Interview #3, Ryan

This time the interviewee is Ryan, who is learning Japanese. You can find the previous interviews here: Language interviews.
If anyone who isn't learning Japanese would also like to fill out the form, I'd really appreciate it. I've got quite a few people who are learning Japanese who filled it out, but not other languages yet. Please take the short time needed to fill out the form and maybe you'll be able to find other students more easily.

Name: Ryan

Country: Scotland

Age: 15

Original language: English

New language: Japanese

Proficiency in new language: 1/5, Just started

How long have you been learning the language: 2 years

Other languages you speak: none

Why are you learning the language: Well at first I wanted to see if I liked it, as my sister was already studying it, so I already had some studying materials. At first I continued learning it (Besides from liking it) because I wanted to watch anime without needing to look at the subs constantly, but as time went on and I started to learn more about the culture (i.e. from NHK world), I wanted to move or at least spend a long while in Japan. Also my future job ambition is to work at Nintendo, as either a game designer or (now also,) as a game translator.

What do you find the most fun part about learning the language: I personally like the kanji, I think it's because I like complex things, but I also like the sound of the language.

What do you hate about learning the language:  I hate the more advanced particles and the readings for the kanji

What is your tip to other people learning this language: The only thing I can think of is: when it comes to learning the reading of a kanji, try and find vocab which has the kanji in it, I suppose this is learning through context.

Do you have a tip for everyone learning a new language: Tip one would be always persevere and don't stop. Another is try and find a time during the day when you find it easier to concentrate, for me it's at night, cause it's quiet and no one will interrupt me.

Places where you can also find Ryan:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ryan.blackmore.3382
Twitter : @Storykage

Thanks for filling out this interview Ryan! I found your answers very interesting, and I'm glad to see you've got a great ambition for learning Japanese.

Study on!

Kia

Flashcards, how to make them

THIS IS A COPY OF A POST I DID IN DEC 2012 AND YOU CAN FIND THE ORIGINAL HERE: Flashcarding, not as dirty as it sounds, rather useful even


So, apart from having totally too many things to do anyway, I recently decided that I should do some more... Yes, insane idea, I am aware of it, but it has been a long time coming:

I'm learning Japanese, and I'm mainly focusing on the reading/writing aspect of it. Which is totally cool and okay, if it weren't so damn difficult. To be able to read Japanese you don't just need to learn words, you need to learn whole new scripts. Which is both the fun and the hard part of it.

Japanese will be my 5th language. My first language is Dutch and I learned English, German and French in high school. My German and French is rusty though I can understand some bits of it still. My English... well, you can see how crap that has gotten over the years... kidding ;)

I've had a long interest in Japanese, back from the days that I got to know subbed anime and picked up words from there and later when I got into manga and was sad that I couldn't pick up on some of the more interesting word jokes in it. But for the past year or so Japanese has been a language I've been surrounded with each day (mostly by music) and I found it time to finally take the plunge and learn it.

What I will be sharing today is the technique I used back in high school to learn foreign words, but it also works really well to learn other things. I learned part of the periodic table and salts for Chemistry on it, for one. It works really well when you need to "translate" one thing into the next, even if that is a chemical element to it's symbols and electrons.

Flashcarding

you need:


- thick paper to make cards
- pen
- paper to practice on


1) Make the thick paper into decent sized cards, I cut my index cards into two to get them to the right size. The right size is somewhere between where you can easily hold and shuffle them and where you can fit what you need on the card.


2) Practice what you need until you're sure you can write it without errors. Here you can see me trying the first 5 kana of hiragana to make sure I get them right on the cards. Plus, always repeat to yourself what the word/thing you're trying to learn means. So while writing the A kana I kept softly repeating to myself that is was the A. This really helps with trying to remember the words.
On one side you write the thing you want to learn (the kana in this case):

On the other side you write the translation if it. Here you can see I wrote the romaji letters on the other side. For learning full words I would write both the romaji and the translation, just to be sure I don't mess up.

And honestly, that is all you need to get started with flashcarding. I've used it a lot in the past and today I upped my sight reading ability of hiragana to 25. I learned 10 (well 5 with their respective dakuten) this morning in an hour.

This is all you need to get started with your flashcarding. I will do another post soon that will show some of the ways that I actually learn with flashcards, because some ways are more effective for some cases than others.

Learn on!
Kia

Learning kana, post 1 (hiragana a-zo)

Disclaimer:
I'm not a professionally trained teacher, but I base this blog on my own learning experiences.

You can not learn a language without proper practice and time, don't expect to be able to master Japanese at the same rate as I'm explaining in this blog with only 2 hours a week of practice. I do between 1 to 2 hours of practice a day. I would advice to do at least 6 to 10 hours of practice a week. 

As I said before, the first few weeks will be about learning Hiragana and Katakana, they each have 71 kana to cover. The hiragana will be covered in 3 sets and the katakana in 2 sets.

Some quick terminology:
Deck = full set of cards that belong together (hiragana, katakana, kanji, vocab, etc.)
Set = a part of a deck so that studying and repeating is manageble, each deck is build up from multiple sets.
H->R = Hiragana to Romaji translations, you only need the cards for this.
R->H = Romaji to Hiragana translations, you need to write out the hiragana before you check if you got it right.

 The first set of cards to practice is 25 cards, they are hiragana A to Zo, it sounds like quite a few but don't worry, they are actually only 15 different kana.


If you want to see the whole list of hiragana kana check the hiragana and katakana cheat sheet in the glossary page: Hiragana and katakana cheat table

I know I should go into pronunciation of some of these kana but I'm going to leave that for now since my own pronunciation isn't perfect and people read the same letters in different ways depending on their accent. So I'm leaving you with this video that has all the sounds:

Onto the real stuff of this post.

Here is a picture of all my cards of this set:

All these cards have the hiragana on one side and the romaji and the set number on the other side:

 

This way it is easy to keep track of all your cards and having the set number on the side means you can split them up if you would need to.

ALL THE GIF I USE TO SHOW THESE KANA ARE FROM http://www.umich.edu/~umichjlp/Hiraganapro/index.html

The first row of the set is the set without consonant, these kana are the most like simple vowels in most other languages.
The order of these are A, I, U, E, O

A

This one took me a lot of tries to get right and I think it's still not pretty on this card though I can do it easier these days. It probably took me over an hour to get the curl on this kana right. Remember that the loop crosses itself once and also the stick twice.
The curl you use on this kana is used in a form very close to this in a few more kana, so being able to do it will will pay off later.

I

Not that hard, but don't forget the little tail on the first stroke.

 U

Remember that the little thing a the top slopes and isn't flat.
The gif makes it slightly too round, usually the U is more of a half heart type of shape.

E

This shouldn't be too hard as it's a 2 or a Z but with a flat top and an obvious twirl as the tail. Don't forget the line on top though.

O

If you get the A correct this shouldn't be too hard. remember to make the circle on the bottom to be round enough.





That is the first row of hiragana. You can practice these on your own though remember to write them enough as writing makes you remember more easily.


Second row K/G
This the first row you'll get that has both a regular version and a dakuten version. The little " on it are sometimes called ten-ten and are what makes a dakuten sound. This makes the regular sound softer, so a K becomes a G. Do make cards for both of these as not all rows have them and also because it fills out your deck better. They are not the same letters, both of these are pronounced differently and should be seen that way.

KA

Don't forget the little tail on the big first part of this kana.









GA

KI

This one is different between the handwritten version and the digital version. On the digital version (き) the bottom of this kana is filled, here it is open. There are a few more kana where this is the case. It is what we see as the difference between a digital a and one we handwrite.



GI

KU

Don't think I need much time on this one. This one isn't too hard.

GU

KE

Tail on the first stroke.

GE

KO

My way to remember this one is that it looks like an anime eye. Don't forget the tail on the first stroke (which the gif doesn't show).

GO








Second row done. Not too complicated, right? Important part is practice practice practice and to keep writing the hiragana so that you can do them without thinking about stroke order too much (do you still have to consciously remember how to write letters in the script you write in? no? well, that is the level where you'd preferably be at soon for hiragana and katakana too). Practice, practice, practice.


Third row S/Z
This one has a few pronunciation kinks in it.

SA

As KI but with only one line on the top.

ZA

SHI

This is one of those with a slightly different pronunciation. Even though the sound is SI it is often pronounced as SHI and that is as it is romanized. The dakuten of it is pronounced JI (dji).
Don't make too much of a hook, the end should put outward not upward.

JI

SU

Don't make the loop too small.




 

ZU

SE

Tail on the second stroke and the third stroke goes all across and under the second stroke.

ZE

 SO

This kana is a bit annoying as not everyone writes it the same. Some connect the first and second stroke and some make it into one continuous stroke. I don't exactly know what else to say about it. I like the version I was taught better. Maybe someone with more knowledge can tell me why they are so different.



ZO






And that is the third row.

So, how would I advise to study this?
First, take a paper on which you can practice and write the A kana until you get it right, and then a few more for good practice.
Second, take a card, write the A kana on one side and the letter A on the other side.
Third, repeat for all the kana in the first row.
Fourth, repeat step 1-3 for the second row.
Fifth, practice with the first 2 rows (vowels, K row and G row).
Sixth, repeat step 1-3 for the third row.
Seventh, add the third row to the other two rows.

Yep, lots of repeating and more repeating.

The best way to learn kana is to keep writing them. So as soon as you've got enough cards to practice you start practising, both ways.
First do a few tries kana-romaji so that you have a good idea about all the kana, don't worry if it isn't perfect yet. Then you do the other way around, only this time is slightly different. You look at the romaji, write the kana and then check if that is the right kana. This is an important step as it's important to know how to write kana.
Switch between kana-romaji and romaji-kana after every few rounds.
The best way to make sure you know them all is to keep shuffling between tries, so that all the cards get mixed up. Also, if you get a card wrong, add them to the end of the deck (or somewhere in the middle) so that you will see them again. Don't do another round unless you've got all the cards right or only 1 wrong. Kana you have problems with will stick better if you see them more often, this way you see them often enough.

You can find more posts on learning with flashcards on the Learning a Language page

And that was the first kana learning post. Remember to write them often and have fun practising!

Study on!

Kia


Here is the same picture as at the start but with all the romaji written next to the card.

Things on your desk (trilingual post #3)

By request of someone, I'll see if I can incorporate some sentences into these posts. So today I'll do a bit of grammar with a short list of words.

Same disclaimer as always:
I'm not a teacher, I compile each of these posts by going by my own knowledge and they only reflect my own opinion. You should at all times think for yourself and not take any of what is said as the pure truth, I am after all human so I make mistakes too.

THINGS ON YOUR DESK

Vocabulary list:

Japanese	English	Dutch
本（ほん）	book	boek
ペン	pen	pen
えんぴつ	pencil	potlood
ノート	notebook	schrijfblok
かぎ	key	sleutel

Here are the words we'll be using this time, not a lot but I'll be doing a bit of grammar with them, so we don't need many.

Sentence order.

J: これは本です。
E: This is a book.
D: Dit is een boek.

J: それはペンですか。
E: Is that a pen?
D: Is dat een pen?

As you can see in this short example, Japanese word order doesn't change. The common order in Japanese sentences is Subject, Object, Verb and it happens that subjects are left out altogether, but that is for another time. Dutch and English both commonly use the Subject, Verb, Object construction unless used in special circumstances, like making a question out of a sentence.

A few things to remember in Japanese, the は is actually read as わ and points to the object of the sentence (the word after it) and they use か to create a question out of a sentence, they don't use actual question marks.

Let's do a few more sentences, this time about an item and its position from either the speaker or the listener.

The Japanese 何（なに） is loosely translated as what. So if I would translate the first sentence into English word by word it would read "That(それ） what（は何） is（です）?（か）"

If something is closer to the listener but further away from the speaker:
J: それは何ですか。
E: What is that?
D: Wat is dat?

J: これはえんぴつです。
E: This is a pencil.
D: Dit is een potlood.

If something is close to the speaker but further away from the listener:
J: これは何ですか。
E: What is this?
D: Wat is dit?

J: それはノートです。
E: This is a notebook.
D: Dit is een schrijfblok.

If something is far away from both the speaker and the listener (this isn't that special in English or Dutch but has a special word in Japanese, so I'm adding it to this list).
J: あれは何ですか。
E: What is that?
D: Wat is dat?

J: あれはかぎです。
E: That is a key.
D: Dat is een sleutel.

You can now point out things in Japanese, English and Dutch and ask what they are. Quite a useful skill to have. It can help you learn a lot of new words if you're somewhere.

So, sentence order in Dutch and English looks a lot alike, and it is, most of the time. Japanese on the other hand uses one structure of sentence, subject-object-verb. and changes meaning of those sentences with little words (called particles), this is both easy to understand and sometimes confusing to use.
English and Dutch only have two words to show position this/dit and that/dat, the one is for things that are close, the other for things that are far away. Japanese has three of these, それ - that (away from the speaker but close to the listener), これ - this (close to the speaker, away from the listener) and あれ - that [over there] (far away from both the speaker and listener).

And that was the first trilingual grammar lesson.

Study on!

Kia




For those who have trouble reading Japanese, check out my Hiragana and katakana cheat table.

Those studying Dutch, words that are underlined are onzijdig and thus don't use de but het when you write them.

Interview #2, Eustacia Tan

Here is another interview, you can find the first one here, it was with Ashley Wade. To fill out a form yourself and be added to this lovely list, look here on the interview page.

INTERVIEW #2

Name: Tan Pei Ling Eustacia
Country: Singapore
Age: 19

Original language: English and Chinese
New language: Japanese
Proficiency in new language: Around JLPT N2 - able to get by in a Japanese university

How long have you been learning the language: Once a week for two year, and intensely for 9 months.
Other languages you speak: English, Chinese (Madarin, Hokkien)
Why are you learning the language: To study in a Japanese University.

What do you find the most fun part about learning the language: Being able to read the novels in their original language. Studying a translated work means always wondering if you're misinterpreting something, especially when you're talking about the language.
What do you hate about learning the language: Grammar.

What is your tip to other people learning this language: Focus on learning sentence patterns, and practice them immediately so that they become part of daily use.

Do you have a tip for everyone learning a new language: Try to immerse yourself in the language, and don't be afraid to try a conversation, no matter how poor you are in the language.

Places where you can find Eustacia:
Twitter: @PeiLing93
G+: Eustacia Tan
Blog: www.nihonjinjanai.blogspot.com

I know Eustacia from google+, we were both doing NaNoWriMo(writing competition) last year and I was really impressed that she was actually studying in Japan.
Definitely check out her blog, she has great post and even better pictures. I love how a lot of her posts are about cultural things that you might otherwise never think of (that, and food).

If you want to be on one of these, fill out the information on the interview tab at the top of the page.

Study on!

Kia