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Reverse groomer.
I LOVE doraemon, i used to watch subbed and dubbed versions of it all the timeDon't be afraid to read stuff like Doraemon
I LOVE doraemon, i used to watch subbed and dubbed versions of it all the timeDon't be afraid to read stuff like Doraemon
I'm still learning myself, but In my experience the best way to start, is to learn the two Kanas first. Specifically Hiragana and Katakana.Where do I start?
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I don't know about "official" tools, but there are plenty of Machine Translation apps out there, including Google translate.Also, is there an official™ list tools that you guys use to translate or identify symbols? (For any platform e.g. Windows, Linux, Android)
Also, is there an official™ list tools that you guys use to translate or identify symbols? (For any platform e.g. Windows, Linux, Android)
Japanese verb conjugation seemed remarkably straightforward (unlike, for example, French...), until I got to Chapter 6 of Genki I and the て form.
The て form is going to take a while to grasp.
Well I got back into it late last year and mostly just focusing on vocab, but unfortunately in romanji. Which is stupid since what I really want is to be able to read Japanese. I'll move into writing in hiragana and katakana after I've filled up 2 more notebooks in vocab studies. I've been making tons of progress but this cold I got recently is killing my studies.
I totally forgot about Genki. Found the book though. I'll probably focus on that book after my 2 notebooks. It is irritating though listening to these songs and watching these anime and understanding a lot of it but not being able to put it together or when I do put it together it comes out sounding cold like a machine language version versus of what it says in the subtitles.
I was not aware of the Tobira textbook. I'll check it out.
I like Genki. I find the explanations on grammar to be quite clear. It is the only text book I've used so far. That being said, it is very focused on university students - people in that stage of life and the sort of vocabulary that would be of use to them. It's been several decades since I went to university...
I'm solid on hiragana, and decent at katakana. I try to avoid romanji entirely. I know most of the N5 kanji (about 100 kanji), in terms of being able to recognize their meaning, but not in drawing them.
My struggle is learning new vocabulary - I need to increase my rate of speed on that. It takes me a while to learn the 40-50 new words introduced in each chapter of Genki. I make my own flashcards (from paper index cards).
For learning, I prefer old school - pen, paper and a physical textbook. Screens are ok to supplement, but as my main learning tools I like paper. Of course every one learns differently. Through this process, I am learning about how I learn, which in itself is an interesting process.
At some point I need to start with comprehensible input in easy Japanese. But I think I need to boost my vocabulary first.
My mistake with learning the kana is that I'll learn it and jump right back into romanji again and eventually forgot all of the katakana and the similar looking hiragana characters.I'm not going to say that learning vocab in romaji is absolutely taboo, as the vocab will help you.
But you're going to have to learn and use kana anyway, so it's probably better to do it first.
It should only take a couple of weeks of good studying and practice to get them down pat. Doing so will also help with the resilience you're going to need for studying a language.
Genki is alright. Tobira is better if you want a traditional textbook. However, I suggest the digital Human Japanese series. It also covers kana and a handful of kanji.
The people who made Human Japanese also run Satori Reader, which is a subscription service that is fantastic. It's for use after Human Japanese.
Combine that with NHK News Web Easy, Anki, a Japanese dictionary (I use Takoboto), and some Japanese media, and you're good to go.
I also use the Kanji Study app every day. I feel it more makes you feel like you're learning than actually getting you to learn anything though.
My mistake with learning the kana is that I'll learn it and jump right back into romanji again and eventually forgot all of the katakana and the similar looking hiragana characters.
Never even heard of Tobira. I'll take a look at the digital Human Japan series and Satori Reader as well. I have several Japanese dictionaries but not Takoboto.
I've used anki several times in the past and it never really stuck with me, but I can always try try again. I probably need to combine it with writing down what I miss for reviews.
I also do watch some Japanese news shorter videos. I subscribed to I think 2 Japanese speaking only podcasts for learning but they are a bit too much for me right now.
For Kanji I have that rtk book and I have first 1,000 kanji card decks to study with.
Forcing myself to use it only is the plan, eventually. After the 2 notebooks of vocab.It's a matter of forcing yourself.
Romaji is great for absolute beginners, phrasebooks, and if you're in a hurry and are being lazy (and not for studying).
But otherwise you need to use the character system that Japanese uses. You need to get used to it as a norm.
RtK is hit or miss. I understand it, but it just doesn't work well for me in terms of using it in Japanese communication. Also, the more complicated the kanji get, the more convoluted and less useful it gets.
I've heard of it but never used it. My kanji is really weak. I did buy like 3 books for reading simple stories. I know I haven't finished one of them. I've started trying to combine listening to a recorded audio of me speaking a small list of vocab and studying it in a notebook, and then making a notecards of them. I'm failing on the last one and I'm not quite consistent. I'm juggling learning too many things right now.Any thoughts on WaniKani for Kanji acquisition?
On the pluses:
- It is rather mindless - it does the thinking for you.
- I did not find an Anki deck for beginner-level Kanji that I liked.
- Who doesn't like watching progress bars fill up?
- The website seems well designed.
- The focus on on'yomi readings is helpful. I had been mostly focused on the reading of stand-alone kanjis, which tends to be kun'yomi. So on'yomi reinforcement is good.
On the minuses:
I don't see myself getting to level 60 in WaniKani. Maybe get to level 20 or so, call it a day, and then focus on comprehensible reading input for Kanji acquisition.
- I can see it taking up much of your language learning energy. My focus at the moment is ramping up my vocabulary so I can increase the very shallow pool of comprehensible input (CI) available to me. I'd like CI to be my main learning vector. I found a graded reader ("See Spot Run" type stories) which is good for my level. I'm pretty happy about that - actually being able to read a text (although really simple text) in Japanese and able to understand most of it. It is not easy finding CI suitable for a beginner.
- The rate of vocabulary acquisition is lower than with an Anki deck just for vocab. My main learning vector at the moment is an Anki deck for beginner vocab.
- The first few levels of Wanikani goes over stuff I already know.
- The paywall, which I believe starts at level 4.
Any thoughts on WaniKani for Kanji acquisition?
On the pluses:
- It is rather mindless - it does the thinking for you.
- I did not find an Anki deck for beginner-level Kanji that I liked.
- Who doesn't like watching progress bars fill up?
- The website seems well designed.
- The focus on on'yomi readings is helpful. I had been mostly focused on the reading of stand-alone kanjis, which tends to be kun'yomi. So on'yomi reinforcement is good.
On the minuses:
I don't see myself getting to level 60 in WaniKani. Maybe get to level 20 or so, call it a day, and then focus on comprehensible reading input for Kanji acquisition.
- I can see it taking up much of your language learning energy. My focus at the moment is ramping up my vocabulary so I can increase the very shallow pool of comprehensible input (CI) available to me. I'd like CI to be my main learning vector. I found a graded reader ("See Spot Run" type stories) which is good for my level. I'm pretty happy about that - actually being able to read a text (although really simple text) in Japanese and able to understand most of it. It is not easy finding CI suitable for a beginner.
- The rate of vocabulary acquisition is lower than with an Anki deck just for vocab. My main learning vector at the moment is an Anki deck for beginner vocab.
- The first few levels of Wanikani goes over stuff I already know.
- The paywall, which I believe starts at level 4.
That reminds me. I was trying to follow the medical detective anime that came out recently and I totally wasn't thinking about that the fact the anime would have a bunch of medical jargon in it. I really don't have a suggestion since I'm a lot more casual with anime these days.I'm fairly new to learning Japanese and need to expand my immersion while sentence mining.
Recommend me your best/most entertaining anime with relatively a relatively easy to follow plot and simple language.
Anyone tried using ChatGPT as a supplement for language learning?
I asked ChatGPT to create an N5 vocabulary deck, and it made an CSV file to be uploaded into Anki.I haven't tried it yet though, as I have an N5 deck I am working through.
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I think ChatGPT could be pretty useful.
My level of Japanese is pretty bad, but even I can tell when subs don't match what they're saying. Once AI improves, a lot of these companies and localizers will be out of a job, and good riddance. Although we won't get ridiculous stuff to make fun of anymore.Oh great, gonna post here.
Studying japanese for 6+ years, keep diversifying my input methods, last September I decided do play video games with japanese dubs (I used to hate japanese games) which led me to discover the spoken language barely connects with the english subtitle (an adaptation rather than a direct translation - which is understandable).
I try to read novels in japanese (especially the ones I already read in my own language), listening a lot of japanese music, listening to the radio, etc. I prepared the JLPT N4 last year, couldn't go because of sickness (which was unfortunate), now training for N3, but at a slower pace.
I finished my N5 vocabulary deck. I feel pretty good about that. It was about 800 words. It took about 2.5 months (78 days per Anki stats). I finished it in the sense that I will not be getting new cards, just reviews of already viewed words. Most of the time I stayed at the default of 20 new cards per day, which I believe is 10 new words (front and back of a card counts as two cards).
It would be tempting to dive into an N4 deck. But I want to make sure I remember what I've learned. If I start learning N4 vocab and start forgetting N5 vocab, I am just treading water.
To help make the vocab stick, I'm making an Excels spreadsheet of N5 vocab, with separate pages for nouns, verbs, adjectives, and other words. For verbs I plan to conjugate them into "mas" and "te" forms. This way I'll be able to better recognize the "te" form of verbs, as so far I have been focusing on the dictionary form.
I'm also doing Wanikani for Kanji. I'm furthest ahead in Kanji in my language learning journey - mid-N4 level. I may pause on Kanji and focus on completing N5-level grammar.
When I tried Satori Reader about 2 months ago, even the beginner level text was too difficult. I will try it again now and hopefully with N5 vocab under my belt it will be better experience. The best way to learn a language is comprehensible input, put the challenge for a beginner is finding input that is comprehensible.
I asked ChatGPT to create a document of Japanese counters, as I need to work on that. It did a very nice job (the formatting is nice) and it seems to be accurate. Thank you ChatGPT.
My oral comprehension is still pretty bad. Even when I know the vocabulary my brain struggles to register what I am hearing. But I think with more listening I can improve.
I ended up dropping Wanikani in favor of Kanji God for Anki.I'm also doing Wanikani for Kanji.