My Tadoku Thought Process

I’ve had a few people ask me here recently how I approach reading things I don’t know.

If you want to go the way of Extensive reading (tadoku) thought, you’d simply skip it if context doesn’t help you out.

For me, I do a little bit more effort.

So the following steps is what I do mostly

1. Can I pronounce it?
2. Likely pronunciations?
3. Do I know the meaning?
4. Can I get a rough idea of the meaning?
5. skip it

That’s it, pretty simple. It actually goes by really fast. Considering that you should be reading within at least an 85% understanding rate, the number of things that you don’t know shouldn’t get in your way.

So what if you’re a beginner? Most children’s books don’t have kanji, or the kanji has furigana, however occasionally you’ll pop up with one that doesn’t.

Here would be an example of the beginning to read stage.

むかし、あるところに、おじいさんが一人で すんでいました。

Its uncommon, but randomly things are put into kanji in the most basic of children’s books. In this case, I would read all the kana, and though I hate to show roman characters, I will for the sake of clarity.

mukashi, aurutokoroni, ojiisanga hitoride sundeimashita.

1) Say you didn’t know that 一人 did not have the sound ひとり, I would do as I explained above.

2) Take a stab? いち？じん？If that didn’t cause any lights to go off, then

3) The meaning? One Person. So when reading, I would say aloud or in my head (I tend to actually read outloud mostly)

むかし、あるところに、おじいさんがOne Personで すんでいました。

mukashi, aurutokoroni, ojiisanga one person de sundeimashita.

4) Okay, so say even then, no idea what the meaning may be. Maybe you only knew what the kanji 一 was but not 人。

むかし、あるところに、おじいさんがone ~~で すんでいました。

mukashi, aurutokoroni, ojiisanga one ~~ de sundeimashita.

5) Or just all together skip the unknown and worry none about it,

むかし、あるところに、おじいさんが~~~~で すんでいました。

mukashi, aurutokoroni, ojiisanga ~~~~ de sundeimashita.

…and yeah, that’s probably the only time you’ll see me do roman characters….

This example is something really basic, but it applies to any level that I’m reading. I really don’t even spend a lot of time on it, as it may seem in the example.

Why do I read aloud?

I find that for me, who spent roughly 3 years in deep listening immersion with no subs, know some things purely by sound. I did not have the opportunity to study extensively so I decided to work on kanji through RTK during that time, and went sorta slow. Anyhow, because of that, I have only recently began studying sounds associated to kanji within the last year. Many times I find myself in the position when I’m studying of realizing I already know the word by listening alone.

Reading aloud helps trigger that effect and I’ll take all the なるほど moments I can get!

How am I using Tadoku?

Tadoku to me isn’t just a contest, but something I do whenever possible. I use the Tadoku contest as a time of measurements.

I do not normally record what I read, and I don’t usually compare myself. Tadoku helps let me see how far I’ve come since the last one, and I get to have fun trying to ‘beat’ others into a new level of reading. Pushing in these little sprints actually improves my speed at reading without me burning out. I do not attempt to specifically read faster on non tadoku months, but more pleasurably/slowly.

Differences affecting my reading:

I have noticed one thing has effected my speed of reading

• word familiarity

I have been pushing myself to know how to read kanji and vocabulary (which has created the lack of posts on this site, sorry!). The more familiar I have become with a word, the more I’ve noticed that I’m able to read it faster.

You cannot have one without the other. Reading a word has had a larger impact than a random SRS review.

Even if you’re not trying to memorize things, seeing the same sentences will have the same effect, and you glaze over the review it seems. Reading things on the fly in random ways in random sentences has the power of an SRS x 5! Its why a lot of people after a certain point drop SRS’s vocabulary all together and use reading as the natural way to encourage vocabulary reinforcement.

 

Power Up Your Japanese

At last, the day has come for me to walk down the monolingual road. Basically what this means using a Japanese dictionary to look up unknown Japanese words. This is an experiment I’ve been doing over the last little while, and now that I have a system that’s working, I’d like to share it with you, the wonderful reader. It feels like I’ve just powered up to a whole new level. Perhaps in time, it will be kinda like…

This could be you.

I admit, I really did think of the whole Super Saiyan transformation seen above while undertaking this project. In all seriousness though, if you’re looking to make this leap, I would highly recommend having a good handle on kanji meanings, and having a vocabulary level of at least JLPT N4 or Core 2000. If anything, the kanji is the most useful because it will give you a general idea of what’s going on. While taking this plunge, I also took the advice I’ve seen on many blogs: start by looking up words you already know. This is why I dubbed my experiments The Journey of 公園 (public park). This was a word I already knew, and I liked the symbolism of it. It would be like a walk in the park…

Miller Point 公園

How did this journey begin? Well, it’s no secret that I’m a huge fan of Learning With Texts. It’s a huge time saver, and more effective on top of it. So naturally, I adapted LWT to monolingual use. A lot of this stuff can easily be done with just an SRS like Anki, it’s just that something like LWT will take a lot of the tedious steps away for you. If you do use LWT, first you’ll want to change your dictionaries. Have a look at my LWT post for how to do that. There are a few good ones out there, but Yahoo dictionary is my personal choice, and is really all I use. The URL for the monodic version of Yahoo! is:
http://dic.yahoo.co.jp/detail?p=###&stype=0&dtype=0
. (As you’ve probably noticed, you just replace the term being searched with ### in the URL.) If you’re doing this manually and not with LWT, you want to select 国語 as the dictionary type. You could also try out Goo, Wikitionary, or Sanseido. First let’s take a look at what typical monodic results look like on Yahoo…

For example…

So first you have the term itself with the reading, まつり and then with kanji 祭り. On the far right are other terms that contain the word or part of the word in it. It can be good to check that first because sometimes the results don’t always show what you’re looking for. After the term you see a numbered list. These are various definitions of the word. Some of the ones that have text in green after them are rare literary definitions so you likely won’t want to include those. As a guideline, I only include 2-3 definitions per term. You’ll also see some example sentences in 「brackets」. Take note that the word itself is replaced by a ― in the examples. This seems to be quite common in Japanese dictionaries. In the case of verbs and other words that change like that, only the root is replaced by a ―. And that’s the quick and dirty on how Yahoo!辞書 works.

Now the magic begins. Start with a sentence that contains only words you know. It can come from anywhere, even a Google search. Enter that one sentence into LWT, and look up each word with your monolingual dictionary to create the terms. I make sure to have the definition and reading as separate fields, unlike I used to do. I’ll show you why later on. Once you start adding terms, you’ll probably have some words in the definition you don’t know yet. There are a few ways you can go about this

Selecting a term.

One way is branching (jumping). This basically means you look up the word in the definition you don’t know, and find the monolingual definition to that one, and look up words in that definition you don’t know, and so on… The problem with trying to create extra SRS cards this way is that this branching can get out of hand. For example I ended up getting something like 40 cards based on one sentence. If it works for you then go for it, but if not…

Bird is the word when it comes to branching..

You can also try a transitional sort of card for your terms. If the monolingual definition makes sense to you, then great–leave it that way. If you’re still not sure of what the word means, most words in the 和英 (Japanese->English) dictionary actually feature short bilingual definitions of the word in question. The best part about this is while the English part is usually a rough translation of the word, the Japanese part tends to be an actual explanation. Not only does this still include Japanese text, but you can often get the nuance of the words this way and hopefully get an aha moment when reading it. Even when doing this, I often add the full J>J definition first, as seen below.

Mixed definition, mostly Japanese.

Every term I end up with has two different card formats in Anki. One tests me on the reading of the term, showing the meaning etc in the question portion. The other type tests me on the meaning of the word, showing me the reading in the question portion. This is so I can handle these two elements separately  There’s an idea that every card should only have 1 question and 1 answer. By following that idea, I find I can learn cards quickly and effectively. At the moment about half my cards are pure monolingual, and the other half are transitional.

Reading

Meaning

So when you don’t have any English to compare your answer to, how do you grade yourself? What I came up with goes something like this: If you understand the definition, and your idea of what the word means makes sense in the example sentence, then it’s correct. Simple as that. If you follow the guidelines above for deciding between pure monolingual and transitional cards, then really every one should be a winner.

Can you tell I really like the whole “road” imagery when it comes to learning Japanese? This is the 公園 behind Desbrisay Museum.

Now time for some bonus stuff! If you’re looking to quiz yourself even further in a monolingual environment, give Yahoo!きっず学習－漢字 a shot. There are lessons on other topics like science or even English on there to test yourself from a Japanese perspective. Or maybe you’ve got enough 国語（こくご） and your goal now is to cut down on English? Start by figuring out what your biggest time suckers are and either limit or get rid of them altogether. For example, I know certain websites are after my time, so I’ve become a big fan of Chrome Nanny and Leech Block, for Chrome and Firefox respectively. Use it wisely!

 

All Hail the Alicrab! A Peek into WaniKani

Since I was a wee kanji learner, I have gone upon the mountains and lo, preached the goodness that was the world of Remembering the Kanji and all the RTK followers would rejoice on high…that is until the Almighty Alicrab appeared and toppled RTK over the hill.

Wanikani is crack where RTK is caffeine, picking off where RTK does and going a step further. I found that after RTK there was a sort of deadening space where you lose a little motivation, but mostly because though you can see soooo many kanji everywhere and understand that gist (which is an awesome feeling) it is sorta a little browbeating to sorta ‘start from scratch’ in terms of getting sounds to the kanji. RTK’s 2nd book supposedly addresses this issue, but never have I really heard any good comments about RTK2, nor have I even been remotely interested in it.

This is ultimately why WaniKani is now my beginner ‘program’ of choice when anyone asks me how to start the reading/writing process. It all began with the Alicrab.

What is the almighty Alicrab you say? Well pictures are worth a thousand words.

Just an alligator with a crab body here, nothing to see, move along!

General Thoughts

Though you can see Tofugu’s own post about WaniKani, I’m here to give you a peak at my thoughts. Even though I have completed RTK1, it might not be completely fair to hear my thoughts on the ease of the program. Worry not however, because I forced about 3 people near me who had relativity no kanji experience to use it as well.

Having been a member of the beta for some time now, I’ve seen a wealthy amount of UI changes, even their blog post is quite outdated, however, the changes are like most site changes, some you like, some you don’t. I’ll admit at least for this sensitive eyeballed person here, the newer color scheme is just a tad bit painful and I do hope that it may change soon, however that said, I still enjoy the overall changes and progression that WaniKani has taken on. I’ve seen the levels progress from 7 to now 33, and things like audio and such add up.

I think my favorite things about the site is the system itself, its cuteness of the Alicrab, and the ease of the layout (where you get to see lots of information to fuel your excitement), where as my most hated thing is the lack of sentences and rigidity during reviews (I’ll explain the review section below), but mostly the color scheme (yeah yeah I know, I might complain about it a little more though. Not to say everyone feels the same, lots of people enjoy the color. As a side note, its not my monitor as I’ve viewed it on several computers and my ipad).

Enough of my general talking, let me get down to business.

WaniKani Basics

The Radicals

Like RTK where there are elements that you use to propel mnemonics, so does WK. If you’re into RTK just a little bit, it would not be hard to convert over at all. Even I, who’ve had those keywords in my head for a long time, was almost painless to switch. There were only a few where I continuously miss them due to RTK, such as 日, however I do not see it being problems for those with no heavy RTK influence.

The Kanji (General)

Kanji are usually given the most appropriate keyword for testing periods (SRS), however there are explanations of more within the kanji’s information…center? I’m not sure where he is pulling his list from, but from what I can tell in my own readings and such, the kanji are all relevant kanji you’ll need to know.

The Kanji (Readings)

The readings for the kanji are broken into two sections, the kanji side and the vocabulary side. For some this may seem like a rather odd thing, and at first I was a little eyebrow raising, however I noticed right away the ingenious behind it. Well Played Good Sir, Well Played. If you’re like me, you can never remember the difference between the words, On’Yomi, or Kon’Yomi, however, and though I still don’t think it matters if I do, WaniKani takes on that responsibility of helping you distinguish between when to say what (in general) without you caring to know still. I might of confused you, but when I give an example below, I will point this out better.

The Vocabulary

Every kanji has a vocabulary in which it goes into in the WaniKani side of things, and some even get a handful (especially combined with other kanji). This can be a little confusing, as for kanji’s readings in its kanji only side is sometimes different than the vocabulary side, and can be a little mind numbing if you mix them up and get the review wrong. However, the reinforcement of how the reading’s show up is a blessing in disguise, and it helps hit home that the kanji should never be confused with its vocabulary counterpart (even if, it is a single kanji vocab). Okay, maybe you’re worried or confused now, but I’ll show you below in an example. The great thing however is most of the vocabulary I feel is pretty common and useful right out the gate.

Levels

WK works on a leveling system. The number of radicals, kanji, and vocabulary differ for each level as well. The radicals do not run out however, due to a lot of them being kanji used in other kanji. This is similar to how RTK worked, and perhaps some people have complained about just slightly, since they have to double test on it, however others feel that it is doubly helpful that way.

Home Page

The homepage, where all your information is before your eyes, you can easily see where you came from, where you’re at, and where you’re going. The dashboard is useful, with the ability to always return to the home screen, start your lessons, your reviews, drop down boxes to view your Level, Radicals, Kanji, and Vocabulary.

The layout is prone to changes, so rather than describing it, I’ll just tell you stuff that has remained on there pretty much the whole time I’ve been on WK. You get to see 4 levels of mastery and a burned item. Basically the more you answer correctly your items pass through stages until they’re so ‘burned’ into your mind that you’ll never forget them.

Apprentice –> Guru –> Master –> Enlightened –> Burned

I have to admit I miss the images they use to have with the levels, of the demon guy, but the new look is sleek and good too showing a turtle coming out of its egg.

Progression bar on the level for both Radical and Kanji has been there, letting you know how many you need to unlock to move forward. I’ve never paid any attention to this, but its a cool thing to look at if you’re powering towards the next level and need some visual boost to propel forward.

It’s also nice to note that there is a color scheme that matches what the item is. When reviewing, the color of the background changes to help you realize it’s a specific item. For example when you have a kanji and a vocabulary item that is the same, the color will change still. The colors are noted below with the examples.

There has always been a showing of current forum posts and the beta blog for WK, so far as I can remember. There is a forum on the site, but I do not participate in it, but from what I have seen, there are bug reporting places, requests, questions, minecraft information, and of course people talking about Japanese related things like media and what not.

Other things have come and gone on the page, such as now there is a ‘New Unlocks”, “Critical Conditions Items”, like those you miss a lot, and “Burned Items” (last 30 days for the new and burned). Also a when to review now, and a bit from then.

Overall the main points have stayed there, just changes in how it is displayed, with a few tweaks.

Lessons

Certainly the first thing you do on WK is a lesson. A lesson basically consists of the radical, kanji, vocabulary that you are learning to show up, its breakdown (which is what the item is all about), meaning, and reading. These are able to be viewed outside of the lessons as well, and during reviews. The lesson will generally provide you with a mnemonic to use, however you are free to use your own, you just cannot modify it into the system.

Perhaps a first confusion for many is, if you are given more than one reading. In this case, you only need to input one when reviewing, not both/all.

You do roughly 5 new items before it goes into a mini review, and then back again into the lessons. This is helpful to help re-solidify  and I enjoy it a lot. It is one of the reasons that I liked iknow as well, which incorporated a ‘learn, review, test’ SRS mentality.

Review

The second main thing you do on this site (and probably actually the most thing you should be doing) is reviewing. WK is an SRS, and therefore, you have to come back and review. Reviewing is pretty straight forward. The review screen will show you what you’re reviewing (and is color coated depending on the item being vocab, kanji, radical) and some options below it.

• item at top in colored box
• question
• input box
• option to view Hiragana

Once you enter in your answer, a few things happen. The top right stats will change depending on your correctness, as well as the box. If you get it right, your stats stay closer to 100% rightness, if not, it detracts from that and you get a little red box where the input was. Options to relearn about the item is now allowed to be accessed. Most items (vocabulary) have sounds which you can hear when ever, and keyboard shortcuts are highly usable, making it really nice.

If you need to look up information on the item, at first it will only show you what you missed, so that it does not give away other testable aspects of the word, however, you can click to see more information to allow you to see more if you’ve just completely forgot a bout the item in question.

A few people claim that the strictness of the spelling is very off putting, but the system does allow for a handful of mistyped words, however similar meanings aren’t usually accepted. There are ways to ask for this stuff on the forum, but you have to be reasonable to an extent about what you can allow in these types of input tested programs.

When items are right, of course, your box goes green! Yay! You can still view information though, just in case you need a refresher, and you’ll notice that when items are reviewed in completion correctly, they can be upgraded, and if missed in one aspect, possibly downgraded (like you get meaning right but reading wrong).

Example run through!

So when you’re a beginner, the very first thing you’ll see is a radical. Here is a listing of some of the radicals you’ll see right out, 大，十、口、日　Its pretty straight forward. Once you unlock a certain amount of them, then you’ll be able to see a kanji. Here is where we’ll pick up our example.

Kanji! [Pink Background]

上＝じょう＝above, equipped with the radicals that make up this Kanji, writing it is easy, and the mnemonic brought with it :

Meaning: “There’s a toe above ground. Look at it.”

Reading: “The toe sticking up above the ground is just a little thing… You go up to poke it and then you realize that the toe actually belongs to Joseph (じょう) Stalin. Joe doesn’t like people messing with his toes, so you slowly back away.”

There is more information given in general during the lesson, but this is the most important things to bring from it in the long run.

Then later on you’ll run against its single kanji vocabulary form.

Vocabulary [Purple Background]

上＝うえ＝up 

Meaning: “When a vocab word is a single kanji and alone, it tends to steal the meaning from the kanji. Same goes for this one too. It means above or up.”

Reading: “When a vocab word is a single kanji and doesn’t have okurigana (hiragana attached to the kanji) it usually will use the kun’yomi. Since you learned the on’yomi reading of the kanji, we’ll need to use a mnemonic to learn the reading of this vocabulary word. —- Above you is a huge weight. You’re holding it up and struggling (it’s heavy!). You look up and try to crane your neck to see how much it weighs (うえ), but you can’t see the numbers on the side of it. How long can you hold it above your head like this?”

So as you can see, there will be a few of these you’ll run across and forget which one went to which one. It can be a little frustrating at first I know, but working through these little small things make it all pretty cool in the end, trust me.

More vocabulary:

As you combine other kanji into your learning, they will combine with other kanji and create even more vocabulary words. Here are some that the above kanji are turned into both within the first level to many later:

上る、上げる、上がる、上手、以上、上司、差し上げる。。。

and many more.

User Created Tools

A cool thing is that every user has a code to their account that contains some general information, like what’s due, lessons, and so on. People have created handy little extensions and what not to use, and If you get into WK I recommend you check them out. They’re mostly about helping remind you to do your work!

Closing Thoughts

Of those that tried it out for me, only a few complained of frustration of some of the exact input spelling for meanings and readings. All in all, we all agree that WK picks up a huge piece that Heisig doesn’t do very well. Perhaps to me, the absoluteness is what bothers me most, and has always been the case with any language to language. Where there are with no doubt words that equal words, that is not always the case, and without sentence examples and usages, the vocabulary words feel a little detached. So it would be my recommendation to combine the sentence mining method with WK in full force from the beginning! Seeing what I have, I also feel that if you were to complete WK, you should go straight to J-J. There is enough background to switch over easily to monolingual, especially if you sentence mined your way through it.

How to get it

As it stands, WK is in the beta phase, so please email sign up! The great thing about beta is that you get started sooner while still helping mold the product. On another good note, you get a discount when going beyond level 2. Yes WK is a paid product, and you can pay by several methods in several time groups. Those who have Textfugu also receive a discount (not stacked). So get in now to get the discounts! Also, it is not known when WK will be released fully and tit is not known how many full levels, though I have heard whispering of at least 50 levels.

I hope that this was helpful, if you have any further questions, or are participating already and would like to expand, comment below!

 

Moving and Immersion

As you guys probably know by now, I  like to move. In fact, its weird if I don’t move, so as I got to think about it, maybe giving some of the tips I’ve realized since I started moving and keeping in Japanese would help some of you who maybe like to move or will move soonish.　Some of these concepts are in line with Daniel’s immersion on the go mentality, save rather than just a small amount, you’re going large.

I start it by Immersion in a Box!

This Box, which can either be different in colors, can also be plain, or a duffle bag, or a backpack, or something basically where you can store stuff.

If you sit down and think about it, what can give you the most bang for your buck? This is what will fill your bag. Here are some examples:

• MP3 Players 
• iPods, iTouches, iPads
• Tablets of your choosing, like Kindle Fire, Nook, and so forth
• Physical Books you just love
• Paper Dictionary (if you prefer them over electronic ones, or an electronic dic)
• Posters (motivational or informatative)
• Movies
• Games
• DS or Other gaming devices like PS2 that do JP games

The reason these things will stay separated is, if all in doubt, they can fill moments where you need some immersion. Here is some rules:

1. Never place this box with other boxes.
2. Mark it up, put a sign ”HEY LEAVE THIS OUT AND ALONE!’ (I’ve had the issue where someone tried to pack it away because they were unaware)
3. Do not place anything unJapanese orientated in the box. I don’t care if you need your toothbrush out, it does not go in here
4. If you take something out (before or during the move) make sure to put it back
5. Mark all other items that may be related to Japanese but not as important as this emergency immersion box, so that when you are in your new place you can easily pull it out

Now Here are some tips on how to use the box (some of these will not be applicable to parents, however there are also tips that wont make sense to the single)

• Music should be playing in the background during your packing times. It will not hurt anything to have this going
• Music in your ears can prevent you from hearing people ask questions about stuff, and you want to make it a smooth time for everyone
• Don’t listen to anyone who doesn’t want to listen to JP, hey you rule your house right? (jk, at least make compromise)
• During the packing stage, hesitate to pack any secondary equipment, such as your gaming/computer type devices, as it really wont hurt to save them for last.
• Things like books and movies come in really handy during night times and breaks.
• Hold off on additions to studying, but maintain minimum things like SRS reps
• If your computer is your sole thing to study with, it should be last to pack and first to unpack, even if  you’re laying on the floor with it, keep that alive. (it will help you avoid guilt)
• Take Breaks! (hey this important in packing to not overwork your body, best time to sneak in a few things there)
• If you rely on internet exclusively but anticipate being without internet  make sure to get things for offline as much as possible. This can be difficult, but I know you’re crafty! (I’ll give more tips on this in a second)
• During the Ride, you might wanna get one of those MP3 sound speakers. Sad thing is, most moving vans do not even have CD players. (I’ve never seen one at least) Headphones, also work, but I found they sometimes make me miss phone calls and I need that due to the dual driving of daughter/partner)
• If you’re hotel-ling, make sure to keep the sound going. This is the most useful immersion tool during your moving.
• When you get to your new home, besides the desire to crash out on the floor and cough on carpet dust, pull our your box of wonders, PUT IT EVERYWHERE!
• Never have Japanese out of reach now, it should be more important than food!

Tips on Non-Internet computer exclusive:

So  you’re a big fan of web browsing and perhaps that is where you get all your excitement. If you don’t have a laptop with internet abilities and a free WiFi, it may be useful to temporarily forget your SRS reps, but don’t throw out the complete possibilities of non immersion.

Copy Web Pages to your hard drive

• Make a folder in an area that you got lots of space, and make a shortcut to your desktop
• Options—> Save Page As (Chrome/FireFox)–>Save under a name your want
• Do this X a lot, because if you do not know when you will get internet, then you want to make sure you have enough to fill your fancy.

Use Jdownloader

• If you don’t believe in pirating, that’s fine, youtube is full of audio that is actually legal
• copying the link for the page will show you the audio file among others for the link (if you want), download it!

Friends, Families, neighbors, businesses, and Wifi’s

• If you are moving near family or friends or a McDonalds, use them. USE THEM
• jk (hehe) McDonalds, as long as you agree to their terms can allow you a wide opportunity of time. Kids can play in the play area.
• If no laptop, then ask family or friends if you can chill just for a few hours to get some immersion in. They love you, they will understand.
• Most apartments have a business center that does have free WiFi with computers, utilize one the other or both.
• Ride off of neighbor WiFi’s (ask permission, a lot of them will be  more than happy to temporarily allow you to piggy back, offer some money even, be creative!)

In the end of it all however, you know your situation and how it will overall work out. Think carefully on how you can beat the system and get the most JP around you. In the end, there is no excuse that you cannot get at least something around you.

 

Bilingual Books!

Turn the ページ

Books that not only include Japanese and English text, but also explain that text, can be a very useful addition to your library, especially when you’re looking to delve into reading for the first time. Today I want to talk to you about 3 such books that I use and enjoy myself. First up is…

Fiction just got real, son

Read Real Japanese Fiction is a collection of several by Japanese for Japanese short stories with explanations in English. Aimed at the intermediate learner, each page features the original vertical Japanese text with (some) furigana on the right side, and a breakdown on the left side. One interesting thing to note is that the book never provides you with a full translation of the original story. Instead, it explains what it considers to be the more difficult parts, sometimes with literal phrasing. A lot of the stories are serious and more on the PG+ side, although the first one reminds me a lot of Polar Bear Cafe. The book comes with an audio CD that I listen to during my commute.

All About Particles is technically a grammar textbook, but the way it’s presented makes it fit in quite well with the rest of the bunch from today’s post. Despite the title, it covers far more than just particles, but also things like sentence endings and other previously perplexing pieces of prose. It’s very much to the point, which is what makes this book so jam packed. You’ll see a brief but effective explanation of the grammar point in question, followed by several Japanese-English example sentences. That’s literally how the whole book works. No worksheets, no huge introductions, just tons of useful examples to enlighten your Japanese journey. There are also a few shared Anki decks based on this book.

Reading Japanese With A Smile is similar to Read Real Japanese Fiction, but with a few differences in content and presentation. The premise is the same: they show you a story, and then explain it. First though, this book does provide a full side by side translation of each story. After that however, it will show you parts of the story, this time with furigana, in little boxes, and then explain it in English right below on the same page. As the cover says, these stories tend to be a little more wacky and offbeat, so be prepared for anything!

Paper–it does still exist!

Taking time to wind down before sleep is something I’ve been making an effort to do lately. I’m a firm believer in the idea of rest helping your studies. The biggest factor in winding down for me is no screens. So no PC, iPad, phone, DS, or TV. This means having a special time where there’s a chance every day to explore things like the books mentioned in this post. Give it a try, you may find yourself more relaxed with better sleep! And a rested mind is always ready for more 日本語（にほんご）!

 

What this round of Tadoku brought me

When I began listening to Japanese, there came this magical moment when Japanese no longer was foreign. To describe it in another way, is to say that it was just as ordinary as English and at times had to consciously think about what language I was listening to. Both English and Japanese began to melt into a pot of such familiarity, the otherness of Japanese sounds abandoned me.

In another post I’m going to talk about this more so (evolution of learning through listening immersion).

However, I found out today that all this past month (plus times before of course) has finally brought a magical moment to me in reading. Though I sucked at updating my status on Twitter, I actually packed a really high number of pages read. I was pretty happy, but just a mere 30 minutes before writing this post, that magical moment happened again.

Japanese no longer feels foreign. I see Japanese, and it looks just as natural to me to look at as English. I’m not sure how fast this may happen to others. Sure I could recognize Japanese for a long time, obviously, but to the point where I’m thinking about it separately from my native language had completely ended.

It happened when I was scanning a newly acquired manga to see if I’d even want to read it. I was shocked when I almost adverted my eyes because I thought I was reading English. It was Japanese. My mind just automatically switched into, idk, Japanese MODE, so quick, effortlessly, assassinating English with a shiny zinging blade that I actually was startled.

Many of you know that I’ve been reading out loud children’s books for some time, and reading magazines for mothers/housewives, web browsing, and so on, but never before had this really occurred  I had to always do this mid translation, even if it was shady.

Everything I read before had mind subtitles in the back of my head. Poof!

Keep reading my friends, if you haven’t hit this road, the only way to pass it is through diligent reading. Surely as it happened in listening for me, it happened in reading. Tadoku for ears and eyes has completely changed my study, more so than any program, study method, or the like. Sure those things helped lift and support it, but  never did produce the same thing.

I’m sure that Japanese MODE for my eyes isn’t steady, like it is for my ears now, but I’m sure that the more I do it, the more those moments will be longer and English brain titles will be washed away with the tide and hopefully brick boot-ed so the po-po doesn’t know I murdered it.

 

anyhow, thank you for listening to my rambles!

Hope to actually update properly next tadoku round! (ps: i beat my goal )

 

Letting Go with Kanji

Throughout life, especially in academics we are told that we must know everything in such a manner that we should be able to immediately answer. If we do not come up with the answer instantaneously we’re somehow shammed into thinking that we are less intelligent than we thought we were.

When I approach learning things, I do not try to have instant short term memory. Quite the opposite. I work on vague. This approach is not for everyone.

Take for instance, when it comes to kanji. I am not a stickler on specific words. Like 信 (Faith – Heisig) – It can just as easily be truth, trust, fidelity, and be in vocabulary words even like authentic. So a lot of people when using the Heisig method want the word Faith specifically to pop up in their head. If that works for you, stick with it. But for me, I go hazy.

I see the elements, Person, Words, and I begin to think of that person and his words and people and do i trust them, are they using those words to tell the truth, they aren’t the devil, so I’d hope so. I can sometimes even just think of honest people speaking honest words, however it comes out in my head, if it is relevant to the kanji, it means more to me than the English descriptive word.

In the end, kanji does not equal one singular English word or concept.

When you let go of the singular word concept, it opens the door to a higher understanding of its appearance in vocabulary words. It is easier to learn vocabulary words with ease because there is no restriction on the kanji associated with them.

There is a catch. Some words are misleading in Heisig, they carry double meanings in English and the stories back up the wrong concepts. This isn’t significant to dismiss Heisig.

Take the kanji 尽 (Exhaust) – If you’re not careful you could associate the meaning exhaust from a pipe, but its actual meanings are more like deplete and run out of. Its usage in vocabulary can get a little more muddled to. So building up this complete connection to the concept of an exhaust pipe, could lead to more difficulty.

In the end, what I recommend is letting go of perfection and aim for hazy. Research your kanji that you’re adding no matter what source you’re learning it from, to get a broader more clear idea of how the kanji is used and what it means, then fit your stories and concepts around that.

Stop shaming and beating yourself up, and embrace a relaxed feeling and you’re far more likely to remember things and have fun! Good Luck!

 

Become the GOOGLE MASTER

Powering your Japanese Learning and Playing through Google

It never ceases to amaze me the things that you can find online using Google. I’m sure that there are many really great search engines out there, but for some reason, I got Google’s back. We’re homeboys.

Google, what an interesting site to have amazed the world of searching online junk. Google’s name is actually a misspelling of the word googol, which is 10¹⁰⁰ and is said to be what the company is reaching for. Now, there isn’t even a googol of webpages out there…yet..but still, Google is a powerhouse of a search engine.

Now how does all this apply to Japanese you might ask?

Knowing how to search quickly  to get what you want can be a massive benefit to the language learner. From finding vocabulary lists, site for learning, culture information, buddies from Japan, and so much more, you can really utilize Google.

But you say ‘Oh great Mikoto! I can’t search to save my life!” (/cough cough *wink wink* PANDA)

Tips on Googling Your Way to Mastery!

1) Sentences Are Mostly your Enemies!

“What is the Japanese way of saying night?” You might think this was a good idea. Yes, you might have. SHAME ON YOU! Honestly, go to a dictionary, a credible dictionary and do not waste your time on yahoo answers to find a crap load of incorrect romanji filled garbage.

Besides questions like that, which are mostly useless, there is another concept you must remember about questions. Often Google will try to find as many words strung together as it can, which will lead to someone else’s question. Which means you’re going to more likely find someone who doesn’t know this answer, than someone who does. Also on personal answer sites like Yahoo answers or forums, a lot of people there are trolls and/or just plain wrong without knowing it. Unless they offer a website/book/source (that’s good) about how they got that answer, I wouldn’t trust it,even if they claim to be native.

Also, if your question is an opinion, you’re more than likely to not get relevant and true answers. For instance, on the internet there is a lot of talk about racism in Japan. So if you type in something like “Why do Japanese people hate *insert race/nationality*” Chances are you are going to find many websites of people complaining or trying to tell you their opinion about the hate that Japanese people have. Think about this for a second. “Many Americans hate the middle east.” Is this true? Is it opinion? Depends on who you ask, American or not. (and just to clear it up, I do not hate the middle east at all).

Opinions are worthless, especially Non-Japanese people’s opinions about Japanese’s feelings.

Stop Words is a concept in many search engines and Google is no stranger to it. Common words like I, where, do, for and so on are omitted from searches because they often aren’t important. This can really cause a problem if that word is key to the item you’re searching. And that is where the next bullet point picks up!

2) How to Query! (fancy for How to Use the Search Box!)

You really might be like, hey Mikoto, I’m no idiot! Why you telling me I don’t know how to type into a box! Relax my friend, for you already know this somewhat.

• Quote It!
  When you want something specific, don’t we naturally quote it? If you’re learning up a movie, you will type in quotes a lot of times, to make sure you get it, or lyrics of a song. Typing in lyrics like “we’ll meet in the middle” without quotes, you’ll get lucky, the song of choice, but a lot of times, without quotes you can find yourself looking at a whole lot of irrelevant searches.
• Don’t Quote It!
  Sometimes lyrics/phrases/words are famous, like “i will always love you”. That’s a dousy if you’re not looking for the song, “I will always love you” made famous by Whitney Houston. So quotes wont save the day.
• Use most likely Words
  What are you looking for? Buttons! then type Buttons. (seems easy enough)
  Though we can find things with off the wall ways of saying them, humans talk naturally and the internet is less formal because of it. So searching for formal phrases might not be helpful all the time, but helpful in others. For instance, We don’t really use the word ‘mobile device’ but rather cell phone. But if you are looking for something technical, mobile device might be a better search term than cell phone.
• Be as Specific as Possible
  Searching for Yellow Polka dotted Buttons? Then make sure that’s in the search box.
  While this can hinder your search (someone doesn’t classify a button the same as you), it is always worth a shot to specifically describe an item you’re looking for.
• Spelling oh how I hate thee!
  Wait what? You’re telling me I don’t have to spell right anymore? YAY! If you haven’t figured this out by now, you don’t have to spell things right (even in the JP searches). Google already as hey, did you mean this messages below when you’re pulling up a search. This can save you in a pinch if you’re not really sure exactly what word you’re even looking for. This is really handy if you hear a word on a drama, but cannot find it through dictionary means from denshi or something, and google.jp well, that’s no problem!
• “~“ Relate to meet
  Not many people are aware of the quaint little ~ button on their keyboard, much less its nice role for Google searching. This button allows you to search words that are related. So if you typed something like ~car, you could also get words like vehicle, automobile. Very useful if you’re trying to search up a concept that people might use different words for.
• [#]…[#]
  Sometimes you might be searching for time ranges. Maybe there was a robotics convention in Japan you wanted to know about, and you know that the specific robot was presented around say 2008 and 2012. You could simply put 2008…2012 with other words like robotic ~convention Japan, and get some really relevant information fast. I think this works with time, but I’ve never tested it
  Number Ranges are helpful in so many ways, so it doesn’t always have to be a date, it could be a price range too! Limitless possibilities!
• Someword:
  There are tons of words that will help you, that you place the word after that : that helps. Uh, that’s weird sounding but an example would be Author:Twain.

1. Author:    Find author 
2. define:     Define a word
3. site:        search specific site
4. link:        Find pages that link to said site
5. info:        find information about term
6. related:   things related to term
7. allintitle:
8. intitle
9. allintext:
10. intext:
11. allinlinks:
12. inlinks:
13. filetype:
14. group:
15. insubject:
16. location:
17. source:
18. store:

OMG! I could really go on but it’d  be ridiculous. You can find these types of things all over the place if you search more on google search commands!

3) Go Inception on that Google!
Its time to Search within a Search ニオ！One of the best ways to search on Google is to take what you’re searching to a new level using the searches you’re using. ( the brackets are the search box)

Say you’re looking for nouns, more so specifically those in the NLPT 5. Seems easy enough. [jlpt n5 vocabulary list] But darn it  all you seem to be getting are lists of vocabulary where nouns are all jumbled and none tell you which are nouns!

So, lets modify….[jlpt n5 noun vocabulary list]…still nothing, poo!, then [jlpt n5 "noun" list], still nothing worth using….wow this is hard…most give up here, oh but wait!

Maybe you’re not using the right words…hmm, a noun is a part of speech….[jlpt n5 vocabulary list parts of speech]…wow more nothing, oh wait…a random, not really worthwhile website…shows (名) for nouns….oh hey! I can use that.

BAM! Bus loads of vocabulary lists for the jlpt n5 that give the words parts of speech, including nouns..all because of this buddy added. (名)

Just because you don’t get the thing you’re looking for right away doesn’t mean its not there, it just means you need to change the way you’re looking it up!

Using other web pages to find other web pages is really useful  It can help you find other ways of saying things or finding things.

4) Dumb it Down! Less is More!

Google isn’t a human, so sometimes, more words = more mess. So say you’re looking for a drama and can’t remember its name (like mr. brain). rather than typing something like “drama where guy gets his head hit and turns into a problem solving genius helping the police solve crimes” it’d be a heck of a lot simpler to just say [jdrama head injury ~genius ~detective] #2 Mr. Brain! Of course, if it didn’t pull up what you’re looking for, just change it around some, maybe use different words and/or different parts of the plot.

And more or less lastly!

Never Give Up, Never Surrender!

Never stop trying to find things. The more you get use to ways of looking for things, the better you get at it and the faster you get. And this doesn’t stop in English land either. Google is excellent for any language, and finding things in Japanese with Google Japan, is even more rewarding!

And lastly lastly, a word of warning….

Gwen DeMarco: They’re not ALL “historical documents.” Surely, you don’t think Gilligan’s Island is a… [All the Thermians moan in despair] Mathesar: Those poor people.

Just because its on the internet does not make it truth. Double check all your sources, especially if you’re relying on information for learning purposes.

ps: stop looking at her boobs!

 

 

Why Japanese Is Easy

So simple!

There are times during your Japanese studies that you might wonder if another language might be easier. Afterall, there are people learning French, Spanish, or German left and right. Not to mention people are learning English all the time, so European languages must be easy right? I’m not here to argue for or against that, but I am here to tell you that Japanese does have its share of advantages too!

I came to this realization when I was studying Esperanto. It’s an extremely logical language, and I realized that Japanese is too! Far more so than many European languages, which often have more exceptions than rules! Let’s look at some advantages to learning Japanese:

• You basically only have 2 irregular verbs. Think of English verbs like  ”buy/bought.” The only similarity is the first letter!
• Other grammatical points such as い/な adjectives, or 五段/一段 verbs follow chart-like rules.
• Japanese kana is completely phonetic, everything is spelled the way it sounds!
• While kanji is a challenge, when you know the characters’ meanings, it can become an indispensable tool for understanding new words.
• There is a TON of native media for Japanese to learn with and enjoy. I find that for French, I often have to turn to dubs for things like movies and animation.
• The way words are made up often make a lot of sense. Take a word like 食堂, often meaning a cafeteria. It literally means eat-hall. Makes perfect sense! Many Japanese words follow this kind of logic.
• There is a standard dialect which is used in media and education, so the words and expressions you’re learning should follow suit for the most part (see: textbook Japanese.) To use French as an example again, I’ve been to several schools that claim to use “standard French,” but I can assure you there is no such thing. (Parisian and Quebecois perhaps, but no “international” French. I speak a whole different dialect myself which is very non-standard.) I know this is a huge source of frustration for people learning a European language, but one that you should not experience in Japanese!

So next time you’re thinking Japanese is really hard, why not focus on the things that make it easier? And what better way to confirm that than some useful resources…

Tool Recommendation: Delenir’s Corner

Yes, it’s finally ready! Delenir’s Corner is a list of my tried and true resources for helping spur along your Japanese. Only stuff I’ve actually used extensively are listed here. As a bonus, I’ve added an indicator to note if it’s a free or paid resource (most are free.) I’ll be adding as I go along, follow my twitter feed to find out when!

 

My Secrets To Failure

All aboard the USS Fail—Warp 9!

I’ve been studying Japanese for a bit longer than I care to admit. There are many times where I feel like I should be an expert by now. There’s a reason for this though. I spent a lot of time, especially in the earlier days, doing many things the wrong way. Here is some advice that I wish I could give my past self on what not to do!

• Focusing on too many elements at once. This is also known as not having focus! I’ve been there—wanting to learn kana, kanji, vocabulary, and grammar all at once. I ended up feeling like I was spinning my tires and getting nowhere. Only by focusing my studies on a particular element (for example, I’m doing vocabulary building now) did I experience the rush of progress that spurs me forward.
• Using things that take way more time to prepare than to use. Thanks to modern technology, this isn’t too big of an issue. What I’m talking about is stuff like typing things manually from a print book, or searching for hours for a particular set of Japanese subtitles, ignoring what is more readily and easily available for your use. There are also tools such as Learning With Texts or Read The Kanji that take out a massive amount of preparation, letting you spend your valuable time on exactly what you need.
• Doing everything way above your level. Don’t be ashamed to use children’s materials, or to take things in small sizes. You can’t expect to understand step 3 if you’re still on step 1.
• Doing everything that is too easy. Then there’s the other side of this coin! If you just keep going over the same level of material without taking the next step, you won’t make any progress either.
• Not making it a lifestyle. This was the biggest reason I never got anywhere for literally years after my initial interest in Japanese. I would study from a textbook about once a week… sometimes. Even worse is I was using only romaji for the longest time too. Beyond that I was playing games in English, sometimes watching anime with English subs back when any anime was hard to come by, had no Japanese text in my environment… you get the idea! Now, I fully consider learning Japanese to be a part of my lifestyle and not just a hobby. It’s on my devices, my media choices, on my walls, everywhere in my life.

Media recommendation: Grooveshark

Groove to the move~!

If you’re looking for a way to discover and listen to new Japanese bands at an alarming rate, then buddy, have I got a website for you! Grooveshark is a streaming music service that will actually learn what kind of songs you like, and make suggestions for more. You can create online playlists and listen in wherever you have an Internet connection. It has a surprising amount of Japanese bands, I’ve only seen it come up short on 1 or 2 bands that I had searched for. I’ve also discovered more bands in one week than I have in the last six months, easily! Listen in, and rock on!

Reader Poll!

J-Rock band: Stereopony

An extra special bonus section I want to try out, the reader poll! In light of the media recommendation being music related, feel free to leave a comment with your top Japanese bands!