Not everyone will be interested in this, but since I like drawing, I frequently go to this guy’s Ustream: http://www.ustream.tv/channel/yoshikadu2010

He goes live almost every night and talks to his crowd about random things while he’s drawing. Best thing about it is, the people talking to him are typing in Japanese, and whatever they say is repeated back via creepy robot voice.. so I can always hear what’s being said. :)

While I’m not really into manga or anime, it’s still really interesting to watch him draw his manga; he’s really good. :)

Lots of casual back and forth, and even catch a mix of formal speech.

That being said, Ustream is a great place for random live Japanese things, from watching people play video games, to radio shows and other things. I’ve come to love it! I’ve found it’s a nice change if you’re bored of podcasts, etc.

Edit: If you DO happen to go, I suggest you have some sort of Ad blocking plugin; the random ads can get REALLY annoying.. Adblock does the trick for me with Firefox, I never have to see an ad. :D

• This reply was modified 13 years, 5 months ago by  リンディ.

Mister, funny that you mention the method of doing both Keyword-> kanji AND Kanji-> keyword. I wrote a post on the RTK forum asking if this method would be a good idea, because I was considering it.

This is what he said, in two seperate posts:

“Only do keyword to kanji, not the other way around.

Actually, in the long run it’s not really all that good to associate the kanji with the keyword. Eventually you should just be associating the kanji with the word in Japanese that you have in mind.

Really what RTK does well is establish the kanji in your mind, rather than give you the meaning of the kanji. Certain kanji are associated very strongly with a single concept (especially when they are the kanji for simple nouns). But the vast majority of kanji are used in too many ways for a single meaning to be very useful to the learner.”

—

“Well, the goal isn’t to be able to see a kanji and think of the keyword. So hopefully you’ll never be able to do it. Basically, the process should go something like this.

You learn the keyword ‘perfect’. You do flashcards going from ‘perfect’ to 完.

Later, you learn the word 完結, which is pronounced ‘kanketsu’ and means ‘conclusion’. And when you see 完結, you think kanketsu, and you know the meaning is conclusion (once you know the word very well you won’t think that the meaning is conclusion, because you won’t be translating it to English in your head anymore). At no point are you going from 完 to keyword–because the keyword doesn’t have anything to do with the meaning, nor the pronunciation, of the word.

Even though the keyword didn’t help you in the case of 完結, it was still useful to do RTK in this case. Why? Because you KNOW 完, even if you can no longer associate with an English keyword. It has a place in your mind, and you can write it.

In some simple cases, like ‘cat’, the keyword will be more useful because it will give the English meaning. So, when you see 猫 you will think ‘neko’, which means ‘cat.’ But ultimately you don’t want to think of the word ‘cat.’ You want to ditch the English, and just think of the concept of cat.

So, in the long run it’s really never useful for you to go from the kanji to the keyword. You should be able to go from the kanji to the reading and the concept.”

—

This logic made a lot of sense to me, so I stopped stressing so much about one keyword and am just focusing on keyword-> kanji.

Not knocking your method, because we all learn differently of course; just adding a bit of insight to this. :P

>.> you seem to forget who originally posted that Dir en grey video.

foreveralone.jpg

Listen to these people about RTK and do it^.

They talked me into it, and although I’m only doing it as kind of a side project thing next to Textfugu and various other things, it has already made a difference in my Japanese studying life.

This thread reminds me of http://weaboostories.tumblr.com/

I’m not a big fan of anime. Sure, I watched it when I was younger… but it just doesn’t hold my attention anymore.

Went over the は and が lesson again. It had been a while and I only read over it once then… I feel a lot better about it. I also made some of my own sentences to get it into my brain better. :)

Well, if it makes you feel better.. before I start Season 3 I am going to go back through everything and make sure it is concrete in my brain. I hate feeling like I am moving too fast, so I’m trying to go at a snail’s pace.

On another note, I wrote my first Lang-8 post and it was SO messy. Even more of a reason to go back and study everything (を and に particles in particular) Also, I learned that it’s actually possible to overuse です。 (I didn’t.. actually neglected to put it after one of my sentences.) :/

I thought putting です after every sentence would be excessive and a nice person pointed out that it could indeed be.. but in that case I should have put it.

I also learned how to write my name in カタカナ。 Yay.

リンディ！

But… it made me a little discouraged. The things I thought I knew… I just couldn’t write them when I tried. I kinda of… froze, for a long time. :(

Maybe I am trying to over complicate things, but it really makes me question what I have really learned, or what has really stuck. So I guess the best thing to do is go back over everything that is iffy in my brain. It’s mostly how to position words/particles and what to add/what to leave out. I also got は and が confused (I was so sure I had THOSE sorted out, too).

/discouraged.

• This reply was modified 13 years, 6 months ago by  リンディ.

What are these lists you speak of and how might I obtain them? :O