スナザル

10 days have passed since my last post and I honestly don’t have much to show in terms of work completed. Finals are now over however, and I have commenced my intensive Japanese studies with vigor again.

Because of the time taken off from RTK for finals (I did well on them by the way so I guess it was worth it ) I have fallen behind my schedule to finish RTK1 by Jan 6th. I now have to do close to 80 a day to stay on course to meet my target date. I haven’t given up however, but I’ve had to make some concessions.

First, Assimil. While I do feel that it has been productive to start Assimil I find myself coming across sentences in which are kanji that I haven’t learned yet. This keeps me guessing the meaning of sentences when I can’t even read them yet. Because of this I have decided to wait until I complete RTK1 to resume Assimil. Also, it will give me more time to dedicate to Kanji. Once I complete RTK1 I feel that my time with Assimil will be much more productive.

In lieu of Assimil I have been studying vocabulary in isolation. I found a post a while ago that made a strong case for learning vocabulary in isolation but I haven’t been able to find it. When I come across it again I will post it here. Suffice it to say that I have been convinced that it is important to first build a large foundational vocabulary with which to approach contextual learning. After I have a decent vocabulary memorized I feel that parallel reading will be much more fruitful.

Anyway, I was cramming vocabulary for my Japanese final the other day (I will further go into my stance on classes in a future post) and I was struck by the power of mnemonics. Coupled with Iversen’s (HTLAL forums) wordlist method it has made learning new vocabulary much easier. As a first source I am using this book. It has around 900 words in total which I think is a good starting point, both to build vocabulary and refine my mnemonic techniques. What I am doing is going through the book about 20 at a time then of that list of around 20 words I’m writing 5-7 at a time using the wordlist method. After I have memorized those 5-7 words I enter them into Anki and let the software handle any future reviews.

I’ve been pretty busy the past week as it was the last week of my fall quarter. Because of this my Kanji and Japanese studies have taken a back seat to other more pressing topics. Unfortunately, this week is finals week so I still haven’t really had a chance to give my full attention to Japanese. It is difficult even to simply do my RvTK reviews, but I’ve been managing, albeit with a much reduced percentage of correct reviews.The other day I was cramming vocabulary for my Japanese final (I’ll elaborate on my Japanese class when I have more time to adequately address it) and I finally realized the power of wordlists, especially when coupled with mnemonics. I think I’ve finally found a way to study vocabulary in isolation. Again, I’ll elaborate more on this in a future post after finals.Anyway, I haven’t forgotten my Japanese studies I’ve just been busy. Fortunately, after finals are over I have a three week break which I’ve decided to devote entirely to RTK; I haven’t forgotten my goal to finish by the end of break.

Status:546 Kanji… and counting
Assimil Lesson 12

I was very productive in my Japanese studies this weekend. I did 109 kanji and two Assimil lessons in addition to other things I will describe below.

I have further streamlined my method of studying and reviewing Assimil. Following Sheetz’s recommendation, though not exactly, I have determined not to immediately enter the lesson dialogue into Anki, but instead wait for several days while reviewing manually. I have settled upon this schedule:

Day 1:
J->E Assimil Lesson n

Day 2:
listen to lesson n and try to understand
J->E Assimil Lesson n+1
E->J Assimil Lesson n

Day 3:
listen to lesson n+1 and try to understand
E->J Assimil Lesson n then add Lesson 1 to Anki
J->E Assimil lesson n+2
E->J Assimil lesson n+1

This way I review a lesson for two days after seeing it for the first time before I add it to Anki.

While researching methods of acquiring vocabulary I came across the linkword method. I downloaded the program and began using it. The software reacquainted me with the benefits of mnemonics and inspired me to integrate them more in my studies. I ordered Learn Japanese Verbs and Adjectives Using Memory Mnemonics to build my verb and adjective vocabulary and Learning How to Learn to familiarize myself with various mnemonic techniques. I also found a google spreadsheat created by someone on this thread that aspires to apply mnemonics to all the JLPT level 4 vocabulary. Users can contribute to the spreadsheat so it is a community effort.

Over the weekend I had the opportunity to go to Mitsuwa, a Japanese supermarket chain in the US. While there I was amazed at the amount of Kanji I recognized, this inspired me by showing that RTK is working. Also, the visit reminded me why I initially started learning Japanese, my fascination with the Japanese culture.

Status:
395 Kanji… and counting
Assimil Lesson 8

Since it is the first day of a new month I figured it is a good time to evaluate and formalize some goals. When I started learning Japanese I had the ambitious goal to become fluent in Japanese. I had a smaller goal of completing RTK1, but that was about it. Also, I didn’t have a time frame in which I planned on completing my goals.

Now that I’m in college, and I see my study abroad options my goals have begun to take a more structured shape. My plans are to spend my entire third year abroad. The school I attend, UCI, offers a program in which I can take all my coursework in Japanese abroad. In order to do this I have to pass a rigorous test evaluating my skills in the Japanese language. Thus, my ultimate goal at this point is to become fluent enough by the time I take that test at the beginning of third year. This gives me roughly two years to achieve that level of fluency, not an unreasonable measure of time in my opinion.

While it is great to have a larger goal for the purposes of motivation, it isn’t the easiest thing to work towards as it is somewhat ambiguous. Consequently, I have broken it up into smaller, more manageable goals. The first of these is to complete RTK1. Currently I’m at about the 300 kanji mark, that leaves me with a little over 1700 kanji remaining. I plan on completing this by the end of my winter break, Jan. 6th. This leaves me 37 days to complete roughly 1700 kanji which averages about 45 per day. Again, not an unreasonable task by any measure.

The next goal is Assimil, I am concurrently working on Assimil and RTK1 presently. Assimil Volume 1 consists of 49 lessons and I am doing a lesson a day. At this rate I will be done about two weeks after I complete RTK1, around mid-January.

After Assimil Volume 1 I will work on Assimil Volume 2 and commence the listening-reading method. I will not elaborate on this as it is too far off right now.

Another thing that I am working on formalizing is vocabulary acquisition. I like learning in context, however, I do believe that amassing a foundational vocabulary will allow me to more easily and effectively utilize native Japanese prose in my studies. Another post will follow once I determine a method of doing this. Any suggestions are welcome.

I have been working on RTK for several days now and I’m making some progress. I find it is easy to work with relative alacrity now that I’m simply catching up, but I don’t want to be deluded into a false sense of security. Once I get to new kanji I’m sure the going will be much tougher.I do find that doing intervals of about 15 kanji at a time several times a day works best. Doing small intervals keeps me alert and also makes taking advantage of small portions of free time much easier. At this rate I’m doing about 50 kanji a day. I would like to keep this pace but we’ll see how it goes once I get to the new kanji.Assimil volume 1 finally arrived in the mail today. After reading the introduction and doing the first lesson I can honestly say that I’m impressed. I’ve been working with a textbook (in it’s most traditional sense) this entire quarter and it’s uninspiring to say the least. Assimil first has a dialogue (in real Japanese, including kanji!) and it’s corresponding english equivalent (in both literal and real-world translations). Then it has notes on individual topics found in the dialogue. The notes are concise and informative; the lesson, in all, only takes up several pages. I’m really liking this.After the lesson I inputted each sentence into an SRS for future reviews. After experimenting with several SRS’s I think I have finally seen for myself what all the fuss is about regarding Anki. By default it creates two cards, one titled production and the other recognition. It wasn’t immediately clear to me the advantages of this as AJATT and antimoon seem to both advocate passive recall. However, after reading an informative article on learning languages I realized the benefits of active recall. Also, it solves a question I had regarding reading/meaning recall. I am grading the production card (E -> J) based on the meaning and the recognition card (J -> E) based on reading. This way I am able to test both without reviews of one interfering with the intervals of the other. It also doesn’t hurt that one complements the other, there is overlap.Anyway, my course is starting to take shape and I’ll post again as I begin to progress further.

I’ve been spending a lot of time reading blog posts, forums, books, etc. on learning new languages. I realize that this time could more productively be utilized in actually studying the language, but that’s just me; I like to have a coherent method of proceeding before I embark on a task.I began learning Japanese over a year ago and got through Pimsleur and to about the 400 kanji mark in Remembering the Kanji before I got burned out. I didn’t have a set method and for me that is essential to keep me going.After reading some inspiring posts on the how-to-learn-any-language forum I think I have begun to realize some efficient ways to utilize my time learning languages. The main reason I got burned out was that I was trying to follow the method outlined on alljapaneseallthetime.com. The method is, I’m sure, excellent for extremely motivated people, and there are even motivational posts on the blog however, I just wasn’t able to devote myself entirely to learning just the kanji. I wanted some tangible results to show my progress. Well, after reading some posts I found a user who started studying with RTK and Assimil simultaneously. Encouragement was found when kanji studied in RTK were encountered in Assimil.I think I am going to restart RTK, since I have already gotten through roughly 400 kanji I shouldn’t have much trouble getting back up to speed. I have found in the past not to set a quixotic goal and instead choose a more pragmatic albeit slower pace. For this I think I will initially aim for 30 Kanji a day. If I find this is too much or too little I will adjust accordingly.In addition to RTK I will aim for one lesson of Assimil a day and continue reviewing the past 5 lessons in that same day. Only after 2 days have passed will I enter the sentences into my SRS.After RTK and Assimil I think I will continue with the listening-reading method but this is too far off to worry about now.I will be posting my progress every couple of days. Partly so that people can learn from my mistakes and partly as a commitment.

I recently came across MangaHowTo,a site that teaches you how to read manga and it has created a need for me to use Mnemosyne again. I recently did a complete erase and install on my computer, which will be the topic of another post, and I no longer have Mnemosyne installed. Instead of simply copying the install from my pre-erase and install cloned drive I am completely doing it from scratch and documenting my progress to make it easy for anyone else to install Mnemosyne on OSX. I noticed that some people were encountering errors when following the instructions of my last post regarding mnemosyne on OSX so I hope these will work out better.Lets go…

1. Install the developer tools

   These can be installed from your OSX Tiger install disc. In my case, I installed them from the discs that came with my MacBook Pro. They can be found in the folder titled “Xcode Tools”

2. Install Python

   We will be using the Final version of Python v 2.4.4 and not the new 2.5.x release. I tried using the 2.5.1 release and encountered many problems due to packages not being compatible with the new version. You can download v2.4.4 from the Python packages and extensions pre-built for the mac page. Download the .dmg. After you have downloaded it, run the installer.

3. Install QT

   Download the free edition of QT. We are able to use this version because Mnemosyne is under the GPL. Unfortunately, Mnemosyne currently does not support v4.x of QT so we have to use an old version of QT. In order to get an old version we have to connect to the trolltech ftp server. Download the file titled “qt-mac-free-3.3.8.tar.gz”

   1. Create the directory /Developer/qt
   2. Drag the contents of the folder you just downloaded to the newly created directory
   3. First, we have to edit the PATH to include the location of the qt files. To do this you will need to edit the file /etc/profile. Add the linesQTDIR=/Developer/qtPATH=$QTDIR/bin$PATHMANPATH=$QTDIR/man$MANPATHDYLD_LIBRARY_PATH=$QTDIR/lib$DYLD_LIBRARY_PATH export QTDIR PATH MANPATH DYLD_LIBRARY_PATHand save
   4. Next, run the following commands in the directory /Developer/Qt./configurethen type “yes” to agree to the GPL license. This takes about 2 minutesmakethis took about 30 minutes on my MacBook Pro so I recommend you find something to do while you let this compilesudo ln -sf $QTDIR/lib/libqt.3.dylib /usr/libsudo ln -sf $QTDIR/lib/libqui.1.dylib /usr/lib

4. Install SIP

   Download SIP from riverbank computing. Then, run the following from within the downloaded folder:python configure.pymakesudo make installenter your root password

5. Install PyQT

   Download PyQT from Riverbank computing. We need to use version 3 because we used version 3 of QT. To download version 3 I had to play around with the URL structure some because there wasn’t a direct link to download v3. You can get the QT3 here. Make sure you download the mac version and not the X11 version. Again, we can use the GPL version because Mnemosyne is under the GPL. After you have downloaded PyQT run the following from within the folder you downloaded:python configure.pyagree to the GPL license by typing “yes”maketook about 20 minutessudo make installtype your root password

6. Install PyXML

   Download PyXML from the Python packages and extensions pre-built for the mac page. Mount the .DMG and run the installer

7. Install Pygame and dependencies

   1. Download PyGame from the Python packages and extensions pre-built for the mac page. Mount the .DMG and run the installer.
   2. Download PyObjC from the Python packages and extensions pre-built for the mac page. Mount the .DMG and run the installer.

8. Install Mnemosyne

Download mnemosyne from The mnemosyne Project. You need the one that ends in .tgz. From within the downloaded mnemosyne folder run the following commands:sudo python setup.pytype your root password when prompted

9. Run Mnemosyne

If everything went as planned you should be able to run mnemosyne by typing the following in terminal and hitting entermnemosyne

Please post your results in the comments. Also, any questions, comments, and/or criticism is welcomed. I will try to answer questions as quickly as possible.In the future I plan to figure out how to make it a standalone application by means of py2app. If anyone knows how to do this, please either post or email me.