Saturday, December 29, 2007
Confusion with "goran"
I'm using this Kanji in MangaLand book, and came across the word "goran". Apparently you use the te-form of a verb, and add "goran" onto the end to mean "try verbing". Well, thats the gist of it at least. It's times like these that I wish I had easy access to a native speaker, because I thought Verb-te-form + miru did the same thing. I guess I just won't use it until I have a chance to ask someone.
Wednesday, December 12, 2007
My studying lifestyle
I've used several books and materials to study. While I find watching anime to be a fun diversion, it really doesn't expand my vocabulary very much. I've picked up a few words here and there, but even while watching an English movie subtitled in English, I tend to read more than I listen. It's even worse with Japanese dialogue and english subtitles.
While in Japan, we used books called "Minna no Nihongo". They provide a lot of good vocabulary, and are my primary vocabulary studybooks. In addition to their extensive and logically progressive vocabulary, each chapter has a grammar explanation section. Books one and two have enough vocabulary and grammar for one to be very proficient in Japanese.
I've recently took an interest in the "Japanese in Mangaland" series. They provide better explanations for Japanese grammar and vocab than any I have seen so far. The authors are clearly very familiar with both languages, and have an good understanding of how to teach Japanese.
At the University of Washington, anybody can take classes from something called the "Experimental College." One of the classes is a Japanese conversation class, which is about 8-10 weeks of 2 hour sessions (once a week). I'd recommend looking into your local college/university for classes that anyone can easily sign up and take. I took the Japanese conversational class about three times, and learned a lot. It's great not only to hear Japanese spoken by a native speaker, but also to meet a group of friends who are all interested in learning Japanese.
I was able to find a wonderful private tutor through www.craigslist.com . She has done everything from translation, to ambassadorial work, to negotiations between American and Japanese companies. I am very lucky to have been able to study with someone who can explain everything from coarse anime-speech to the kind of talking that one must use with a prime minister.
I've been using an online tool called "Flash My Brain" ( www.flashmybrain.com ). Basically, it is an online flashcard program that lets me fill out my own flashcards, arrange them into decks, then use them from any computer connected to the internet. Very convenient!
My favorite dictionary is also online. ( http://www.j-prep.com/reference/ ). It is great since I can look up words using english, romaji, kanji, katakana and hiragana.
Finally, my school offers to setup people from the Seattle area with foreign exchange students. I was able to meet with a Japanese student for a quarter, a wonderful experience!
Probably the most difficultly I've had is figuring out a good curriculum to stick to in order to study. I jump around between studying vocab, learning kanji, and trying to find people to talk to in order to better my conversational skills. On the one hand, I feel like with enough vocabulary I should be able to express myself very well, even without super-advanced grammatical knowledge. On the other hand, if I could just learn enough kanji to be able to read Japanese books, then my ability to pickup new vocabulary should increase substantially. Unfortunately kanji is very difficult for me, and I don't have a very good way of studying it yet.
I should add that the tools, services, books, and classes I mention are all things that I use or have used, and that I am not affiliated with them in any professional capacity. I just want to get the word out for people in similar situations to me (and maybe people can suggest to me how best to study on my own).
While in Japan, we used books called "Minna no Nihongo". They provide a lot of good vocabulary, and are my primary vocabulary studybooks. In addition to their extensive and logically progressive vocabulary, each chapter has a grammar explanation section. Books one and two have enough vocabulary and grammar for one to be very proficient in Japanese.
I've recently took an interest in the "Japanese in Mangaland" series. They provide better explanations for Japanese grammar and vocab than any I have seen so far. The authors are clearly very familiar with both languages, and have an good understanding of how to teach Japanese.
At the University of Washington, anybody can take classes from something called the "Experimental College." One of the classes is a Japanese conversation class, which is about 8-10 weeks of 2 hour sessions (once a week). I'd recommend looking into your local college/university for classes that anyone can easily sign up and take. I took the Japanese conversational class about three times, and learned a lot. It's great not only to hear Japanese spoken by a native speaker, but also to meet a group of friends who are all interested in learning Japanese.
I was able to find a wonderful private tutor through www.craigslist.com . She has done everything from translation, to ambassadorial work, to negotiations between American and Japanese companies. I am very lucky to have been able to study with someone who can explain everything from coarse anime-speech to the kind of talking that one must use with a prime minister.
I've been using an online tool called "Flash My Brain" ( www.flashmybrain.com ). Basically, it is an online flashcard program that lets me fill out my own flashcards, arrange them into decks, then use them from any computer connected to the internet. Very convenient!
My favorite dictionary is also online. ( http://www.j-prep.com/reference/ ). It is great since I can look up words using english, romaji, kanji, katakana and hiragana.
Finally, my school offers to setup people from the Seattle area with foreign exchange students. I was able to meet with a Japanese student for a quarter, a wonderful experience!
Probably the most difficultly I've had is figuring out a good curriculum to stick to in order to study. I jump around between studying vocab, learning kanji, and trying to find people to talk to in order to better my conversational skills. On the one hand, I feel like with enough vocabulary I should be able to express myself very well, even without super-advanced grammatical knowledge. On the other hand, if I could just learn enough kanji to be able to read Japanese books, then my ability to pickup new vocabulary should increase substantially. Unfortunately kanji is very difficult for me, and I don't have a very good way of studying it yet.
I should add that the tools, services, books, and classes I mention are all things that I use or have used, and that I am not affiliated with them in any professional capacity. I just want to get the word out for people in similar situations to me (and maybe people can suggest to me how best to study on my own).
Monday, December 3, 2007
Wednesday, November 28, 2007
Why are there 4 #$#@$# alphabets?
Okay, I'm not sure if you can consider kanji an alphabet (Kinda leaning towards no on this one), but still, there are three different methods that the Japanese generally use to write their language:
When I started out learning Japanese, I had a hard time grappling with this issue. I felt like it was done to spite people learning their language, and wished everything was written in hiragana (I know, wishing everything was written in romaji would have been a better dream, but then I wouldn't have to learn any new alphabet and that would feel too much like cheating). Having been exposed to Japanese for a couple of years now, I feel that I can give an explanation to those who are currently in the position I was in.
Let me tell you first off, having "foreign" words written in katakana is a huge boon to foreigners in Japan. If I see a word in katakana, the first thing I do is try to sound it out and see if it sounds like an English word. It seems that most katakana words are outright English words written using japanese phonetics, however some of them are a kind of pidgin English. Words like so-fa (sofa), gasu (gas), and garasu (glass) are all direct English translations. They basically took the english word, and made a Japanese equivalent that sounds as close to the original English as is possible with their alphabet. A word like pasokon (personal computer) is a hybrid of two english words, but still easier to remember than a completely foreign word. Sure it sucks that you have to learn 48 new katakana symbols that stand for the same thing as 48 new hiragana symbols that you already learned, but it's a small price to pay.
Just have to add this in here to scare people even more. Sometimes there even weirder ways that their alphabets are combined. Take "keshigomu" for instance. The word means "eraser" and is a combination of "keshi" which is basically the root of "to erase" and "gomu" which is katakana for gum. The word actually has kanji, hiragana, and katakana all together... how wonderful right! :)
Now that I've had a chance to read some children's books written soley in hiragana, I can really appreciate why kanji exists. Remember that there are generally no spaces between characters in Japanese. Basically, kanji makes it really easy to figure out where words start and end, similar to spaces in an English sentence. When I only understand maybe 30 percent of a book's vocabulary, I frequently don't know where one word starts and one word ends when they are all written in hiragana. I also tend to find words in between words (where I recognize a word that doesn't exist by taking a combination of the end of one word, and the beginning of another), and my Japanese tutor laughs at me a lot :) With kanji (and furigana, which are little hiragana written above the kanji so I know how it's pronounced), I know for certain where words begin and end.
Another reason why kanji is so important, is because there are several cases of words having the same hiragana as each other, but completely different meanings (but different kanji). Take "hashi" for example. Hashi can mean bridge, it can mean edge or it can mean chopsticks (and a few more things, but you get the point). When written in hiragana, there is no way to tell what the meaning is without context, and even then it can be confusing. When hashi is written in kanji however, the meaning becomes clear.
- Katakana
- Hiragana
- Kanji
- Romaji (but they don't generally use this, it's just for us gaijin)
When I started out learning Japanese, I had a hard time grappling with this issue. I felt like it was done to spite people learning their language, and wished everything was written in hiragana (I know, wishing everything was written in romaji would have been a better dream, but then I wouldn't have to learn any new alphabet and that would feel too much like cheating). Having been exposed to Japanese for a couple of years now, I feel that I can give an explanation to those who are currently in the position I was in.
Let me tell you first off, having "foreign" words written in katakana is a huge boon to foreigners in Japan. If I see a word in katakana, the first thing I do is try to sound it out and see if it sounds like an English word. It seems that most katakana words are outright English words written using japanese phonetics, however some of them are a kind of pidgin English. Words like so-fa (sofa), gasu (gas), and garasu (glass) are all direct English translations. They basically took the english word, and made a Japanese equivalent that sounds as close to the original English as is possible with their alphabet. A word like pasokon (personal computer) is a hybrid of two english words, but still easier to remember than a completely foreign word. Sure it sucks that you have to learn 48 new katakana symbols that stand for the same thing as 48 new hiragana symbols that you already learned, but it's a small price to pay.
Just have to add this in here to scare people even more. Sometimes there even weirder ways that their alphabets are combined. Take "keshigomu" for instance. The word means "eraser" and is a combination of "keshi" which is basically the root of "to erase" and "gomu" which is katakana for gum. The word actually has kanji, hiragana, and katakana all together... how wonderful right! :)
Now that I've had a chance to read some children's books written soley in hiragana, I can really appreciate why kanji exists. Remember that there are generally no spaces between characters in Japanese. Basically, kanji makes it really easy to figure out where words start and end, similar to spaces in an English sentence. When I only understand maybe 30 percent of a book's vocabulary, I frequently don't know where one word starts and one word ends when they are all written in hiragana. I also tend to find words in between words (where I recognize a word that doesn't exist by taking a combination of the end of one word, and the beginning of another), and my Japanese tutor laughs at me a lot :) With kanji (and furigana, which are little hiragana written above the kanji so I know how it's pronounced), I know for certain where words begin and end.
Another reason why kanji is so important, is because there are several cases of words having the same hiragana as each other, but completely different meanings (but different kanji). Take "hashi" for example. Hashi can mean bridge, it can mean edge or it can mean chopsticks (and a few more things, but you get the point). When written in hiragana, there is no way to tell what the meaning is without context, and even then it can be confusing. When hashi is written in kanji however, the meaning becomes clear.
Tuesday, November 27, 2007
Vocabulary Studying Method
Learning a language is a daunting task. I realized at the onset that I would have to quickly find an efficient way of studying, or be doomed. Trying to memorize a whole chapter's worth of words just wasn't working for me. I would write the words down on flashcards and just attempt to memorize them all at once, but I realized that while some words came very quickly, most did not. On top of that, there were a few that I just couldn't remember.
Okay, I'd like to take an opportunity to rant a little here. Whats the deal with books that put lots of similar words together in the same chapter... for instance, to open, to close, to turn on, to turn off. Putting a bunch of similar seeming words and their opposites together into one group of words to study messes with my brain. Am I the only one for whom this seems to make things extra difficult?
Anyways, back to the studying methodology. It dawned on me that I could memorize small batches of words and build up from there. Now the way I study is to take a stack of notecards, and take the first six. I memorize those, put them aside in a pile (I'll call it the "memorized pile"), and take the next six. I then memorize those, and go back to the memorized pile to review them and make sure I have forgotten any. If I have forgotten some, I put them aside in a "forgotten pile", and then put all the memorized cards up to this point into the memorized pile. I then take six more, and memorize them. I then go back through the memorized pile and make sure I haven't forgotten any, and if I have then I put them in the forgotten pile. I keep doing this until all I am left with are the two stacks, memorized and forgotten. I then repeat the process with just the forgotten cards. Once I complete this if there are any really difficult stragglers left over, I focus on studying them for a couple minutes, then mix the cards up again and repeat until I don't have any more problems.
Okay, I'd like to take an opportunity to rant a little here. Whats the deal with books that put lots of similar words together in the same chapter... for instance, to open, to close, to turn on, to turn off. Putting a bunch of similar seeming words and their opposites together into one group of words to study messes with my brain. Am I the only one for whom this seems to make things extra difficult?
Anyways, back to the studying methodology. It dawned on me that I could memorize small batches of words and build up from there. Now the way I study is to take a stack of notecards, and take the first six. I memorize those, put them aside in a pile (I'll call it the "memorized pile"), and take the next six. I then memorize those, and go back to the memorized pile to review them and make sure I have forgotten any. If I have forgotten some, I put them aside in a "forgotten pile", and then put all the memorized cards up to this point into the memorized pile. I then take six more, and memorize them. I then go back through the memorized pile and make sure I haven't forgotten any, and if I have then I put them in the forgotten pile. I keep doing this until all I am left with are the two stacks, memorized and forgotten. I then repeat the process with just the forgotten cards. Once I complete this if there are any really difficult stragglers left over, I focus on studying them for a couple minutes, then mix the cards up again and repeat until I don't have any more problems.
Sunday, November 25, 2007
Introduction
I've been studying since the beginning of the Summer 2005. After learning that I'd be going to Japan come September (Matsuyama, Ehime), I decided to take an intensive course at the University of Washington during Summer quarter. Knowing nothing about the language, I quickly became lost amongst the throngs of students who already had some idea of what they were doing.
After the class, I had a lot of knowledge and vocab in my head, but still didn't know how it all fit together. In my 7 months of living abroad I was able to come to a greater understanding of how Japanese worked. I got to start learning Japanese from scratch at Ehime University, an opportunity which let me fill in the gaps of my Japanese foundation.
Living in a homestay situation helped a lot, as I was able to use Japanese as much as I wanted. My level of knowledge was in the "dangerous" category during this period of time. I knew enough to ask questions, but generally only understood 5-10% of the response. Not only that, but I didn't know how to communicate my predicament too well, aside from the all encompassing "Wakarimasen".
Upon returning, my Japanese quickly fell into disuse. I went several months without any sort of studying, and it wasn't until the end of 2006 that I began to take an interest in it again. I started attending a 2 hour class each week, and began studying from the textbooks that I had used while in Japan. Eventually I got a private tutor via Craigslist, and have been studying with her once a week. At this point I can communicate basic concepts pretty well, I have a fair grasp of several of the verb conjugations and the vocabulary that a first year student should know. My kanji ability is awful, however, and I'm struggling to bring it up to speed. My hope is to return to Japan during 2008, however I have no solid plans on how that will work out yet.
My plan with this blog is to explain my struggle to learn Japanese. There will probably be a lot of complaining, and a lot of misunderstandings. Hopefully people reading this will be able to learn from it.
After the class, I had a lot of knowledge and vocab in my head, but still didn't know how it all fit together. In my 7 months of living abroad I was able to come to a greater understanding of how Japanese worked. I got to start learning Japanese from scratch at Ehime University, an opportunity which let me fill in the gaps of my Japanese foundation.
Living in a homestay situation helped a lot, as I was able to use Japanese as much as I wanted. My level of knowledge was in the "dangerous" category during this period of time. I knew enough to ask questions, but generally only understood 5-10% of the response. Not only that, but I didn't know how to communicate my predicament too well, aside from the all encompassing "Wakarimasen".
Upon returning, my Japanese quickly fell into disuse. I went several months without any sort of studying, and it wasn't until the end of 2006 that I began to take an interest in it again. I started attending a 2 hour class each week, and began studying from the textbooks that I had used while in Japan. Eventually I got a private tutor via Craigslist, and have been studying with her once a week. At this point I can communicate basic concepts pretty well, I have a fair grasp of several of the verb conjugations and the vocabulary that a first year student should know. My kanji ability is awful, however, and I'm struggling to bring it up to speed. My hope is to return to Japan during 2008, however I have no solid plans on how that will work out yet.
My plan with this blog is to explain my struggle to learn Japanese. There will probably be a lot of complaining, and a lot of misunderstandings. Hopefully people reading this will be able to learn from it.
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