Tools of the Trade
Friday, December 22nd, 2006Hello again.
As I mentioned last week, I have begun a weekly blog that will give you a look at one of the ways in which I study vocabulary and kanji living here in Japan. While you may not be able to replicate my process if you do not live in a place with abundant exposure to the language, I do hope that you might find the method, or perhaps the tools, of some use.
As I left my keitai (cell phone) at home on the charger today, I am going to start with a brief outline of the tools that I use, and a bit about their purposes. This will also explain why leaving my cell phone has any relevance to this post. So let’s start there.
携帯 (keitai)： Short for 携帯電話 (keitai denwa), this is a word that many of you are likely already familiar with. Cell phones are a very prevalent part of life in Japan for most, as they provide a major means of communication, in addition to functioning as televisions, mp3 players, schedule organizers, and more. As for myself, my second most used feature is text messaging/email. The first is the フリーメモ. If you can read katakana, then you can probably guess what this is – simply a blank memo in which you can save any text. This is my travelogue; this is where I document my journey of discovery. If you don’t have a cell phone with this feature, any type of memo will do – digital, or even the old-fashioned pencil and paper of yore.
rikaichan： You may have heard this one mentioned in the podcast. In brief, rikaichan is a plug-in for the Mozilla Firefox web browser that allows you to look up the definition of Japanese words on web pages by a simple mouse roll-over. It also includes a kanji dictionary that allows you to access detailed information regarding individual kanji. In addition to Japanese-English, there are optional Japanese-French, Japanese-German, and Japanese-Russian dictionaries, as well as a names dictionary that will provide readings for place names, personal names, and so-forth. This is an essential tool for any serious learner of Japanese, in my opinion, as well as an indispensible part of my method.
スペースアルク： SPACE ALC, commonly referred to as アルク, or ALC, is an online Japanese-English dictionary that provides normal as well as eccentric interpretations of words, and often numerous examples ranging from phrases to sentences to fully-translated documents (perhaps we will discuss this feature later). You can also add this dictionary to your customizable search bar in Mozilla Firefox, which I of course have done, as I use this dictionary quite often. ALC is the tool that turns one new word for the day into an abundance of new words, as well as usually providing a better understanding of the actual meaning through numerous examples, as opposed to a single definition lacking context.
These three tools are not the only tools that I use, but are perhaps the most integral in making my method successful (for me). In addition to these, though, you will need a starting point – a source. Living in Japan, I am surrounded by the language, so most of my sources are simply my environment. The poster on the wall, the book that the guy standing next to me on the train is reading, or perhaps a word that I heard uttered as I pass a couple on the street. I also like to carry a book (in Japanese) with me, in addition to picking up free publications, flyers, etc.
If you are not in Japan, be resourceful. Order a book or magazine, surf random Japanese web sites, visit the local asian food market and look for a Japanese newspaper or other publication. I would also like to introduce a mailing list that I subscribe to and find very useful. The Yookoso Kanji-a-Day and Grammar-a-Day mailing lists consist of 16 different mailing lists – 11 providing daily kanji at various levels, and 5 providing daily grammar at various levels. I personally subscribe to all 16 lists, though I rarely get to check them all. The kanji emails provide stroke order animations, readings, and related vocabulary. The grammar emails provide grammar points with brief explanations, example sentences, and discussion in the comments. While the kanji emails are straightforward, the grammar emails community generated in a fashion similar to Wikipedia, and should thus be read with a discriminating eye.
Next week I will give you a look at how I put these tools into play as I take you along my journey from 天命 (tenmei, divine decree), which started with a glance at a nearby book being read on the train, to 接待 (settai, similar to wining and dining clients), encountered on an event poster at a bookstore. See you then.
Nathan
Posted by JapanesePod101.com in Nathan's Notebook |
December 22nd, 2006 at 10:55 am
Mina-san,
If you have any questions about these tools, whether it be setting them up or otherwise, feel free to ask! Of course, any other questions or comments are welcome as well. I will try to answer, although Jason will probably beat me to it
Thanks Jason!
December 22nd, 2006 at 12:23 pm
I admit that I’m a newbie and beginner so sometimes I don’t understand anything posted but with all this tips and my Japanese class I’m sure I will be able to suceed and be like all JP101 staff right Nathan-san
Well thank you for your time and see you next week!
S_R_C
December 22nd, 2006 at 12:27 pm
PS:ohhh Nathan-san by the way you should post your blog on the lessons section just like Miki-san does, that way more listeners would be able to see it because it’s to hidden here.
December 22nd, 2006 at 12:46 pm
Sindy-san,
I’m glad I could help! Keep up the good work and study hard, and I’m sure you will do just fine
Since I am just posting blog entries without audio, it has to stay here, but thanks for the suggestion. Hopefully the listeners will find their way here every now and then
December 22nd, 2006 at 2:10 pm
Can anyone recommend a good paper dictionary or maybe a idioms book. I always find when I’m trying to write Japanese i might know the right word but not the right way to write (or say) it in Japanese so it makes sense to someone else.
Cheers
Glen
December 22nd, 2006 at 7:06 pm
If you have a Palm OS PDA, you can also get PAdict (http://padict.sourceforge.net/).
+ Japanese-English and Japanese-French dictionaries
+ FAST search by Translation, Kana, Text Entry, Handwriting recognition, or Multiradical method.
+ Support for Hi-res and Low-res palms (Color not supported on some older devices)
+ Japanese PalmOS integration
+ Optional Kanji Information and Stroke order diagrams
December 23rd, 2006 at 8:56 pm
Hello Nathan,
Thanks for posting the great tips !! Keep it up dude…
Regards,
Amir
December 24th, 2006 at 2:47 pm
Glen,
I found myself really enjoying “2001 Japanese and Eglish Idioms,” by Nobuo Akiyama and Carol Akiyama
December 24th, 2006 at 3:06 pm
I’m having problems with getting rikaichan to work with Firefox 2.0.0.1. Anyone have a tutorial, link or suggestions.
Thanks for the links Nathan. Very informative.
December 24th, 2006 at 4:22 pm
Troy,
You might need to be more specific about your problem. After you’ve downloaded rikaichan, as well as one of the dictionaries, restart firefox and it should work. You do need to toggle it on/off– look under “Tools.” I had a problem getting the Japanese-English dictionary to download- but it worked when I tried the alternate download link.
Does anyone else think that rikaichan is horribly distracting?
I like ALC though.
December 24th, 2006 at 10:34 pm
Annieさん,
I find Rikaichan a little distracting too. However on my machines (Windows XP) it can be turned on and off by right-clicking the mouse and clicking “Toggle rikaichan”. So I leave it turn off most of the time and toggle it on when I need it.
Perhaps this is different on Macs as I believe they don’t have two button mice.
I wonder if there is a “hot key” to turn it on and off?
じゃ また
ジョン
December 24th, 2006 at 10:44 pm
For Rikaichan, hit ALT+INSERT to toggle it on and off. Also, hitting the shift key toggles the different dictionaries so you can see kanji info or Japanese/English dictionary.
December 24th, 2006 at 11:04 pm
Personally, I would like to convince people that the very idea of a “Kanji-a-day” is bad learning tool. If you really want to learn something, the review is critical. You need to review the items (kanji, words, grammar points, etc) consistently over a period of time. Any system that gives you 365 items per year with no method of review provided is wasting your time. Any learning system worth the name provides a review process to re-inforce the materials.
December 24th, 2006 at 11:33 pm
I am using a Mac. Rikaichan in Firefox 2.0 is configurable via the preferences. In my case, alt-up is toggle and alt-down is lookup a word. I could not find a hotkey to toggle dictionaries, but this too can be controled via the preferences.
December 25th, 2006 at 12:17 pm
Johnさん、
I’ve been keeping it toggled off 95% of the time on my computer as well.
I agree that Kanji-a-day is not sufficient for learning kanji, but I wouldn’t call it a bad learning tool. I can’t think of any resource that is going to be enough on its own. If someone is really serious about learning Japanese, they really have to put in the effort to revise independently. (and I’m not sure I’d even call kanji-a-day a system… it’s just one more thing in the toolbox)
I think the kanji-a-day thing is great. Not because I’m actually using it to learn kanji, but because it reminds me that I’m supposed to be studying Japanese and not just watching youtube videos all evening.
December 25th, 2006 at 1:49 pm
Glen-san,
I tend to use mostly electronic sources, so I can’t personally recommend any specific paper dictionaries. Regarding your question, though, I have found that Google is very useful for the task you mention. If you search for a certain word and use a discerning eye, you can find lots of examples of usage. ALC is also good for this in many cases.
Amir-san,
I’ll try
Ron-san, Lambrix-san,
Thanks for sharing the great tips!
Troy-san,
As annie-san mentioned, some more details would be helpful. She gave some good tips, though!
annie-san,
As Briggs-san mentioned, on the PC you can just toggle rikaichan on and off, so it isn’t a problem for me. I generally keep it off, and toggle it on only for as long as I need it. Otherwise, I could definitely see how it would be annoying
As others mentioned, you should be able to assign hot keys to toggle this, so it’s definitely something to look into!
Briggs-san,
The shift hot key is definitely one that I use quite often. As for kanji-a-day, I think it does have value. Review is definitely a must if you plan on remembering all of those kanji, but that is up to the person. But I think there is value even beyond learning those kanji. The more you practice kanji, the more you are familiar with stroke orders, shapes, radicals, readings, and so forth. At times I have intensively studied kanji (10-20 a day for an extended period), and I definitely don’t remember all of them, but I have a much better grasp of stroke order and radicals which helps me to find out about new kanji, remember a kanji character, etc. I do also remember a good number of them. I think there is value to be found in all different kinds of studies. But if the point is to cement those kanji into your bank of knowledge, systematic review is a must.
Jean-Michel-san,
Thanks for the tips!
December 25th, 2006 at 1:51 pm
annie-san,
I was away for a while without refreshing, so I missed your last post! Good points, as well!
December 26th, 2006 at 9:05 am
December 26th, 2006 at 10:47 am
Sindy-san,
Don’t worry - I am absolutely sure that annie-san was not insinuating anything, but simply saying that it can be easy for her to slack off. I can definitely relate - the internet makes it incredibly easy to waste time!
December 26th, 2006 at 11:17 am
Sindyさん、
As Nathanさん said, I was just referring to myself and my own horrible study habits
It’s great that you’re serious about learning Japanese. I wish that I was more serious about studying!
I however need a lot more external motivation to study. My computer beeps everytime I have e-mail, so the japanese ones remind me that I shouldn’t be spending 5 hours a day on the internet.
It’s freezing in my apartment and I live a 20-30 minute bike ride (there’s a big hill) from civilization. And it’s really easy for me to just sit under blankets and watch tv all night long, even though I know I should be studying (or cleaning my apartment).
December 26th, 2006 at 2:43 pm
Rikaichan also provides buttons you can put in your navigation toolbar (the bar with all back, forward, reload, etc buttons and address bar). To add them, right click anywhere on the navigation toolbar except for the address and search bars and choose Customize. You can then drag the whichever buttons you want to the toolbar. It gives you a Rikai button for toggling it on and off and a Lookup button.
December 26th, 2006 at 5:51 pm
Annieさん、
がんばってね！
I’m sure that different methods work well for different people. As for me, I think Remebering the Kanji by James Heisig (definitely get the cards with the book) is an incredible tool. It’s main weakness is that it’s not meant for learning in order of likely usage, but with the goal of mastering the main 2000 kanji and remembering them.
But the main point is, if one method doesn’t work best for you, keep trying new methods until you reach your goal! お互いにかんばろう
December 26th, 2006 at 11:18 pm
みなさん、
Being that this is supposed to be an educational website, I think we owe it to the readers/listeners to get the basics right.
Something like A-Kanji-A-Day is most likely a waste of time and the illusion of education. To say otherwise is either a result of ignorance of the educational process or worse.
To understand education please review the methods proposed by Pimsleur (increased interval times) or the Leitner box system. Both have systematic review as part of the educational process.
To understand bad educational tool, please look at something like Rosetta Stone. This software is heavily marketed and has no systematic review. It can take a year to go through the whole program and the word you studied on day one you will never see again for the rest of the year. As a result, you will almost certainly have forgotten it .
じゃ また
ジョン
December 27th, 2006 at 5:48 pm
Nathan-san
有り難う！
ようこそが大好きです。たのしい。
もう一度有り難うございます
December 29th, 2006 at 6:00 am
Hi all,
I agree with John so that I prefer to learn a few Kanjis and afterwards I review them periodically. At any rate, I think that it would be a good to use a mnemotecnic rule in order to remember the on-yomi and kun-jomi readings.
Take car
December 29th, 2006 at 8:12 am
Hi Javierさん、
I don’t know any mnemonic devices for on-yomi, but in Remembering the Kanji II, Heisig does give advice for using mnemonics in remembering kun-yomi. As for the on-yomi, he does give good strategies for systematically “dividing and conquering” them.
The main drawback for this is that it assumes you have gone through book 1.
December 30th, 2006 at 8:04 am
Mina-san,
I just logged on here to thank Nathan for the Grammar a Day and Kanji a Day, because I like it very much! 
Different strokes for different folks? 
(she laughs at her own joke). I just signed up with Yookoso and I have enjoyed it. The daily mail brings a tidbit to my attention. For example, the grammar a day covered the use of “に”. I learned something, so it was worth it.
This discussion is amazing
In additon, the Yookoso site has a lot of very interesting links. I almost lost myself looking at too many of them
Thanks, Nathan! I hope you are enjoying some time off. I have heard that you are working extremely hard, so have fun