Are there any listeners of the JapanesePod101 podcast?
If so, I'm curious as to what you think about it. How long have you used it, and how effective was it at helping you learn Japanese?
Posted!
I'm also glad to have support for my studying method from someone in the already-learned-it crowd! That's exactly how I'm approaching my study. Unfortunately, it's slightly backfired in that class is no longer interesting and hardly useful. Going through Genki 2 it's like Christmas when I run into something I don't know (the only notable one being honorofic verbs, but I'll be glad to have a class force me to learn those). Kanji are especially painful (Thanks Heisig!).
An attempted bribery trip to 森先生 may be in my near future...
While we're on the topic of the use-it-a-lot method, how do you feel about using the JLPT vocabulary lists as a sort of "make sure I don't miss something important" tool? I don't like going through vocab lists or the idea of a language test that has nothing to do with speech, but if the JLPT picks out some of the most useful words to know then I'll probably bear with it.
Oh, man, you're right on the money. The "conversations" in Genki are just so, so painful. In the past I've gone through them for comic value (a certain trip to Okinawa comes to mind...), but the humor has definitely run out for me. Not that they are better in any other foreign language text that I've ever seen.
The whole idea of scripted conversations is kinda' bizzare, if you think about it. I think that they give learners a false sense of security. "OK, I've practically memorized the conversation in Lesson 148. Now I'm ready to go buy a car in Japan." Uh, yeah...right.
My philosophy on language learning in a nutshell (despite the way that I have to teach it):
- Learn basic grammar and vocabulary (and, in the case of Japanese, the kanji) as quickly as you possibly can.
- Go use it, a lot, and keep learning through use.
A listening list posted to Learning Resources would be すばらしい！Definitely make something like that when you get the time. Remember that you can edit stuff you post at any time, so don't feel like you have to have a complete list before you get started. =)
I remember listening to this a few times when I was digging for listening comprehension stuff. I decided to give up on something that I understood the bulk of (or even anything produced for "learning") and go straight for regular radio shows, etc. in Japanese. Too often scripted work seems to err on the side of cheesy (I'm talking about you, Genki listening comprehension files..) to the point that it can even be hard to listen to after getting accustomed to normal speech. Anyway, I'm not worried about understanding everything, just listening closely and catching what I can + getting regular exposure to the natural language.
Maybe I'll compile the things I listen to into a neat little list and make a "stuff to listen to" post in Learning Resources when I have time.
Hi, iulius. Thanks for the review. I've never really listened to it much, but I know that it's really popular. The idea of an ongoing series seems problematic to me, just from a structuring standpoint (as you pointed out). Basic levels in particular seem like they would be hard to handle without some kind of 1-2-3 progression with well thought-out connections between them. One lesson per week also seems way too sparse.
Glad to hear that the intermediate/advanced stuff is working well! I'll have to try to find some time to listen to it more.
I've been listening to them on and off for about half a year now. On the upside I think the format is really good for listening comprehension practice. Every lesson has a short dialog that is played several times with and without "inline" English translation which gives you a chance to see how much you've picked up. I also like the way they discuss the dialog in Japanese as much as possible - even in the beginner lessons. Since you can kind of guess how they're going to react, it's interesting to see how those reactions "translate" into Japanese.
The grammar and vocabulary sections seem a little scattered though. Where a textbook can cover concepts and refer back to them later, the podcast has to deal with people coming and going all the time so it seems to devolve into the "grammatical pattern of the week". To an extent they have improved this by having series of several episodes each with a common theme, but quite often I can't recall what was discussed a week or two ago.
Regardless, I would definitely recommend it for the listening practice. I think it's a good thing when studying a foreign language to hear samples from lots of different sources. I've found that the Beginner and Intermediate levels are both fairly approachable and together will give you a new episode every other day or so.
Honestly, I'm not really familiar with the JLPT vocab lists. I took the level 1 test some years ago (and haven't taken the others), but by then vocabulary wasn't a huge issue for me. I seem to recall going through the official lists and pulling out a few words that I didn't know and making flash cards from them (and even saw one of those words on the test!), but they weren't a huge component of my studies.
I have a somewhat centrist philosophy about learning from vocabulary lists. There are many language educators who think that you should only learn words from context (i.e., actually reading authentic text), but in practice trying to read something where you know almost none of the vocabulary is a major PITA, and just as anti-fun as learning lists of words (perhaps even less so with Japanese, since you have to worry about prying the sentence apart and in many cases trying to figure out where one word ends and the next one begins).
There aren't many words in げんき that you will never need, so using the vocab lists in that book won't be a complete waste of time. Taking two years to learn them, however, is too long for a dedicated learner. If I were to have to start over (and was taking the JPNS courses at UGA), I would probably do something like this:
While doing all of the above, I would also be blitzing through Heisig as fast as I could go while still keeping high (90%+) recognition.
Alternate plan of study suggestions are welcome! (^^)