Effective Timeboxing: The Power of Randomization

Learning Japanese has taught me about many other things on the side, and one of those things is timeboxing. Really all it means is giving yourself a certain time limit for a certain task. The idea behind it is that is gives you focus and a push to get into action by containing it in a certain timeframe. In other words…

• You know the beginning and end of the time spent on this task.
• You know it won’t take too long or end up going nowhere because you’ve limited yourself on how much time you can spend on it.

Quite literal…

This technique works in a few different directions. Your timer might end when you’re really at the height of whatever you’re doing (playing a game, reviews, etc.) Great, stop now because you’ll be that much more excited to keep at it next time. Other times your timer ends when you’ve really been getting nowhere with a task. Great, stop now because you’ve used enough time on it already. It’s also good for when you have trouble starting on a task because you don’t know where to even begin. No matter, just hit start on that timer and sink your mind into it. You could be surprised that just by taking that leap, you’ll end up making progress.

I usually follow the TV episode theory when setting the duration of a timebox. Most programs are aired anywhere from 30-60 minutes, actual showtime being 22-42 minutes roughly. You can really keep up some variety in your Japanese activities with timeboxing. Just think as the next box as changing the channel when the next program is up. You could go from doing a few Anki reps, then to a TV show, then to some kanji review, then to a video game. Seeing Japanese in different contexts is very useful, so timeboxing makes it even easier to go back and forth.

But what do you do when you can’t decide? This is often why I would end junking out on the computer doing nothing in particular, which made me feel like I wasted my time. There is solution here too.  You can leave it to chance. What better tool to randomize your choices than the almighty dice. Just about everyone is familiar with the D6–the cubical, 6-sided wonder common in board games. But there are actually many other dice such as D4s, D8s, D12s, and the D20s, which are all practically synonymous with traditional role playing games.

Rrrrrrrrrroooooollllllllllll the dice, rollllll it now!

So how can you use a dice roll to decide what to do next? Simply have a look at your favorite Japanese activities, figure out how many there are, and choose and appropriate dice. I happen to have a small collection (as well as fascination with) different types of dice, but I actually just use an Android app called D20 by Ambergleam to generate rolls. Despite the name it actually has a variety of dice options.

Here is an example with a D6 (regular six-sided dice) with some activities that I personally do.

1. Watch a drama or anime
2. Do SRS reps in Anki or level up in Reading The Kanji
3. Read a snippet from a website with the help of LWT
4. Play a video game
5. Read a manga
6. Allow myself some “About Japanese” time (ex: blogs, grammar guide) This one is especially important to limit, unless you’re reading this blog, then you can just go wild!

So looking at this this example f I rolled a 4, I’ll be playing video games for an hour or so!

Setting time limits really is a means of focus. By saying “I’ll limit myself to one hour for playing a video game in Japanese, what you’re really saying is “For one hour, I’ll only be playing video games in Japanese and not getting distracted by other things that I can look at later.” To use your time effectively it’s important to know/define exactly what you’re doing before hitting start on your timebox. Again, the computer can especially be a time sucking vampire if you just press go on your timer and don’t really know what you’re going on there for. Personally, learning Japanese has truly become a life goal for me, so I feel all the more fulfilled when I know I’ve made good use of my free time to progress towards this dream.

Media Recommendation of the Week: JapanFM

JapanFM is a streaming radio station from the French network Hotmix Radio. All you have to do is watch an ad once every couple of days, and non-stop Japanese music streaming from your browser is yours! They have a lot of variety from pop to rock, even songs you’ll recognize from your favorite dramas or animes. I’ve actually found a lot of new bands this way. Sometimes music can be less distracting than videos when you’re trying to multitask, and it often gets me pumped in the morning, Japanese-style! Happy listening!

 

What to do after neglecting your studies! Panda’s step back into Japanese

Quick little insert about why it’s good to learn a foreign language, apparently (if you’re a native English speaker and you’re flexible with causality.)

“The Japanese eat very little fat and suffer fewer
heart attacks than the British or Americans.

The French eat a lot of fat and also suffer fewer
heart attacks than the British or Americans.

The Japanese drink very little red wine and suffer fewer
heart attacks than the British or Americans.

The Italians drink excessive amounts of red wine and also suffer fewer
heart attacks than the British or Americans.

The Germans drink a lot of beer and eat lots of sausages and fats
and suffer fewer heart attacks than the British or Americans.

CONCLUSION:
Eat and drink what you like. Speaking English is apparently what kills you.”

Had to share that nugget of wit before starting on topic!

Mikoto’s gently nudging me to get back into my studying by making me write this for our audience. . I started in Japanese a very long time ago and I go into  sprints and then quit for a short while. This is how I tend to be with ALL things, however. I don’t get a toe wet, I get my entire house wet and then some when jumping into new and exciting things. After so long, I get a little burnt out and quit. I do this with games, cleaning hardcore, excerising  and so on. If you’re like me and like to sprint, or am getting burnt out on Japanese learning, please follow along for some tips.

Say you’re completely stopped at your Japanese. You’re not even passively immersing!

1)Start slowly and try to put Japanese back into your life. Even if for the first month back into your studies, you do nothing but passively immerse (listening to things in the background without really shadowing or trying to understand it. Sometimes I call watching shows with subtitles passive. I know a lot of learners out there would have my head for suggesting such a thing but hey.. That’s still more japanese in your life than you had the day before.)

2) If you’re on the Kanji stage-

• Get caught back up to where you were when you quit. What I mean is, for example in Anki, it’ll tell you how many you have due. I’m not saying review all 500 you have, just review what’s due. Anki will take care of the other 400~ (depending on how long you quit and what number you’re on of course)
• Get caught up by doing 3 minute sections every day. You can do more, but you want to at least do kanji once a day. I’m saying go slow to prevent you from being burnt out. If you’re like me, and love sprinting through review, Sprint away. Just make sure you’re taking breaks, at least an hour, between sessions.

Run, Kanji, Run!あああああああああ

• Once you’ve gotten caught back up, THEN add more. Go however you did in the past, 0-15 cards a day.
• Be sure to do something fun with the kanji you know. We have kanji games on site, but there’s a ton of things you can do. I like to add pictures to my anki using google! It’s sometimes really fun to see what can visually represent kanji.

3) If you’re in the  Kana stage

• This really depends on how well you knew your kana before. If you were like me and quit after you got to __ it probably wouldn’t hurt to just act like you didn’t learn anything at all (which my retention was practically null, so that worked well for me). I started over with my hiragana and used a mix of Real Kana and Read the Kanji to review.　Plus a　little forced reading with Japanese Baby 1 and mikoto.
• I had to personally drill the kana into my head. The trick is to do it in short bursts. We’re not a long distance runner, we’re Japanese Sprinter Babies! Sprinting means we get to do fun stuff like watch Japanese movies, animes, Iron chef (which the original is a GREAT FUN way to learn some crazy Japanese dishes)
• As a fellow Japanese baby suggested, the trick is once you get a good grasp kana, put it into practice! Read children books, convert websites into kana, listen/read lyrics. You want this to be FUN!!!! This will keep you coming back for more.

4) Shadowing- We all know that I don’t really like shadowing. If you didn’t know that, you know now! I say this because I feel I sound utterly stupid. So, what I try to do to make light of the situation is to mimic the tones and gender of those speaking. It may just make my gibberish sound more feminine or masculine, but it’s fun. Also, if you want to make yourself feel better, record yourself shadowing your native language and listen to it. You’ll notice you stumble over a lot of it and some of it, your mind guesses and may be close. This is because our brain is hardwired in this language and can think faster than your mouth moves. For example:

• “Oh thank _______”
• Your brain will most likely put one of three words in there, God (if you have a habit of saying that), You, (if you’re polite), My stars! (If you’re just.. unique)

I do this all the time singing. Especially if I don’t know the words, our brain makes a conscious decision to try to ‘fix’ and finish the sentence. You may have a rhyming word, a word that could finish the sentence, or the correct word.You’re probably saying, ok Panda, who cares. My point is: Once you reach a certain point of Japanese, your brain will switch into Japanese and try to be 3 steps ahead of the speaker. So, keep with it young one!

5) After a ～month of getting your feet wet back into Japanese, try to get back into a routine that matches how much free time you have. If you can only devote 5 minutes a day, well damn, that’s 5 minutes more than a non learner is learning! I’d like to quote my Professor from my freshmen year (note, this applies to more then just engineering of course).

• You’re doing Engineering. Do you realize how hard that is? Do you realize you’re actually doing it! It may take you 2 years to finish this degree, it may take you 14. You may be fresh out of high school, you may be 80. It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter how long or how old. You’re doing it, and once you finish, no one can take it from you.

Another professor during my sophomore year

• (Panda), despite your disability, you can do this. It doesn’t matter the road you take, as long as you work hard and you’re honest with yourself. You are doing this, remember that.

My Advisor during my junior year

• I  have a lot of 40 year old’s who come in and say that the road is tough and long but no one can take it way from them. It’s pride that you knocked something out of the park. It may have taken you 50 swings to finally get it over that fence, but it’s now way beyond the boundaries.

Hopefully you have someone spouting off wonderful, delicious support to you! If not, you need new friends (jk!!!) You have to remember, every day is more than the day before. Build on it and succeed.

KEEPING on track

• ok, So, we’re back into Japanese Happy Land, yey. Let’s celebrate with fun games and knowledge! Ok! We can only party straight for 12 hours for so long!　Be sure to balance your life with Japanese fun. Don’t go too hardcore unless you’re living in Japan of course, haha (you can handle hardcore all the time!). Listen all the time, however, because passive learning takes no effort and can help sink sounds into your brain.
• For things that need active learning, (shadowing, kana/kanji reps) set reasonable time constraints. You work, go to school, have babies? Devote a % to nothing but Japanese. You can do this all at once for the day, or break it up into small portions through the day. Just be sure to say, for the next __minutes, I WILL do nothing but Japanese! You can timebox for the entire day, if you know the exact times you’re taking care of classes and work, or when the baby naps. Make Japanese be your b**** to your schedule, not the other way around. You decide! You Conquer! You learn Japanese! Find that balance that your schedule will allow, that you want, and without getting burnt out.
• Force Japanese to be in your life. Have your phone/browser/computer/whatever be in Japanese. Anything you can turn into Japanese, keep it in Japanese. This will force you to ALWAYS be touching Japanese in some form. Only have Japanese music on your mp3 player.
• Set real and concise goals. Don’t say I want to improve my immersion. Say I want to listen to a minimum of 1 hour a day of Japanese!
• Write a blog or connect to other learns. Share what you find that works for you and what works for others. Share the wealth of knowledge.
• Celebrate the little things! You just learned your kana? Treat yourself to a Japanese children book and Sushi. At least, that’s how I like to treat myself. Food goes a lot way for me. I’m like Pavlov’s Dog, books and food make my mouth water!
• Keep it fun!

 

Kana Game of the Month: Pandachan’s Creation

Hey everyone, I was trying to find a game that my friend and I could play with our limited Kana knowledge (though she’s whooping me bad now and is far ahead of me! Good Job!).

I came up with a concept similar to hang man. However, because we can’t spell full Japanese words, we’re spelling English words with Kana. This may handicap us, but it’s really a game to improve not only recognizing kana, but writing them properly as well.

So, lets begin with the explanation of how you play.

The black is filled in by the person who created the word. The orange is what is guessed by the partner. You can start of using just the vowels, as this example uses, or you can use the more advanced groupings. The creator needs to check that 1) it’s the correct kana, and 2) it’s drawn correctly. If they draw it incorrectly or used the wrong kana, the hangman’s head is drawn, and so forth. When in doubt, (as the creator) look up the correct stroke order.

Take turns being the creator and the one guessing!

Let me know how you enjoy it and any suggestions to improve the game!

 

Experiments With Reading

Today’s post is going to be a short one… well maybe not. As I speak, my darling slave editor is typing this for me. I am currently on my way to the Grandparents’ house and really wanted to get this post up. If you’re new to the world of reading, despite your hesitations, you really should start. There are hundreds of sources out there that can explain why reading is so great for language learning but I am here specifically to report on the progress of two Japanese Babies.

The first Japanese Baby is someone who recently learned their Kana tables and currently knows roughly 300 kanji. Her journey in Japanese has only just begun recently. So I decided to experiment with her fragile Japanese Baby heart. One day, after much encouragement, I was able to get her to start reading some Japanese children books aloud. Just like many Japanese babies, she experienced an intense amount of anxiety. On her very first page, she stumbled on every single character. Despite her need for a few corrections, she kept at it. After her very first page, which only contained 4 sentences, she was ready for a break. I didn’t let her give up and after reading a few lines myself, I asked her if she’d like to read again. With a wavery “I guess so”statement she commenced reading again. There were moments we laughed and moments of serious discussion on pronunciation and grammar. Despite the struggle, she decided to read yet another  book. To spare you the details of the roughly 4 hours to put in to read two books, not only her pronunciation improve, the speed she was able to read quickened and she was also filled with confidence.

As a self conscious Japanese Baby, it is hard to gain confidence but reading aloud was able to instill some speaking and reading confidence. After her third book, I did not even have to correct her Hiragana. Then she was able to encourage the second experimental Japanese Baby to read.

The second Japanese Baby, despite knowing 500 kanji and having a very basic grasp on her Kana, was put on the spot. Even though surrounded by supportive friends, this little Japanese Baby was full of lots of fear and frustrations! We decided to read the same book as the first Japanese Baby did. And despite her immersion being in Japanese being longer, her fear of making a mistake caused her to do terribly. I wouldn’t let her give up and I pushed her to read a little more and she experienced similar problems as the first Japanese Baby did. After finishing reading  half of the sentence, she stumbled on four kana and began to break down in tears. Of course the first Japanese Baby and I were vexed–but the second Japanese Baby muted herself and ran off– so there wasn’t anything we could do. Eventually, the second Japanese baby came back with renewed determination to read. So a day had passed, I could tell she had gone kana rep crazy as her ability to recognize kana had greatly improved. This time, she allowed herself to feel less frustration by working harder to keep calm and by the end of the book had made significant progress in pronunciation, grammar, speed and flow of reading. And thus ended, so far, my experiences with Japanese Baby 1 and 2.

I’d like to point out that neither Japanese baby had ever read aloud before.When asked how they felt about their reading skills at the end, the first Japanese Baby didn’t see the huge improvement that she made. The second Japanese baby felt about the same, but calmer. I personally feel that for them this was overcoming a huge hurdle that most beginners experience. Learning to read Japanese aloud was able to give them more drive and confidence in other aspects of their studies. The first Japanese baby has found momentum and felt her previous efforts were paying off. The second Japanese baby began to make word to sound connections from words she had previously learned to say, but never knew how to read. She proceeded to spam my skype with how happy she was.

If you have never read aloud, I recommend you doing so. While it has always been a standard practice for me to read aloud whenever possible, this concept is rarely ever spoken about in the Japanese online community. I did not learn how to speak Japanese and then read aloud rather after  one year of pure unadulterated Japanese on Japanese immersion that I decided to read aloud. Even when I participate in Tadoku, I read aloud.  The best scenario is to read in front of a Japanese native but when you can’t, reading in front of a person much more advanced than you is the next best thing.

If nothing at all, reading aloud allowed these two Japanese Babies to gain courage, calmness and motivation. While I cannot tell you who the first Japanese baby is, the second Japanese baby is no other than our own PandaChan! She is so graciously serving as an example to all of you out there who doubt yourself, experience extreme fear and even humiliation, can over come that and can gain a peace to allows them to truly begin to excel in not only studying Japanese but becoming Japanese. I’m sure there are a good handful of prodigies who fell out of the proverbial womb being able to read Japanese well; however, we are the ordinary and proud of each hard earned step on our path to fluency.

The one thing that was consistent with both Japanese Babies was how little faith they had in themselves in the beginning. Although they still don’t think they’re great, they now know that all it will take them is continuing to take those steps. So have  a great weekend, get off your duff and read aloud to a Japanese person if you can!

 

Shadowing: Three Examples!

Prepare yourself to laugh at some fun attempts to shadowing. We’ll be shadowing three sources, the ever fun and entertaining show, 毎日かあさん, a drama called 弁護士のくず、which as the title suggests is a drama about a lawyer, and a randomly chosen clip from TV Tokyo.

When shadowing we follow some really basic guidelines and don’t stress to much on it otherwise:

1. shadow less than 5 minutes. In fact, most of my shadowing is 1-2mins, even taking in account lulls where no one is talking
2. mimic them completely. If they’re freaking out, freak out with them! If they’re doing laughs, laugh with them, so forth and so on.
3. roll over mess ups, mumble to keep up, even if what you say is nothing like it, keep trying, do anything but stop talking
4. wear headphones, makes it easier to hear
5. reading scripts when shadowing is fine, tv or movies that have subs is acceptable, in fact wanted!

The following examples will also follow these guideline for you viewing pleasure:

1. The audio has not been listened to before hand, except in passing when the shows were watched. They were not focused on, so our shadowing is like any other shadowing attempt we’d do.
2. we will only record once! enjoy our foolish mumbles and attempts!

Everyday Kaasan : 毎日かあさん

This is an early episode and of the three we shadowed, was the easiest.

mnkaasan.mp3

pandakaasan.mp3

mikotokaasan.mp3

The Lawyer Kuzu : 弁護士のくず

Probably by far the hardest of the three to shadow. This one is full of lots of diverse vocabulary and fast talking!

bengoshi.mp3

pandakuzu.mp3

mikotobengoshi.mp3

TV Tokyo : テレビ東京

Randomly recorded station and program. So it ended up being a show about some businesses and produce and what not, so nothing in particular, a few interviews, and that’s the gist. I would say this is in between the other two in difficulty.

tvtokyorandom.mp3

pandatokyo.mp3

mikototvtokyo.mp3

Deciding what to shadow

There is a lot of controversy about what to shadow, how long to shadow, and so forth. Everyone has to sit down though and make that decision for themselves. But for me, this is how I go about shadowing.

SHADOW ALL THE THINGS!

 I mean it. I shadow anything, everything, all things! There isn’t anything below me, just tons and tons of stuff to shadow. Podcasts, tv shows, anime, dramas, live conversations, movies, music, porn, you name it, I shadow it! The reason I do not discriminate is because all these things are Japanese, all Japanese people can understand and imitate these things too. No, I do not talk like an anime character when I speak Japanese, but I have no problem understanding them either. I shadow boys, I shadow girls, I shadow old gangsters, I shadow anyone. Though I focus on lots of female shadowing in podcasts and live conversation over others, I do not prohibit shadowing just because they are not female, or not of the source I really want. Its all valuable time well spent.

Give a Hand

I personally want to give a clapping of hands to Pandachan at this moment. It takes guts to put our really bad attempts to shadowing up on the web for people to hear, especially when you are as new to Japanese as she is. Pandachan has only been studying Japanese for maybe 2-3ish months. That’s very basic, and while she may now know about 500 kanji, and keeps herself as immersed as possible, she’s still a beginner at trying to make the sounds associated with Japanese, and speak quickly with them. But that is precisely why I wanted her to shadow for us. I wanted to show you a pure example of a beginner shadowier, and what you’re going to sound like. She even laughed at herself in the Bengoshi feed because she realized that this was something she just was seemingly failboating. But the truth is, she didn’t. She said several words in there and that’s better than no words! That’s the start, that’s the way its suppose to be….mumble mumble mumble WORD! I’ve only been shadowing for maybe 6 months on and off, but I’ve had a much longer history of listening to Japanese when taking care of my daughter (about 3+ years worth of immersion to be exact). So my example is of an intermediate shadowier, probably. So if you’re a beginner in shadowing, understand that you will not be mimicking with the greatness, not yet, but you will if you keep with it!

Ps from the Panda. I have to say, I hope that my mumblings–er shadowing!!!– is helpful to all of those beginners who are “struggling” with shadowing (I quote struggling because you can’t really fail at it). Trust me, I know. I suggest you record yourself in the very beginning, maybe once every week. Slowly and slowly you’ll sound better and better . Just compare Mikoto and I!

Don’t have a Mic to record yourself? GET ONE, no seriously. Later on when you want to chat with Japanese speakers, this will come in handy !

 

LWT: A Guide to Setting up for Japanese Learning

Here we’ll cover the basics to getting started in Japanese with LWT! We’ll cover topics like where to get signed up, setting changes, deletion of old content, adding new content, using a insert spacer website, customize your dictionaries, and so much more.

The Beginning

Go here! Your friendly Fluent in 3 Month website helps you get started in your journey to LWT. As you can see below, the area’s highlighted in red show you you’re on the right page.

Fluent in 3 Months

Scroll on down, (or read if you haven’t first for some more information), until you see a few links, and you’re going to click on either one. If you aren’t signed up in his system, it doesn’t take much time at all.

Then you just log in!

From there you will see this opening and you have officially begun your journey into LWT.

Settings!

The screen below is your home screen and its also where you’re going to select the Japanese in the drop down menu like this.

Once Japanese is selected now, lets change some settings that will help you out. Select, My Languages:

You’ll get this screen:

Click on the little paper/pencil icon next to Japanese to open the settings for that language.

Mikoto's settings for multilingual. Use the dictionaries of your choice.

I finds it to be easier to make each character not a word. I use a space inserted that helps this out tremendously, but I know my kana, and therefore making each character a word can sometimes be a little redundant and annoying. I would play around with both and see which of those two settings you like.The guide that will be posted tomorrow will show you just how different someone can be with Daniel’s guide!

Hit Change!

Quick! Get to the Texttor!

From the main menu, you want to click on My Texts.

 

 If there are any texts there, I recommend you delete them. Above you see a blue box, that is where you delete a file from the system. If you change settings, they do not effect older texts, not to mention the default texts there to me are not all that helpful. So I deleted it for both those reasons.

If you were not deleting a text and wanted to go into the text to work you’d click on the book icon (the orange box). But in this case, you want to add some text, so you would click the New Text link (green box).

From there you get a simple screen in which to add things. At this point you need to actually stop and find text that you want to put into the program. We’ll discuss great places to find text and what not in our Tips and Tricks post on Friday, but for now we’re going to take an easy example to get us started. I used the basic skit from lesson 1 of Erin’s challenge: I can speak Japanese website. Copy and paste the text into a spacer program like Dani’s Space Inserter! I personally use the MeCab option at the bottom. Copy and paste this into the program in the Text section.

The Title (red box) should be informative, letting you know what in the text, so you know what you’re looking at without having to open the full text just to see. The Text box (blue), is where you paste any of the Japanese you’re wanting to learn. And lastly you can add tags and what not, but when you’re done, hit the Save and Open button (green box) to begin.

Once it opens, you’ll notice a lot of red and blue if you’re starting out. Things in Red are already in the LWT dictionary system, and blue things are not in the system yet, that have not been learned by you yet. Clicking on a blue or red box will bring up an editing box and dictionary link on the right.

Once you start marking words you know in a grading system (brown box) the text will show as that color on the words in the text box. Notice how my screen has yellows, oranges and white boxes with blueish greenish lines underneath? That means that those words were marked in my system already. The screen cap above also shows the edit box on the right for the first two kanji which is considered a word in this case.

(Blue Box) If you browse the dictionary and find what you’re looking for, you can simply add it into the translation box. I put the kana in brackets followed by the definition in English for multilingual purposes. Then hit Save after selecting a status of how well you think you know it. BTW, Wkn means Well Known. If I’m not happy with the first dictionaries choices, I then hit the link for other dictionaries (red box), until you find what you are happy with. Rarely have I had to go elsewhere or ask someone for some answers.

You will do this for every term you come across. Sometimes you have to play around with the words to get what you want, and sometimes there are words in phrases, and phrases on a whole you may want an alternate translation for, like idioms. We’ll go over tips and tricks on Friday, but for now, just knowing that you’re not limited to only grouping words is important.

In the example above you see the number 3. It is also color coded, and when you click on the number it shows that you have a phrase involving many “words”. In this case the phrase covers the wholeness of the good morning. I have [2] gozaimasu separated because it appears as endings in multiple places, and ohayou separated because it sometimes appears on its own in text.

When you are done, you can merely go to the main menu or you can click on the little blue phrase box with the ? in it to test your materials, or you can even make some anki cards with them! I’ll have a whole other post on anki exporting and manipulation in April. But for now, simply getting accustomed to getting the material in and going is enough to start.

Tomorrow I’ll try to get Daniel’s guide up and running to show his specific settings and what not, but for now, here is a link to Benny’s forum for some general LWT Q’s and A’s.

 

How to Create Mobile Libraries with your Japanese Books

Deconstructing a book may seem like it has nothing to do with Japanese but some want to have a mobile library. As far as I know, kindle so far does not support many Japanese books. I have a few Japanese books that I would like to include in my library so I began to think of methods on ripping apart books.

The Disability  Center for my university currently takes apart books for a different reason. They break the spine of textbooks and scan them in for students who cannot read the smaller text that is standard in textbooks. With their software, they can zoom in onto the text and read it easier. This is another reason to scan in Japanese books. Zooming in makes it easier to read characters if you’re a novice like me.

I suggest going to your local used book store and get a free/cheap book, both in hardback and soft back. Then, try my techniques on both of them. This way, as you discover what works for you, you won’t be damaging your precious books that you want to keep.

Supplies:

• Book (old or the one you want to do now)
• Knife, scissors, or x-acto knife  (something sharp that you can cut through pages)
• Optional: Large scale paper cuter

Remember that most books are done slightly different because of their publishing company. Please remember that when reading over this: What may work for me, may not work for you.

Hardback:

You can break the spine and use scissors or a large paper cuter to cut sections out.

The way I’m doing is this:

My hardback book has a page that holds the bulk of my pages to the hard back part. Use scissors or a xcto-knife to cut this away

There may be a mesh, makes sure you get through it as well
Do this to the front and the back

You’ll notice that with this book, the actual pages are still glued together. You can use scissors or a paper cutter to cut out sections.
Or, you can just cut between each sheet.
You can rip it but that’s completely up to you (This can lead to ripped pages though).
Lastly, now that the spine is gone, you could just lay the pages flat and avoid the warping that having the spine causes.

SOFTBACK:

You can break the spine and lay the book flat. This may cause the sheets to break out of the  glue. Of course again, you can use scissors to cut out sections at a time.

If you want to cut it out of the spine, it’ll be a little bit more difficult. My book is glue against the spine.

What I did was just to rip off the spine by pulling the from and back page off. This did the majority of the work.  Using a saw like motion allowed me to get the glue off and the pages came apart very easily after that.

Now you can try to slice off the glue or follow the steps from the hardback.

Storing your old books:

Some people will prefer to chuck the books away after practically destroying them. However, I find book are sacred knowledge and I like to keep them. If the book is a hardback, simply lay the pages back into cover/back and put it in a bag or something similar to keep the pages in the book. This way, you could give it to a friend to allow them to learn.

Scanning your books for mobile libraries:

The fastest, easiest way would be to scan the two pages at once. However, to allow it to be read on mobile devices, one by one is the best way.  To get your images to pdf format please read my last post and for those wondering how they can view it on their kindle or other electronic device, read my post on one method using Dropbox.

DO NOT share on the internet with other people. That is piracy and we at Mikoto’s adventures to do not condone that. This is purely for personal storage and use.

Pro tip:

Scan in order and name the images like 0001, 0002, 0003 and so on. This will keep the book pages in order so when you create a pdf, you won’t have to continue to fight with it to stay in order. Be sure to remember that Japanese books are read backwards compared to American books. Scan it in order that it’s read in. (sorry, I realize that’s redundant and obvious, but I just wanted to say it!)

Now I realize this is a LOT of hard work to get a book for your mobile device. However, the ability to read books whenever and wherever you want without having to bring them all with you is a blessing. Also, I zoom in for my Japanese books to help me read them.  If I decide to give them away, I won’t be weighted down when I move.

If you come across a faster way, PLEASE let me know in the comments below!

 

Your Crap Makes My Flower Grow!

Sorry for the crass opening , this isn’t a rant. Last night before I laid my head down I noticed a forum post in AJATT+ about negative forums and what not, and our general happiness with the community there. It was fun, though semi rant filled since really, you gotta let it out once and a while.  Of course the general theme was why do hater’s gotta hate. However when I laid my head down that night in rather pleasant can’t touch this happiness, I didn’t know that soon I would experience a very hurtful discouragement the very next day.

Everyone can’t like everyone, and people wont understand people all the time. We all make what we consider logical decisions and actions based on the way we think and feel, so it makes sense that if someone thinks and feels differently they wont make the same decision or action and wont understand yours all the time. Usually a fair amount of people accept this and try to understand each other, or at the very least say ‘well that’s you and this is me’ type statements.

However, once and a while, some people just can’t let you go thinking anything that isn’t unanimous with their thoughts. Generally these are the haters. They’re the type who generally discourage, are full of pride and pompous actions, and in the end make us wanna pull our hair out.

I think dealing with these people takes skill. The more you get it, the more skill you can enhance too. These people are my fuel, my fire, my fertilizer for my dreams.

I tend to go through stages. Depression first. When I find out someone thinks I’m blankity blank, I take it personally. For some reason, I just care, and there is nothing I can do about it. They can be a random person in the world who means nothing to me, but they’ll still hurt me. Sometimes depression does take me over and discouragement just begins to weigh me down. Luckily I don’t stick there too often. I’m quick to my second stage. Anger! Yah buddies, I’m a hulk hulgan type of person. You don’t wanna see me angry, but when I do get angry, it tends to be loud and apparently shirt tearing.

During my anger I tend to attack them in my head. I call em names, I mock them, I smack em up (in my head mind you). I generally am stewing by this point and then it morphs beautifully into this sort of acceptance. Acceptance is just merely me acknowledging the “so what they think this way” idea. I know right, silly me. But really I usually simultaneously realize when they’re saying ‘you’re a blankity blank’ is just transference of ‘I’m a blankity blank”, “i couldn’t do blankity blank, so neither can you.”. Once I realize that, once that acceptance is over, I pop into the last and final stage. The stage of:

“I’ll show you, blank!” stage. Yes. I’m addicted to people like this. This twisted bizarre mood roll ends with me being pumped higher than ever. Come adversity come! Let me show you just how pimp I am! I’ll make you look weak and feeble! hahaha! I’m usually that strange woman standing in the middle of the road with my fists in the air, hooting, telling them to Bring It! its like that boss you just refuse to like, you hate their guts, because they’re on you constantly telling you to do something better, pushing you to excel. You just Love to Hate them! But I just Love them, while I hate them too. They bring out the best in me, always, because of my I’ll show you stage. I might cry as they yell at me. Sure (because I’m sensitive), and then I might sneer, because I’m angry and hulky. But in the end, I’m performing better than ever because I refuse to let them have the last laugh.

Some might feel this is bad, but its me. haha! Its how I deal with negative naysayers who try to stomp on my flowers. How do you handle it? Comments below!

 

Interactive Immersion

Today a thought crossed my mind about the effectiveness of immersion and why some people absolutely love and live by it and others say its a waste of time and effort. What made some people’s immersion more effective that others?  It dawned on me that the major difference was often obscure (not emphasized), not talked about, or maybe not even realized by the people who found it very effective. So here I am to share some of my thoughts on why Immersion really is the way to go, but not just any old can off the shelves will do, but rather Interactive Immersion.

What is it?

I made this word up, but if it exsists for something else, well I don’t care. I am redefining it here for myself. Interactive Immersion is simply immersing yourself in things that require you to interact with it in order to use it/listen to it/read it/ect.

What is the difference between it and Plain Old Brand Immersion?

If you’ve ever bought milk, you’ll notice there are several types. Whole, skim, 2%, 1%, lactose free, Fat Free, ect. Interactive Immersion is merely a version of Immersion. Nothing really different except that its not on the back burner, its up in your face, demanding your action and input.

What items or activities are considered Interactive Immersion?

There are many types of things: video games, os in your target language, language partners (not allowing you to use native language at all), websites that need you to fill out things, search engines, chat rooms/ims/txts/emails/letters in your target language, and so much more.

What isn’t considered II?

See how I got lazy and wrote II? haha, anyhow, what isn’t considered is: Television, movies, music, books, some websites, any situations where you’re listening or watching but not doing anything else, not participating. Even reading and listening at the same time doesn’t count.

What makes the huge difference?

So now that you got an idea about what material I’m talking about, now I’ll let you in on why it makes such a huge difference. Action. Yup, that’s all there is to it. Action. Sure, you should immerse yourself, and read, man read all you can stand and then some, movies and music. All these things are wonderful. But the kicker is, until you’re on the line, having to use it, show it, answer it, make yourself vulnerable to effing things up, you’ll miss out on the wonderful joys of pushing through to actual language usage.

A lot of people who follow AJATT often forget about the action step of immersion. They ask fellow AJATTers about what sources they use for immersion and how to get it around them, but a lot of them forget things like, switching os and web pages like youtube and facebook into Japanese. They’re afraid, they think they’ll mess something up forever, or make fools of themselves to themselves. Guess what, we will. And we will. We will maybe a million times. Guess what also, we do this in English all the time too and we’re a native of how ever many years old!

It is a scary step for some, but for as long as you’re putting it off, you’ll never push through that barrier. And its really not that hard of a barrier. The amount of pleasure you’ll get from it is so intense, it will fuel you to go even further and further. It will also help you switch into monolingual stuff in no time. I’ve asked around, and it seems to be the pattern. Those who engage in more interactive immersion, (like talking in their target language, even if its just about weather), get further and farther and more comfortable in the langugage, than those who sit back and just let the immersion stand around them.

Liz Learners recently blogged about going into a Japanese Bookstore in NYC. She talked specifically about how happy she was with immersion. She talked about how great being surrounded was. But not only that, Liz spoke about how she was forced to interact in Japanese only with other people.

3. Lots of people I could look ridiculous in front of.
Nothing like a bit of social pressure to motivate you to do your best.  Not to say that I don’t regularly look ridiculous to strangers on a daily basis, but I felt extra pressure to really know what I was doing and understand what I was reading- or figure it out, lest I end up looking for ハリー・ポッター in the 日本者　section (Harry Potter in the Japanese authors section).  There was, admittedly, some “I can do this and I’ll prove it to you!” feeling in me too

Nothing puts you on the spot more than someone asking you a question. You have to answer. It creates panic and disorder if you don’t know what to do, even if you know what they’re saying, a newbie of any language will explain how they feel blank at that point. So how do you get over that? Do it more! Don’t shy away, even if your first couple attempts are just horrible gibberish and giggles. You are and will be better with every step you take interacting with your Japanese.

So there you have it folks. Since this now only recently dawned on myself, I’ll be changing even more of what I do to Interactive Immersion. Of course, I’ll keep a lot of immersion playing around me in the background, watching shows because its fun (and fun is best), and jamming to music because this is just as important. But of course, you already know why its important, so I’ll not go into that haha. If you’d like anything clarified, let me know, post that comment!

 

Shadowing Resources

An internet friend of mine tweeted me a bit back asking if I had examples of people for males to try shadowing. Since I take all my requests seriously, and I’m not a male, I had to push around the ol’ web to find some potentially good role models. While I’m guilty of semi shadowing from dramas and whatnot they’re not always the best choice, so I tried to focus on real as real can get.

In the course of those bashing the immersion type methods, you often hear them making fun of people trying to learn “poppeye” type characters and then making themselves look like idiots. I must say, in animated stuff I see that a lot, but not so much in tv shows, commercials, and dramas. Its not as popular to have extremely different speaking people. Time periods? Well, I think if you’re truly diverse in your exposure you wont be talking like an old samurai movie. I think our brains are great enough to know what’s “normal” for everyday and what is not. I don’t speak like Elmer Fudd or Roger Rabbit, even though I watched them a lot as a kid. I think variety fixes that issue.

As for accent, some people claim that you’ll learn some words like an Osakan, or some like you’re from Tokyo if you listen to to many different sources. Just like most television in America represents a sort of neutral accent, so does Japanese TV. Either way, even if all you do is speak to Osakan friends, and gain an Osakan accent, you’ll understand people from Tokyo and visa versa. I understand people from Boston and New Jersey with thick northern accents and they understand me with my southern drawl. It might just take you a moment.

Anyhow, on a side track demonstrating just that, my man of lifelong joy and I went to a local Japanese sushi and hibachi grill the other day. We sat in front of the sushi bar and got to talking to the chef there who happened to be Japanese. After chatting it up some he would every now and again talk to his aunt passing by in Japanese. I’ve been listening for a long time to a variety of spoken Japanese, but this accent is one I’ve never heard before. I’d begin to follow it quite well then bam! garbled mess, and then back to understanding again. The joy of other accents. Just as an example, I’ve heard たまご a million times between different shows I’ve watched. They said it with a stress on the ま as if it were たまあご. I could understand what he was saying, but it took me a millisecond more to know he was saying egg. And if I learned their way of Japanese, I’d be just as native as those who spoke it the more neutral way.

Alright, so long winded tangents aside, it doesn’t really matter whether you learn one accent over another. It wont prevent you from being successful in Japanese.

Where to Look

RhinoSpike: This lovely website is where you request audio in the language you’re looking for, and record in your native. You know whatever you ask to be recorded is going to sound right. And above those recordings shows their accent too, which is helpful if you care. There are  both Male and Females who record on there so you can find a variety of sentences in your gender.

Youtube: I would think it would go without saying, but a lot of people overlook youtube as a viable place to get audio

Example for males:

• Jetdaisuke: Jetdaisuke is a speaker a friend of mine actually recommended I watch because he talks about a lot of goods that are in Japan and just random cool stuff. He has both a Youtube Page and a Blog. He use to not have subtitles on his videos, but luckily enough, we can turn them off.
• とてつもない日本: While it may be political (I think ), its still good for a male.
• ToshioOkada: Another random male speaker I found. He talks about random stuff like movies and time management.

Example for Females:

• Just Miyabi: While Miyabi speaks a lot of English in her videos she does speak some Japanese too. She even has a few vlogs in Japanese as well. She teaches about Japan, so its nice if you’re starting out, a few phrases while you’re learning about Japan’s culture.
• Binosusume: Like hair? Well learn how to talk about styling it. Sometimes she speaks Japanese and sometimes she types it out. English translations hardsubbed in are perhaps the only draw back.
• Hirokochannel: Hiroko has a wealth of videos in both English and Japanese. She also has a Japanese blog.

Examples for Both Female and Male

• Potapota: This channel is full of Japanese stories with both female and male speakers. While some of the audio quality is a bit bad, its still good old Japanese.
• CM’s: CM is just a fancy shortcut for saying commercial. While the Japanese is very neutral, and both male and female, they’re fun to copy. You know you always wanted to say, “oh my toe fungus is getting itchy!” So type in Japanese CM and just let that mouse go nuts. You’ll find lots of stuff really quickly. Just like this lineup of cms from Anpanmanson and random show clips from Entermaniaful.
• Stories: I linked these before, but they have audio and script and makes for good shadowing material. Plus the one site has animations! The Japanese Log’s forum listing and Kankomie

Really though, I wish youtube made it easier to find language specific videos. If you know of a banging speaker, post it by all means. I just did a little digging and found those. I’ve found so many without the people actually speaking. I guess perhaps I’m either looking the wrong way or Japanese people are shy on Youtube .

Japanese Specific sites are much better at having posts with speakers actually speaking! There are tons of videos here, so find someone whose voice makes ya happy.

Stickam Japan: This is a more recent find that I cannot give you better information on, sorry. But it seems to be a site devoted to live streams and videos of all sorts. I’ve found a few things, but I’m too much of a newb on it to give you examples.

ニコニコ動画: This site is really popular in Japan. Basically users upload their videos and people can comment on the exact timing of the video they want to make a comment. You can show those comments on top the video or turn them off if they annoy you. You must log in to be able to view videos (i think, i forget). Due to this being completely in Japanese, I’ve not made significant progress in being able to use it like Youtube. Hey, I’m still in progress here myself! haha, but I did find some funny stuff on here just from random clicking and reading.

Who to really copy

All in all, while those sources are great to just get a feel for Japanese, like text books and all that stuff though, they don’t go anywhere. They don’t respond to you, praise you, laugh at you for sounding weird, or anything like that. In the end, getting real Japanese speakers and speaking to them is the way to go. They’re like your siblings, your parents, those funny aunts that wouldn’t stop pinching your cheek and talking about how big you’ve grown. Getting in real live conversations and repeating after them is a nice thing (of course, them willing-which a lot are if you hook up with specifically for language and culture chatting through sites like lang-8 and smart.fm). I bet you’ll learn more in an hour speaking with them than hours of listening and repeating.