日本語は話せます 🇯🇵

A thread for Japanese language learners.

Hopefully I didn't screw up the thread title.

Does anyone have a good resource for learning Japanese food words. Decoding menus and ordering food are my number one priority.

難しいですね。

lots of kanji + non-standard fonts have made menus v tough in my experience. this is something I'm also curious about...

お休みなさい。

I have found this helpful for negotiating Japanese menus.

That is good.

One thing that has been helpful/entertaining has been watching japanese style originator on Netflix. It's a show where they look at classic japanese things, sort of like one of those 'Ilove the ...' programmes on channel 4. 50 things to put on rice was very good and I now need to go through it at a more stop start pace to learn more of the words for the tastiest things.

Just download the Google Translate app and use the camera function.

It's good, but it gets tripped up by a lot of japanese script, especially the more handwritten ones.

Works really well on stuff like this:

http://imgur.com/a/edaxp

Less good on stuff like this:

http://imgur.com/a/2vj96

And not at all on stuff like this:

http://imgur.com/a/3TrB0

Stuff carved into wooden boards on the far side of a bar, forget about it. Besides, having some fluency around this makes one of the best things about Japan a to more fluid and fun.

Damnit

It's good, but it gets tripped up by a lot of japanese script, especially the more handwritten ones.

Works really well on stuff like this:

https://i.imgur.com/t1qGJ8U.png

Less good on stuff like this:

https://i.imgur.com/WjOnVvb.png

And not at all on stuff like this:

https://i.imgur.com/QJxUcGxl.png

Stuff carved into wooden boards on the far side of a bar, forget about it. Besides, having some fluency around this makes one of the best things about Japan a to more fluid and fun.

昼ごはんは おいしい です。

That now makes sense having just got to that bit in duo lingo.

This website looks useful:
https://nihongoichiban.com/tag/first-steps/
https://nihongoichiban.com/home/japanese-grammar-particles/

This one too:
http://www.guidetojapanese.org/learn/grammar

http://st.cdjapan.co.jp/pictures/l/13/27/NEOBK-2071037.jpg

I thought about buying one of the Unko Guide Drill books while in Tokyo last month (I even went to Namja Town and saw the associated "exhibition") but I decided I don't really need to learn to write kanji by hand at this point---speaking, listening, and reading come first.

Honestly, make friends with some bilingual friends... esp. if you're going to restaurants with 150-500 yen menus.

One potential way to get a little more kanji out of Duolingo is to click on an English word, perhaps after you've submitted so it doesn't count against you, to see if it gives you a kanji definition as well as hiragana.

So if you are asked to define "bird," type とり, hit the green button and then hover over the word "bird" and you will see 鳥

Or if it's "cat," type ねこ, hit green button, hover over "cat" to see 猫

Finally, for "dog," type いぬ, hover over "dog" to see 犬.

For extra value, type all that stuff in this thread.

just on menus, i would recommend checking restaurant websites / gurunavi pages before going into a place that might have a confusing menu. you can translate things at your own pace and look polished and professional when ordering!

kanji-heavy menu like that, might be best just to learn to say: "what's this one?" the scribbly menu below it, your basic katakana and some deduction will get you there, you're going to notice everything is ハイ and hey it must be a 酎ハイ menu! you don't need to translate it, just go ahead and order your favorite chuhai and it's going to be okay.

ありがとうございます y'all for the menu tips

would those of you using it recommend duolingo for a vocab builder? I've never touched it but could use something to poke me daily on that front.

Based on other languages, it's not great as a vocabulary builder once you actually know something. If you are a beginner or rusty intermediate it is great for starting or getting back on track.

ah, gotcha. thanks! but sounds like it's not quite what I'm looking for then. 私の日本語はすごく下手ですけど、単語をちょっと知っています。

I just know a handful of kanji really, so I was thinking of just memorizing a new one a day and some words that use this new character. (and since memorizing the 'readings' has been pointless for me because the way they're actually implemented is so inconsistent.) this requires some discipline, unfortunately :-|

My wife is using Memrise as a vocab builder, she did Japanese at university and is filling in gaps whereas I am using duolingo for the basics.

I've been using Skritter for 漢字 learning. I was using the Chinese version for 汉子 and thought is was good, there are less useful lists in he 日本語 version but it's relatively easy to build your own. The Chinese version had some great food lists for example. What I like about skritter is that you have to draw the 漢字 which works really well for me from a learning perspective.

Finally Japanese is a useful dictionary with a flash card function; however I just use it for favouriting thugs I look up, creating lists for importing into skritter.

My wife is using Memrise as a vocab builder, she did Japanese at university and is filling in gaps whereas I am using duolingo for the basics.

I've been using Skritter for 漢字 learning. I was using the Chinese version for 汉子 and thought is was good, there are less useful lists in he 日本語 version but it's relatively easy to build your own. The Chinese version had some great food lists for example. What I like about skritter is that you have to draw the 漢字 which works really well for me from a learning perspective.

Finally Japanese is a useful dictionary with a flash card function; however I just use it for favouriting thugs I look up, creating lists for importing into skritter.

My wife is using Memrise as a vocab builder, she did Japanese at university and is filling in gaps whereas I am using duolingo for the basics.

I've been using Skritter for 漢字 learning. I was using the Chinese version for 汉子 and thought is was good, there are less useful lists in he 日本語 version but it's relatively easy to build your own. The Chinese version had some great food lists for example. What I like about skritter is that you have to draw the 漢字 which works really well for me from a learning perspective.

Finally Japanese is a useful dictionary with a flash card function; however I just use it for favouriting thugs I look up, creating lists for importing into skritter.

will check out memrise, thank you!

I briefly tried out skritter but not really long enough to have anything interesting to say. but I def agree about drawing the 漢字, there's something about writing (and, for me, esp. writing on paper) that helps to smash things into your brain. also, I just find writing pleasant and ~relaxing~.

I really like the midori dictionary app. it also has lets you turn your bookmarks into flash cards, which I sometimes flip thru to kill time on the subway. works offline too, which is good for traveling. tho I suppose google translate does that not too.

jisho is also nice for a the web.

*does that now too 😣
*nice for the web 😳

So I finished Duolingo and feel like I have both learned and not really learned anything. Like I said on the other thread it feels like I have beat a game but in doing so I've learnt a bit about the language. I'm doing busuu now which is better as it has more sophisticated exercises, particularly in listening and it has the added bonus of exercises corrected by native speakers; people trade corrections. It does cost though.

What it lacks though is any explanation of grammar so I'm now looking for a good grammar textbook, or textbook that is good at explaining grammar. We have the Japan Times Grammar dictionary which is only useful if you know what you are looking for.

haven't really shopped around but the genki textbooks (eri banno) do a p good job with this. and also have funny cartoons.

Now I have two upcoming trips to Japan! So I need to work again in earnest on my language. I will have a look at the Genki textbooks when I am there, or if I can find them here (don't just wanna order blind online).

But have any of you tried https://minato-jf.jp ? They are run by the Japan Foundation, and are free. I have good experience with online courses so maybe I'll do this instead of duolingo, where I share some of Ed's concerns.

I'm enjoying Buusuu a lot - the social element, having your little texts and speeches corrected is really good.

Question - How do you type the small versions of や、よ and　う?

I wrote this on the train this morning and was very pleased with myself:

毎日六時に起きます。お茶を淹れます。奥さんのために朝ごはんを作ります。今日私たちはスクランブルエッグや海苔や唐辛子七味を食べました。七時シヤワーを浴びます。七時半電車で会社に行きます。

Busuu sent me a limited time half price offer. Wonder if I should take the bait.

I wish I could get the social elements of Busuu without Busuu. The language learning is built on a framework for a european language, even the dialogues talk about Euros not yen. Very little has been done to localise it and I think it is teaching me bad habits in japanese eg. people correcting my japanese say that 彼　and 彼女　are rarely used in favour of name-さん　and その人。I'm worried its not very tuned in to japanese idiom and someone just programmed it with a dictionary. Persevering though because people are very generous with their corrections.

I found another app which solves my grammar guide need for now without paying for Genki - Human japanese which is structured like a classroom course would be with nice explanations of the actual mechanics of japanese. Well written too. $13.99 for both the beginner and intermediate courses as a bundle and no subscription fees which is good in my book. Covering a lot of stuff I have 'learnt' in duolingo and busuu and it's really helping.

I️ can’t tell from what you are saying what the app is called, is it Genki?

Oh sorry, I️ see, Human Japanese, and you bought the bundle.

Must have been using variant keyboard

そです

My writing is far from clear.

Busuu is now really getting on my wick.

It is using ‘May I...’ and ‘Can I...’ as translations for 。。。していいますか。This may be true but passing the test means not only matching true words but he daft pictures as well. Rapidly falling off this wagon.

Dude! I just hitched onto it last night based on your prior recommendation.

Sorry, the social aspect is really good, though.

I complained about Buusuu through the medium of App Store reviews and did get a response saying that they were reviewing their Japanese course.

I also signed up for their Turkish course, which seems somewhat unidiomatic to me, based on what little I know, but yeah, as a result three people corrected my exercise and seven people almost immediately wanted to be my "friend," Haven't accepted any such requests yet, do you think that will hurt me?

そです

My writing is far from clear.

― American Fear of Pranksterism (Ed), Monday, November 6, 2017 10:19 PM (two days ago)

そうです

;-)

Okay, Ed, I have two pieces of advice for you.

Also, social aspect for corrections and such on busuu is useful. Corrections can come back within seconds.

I'm thinking of getting the Genki book & workbook when I'm Tokyo in January. I find typing Japanese characters really puzzling so far and I'd rather just work by hand for now I think. But I dunno. Really what I want is to be able to speak, listen, and read, in about that order; writing is less important but should come in time as well.

Standing in front of Kinokuniya. Saw one book I resisted buying and one I will recommend to you soon

nice! that's probably where I'll buy the Genki book in January. at the Shinjuku branch probably so that I can skulk into Kabukicho afterwards. are you in Japan then?

４年間で大学の博士に日本語を学ばれたが、日本に行ったことじゃないし、もうたくさん間違います。教科書に自分を勉強はいいんですけど、本当は大学のコースに入っておいてと勧めます。もちろん、僕の意見だけです。

No, Euler, NYC

shit, so many errors in that. 久しぶりです、すまん

頑張って ください！

Ha. Just used the romaji keyboard to type that (and then used the Linguee thingee to double check the Kanji) instead of the kana keyboard, which I had been using.

So:
One book I have held onto through prior purges is Jack’s Halpern’s Kanji Learners Dictionary, which seems really appealingly organized, although I never really dig into it, and my knowledge of Kanji is still not very good.

Book I looked at in store yesterday was a Japanese verb book which cut right to the chase, as far as I can tell. I may get it soon. Also think Tae Kim’s material could be helpful, it’s on the web but he also put it in a book. There are videos as well.

Finally, I became a recent convert to the Pimsleur approach. They really work you over the coals with their example sentences, so you do get the pronunciation, as well as the relevant grammar, as close to perfect as is possible for you. They also vary their attack, mix up the sentences and give you alternatives so you are in more of the mindset of thinking on the spot instead of just parroting a script.

As far as busuu, as concerned, at first glance there is a lot of stuff in there courses, but it is not clear how well done or well organized it is. For instance when they ask you to do an exercise it hasn’t always taught you enough to do the exercise correctly, at least by my lights. The social aspect does seem useful. Just corrected a lot of exercises and it seems there are a lot of people out there to correct mine.

I forgot to add that I believe Momus got his start in Japanese with Pimsleur, fwiw.

Tae Kim’s material was available in handy app form but it hasn’t been updated to 64bit so it doesn’t work any more.

*sigh*

Is the book Euler wants to buy Kanji in Context?

no, it's GENKI I: An Integrated Course in Elementary Japanese
but I think I heard of it from someone on here!

Just learned from DL that どうぞよろしくおねごいします literally means “Please take care of me.”

Also like how voiced consonants are deemed “muddy.”

Okay, so 75% of the Redd household is now learning Japanese so just went to Kinokuniya NYC and bought hiragana and katakana workbooks for kid and Kodansha Kanji Learner’s Guide for adults.

Ah ee u eh oh

Otm

Kah kee koo keh ko

I’m learning kanji recently and musing on the following.

Why is ごはん almost always spelled out in kana when there is a perfectly serviceable Chinese character 飯。Just one of those things I guess.

I got a bunch of cookbooks in Tokyo and it’s interesting how much is spelled out in kana. I’m getting quite good at interpreting simple recipes, not necessarily able to speak them yet. I know that 手羽鳥 is chicken wings but couldn’t for the life of be say how it is pronounced. (Expect I just looked it up an will probably remember てばとり).

it would be 御飯 in kanji so i guess there's some rule about that, but basically ごはん looks more slick compared to ご飯 or 御飯 and it became a standard? i mean i always wonder about why not just call it カレー飯 instead of カレーライス. just go back to writing everything in 文言文 imo.

all the foreign-isms in kana are half the fun tho

in terms of 御飯 vs ごはん, like most things japanese, it depends on the level of formality

in matters related to law or government, it's:

1. if 御 is followed by a kanji, then 御 is also written in kanji

2. if 御 is followed by hiragana, then 御 is also written in hiragana (ご or お, depending on the word obviously)

some japanese acquaintances have told me ご飯 feels more polite -- there are a handful of words where combining hiragana and kanji sound more polite than writing it only in hiragana, but you just have to memorize which words you can do this with, unfortunately

some other things others might find interesting:

* i've also been told that ごはん is a 和語（わご）term, which comes from a time when rice made up most of the japanese diet, which is why ごはん can mean "food" or "rice"

* another term for food is 食べ物（たべもの）

* ごはん and 飯 mean "cooked rice, while 米（こめ）means "raw rice"

not that it matters, but personally, i have never heard japanese people use 飯（めし） in practice

also, dylan, katakana is used for borrowed/foreign words, right? "curry and rice" as a dish seems to match up with this -- not that i believe japanese is a logical language 100% of the time

Related thread: help me learn japanese

Really came to post
リトル・リカール

And
モンキーハウスへようこそ

Messed up the first one, should be
リトル・リチャード

モンキーハウスは楽しいね ：）

Okay, this paste week started doing Duolingo in reverse, from Japanese to English and gotta say it is really helping me, particularly with kanji.

Paste, although “paste” is kind of amusing.

Perhaps spoke too soon, getting super challenging again

Just bashed my way through Conjunctions lesson - sorry, 接続詞 - and boy that was a workout

For reference: http://www.guidetojapanese.org/learn/complete/conditional#General_Conditional

Also really liking this Midori dictionary app.

midori is dope

and that's interesting about conditionals & duolingo -- was under the impression that DL was more for conversational basics and didn't realize it gets into grammar rules, conjugation patterns, and so on. いいね！

Don’t know if it is teaching the conditional per se, more that I have been forced to confront it when doing the reverse tree.

Another app for perusal is LingoDeer. Like Duolingo but explains grammar and has some of the social aspects of buusuu. Mercifully you can test out of the lower levels.

That looks interesting and doesn’t cost anything. Are there ads?

Almost done with the reverse tree adjectives, I mean 形容詞 lesson.

Looking forward to the present tense, I mean 現在形.

Also, over the years I have picked up and put down several Remember the Kanji book. This round I am giving it a go with Kanji Starter 1, by Daiki Kusuya.

There don’t appear to be ads. I’m not sure how it is supposed to make money, even offline seems to be free

Just came across a new term, aconative verb.

reviewed the passive form this weekend. great for complaining! 😎

Cool. Now onto adverbs, I mean 副詞.

Question: how to pronounce 鶏肉? Midori writes one thing, says another.

Question: how to pronounce 鶏肉? Midori writes one thing, says another.

So sorry for the double post. *bows deeply*

long answer: study on and kun readings

short answer: it's based on context. so whatever it says. each word/pronunciation has a (slightly) different meaning

what is the purpose of your studying japanese and how much do you want to learn, is really a question you should ask yourself, because it will influence whether you want to waste your time learning the on/kun reading for every kanji

find a good dictionary and you can know all the readings. which one to use will be based on your understanding of the context it's used in

Thanks but this is a very specific question. Midori has the pronunciation of that kanji combo as けいにく, とりにく. Then it has example sentences with the the first pronunciation written in kana above the kanji, but the spoken version seems to be saying “niwa tori niku.”

right

what i said still stands

it's not uncommon for there to be a discrepancy like that in a lot of japanese teaching material, because they just choose one reading of it to teach you

the kun reading of 鶏 is either にわとり or とり

the on reading is ケイ

if it helps, without reading the sentence, i'm pretty sure the reading is けいにく

what is probably happening is there is a soundbank of each kanji. and midori is probably calling that sound file for each kanji, without considering the context, so it is giving you one reading for each character

Yes, that may we’ll be the case, thanks. Haven’t been using the Speaking feature too heavily and just noticed this.

it's very difficult for a machine to choose the right reading for each kanji automatically if your sentences are being populated automatically, but i guess a really good software/app/learning program would be able to do it

for what it's worth, most japanese learning software is bad

ハイデル

おめでとう！頑張って新しい言葉を学んでいるね！

最高！

Tae Kim’s material was available in handy app form but it hasn’t been updated to 64bit so it doesn’t work any more.

Thanks for that.

LingoDeer is teaching me some things that I hadn’t learnt elsewhere yet. The grammar explanations are pretty good. I wish this had been around when i started.

鍋を食べながら燗酒を飲みます。
この日本酒は飲みやすいです。

Tried the placement test for that but didn't register yet so it is not keeping track of my level, I don't think.

Duolingo started throwing up some weird ones and the grammar dictionary is teaching me the differ English between male and female speech which is faair clowning my mind.

Male -何をしているんだい
Female - 何をしているの

This is why the grammar dictionary comes in 3 volumes an inch and a half thick. This is from ‘basic grammar’

皆さんおはよう。

Now I have two upcoming trips to Japan! So I need to work again in earnest on my language. I will have a look at the Genki textbooks when I am there, or if I can find them here (don't just wanna order blind online).

But have any of you tried https://minato-jf.jp🕸 ? They are run by the Japan Foundation, and are free. I have good experience with online courses so maybe I'll do this instead of duolingo, where I share some of Ed's concerns.

I have been lazy / overburdened / lazy so not yet.

わかるよ。

Have about eight nodes left on Duolingo Japanese tree and now looking it over and wonder how much grammar is really taught. Don’t seem to see any of the special purpose grammar lessons I see on other trees. Presumably this is because the grammar is so different but still

しつれいします。

立派

I just did the placement test for Minato and got 74/100 and it recommended doing courses. A2-3 or A2-4 which don’t start until the autumn but it is good to be graded.

Seems like it would be worth my while doing A2-1/2 in the interim. Repetition is really working out for me.

Lesson 11 complete

お酒は何でもいいですか。
私は日本酒がいいです。

Hm. Just noticing that Midori and imiwa? have a lot of the exact same example sentences.

Like this one, for example:

このメルマガは、昨今の語学産業界の甘言に躍らされることなく、文法解釈という古典的学習法こそ王道と信じて疑わない方のためのメルマガです。
This e-zine is for those who, unswayed by the cajolery of the modern language industry, firmly trust that the traditional learning method of grammatical analysis is the way to go.

Just when I am thinking that things are getting straight forward something like this comes up

いいえ、あったことありません。

I sure if i'd wanted to say No i have not met him I would done it something like

彼をあっていました。

On the plus side I am able to fumble my way through some of the easier articles on Tango Risto and able to understand the gist of whats going on even if things don't make total sense.

(NB I am ina weird situation where my department has been eliminated and I'm hanging around for redundancy so my days are spent applying for jobs, and studying japanese)

This seems like it might be useful: https://kanjialive.com/214-traditional-kanji-radicals/

Getting a ton of mileage out of Midori, but still find imiwa? useful in certain cases.

I have my first gripe about lingodeer, only a minor one as I’m nearly at the end of the tree. It’s realky accelerated and is trying to grind through too much grammar in each section.

The last section on using -る form got through all of this.

2. ~~とき

"…時/とき(toki)" means "when…". The Kanji "時" and hiragana "とき" are interchangeable.

…+時/とき

Example

English

N＋の＋とき

yasumi no toki, itsumo nani o shimasuka

休みのとき、いつも何をしますか。

What do you usually do when having a break?

A1+とき

chiisai toki, nihon ni sundeimashita

小さいとき、日本に住んでいました。

I lived in Japan when I was little.

A2+な＋とき

hima na toki, yoku toshokan de hon o yomimasu

暇なとき、よく図書館で本を読みます。

I often read in the library when I’m free.

Ｖる＋とき

yasumu toki, itsumo nani o shimasuka

休むとき、いつも何をしますか。

What do you usually do when you’re having a break?

toukyou ni iku toki, kaban o kaimashita

東京に行くとき、かばんを買いました。

I bought a bag before I went to Tokyo.

Ｖた＋とき

toukyou ni itta toki, kaban o kaimashita

東京に行ったとき、かばんを買いました。

I bought a bag when I was in Tokyo.

Attention:

Interesting. Just looked that up in Midori and see that, as is often is case, as I recently learned and posted about, there are some other kanji with the same pronunciation and almost the same meaning with a different nuance:

とき【時, 刻, 秋】
 
noun
1. time, hour, moment (刻 signifies a time of day; 秋 signifies an important time)
2. occasion, case (only 時)
3. chance, opportunity, season (only 時)
4. the times, the age, the day (only 時)
5. tense (only 時)

Although it hard to find examples using the other two kanji.

I do see 刻, but pronounced こく．

秋, of course, is usually pronounced, あき.

Although looking in another dictionary and also using the Japanese keyboard for input confirms these other pronunciations.

大器晩成

One thing that seems preferable in imiwa? over Midori: the component breakdown. Imiwa? always gives you the components that can help you remember and look up by the multiradical method and Midori often doesn’t.

So for instance, for りゅう＝竜, Midori just says

components: 龍

Whereas imiwa? has

Radical 龍 「りゅう」dragon
Components 立竜田乙

The one kanji being the simplified version of the other in this case. Of course that is the ON reading of the kanji for the KUN reading, たつ, there is also the homophone 辰. Jack Halpern’s Kanji Learner’s Dictionary has a cross reference at the end of entries. Finally for English speaking dragons there is ドラゴン。

芸は身を助く

Finding it somewhat amusing to pay attention to long strings of kanji in the dictionary. Such as
姉妹友好都市関係

So I’m in Kyoto and doing reasonably well. I reallly need to work on the reading and buildings out a vocabulary.

Curious to know more about what you mean by “doing reasonably well.”

For example I managed to have a basic conversation this morning about 山椒味噌 and learnt that it was good on tofu. I can do food ordering, ticket buying, answer where I’m from. All basic stuff but it’s become relatively facile. I struggle with much more complex topics as I have more grammar than actual words.

On the other hand I’m a little hamstrung by the fact that my wife speaks pretty good Japanese and often jumps in. However I can now understand a good deal of what she says. We were the only people in a Kappo restaurant last night and she had a long conversation with 板前さん, Andy I understood a lot.

As an example 板前さん was very concerned about the price of eggs in Australia, as he had been to Korea and they were very expensive.

Speaking of long strings of Kanji in the dictionary

中華料理店症候群

阪神大震災

Also, this clears up something that has puzzled me for a while: https://japanese.stackexchange.com/questions/11416/the-%E9%98%9D-radical-or-%E9%83%A8%E9%A6%96-in-%E9%83%A8-and-%E9%99%AA

漢和辞典
陰陽和合

台中関係

触手冠動物

Okay, like the way くうぶん, 空文, is translated as “dead letter.”

I’ve just found a major flaw with Memrise, which I’ve been using for flash cards for ages now. It doesn’t test you on Kanji to Kana or Kanji to English.

Can anyone recommend something better, preferably with audio?

Took a break from this language. Easing back in now. Don’t know the answer to Ed’s question, sorry. I always have mixed feelings about, mixed results with flash cards. Just the morning trying the flash cards in the Japanese app, which are pretty well done but no audio.

Haven’t used Anki in quite a while, they might have something.

You can always use Midori, which I have stanned for before. It will make flash cards of any list, pre-existing or of your own construction. To get the audio you will have to click through the (i) button and then, if it is a kanji click through a definition and then click on it and select “Speak.”

Tons of stuff on Anki, it seems.

I’ve been using an app called Kanji Teacher, which, unsurprisingly is pretty focused on teaching Kanji. I guess it is the opposite of flashcarding apps as it is more focussed on reading the kanji and learning the various On/Kun readings. It’s grouped by JLPT level or school year and it’s working out quite well. A supplementary tool.

夜寝る前に、お風呂に入るといいですよ。

So one thing I finally realized is that apps don’t come with the own speech generator, it is built into the iPhone. D’oh!

Their own

If you download the high quality Japanese Siri voice some apps use it and sound better - not all apps though.

Doesn’t actually sound bad. Just that it’s now obvious why sometimes the reading is off.

Interesting thing I just learned was that the kanji 見,
meaning “see,” was simplified in Chinese to be 见. Of course I knew about the theoretical existence of such differences but hadn’t noticed such a common example until today.

Doing the Duolingo Japanese to English course in order to improve my kanji reading, as I may have told you and I came across 聞 being used to mean “to tell,” which Midori lists as an archaic meaning, it is more usually defined as “hear, ask, listen.”

To be more precise, the kanji itself is not being defined as such, but

きける【聞ける】
 
ichidan verb, transitive verb
to tell (archaic)

Okay, think I may go back to LingoDeer for a while

i feel bad for not helping you guys enough, this should be helpful though

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hyGytj1Tirc

this one is meant for japanese speakers, but it might help

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CKjaFG4YN6g

Hm. Seems like busuu has tidied up and spruced up their Japanese and Chinese courses.

guys! I am two weeks into my year plan to learn enough Japanese for a little trip, and I have sort of become reasonably proficient in Hiragana. Katakana by the end of the month.... and then what? What next? Apps, the Genki book, Busuu? What say you?

Try LingoDeer, and get a good dictionary app like Midori

tbh soda, you could just go right now! you don't really need to speak any japanese to travel there. and reading hiragana and katakana won't get you very far since there are thousands of kanji characters you'll need to memorize to read things in a useful way and that'll take more than a year. but if you want to learn things to be cool while travelling, maybe just practice some phrases to use at restaurants, when asking for help, stuff like that. generic counters, one more, please, thank you, I don't understand, check please, etc. there are probably good youtube vids for this stuff? midori could also help in a pinch, esp since it works offline.

if you want to learn stuff because it's fun, genki is a pretty good textbook. you should be able to string together some basic stuff after finishing the first one and you'll learn some of the grammar basics. also, I haven't played with it much but tangoristo is a news app with furigana to help you read the kanji words. might help with reading comprehension and maybe even provide some conversation topics too?

Whilst it is possible to have a good time in japan without any Japanese you will have a better time with some basic skills, especially if you get outside Tokyo.

I’ve spent a couple of weeks in Sapporo at language school and a week volunteering on and farm in rural Hokkaido. It’s been great for my japanese and a whole lot of fun. I’m passing through Tokyo today and had a lovely Izakaya experience in Kamagura, able to navigate the menu a little and chat a little with the other people at the bar. My strategy to buy time is to order 日本酒をおすすめください and 漬物 which buys some time to work out what’s going on with the rest of the menu.

My learning for today is あら汁、fish soup made from leftover bits of fish, a very bisque like consistency, very delicious.

I have a question about placements of counters, which seems to be addressed in this thread https://japanese.stackexchange.com/questions/8136/positioning-of-quantities-using-counters although I feel that there is a fourth option to the ones discussed there.

Namely Q N P V, in their notation.

Although it does seem much more common to see Q の N than just Q N. Of course these are less both much less common then the Q appearing after the noun somewhere.

Just did some more of the Reverse tree on Duolingo, which is really a slog but seems to be very gradually improving my kanji identification, and which also just led me to read Tae Kim’s chapter on conditionals, which was quite helpful.

Level 2 of lingodeer is here.

Right now I’m working on consolidating my grammar and vocabulary learning. I’m using wanikani.com kaniwani.com and bunpro.jp

Of these the last is drilling grammar and really useful, it’s orgnasised by JLPT level but cross references with tae Kim, Maggie Sensei and a lot of different text books.

All three tools integrate together which is good, but aren’t free.

I’m mulling JLPT N4 next June. I should have done N5 this December but forgot about the application deadline.

We had dinner with a Japanese colleague of my wife and I didn’t suck too much, my comprehension is getting really good even if my speaking still sucks.

Most importantly though I should get about 3 months in japan next year.

Ha, I had some pipe dream about doing N5 this year as well.

Thanks for the info about Level 2. Saw the Coming Soon but didn’t check the past few days. Level 2 in some other languages as well.

Still have quite finished their Japanese Level 1.

I'm still looking for something to really drill the hell out of conjugations, it's still a weak area for me.

Yeah, good luck with that

Okay, with this kind of sentence I am starting to sort of see what is going on
もし彼が歩くのなら、私も歩く。

Shouldn’t that be

もし彼は歩いたら、私もあるく。

Subordinate in particular conditional clauses use が not は. Not sure about the の, sometimes it functions to make a verb a noun. In any case this sentence is from Reverse Japanese Duolingo tree, so I assume it is correct. I even took a screenshot. But yeah, I would have said the same as you a little while ago.

Of course if the subjects of both clauses are the same you might could use は for the whole sentence.

Found this example using のなら in both dictionary apps I have, perhaps you will have it as well:

スーパーへ行くのならオレンジをいくつか買って来て下さいませんか。
If you're going to the supermarket, will you please bring me back some oranges?

Hopefully someone more advanced will advise

Also seeing some conditionals ending in と, which Tae Kim also explains.

Ah の adds emphasis in なら as a conditional according to Maggiesensei

http://maggiesensei.com/2015/11/07/how-to-use-%e3%81%aa%e3%82%89-nara/

Not that I’ve studied that form of conditional.

I still don’t quite have it down the difference between が、ので、けれども and all the other ‘buts’

Yup.

Just learned a new use of を. From Midori:
3. indicates an area traversed

Is midori worth 10 dollars more than the free Japanese dictionary on iOS?

Yes

You could also try imiwa? which hasn’t been updated in a year or so I think, but is free and still pretty good.

Also, here is a good write up of something I have been thinking of and we may have discussed before: http://lingwiki.com/index.php?title=On_vs._Kun_readings

actually jisho.org looks pretty good for kanji purposes, maybe one of us mentioned upthread/zing

Still gets me a little stirred up when Midori and imiwa? have strange, rare, kanji readings like the second one here ふみ【文, 書】that I can’t find in any other learner’s dictionary.

So LingoDeer is going to paid subscription model, although prior users are grandfathered out of it for a little bit. Still, this Japanese- and Korean!- 2 course looks really good and seems to be worth it. Another two days to get the lifetime subscription.

I bought the lifetime subscription on the strength of level 2.

Went ahead and did the same for the same reason

My Reverse Duolingo Tree approach has been useful but tedious and laborious

轍鮒

鳩が豆鉄砲を食ったよう

盆と正月が一緒に来たよう, 盆と正月が一緒に来た様

深淵に臨むが如し

Wonder who else if anyone will jump on the LingoDeer bandwagon today

So mildly curious why the beginning of ヶ月 is pronounced “ka” and not “ke”

Also interesting that 図 has two ON readings

Can’t actually find such a character in a Chinese dictionary. Do find the inside, 斗 dǒu, which seems to represent The Big Dipper.

Simplified Chinese “map” is 图, pronounced tú, with old complicated character being 圖. So perhaps another case of different simplification.

Ah, and now I see same words with both the new and old kanji written out in the entry
ずかい【図解, 圖解】
And, even better
ふと【不図, 不斗, 不圖】

Just learned ないといけない【ないと行けない, 無いといけない, 無いと行けない】

So far so good with LingoDeer Japanese 2

I'm doing that in my spare moments but most of my time available is spent omg WaniKani and Bunpro. It's locking in grammar and vocab like nothing before.

I can bust out a

毎日漢字を勉強したら、漫画を読むことが出来る。日本語はペラペラになるといいです。

no sweat.

You mean Bunpro?

no bunpro

bunko I hadn't heard of, looks interesting

bunpo

Parsing sentences like this

食べたことのない甘さがあるクッキーをつくってみたい。

Is really hard on paper, but doing it whilst listening is really hard. It feels like the hook of the sentence is right at the end

Bunpro?

That is a Bunpro sentence, yes.

Learning about the use of 方 and より in comparatives

Duolingo just told me
君ならできる

頑張ってください

Ha, thanks. It tells me that too

It’s all so simple.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/68/AMB_Japanese_Verbs.pdf/page1-1754px-AMB_Japanese_Verbs.pdf.jpg

I have a laminated copy of this in my work bag

Heh, that looks pretty good.

So have been using three dictionaries apps extensively recently: imiwa?, Japanese and Midori. Perhaps I will organize my thoughts at some point and post about how they measure up to each other.

Just printed that out. Very interesting but some of it is hard to read, such as the green humble and honorific box on the back.

井の中の蛙大海を知らず

猿も木から落ちる

ナイス！

The Duolingo Japanese course from English is so-so, but the Progress Quiz is actually quite challenging.

Okay, the Manabi app for learning to read Kanji now allows you to click and search in your dictionary apps

彼は私に泳ぐよう強要した。

Can’t figure out quite how the よう works here.

I’m not sure the よう is necessary, where did the sentence come from?

Duolingo Reverse Tree

English for Japanese speakers

それは私にはありえません。
Translated as:
It is not possible for me.
Can’t quite parse this one either, same source.

On the first one it could be a really bad mis writing I of the volitional 泳ごう。 making it ‘He made me want to go swimming’ which seems a bit weird, but ok could work.

That last one you posted I just don’t know. I do get the sense that some of the less popular corners of Duolingo don’t get proofed very well. There’s a quite a few errors in the later levels of LingoDeer as well.

My reading is coming along by leaps and bounds I can recognise 750 kanji and I’m starting to do pretty well with teenage novels and manga.

Duolingo just significantly upgraded their Japanese course, wondering if this addresses any of our concerns, tend to doubt it.

There do seem to be a lot more kanji in the lessons, I’ll give them that

I took a peak and it didn’t look any different. Not going to waste my time on it.

Yes, I figured you were too far along for it to be of use to you.

Also, they have been doing A/B testing so maybe you still have the old tree.

The new Norwegian tree has been in A/B testing for a a few weeks but I still see only the old tree.

https://japanese.stackexchange.com/questions/9688/volitional-%E3%81%A8-verb

なければならない, なければなりません, なければいけない, なければいけません, ねばならぬ, ねばならない, ねばなりません, なければならぬ, なけばならない
 
expression
have to do, must, should, ought to

See also ないわけにはいかない

火のないところに煙は立たず。
There is no smoke without fire.
Il n’y a pas de fumée sans feu.

色々言語を勉強する代わりに日本語を勉強に集中するべきです。

I finally learned/looked up how to type づ

It’s just “du”

Also the little ヶ which is used for some counters and is pronounced “ka” every time I’ve seen it, such as in ヶ月, is typed “ke” like it’s big brother ケ.

Aargh “its”

Just type いっかげつ and １ヶ月 will come up as one of the options.

Thanks, but I was going the other way, where I had the kanji but didn’t know how to pronounce it.

https://japanese.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/1624/how-to-type-these-%E3%83%B6-%E3%80%85

So “lke” goes right to the little ヶ.

You can also type ‘x’ before things to get the small letter, or at least you can in Apple world so xke gets you ヶ

ぇぃぅぉ ょヶ

頑張るしかない

一千三百漢字が覚えったので日本語の雑誌が読めます。

本当に？

May finally try this wanikani thing

It’s good, I got all the way to level 60 and I’m on the run out. It’s helped my reading a lot.

Highly recommend the unofficial iOS app, Tsurukame, which is a much better interface than their web one.

Also didn’t get sucked into doing it as fast as possible. Stuff really starts to pile up once reviews start coming back at you. I had to take two substantial breaks to get through it all and I think it would have been more effective if I’d just set out at a more gentle pace. It’s a marathon not a sprint.

Yeah, looks good, someone else recommended it as well. Seems to be well-organized. And yeah, I just binged on the first 20 radicals it gave me, I guess I'd better be careful going forward, as you say.

In theory you can get it all done in a year, but you better have a lot of spare time every 4 hours if you want to do that, and be pretty sure you will get everything right.

How do I keep from getting sucked in or it snowballing, as someone else said, just don’t do too many new lessons when they pop up?

maybe limit yourself to 10 new lessons a day? no matter what you do you'll have days where suddenly 150 reviews land in your queue.

i did the first 8-9 levels quickly and then hit a wall and have made very slow progress since though that's more on me than the program

Thanks!

Tsurukame
Got this. Seems like I had previously had a predecessor app called WAniki which seems to be gone now.

So it hasn’t gotten bad for me yet- still only on Level 1, with no vocabulary unlocked yet- but can well imagine the tsunami of combinatorial explosions that is coming soon.

if you already know some vocab then the first several levels are gonna be pretty trivial and having to learn names for the radicals is kinda obnoxious

I pretty much know all the vocabulary that is coming up but I don’t always know the pronunciations they want for the kanji and/or I mistype them so I guess that’s useful practice. I am trying to cross check their names for the radicals with other lists. Well one at least.

Like what they call the drop is usually the dot, and construction is usually craft.

Also usually know the Japanese readings, which I still might mistype, but not necessarily the Chinese readings.

Unfortunately the only thing that can stop yourself from getting buried is self-restraint. It’s very tempting to think I have some spare time I’ll just learn a few more things. If you get that urge, I would recommend going and finding something to read in Japanese.

Keep in mind that I followed none of this advice, but i am now quite good at reading stuff in japanese so YMMV.

The default Lesson Batch size is five. Does that make a difference, did you have it higher?

Like I just had 21 new lessons show up. Maybe I will just do five for now....

But already did ten...

once the vocab starts hitting you'll never get through it all 5 at a time, theres like 100+ per level

well i guess you'll eventually get through it but it'll be real slow

Review at whatever rate I guess, but don’t do new lessons too fast to at least try and control the spigot

Tweaking some of my other settings now

I set it to pair the reading and the meaning, aka back-to-back, and to do the reading first. Also set it to Show All Kanji Readings. And just noticed that typing in an ON reading for Vocabulary that wants a KUN reading allows a do-over or two and doesn’t immediately count as an error.

Does it ever give indication when it is about to unlock?

Ah, okay. Level 2 got unlocked yesterday and it sent me an email warning me to pace myself, eventually if not now.

Can see that this, like so many things, can be addictive and overwhelming.

In another news, looked at Busuu just now and their Japanese cause seems to have been revamped for the better. Probably too easy for anyone on this thread but still.

Other, not another

So I am mostly using the app but the dashboard on the web has at least one important usage.

One thing being the web dashboard has a good way of showing you what you missed on your last review.

And I’m trying to slow walk my way through Level 3, which supposedly will take six days and change instead of three, which is fine with me.

One thing that still irks me is the way ‘n’ works.

Anyway, feel like slow-walking *might just work.* Not trying to learn all the Kanji right away, trying to train myself to recognize the radicals and the ON and KUN readings to strengthen my recall and ability to use multi-radical lookup, for one thing.

https://knowledge.wanikani.com/japanese/double-n/

Tried setting it to switch automatically to Japanese keyboard when needed but then it doesn’t switch back to English.

I think it’s easier just to use their built in IME. You aren’t fighting the keyboard’s desire to convert things to kanji then.

Also prepare yourself to get annoyed that a lot of what Wanikani teaches as ‘radical’ aren’t radicals in the strictest sense of the word.

Yes. I agree, thanks. Trying not to get annoyed by that, haven't seen it too much, but maybe it will annoy me. Also, thanks so much for the advice on going slow.

In principle, I think it should annoy me though, will see if it actually does.

The thing they call The Slide is that considered a radical? Or just katakana ノ?

https://www.joyokanji.com/radical-notes/4-katakana-no-radical-%E4%B8%BF
Hmm.

Also, I mess with different dictionaries but recently I discovered something nice on the one called simply Japanese: if you hit the Speak button when you look up a kanji it will say all the ON and KUN readings.

And the app named Japanese also does the nice thing of showing all the readings on the history list.

Finishing Level 3 in a few days. Suppose I will pony up for the Premium. One thing I think needs to be managed is the explosion of content when a new level is reached, when you get both the, um, new radicals as well as all the vocabulary you have unlocked.

Okay, ponied up for the full version. Wish me luck.

Do you still recommend bunpro, Ed?

Taking a look now, trying to figure out how to use it.

I’m not using Bunpro at the moment but I have done. On balance not the best tool for testing your grammar, or at least not the one for me.

Most recently I’ve been using renshuu.org. Probably because the JLPT question style fits nicely with the lessons I’m doing.

Okay, that looks pretty interesting. Wondering how you choose your lessons.

Home > Mastery?

Hmm. They discuss pitch.

Seems like the web page works a little better than the app maybe.

It wants me to learn 80 things a day. Okay.

I should have warned the the interface is shockingly bad.

As in you’d really have to work hard to design a worse one.

But it’s OK once you get it set up and select some things to work on.

Thanks. I might stick with Bunpro for a while and see how that goes.

In other news, it feels like kind of a cheat when unlocking the Kanji only gives you the vocabulary word that is just the Kanji with the same pronunciation.

I guess I can just give myself extra credit and look ahead at the Level 41 word that uses the on’yomi.

So just hit level 4, which unlocked a bunch of level 4 kanji and vocabulary in addition to the level 4 radicals and the level 3 vocabulary that got unlocked. Combinatorial Kanji Explosion!

Seems like it takes a bare minimum of a week to get through a level.

This is useful: https://www.wkstats.com/items/wanikani

Past the middle of Level 4 now

My progression, if its of interest

https://www.dropbox.com/s/lmgeo6xqrbmz5p7/level%20up.png?raw=1

Yes, very interesting, thanks!

tbh I am impressed you kept up that pace for that long until your first big break.

Wondering if it's a good idea to start studying the next level before it unlocks. Just gently, mind you, not like a crazy person.

https://www.joyokanji.com/radical-notes/130-flesh-radical-%E8%82%89-and-%E6%9C%88

Okay, I don't want to go there, but I relate to that progris riport in a big way.

Last weekend I was about to finish Level 3 and wondering whether I would or should pay for Level 4. This week I followed the tight seven day schedule you followed for so long, trying to tweak it to see what can make it more palatable. Now in the weird calm before the storm of having minimal reviews before I try to Guru the last batch of kanji.

Okay, this can be exhausting

Seems like the SRS goes twice as fast for certain vocabulary words.

Okay, solved this mystery at least. If the vocabulary is based on Kanji from Levels I and II, then it goes at the faster SRS.

Just leveled up to Level 6, baby.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tc1IphRx1pk

This system totally works, as long as I don't let it drive me crazy.

Here is my general approach right now: when I level up, which right now is usually early Saturday morning, I do all the radicals and kanji right away but not the vocabulary. I don’t sweat that first batch of kanji too much, just let the SRS do the work, and don’t need to sweat the radicals at this point. I do try to glance ahead at the second batch of radicals that will be unleashed midweek, for me Tuesday afternoon/evening, so they don’t hang me up and delay me if I miss too many. I don’t start vocabulary lessons in any hurry at all, but do try to do such lessons in the morning so I get the first few reps in the course of a day to try avoid the big wake up pile up.

I even try to start vocabulary when I saw a gap coming up in 4 hours, of few or no reviews.

When I see

I’d do the vocab first, it helps lock in the kanji, something that becomes more important the less familiar the kanji is. it does slow you down though.

I mostly agree with what you are saying but the thing is, it only gives you the vocabulary for a given kanji after you've already passed that kanji, so it will help me lock in the kanji I already studied a bit, but not the new kanji.

I look at the first kanji unlocking as almost a pretest, as my grade school teachers used to say, and everything after as a retest.

Actually I try to look ahead and study the vocabulary related to the kanji before that vocabulary is unlocked in order to get a handle on the readings.

This got me again:

https://community.wanikani.com/t/how-to-type-%E3%81%A5/33891
So these two
づ
ぢ
Are
du
di

Just unlocked Level 7 this morning.
Now nibbling at the vocab so it doesn’t get lost in a review tsunami.

Ha, missed almost all the kanji -and one radical! - on the first 4 hour review. Clearly I am burnt, and not in the good sense.

Okay, back on track with those, mostly, and now really digging in to the vocabulary.

Think that’s killing me now is unfamiliar kanji with three different readings hitting me in the vocabulary.

At my Duolingo is actually helping, with some of the same vocabulary coming up.

At my level meant to say

And just now learned an interesting expression from Duo, 上の空, which means absent-minded.

a bit like head in the clouds, above the sky?
I did wanikani for a bit a few years ago and have started again, up to level 4 and am surprised how much I can remember
I just like the way kanji look and the words that happen when you put two or more together, fire + mountain = volcano etc

Yes, like that.

Really don't know how Ed kept up that pace for a year.

It kind of took over. I had to build it into my day. I wouldn’t recommend it, not least because towards the end of that period all other Japanese study went by the board.

I can tell. I am feeling that now at Level 7. I keep promising myself that I am only keeping to the seven day cycle for now to learn how that works but trying to figure out if I should shoot for a ten day cycle or a two week cycle.

Just took advantage of a tip that I could add fonts

And want to remark on the tiny helpful fact that Tsurukame lets you know if you should be typing in an on or kun reading for the kanji.

Drives me crazy when things are very similar in pronunciation like
私立 and 自立

Although I guess that’s the whole point

Almost done with level nine. Wonder if I should pause at ten before going on to eleven to review those first ten Pleasant levels.

Visually Similar Kanji is usually pretty far off though

Did anyone buy the 4,500 sentences?

The what now?

https://store.tofugu.com/shop/4500-japanese-sentences

hate when i finish a level on wanikani and suddenly there's like 100+ new lessons, all that purple to grind through before you get to the blues and pinks is kinda dispiriting

Are you still doing? I thought maybe you took a break.

You don’t have to do the purple right away. You can start with the blue and pink and do the purple at your leisure. That’s what I do, that’s what somebody else told me they do, I think.

nah still working away at it and got to level 6 yesterday
i'm doing it thru the website and can't see a way to pick and choose which lessons to do? teach me your ways

Use the tsurukame app, highly configurable

Maybe the recommended usage is to finish all the vocabulary first before proceeding but I dunno seems like I am going to spend forever on the vocabulary anyway so…

Anyway, I kept up the ever more brutal pace of leveling up every seven days until this week, when it finally gave way, which is fine I guess. I really don’t know how Ed kept up the pace for so long, although maybe I do know and I also know why he had to eventually take a very long break or two.

yeh I'm not capable of doing that. going at my own pace
that app seems to ios only, boooo

Flaming Durtles?

Kakumei?

Now looking for some easy readers so I can use this stuff.

Try Satori Reader, there’s quite a lot of stuff you can read without paying for. It also integrates with Wanikani so it will only show Furigana for stuff you don’t know.

Thanks! Will check that out. Already started looking at ManabiReader again, along with White Rabbit Press.

Okay, the White Rabbit Level 2 stories are at the right level.

How do you find stuff to read in Satori? I didn’t dig that part of the interface

The dictionary app simply called Japanese has a color tagging feature that I am finding really useful at the moment.

Okay, so just leveled up to twelve. I will know a lot if this thing doesn't pull me under.

It takes me at least a couple of days to internal the weird readings and nuances of meaning of the vocab which us why at this point I always start the radicals and kanji first in the vain pursuit of the next level up.

Always feels kind relaxing being in the eye of the hurricane when that two day pause comes before the radicals and (most or some of the) first batch of kanji go to Guru.

Eye of the typhoon, I should say

Is there some rule of thumb about a/e vowel sounds and transitive/intransitive or am I just imagining

I seem to see a lot of pairs where the e vowel is transitive, to act upon, and the a vowel is intransitive, to be acted upon.

Unless I’ve got that backwards.

Anyway, just found my copy of this book
https://pictures.abebooks.com/isbn/9784872179408-us.jpg
flipping through which demonstrates that the Kanji reading is much improved.

I seem to see a lot of pairs where the e vowel is transitive, to act upon, and the a vowel is intransitive, to be acted upon.

Just found this

This is an intransitive verb, meaning it happens on its own. The かる ending is a hint, because verbs with かる as okurigana (kana added to the kanji) are usually intransitive.

That’s under 受かる

My main problem with learning Japanese grammar is that I have no idea what English grammar is or how it works. It's like I have to learn a third language to learn the second. Doesn't help that my brain seems to immediately shut off when I read things like "intransitive verb".

I wouldn’t worry too much about not knowing English grammar or grammar terms, they map poorly in any case.

I recommend the Cure Dolly videos on YouTube, once you get past the odd 3D avatar and squeaky voice there’s some great teaching on how Japanese works.

Here’s the one on Jidoushi and Tadoushi. Be wary of trying to look for patters is which is which, there are always exceptions.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ELk1dqaEmyk

Ed is correct as usual. Japanese grammar is completely unrelated to English grammar, unlike Indo-European languages, in particular close relatives such as Germanic and Romance languages.

So I have all five fonts installed in Tsurukame. Knew that if I long pressed it would show the standard font but just realized I can swipe left and right to iterate through others.

When I went through (most of) the reverse Duolingo tree I actually came across many Japanese terms for English grammar. Of course in the lessons there were multiple ways in Japanese to convey various things that were represented in the English tenses.

Did the bare minimum on Wanikani yesterday and today started with a stack of close to three hundred reviews. Dang!

Almost dug myself out. Also just realized that 例えば is tatoeba!

こんにちは！ every year or so i decide that i'm going to learn japanese and then get burnt out after a few months. each time i learn a little bit more and i think i'm on track to reaching my goal in about 20 years.

i'm feeling good about the strategy this time which is to focus on reading. my ultimate goal is to be able to play japanese video games (lol) so i'm thinking that i don't need to get too hung up on memorizing the various kanji readings. some various thoughts:

* the kanji learner's dictionary is a fucking game changer. what used to take 20 minutes to find an unfamiliar kanji now can take as little as 5 seconds with the SKIP indexing.
* the dictionary of basic japanese grammar is a good reference for the most part, but i can't for the life of my find super basic shit like what exactly the ます form is despite it being used in all the entries. i'm thinking i'm going to need to supplement it with a more general textbook... probably genki?
* this time i'm getting as much japanese in front of my eyes as i can and let the pattern recognition neural pathways form. so far this involves playing japanese games and just reading the text to myself whether or not i understand what it's saying. i'm starting to notice patterns and phrases already so i think it's working pretty well!
* it was a real eye opener for me when i realized that text with kanji is easier to read. i was trying to play dragon quest v but it's text is mostly hiragana. really frustrating to not know what something says, only to look it up and realize that it's one of the 5 kanji you actually CAN recognize but just written in hiragana.

I have and like the first edition of the Kanji Learner’s Dictionary but I have to say I hardly ever use the SKIP method, although I see that it could be useful.

そうですか。

Almost had a wanikani breakdown but managed to right the ship, pull back from the brink.

had a 200+ review session earlier to get it under control, afterwards felt like I used up all my brain power for the day
some things I just keep fucking up again and again, like when to use getsu or gatsu or tsuki for month in vocab
or kanji for pause vs suspension

Yes, exactly!

Once I have too many to review I kind of nibble at it: ascending or descending SRS stage or lowest level first, and then when I finally have a chance I just plow through but can’t give it nearly the attention I would for a smaller review

So I just found out the reason most dictionary apps have the same definitions and examples is that they are all based on the same thing, the Tanaka Corpus.

http://www.edrdg.org/wiki/index.php/Tanaka_Corpus

Which is now apparently embedded in Tatoeba.

勝敗は問題ではない。

Easily confused:
願-がん
源-げん

Forgot to mention
原-げん

地図
地区

ah the map made out of cheesu
I've been messing around on Duolingo just for passively learning sentence structure but damn everyone seems to be so competitive in these dumb league tables they have

Renshu grammar is really good for sentence structure once you get past the baffling setup.

The gamification is in the form of a virtual gatchapon.

Sorry, I hated that interface so much I just gave up on that thing.

Forgot to mention
原-げん

Think I have a further elaboration of common transitive/intransitive pair patterns.

If the pairs end in す／る, the first tends to be transitive, the second intransitive.

If the pairs end in える／ある, the first is usually transitive, the second intransitive.

DO U SEE?

Then there is
苦しむ
苦しめる

But
伝える
伝わる
which fit the pattern

流す
流れる

海外旅行なんて無理よ。

コロナなんかですか？

Tsurukame audio feature now broken due to Wanikani file format change :(

No Covid news is good news, thanks. Actually some relatives just got it, but some others tested negative.

Further discussion on the Wanikani community board. Hoping a fix will come soon.

Developer taking a look as of half an hour ago.

…and it is already fixed on TestFlight

会社 and 社会 is driving me nuts, I can never remember which one is which

So many like that, including that pair.

The good thing about WaniKani is that it allows you to test that stuff over and over until you finally get it. The bad thing is that often it feels like I will never get it.

the one that has been really tripping me up tho is 八つ being ya and 八日 is yo, while both 四つ and 四日 are both also yo

so confusing I'm not even sure I got it right this time lol

Same.

Also sometimes not careful about which counter it even is and mix them together.

会社 and 社会 is driving me nuts, I can never remember which one is which

i just learned these words today! time will tell if i'm able to retain the difference between the two as the flashcard intervals get larger.

i'm starting to think my "don't worry about pronunciation" approach might be a bad idea. on the one hand, i can read and understand the kanji but on the other hand, i can't really look them up because i don't know how to type them

Yes. Feel like the whole point of the thing is to learn the most important readings/pronunciations.

Recently signed up for emails from the wanikani guys which led me to this interesting and relevant discussion: https://www.tofugu.com/japanese/kanji-radicals-mnemonic-method/

These two always get me:
相手
助手

会社 and 社会 is driving me nuts, I can never remember which one is which

This one is an easy one for me as I’m often looking for the name and address of a sale brewery in the side of the bottle and anchoring to 株式会社 is the easiest way. 社会　is just the other one.

On the other hand, 相手　and 助手　are infuriatingly close. Inevitably I always do better if I can anchor to something outside of the flash cards.

Recently I have been struggling with

仲良し
仲が良い

which are infuriatingly close in meaning but definitely not the same.

This related word gets mixed in too:
仲良く

Just mixed up these two
専
寺

Sound is back on Tsurukame.

Thing that I am starting to get straight:
The short and long pronunciation of the first kanji here:
世界
世紀
世辞

Thing that still gives me grief:
All the different nuances of meaning as well as whether to rendaku or not for words that start with
大

I thought I was getting a feel for when to rendaku until I came to 早口, my brain really thinks this should be guchi dammit

Yeah, I know exactly what you mean.

Wikipedia article quite good: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rendaku#Examples

Sorry, linked in the middle instead of the top.

Both readings are correct for 早口, and you certainly hear both said. There’s a lot of regional and personal variation in rendaku in any case.

Ah, yeah, so they are, thanks. Me, I can never quite remember the meaning of this one:
早速

Basically stuff that means something like recently, soon, nearby, just now right away etc. always gets jumbled up in my head.

Right now my recent rendaku issues center on a particular kanji that is already voiced
材
vs a lookalike with similar pronunciation that does have a rendaku and non-rendaku version
財

Anyway I feel kind of good that I aware of and know how to type the special rendaku kana ぢ and づ as in 鼻血(はなぢ) . Can’t think of a word for the other one, actually.

早まって喜ぶな。

^From Clozemaster, which I highly recommend.

Have been forging ahead on Duolingo but it just got insanely hard.

I was on the level
Memories and The Arts 1
And just got to
Weather 2 and Law
but the sentences are just too long at this point

So probably should just stick to Clozemaster

These three, but getting close:
神
禅
福

I thought I was getting a feel for when to rendaku until I came to 早口, my brain really thinks this should be guchi dammit

These two:
温
湯

村
材

I finally came up with a system to get it thru my thick skull lol
会社 kaisha - begins with a k sound, company
社会 shakai - begins with an s sound, society

That’s pretty good actually. I have something like that for another, hopefully will post soon.

Sitting here at level 20 going on 21 with a thousand reviews.

A thousand years I’ve been imprisoned in this bottle studying wanikani!

The Wanikani guys really like The Dictionary of Japanese Grammar, all three volumes, but I don’t know if I can buy too many physical volumes these days and the ebook seems suspect.

I finally came up with a system to get it thru my thick skull lol
会社 kaisha - begins with a k sound, company
社会 shakai - begins with an s sound, society

Sometimes a pair like this can confuse me:
時期
期待

So I just started to dip into Japanese in anticipation of a trip (that is now very likely postponed) and because it intersting and came across "80/20 Japanese" which to my very novice eyes seems pretty good? anyone else have experience with this?

Not me, sorry.

i found this particularly (ha ha) helpful: https://8020japanese.com/japanese-sentence-structure/

if you can get past the voice and creepiness, the first couple of videos here finally made japanese sentence structure click for me: hxxps://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLg9uYxuZf8x_A-vcqqyOFZu06WlhnypWj

particularly the insight that every japanese sentence has a subject marked with が, whether explicit or implied by the context

急行列車

私はあれを知らない

https://onomatoproject.com/

会議
議会
but this pair seems a little easier, famous last words

せっかくの苦労もあだになった。

Getting used to the terminal の

齢
Has a slightly different stylization that was throwing me off

I have…a very big backlog of Wanikani reviews.

These two
域
識

Don’t look that similar but they also rhyme.

I splurged for Kodansha learners pack bundle of apps and it does seem kind of useful.

weird that a bunch of radicals I got today only appear in exactly one kanji.

Oh but then those kanji may have multiple vocabulary words

These:
案
委

i learned this word today 「お尻」

it's always a fun moment when you get to learn a word that has been adopted into English from Japanese and see what the kanji that make it up are - drawing letter = emoji, of course it's a letter that's also a drawing!

seems like the person behind Cure Dolly has died, RIP
https://www.patreon.com/posts/r-i-p-cure-dolly-57100247

the person who i'm pretty sure is behind the account was posting on their facebook on the day the patreon post got put up so i think the android sensei is just being retired. bummer though, i had grown quite fond of her quirks

Do people really do Wanikani and never bother with the vocab? I just don’t see the point of that at all.

Anyway, today they added a new kanji to my level!
https://community.wanikani.com/t/wanikani-content-additions-ongoing-from-april-29-2021/51058

Wanikani sale almost over. (Guess I am in for the long haul now)

Still a day or so left.

wish I could afford it.
took a couple of weeks off over xmas and now have 668 reviews. welp.

as many kanjis as i've learned i can't for the life of me read a single handwritten or "handwritten font" one

i'm thinking of writing an anki plugin to randomly cycle the font for my cards between gothic, mincho, and handwritten

I could sort of start to recognize most of them except the most outside one on Wanikani.

i assume knowing how to write makes reading handwriting easier, thats obviously the big thing missing from the wanikani approach

True, but writing properly is even more work. Had I but world enough and time etc.

There are plugins for Wanikani and it’s apps to cycle through fonts.

Armed Banana by far the hardest font on Wanikani to recognize. Just put it back into rotation, we’ll see. Easy enough to click and see the regular font.

Took it back off, still too hard.

haha yeah I hacked together an Anki plugin and quickly took armed banana out of the rotation. might set up a separate deck of my mature cards to practice with that font though

上手の手から水が漏れる

HI DERE. Trying to restart my wanikani after pretty much a year layoff. Think I have an approach that might work.

timely revive since this friday will mark 1 year of anki daily flashcards without missing a day. i'm very happy with my progress and i think my approach of focusing on reading and just getting japanese text in front of my eyes is working great.

at this point, while reading manga i could probably only translate 50% of what i read, but feel like i understand the gist of 90% of the text. playing games is a lot lower since there aren't picture cues for nearly every sentence, but it's coming slowly but surely.

as for speaking.... yeah i can't really do that but i've definitely picked up the pronunciation of a whole lot of kanji just from doing the flashcards.

皆さん、お疲れ様です〜、頑張れ！！

Cool. What deck(s) do you use?

i use the core6k deck + a deck of katakana words

Cool.

Found something weird about the etymology of 馬鹿 (ばか)

なんですか？

Supposedly some transliteration from Sanskrit?

直

this is weird. I was trying to type a different kanji

直

Again. Shows up okay but after I post

It’s because of Chinese, which doesn’t have the L shape on the left.

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E7%9B%B4

Still going on the Wanikani restart. Have a mountain of reviews it will take me many months to get through.

Try not to look at it all after a certain hour at night. Also tinker with the review order preferences.

One thing that can be crazy making is all the things that have similar definitions, all the single kanji and kanji strings that mean law and rule for example.

Also, to return to this thing from earlier:
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E9%A6%AC%E9%B9%BF
Japanese
Kanji in this term
馬 鹿
Etymology
Probably originally a transcription of Sanskrit मोह (moha, “folly”), used as a slang term among monks.[1][2][3]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MiHp7TSgjIY

https://www.tofugu.com/japanese/baka-meaning/

it's such a useful word that i've come to use in english too. nice to have a non-ableist light insult word

My wife thought that the Chewbacca character in Star Wars was named with this in mind.

Still back on wanikani, trying not to get overwhelmed.

I’m trying it but the site seems really hard to navigate and use

Don’t use the site! Use the app instead. Oh but you need an iPhone, I think.

Where the app is called Tsurukame.

Ahh thx

apparently i have a complete inability to remember these:

引き取る
引き返す
引き受ける
引き止める
取り上げる

generally i've been able to pick up words over time without having to single them out and come up with mnemonics or whatever, but i'm so sick of getting these wrong for months

Should I take advantage of Satori Reader cybersale?

Went back to Wanikana for the first time in years

Wanikani

Thinking I should just study one character a day

Wonder if Ed is still around

おはよう。子供が生まれたために日本語の勉強を終わってしまったけど、日本語を話せることはどんどん安いになりました。実は毎日新しい漢字とかぷんぽとか単語とかを勉強はあまり有益くない。日本語で考えてことはのほうがいいよ。

今は雑誌を読むことは続けてにくい。赤ちゃんといしょ図鑑ほんで童謡を歌っては楽しし優ししそれでも、日本語を話せ得ることはどんどんペラペラにならう。

!