TAC Meera 2014 (हिंदी, 日本語 ,عربي )

[Meera]

I know I said I wasn't going to start a new topic for this, but my thread was 19 pages long so I thought it would be more organized and the thread wouldn't load as slow if I started a new one. (I know I'm a little late but oh well). So this year I'm doing Hindi/Urdu and Japanese. Although since my Japanese class ends in May, I will probably switch to another language.

Goals

[flag=]hi[/flag]/[flag=]ur[/flag]
My goals for Hindi and Urdu are the same as every other year. To try to be able level up, or be able to write, read and speak better. Plus I want to improve my grammar. My goals for this year are to finish both my Hindi Reader and Urdu Reader and try to do grammar exercises everyday.

[flag=]ja[/flag] For Japanese I just want to be able to read Hiragana and Katakana confidently. Also to be able to understand simple sentences. That's about it right now, I'm currently in a class for it right now so I'm just following their format. We are already on Chapter Four of Genki.


Besides Hindi and Japanese, I may put a Bengali and French update in here and one language I'm really considering doing is Arabic. Mainly because I think knowing Arabic will help me improve Urdu, Persian and Turkish. I have the most resources available to me for Arabic and it's easy to find classes, My only drawbacks is that it is extremely hard and I doubt I will ever be able to master it and Persian or Turkish will be a lot easier so I'm not sure yet. But it is frustrating trying to read something in Urdu and not being able to find the word and then realizing it comes from Arabic.


Anyway happy TAC 2014

[Meera]

Update Number 1

[flag=]ja[/flag] 日本語

I'm starting my update with Japanese today! So tomorrow I have a Katakana quiz, and I don't feel ready for it so today I have been drilling Katakana like crazy. Although I can read it okay, I'm still not quite confident in Hiragana either. I really have forgotten how much patience and hard work it takes to learn a new script. Besides that, my class just finished chapter 3 in Genki and starting chapter four tomorrow. The only grammar we have learned so far is particles and verbs. The rest has been all alphabet and vocabulary! We also learned the number system up through the thousands which I think is a little confusing but I'm getting the hang of it. We haven't learned any Kanji, but chapter three in Genki uses Kanji with small hiragana underneath, which I guess is good but also confusing because when trying to read the hiragana underneath I miss the particles sometimes. The particles we learned so far are: は, を,に and で.

Vocabulary from Chapter 2:
これ this one
それ that one
あれ that one over there
どれ which one?
この this...
その that...
あの that over there
どの which
あそこ
どこ
だれ who
おいしい delicious
さかな fish
とんかつ pork cutlet
にく meat
メニユー menu
やさい vegetable
えんぴつ pencil
かさ umbrella
かばん bag
くつ shoes
さいふ wallet
ジーンズ jeans
じしょ dictionary
じてんしゃ bicycle
しんぶん newspaper
テープ tape
とけい watch
トレーナー sweatshirt
ノート notebook
ペン pen
ぼうし cap
ほん book
おてあらい restroom
きっさてん café
ぎんこう bank
としょかん library
ゆうびんきょく post office
けいざい economics
いくら how much?
えん／円 yen
たかい expensive
やすい cheap
いらっしゃいませ welcome to our store
おねかいします please
ください please give me.
じゃあ then in that case...
どうぞ here it is
どうも thanks


The verbs we learned:
いく-to go
かえる- to go back
きく- to listen
のむ-to drink
はなす-to speak
よむ-to read
おきる-to get up
たべる - to eat
ねる-to sleep
みる-to see, look
くる-to come
する-to do
べんきょうする-to study

[mōdgethanc]

Where are you taking Japanese? At university?

[Meera]

Where are you taking Japanese? At university?

No at a community school that is offering lessons

[Meera]

[flag=]hi[/flag] /[flag=]ur[/flag] नमस्ते, आप लोग कैसे हैं? आज मैं "हिंदी अपडेट" कर रही हूँ. हिंदी रीडर में पहला चैप्टर पढ़ती। बहुत अच्छा था, लेकिन थोडा-सा बेसिक था. पहला चैप्टर छुट्टियां के बारे में थे, दिल्ली और बनारस में. पहला चैप्टर बहुत आसान था.

शब्दवाली चैप्टर से:

बेचैन-restless
घाट-embarkment, I always thought this word meant wharf or pier, its generally used to refer to the steps that go into water. But apparently it can be used in idtiomatic expressions as "emabarkment"
नुक्कड़-strreet corner.
सुविधा-facility, convience

There were many more words but these are the only ones I really stummbled on. I want to say though anyone interested in learning Hindi must get this book! It even has exercises after the readings, it also has grammar points and skimming through the readings they have a variety of everything from BBC articles to book experts. It also uses current modern language. I highly reccomend it. I'm starting chaoter 2 tommorow.

[Meera]

[flag=]ja[/flag] So my class has made it all the way to Chapter 5 in Genki! So far we learned particles, wa, ni, o, ga, mo and some other ones I can't remember right now. We also learned the present affirmative tense, present negative tense, and past affirmative and past negative. We also learned directions, and how to use imasu and arimasu. Chapter 5 starts with descriptions and how to describe weather.

[dEhiN]

That's so cool you're learning Japanese through a course! Pretty soon I'll be coming to you for lessons! I'm still stuck on remembering all the Hiragana characters, and I haven't even started Katakana let alone Kanji. Anyway, keep the updates coming.

PS. Do you find it easy or difficult to learn a lot of vocabulary at once? The Japanese vocab you posted from Chapter 2 seems like a lot! I find I can only learn a few new words at one time. Then again, how long did it take your class to go through Chapter 2?

[Meera]

That's so cool you're learning Japanese through a course! Pretty soon I'll be coming to you for lessons! I'm still stuck on remembering all the Hiragana characters, and I haven't even started Katakana let alone Kanji. Anyway, keep the updates coming.

PS. Do you find it easy or difficult to learn a lot of vocabulary at once? The Japanese vocab you posted from Chapter 2 seems like a lot! I find I can only learn a few new words at one time. Then again, how long did it take your class to go through Chapter 2?

Hey thanks David! My class finishes on may 20th but we did about a chapter per week. Which was a lot, I think, but I think to get threw sucha thick book like Genki it was needed. We hadto know all the vocabulary from each lesson so it was pretty intense. It was a lot of vocab I dont think I even remember them now.

[dEhiN]

That's so cool you're learning Japanese through a course! Pretty soon I'll be coming to you for lessons! I'm still stuck on remembering all the Hiragana characters, and I haven't even started Katakana let alone Kanji. Anyway, keep the updates coming.

PS. Do you find it easy or difficult to learn a lot of vocabulary at once? The Japanese vocab you posted from Chapter 2 seems like a lot! I find I can only learn a few new words at one time. Then again, how long did it take your class to go through Chapter 2?

Hey thanks David! My class finishes on may 20th but we did about a chapter per week. Which was a lot, I think, but I think to get threw sucha thick book like Genki it was needed. We hadto know all the vocabulary from each lesson so it was pretty intense. It was a lot of vocab I dont think I even remember them now.

A week?!?! Wow!! Yeah I guess for vocab you have to regularly use it or you lose it. I read or heard once that it takes six instances of exposure to a word for it to become ingrained in you. So I suppose all that vocab from each chapter is in there; and you've been exposed to each word at least once.

[Meera]

Yeah, you are right. It's really rushed though, I think they should at least spent two weeks per chapter. I love Japanese though I might take the next class in the fall

[dEhiN]

Yeah, you are right. It's really rushed though, I think they should at least spent two weeks per chapter. I love Japanese though I might take the next class in the fall

You should! Also start watching anime, if you don't already. Netflix has a ton of it, though I think it's mostly shonen anime, and some sienen anime. I haven't really encountered any shojo or josei anime. If you like manga, try http://www.mangareader.net. All the manga are in English though. But since you know Hiragana and Katakana and some Kanji, you can probably read a manga in English, find it in Japanese online, and then learn Japanese that way! As for anime, I tend to watch with Japanese audio and English subtitles, though depending on your level you could watch with Japanese subtitles too.

Also a good mobile app I've found for learning Japanese grammar is Tae Kim's Guide to Japanese. There's a website for it: [ur]http://www.guidetojapanese.org/learn/grammar[/url]. Check it out.

[Meera]

Yeah, you are right. It's really rushed though, I think they should at least spent two weeks per chapter. I love Japanese though I might take the next class in the fall

You should! Also start watching anime, if you don't already. Netflix has a ton of it, though I think it's mostly shonen anime, and some sienen anime. I haven't really encountered any shojo or josei anime. If you like manga, try http://www.mangareader.net. All the manga are in English though. But since you know Hiragana and Katakana and some Kanji, you can probably read a manga in English, find it in Japanese online, and then learn Japanese that way! As for anime, I tend to watch with Japanese audio and English subtitles, though depending on your level you could watch with Japanese subtitles too.

Also a good mobile app I've found for learning Japanese grammar is Tae Kim's Guide to Japanese. There's a website for it: [ur]http://www.guidetojapanese.org/learn/grammar[/url]. Check it out.

Thanks Dehin! I have never watched an anime before so I will have to check them out. I never read a manga either so I will definitely check them out And the Tae Kim website looks great!

[dEhiN]

A really popular current manga series is called One Piece. I think you'll find it a lot of fun! I know 20 and 30 year olds who regularly read it. You can find the English scans of OP here.

[Meera]

A really popular current manga series is called One Piece. I think you'll find it a lot of fun! I know 20 and 30 year olds who regularly read it. You can find the English scans of OP here.

Oh awesome! Thanks so much!

[Meera]

[flag=]ja[/flag] So tommorow is my last day of Japanese class. I'm so sad because I loved it so much. I really don't want it to end. Now I'm going to have nothing to do over the summer. Tommorow I have to present a memorized dialouge to the whole class so I'm kind of nervous. I really don't like being in front of people.For a free class, we learned A LOT of Japanese. For fun last week, we learned some Kanji. For example:

山-mountain
日-day
川-river
私-I; teacher said it can also mean private?
天-heaven/sky
今-now
女-woman
食-eat
飲-drink
行-go

[Meera]

[flag=]ja[/flag] I got 100 on my Japanese final today! Now I have to decide if I want to take Japanese 2 when the center opens for the fall.

[dEhiN]

[flag=]ja[/flag] I got 100 on my Japanese final today! Now I have to decide if I want to take Japanese 2 when the center opens for the fall.

Félicitations! Très très impressionnant! Tu dois continuer japonais en automne. Mais aussi continuez en l'été parce que tu peux l'oublier. Regardez les animés!

[voron]

Impressive Meera, keep up the good work!

It's often said that Japanese grammar is in a lot of ways similar to Turkish and some scholars think that they are related. What do you think? Does the knowledge of the Turkish grammar help you with Japanese in any way?

[dEhiN]

Impressive Meera, keep up the good work!

It's often said that Japanese grammar is in a lot of ways similar to Turkish and some scholars think that they are related. What do you think? Does the knowledge of the Turkish grammar help you with Japanese in any way?

Yeah I know from a linguistic pov that the most (or one of the most) accepted theories is that Japanese is part of the Altaic family which includes Turkish and possibly Korean.

Well maybe it's not one of the most accepted theories but I've read more books that teach this view than ones that hold to another view.

[Meera]

[flag=]ja[/flag] I got 100 on my Japanese final today! Now I have to decide if I want to take Japanese 2 when the center opens for the fall.

Félicitations! Très très impressionnant! Tu dois continuer japonais en automne. Mais aussi continuez en l'été parce que tu peux l'oublier. Regardez les animés!

Merci David! Oui, Je dois regarder les animés!