Thursday, October 26, 2017
Archer Mermaid
In one of the discussions within my guild, I've came up with an idea that I had never seen before. Mermaids aren't a race that comes up often, and when they do, the weapons they use are usually limited to spears or harps. But you know what? Bows also work under water (with doubting efficiency, but I'm sure some modifications and maybe magic can fix that)! So why not an Archer mermaid? I found only two positive results on Google, and they were not to my taste, so I decided to take up the pencil and draw the world's most beautiful archer mermaid!
Sunday, October 16, 2016
Learning Japanese: Patching up Holes and Tricks
5. Patching up Holes and Tricks.
After all this, even though you can manage yourself in any media, you will surely notice weaknesses coming up. If you follow my advices on the letter, chances are you'll have very similar weaknesses than I did (or still do). Maybe certain things were easier for you, while other things were harder. Regardless, being able to manage yourself in the language is a feat in itself, but you surely want to aim for fluency.
How you go on to patch those holes is entirely up to you. You can take it more slowly and carefree by just choosing medias that fit a more specific criteria. Or you could take it more strongly by starting again a practice on the side of your media consumption. It's all up to you.
If I had to list my weaknesses, they'd go as follow:
-Speaking skills. As I've actually never found someone to actively speak with, my tongue is not used to Japanese and just keeps stumbling when I try. Without someone, a trick I've found is to pick a voice-less media and reading aloud everything. Try some Japanese reactions on the side too, as if you were recording a Let's Play. Or actually record one if you got the confidence and courage to?
-Name readings. Since my favorite genre is Fantasy, nearly every names were foreign ones written in Katakana, giving me no actual practice with Japanese names written in Kanji. On top of that, most names can be read in multiple ways. There is however probably a deck somewhere in Anki or something else for practicing name readings, which I plan on using after patching more important weaknesses.
-Broken japanese. Ah, slang, the bane of all foreign learners. Filled with confidence after completing a very complex media and understanding all of it, you decide to head toward native forums, and suddenly nothing you read makes sense. Made-up words, broken grammar, abbreviations, that don't even come from words. I thought written english slang was pretty bad, but it's even more painful in Japanese. You can try searching for slang dictionaries (try searching ネット用語), but getting some exposure in those parts of the internet is definitely necessary. Slang gets specially bad in comments of Niconico videos, but they're hilarious when you understand them.
Here are a couple useful tips to use as you go on with perfecting your Japanese:
-Use the japanese version of search sites. If you search on google.com, the site will try to prioritize english sites, where as google.co.jp will prioritize japanese sites, leading to better native results.
-For new practices you want to do, finding native japanese tools is now a possibility. Do give them a try if you find any interesting!
-wordとは. Anything you don't understand, try searching the word + とは and it will come up with explanations of said word. This is most likely your best bet for searching net slang. It can also work the other way around: if you are not satisfied with japanese words a dictionary offers to you, you can try searching the english word + とは and you might find better words.
-word1 word2 違い / 使い分け. If you want to know the difference between two similar words, you will likely net some very indepth explanations using that search. If you know there are other synonyms, but can't remember them, you will still find some good results by only writing one word. 違い focuses on the meaning of the word, where as 使い分け focuses on when a word should be used over the other.
-If you can, have a try at a JLPT test. I personally have not found the opportunity to do so, but doing the test can surely tell you where is the next point you must improve, in addition to being able to tell where you now stand.
Keep going, and you will without doubt reach fluency eventually!
After all this, even though you can manage yourself in any media, you will surely notice weaknesses coming up. If you follow my advices on the letter, chances are you'll have very similar weaknesses than I did (or still do). Maybe certain things were easier for you, while other things were harder. Regardless, being able to manage yourself in the language is a feat in itself, but you surely want to aim for fluency.
How you go on to patch those holes is entirely up to you. You can take it more slowly and carefree by just choosing medias that fit a more specific criteria. Or you could take it more strongly by starting again a practice on the side of your media consumption. It's all up to you.
If I had to list my weaknesses, they'd go as follow:
-Speaking skills. As I've actually never found someone to actively speak with, my tongue is not used to Japanese and just keeps stumbling when I try. Without someone, a trick I've found is to pick a voice-less media and reading aloud everything. Try some Japanese reactions on the side too, as if you were recording a Let's Play. Or actually record one if you got the confidence and courage to?
-Name readings. Since my favorite genre is Fantasy, nearly every names were foreign ones written in Katakana, giving me no actual practice with Japanese names written in Kanji. On top of that, most names can be read in multiple ways. There is however probably a deck somewhere in Anki or something else for practicing name readings, which I plan on using after patching more important weaknesses.
-Broken japanese. Ah, slang, the bane of all foreign learners. Filled with confidence after completing a very complex media and understanding all of it, you decide to head toward native forums, and suddenly nothing you read makes sense. Made-up words, broken grammar, abbreviations, that don't even come from words. I thought written english slang was pretty bad, but it's even more painful in Japanese. You can try searching for slang dictionaries (try searching ネット用語), but getting some exposure in those parts of the internet is definitely necessary. Slang gets specially bad in comments of Niconico videos, but they're hilarious when you understand them.
Here are a couple useful tips to use as you go on with perfecting your Japanese:
-Use the japanese version of search sites. If you search on google.com, the site will try to prioritize english sites, where as google.co.jp will prioritize japanese sites, leading to better native results.
-For new practices you want to do, finding native japanese tools is now a possibility. Do give them a try if you find any interesting!
-wordとは. Anything you don't understand, try searching the word + とは and it will come up with explanations of said word. This is most likely your best bet for searching net slang. It can also work the other way around: if you are not satisfied with japanese words a dictionary offers to you, you can try searching the english word + とは and you might find better words.
-word1 word2 違い / 使い分け. If you want to know the difference between two similar words, you will likely net some very indepth explanations using that search. If you know there are other synonyms, but can't remember them, you will still find some good results by only writing one word. 違い focuses on the meaning of the word, where as 使い分け focuses on when a word should be used over the other.
-If you can, have a try at a JLPT test. I personally have not found the opportunity to do so, but doing the test can surely tell you where is the next point you must improve, in addition to being able to tell where you now stand.
Keep going, and you will without doubt reach fluency eventually!
Learning Japanese: Gradual Immersion
4. Gradual Immersion
If you've read the AJATT website as I've suggested, you should have seen something about comfort zones. If you haven't, here's the short version. Do something under your current level, and you won't learn anything. Do something too hard, and it will just be frustrating. So the perfect target has to be slightly above your current level. You may have already experienced that in the past, and I sure had many times.
This is what we're aiming for in this step. The theory is simple: You start with a native media aimed at children, and everytime you finish something, you start a new media aimed for a slightly older audience. That will eventually lead you to be good enough to no longer need a dictionary to understand Japanese, without any frustrating obstacle in the way. Simple, and fun!
Before starting, we need to prepare our tools. Just reading won't get you anywhere, you need to make sure you understand and memorize what you see. So here's what you will need:
-The same Flashcard deck used for Kanji. Do continue the practice everyday, you don't want your Kanji recognition skills to rust too fast. There is no more need to add new Kanji from the books, but do add the new ones you encounter while reading. The length of this practice will gradually slow down with the lack of new Kanji, and you'll be able to drop it for good once it reaches less than 10 reviews per day.
-A Flashcard app/software that allows custom decks. This time, the focus will be placed on vocabulary. And do remember that unlike normal languages, you will need at least 3 fields: Kanji form, reading, and meaning. Some may want to add more to it, like the sentence you found it in, the role it has (noun, adjective, etc.), or anything you feel useful, but I personally went with the bare minimum, as I don't want to be spending too much time throwing in words. My personal choice was Anki, popular as a very customizeable Flashcard software, but there's a lot of choices out there.
-Dictionaries and translators. For vocabulary and Kanji, Jisho works wonders, as you can search Kanji by meaning or by radicals, making it very quick to search words you encounter. This is no good for grammar however. There aren't many grammar dictionaries out there, but I did found an excellent one that answered 90% of my grammar searches: Renshuu. If you end up having trouble with a sentence as a whole, you can try throwing it in entirely in a translator. For your own sake, don't use Google Translate, it's horrible. The best I have found is this one: Excite Translator.
Second part, you need to prepare your native medias. The best place to start is a media that you have already seen before and that is aimed for children. If you have seen it before, not only you'll save yourself the frustration of not understanding the story, but you'll also be able to work out more parts by already knowing the context. Then you want it to have Kanji here and there, but not too many. The amount of Kanji in a sentence determines the rhythm between adding up words and actually enjoying the media.
So think up of good ol' nostalgic media, search a preview of it, and determine if it's perfect for now. If it looks too hard, you can keep it in a to-do list for later. Once you found a perfect media that hypes you up, go for it!
Everytime you are about to finish a media, prepare the next one. Think of your next short-term goal.
-Do you want to expand your vocabulary? Pick a media for a slightly older target audience.
-Do you want to focus on understanding the readings of Kanji? Pick a media that supports furigana or that accompanies both text and voice.
-Do you want to increase your reading speed? Pick a media for a slightly younger audience and have a try without the use of any dictionary.
And so on. Of course, you want to focus on vocabulary first, as this is what truly expands the level of material you can access. And then it will all be freedom once you can understand novels without the use of a dictionary.
Last part. Because just reading won't get you anywhere fast, you still need to practice. The idea is simple: anything you don't understand, search it in your dictionaries, understand its meaning, and add it into your Flashcard deck.
If said thing seems too hard to understand, don't worry about skipping it. You might actually never see it again as it turns out to be an uncommon or made up word. Or if it's actually a common word, you will certainly have more chances to learn it.
On the opposite, don't spend too much time on a single word or grammar point. A quick dictionary lookup is more than enough. The more you encounter it, the more details you'll understand from said word using the contexts you find it in. If you encounter multiple times a word that you should have learned yet still have trouble understanding it, that's a clue that this is a word actually worth investing time in fully learning it. That way, we keep a good pace between learning and actually enjoying the media.
For your first few medias, you might actually want to limit the number of words you search and add in your Flashcard deck. If you add every unknown word when every single word is unknown, you'll make no progress in that media and that will just be frustating. That's why we start with a media that has a low count of Kanji. In my case, it was Super Mario RPG: aimed for children and uses a low amount of Kanji. So I only added words that used a Kanji, and after I had finished the game, I ended up with 250 words in my Flashcard deck. It was a good pace, considering my Kanji Flashcard deck was still going strong and I was also mixing a grammar book at the same time.
Keep up the Flashcard deck as long as you feel it is necessary. When I had reached over 5000 words, I could learn words simply from context and which Kanji it was using. And the daily Flashcard was starting to take a toll on my motivation. So I had the skills necessary to focus on a full immersion rather than mixing up native media and practice.
That's right, full immersion. If you arrive at this point, you can enjoy whatever you want to at its fullest! Go wild! Change the interface of your stuff in Japanese! Read and listen to whatever you want to in Japanese! Because reading native medias is likely no longer tiring, you can do it all day long! You are in a large plain with no obstacle, and you get better no matter which direction you go!
For reference, this is what I played/read up until that point and a bit further:
0. Pokemon FireRed. Making mention of this one because I actually played it as a way to practice Hiragana + Katakana and to get acquainted with grammar.
1. Super Mario RPG. The low resolution makes Kanji sometimes hard to understand, so Paper Mario or Mario & Luigi games are probably better alternatives.
2. Lufia II. There is still low resolution, but certainly more readable than Super Mario RPG was.
3. Chrono Trigger. The amount of Kanji was rough in the beginning, but it got more manageable after a week. I played the NDS remake, so the Kanji were far more readable.
4. Megaman Battle Network (Rockman.exe). The vocabulary there is more persistent for everyday life compared to other RPGs.
5. Golden Sun (whole serie). The two on GBA have a healthy amount of Kanji, it was perfect for training reading speed. The one on NDS has a lot more Kanji, but is accompanied with Furigana.
6. Final Fantasy. I played them in numerical number, slipping a game or two inbetween each. The first few ones have a very complex, ye olde style vocabulary, while the vocabulary gets more slang-ish later on. Particularly, the 9th is very full of slang and broken japanese.
7. Groove Adventure Rave. The first Manga I've ever read, and I want it to also be the first in Japanese, but you can go with whatever fits your taste. Most Manga are excellent practice material as it's non-stop reading with advanced vocabulary, yet with a huge lot of context provided from drawings and even furigana on top of all the words. Do try the real thing rather than a digital read, the experience is quite special!
7. Tales of serie. Same as Final Fantasy, I played them in release order, slipping a game or two inbetween each. This serie also have quite the advanced vocabulary, and there's a lot of text going on, especially in later ones that use the Skit systems.
7,5. Let's Play (実況プレイ) videos. At this point, in order to start training my listening comprehension, I started listening to native japanese LPers. For those who don't know what LP is, it's basically just people playing games and uploading their footage on Youtube. On the english side, GameGrumps is a popular example. For japanese LPers, my personal recommendations are Abu (アブ) and Retoruto (レトルト), as they speak a lot and quite clearly. And they play some hilarious games too (like QWOP. And yes, that game itself is also in their playlist).
8. Phoenix Wright (逆転裁判). This is actually a very strong media for learners of the language. Because this game actually needs you to understand the detail of everything that is going on, it makes for a perfect test to challenge your japanese skills. Try to win trials without any restart and with minimal dictionary usage!
9. Rewrite. This is actually a Visual Novel that I had my eyes on for a long while. This means that the level of vocabulary is actually extremely high and there is nothing but text. I struggled a lot at the beginning, and had to equip myself with a software that allowed me to quickly copy-paste words into a dictionnary. But at the end, I came out with a much stronger Japanese... and in tears from the beautiful story!
Now I play any game I want to. Games that I want to replay in their original language. Games that were never released in English. Indie games and fangames. Online games in their Japanese server. Although that last one is quite a pain with the lag from distance, the large amount of games blocked by region, and the relatively low popularity of MMOs in Japan that causes a lot of them to be empty or having to close. I've also switched the interface of almost all my stuff to Japanese. I look up tutorials and informations in Japanese, and so on.
If you've read the AJATT website as I've suggested, you should have seen something about comfort zones. If you haven't, here's the short version. Do something under your current level, and you won't learn anything. Do something too hard, and it will just be frustrating. So the perfect target has to be slightly above your current level. You may have already experienced that in the past, and I sure had many times.
This is what we're aiming for in this step. The theory is simple: You start with a native media aimed at children, and everytime you finish something, you start a new media aimed for a slightly older audience. That will eventually lead you to be good enough to no longer need a dictionary to understand Japanese, without any frustrating obstacle in the way. Simple, and fun!
Before starting, we need to prepare our tools. Just reading won't get you anywhere, you need to make sure you understand and memorize what you see. So here's what you will need:
-The same Flashcard deck used for Kanji. Do continue the practice everyday, you don't want your Kanji recognition skills to rust too fast. There is no more need to add new Kanji from the books, but do add the new ones you encounter while reading. The length of this practice will gradually slow down with the lack of new Kanji, and you'll be able to drop it for good once it reaches less than 10 reviews per day.
-A Flashcard app/software that allows custom decks. This time, the focus will be placed on vocabulary. And do remember that unlike normal languages, you will need at least 3 fields: Kanji form, reading, and meaning. Some may want to add more to it, like the sentence you found it in, the role it has (noun, adjective, etc.), or anything you feel useful, but I personally went with the bare minimum, as I don't want to be spending too much time throwing in words. My personal choice was Anki, popular as a very customizeable Flashcard software, but there's a lot of choices out there.
-Dictionaries and translators. For vocabulary and Kanji, Jisho works wonders, as you can search Kanji by meaning or by radicals, making it very quick to search words you encounter. This is no good for grammar however. There aren't many grammar dictionaries out there, but I did found an excellent one that answered 90% of my grammar searches: Renshuu. If you end up having trouble with a sentence as a whole, you can try throwing it in entirely in a translator. For your own sake, don't use Google Translate, it's horrible. The best I have found is this one: Excite Translator.
Second part, you need to prepare your native medias. The best place to start is a media that you have already seen before and that is aimed for children. If you have seen it before, not only you'll save yourself the frustration of not understanding the story, but you'll also be able to work out more parts by already knowing the context. Then you want it to have Kanji here and there, but not too many. The amount of Kanji in a sentence determines the rhythm between adding up words and actually enjoying the media.
So think up of good ol' nostalgic media, search a preview of it, and determine if it's perfect for now. If it looks too hard, you can keep it in a to-do list for later. Once you found a perfect media that hypes you up, go for it!
Everytime you are about to finish a media, prepare the next one. Think of your next short-term goal.
-Do you want to expand your vocabulary? Pick a media for a slightly older target audience.
-Do you want to focus on understanding the readings of Kanji? Pick a media that supports furigana or that accompanies both text and voice.
-Do you want to increase your reading speed? Pick a media for a slightly younger audience and have a try without the use of any dictionary.
And so on. Of course, you want to focus on vocabulary first, as this is what truly expands the level of material you can access. And then it will all be freedom once you can understand novels without the use of a dictionary.
Last part. Because just reading won't get you anywhere fast, you still need to practice. The idea is simple: anything you don't understand, search it in your dictionaries, understand its meaning, and add it into your Flashcard deck.
If said thing seems too hard to understand, don't worry about skipping it. You might actually never see it again as it turns out to be an uncommon or made up word. Or if it's actually a common word, you will certainly have more chances to learn it.
On the opposite, don't spend too much time on a single word or grammar point. A quick dictionary lookup is more than enough. The more you encounter it, the more details you'll understand from said word using the contexts you find it in. If you encounter multiple times a word that you should have learned yet still have trouble understanding it, that's a clue that this is a word actually worth investing time in fully learning it. That way, we keep a good pace between learning and actually enjoying the media.
For your first few medias, you might actually want to limit the number of words you search and add in your Flashcard deck. If you add every unknown word when every single word is unknown, you'll make no progress in that media and that will just be frustating. That's why we start with a media that has a low count of Kanji. In my case, it was Super Mario RPG: aimed for children and uses a low amount of Kanji. So I only added words that used a Kanji, and after I had finished the game, I ended up with 250 words in my Flashcard deck. It was a good pace, considering my Kanji Flashcard deck was still going strong and I was also mixing a grammar book at the same time.
Keep up the Flashcard deck as long as you feel it is necessary. When I had reached over 5000 words, I could learn words simply from context and which Kanji it was using. And the daily Flashcard was starting to take a toll on my motivation. So I had the skills necessary to focus on a full immersion rather than mixing up native media and practice.
That's right, full immersion. If you arrive at this point, you can enjoy whatever you want to at its fullest! Go wild! Change the interface of your stuff in Japanese! Read and listen to whatever you want to in Japanese! Because reading native medias is likely no longer tiring, you can do it all day long! You are in a large plain with no obstacle, and you get better no matter which direction you go!
For reference, this is what I played/read up until that point and a bit further:
0. Pokemon FireRed. Making mention of this one because I actually played it as a way to practice Hiragana + Katakana and to get acquainted with grammar.
1. Super Mario RPG. The low resolution makes Kanji sometimes hard to understand, so Paper Mario or Mario & Luigi games are probably better alternatives.
2. Lufia II. There is still low resolution, but certainly more readable than Super Mario RPG was.
3. Chrono Trigger. The amount of Kanji was rough in the beginning, but it got more manageable after a week. I played the NDS remake, so the Kanji were far more readable.
4. Megaman Battle Network (Rockman.exe). The vocabulary there is more persistent for everyday life compared to other RPGs.
5. Golden Sun (whole serie). The two on GBA have a healthy amount of Kanji, it was perfect for training reading speed. The one on NDS has a lot more Kanji, but is accompanied with Furigana.
6. Final Fantasy. I played them in numerical number, slipping a game or two inbetween each. The first few ones have a very complex, ye olde style vocabulary, while the vocabulary gets more slang-ish later on. Particularly, the 9th is very full of slang and broken japanese.
7. Groove Adventure Rave. The first Manga I've ever read, and I want it to also be the first in Japanese, but you can go with whatever fits your taste. Most Manga are excellent practice material as it's non-stop reading with advanced vocabulary, yet with a huge lot of context provided from drawings and even furigana on top of all the words. Do try the real thing rather than a digital read, the experience is quite special!
7. Tales of serie. Same as Final Fantasy, I played them in release order, slipping a game or two inbetween each. This serie also have quite the advanced vocabulary, and there's a lot of text going on, especially in later ones that use the Skit systems.
7,5. Let's Play (実況プレイ) videos. At this point, in order to start training my listening comprehension, I started listening to native japanese LPers. For those who don't know what LP is, it's basically just people playing games and uploading their footage on Youtube. On the english side, GameGrumps is a popular example. For japanese LPers, my personal recommendations are Abu (アブ) and Retoruto (レトルト), as they speak a lot and quite clearly. And they play some hilarious games too (like QWOP. And yes, that game itself is also in their playlist).
8. Phoenix Wright (逆転裁判). This is actually a very strong media for learners of the language. Because this game actually needs you to understand the detail of everything that is going on, it makes for a perfect test to challenge your japanese skills. Try to win trials without any restart and with minimal dictionary usage!
9. Rewrite. This is actually a Visual Novel that I had my eyes on for a long while. This means that the level of vocabulary is actually extremely high and there is nothing but text. I struggled a lot at the beginning, and had to equip myself with a software that allowed me to quickly copy-paste words into a dictionnary. But at the end, I came out with a much stronger Japanese... and in tears from the beautiful story!
Now I play any game I want to. Games that I want to replay in their original language. Games that were never released in English. Indie games and fangames. Online games in their Japanese server. Although that last one is quite a pain with the lag from distance, the large amount of games blocked by region, and the relatively low popularity of MMOs in Japan that causes a lot of them to be empty or having to close. I've also switched the interface of almost all my stuff to Japanese. I look up tutorials and informations in Japanese, and so on.
Learning Japanese: Path to the Point of No Return
3. Path to the Point of No Return.
As said in the previous step, what I call the "Point of no return" is where you can start merging hobby and practice together. I love video games, but perhaps you are more of a book or a movie person? Whatever you like, it's important to first determine all you will need before tackling a beginner-level media.
The goal is not to actually understand everything, but rather to be able to not get lost in there. Despite only playing english games (that's all we have available around my part), my english did not get anywhere before my first year of english in school, since nothing made sense to me. As soon as I learned the basics, I started being able to understand the function of each words, and before I knew it, I was always ahead of the class' level thanks to video games.
We're looking for the same effect here. Unfortunately, Japanese is radically more different to English than English is to French. So we need a stronger base step. For video games, that goes like this:
-Hiragana and Katakana knowledge.
-Basic grammar structure.
-Being able to identify and search Kanji.
Sounds simple? It really is, as long as you keep it up every day. Here's some more details on each part.
Hiragana/Katakana
Estimated time: 2-4 weeks
Those are the base and easy alphabets for Japanese. Both have the same sounds, but serve a different purpose. You will see Hiragana everywhere and Katakana is used mostly for foreign words.
There are two things to use here. First, you want a website to teach you the details of each Kana. Their reading, how they are pronounced, and maybe also a trick for learning them. I had personally found a site where they assimilated the Kana to a picture, like あ = Apple = A. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to find the website again. It's however not necessary, as this can be easily learned through brute force, and it's going to sink into your memory afterwards.
Second, you want something to practice them. For reading, there is this site which I found simple and efficient: Real Kana
It's best to actually practice writing them too. For that, I had found an homebrew for the Nintendo DS, but you need something extra on top of the console, which I assume most people don't. For others, there's a huge lot of choices on any platform you desire, you won't have any problem finding something. Even a regular flashcard software + Pen and paper works.
Basic Grammar
Estimated time: 1-3 months
Grammar sites and books are all over the place too. How far each of them lead to differs, but even if one heads into too complicated levels, you can always just stop and continue that on a later stage.
However, I did something unusual for that practice. I have went through multiple sites and books. I started with a site (that ended too fast) and a book that explained things simply and without too much focus on the vocabulary, just to get a feel of how grammar works. Multiple months later, in the middle of the Kanji practice, I picked a new site that had more indepth explanations of each grammar point, and read through it. And at the end of the Kanji practice, I picked once again a different book, focused on actually giving exercises.
This gave me knowledge of all grammar points from different points of view. The books were from native sources, while the sites were from foreign sources. The interval I used them also allowed me to not grow rusty on them. Going back over the basics can be a good idea once in a while when the goal is not to understand, but to make it natural.
Here are the sources I've used:
Minna no Nihongo (book)
Genki (book)
Tae Kim's guide
Kanji:
Estimated time: 6-18 months.
This is what everyone considers the hardest part of Japanese. There are a total of 2000 Kanji that are considered "common use". Each Kanji has an image, one or multiple meanings, and often more than one possible reading. Most people give up in the middle of this, with no surprise.
I knew brute forcing them wouldn't work for me. I needed a plan. I have done a lot of research on that. Methods to memorize them, tools to practice them. And I came up with an answer that blasted me through the whole thing.
First, the goal. We want to be able to tell Kanji apart from each other and be able to search them. This means that we will NOT learn their readings yet. It's a lot of trouble, and most agree that they are better learned through words. As such, for this step, we will only be learning the meaning of each Kanji. This is all we need.
The method: Remembering The Kanji. This is a book that aims to teach the Kanji through radicals. What are radicals? Each complicated Kanji can be divided in multiple radicals. If you know the meaning of each Radical, it's easier to make up something up for the Kanji. For example, the Kanji 木 (tree) also serves as a radical and can make a new Kanji like 森 (tree*3 = forest) or 本 (tree + line(cut) = book). Memorization suddenly becomes a game about making up catchy stories or pictures.
The practice: I simply followed the book, accompanied with a site specially made by fans to accompany the book: Reviewing the Kanji. This site makes Flashcard for each Kanji, ordered identically to the book. Not only that, anyone can post their idea of a story and can vote on which ones they liked. If you don't fancy RTK's stories, you can pick another one in the comments. Do however give a try by yourself before looking up, as stories you make up yourself tend to be easier to remember.
Many notes:
-The Kanji are ordered by radicals. This means you will be first learning Kanji with easy radicals first, while meanings and usage might be obscure. A perfect example being 唱 (mouth + sun*2 = chant). In orther words, its aim is reaching knowledge of all Kanji as fast and easy as possible, rather than getting knowledge of useful and common Kanji first.
-There are 3 RTK books, but we are only interested in the first one. The second one teaches readings per Kanji, which is seen as innefficient. The 3rd one teaches an additional 1000 Kanji, which are all uncommon and are better learned as encountered. If you want usable Kanji, you could learn the 1st and 2nd year Kanji through brute force: nearly none of them look complicated and many are actually used as radicals.
-Learning all 2000 Kanji might not be necessary. I went for the whole thing, but I feel like stopping somewhere around 1500 might actually be enough. The reason is that afterwards, you'll have earned the necessary skills to tell even two unknown Kanji apart from each other and being able to search them, which is what we're aiming for. In other words, the remaining Kanji could be learned as we go through gradual immersion.
-Decide of your pace (new Kanji per day) and never ever skip a day of practice. The way the Flashcards work will make your next day's practice twice as long if you skip a day. If you feel you are getting overwhelmed, lower your pace or have a week without any new Kanji. Splitting a day's practice into multiple parts (like morning and evening) is also a good idea.
-If any radical or Kanji uses a keyword that you just can't remember, say it's a word that you're actually unfamiliar with, you can do a bit of investigation in dictionaries and try to pick a more memorable keyword. Do make sure that it's unique, as you don't want two Kanji using the same keyword.
-Don't just imagine the Kanji in your head when reviewing, do also draw it. I have a nice pack of 20 or so paper sheets, all filled with 500 Kanji from my practices. This builds up a stronger memory of how they look. And it also feels nice to see those papers pile up, a nice trophy of your hard-work that you can show off to others.
Once all of that is done, we have passed the point of no return, and are ready to jump into the next step: gradual immersion.
As said in the previous step, what I call the "Point of no return" is where you can start merging hobby and practice together. I love video games, but perhaps you are more of a book or a movie person? Whatever you like, it's important to first determine all you will need before tackling a beginner-level media.
The goal is not to actually understand everything, but rather to be able to not get lost in there. Despite only playing english games (that's all we have available around my part), my english did not get anywhere before my first year of english in school, since nothing made sense to me. As soon as I learned the basics, I started being able to understand the function of each words, and before I knew it, I was always ahead of the class' level thanks to video games.
We're looking for the same effect here. Unfortunately, Japanese is radically more different to English than English is to French. So we need a stronger base step. For video games, that goes like this:
-Hiragana and Katakana knowledge.
-Basic grammar structure.
-Being able to identify and search Kanji.
Sounds simple? It really is, as long as you keep it up every day. Here's some more details on each part.
Hiragana/Katakana
Estimated time: 2-4 weeks
Those are the base and easy alphabets for Japanese. Both have the same sounds, but serve a different purpose. You will see Hiragana everywhere and Katakana is used mostly for foreign words.
There are two things to use here. First, you want a website to teach you the details of each Kana. Their reading, how they are pronounced, and maybe also a trick for learning them. I had personally found a site where they assimilated the Kana to a picture, like あ = Apple = A. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to find the website again. It's however not necessary, as this can be easily learned through brute force, and it's going to sink into your memory afterwards.
Second, you want something to practice them. For reading, there is this site which I found simple and efficient: Real Kana
It's best to actually practice writing them too. For that, I had found an homebrew for the Nintendo DS, but you need something extra on top of the console, which I assume most people don't. For others, there's a huge lot of choices on any platform you desire, you won't have any problem finding something. Even a regular flashcard software + Pen and paper works.
Basic Grammar
Estimated time: 1-3 months
Grammar sites and books are all over the place too. How far each of them lead to differs, but even if one heads into too complicated levels, you can always just stop and continue that on a later stage.
However, I did something unusual for that practice. I have went through multiple sites and books. I started with a site (that ended too fast) and a book that explained things simply and without too much focus on the vocabulary, just to get a feel of how grammar works. Multiple months later, in the middle of the Kanji practice, I picked a new site that had more indepth explanations of each grammar point, and read through it. And at the end of the Kanji practice, I picked once again a different book, focused on actually giving exercises.
This gave me knowledge of all grammar points from different points of view. The books were from native sources, while the sites were from foreign sources. The interval I used them also allowed me to not grow rusty on them. Going back over the basics can be a good idea once in a while when the goal is not to understand, but to make it natural.
Here are the sources I've used:
Minna no Nihongo (book)
Genki (book)
Tae Kim's guide
Kanji:
Estimated time: 6-18 months.
This is what everyone considers the hardest part of Japanese. There are a total of 2000 Kanji that are considered "common use". Each Kanji has an image, one or multiple meanings, and often more than one possible reading. Most people give up in the middle of this, with no surprise.
I knew brute forcing them wouldn't work for me. I needed a plan. I have done a lot of research on that. Methods to memorize them, tools to practice them. And I came up with an answer that blasted me through the whole thing.
First, the goal. We want to be able to tell Kanji apart from each other and be able to search them. This means that we will NOT learn their readings yet. It's a lot of trouble, and most agree that they are better learned through words. As such, for this step, we will only be learning the meaning of each Kanji. This is all we need.
The method: Remembering The Kanji. This is a book that aims to teach the Kanji through radicals. What are radicals? Each complicated Kanji can be divided in multiple radicals. If you know the meaning of each Radical, it's easier to make up something up for the Kanji. For example, the Kanji 木 (tree) also serves as a radical and can make a new Kanji like 森 (tree*3 = forest) or 本 (tree + line(cut) = book). Memorization suddenly becomes a game about making up catchy stories or pictures.
The practice: I simply followed the book, accompanied with a site specially made by fans to accompany the book: Reviewing the Kanji. This site makes Flashcard for each Kanji, ordered identically to the book. Not only that, anyone can post their idea of a story and can vote on which ones they liked. If you don't fancy RTK's stories, you can pick another one in the comments. Do however give a try by yourself before looking up, as stories you make up yourself tend to be easier to remember.
Many notes:
-The Kanji are ordered by radicals. This means you will be first learning Kanji with easy radicals first, while meanings and usage might be obscure. A perfect example being 唱 (mouth + sun*2 = chant). In orther words, its aim is reaching knowledge of all Kanji as fast and easy as possible, rather than getting knowledge of useful and common Kanji first.
-There are 3 RTK books, but we are only interested in the first one. The second one teaches readings per Kanji, which is seen as innefficient. The 3rd one teaches an additional 1000 Kanji, which are all uncommon and are better learned as encountered. If you want usable Kanji, you could learn the 1st and 2nd year Kanji through brute force: nearly none of them look complicated and many are actually used as radicals.
-Learning all 2000 Kanji might not be necessary. I went for the whole thing, but I feel like stopping somewhere around 1500 might actually be enough. The reason is that afterwards, you'll have earned the necessary skills to tell even two unknown Kanji apart from each other and being able to search them, which is what we're aiming for. In other words, the remaining Kanji could be learned as we go through gradual immersion.
-Decide of your pace (new Kanji per day) and never ever skip a day of practice. The way the Flashcards work will make your next day's practice twice as long if you skip a day. If you feel you are getting overwhelmed, lower your pace or have a week without any new Kanji. Splitting a day's practice into multiple parts (like morning and evening) is also a good idea.
-If any radical or Kanji uses a keyword that you just can't remember, say it's a word that you're actually unfamiliar with, you can do a bit of investigation in dictionaries and try to pick a more memorable keyword. Do make sure that it's unique, as you don't want two Kanji using the same keyword.
-Don't just imagine the Kanji in your head when reviewing, do also draw it. I have a nice pack of 20 or so paper sheets, all filled with 500 Kanji from my practices. This builds up a stronger memory of how they look. And it also feels nice to see those papers pile up, a nice trophy of your hard-work that you can show off to others.
Once all of that is done, we have passed the point of no return, and are ready to jump into the next step: gradual immersion.
Learning Japanese: Fetching the tools
2. Fetching the tools.
We live in an era where the electronics do all the boring job for us. There are a huuuuge lot of tools out there, it would be foolish to not make use of them.
First thing, know that there are free tools for everything. Even if you have a very limited budget, you can always find a tool somewhere that will do the job just fine. Dictionnaries, grammatical guides, flashcards, they're not only all over the internet, there's also a lot of them as iPhone or Android applications. And even if there's no free one that interests you, the costly ones are usually rather cheap.
Free or not, that is entirely your choice. I personally had no income of money when I started, so I went purely with free options. However, I have a certain experience that the more I paid for something, the more likely I'm going to make full use of it. Just make your research before actually purchasing something, there are super expensive tools out there that are actually seen as inneficient.
Now then, to get started, go ahead and create a "Japanese practice" folder in your bookmark. Add some sub-folders if you need some order. The idea is simple: everytime you find a tool that you find interesting, throw it in the bookmark. You think it might be useful in a later stage of your practice? Throw it in! It does not matter if you are actually going to use it or not, we are just building a list of tools. I'd say that this bookmark folder is by far the largest folder in my whole bookmark.
The reason I did that is that I don't want to have an "empty" day of practice. So say, I'm about to finish that book of grammar. I want to make sure that by the time I am done with it, I am already ready to move on to the next practice. So by having all those tools already somewhere easy to fetch, it's much easier to have a quick test on each of them and compare in order to decide which one fits my learning style the most. Also, say that an unforeseen problem happens with one of your tools, like not explaining a point clearly or running out of material earlier than it made it seem like, you will always have a plan B or C ready in there.
Before starting your first practice, it would most likely be a good idea to do a general search. Try to find tools for all the following:
-Dictionaries (words and kanji)
-Grammar lessons.
-Flashcard softwares or applications.
-Online exchange sites (Finding someone to talk with in Japanese).
Found anything interesting? Maybe they will end up being better than what I have used. Maybe you'll end up wanting something more specific than originally expected. Just don't spend weeks to decide, that's time wasted for little.
I will mention what I used, along with suggestions as they become important in later steps. But there are three things that should be taken care of first.
-Choose your starting language. English, being the popular language, will have the best tools available. If you already speak an Asiatic language, it might feel more natural to go from there as grammar and words are likely more similar than a roman language. However, you need to be fluent in the language, which means that your native language might be the best choice. Just don't try to pull up tools using different languages, as it will just feel like you're learning Japanese twice. I personally went English despite being native French.
-Find a couple dictionaries. My personal favorite is www.jisho.org (or classic.jisho.org, which is the old interface it had when I started). It has so many ways of searching words you want, including a very efficient Kanji search by radicals. And each word present all the information you need in a clear way. If the translation is unclear, you want a second dictionary to reference to. I've personally started looking for more details in japanese sources, such as Kotobank, but that's for a more advanced stage.
-Install an IME keyboard on your computer. IME are an input method that automatically converts what you write into kana or kanji. Type "hi" and it becomes ひ. Press space afterwards, and you get to choose between multiple Kanji like 日 and 火. No need for a Japanese keyboard! Do take the time to set up shortcuts so that switching between keyboard languages is as fast and natural as possible. There's multiple choices for IME, but my personal choice was Google IME.
With all that done, time to move on to actual practice.
We live in an era where the electronics do all the boring job for us. There are a huuuuge lot of tools out there, it would be foolish to not make use of them.
First thing, know that there are free tools for everything. Even if you have a very limited budget, you can always find a tool somewhere that will do the job just fine. Dictionnaries, grammatical guides, flashcards, they're not only all over the internet, there's also a lot of them as iPhone or Android applications. And even if there's no free one that interests you, the costly ones are usually rather cheap.
Free or not, that is entirely your choice. I personally had no income of money when I started, so I went purely with free options. However, I have a certain experience that the more I paid for something, the more likely I'm going to make full use of it. Just make your research before actually purchasing something, there are super expensive tools out there that are actually seen as inneficient.
Now then, to get started, go ahead and create a "Japanese practice" folder in your bookmark. Add some sub-folders if you need some order. The idea is simple: everytime you find a tool that you find interesting, throw it in the bookmark. You think it might be useful in a later stage of your practice? Throw it in! It does not matter if you are actually going to use it or not, we are just building a list of tools. I'd say that this bookmark folder is by far the largest folder in my whole bookmark.
The reason I did that is that I don't want to have an "empty" day of practice. So say, I'm about to finish that book of grammar. I want to make sure that by the time I am done with it, I am already ready to move on to the next practice. So by having all those tools already somewhere easy to fetch, it's much easier to have a quick test on each of them and compare in order to decide which one fits my learning style the most. Also, say that an unforeseen problem happens with one of your tools, like not explaining a point clearly or running out of material earlier than it made it seem like, you will always have a plan B or C ready in there.
Before starting your first practice, it would most likely be a good idea to do a general search. Try to find tools for all the following:
-Dictionaries (words and kanji)
-Grammar lessons.
-Flashcard softwares or applications.
-Online exchange sites (Finding someone to talk with in Japanese).
Found anything interesting? Maybe they will end up being better than what I have used. Maybe you'll end up wanting something more specific than originally expected. Just don't spend weeks to decide, that's time wasted for little.
I will mention what I used, along with suggestions as they become important in later steps. But there are three things that should be taken care of first.
-Choose your starting language. English, being the popular language, will have the best tools available. If you already speak an Asiatic language, it might feel more natural to go from there as grammar and words are likely more similar than a roman language. However, you need to be fluent in the language, which means that your native language might be the best choice. Just don't try to pull up tools using different languages, as it will just feel like you're learning Japanese twice. I personally went English despite being native French.
-Find a couple dictionaries. My personal favorite is www.jisho.org (or classic.jisho.org, which is the old interface it had when I started). It has so many ways of searching words you want, including a very efficient Kanji search by radicals. And each word present all the information you need in a clear way. If the translation is unclear, you want a second dictionary to reference to. I've personally started looking for more details in japanese sources, such as Kotobank, but that's for a more advanced stage.
-Install an IME keyboard on your computer. IME are an input method that automatically converts what you write into kana or kanji. Type "hi" and it becomes ひ. Press space afterwards, and you get to choose between multiple Kanji like 日 and 火. No need for a Japanese keyboard! Do take the time to set up shortcuts so that switching between keyboard languages is as fast and natural as possible. There's multiple choices for IME, but my personal choice was Google IME.
With all that done, time to move on to actual practice.
Learning Japanese: Determination
1. Determination
Before even starting anything, it is necessary to get in the right mindset. Learning Japanese will take years without missing a single day before reaching fluency. Even just being able to read a low level native material will take around a full year.
People say learning Japanese is hard. I say the only difficulty is to never stop. Burnout is your only enemy. You can't just stop before being able to at least read, an half-learned Japanese won't serve much purpose. And trying to come back after a burnout is always difficult as it's difficult to judge what has been forgotten, on top of having the memory of the previous burnout haunt you.
So before even starting, you need to make sure you have a strong motivation. A motivation that will fuel your studies until the language becomes natural enough. I personally had never done anything that required such a long time of dedication, so I had to come up with a few tricks. And so here's what I found:
-The point of no return. If you set a goal of reaching fluency, it will seem like you will never get there, and that's a big toll on the motivation. My first goal was rather to learn only what I would need to be able to play my first game in Japanese. I had to split my free time between hobby and learning, but once I could mix then both, stopping suddenly became almost impossible. All I had to do is to never touch an english game ever again, and my Japanese could only go upwards from that point. This 1-year goal now seems very reachable!
-Read all points of chapters 0 and 1 on this site: AJATT. This is a pearl I have stumbled upon in the middle of my studies. Now, I personally don't believe that going full immersion from the start works for me, and that's why I don't suggest the later chapters. But all the points in chapters 0 and 1 are pertinent to everyone, no matter how you choose to study. There are a lot of interesting points, such as how trying to tackle something too hard for your current level takes a great toll on motivation. You are free to agree or disagree on what you want, you are free to pull out your own conclusions, but reading this site pumped me up for the remaining of my studies. Some of his points will surely coincide on what I say in the future.
-Do not rush, and enjoy the path. As long as the practice remains enjoyable, it's always easier to start the practice the next day. Doing too much every day is the easiest way to make it no longer enjoyable. And so burning out will just be easier. Don't try to reach your goals in a set time. Rather, determine how long you can devote yourself to your practice. Don't sacrifice your whole free time to practice. Stopping all your hobbies altogether will just make you eager to finish the practice and return to your old life.
Once you feel you have enough motivation, it's time to move on to the next step.
Before even starting anything, it is necessary to get in the right mindset. Learning Japanese will take years without missing a single day before reaching fluency. Even just being able to read a low level native material will take around a full year.
People say learning Japanese is hard. I say the only difficulty is to never stop. Burnout is your only enemy. You can't just stop before being able to at least read, an half-learned Japanese won't serve much purpose. And trying to come back after a burnout is always difficult as it's difficult to judge what has been forgotten, on top of having the memory of the previous burnout haunt you.
So before even starting, you need to make sure you have a strong motivation. A motivation that will fuel your studies until the language becomes natural enough. I personally had never done anything that required such a long time of dedication, so I had to come up with a few tricks. And so here's what I found:
-The point of no return. If you set a goal of reaching fluency, it will seem like you will never get there, and that's a big toll on the motivation. My first goal was rather to learn only what I would need to be able to play my first game in Japanese. I had to split my free time between hobby and learning, but once I could mix then both, stopping suddenly became almost impossible. All I had to do is to never touch an english game ever again, and my Japanese could only go upwards from that point. This 1-year goal now seems very reachable!
-Read all points of chapters 0 and 1 on this site: AJATT. This is a pearl I have stumbled upon in the middle of my studies. Now, I personally don't believe that going full immersion from the start works for me, and that's why I don't suggest the later chapters. But all the points in chapters 0 and 1 are pertinent to everyone, no matter how you choose to study. There are a lot of interesting points, such as how trying to tackle something too hard for your current level takes a great toll on motivation. You are free to agree or disagree on what you want, you are free to pull out your own conclusions, but reading this site pumped me up for the remaining of my studies. Some of his points will surely coincide on what I say in the future.
-Do not rush, and enjoy the path. As long as the practice remains enjoyable, it's always easier to start the practice the next day. Doing too much every day is the easiest way to make it no longer enjoyable. And so burning out will just be easier. Don't try to reach your goals in a set time. Rather, determine how long you can devote yourself to your practice. Don't sacrifice your whole free time to practice. Stopping all your hobbies altogether will just make you eager to finish the practice and return to your old life.
Once you feel you have enough motivation, it's time to move on to the next step.
Learning Japanese: Preface
I've heard that many times. People that want to learn Japanese, but think it's too difficult. I jokingly often say "Stop wanting, start learning!", which is true in a way, but not quite helping, right? I've also heard of many people that tried to learn it, but eventually gave up, usually quite soon after starting the Kanji.
I could have been there. Back then, being able to understand that language seemed to me like a dream. At one point, I decided to finally take the resolve to start learning. I knew, language is not my strong point. I learn easily with logic, but illogical knowledge hardly sticks with me. So I did a lot of research, to find the best method that suits my learning pattern.
Now, people are impressed that I actually can read Japanese. Many people also ask me how I did, what I used and so on. And I gladly want to answer, but that answer is quite long.
That is why, I decided to write this, a guide to learn Japanese my own way. This is the answer I have found and followed, and would certainly do it the same way if I had to do it all over again. It may or may not apply to everyone, but even if it doesn't to you, you can still get inspiration and find your own ways.
1. Determination
2. Fetching the Tools
3. Path to the Point of No Return
4. Gradual Immersion
5. Patching up Holes and Tricks
6. Tool Compilation (WIP)
I could have been there. Back then, being able to understand that language seemed to me like a dream. At one point, I decided to finally take the resolve to start learning. I knew, language is not my strong point. I learn easily with logic, but illogical knowledge hardly sticks with me. So I did a lot of research, to find the best method that suits my learning pattern.
Now, people are impressed that I actually can read Japanese. Many people also ask me how I did, what I used and so on. And I gladly want to answer, but that answer is quite long.
That is why, I decided to write this, a guide to learn Japanese my own way. This is the answer I have found and followed, and would certainly do it the same way if I had to do it all over again. It may or may not apply to everyone, but even if it doesn't to you, you can still get inspiration and find your own ways.
1. Determination
2. Fetching the Tools
3. Path to the Point of No Return
4. Gradual Immersion
5. Patching up Holes and Tricks
6. Tool Compilation (WIP)
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