Here is a list of useful tools that
will make your Japanese learning much easier. Some of these tools
have been mentioned in other posts, so there will be links to those
posts in the entries here. If you have other tools that you'd like to
share, please feel free to comment at the bottom of the page!
Showing posts with label tools. Show all posts
Showing posts with label tools. Show all posts
Mar 5, 2012
Are Language Classes Useful?
Language classes. It seems like half of the people I talk to think they are a complete waste of time, while the other half think they are the only way to learn a language. In reality, they are neither a waste nor the only method, but just how useful are they?
Aug 25, 2011
The Ultimate Portable Dictionary: 漢字そのまま楽引辞典
Today I have the pleasure of introducing one of the most useful Japanese learning tools I've come across - Kanji Dictionary: Kanji Sonomama Rakubiki Jiten. This “game” for the Nintendo DS is a fully functioning electronic Japanese dictionary that comes with many extremely useful and time saving features. When it comes to learning Japanese, this program is a must have.
Jul 29, 2011
Anki Deck - Core 2000 Vocabulary
The Core 2000 Japanese Vocabulary deck
is an amazing resource for building up knowledge of the most common
Japanese words. With the release of Anki 2 this deck has become even
better, because now it comes with audio and images.
 |
| It's got audio too! |
The Core 2000 comes from the iKnow
or Smart.fm website's vocabulary learning program. In the time since
I used the site, it's become subscription-based. Their
prices look quite affordable, so consider joining if you're
interested.
The Core 2000 is actually broken up
into ten steps of 200 words, with the most common words appearing
earliest. You should only aim to do two or three steps of the Core
2000. By the time you get those under your belt, you'll be able to
take on Japanese media and learn that way. There's now even a reading pack to help you start reading Japanese.
How do I get the Core 2000 deck?
You can click here
to access all of the shared Anki decks on AnkiWeb, or you can go
directly to the Core2000 decks using the links below.
- Select the deck you want to download from the list.
- Click the download link at the bottom of the page and save the deck to your computer.
- Open the downloaded deck file to automatically add the cards into Anki.
- Do not change the order of card presentation for the deck. All images and audio files are automatically loaded and stored with your deck.
Which decks should I download?
Depending on what you want in your deck, you can download the deck with images/audio or just the vocabulary. Both deck types are included below.
Decks with Images and Audio:
Each of these decks has 200 words, but several cards for each word. There are listening cards, sentence cards, and vocabulary cards. Learning this way will only get you so far, so I don't recommend going beyond the second or third step.
Pure Vocabulary Decks:
This is the original deck that I recommended for Core 2000. With Anki 2 it's become possible to easily include audio and images, so it's worth trying out the newer decks if that's what you want.
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| An example of the pure vocab deck. |
Related Articles:
Downloading Decks with Anki
In order to make it easier to introduce new Anki decks without including an explicit guide to downloading for each one, I'm instead making a single guide for getting shared decks. Much of this content is from the post on Learning the Kana with Anki.
May 6, 2011
Anki Deck – JLPT Vocabulary
If you're looking for an extra source of vocabulary to add into your own deck, this JLPT deck is perfect for you. It's loaded with more than 8000 cards of pure vocab, which means you won't be running out of new words to learn any time soon. I wouldn't say that this deck is meant for intensive study, but should instead be used to add in a few extra words per day to supplement your other sources.
With the combined vocabulary deck you'll get words from all of the JLPT levels, which means a mix of very common and very rare words. Because of this, it may be better to pick and choose specific levels of cards by choosing tags to study or downloading a specific JLPT level deck.
To get the deck with all of the levels together, click the link below:
JLPT Vocabulary for All Levels
And here is a selection of vocabulary decks for specific levels of the JLPT:
(Note: N5 is the easiest level, N1 is the most difficult.)
Ultimate JLPT N5 Vocabulary Deck
Ultimate JLPT N4 Vocabulary Deck
JLPT N1 Vocab
I browsed through the N3 and N2 decks and couldn't find any that had all of the parts needed for an effective deck, so I've skipped those levels.
Give these decks a try if you're looking for some extra vocab to study, but don't forget to immerse in real Japanese! If you haven't started reading yet, check out this page to learn how to get started.
 |
| An example card from the JLPT Anki deck. |
How do I get the JLPT deck?
You can click here
to access all of the shared Anki decks on AnkiWeb, or you can go
directly to the JLPT decks using the links below.
- Select the deck you want to download from the list.
- Click the download link at the bottom of the page and save the deck to your computer.
- Open the downloaded deck file to automatically add the cards into Anki.
- Do not change the order of card presentation for the deck. All images and audio files are automatically loaded and stored with your deck.
To get the deck with all of the levels together, click the link below:
JLPT Vocabulary for All Levels
And here is a selection of vocabulary decks for specific levels of the JLPT:
(Note: N5 is the easiest level, N1 is the most difficult.)
Ultimate JLPT N5 Vocabulary Deck
Ultimate JLPT N4 Vocabulary Deck
JLPT N1 Vocab
I browsed through the N3 and N2 decks and couldn't find any that had all of the parts needed for an effective deck, so I've skipped those levels.
Give these decks a try if you're looking for some extra vocab to study, but don't forget to immerse in real Japanese! If you haven't started reading yet, check out this page to learn how to get started.
Related Articles:
Apr 27, 2011
Tool Pack – Part 2
This post was due ages ago, but it's finally time to introduce some more tools for keeping your Japanese studies going smoothly.
kanji.koohii.com (Reviewing the Kanji) – This website is king when it comes to learning the kanji with Heisig. As such, I have already mentioned it in the post about learning the kanji, but it's such an amazing tool it deserves mentioning again. This site consists of a study section, where you can write your own mnemonic stories for each kanji or pick from the ranked stories that other users have posted. Using the stories other people have made can make the Heisig learning experience so much faster. The site also tracks your reviews and new cards, just like an SRS, so you'll always know what to review!
Tatoeba – This website is another sentence collecting resource. When adding new words to your SRS, it's best to have them in a sentence so that you can see how the word is used and not just be cramming definitions. Tatoeba will help you out with finding good sentences because, well, it's a massive collection of sentences! If you're looking for another source of sentences, give this site a try.
Lang-8 – I've also mentioned Lang-8 before, but to keep resources close together it's getting posted again. Lang.8 is a website for language exchange, but in a more open form. You write journal entries in the language you are learning, then native speakers of that language see it and correct your errors. You can then return the favor and correct journal entries written in your own native language. It's a great opportunity to get some practice writing Japanese without having to hunt down a good language partner. Some members are also open to using video chat for speaking practice, so you can make some friends and get in a lot of practice.
Sound Effect Translation – While I am a major believer in learning a language through monolingual methods, when it comes to sound effects that can be a bit tough. While words are abstract, sound effects often take it to another level entirely. Thus, this website can make it a bit easier to figure out just what all of those sound effects mean.
And thus the second tool pack post is completed! I'll most likely be making another at some point, as there are always new fancy tools to be found!
Mar 8, 2011
A Look at Rosetta Stone
When I first began to attempt learning Japanese, I decided to go with Rosetta Stone. I'd watched the ads on TV and seen countless ads in magazines, so I figured it had to be a good way to learn another language. I played around with the program for a month or two before realizing that I wasn't really learning anything, which is what led me to finding the methods that did work. So what exactly is wrong with Rosetta Stone? I'll tell you.
First of all, Rosetta Stone has it right about needing to immerse in the target language in order to really understand, but what Rosetta Stone fails at is giving you authentic Japanese to sink into. When I first began using the program, I had no knowledge of hiragana, katakana, or kanji, so I was cruising along in the land of romaji (Japanese written in roman characters). Yes, romaji. For anyone who knows anything about Japanese, you're already aware that romaji is useless. That was the first big problem with Rosetta Stone – it didn't tell me that I was learning something completely useless.
About the time I realized I was learning something that wouldn't actually help me with the language, I switched to using kana only. I once again started learning, but it was taking ages to get anywhere because I had not actually learned the hiragana in any solid way. In fact, I couldn't write them at all – I was doing my best to just recognize and read them. During that period where I was struggling to read kana, I found out that real Japanese is all about the kanji. I tried using the kanji, but I just couldn't make sense of them. They were these big, complicated assortments of lines that made absolutely no sense – and Rosetta Stone certainly wasn't going to explain them to me. Shortly after attempting kanji, I quit Rosetta Stone and never looked back.
The experience I just explained relates the largest fault of the Rosetta Stone learning method – it doesn't handle characters well. The method would probably work really well if used for learning French, Spanish, or some other language that uses the roman alphabet, but for learning something completely different it's lacking too much. At best, Rosetta Stone could be used as a vocabulary supplement to other methods of learning, but who wants to spend hundreds of dollars when you could get the same (or better) vocabulary building tools for free with Anki?
To sum things up, Rosetta Stone is a tool that could work for building your knowledge of Japanese – but only if you already know a lot. In order to really learn from Rosetta Stone, you need to have a firm grasp of the kana and be capable of learning new kanji relatively fast (or have already learned them through Heisig's Remembering the Kanji or Kanjidamage). The problem is that if you have already done these things, then you have really already overcome the greatest barriers in Japanese and no longer need Rosetta Stone. Which means the only thing Rosetta Stone has to offer is its voice recognition/pronunciation practice – which is trivial at best.
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Dec 16, 2010
A Chance for Output
For today's post I'd like to introduce another tool for improving your Japanese. This tool is a bit different from the others, for it focuses on output instead of input - which brings up another interesting point. The majority of your learning is going to be input-based, meaning that you'll be taking in and understanding Japanese to build your knowledge. Output means making your own Japanese, which is a good bit more difficult than simply understanding. Because it is more difficult, it will require some practice to become better at. So let's start talking about the actual tool for practicing and improving output.Not everyone seeking to learn Japanese is able to be around actual Japanese speakers, which means that finding the opportunity to practice writing and speaking Japanese can be quite tough. This is where Lang-8 comes in. Lang-8 is an online community made for language exchange. You write journal entries in the language you are learning (in this case Japanese) and native speakers correct it for you. In turn you can correct the entries written in your native language. Every single one of my entries has been corrected by at least two or three native Japanese speakers, which means I always get to see what errors I have made and what I should do to fix them.
Many of the people that correct your journal entries will also send a friend request, which is a great way to meet people and get more dependable corrections from the same person. Also, by becoming friends with native Japanese users you can set up video chats and such to work on your speaking abilities. Lang-8 is by no means the only site of its kind, but I have had nothing but great experiences with it. So, if you're ready to start working on output give Lang-8 a shot.
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Nov 30, 2010
Tool Pack - Part 1
Anki – This is the greatest tool in the arsenal. It's essentially a flash-card or quizzing program that utilizes a special spacing system for the “cards” or “questions.” This system which uses spaced repetitions is often called an SRS (spaced repetition system) and it makes retaining knowledge much easier. You are presented with a question or sentence, which you then attempt to answer before “flipping” the card. You then score yourself on your response – if you did poorly on the question then you will see it again soon, if you could answer the question easily then you will see the question again after a longer period of time. This system will make the things you know appear less and less often, while making the things you do not know appear more and more often (until you know them, and then they appear less). Watch the tutorial videos on the Anki website to better understand how to use the program. I will also make a more detailed post later on.
EDIT: Since writing this post, Smart.fm has become a subscription service at the URL iknow.jp
Dictionaries – I actually have quite a few dictionaries that I use, so I'll be posting multiple. When it comes time to begin building vocabulary and finding example sentences, you'll probably want to use multiple as well. However, for the beginning steps a single dictionary should do the trick. Initially you're going to want to use the Japanese to English dictionaries, but as your vocabulary builds you should eventually switch to using Japanese monolingual dictionaries (most of the sites have both).
Yahoo! Japan's Dictionary (Japanese monolingual is the top section, the Japanese to English dictionary entry is usually the third down)
goo Dictionary (Japanese monolingual is the top section, the Japanese to English dictionary entry is usually the third down)
ALC (This one is really more for example sentences)
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