Dictionarium II

[PhantomCatClock]

Today marks the grand opening of the GoldenCloсk Memorial Forum Dictionarium, because while I and my non-clock internet pals have a penchant for learning the extreme basics of random ass languages then never following up on them, this summer we have decided that our one language in common is Japanese so fuck it maybe we can goad each other this time and get a little farther than usual.

Plans:
Genki I, II, and their respective worksheets are on Library Genesis for free. Learn the basic kanas and then get started on those.
Pokemon is made for stupid twelve year old bitches, so pirate a Japanese copy of those and get to play it in baby Japanese, making notes of new phrases and words we see and physically writing them down on paper
Check in with each other and see how it go

Mentioning this here in case any forumsters want in. It honestly sounds like the only real bar for entry is going to be making my stupid lazy ass learn hiragana and katakana, because I'll kick ass at learning the 2000 common words or whatever, and like.. a good 1/10th (that I recognize, at least) of these "256 kanji you should learn first" are just the Chinese words that mean the same thing, so I already know what those mean, if not how to say them auf Japanese




questions, comments, snide remarks

[VCRClock]

genki's an ok text, but also I finished classes that used genki 1 & 2 and honestly not sure that put me anywhere in terms of proficiency... I think "integrated approach to intermediate japanese" is next steps for those. I forget how much genki gets into kanji but I feel like it's not much? I don't remember drilling a lot while using those books

I was never the best at kanji, and at one point, wanting to brush up, I picked up "basic kanji book" (Chieko Kano) and while I never got around to using it, I think it's a solid rec

re: video games, I think a real good idea is doing enough kanji to know typical stroke order (not a problem for you I guess). this is because if you can guess the appropriate stroke order for a kanji, you can look it up in an electronic kanji dictionary or wwwjdic by drawing it instead of having to assemble it from radicals. so when you're playing a game and somebody starts talking kanji you can just look it up on the fly. and of course as you play you'll get to the point where you recognize that kanji from before blah blah blah. I'd been studying japanese for a few years at the time, but the game I did this with was SNES Tokimeki Memorial, hope you like stat trainer/dating sim games. plenty of dialogue, possibly not as repetitive or as silent between talky bits as pokemon. there's a gamefaqs in english

[PhantomCatClock]

oh hey that's good stuff, thanks

Yeah, I have dipped my toe in Japanese before, but I never bothered with the kanas and that's like.. the gatekeeper, for me. I know I'll rubberband forward super hard once I get those down, but I don't think I'll be riding the coattails of previous experience so far it'll put me ahead of where I am—someone was telling me you can set the pokemon games to kanas only, but now that I repeat that info, it sounds suspiciously like a LIE. Or maybe it means like the old game boy ones only, that makes sense.

I settled for mozc for typing because my lame ass GNOME is hogging up all the good keyboard shortcuts so I'm basically stuck with Japan's equivalent of Pinyin typing. Not that I really mind, it's a lot easier—but I am MOST DISPLEASED that my phone gets the cool kaomoji and my BIG STRONG COMPUTER does not. what the fuck, google, you really did become evil

but yeah, you kind of go the opposite direction when learning Chinese. I do know stroke order (assuming it'll be the same) so that's nice, and haaaaaail yeah load me up with controller games. I finally, finally got stupid Ubuntu to work with a wireless xbox controller, so I am playing like a zillion more video gæms than usual lately

[VCRClock]

yeah I use mozc but typing's always pretty easy, you just type what it sounds like and bash spacebar for the correct squiggle

hiragana/katakana's EZ once you get a grip on it. IDK if Pokemon games are (or can be) kana only but it's possible. In any case they wouldn't be doing anything real hard to read. Kana only can be a little confusing; kanji distinguish between homophones with different meanings, and with kanji mixed in it's easier to tell where words begin and end. I've played some games (maybe Pokemon does this too) where things were spelled out in kana, but with spaces between words to facilitate easier reading for the unsophisticated. Not sure if that was a concession to the illiterate or if it was a technical limitation on some really old game. Feels like WEIRD COMPUTER ACCENT if you're used to reading regular text tho.

[Slurpee]

https://youtube.com/watch?v=SkXUOefxZu0&t=3m34s

[PhantomCatClock]

私ＷＡＧＨ

[PhantomCatClock]

so if anyone hwishes to follow in my footsteps later, I'm not actually doing this in no two hours, but

[u2]_wZHqOghvSs[/u2]

(direct)

probably worth it even if you already just straight up memorized the kanas, since she talks about more than just mnemonics. Helpful theory and whatnot that was obviously stuff they learned in first grade or whatever, like what a dakuten is and how they actually work (which saves the effort of having to memorize 50 more symbols). Alternate theory: follow VCR's footsteps and actually go to college

I have this saved, along with a screenshot of a comment with the timestamps for different lessons, and just do one, flashcard program/app the 5-15 sounds I learned, flashcard program/app every sound I know plus the new ones, come back a few hours later, make sure I can still beat my flashcard quiz, then watch the next lesson and repeat. Someone younger/smarter than me probably could do this in two hours, though, this video is p gud

[FLOUNDERMAN_CLOCK]

I'd learn kanji beyond 日 and 私 but that's already enough kanji for a lifetime.

[PhantomCatClock]

i am a day

OKAY as of yesterday, done with hiragana, and apparently I retained it enough to remember it all after a sleep. Starting katakana tomorrow but will keep drilling today AND I had something to say but I forgot

hmmmmm

whatever. But yeah, the font variation in that video is super helpful. The flashcard program on my computer, KANA TEST™ is nice because it uses a more cursivey font, and the one on my phone, KANA TOWN™®™ uses a more printy computery font. Those plus the 7x10 pixel font in pokemon are way more enlightening than I thought they'd be (especially with り looking like リ in some fonts, and don't even get me started on fucking む)

also I know HURR DURR WELCOME TO NEW HOBBY, NEWBIE, PLEASE COME AND SPEND MONEY but I recognize that I'm not even close to ready for these yet, they do look cool and useful. One for download isn't actually in the physical pack, and the Amazon preview makes it look mighty fine

[PhantomCatClock]

what the fuck is this he shit i signed up to memorize 96 symbols, not 95

[GreyClock]

I kinda wanna learn (at least some) Japanese as I'm planning to go there at some point, however I feel this is gonna eat up so much of the time that could be spent staring at a wall. Advice?

ai

[PhantomCatClock]

I honestly haven't even learned any of the language yet, this time. Learning the writing systems SUPER SLOWLY to have a good foundation / access to native learning sources y'know BUT previous attempts (1) didn't make it very far but (2) were in those little pamphlets and short books that were like, EASY JAPANESE in THIRTY DAYS or whatever, and it's not like they were bad, I just didn't follow through. Don't tell anybody, but I feel like you could cram one of those the month before you go and then use your smart phone to translate signs and stuff and probably not end up dead in a ditch, watch two or three Youtube clickbaits WHAT NOT TO DO IN JAPAN if you really don't want to piss anyone off by eating while walking or sneezing in public, but I think whatever youse guyse do in public that offends the Japanese sensibilities would probably be covered in your version of BERLITZ EASY JAPANESE FOR DINGBATS

[PhantomCatClock]

Texas Jim's How To Reckon Like the Japense Folk Reckon is what we get

[PhantomCatClock]

If your name is Sean, sure, you can go by シャン and delight in having one half of both of the confusing katakana pairs, but why not go by Shizon and complete the collection? シッゾン it's beautiful

[VCRClock]

If your name is Sean, sure, you can go by シャン and delight in having one half of both of the confusing katakana pairs, but why not go by Shizon and complete the collection? シッゾン it's beautiful

I'm assuming your last name isn't ジョンソン

[PhantomCatClock]

ジョ温泉

[Clocktopus]

Kana isn't very hard at all to memorize IMO. While I'm still very slow at reading Katakana I can read stuff that doesn't have Kanji sprinkled in that isn't like 私 or 僕 or 猫pretty fast.

Really my main focus right now is just remembering words and forming sentences.

I've heard for specifically Kanji "Remembering the Kanji" is a good series. Although it doesn't have the Kana, it's literally just the characters, which might be a deal breaker. The author breaks the radicals up and tells stories with them to try to help you remember.

I've been doing Duolingo for a while now and every time a new word shows up I write the word and definition on flash cards and keep them in categories. There are also neato extensions for Chrome called "Learn Language with Netflix" and "Learn Language with YouTube" that displays Japanese subtitles and English subtitles on videos and you can click the individual words to get definitions. I like to use these and write down sentences from them and break them down and try to understand every word and how the sentence itself is put together, I find those extensions extremely helpful in particular.

I'd say so far mnemonic methods, Flash Cards and those extensions have been the most helpful methods by far. You should see some of my mnemonics lol, many I came up with myself and they can get pretty wild, like fucking picture ホ (ho) as a ho grabbin two dicks.

btw Octopus Clock is tako tokei which sounds freaking sweet.

[PhantomCatClock]

every time a new word shows up I write the word and definition

This habit is the difference between you and a chump. That's powerful stuff

btw Octopus Clock is tako tokei which sounds freaking sweet.

tokeiyaki

[Clocktopus]

btw Octopus Clock is tako tokei which sounds freaking sweet.

tokeiyaki

oh god that's good