Hm. According to the internet, Google IME is just “-” which is the same as Windows’ Japanese IME. My only thought might be related to it being a Euro keyboard. Maybe try the Microsoft IME? That’s what I use, and once you get the STUPID keyboard shortcuts figured out it works pretty well. ALT+SHIFT to switch keyboards, ALT+CAPS to change from romaji to hiragana, again to get to katakana, but then CTRL+CAPS to get back to hiragana. Otherwise everything should be the same as Google. Space to scroll through words, enter to input.

It wouldn’t be hard to PDF it yourself. It would be time consuming, although one could PROBABLY write a crawler pretty quickly that would do the work for you. As to releasing it, there would be obvious legal complications and I certainly don’t advise it, but YOU would have it. And you could always run it by Koichi and say hey mind if I put this out in the world, and obviously give full credit. No guarantees but hey if it’s something you’re into, it wouldn’t hurt to ask.

When are you going?

Welcome to the party!

I didn’t really explain it very well, but hellz to the yes for vocab. That’s how I’m learning it is through vocab. Sort of how I meant it when I said that you eventually start to just “get it”.

In some ways it’s actually a lot like English. There are strange things that just developed over time as a result of who the hell knows what and you just have to accept it lol. Example: “i before e except after c”? Nope. Sometimes it’s i before e after c, or sometimes it’s e before i, just because shut up stop asking questions. You just kinda learn the exceptions and patterns the more you develop your vocab.

Last bit, long before I started learning Japanese, and even before I’d started learning Italian, I’ve held the belief that reading gives you a greater command of the language. Obviously when you’re still in the early stages of language you can’t expect to be reading full on novels, but if you can get children’s books, you should be able to start getting through those by the time you’re done TF (or even before). Then you have the benefit of picking up basic vocab AND seeing it in context. Children’s books are doubly good because they typically give you the furigana for all the kanji. Which reminds me, make sure you get the ones that actually have kanji lol. Too young an audience and you just get hiragana.

Well… I’m probably not going to give the best answer, because I’m like MAYBE ALMOST at N5 MAYBE A LITTLE so I’m far from fluent or being Joel… But my experience so far has just been to learn specifically when one is used instead of the other, and to learn it as it becomes relevant to what I’m doing. There are patterns to some things for sure, but there are so many exceptions and oddities that it just seems easier to know that specific things are a specific reading. It’s not efficient, by any means, but it gets me through a lot of cold and lonely nights by the light of my laptop.

My understanding (and hope) is that with lots of practise and exposure you just… get it. As the omniscient Ms. Frizzle always says “take chances, make mistakes, and get messy!”. To be perfectly honest I’m not sure how that last part applies or if you even want it to, but it’s still a good quote dammit.

So. Yeah. Um. I hope that didn’t destroy your spirits. For what it’s worth, there are literally millions of people who can speak Japanese. Statistically, you can absolutely do it too.

It’s time consuming and awful, but there is something to be said for rote practice. Write them out a lot. Like a lot a lot. When you learn your 20, write each of them out like 50 times. Mix it up though. Like don’t just write one out 50 times, then write the next one 50 times. Write one, then the next one, and so on, and then do it all again 49 times. Or whatever number you choose. Write until you’re arthritic or until your pen explodes.

It’s slower than my old Jetta that set itself on fire, but it does have a decent shot at improving your retention.

Other than that, your best bet is slow down. Try 5/day for now maybe. The unfortunate reality of learning such a complex character system is that it’s a lot of information and you’re aiming to learn it all in a fairly short period of time. You can either go at it slow and spend a lot of time on it, or you can have no friends but get through it quicker because you’re spending every free minute of every day studying. Who needs friends though right? :P

I haven’t tried this myself, but you might consider keeping a spreadsheet. Have each column be your day, and have 20 rows, each with one of the kanji keywords for that day. So A1 through A21 will be everything you learned on February 24th. Then on the 25th, B1 through B21, and so on. On a separate worksheet, have the same layout but with the actual kanji itself. So for example on the keyword sheet, cell A5 will say child, and on the kanji sheet, cell A5 will say 子. Every day pick one or two at random from each column on the keyword sheet, and see if you can write the kanji for it. I’d say if you have trouble with it, review that whole day. If it was easy, don’t worry about that day yet. Eventually you’ll have to review all the days and it might turn out to be a crap idea. But hey maybe it’s an okay way to do it. I mean yeah you’ll have 110 columns, but it’s not that different than with Anki, really. After a while it becomes pretty damn messy when 473 reviews all fall on the same day.

Keep calm and kanji on, brother. Keep trying different things. Make stuff up. You’ll figure out what works for you. Maybe pick up a book called “You Can Have An Amazing Memory” for $1.70 on Amazon. Or $20 if you’re in Canada. Like me. Because fuck Amazon. Shenanigans, I tell you. Anyway, it’s supposed to be pretty good and you may find some of it useful.

EtoEto is going to be replacing TF soon enough, so no changes are being made here.

Doable? Yes, absolutely. Going to happen? Never. But I’m sure EtoEto will have sort of progress tracking.