http://tatoeba.org

About the anime, would you recommend if I were to, say, watch it once with subs, then watch it without?

I’m wondering how you can know what is going on without actually knowing ANY of the japanese before watching. How would one pick sentences from this?

Anyway, thanks for the great site; I’d donate if I had any money

In the above article by Katsumoto he mentions taking sentences over from your input to your SRS. Could someone clarify that for me? So far Ive been trying to make everyword a sentence and not just learn by single words. I didn’t know there was a difference? I cant seem to find the article where he talks about this in more detail.

Any help from you fine gentleman or ladies would be much appreciated!!!

I’m just wondering, do you recommend any Japanese movie/drama in particular? Something with words and sentences that are used in everyday life (probably not the sci-fi type), and a lot of dialogues.

Thanks again!

I would just start over. Words that you aren’t sure of will pop up into sentences that you enter, and words that you already know(I’m sure at least a big portion of your words only deck) won’t matter because you’ll just read those sentences easily.

-shaun

I’ve been doing SRS for about a year and I found it really helpful, but I focused on words rather than sentences and didn’t do much J to J input. Recently I got burned out on it and have been watching movies and reading manga instead of focusing on SRSing. Now I’m thinking about creating a new SRS deck and starting over. Do you think I should migrate any of my content from the original deck, or just begin again?

So try it out if you need source sentences. Just search for a word you want the defintion for, and underneath the definition click “sentences” and you have a nice list of examples.

I’m really excited about buying Japanese DVDs from Amazon.jp

But i have 2 questions for you:

1. Will I be able to play the DVDs in my computer (or is there a player that I can dowload to watch Japanese Dvds in my computer)? Or is it a must that I buy a region-free player to attach to a TV? How did you do it when you lived in the US?

2. Will they deliver internationally? I live in US….
Since i don’t speak enough JP *yet* to understand all the japanese in the site….i just gotta know that when i click “buy”…i can actually get the products!!!

Thankkkk u soo much

Rebeca

There have been a few kanji that gave me trouble trying to learn from the keyword to the kanji but if you can remember it better from the kanji to the keyword there shoudn’t be any difference because you can still recall the keyword.

In the end, you should be able to recall the kanji to the keyword on site of the kanji anyways BUT still try and stick to Heisig’s original plan of memorization: keyword to kanji. There is a good reason to this method but it can’t be helped if memorization is difficult that way but easier the other way.

To this date I’m at around 900 kanji and, while in order of Heizig’s book, I can recall them all (only because of TEDIOUS memorization and it started becoming un-fun) but this process is fairly in-efficient and I reccomend NOT doing it that way.

People at school ask me “Wow Talon, those are alot of characters to memorize!”, it’s true and that is the case. BUT, think about an English speaking person end of teen years going into his/her 20’s. From this point, we “primary English speakers” have used the A to Z alphabet to create countless words. There are only 26 letters in the AZ alphabet but try to think about, off the top of your head, how many WORDS you can come up with using only those few letters? ALOT probably. I mean in maybe one or two complete New York Times newspaper there are probably more possible words than kanji listed in Heisig’s RTK part 1. But nevertheless, you know the words in those newspapers, HOW? Don’t ask me but from early repitition, immersion in an english speaking environment and constant repitition probably lies the key.

I remember from a post a while ago concerning “Immersion in a japanese environment to learn things quickly”. I remember Khatzumoto saying that he wasn’t sure it would be any good to drop an english speaking person in the heart of Tokyo and expect him to have fun. It wouldn’t. You honestly wouldn’t know anything! BUT, concerning immersion techniques, look at the dramatic steps Khatzumoto had done to convert his surrounding “English environment” into a japanese one! Thats immersion right there! The only difference is that you know WHY and HOW and to WHAT level you are immersing yourself so that it can be an enjoyable one. Here’s what I have done so far: my bed, GONE. Sleeping on a low futon is the way to go (it’s honestly the only thing that is comfortable to me and makes my back feel like a champ!). I used to get up in the morning to go to classes and I would be in a crappy mood because I would get headaches from neck pain from, yes, sleeping on matresses. The floor for me was the only way to go all the way back to the beginning of my life. I also got a few other things but I think this post is going to be long already so I’ll make another on this issue someday when I have time.

Japanese is the opposite when comparing writing using kanji and the AZ alphabet. Using the alphabet we create words that MEAN something. Those meanings in turn come together to form a sentence which contains multiple meanings. Using those meanings, we can explain and describe just about anything we want. The AZ alphabet also has set SOUNDS when it comes to pronunciation of the letters. Those sounds come together in our words to justify our vocal pronunciation we create when using them.

The same goes for Japanese. Instead, you are given a symbol (here we can compare it to a word in english) and from that symbol it stands as a meaning for something (we learn that meaning in english through Heizig’s book). Using that symbol we can combine it with other symbol’s to form new meanings and with those meanings put together we can explain and describe a number of things using the story that the symbols (kanji) have put together for us.

Thr truth is that Heizig knows that not everyone will learn the kanji after reading his book because it is just too much for one mind to absorb in a reasonable amount of time. His book was created to make learning the kanji easier using stories that a person understanding english will comprehend easy enough. Kanji is not learned, it is remembered. What Heizig and Khatzumoto’s points are, is that you make your best possible effort to remember the kanji the first time around so that when given a word using kanji you will be able to pick up a few of the meanings. If you forget a meaning, go back and look up the kanji you don’t understand because learning something unknown in context to something understood, remembering becomes much easier.

You will get the kanji, just not by reading a book. It is through constant practice of reading words and sentences (in kanji) that you will remember the kanji. It all depends on your level of effort and dedication to learning this language because the payoff can really make you happy. For instance, even though I only understand a quarter of the kanji, I can actually understand part of the meaning when given a gramatically correct Japanese sentence. This tells anyone something, that your work toward understanding and remembering is paying off and that you will get there someday soon.

Keep working at it and don’t give up because I’m never going to, so there should be no reason that you should either.

Thank’s again to Khatzumoto and every dedicated fan on this website for your generous input that has helped me get on the track of learning my favourite language, Japanese.