No problem. ^_^

Definitely do the reverse card thing, I started to do that immediately when I began, as I normally read the English and said the Japanese when doing physical flashcards before I signed up with this. I was in the same boat as you when I was doing Japanese to English years ago, as I didn’t know the word unless I saw it in Japanese, and that triggered my memory. I believe Koichi does this because it’s quicker to absorb initially than the other way around. But personally I wouldn’t move on to the next chapter until I’d learned them fairly well back to front.

がんばって!

As far as I’m aware you are suppose to import the Kanji and Radicals into separate decks.

I have 3 decks that I use with Kanji:

TF Radicals
TF Kanji
TF Vocab

And I believe Koichisama does get you to separate them this way. I’m not sure which season you are on, but maybe there was a typo/mistake where he got you to import a radical deck into your Kanji deck, or you read it wrong?

Generally speaking as far as distinguishing when a specific Kanji is pronounced a certain way, it will depend on what it is grouped with: if it has multiple Kanji together, or it’s by itself, you know it’s the ON reading, if it is grouped with hiragana you know it’s the KUN reading. Koichi has said this of course in the text, but you might forget that, don’t know how advanced you are. If it’s unclear whether they want the meaning or reading, just come up with both, so you know that you know it.

I think the deck thing is probably the main source of your confusion though.

• This reply was modified 12 years, 3 months ago by  Aikibujin.

Did you notice that the home link on the colors game has a lot more games?

http://www.digitaldialects.com/Japanese.htm

Kana invaders is very cool.

I’d like to see something like that where you type the English word for Japanese words that come down.

Welcome!

Definitely practice the grammar parts. From what I have seen so far, it looks like Koichisama encourages you to make new sentences on your own with what you have learned, so be sure to do that every time he suggests it.

Depending on how far you have come with your learning will depend on what you can do.

Some things I would get my English students to do at various levels are the following:

Basic –

1) Any time Koichi introduces a new sentence, see how many words in that sentence you can change with words you already know, and how many words you can switch out for each. You can even keep a record of the number to gauge your progress.

2) Diagram each sentence you learn in a very basic fashion, focusing on nouns, adjectives, particles, and verbs. For instance: Watashi wa asagohan o tabemasu = noun particle noun particle verb. The first noun is the subject the second noun is the object, followed by a verb. This is one of the simplest sentence structures, yet you can do so much with it, simply by replacing the nouns and verbs with other nouns and verbs you know. Even if you get the particles wrong, people will still understand what you are trying to say just from their position, and the rest will come with experience.

Intermediate -

1) Take your vocab words that you have learned and put them into lists of nouns, adjectives, and verbs. Randomly select 5 or so words from each list, then with those words, see how many sentences you can make.

2) Grab a children’s book and look at the sentences in it. Try to use words you know to reconstruct the sentences in Japanese. So say you see the following: Timmy kicked the ball, you first have to switch it into the proper Japanese order which would be: Timmy the ball kicked. So you have Noun, noun, verb, so come up with a sentence like that in Japanese with words you know instead, which might be: Teacher the student taught, or I the subway rode, etc (except in Japanese of course).

Advanced -

1) Imagine a basic conversation you are having with someone, and write it down in English. Make sure it’s nothing too complicated, but make sure it sounds natural and not like a robot or monkey or robot monkey… Then once again brake down the sentences into their components of nouns, adjectives, and verbs, and see if you can make the same types of sentences with words you know in Japanese and see if you can make them make sense. Unless you know a lot of vocab, they probably won’t, but just practicing it will help you learn.

2) Do the same thing as before with the children’s book, just make it a harder book.

Koichi often tells you to ignore the words when showing you the grammar lessons, because he wants you to focus on the structure rather than remember the words. This is very important. That’s why he had you make your passion list, words you are passionate about should be the easiest to remember, so try to use them as much as you can to recreate any new sentence structures you learn.

Another thing to think about is what subjects most of the words you know relate to. For instance in the first couple seasons you learn the words: apple, desk, teacher, student, room, rain, snow, autumn, summer, winter, doctor, driver, textbook, medicine, park, car, hospital, police officer, child, author, grapes, strawberries, tangerine, sugar, salt, newspaper, dictionary, bicycle, friend, box, water, cat, dog.

Looking at those words, the three areas they would most be used in would be at school, the hospital, and a lunchroom. So try to think of conversations that would take place in those locations, and how to construct the relative sentences.

More than likely you often talk to people about whatever the subject of your passion list happens to be, so think about the types of conversations you have with those people about that subject and how you can use the words you learned to say them. Just keep in mind you’ll likely have to speak as if you were talking to a 6 year old, but that’s how it starts, and you can build it up from there. ^_^

がんばって!

• This reply was modified 12 years, 3 months ago by  Aikibujin.

Greetings!