441

A year ago we returned to New Zealand from Japan. I got work teaching summer school. And I’m about to run that class for the second time.

I have notes on a blog about how I taught. I’ll be able to refer to them. But I want to do things better.

I might use the globish version of Hadashi no Tabi. I worked hard on that text, getting it into the sort of shape that an English learner would be able to benefit from.

I’ve all sorts of other ideas that I may expand on during the next 7 weeks.

Today: J2 P1      

Total: J225 D121 G40 P36 Sp21 F20 Da1 A1

440

I’ve more or less completed my collection of approximately 1600 unique kanji from HP1, but there’ll never be an end to it. Next, I’ll complete my 1^st instance highlighted text, check for double-ups, compare against the standard jouyou kanji list, select phrases, go over Heisig, redo my 5-digit kanji codes, and then eventually go on to HP2 (and the others). 

However, from now on, or soon, after my family leaves for a 100+ day visit to Japan, I’m going to test out my system on Polish.

Japanese, German, Dutch etcetera will just need to tick on over in the background.

Today: J4 D2 P1      

Total: J223 D121 G40 P35 Sp21 F20 Da1 A1

439

Dave Witherow is a newspaper columnist. He wrote an opinion piece last week that has got him lambasted as a racist. I’m sure, though, that he doesn’t see himself as anything of the sort.

Dave does not like the idea of compulsory Maori language education. People have latched onto the word ‘Maori’, whereas it’s probably the ‘language’ that Dave’s diatribe was about. I suspect that the imposition of any second language would have provoked the same response.

Being schooled in another language is uncomfortable. To endure it you need to start out as a beginner again. It’s that which rankles.

Today: J5 G1      

Total: J219 D119 G40 P34 Sp21 F20 Da1 A1

438

A realization:

Up to now I’ve been fluffing about. I’ve dabbled and pottered. I’ve done the brainstorming, the thinking and the theorizing. But what I haven’t yet done is to knuckle down and apply myself. I have not yet tested out my ideas to produce a rock-solid outcome.

I need to choose a suitable language, sit down with it for between an hour or two daily over x number of weeks to test whether what I say works. That’s a fact. It’s as simple as that. 

I’ve got to run the experiment, collect data, and then write up the results.

Today: J5 P2      

Total: J214 D119 G39 P34 Sp21 F20 Da1 A1

437

I was reminded to have a single language activity going for each language.

I got a bunch of kids books in Dutch from the orphans’ thrift shop. They were about frogs—kikkers—and mice—muizen. I read one of them to Sachi. I simply translated the story into English while pointing out a similar word here and there. Then I read the story our again, this time incorporating a bit of Dutch.

“Hey!” I thought. This is a little like what I’m doing when I replace phrases of a English text with Spanish. (Which I haven’t done for a while.)

Today: J5 D2      

Total: J209 D119 G39 P32 Sp21 F20 Da1 A1

436

I like socializing to some extent, but I can’t abide conversation for the sake of conversation. Words used just to fill the ether mean nothing to me. If you’ve nothing to say, then don’t say it!

I hope not to fall into that trap here. Well, for no more than 100 words at a time.

I’ve referred to 20 tongues in the title. How do I make that a reality? Well, my daily statistics suggest a way. All I need to do is to build up the hours across a broad front. I just need realistic, interesting and relevant goals.   

Today: J5      

Total: J204 D117 G39 P32 Sp21 F20 Da1 A1

435

One interesting thing I did yesterday was to eliminate. But don’t jump to conclusions! 

What I did was to take the word document of my resource (HP1). From it, I removed each kanji when I had dealt with it. I edited out every instance—whether it occurred once or more than 700 times. That made it easier to find those that were left.

But there were hiragana and katakana in the way. Along with punctuation. They were the trees. I couldn’t see the woods.

So I took them out too, leaving a dense block of uncommon kanji that resembles Chinese. 

Today: J5      

Total: J199 D117 G39 P32 Sp21 F20 Da1 A1

434

What am I achieving here? What are the results of my carrying out an in-depth analysis of the ‘kanji composition’ of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s (or Sorcerer’s) Stone?

Well, by locating the first occurrence of every kanji, and then by determining the frequency of each, I’m gaining a sense of their relative importance. I’m figuring out which ones are more common than others. I’m learning which ‘words’ they connect into. And by listing instantly identifiable phrases that contain them, I’m building up a context for them all.

I’m introducing fun into language acquisition. I’m tapping into my inner nerd.

Today: J5      

Total: J194 D117 G39 P32 Sp21 F20 Da1 A1

433

Just so as to capture the idea—Alan Watts says that all you need to do (in life, but also with language) is to wash one dish at a time.

I looked yesterday at one Arabic letter at a time, glossing through a workbook for speakers of Indonesian (I think) learning Arabic so as to be able to read the Koran (or Quran). There are only 28 letters. Most of the book explains how to link them. The Arabic script is cursive.

Finally, I ripped the original plastic off Wilfried Erdmann’s Segelzeit. 50 Years sailing. Half an hour of German.

Today: J3 G2 A1       

Total: J189 D117 G39 P32 Sp21 F20 Da1 A1

I like   usually sometimes

Please . . .

432

For about 10 days now I’ve been on a Japanese splurge. How should I view that? With dismay—because I haven’t done much else? Or with enthusiasm—because I’m getting so into it?

Today is more or less the last day of class. So I’ve organized something different. I’ll get my students into a computer lab where I’ll get them to have fun trying out some word-processing.

I’ll load everyone up with Mary Pope Osborne’s Dinosaurs after dark. And then I’ll show them how to manipulate a word document in various ways.

That’s what I plan as my Polish splurge.

Today: J5      

Total: J186 D117 G37 P32 Sp21 F20 Da1

431

I find kanji fascinating. They aren’t an alphabet yet neither are they a vocabulary. They exist in the twilight zone in between.

I am able to place them into an alphabetical order—using Excel. But unless you know their pronunciation—one of several alternatives—plus some other unknown rule(s) about stroke order, radicals and the like, that’s utterly impossible.

Discrete kanji can be used as words. But they also form 2-, 3- and 4-kanji ‘words’ similar to German. Nevertheless, the total vocabulary of Japanese is only a fraction that of English. Hence the overuse—to our ears—of formulaic expressions.

Today: J5      

Total: J181 D117 G37 P32 Sp21 F20 Da1 

430

In The Expats, the main character describes how she can handle the Romance languages but not the northern ones. She can’t differentiate the Scandinavian tongues, and even German and Dutch are impossible for her too.

For me, on the other hand, it’s easy. With Min forste bog om Peter Plys I can tell at a glance that it’s Winnie the Pooh. And so, when I spotted The House as Pooh Corner at the Silverstream School fair this weekend, I grabbed it.

And as a result I spent my first official session in the sun at Woodhaugh looking at some Danish.

Today: J5 Da1      

Total: J176 D117 G37 P32 Sp21 F20 Da1

429

Having completed chapter 3 and collected 839 kanji, the rate has slowed. I may have overlooked one or two, or have them in the wrong order (not that it matters).

So I’ve created another word document. I globally eliminate each kanji as I come to it—replacing them with asterisks. This lets me see how many times each kanji repeats. I enter that number on the Excel spreadsheet. And so I can report that the top 4 kanji are: 言, 見, 人 and 一.

Naturally this is all very time consuming, but that’s as it should be.

    

Today: J5 P1      

Total: J171 D117 G37 P32 Sp21 F20

428

During the last week of my level 2 English class, I plan to take my bunch of 20 along to a computer lab. I’m going to open up a word document for them—an Enid Blyton Adventurous Four story. And I’m going to encourage them to have some word processing fun with it.

I first realized the addictiveness and usefulness of this activity when I collected 4500-odd i+1 Japanese sentences from HP1.

I plan to do this again in Polish. You develop confidence from being able to manipulate text in this manner. And you tap into the power of play.

Today: J5 P1      

Total: J166 D117 G37 P31 Sp21 F20

427

Several threads:

The Expats by Chris Pavone is a good read. Americans in Luxembourg finding it difficult to settle. Lots of languages, European travel and spies.

Doing a few pages of Polish in the staffroom. Using Powroty nad rozlewiskiem as my Einstein Soup resource. Or is it Light, Wide & Shallow?

And hunting for kanji. I’m up to about 681. Which means that I added another 150 yesterday evening. They come from the second Harry Potter chapter. I zipped through the entire chapter in one sitting. It’s an amazing feeling to recognize everything that you see. 

American in Paris, not.

Today: J5 P2     

Total: J161 D117 G37 P30 Sp21 F20

426

I was in danger of doing no language yesterday. Actually, I was too busy with English. It’s almost the end of the year, so at school I’m dealing with assessments, portfolios, presentations, essays and end-of-term shortened attention spans.

Nevertheless, at the end of the day I felt bad about reporting a zero. So I read 

in bed for several minutes—Persoonlijk by Lee Child.

Better than nothing!

It’s a mystery to me how busy people manage to have any sort of life. I’ve aways managed to steer myself away from such a situation, and will strive to keep that up.

Today: D1     

Total: J156 D117 G37 P28 Sp21 F20

425

I’m pleased with myself. I did an hour each of Japanese and Polish. 

With Japanese, I completed the first chapter of HP1. I have ‘collected’ 533 kanji altogether.

With Polish, at Marsh, I ‘read’ 8 pages of the novel, Powroty nad rozlewiskiem. What that means is that I looked over every line, doing a different task for every page.

I noted down words I recognized, word pairs, first words of sentences, words that started with ‘k’, ‘z’, the 10 shortest sentences, words I could guess, and question words. 

Later on I noted down the 100 most common words in Polish.

Today: J4 P4     

Total: J156 D116 G37 P28 Sp21 F20

424

I’m going though Harry Potter with a fine-tooth comb. I’m collecting kanji as they occur (for the first time) listing them in an Excel document. Alongside each, I’m placing examples of their use—a phrases or a sentence.

To search the whole book, I copy and paste text in the search box. But I’m having trouble. Every so often there’s a malfunction. The cursor leaps back down into the main body and does its pasting there.

Short story—I’ve used this to help me. Now, I’m zipping through simply collecting the kanji without examples. I’ll do that later. It’s faster.

Today: J5     

Total: J152 D116 G37 P24 Sp21 F20

423

In terms of hours, my Polish has just overtaken both French and Spanish. Now, that isn’t saying very much. In total I’ve only spent a few hours on each. It’s interesting, as I’ve mentioned before, how easy it is to spend the time once you’ve made some progress. The trick is how to get that self-sustaining reaction going.

So with those 200 most common Polish words. I simply need to play around, instead of falling into the trap of memorizing and testing myself out. No, what I’ll do is to write myself a list and then locate them in situ. 

Today: J5 P1    

Total: J147 D116 G37 P24 Sp21 F20

422

At just over 4000 words, version 1.0 of Any Language I Like is done. That’s a milestone.

Doing the final edit, I realized that I expect the prospective user of Heinrich’s manoeuvres to already possess the basics of ‘Newbian’. And I realized that with Polish I don’t. So that poses the question.

Here’s what Moonface thinks. I read through it, and then started going over the 200 most common words. At this point I’m still dabbling. But I can see that quite quickly I could get addicted to the same sort of thing that I’m into with HP1 kanji collecting.

Today: J5 P2    

Total: J142 D116 G37 P23 Sp21 F20

421

In a magazine about conservation, in the article, 100 Ways to Kill a Rat, about how some students invented and tried to market a product that provides a new way to destroy pests, I read:

“The toughest thing of all has been getting people to change the way they do things, and to accept new innovations.”

Who would have thought that there are similarities between language learning and rodent extermination?

Meanwhile I sit at the table watching the birds feed on old rice, preparing to listen to Stephen Fry as I scan the corresponding Polish text.

Life is so interesting.

Today: J2 P2   

Total: J137 D116 G37 P21 Sp21 F20

420

I don’t remember how I actually came to focus on Polish. But anyway—

I learned, when I followed along in Polish/Polish, that its spelling is truly awful. But its pronunciation sounds a lot simpler.

And when I took a look online in search of the most common Polish words, I discovered an interesting language site by ‘Moonface’ (Duncan someone).

I’m starting to feel that grammar may not be a bad word. A sense of roughly how a language is put together can probably help, as long as you keep your eyes on the bigger picture (the wood, not the trees).

Today: J2 P2    

Total: J135 D116 G37 Sp21 F20 P19 

419

I started with Polish yesterday, and I touched on 4 languages altogether. So I’m happy with that.

How do I quickly get up to speed with a new language such as Polish? I tried the basic sentence by sentence comparison, but for One Shot there’s not a clear one for one word correspondence.

Therefore, I’ll go for the ‘triad’. For some reason I have chapter 7 of HP1—The Sorting Hat—as an mp3 file, so I’ll concentrate on that. Today I’ll also do the second leg of the triad in Japanese for chapter 1. Stephen Fry for a change. 

Today: J2 G1 D1 P1    

Total: J133 D116 G37 Sp21 F20 P17 

418

Assessment is going on now. Students in my classes also need to build up a portfolio. Fo reading they need to collect evidence of having read outside of the classroom.

Somehow this reminds me of Heinrich Schliemann claiming to pick up a language in 6 weeks. That would be from concentrated effort—a lot of time spend during the day on one language at a time.

Therefore, I too should concentrate. Priority goes to the new language I’m learning. Then, when it’s self-sustaining, it does just that! First part of the day for the new; the rest to the old.  

Today: J5 G1     

Total: J131 D115 G36 Sp21 F20 P16

417

Having generated such enormous enthusiasm for ‘collecting’ kanji, I’ll let the activity run for a few days. Let me describe what I’m doing.

I’m building up an Excel document. I’m going through HP1 from page 1, listing the kanji when they first appear in the narrative. Then I do a search through the story for a phrase that contains each kanji. I’m also looking for kanji compound words’ of two or more characters.

At first, I wanted only one of each kanji. But now, I’ll collect multiple examples if they ‘feel’ new. Otherwise it gets too much of a search.

Today: J5 D1     

Total: J126 D115 G35 Sp21 F20 P16

416

I ought to ‘do’ my newest language first. Well, second thing in the morning—first thing after this. I should begin with the ‘least’ of my languages. Today that happens to be Polish. And I ought to stick with it for a month.

Gotta plan for Japanese too. Two plans, in fact.

I do a triad over three days per chapter, which is 17 chapters times 3. That’s 51 days.

And I do the highly addictive Kanji For Fun.

In other news, I learned yesterday that only 3% of online information courses are ever completed. That fact deserves thinking about.

Today: J5 D3 G1    

Total: J121 D114 G35 Sp21 F20 P16

415

I’m excited. Which is good, but it could also be bad. 

I’ve completed HP1 in Japanese. I’ve collected 4500 sentences from it. Now what? There’s some trepidation while I ponder what to do next.

I could cut it down to the 1000 best sentences. I could use them to re-do my kanji approach. Maybe they had better go onto Excel. There’s so much I could do. I’ve just woken from a dream where the sentences were glass and broken pottery shards for me to sort and pack.

The trick is to keep everything exciting and fun and not to overanalyse.

Today: D2 J2    

Total: J116 D111 G34 Sp21 F20 P16

414

I’m more fluent in Dutch. I notice it, talking with my mother. She has moderate dementia, and she is leaning more toward her own language. As for me, phrases spring up in my head without effort. It’s a kick!

Now that I’ve gone through HP1—all but about 5 pages—I’m more fluent in Japanese too. I ‘gist’ almost every sentence, not just the occasional one. 

German is at that point too. The reason that I spend most of my time on it and the others is that their familiarity is now addictive.

It’s all about getting to that point.

Today: D3 J2 F1   

Total: J114 D109 G34 Sp21 F20 P16

413

It may seem as if I’m chasing novelty just so as to be able to write about something new every day. And indeed, sometimes I do rack my brains to come up with another angle. Generally though, I don’t have to try. It just naturally happens.

I discovered East of Eden in French on my Kindle. I was supervising a self-directed-learning class, so naturally I spent a bit of time examining it.

I have recently been given a book in Dutch about my mother’s family’s wartime experiences. Information that I’ve never known. So of course, that becomes my bedtime reading.

Today: D5 F2 J1  

Total: J112 D106 G34 Sp21 F19 P16

412

I happened to leaf through a new resource: Auf dunnem Eis by Charles Todd. In its original English it has great reviews. 

As I read, I would notice the odd, interesting sentence, or chunk of text. The first was, ‘Irgendwo in der Ferne pfiff ein Zug’. Isn’t that the cutest thing that you ever saw?

So I set out to find and underline one such sentence per page. Other than that I had no plan in mind. I downloaded the first couple of chapters to demonstrate the exercise to my self-directed-learning class. 

How might I develop this idea? Who knows?

Today: J1 D1 G1   

Total: J111 D101 G34 Sp21 F17 P16