B1 book has absolutely a ton of vocabulary. I’m only 4 exercises in but over 150 new Anki cards (over 75 new words).
I’m estimating about 1950 new vocab words for this textbook. I’ll only be able to do this if vocabulary gets easier than it has been… But I think that is going on.
A substantial number of words are compound words or otherwise related to words I already know.
Clearly I need to accelerate my words per day by significant levels. I’ll trust in the process and the book but it’s scary.
I’ll also need to spend less time per card. The cards are somewhat less important than the reading, listening and writing exercises after all. So my Anki cards are dropping their already relatively spartan style to even more basic.
IE: do more vocabulary but maybe less effort put in. Cover more words but less deeply, and hope it works out?
Language club and Community college class continue to be helpful at speaking practice. This really is my weakest skill so anything I do helps.
I’m stronger than basically everyone in the community college class. But I’m the weakest one at the language club table. Certainly a weird feeling to go back and forth between them…
My current plan is to focus mostly on getting ahead in my vocabulary. Get all these words into Anki, start drilling them so I’m familiar with the words before doing exercises. Then I do the exercises.
If I’m always studying words from ‘future’ sections (a few pages ahead of where I am in the textbook), then that gives me time to Anki drill as a startup.
Then I do the Kursbuch exercises a few days later. (Lecture problems / exercises)
Then I do the Ubungsbuch exercises about a week after that. (Practice problems).
That gets me multiple times of review and practice for every word and concept. I’ll be aiming at 6 months to clear this book… though frankly I’m already behind schedule.
I managed to stumble through a whole restaurant experience in German. Nothing amazing nor phenomenally gramatically complex, but the words came when needed. I’m very pleased.
Big win on listening today: started the listening book in Shin Kanzen Master today after trying a few months ago and deciding to postpone. Aced the exercises in two different lessons. It’s possible my neighbors heard shouting 😅
Finally feel like I’m fully on the right track for N2. Kanji and vocab already felt comfortable, I’m halfway through the grammar book, and reading and listening just need training. At this point it’s just a matter of whether I’ll be able to put in enough time by December.
I’ve got some travel coming up later in the year, so I’ve been trying to get my head around the Thai alphabet. It’s weird trying to learn some things about a language, without having a long term goal to really know it.
But on the flipside of that, still trying to maintain Japanese. Doing a different podcast approach, re-listening to episodes and reading/mining the transcripts. It’s been kinda helpful.
Learning an abugida writing system like Thai sure is a big task when not having a plan to maintain it long term, but it’s def rewarding. Hope ya enjoy!
It’s definitely a bigger undertaking than I initially thought! At first, having done mostly Japanese recently, I just saw that Thai had something like an alphabet and was relieved. But I’d really underestimated how confusing it’d be to have very different phonetics and resultingly confusing symbols.
Still, I feel like if I’m going to a place, I should know at least a little of the language. And trying to learn the basics doesn’t feel very effective if I don’t know any of the building blocks.
Going excellently. I’m pumping roughly 90-120 minutes into my Japanese. Spanish is still only being barely maintained. But I still don’t feel quite ready to indulge in Spanish just yet. Lojban is going by slower now, only reading every once in a while. And still need to engage with the community more if I want to pick it up proper. I’ve been writing a journal in Lojban in order to test the waters.
I had a bum day a few days ago due to computer trouble (computer still is borked), but bounced back very quickly. I do believe I’m finally pivoting out of my depression.
I have not heard of Lojban until now. That’s a nice set of languages you’re learning
It was actually Lojban that helped develop my love of languages, some odd 15 years ago or so. It’s only recently did I start picking up studying them in earnest.
