two workbooks. The primary focus of this books is not to learn the Kanji but themselves but as part of a context using phrases or on words where they are composed by various kanji.
For reading practice and building vocabulary I being using Lingq. On that website, I have being importing either articles from japanese news sites like NHK, children books or recently being importing dialogues from Japanese dramas.
Finally to be able to communicate with people you need to be able to understand what they are saying, as is no good to be able to speak with someone but not able to reply because you didn’t understand what they told you. So for building my listening skills I being listening to podcasts and watching dramas in addition to listen to music in Japanese.
Now regarding the dramas they are purely in Japanese with Japanese subtitles, I don’t understand fully at the moment what they are saying but all is good and since I have switch to Japanese only it has help me to improve more on my listening and comprehension. Regarding podcast, I have subscribed to a few Japanese one like, TBS radio podcast, through iTunes and being listening them in the background while cooking or doing stuff like writing this post.
Korean
I just decided to learn Korean so I don’t know either to read Korean or any vocabulary in Korean, so I’m starting completely from scratch. So to start, as I will need to know first how to read I downloaded the following app to my iPad and will study first how to read and write Hangul.
The name of the application I’m using now is “Korean Handwriting HD Plus”. The application is only around £2 pounds, so is not really expensive. I being using the application for two days now and is the main focus is to teach kids to learn the korean handwriting. The application has a look and feel for kids around that age but I don’t mind as is sometimes more entertaining and as long as it helps me learn how to read I’m cool with it.
The reason I decided to concentrate on learning to read first rather that start with basic grammar is that to learn vocabulary you need to read various texts, and the more you read you will be able to pick up patterns and remember more easily vocabulary.
In the mean time while I try to learn how to read Korean, I will start watching videos in Korean in Youtube and listen to more Korean music so my brain gets more used to listen to Korean even though I won’t understand any of what they are saying at the moment. This is all in preparation to when I get further in my studies, as everyone can speak a language since they are kids but nobody is born able to speak but rather as babies you just sit passively listening to people speaking a language and after a while then you able to move from that completely passive mode to a more active mode and became more interactive.
Tags: japanese, korean, language learning
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- Alberto Diaz
- 3 Jun 2012 9:25 PM
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