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Hi Monique! I am on Season 4 now, and I feel like the difficulty is picking up a little, although it’s not too bad. For helping to remember vocab, there are two things that work really well for me.
If I’m having trouble with a particular item in Anki, I do a Google image search for it, and I find a pretty/interesting picture that relates to the vocab to put on the answer side of my Anki card (not the question side, since that would give it away). If I can find an image from a particular drama or anime or manga or something that I like, even better, since the associations makes the memory even stronger. Something about seeing the image when I turn over the card really helps the memory stick. Plus just the act of Googling it and browsing the images often makes it stand out in my mind and helps differentiate it from other similar items. But just using Anki for long enough will eventually hammer things into your head; although the brute force method might not be the best, I find that it does work eventually. But making my Anki deck pretty and interesting really motivates me to study.
The other thing that really helps is when I come across vocab that I’ve studied in other media, like dramas or music. Music is especially good, since I can shuffle it over and over again without getting bored until I start picking up certain words/phrases in the songs. Once my brain has recognized a word or phrase in a song and connected it to the meaning, I almost never forget it. It’s also really rewarding, because when new things are introduced on TextFugu, I first start to memorize them on Anki, and then after I’ve studied them for awhile and gotten used to them, I’ll suddenly be able to pick them up in songs or in TV dialogue, and it feels really great! As I slowly add more vocab and grammar and keep listening to the songs, I start to be able to piece together more and more phrases and understand the songs better and better.
Good luck!
Thanks for the reply and great advice! ( ﾉ^ω^)ﾉﾟ I used to try to do a method a lot like that a while a go when I first started doing Japanese at school (and just to add, I really find Text Fugu has helped my studying at school ~ before it was more like I was memorising phrases instead of actually knowing what I’m talking about, but since I’ve been doing TF, I find that I actually can know why a sentence means something! It’s really helped so far! ^_^) and by creating links it really helped me remember the words! But I’ve stopped doing that lately, because sometimes it takes a little while to think up things, but since there are so many vocab to be learnt, then I think I’ll have to do something like that again to remember! So I’ll try to do that!
hmm… わすれます? *thinks* The only thing I can come up with is that わすれ kind of sounds like “Wash away” (‘wasu’ would be ‘wash’ and ‘re’ would ‘away’ but pronounced a tiny bit different, like you’ve got an accent or something XD) which to me kind of means ‘to forget’, although it doesn’t sound too much like it anyway. XD Sorry, that probably isn’t much help! (;´▽`)>
And the tv, music, radio etc idea was great too! Luckily I love Japanese music -and I search up lyrics of it in japanese as well as the translation, but not that much, so I’ll try to do that more!- and I also love Japanese shows (I don’t watch too much dramas though – Would dramas be more useful than anime -because maybe anime isn’t that realistic, so they wouldn’t say as many useful words?- or would they be about the same? Also I prefer to watch anime subbed rather that dubbed too, so maybe hearing the words next to the english translation will help a bit… Or should I try watching some Japanese tv – maybe start with kid shows? – without any subtitles at all? Or maybe both?) Anyway thanks again for the help! (*^▽^*)
@Jennifer Richardson
Also thank you for replying and for the great advice! ｡^‿^｡ I really like that idea of putting pictures next to the answer on anki! That sounds like a great idea! I think I will give it a go and tell you if it helps or not ~ Also with the drama and music, that’s a great idea too! I’ll try to give that shot (like I said before to Justin) too!
Thank you again! (ノ^∇^)-
This reply was modified 10 years, 5 months ago by
Monique.
I’m really confused, I totally wrote a reply for this but it doesn’t seem to be here. Maybe I forgot to actually hit submit. Derrr. Guess I’ll try writing it again!
So in terms of TV, I think drama is probably more realistic – you’re less likely to encounter made-up words and definitely less likely to encounter strange voices. However! Anime is probably WAY more fun :D
I watch a very small amount of anime aimed at kids because it has smaller, easier words and also because PRECURE IS AWESOME *hide in shame* (seriously though that’s what I watch)
If you go to http://kitsunekko.net/dirlist.php?dir=subtitles%2Fjapanese%2F you can find the Japanese subtitles for basically everything. They do also include commercials most of the time but if you grab those for whichever show your watching and look up all the words you don’t know and find their translations and then follow along while watching, you can get pretty rockin’ at Japanese. That’s largely the premise of japanesethroughanime which is a pretty good program as I understand it. Anyway, they’re packaged as .srt files which you can just open in Notepad or any text editor if you’re not using Windows.Also, just for the sake of recommendation, you should definitely watch Anohana if you haven’t. It’s only like 11 episodes but I DARE you not to cry. You might learn something about Japanese too I guess lol.
And yeah music is great! I find Kyary Pamyu Pamyu to be absurdly satisfying, and very easy to sing along to if you can get your voice to go that high (which, yes, I often can). People may think you’re a bit kooky though.
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This reply was modified 10 years, 5 months ago by
Justin.
I haz a blog http://maninjapanchannel.wordpress.com/ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qLQzB-1u-dgIt’s been a long time since I looked at TextFugu or posted. The past couple of weeks, I’ve been trying to get back into learning Japanese, with an emphasis on being able to read it. So, I’ve been diving back into Anki, WaniKani, TextFugu and Lang-8.
Point? I just finished Season 5 of TextFugu. *does snoopy dance*
I’m getting to the point now where I can kind of read NHK Web Easy (?) and I can recognize bits and pieces of ja.wikipedia.org. It’s still very difficult, but it no longer feels impossible, or like every little bit I learn is this earthshattering revelation. I’m seeing where my weaknesses are and I’m trying to focus on them more.
One of the biggest things I’ve learned is that when you’re learning on your own, you have to have multiple streams of input. It’s not an option. Learning kanji/vocabulary through WaniKani reinforces my Anki decks (and vice versa). Practicing with TextFugu and Lang-8 reinforces WaniKani and Anki and it goes the other way as well. I don’t use dramas and anime as much as some others might, but it’s a fun way of seeing how much I’ve progressed.
I’m thinking of getting something like Pimsleur’s Japanese to continue reinforcing all of this from the angle of listening and speaking. Does anyone have any suggestions?
Also, my biggest weakness seems to be with particles. Any recommended resources for mastering that aspect of grammar? Or is it just something I’ll pick up if I listen/read enough?
Not much to add here other than I just finished Season 2! I still have a long way to go but I’ve been enjoying the ride so far.
I do agree with icaruspandora though, I’ve found it really helpful to take the multifaceted approach. I just keep exposing myself to a few solid Japanese resources and have found that the “haze” that surrounded a particular grammar point/vocab/kanji suddenly lifts and BAM, it’s all crystal clear. It is a really amazing feeling. I’m currently working on textfugu, wanakani, anki decks, and listening to Japanesepod101. So far I feel like I have already learned so much, but I know it’s just the beginning!
Cheers!
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This reply was modified 10 years, 5 months ago by
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