Original AJATT Products

Archive for July, 2007

Learning Like a Native どんだけ~

July 30, 2007
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So, there’s this new word out in Japan: 「どんだけ~!!??」(dondake). Well, it’s new to non-fashionistas like me, but it dates back to at least 2-3 months ago among the trendy, which means that some consider it “old”. But I didn’t come here to discuss whether or not 「どんだけ~」is passé, I came here to share something even cooler. So, last week,...

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Why I’m in Love with my Japanese-Japanese Dictionary

July 25, 2007
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Why I’m in Love with my Japanese-Japanese Dictionary

This is a guest article by Momoko, Khatzumoto’s…how do you say…”special lady”. This was meant to be a regular article, but it unintentionally turned into a book recommendation. In keeping with the other book recommendations, we will later discuss the cons as well as the pros of this book…Probably. Maybe. At first I was scared sheetless stiff at the...

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Chinese Project Notes 2: Went Monolingual

July 23, 2007
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Today, July 20, 2007, I crossed the Rubicon and went fully monolingual in Chinese. I do sometimes look up a Japanese word to find Chinese example sentences for it. So I guess this, makes me a mix between Steps 3 and 4 as outlined in this post on how to make the transition. As far as I’m concerned this...

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The Expert Mind

July 22, 2007
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There’s an article written a while back in the Scientific American that discusses what makes someone an expert in something. I found a lot of parrallels with learning sentences (these are the small chunks/quanta that the article discusses) and spaced repetition. You shouldn’t be reading English , but do check it out for some quick insight or whatever. Update...

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Chinese Project Notes 1: On Shopping Trips and Sentence Sources

July 21, 2007
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In the spirit of putting one’s money where one’s mouth is, Ihave set a $40-$50/month Chinese media budget, which allows for about 4-5 books or DVDs. So, today (July 18, 2007) I was learning sentences mined from an order confirmation notice I got from 博客來 (books.com.tw) where I had bought the stuff, and it struck me how much quicker...

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Why Monolingual Dictionaries Are Worth Your Time

July 20, 2007
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A lot of you have posted various quite valid concerns about monolingual dictionaries. Perhaps you’re too slow with them. You have to look up words in order to understand the word you looked up in the first place.Et cetera. To me, all of that only underscores why we need to be using monolingual dictionaries. If you can’t understand it,...

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