10月30日(水)
Thinking in Japanese Podcast
子供は本とマンガで漢字を学ぶ
24 Nov 2020
約8分
Shadowed twice
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I finished my Quartet chapter 1 writing assignment today! Posted it on Langcorrect, so I’ll report back with the corrections.
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10月31日(木)
Thinking In Japanese Podcast
自然はマッサージよりもレラックスさせる
約8分
17 Nov 2020
Shadowed twice
Today - being the last day of October - will be my last day of shadowing. From tomorrow & through November I’m going to try handwriting kana & kanji. It’s years since I last tried handwriting anything in Japanese so I’m expecting it to be slow going でも挑戦してみたい！٩(^‿^)۶
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I’m cross posting this here as it’s great motivation - I knew the learning effects of output were massive but this is very motivating to take the trouble:
Thanks @crackstreetboys 
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I do feel anecdotally that forcing myself to output does a lot for my brain making new connections in the language. Haven’t learned to handwrite kanji though, I actually want to just for fun, but it’s another big time investment.
How do you feel about your October shadowing experience? Any wins?
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The discussion this came from had to do with writing (kanji) but the generation effect study was more general, as in, when learning - the act of forcing recall has an outsized effect compared to recognition only (eg reading), which is why I cross posted it here.
That said, writing kanji is helpful in the same vein, but I would say if constrained a bit -
Summary
I’ve found that once you learn the basic 50-100 you’ve essentially broken the back of almost all writing patterns to come, so it’s not necessary to learn to write all of them, nor important to srs writing all of them. For srs, my compromise has been once I got beyond 2000 words and 300 kanji, my default card creation is recognition only, but for 10% or so of words that seem more important or trickier I’ll make an EN → JP card. That way I keep some of that up rigorously without wasting my time on too many. In your position then, yeah, you could get away with quite a light touch. You wouldn’t need to go back and catch up. The patterns repeat themselves so much you could just start where you are with any current leeches to see if it helps. Learn their stroke order and put in srs in a sensible way that requires you to write it.
And not to get off track, I think output as in speaking or writing full sentences is miles more effective than srs generation because it’s so much more comprehensive and applied. That was my intended message when cross posting!
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Yes, agreed! I can feel my brain getting wrinklier by the minute.
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My Quartet writing 
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@soggyboy @mitrac - what a great discussion to wake up to! I think of the generational effect as embodied knowledge you can read all you want about a technique & take as many classes in it as you like, but until you try to put that technique into practice, you don’t really know what you do or don’t understand and there’s also the physicalaspects.
My daughter went to almost pro-level in classical music before she burnt out (the perfectionism in the industry finally got to her) At the start she devoted hours and hours to scales - sooo boring but once mastered they freed her up to do amazing things - her fingers were able to move at amazing speed and her brain was totally in sync. Anyway, I guess I think of languages as having a similar physical aspect (each language uses the mouth, tongue, throat in different ways) so you have to spend some time learning those physical skills (shadowing & handwriting practice are equivalent language “musical scales”). But of course as recreational learners of Japanese (as opposed to learners with an absolute motivation like Japanese babies) we have to keep the fun factor in place or we reach burnout.
So to answer your question @soggyboy - shadowing definitely got a little easier but it always felt like grunt work so I’m happy to exchange that grunt work with some differentgrunt work (handwriting) in an attempt to trick/mollify/cajole my resistance.
And yes, @mitrac I don’t think it’s essential or even desirable to be able to write all kanji, but being able to write several hundred would definitely give you the embodied feel. Also, I just remember being really embarrassed in Japan by not being able to write a simple handwritten message when it was required.
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Hei hei!
Here a beginner 
So my plan will also be very… Simple!
Write very day in my diary all the radicals I am learning.
Thanks for the invitation!
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It’s funny you mention classical music, because I’m a classical musician like your daughter, haha! I did end up doing it at a high level, went to music school, etc, although at the moment I don’t do much of it (similar reasons to daughter).
I feel that there are a lot of similarities between language learning and music learning. Scales and technique practice like you said have similarities to physically training your production by shadowing. You can also draw similarities between learning things like music theory to learning the grammar of a language. And the aspect of practicing every day in order to see improvement is very similar too!! I love language learning!
Welcome to the thread! Hope you enjoy your studies and feel free to explore the forums for more awesome advice and community.
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Great entry! I’ve never read her work but I have seen the Ghibli Howls Moving Castle (one of my favourite Ghibli movies). But for some reasons I can’t see the corrections you posted - only the first sentence……
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Ah, if you click through to the other thread you should be able to read it.
Edit: I forgot to respond, but I recommend the Howl’s Moving Castle novel! It’s pretty different from the movie (Howl isn’t a bird 
) but pretty awesome in its own way. I think it’s interesting how she and Miyazaki approach the same general idea, and which themes each of them bring out in their work. Another great novel of hers is Fire and Hemlock, which is a little more adult in its themes.
I actually keep having to restrain myself from buying the Howl’s Moving Castle novel in Japanese. I’ll probably lose control eventually though.
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While you’re at it, you should get the audiobook as well (笑)
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11月1日(金)
あ・い・う・え・お
Handwritten x 20 each
自分の書いた字が汚いなぁ。もっと、もっと練習しなきゃ！
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Love this connection to embodied knowledge. I haven’t thought of this concept in a while. It reminds me of some reflection techniques I learned in the context of skills development to raise awareness of the transition from theory to theory in use to integrated knowledge in use. I hadn’t really thought about that in terms of language learning. And I love where your and soggy’s discussion went on the parallels to music. Lots to think about!
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I am not a musician but I love the concept of practice
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November 1
Had a conversation with my gang (text) triple check everything before sending cause I’m scared of mistakes but it was fine
Could I get a perfect streak for November? 
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Daily diary written! My other goal for the week will be to find a shadowing resource I like.
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