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The self-teacher
Posted by TofuMan,
09 February 2011
·
832 views
software Rosetta Stone My Japanese Coach
I've always taught myself. Classes usually don't work well with me- either too slow or too focused on simple fact memorization.
My usual learning method:
This time I started out pretty much the same way. I grabbed a bunch of training / reference materials and dove in.
Doing a bit of research it seemed like the gold standard in training was Rosetta Stone, so I purchased that and started to work my way through it.
Going into it I had the recommendation that you don't learn using Romaji (phonetic writing of Japanese in the Latin/English alphabet). I also read that it was better to go straight into the Kanji. With that in mind I set the output to Furigana (Kanji with the Hirigana for pronouncing it above), thinking that was the best option. Worked my way through the first unit without too much difficulty. When I got to the unit final test though, I utterly bombed it. :blink:
Each of the individual lessons were pretty easy to successfully pass. I struggled a bit with some of the speaking parts (with long sentences), but that was it. Looking back on it, I realized the lessons were so easy I wasn't picking up enough real understanding of what the program was trying to teach. Multiple choice can be pretty easy, especially when there are pictures involved. "Said something about a fish, must be the fish picture." :huh: The unit final test, unlike the lessons, was an interactive lengthy dialog. Felt like a deer in the headlights. :GGRR:
Best I could figure was that there was just too much to really internalize the core points they were making in the lessons. The long strings of foreign sounds and characters left too many gaps in my comprehension. Trying to associate the sounds with the symbols was really difficult. :wacko: I did pick up a few Kanji (e.g. male 男 female 女), but it was a struggle to really follow along at full speed.
Thinking that repetition from a different angle might help I picked up My Japanese Coach for the Nintendo DS. That seemed to help a bit, but I soon found myself under unfortunate circumstances and had to drop everything for a little over a year...
My usual learning method:
- skim read once, deep read the second time
- get several books on the same subject and read them all
- some combination of the above
This time I started out pretty much the same way. I grabbed a bunch of training / reference materials and dove in.
Doing a bit of research it seemed like the gold standard in training was Rosetta Stone, so I purchased that and started to work my way through it.
Going into it I had the recommendation that you don't learn using Romaji (phonetic writing of Japanese in the Latin/English alphabet). I also read that it was better to go straight into the Kanji. With that in mind I set the output to Furigana (Kanji with the Hirigana for pronouncing it above), thinking that was the best option. Worked my way through the first unit without too much difficulty. When I got to the unit final test though, I utterly bombed it. :blink:
Each of the individual lessons were pretty easy to successfully pass. I struggled a bit with some of the speaking parts (with long sentences), but that was it. Looking back on it, I realized the lessons were so easy I wasn't picking up enough real understanding of what the program was trying to teach. Multiple choice can be pretty easy, especially when there are pictures involved. "Said something about a fish, must be the fish picture." :huh: The unit final test, unlike the lessons, was an interactive lengthy dialog. Felt like a deer in the headlights. :GGRR:
Best I could figure was that there was just too much to really internalize the core points they were making in the lessons. The long strings of foreign sounds and characters left too many gaps in my comprehension. Trying to associate the sounds with the symbols was really difficult. :wacko: I did pick up a few Kanji (e.g. male 男 female 女), but it was a struggle to really follow along at full speed.
Thinking that repetition from a different angle might help I picked up My Japanese Coach for the Nintendo DS. That seemed to help a bit, but I soon found myself under unfortunate circumstances and had to drop everything for a little over a year...
