Learning Japanese From Zero

[golyplot]

http://watanoc.com/
https://www.reddit.com/r/LearnJapanese/ ... _beginner/

Thanks! I'll look into those tomorrow.

In other news, I set my Netflix profile language back to Japanese Sunday night so that I could access the Japanese dub of Carmen Sandiego (Netflix's language switcher only displays five or so choices, regardless of how many languages the show is actually available in, but setting your profile to a language will force that language to always appear in the menu when available). While idly browsing the homepage tonight, I was amused to discover that profile language apparently changes the categories as well. I saw "domestic" and "overseas" categories which had Japanese and non-Japanese shows respectively. The later even had an American show in it, so they weren't just translating the category names from the American homepage categories. But what made me really proud was that I managed to recognize 国内 and guess the meaning and reading despite never having seen that word before.


Also, just for fun, I decided to go back and rewatch the Japanese video of "When Will My Life Begin?" that I linked here back in January. I still can't understand any of it per se, but this time I was able to recognize many of the words in the song at least. It helps of course that they match up with what is shown in the video, and I am also already familiar with the English lyrics to the song, but it was still pretty encouraging. Stuff like that makes me think that maybe I am on track to eventually be able to understand things after all. It's crazy to think that back when I first posted it, I was looking forward to reaching level 5 in WK just so I could learn what the 自 in the subtitles meant.

[golyplot]

I haven't done much in the last couple days since I decided to take a break and focus on other things until Friday. But one notable occurrence is that after constantly struggling with the word 計画 on WK, I suddenly realized this morning that the reading is けいかく and it must be the "keikaku" from the old meme "Just according to keikaku. Translator's note: keikaku means plan." Hopefully this means I will never forget it again!

[golyplot]

Yesterday, I came across this post, which explains Japanese conjugation as a simple process of adding suffixes + applying a contraction rule, rather than memorizing tables of conjugations for each of the ichidan and godan endings as it is commonly taught. It seems almost criminal to me that this explanation isn't present in every Japanese intro course. Sure you kind of have to memorize the endings anyway, but understanding the patterns behind them makes it seem a lot less arbitrary.

I also set up anki and ankiweb yesterday. I found the UI clumsy and unintuitive, but I eventually got it working. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to get it to play sound, despite the fact that the deck I downloaded (Core 2k) is supposed to come with audio. Oh well, hopefully it will still at least help with reading a bit. For the the moment, I'm still mostly going through words I've already learned from WK though.

[golyplot]

Is there a Field that says [sound:...] on every card? If so, just need to add that Field name to the front of your card ex: {{Field Name}}

Thanks. After doing that, a green "Play" button appeared on the card which plays the audio when clicked. Is there any way to get it to play automatically? It's especially annoying because clicking the button causes all the regular keyboard shortcuts to break due to the focus shifting to the card.

[golyplot]

Today, I watched 10 more minutes of Carmen Sandiego without subtitles, just for fun. I could barely understand any of it, just the occasional word or phrase, but I could at least follow it well enough to not get bored (mainly because I've watched it twice already and hence am already familiar with the story), so at least that's something. I guess after three and a half months of hard work, my listening skills have now reached the point I was at a week into my Dutch or Italian studies. Progress!

Incidentally, I was surprised that the Japanese dub leaves Carmen's code name Black Sheep in English, instead of translating it like the French and Italian dubs did. The Japanese sure do like their English.

I also finally got around to trying out watanoc like ロータス suggested and read an N5 article. It was a lot nicer than trying to read on NHK News Easy, since there's an English translation available to check your understanding. Also, you can just mouseover the words to get a definition instead of having to paste everything into jisho, though not all words have popup definitions for some reason. My one complaint is that the lack of kanji makes it hard to read. I wish they'd just use kanji + furigana instead of writing half the words in kana. Also, reading an article about Baskin Robbins makes me sad that I can no longer go out for ice cream due to the コロナウイルス.


Also, it appears that ankiweb doesn't support (autoplaying) audio at all. So much for that. Silent flashcards it is. Incidentally, I currently have 1902/2007 cards left to learn in the Core 2k deck. Most of those were words I already knew, but there were a couple new words in there.

[golyplot]

Unfortunately, I only have enough room for either my personal or work computer on my desk at one time, which means I have to put away my personal computer during the week and vice versa, so I basically have to do everything via ankiweb.


Also, while watching Beaststars last night, I was really excited when I managed to recognize the words 毎日が楽しい during the end credit song. I definitely am making progress, even if it's much much slower than I'd have liked.

[crush]

You can install Anki on both, it'll sync your progress between the two for you. I have Anki on my desktop (Linux), laptop (Windows), and phone (Android). It syncs just fine between all three. Since you already have Ankiweb set up, you'll just need to log into your account on each device.

[golyplot]

I already have Anki set up on my personal desktop. I just can't use it except on weekends. That's how I set it up in the first place, since Ankiweb require you to use desktop Anki to add decks and configure settings. Unless you mean I should install Anki on my work computer.

[golyplot]

Huh, I didn't even think about trying to do it on my phone. But I think I'll stick with the web version for now. Thanks for the suggestion though!

[golyplot]

Anki has been going very slowly. Partly that's because my priories go Wanikani > Bunpro > Anki, so I haven't devoted as much time to it, and partly it's because I decided to test myself on the readings and do my best to read out every example sentence (so I guess not having audio turned out to not matter!). It's mostly been words I already learned from WK, but there are a few new ones mixed in. There have also been some embarrassments, like how I keep confusing 右 for 石. Also, 止める has a different reading in Anki than the one taught by WK (ya vs to). Apparently, they're different words with slightly different meanings that can be written with the same kanji for some reason.