There are a lot of books to learn Japanese from, but not all of them are good. I even portrayed one in “Why Your Language Book is Holding Your Japanese Back” where I show what the book has, and why it is a problem for learning Japanese.

Something I came to terms with a long time ago is I learn differently than most other people so I have gone through a lot of books as I try and the books I can learn from the best, and reference. Below is a list of books I suggest and use to learn.

Text Books

• Elementary Japanese Vol 1
• Elementary Japanese Vol 2
• An Integrated Approach to Intermediate Japanese
• Dirty Japanese: Everyday Slang (not a textbook, but good reference)

I’ll be honest, I haven’t had a lot of time with intermediate japanese, but the book I do have seems good so far.

Dictionaries

• Random House Japanese-English English-Japanese Dictionary

Kanji Books

• Remembering the Kanji
• The Kodonsha Kanji Learner’s Dictionary

I hope this list helps others in what they deice to learn from, and hopefully save them some money I had to spend.

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In my last post I mentioned I was starting over with Hesig Remembering the Kanji, and I did. However, the amount of time I was dedicating to studying wasn’t as much as I had hoped, or as efficient. So it has taken me a lot longer to study and get through kanji, however while I am making progress I realized I was studying kanji wrong, but my personal feelings about paper were getting in the way.

Enter Actually Writing Kanji

The main thing I was doing wrong with studying, is not writing down the kanji, much. I just kind of aimlessly try to review based on how it looks every time. Considering I got up to about 1500 kanji last time around, and I didn’t remember as much as I should have, I decided to change it up over the last couple of weeks and write down every kanji as I review it, usually multiple times.

What About the Tablet?

I really don’t like paper at all, its like sand, it gets everywhere. I really like anki so I use it a lot as it makes repetitive study easier. What I have been doing is running anki on my computer while writing down all the kanji on my iPad.

One of the annoyances with having a tablet is using a finger to write, which is why I recommend getting a pen that is made to write on tablets. While it doesn’t write with the precision I would want it to, it does do better than a finger (apple really fell down on pen support, and most other tablet/slate makers as well).

The Best Part of the Tablet

While having a tablet, and being able to write on it is a great tool, and I really enjoy it, the best part of being able to use it to write with is you have infinite pages to write on and deleting a page is a simple click. The great thing is you can read something, switch over to anki, add a card and switch back. While there is a bit of pain doing this, sometimes, its nice because it is all-in-one. You don’t have to carry around a whole bunch of materials everywhere, I used to care three or four books on average.

Conclusion

Of all the ways I have used technology to study I would honestly have to say the tablet has been the most useful thing I have used in a long time. The key thing is it doesn’t have to be an iPad, in fact I was thinking about getting another one as well. If you can lay down the money for a tablet, you can write on, do it for sure. You might even consider a kindle fire the little bit I played with it at the store it seems pretty good, if I didn’t feel bad for my kindle keyboard I would probably get the fire. A couple of my friends have the Galaxy Tab and like it a lot as well, so look at that too.

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One of the hardest parts about learning, blogging, or even living life is losing focus on what you want. Losing site of the goal, getting distracted and veering off course. Over the last year and half I have done that with learning Japanese. Its time to get back on a path and start again. This has had me thinking for a while in order to accomplish what I want to do, where do I need to go?

Finding Your Failings

Before you know where you want to go you kind of need to know where you have been, cliche right, but its true. I started by figuring out I was getting hung up in the monotony learning instead of working for the goals. I have even blogged a few times about keeping your eye on the goals, but even still I got caught up in it and burned myself out.

Focusing

One of the biggest things in learning Japanese for long term consumption/use is you need to know the kanji, you really do. That has been a major hurdle for me because it is where I constantly get hung up while learning. Vocabulary can be a factor, but not knowing the kanji really limits comprehension of text. So for me kanji is a big deal I need to deal with.

Finding Your Attainable Thing

Knowing kanji is where I need to go it is what I am going to work on. I am going to finish Remembering the Kanji and not do any other type of studying until it is done. For other people to figure out what to work on you have see what is available to you and compare them to your goals. I have the book Remembering the Kanji so it is an easy fit to just jump right in to reach my goal. For you there might be a bit more searching involved, the key is to know where you want to go.

The best way I have found to find my problems that I need to fix is to write down my frustrations on a piece of paper, no typing. Just write them down until I can’t write them anymore they can be paragraphs or sentences or words. Then go through and tag them with a word or two, each frustration can have multiple tags. Then look at all your tags and you should start to see what is most aggravating to you while learning. Fix That.

Hard-work and Guts

Okay, guts maybe not so much, but hard work for sure is what it is going to take. Usually your weakness in an area is there for a good reason, “We, actually, don’t want to do it”. Therefore, it is going to take some hard work and effort to get past it and do what you don’t want to do, but it will be worth it in the end. Take a look at my post Make Your Strengths Your Weakness to get a little more detail on why you should work on one area only for a while.

In the End

So as of this moment I am dedicating my Japanese study time to kanji only, until I get done with remembering the kanji. I have already started over with it using anki and am progressing fairly quickly. I have previously made it through 1100, but most of that I never got in my brain enough to stick for over a year. This time. I will consider myself “done” and ready to move on when every-time I review the kanji move to at least 5 days before its time to see it again.

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Rosetta Stone has some very interesting things going for it. From being sold all over the place to their “unique” selling proposition of being the perfect way to learn a new language. I got it a long time ago, and to be honest found a bit of success.

Over the last year my study of Japanese has tapered off, well stopped. From “life” and work to forgetting to study I just got out of practice. Recently, I have gotten the bug again and decided I wanted to do something differently from normal to jump back into studying, I decided lets give Rosetta Stone a shot again.

The Good

Game LikeI think one of the strong points is it can almost be like a game at times when you are given text and spoken language and you choose a picture. It forces you to make connections and find context based on what you see. This is very good for learning vocab because you get a bit of context.

Spoken LanguageFor a long time my weakness has been, and still is, listening comprehension. While I can get phrases, and small basic words fairly simply, when it comes to any type of conversation count me out. With everything having spoken language it really helps me practice listening and has gotten my ear going again.

Level CompletionWhen I first got Rosetta Stone I could never get past Level 1 – Unit 1 – Lesson 1. I honestly thought the thing was broken. After coming back to it I zoomed through all of level 1 – Unit 1, and am now 80% of the way through Level 1 – Unit 2 with still more to go I can do. With something like 11 units for Level 1 I have a long way to go.

A Lot to ReviewI’ll be honest from a business perspective I can understand why Rosetta Stone is so expensive ($379 on Amazon at 20% off). The shear amount of content there is is staggering, and they had to pay someone to develop the content, hire speaker to speak for hours, not to mention cost of software developers. There is a lot there and I am no longer bitter about the price, just annoyed(lol).

The Bad

Repetitive Actions Granted this is the nature of the beast and how you learn in a lot of ways, but you kind of get into a bit of tunnel vision when doing it where after a while the task is so repetitive you almost forget what you are doing and just start clicking, without paying attention.

Writing System While it is awesome you can choose to review in romaji, hiragana, and kanji they don’t actually teach you anything about it. They need a quick primer on hiragana and kanji to get you started. I know they have their “context is king” mentality, but sometimes an intro is a good thing. Also wish they wouldn’t allow romaji.

The Ugly

Grammar The biggest problem there is with Rosetta Stone is grammar. While the speaker and text are using great grammar if you don’t have a basic understanding you will spend hours struggling to make connections. Even a basic review of grammar can considerably speed up what you get out Rosetta Stone, but alas nothing like that is available in app.

Conclusion

If you have Rosetta Stone, or can get it for cheap, I recommend it as a complement to everything else you do. As an all out replacement, absolutely not. I do think there is value with it, but not enough to justify the cost for those who don’t have the money to throw down for it. It might be a good buy for the jet-setter who just wants to learn another language while on a plane, but if you want to get fluent and really flourish with the language I would use other resources first.

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We go through life constantly having to explain our actions to others. It is no difference in Japanese as any other language. The most common way to do this is to use から. There are a couple of ways below. The biggest thing is to just pay attention to the patterns and how the sentences are formed. It is actually pretty simple once you get used to it.

The first way is the simplest. Create 2 sentences and add から to the end of the second one like below.

Pattern:

• Japanese: (situation)。 (reason)から。
• English: (situation). Because (reason).

Sentences:

• 私は今晩勉強します。明日テストがありますから。
  • わたしはきょばんべんきょうします。あしたテストがありますから。
  • I will study to night. Because I have a test tomorrow.
• バスに乗りましょう。タクシーは高いですから。
  • バスにのりましょう。タクシーはたかいですから。
  • Lets take the bus. Because taxi’s are expensive.
• 今が食べましょう。今晩は忙しいですから。
  • いまがたべましょう。きょばんはいそがしいですから。
  • Lets eat now. Because I am busy tonight.

The second way to do から is probably the more recommended way, even though I have heard both, because it feels more fluid and natural. Just like above pay attention to the pattern, and, almost literally, just reverse the sentences locations and replace the period with a comma.

Pattern:

(reason)から、(situation)。

(situaion), because (reason).

Sentences:

• 明日テストがありますから、私は今晩勉強します。
  • あしたテストがありますから、わたしはきょばんべんきょうします。
  • I will study tonight, because I have a test tomorrow.
• タクシーは高いですから、バスに乗りましょう。
  • タクシーはたかいですから、バスにのりましょう。
  • Lets ride the bus, because taxi’s are expensive.
• 今晩は忙しいですから、今が食べましょう。
  • きょばんはいそがしいですから、いまがたべましょう。
  • Lets eat now, because I will be busy tonight.

Hopefully this is enough for you get get a better feel for explaining yourself. I would recommend writing down a few sentences to get used to the pattern. Once you do that it will be fairly natural.

Related Posts:

• ~てすみませんでした, I’m Sorry
• 〜ておく Preparation Time
• Combining Activities with te-form verbs
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This is another て-form addon, noticing a pattern? There back in the main te-form post I hinted at teform being used to conjugate other things a lot. You are now starting to see that. In this case it is a way to apologize for something you have, or haven’t, done.

Something You Did

The crux of using it is to add すみませんでした to the end of a te-form verb.

• 朝ご飯を食べて、すみませんでした。
• あさごはんをたべて、すみませんでした。
• I ate breakfast, sorry.

• 猫を買って、すみませんでした。
• ねこをかって、すみませんでした。
• I am sorry I bought the cat.

You can also use the same construct, but add ごめん to the end to make it more casual, like with a friend.

• デートの約束を忘れて、ごめん。
• デートのやくそくをわすれて、ごめん。
• Sorry I stood you up.

Something You Didn’t Do

This is the same concept as above, but you use なくて. To get it at the end you need to get the short, negative ~ない form of a verb. Drop the い and add くて。

• 持ってこない
• 持ってこな
• 持ってこなくて

Here are some sentences

• 宿題をもってこなくて、すみませんでした。
• しゅくだいをもってこなくて、すみませんでした。
• I am sorry for not bringing in the homework.

• 洗濯しなくて、すみません。
• せんたくしなくて、すみません。
• Sorry I didn’t do the laundry.

With ごめん.

• もっと早く言わなくて、ごめん。
• もっとはやくいわなくて、ごめん。
• Sorry that i did not tell you earlier.

Conclusion

I have a feeling I will be using this one quite a bit. I tend to forget to do things all the time. This is actually kind of fun and easy to use once you figure it out. What are some example sentence you can come up with for this?

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おく is here to help. Especially since it is a helping verb about us preparing for something. ておく is actually て-form + おく:

て＋おく

It also conjugations like a normal u-verb. So your conjugations should work. Here are some example sentences.

• 明日試験があるので、今晩勉強しておきます。
• あしたしけんがあるので、こんばんべんきょうしておきます。
• Since there will be an exam tommorow, I will study tonight.

• 明日は雨が降りますから、バケツをかっておきました。
• あしたはあめがふりますから、バケツをかっておきました。
• I bought a bucket (to catch water), because it is supposed to rain tommorow.

• オテルを予約しておかなくちゃいけません。
• オテルをよやくしておくなくちゃいけません。
• I must make a hotel reservation in advance.

Hopefully those examples help show it in different forms, and are easy enough to understand (last one might hurt a bit). I find I don’t use this a lot, but when I have needed to it is really useful.

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From the creator or Tae-Kims guide to Japanese for the iPhone here is a guest post by a friend of mine, Ronald Timoshenko. This is a bit about his new application Japanese Alphabet Study Guide and why he decided to write it.

History

After completing the “Tae Kim’s Guide to Learning Japanese” app (or just “Learning Japanese”), I decided that I wanted to make an app that would be a great complement to the excellent content already written by Tae Kim. Grammar and special expressions are thoroughly covered in Tae Kim’s guide. So, I wanted to create something that could be used along-side that would assist users in learning Japanese in some way. That’s when I came up with the idea of the “Japanese Alphabet Study Guide”. Learning the Kana (Hiragana & Katakana) is one of the first steps in learning the language. And, since Romaji isn’t used in Tae Kim’s guide, it seemed like a great place to start. I decided to include Kanji as well because I wanted the app to continue to be useful, even after users had mastered the Kana.

Filling the Gap

I looked at some of what appeared to be the more popular Kana/Kanji apps and tried to include in my own app what users felt was lacking in others (based on the reviews they were leaving). Ultimately, I decided not to include everything I initially wanted to before releasing the app. It’s important to make sure the app is well-received before spending exorbitant amounts of development time on something nobody will use. Despite that fact, someone suggested I even reduce the functionality that I had already created, pointing out that perhaps I was trying to squeeze too much in the initial release. I would certainly like to build on what’s in this release (i.e., Kanji stroke order and stroke animations), but that all depends on how many people decide to download it. Such a thing is a significant effort, and as already mentioned, it makes little sense to invest in something that won’t be used (I’m reminded of the YAGNI programming mantra: You Ain’t Gonna Need It).

Personal Opinion

I think I’m pretty happy with how it turned out. I’m kind of partial to going through the “Multiple Choice” mode with my own Kanji lists (you can create your own) and seeing how well I really know my Kanji. A “Flashcard” mode is also available, but you can’t say “Yeah, I think I know that one” with multiple choice. It’s either right or wrong, no “maybes”.

Anyway, I can tell you what I think of it, but I’m obviously going to be a bit biased. Try it out and let me know what you think. I’d love to hear some feedback. Thanks for reading.

Thanks

Links

• Learning Japanese
• Japanese Alphabet Study Guide

Images

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Being a developer on the Microsoft stack, which I love, me getting a mac is pretty big. Well recently I purchased one so I can do some iPad/iPhone development on, which I own neither. Anyway I have spent the last couple of weeks looking for software that is comparable to what I use on my Windows computer(s).

One of the big things I looked into first is stuff for Japanese, and for the most part it has been a success finding what I need/want. Most of what I do is in the browser so no real problems until I started looking for a desktop based English/Japanese dictionary since over the next semester I will be on a bus with no internet for 12 hours a week.

First I tried to integrate some dictionarys into the built in dictionary app with little to no success. Next I searched for some free alternatives, with no success. I even went so far as to looking into coding my own interface for JMDict. After realizing that I could I should first search for something else, and it lead me to Jisho, fitting name, from SugoiSoft. I have to say the $14 dollars it cost well worth the money and time it saved me in writing my own so I bought it quickly.

Review

Having gone through all the background lets look at the product. This is a pretty normal dictionary app, but because it is using JMDict as its source it is very powerful in its material you can search for. Here is a list of features. I have bolded what I like the most.

• Search in your Native Tongue (English, French, German, Russian)
• Search from Anywhere (No internet required)
• OS X Integration
• International
• Lists
• Romanization
• Variable Strength
• Wildcard Searching

Let me breakdown each of the features I like and why, the others are good but I don’t necessarily “need” or notice them personally. As you can tell most of the features I like.

Search from Anywhere

This next semester I will be going to the main campus of my college 4 days a week which is over an hour away one way. I “plan” to do my homework on the bus instead of wasting that amount of time just doing nothing. Since I have no internet during that time I need a better dictionary available to me so this app is going to help so I don’t rely on the internet so much for looking up words, plus it will make it quicker during class.

OS X Integration

I am not sure if Jisho integrates with spotlight, yet, but it doesn’t seem to. So this feature kind of threw me for a loop at first. However, I found that once I turned on a setting I can right click on some text somewhere and search for it in Jisho instantly instead of copy+paste.

Lists

This feature I never would have had if I rolled my own solution and has already proven its value. I can make lists of words I frequently look up, or words I want to remember. One day if I get really motivated maybe make a list of all the JLPT words.

Romanization

Firstly, if you know me you know how much I hate romaji, but this feature combined with “OS X Integration” is valuable helping other people that still use romaji, and unfortunately that is a lot. Also don’t tell anyone, but a couple of times I have used romaji for a quick reference so that is nice.

Wildcard Searching

This one is nice. I hate doing search algorithms so I appreciate them when search is done well and I can say this is nice from the users perspective. It works and I have yet to not be able to find a word. The wild card features is especially nice for those words you can only remember parts of words or you don’t know the reading for a particular kanji

Final Thoughts

This is a great front-end for JMDict and is a lot better than what I would have been able to make. Because of everything available in the JMDict data it can be diffcult to bring forward that data easily for everyone to use and access. Jisho does it elegantly and makes the data access very quick and easy. The designer really did a good job of making sure things work well with each other. You can get a free trial to try it out at the Jisho Website.

If you use a desktop based dictionary what do you use and why do you like it?

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Learning new verbs is easy, for the most part, but using new verbs is a bit of a pain. This pain leads to apprehension when using Japanese, and trying to use this vocabulary we have never used before. However, only through use can we become comfortable with the verb.

One of the conundrums of new vocabulary is usage. It seems for verbs it is always “Now how does that conjugate for sure”, especially when you just learned the word. This is why we need to practice our conjugation at least a little if only on new verbs, though it can help to do it on all verbs.

The biggest problem with practicing the conjugation is not having an organized way to do it. To solve the problem I present the:

“Japanese Verb Conjugation Practice Sheet”

So what is it?

It is a simple pdf file that has the 3 most basic verb conjugation almost everything expands on. Long form present, Long Form Past, Te-Form, Short Form present and Short Form Past. it is basically just a worksheet you print off and do in your spare time. Here is an example I did real quick.

What you do is you set in dictionary form the word you want to conjugate then simply go through filling in the appropriate boxes for the rest. I choose to do the kanji for it and write down whether it is a ru-verb or and u-verb.

If you are still learning these conjugations, or need to, here are some links to help you.
Understanding u-verbs and ru-verbs
Japanese Verb Conjugation Present and Future Tense
Japanese Verb Conjugation Past Tense
Japanese Verb Conjugation Te-Form
Short Form Japanese Verb Conjugation Present Tense
Short Form Japanese Verb Conjugation Past Tense

Download the practice Sheet:
Japanese Verb Conjugation Practice Sheet

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