Japan Is Doomed

Alright, I’m writing this post because I am a *huge* fan of jisho.org – since I started second year at university I’ve used it countless times. Today rather than run through it’s features and so on, I’m going to explain what I’ve found it most useful for, and hope you guys might get some of the same results out of it that I did. If you know of any other funky things it can do, feel free to comment them and I’ll try them out!

Some really quick facts: jisho.org is free. There’s a forum if you get stuck. It’s updated pretty frequently and has more example sentences than you can even begin to imagine. Every single Jouyou Kanji, plus a whole load more, are on it. It’s also green. Continue reading

When you ask someone learning Japanese what their least favourite part of the language is. Some may sigh and explain they aren’t really fond of Kanji. Others will start to cry a little, and between the desperate sobs mutter something about those ’stupid symbols’. Others may start to froth at the mouth before shrieking and running out of a nearby window. That also means ‘the writing system’.

Of course, not everyone struggles with learning just under 2,000 different symbols, with multiple readings and thousands and thousands of combinations with each other. But I do, and thus I am justified in ranting senselessly about them. I am hoping that by writing angry blog posts, perhaps someone important in Japan will suddenly exclaim ‘hey guys just maybe we made this too hard let’s chill out for a bit, then invent a form of writing that involves pictures of animals’ or something.

So the following Kanji are pretty much jerks. Don’t associate with them or trust them with your money or keys as they will stab you in the back the second you drop your guard. You are running a risk just reading them on this blog! If it all gets too scary just forcefully punch your monitor! That’ll teach them! It’ll also teach me to write them! (disclaimer: I’m not replacing your monitor).

I mean look at that beast. This means ‘thanks‘ or ‘gratitude‘ as a noun. But who on earth would want to thank anyone for this Kanji. Look at the one on the right. The last thing I want to do after learning to write that out is thank anyone. Unless finding the original creator and sealing him in a cave counts as thanks.

This means ‘tourist’. If Kanji were real living things and they could talk and throw parties, this is how it would go;

山：Oh hey everyone welcome to the ‘Kanji that aren’t crazy hard to write or remember party’ how are you all.
信：I’m pretty good.
何：Hey is there any punch I am parched!
観：Hey everyone sorry I’m late I was busy strangling kittens! Sorry I’m alone but nobody likes me on account of all the kitten strangling! So what’s going on at this party? Oh hey punch! Well I’m just going to go ahead and drink it all. Oh sorry 何 did you want some? That’s okay I have plenty of kittens blood! Also I can associate on an intellectual level with Sarah Palin.

Yeah that’s right first kanji from tourist that is how you come across at parties if you were sentient. But you’re not, you’re just a symbol in the Japanese writing system. But you’re still a jerk. This one is crazy annoying to remember as it’s pretty important – tourism is big in Japan. Don’t worry if you can’t remember it though, apparently ツーリスト (tsu-risuto) is a real word! TAKE THAT 観!

Imagine if you were asked to recall this kanji from memory. How would you feel? Surprised? That’s fitting as this word means ‘to be surprised’ but I can understand if you thought it meant ‘To torture one’s enemies with crazy memory pattern tests.” This is one of the hardest Kanji I’ve had to learn for university and the most bizarrely annoying thing about it is it’s not that uncommon! You might actually see this in day to day life! Why can’t we just replace it with ‘ ‘ which does the same job!

Okay guys, time for an explanation: I started revising for my exams at full pace today, and all three of these Kanji caused me grief as I couldn’t recall how to write them. But now that I’ve written about them meanly, perhaps they will stick in my mind! They better do, because if they don’t I’m going to give up and become a professional unicyclist.

Expect a sane update in the coming week. Happy 2009, everyone.

So I took the plunge today and posted my first ever Mixi journal in Japanese. They are pretty scary to write, as all of your friends can see them, but I’m hoping people will point out my mistakes rather than just get t-shirts made with them written on them. Because that would be expensive and inefficient, as the chances of me bumping into my friends whilst they are wearing them are basically zero, so they would have to actually plan ahead and wear the t-shirt on a day we had pre-arranged to meet, and even then the chances of me appreciating the t-shirt and remembering writing what is written on it are slim to none. Wait, what?

そうだね。僕は六ヶ月に一回しかミクシィをチェックしない。なぜだか分からないけど、今から毎週ミクシィをチェックするようにする。日記を書いたり、友達の日記を読んだりするつもりだから、面白い日記を書いてね。

今日本にいる。でもお金がないから、あまり友達と遊びに行けないけど、本当に楽しんでいる。大学で勉強した日本語を練習できるし、一年ぶり友達に会えるからだ。時々働いた学校で英語を教える。

二週前母は日本に行った。着く前の天気は毎日暑かったけど、母が日本にいる間の天気は雨だけだった。友達の西村さんによると、母が「雨女」だそうだ。。。でも母は日本が大好きようだ。魚料理が大好きだから、やっぱりすしとかさしみを楽しんだ。日本人のように魚を食べた。母に色々な場所を案内した。新宿とか日光とかお台場に行った。母がもう一度日本に来たいそうだ。よかった！

先輩によると、二年生は一年生よりもっと難しそうだから、もっと勉強したほうがいいと思う。文法や言葉は大丈夫でも、漢字は問題だ。５００漢字を勉強したが、２５０しか書けない。大学が終わったから、簡単な漢字も書かなくなった。でもがんばっている！毎日２時ぐらい勉強したり、友達と勉強したばかり日本語を話して見たりしている。

マイク

Note the use of cute little icons. Very important in Japanese. Anyway, if anyone who reads this can help with any problems, that would be greatly appreciated, too!

I’m aware I haven’t done a proper update for ages, but I have a few coming… oh, like you’ve not heard THAT one before…

9/9/08: Corrected some mistakes, thanks to Tom and Tom in the comments. (or ‘Tom’ments).

In a previous update, I talked about how the big ’secret’ for learning Kanji is to write it out over and over. For those of you hoping that my 3 awesome tools would remove the need for that will be sadly let down – no matter how many clever gadgets and nifty books come out with claims like “This book will make learning Kanji easier than throwing a cat over a fence!” at the end of the day it’s all about the grind.

That said, there are things out there that can make it less of a nightmare. I’d say these tools are better used for remembering and internalizing Kanji. So here we go!

1. jMemorize
Even though I already posted about it I’m going to sing it’s praises once again. Once you’ve built up over 100 flashcards you’ll really start to love the way it organises your revision – if you keep getting a card wrong you’ll see it more and more often, whereas ones you find easy will appear much less. It makes it very easy to focus revision on your weak points.

For more info on jMemorize, check the update I wrote about it.

2. Basic Kanji Book
Everyone studying Japanese at Sheffield University who just read that suggestion groaned. But the truth is, this is an amazing book. It groups the Kanji into logical lessons, and Volume 1 and Volume 2 add up to 500 Kanji, which if you learn everything for is really good going. Click here for an example page.

As you can see, it gives you a chance to practice writing the Kanji out after checking the correct stroke order, plus it gives all the readings for the Kanji, and makes them immidiatly useful by providing a few example combinations to create more vocabulary. It’s a truly great book. It’s available on Amazon, although if you have a friend in Japan willing to go to a bookstore and pick it up for you it will be much, much cheaper.

3. Kanji Sonomama Rakubiki Jiten [Nintendo DS]
This is an amazing piece of software and really shows the versitility of the DS as much more than a gaming device. If you write a Kanji in the space in the bottom screen, you can then either get the Japanese meaning, English translation or various other meanings through the use of the four inbuilt dictionaries. This software is so much more than that, with lots of built in tests such as the TOIEC English test. To be honest, I’m not really very good at using it so I’m not the one to ask, so instead I took a photo of it in action.

You can get the game imported from Japan for $48.90 from Play-Asia here.

So there you are. I hope that helps in making Kanji a little easier to learn. That said, the only reason I’m writing this update is because I’m putting off learning them myself…

Kanji. The one word that makes all students of Japanese twitch eratically before retreating under the stairs and throwing old shoes at anything that comes near. The sheer amount of information thrown at you when you start learning is absoloutly insane. ~2,000 “daily use” Kanji, the vast majority of which have two readings, many of which have more than that. Add to that the fact you can stick two kanji together and get a totally random meaning (sometimes) and you have insanity in a can.

Whilst I never really studied Kanji in Japan, preferring to be lazy and just learn the ones I saw around me. (Prime examples being stations and so on.) Now however I have to actually buckle down and learn them, I thought I’d share a few tips that have helped me to remember them.

1. There is no secret to learning Kanji
Not a great way to start, huh? I’ve tried pretty much everything – writing them on paper and sticking them around the house, flipcards and so on. Whilst these methods let you remember the Kanji for a few days, long enough to pass a test, a week later you’ll be stuggling to remember them at all. I’m aware some people have success with textbooks, and there is a lot to be said for a lot of the books out there, but I find the only real way to do it is to do this.

That’s right. Write every kanji again and again until all you can see when you close your eyes is Kanji. In the last two days I’ve learned 20 new Kanji, including a few annoying ones like 院 and 部, which always get confused with 降 because they all have similar parts to them. But having written each one out about 200 times in the last 48 hours I now am confident with them. It sucks, your hand hurts but it’s worth it.

2. Textbooks
I have to be honest, I’m probably not the best source for choosing a textbook since my university only uses one, namely the Basic Kanji Book series. It’s a good book – providing a load of boxes to practice each Kanji in, then lots of readings and games to help you remember. Some of the activities are somewhat daft but the great thing about this book is how the Kanji are grouped into around 22 different Lessons, allowing you to logically plan out how quickly you learn the Kanji. Well worth investing in.

3. Support
If you can get help from native Japanese whilst learning Kanji, it will become remarkably easier. Having them explain why certain radicals are in various readings and so on. Plus it makes it more fun if you can write messages and have people check them.

So there you go. Please comment with any methods you have found work, or methods that failed. Good luck!

If you found this useful or interesting, check out this post on Jamaipanese.