日本語は話せます 🇯🇵

大器晩成

One thing that seems preferable in imiwa? over Midori: the component breakdown. Imiwa? always gives you the components that can help you remember and look up by the multiradical method and Midori often doesn’t.

So for instance, for りゅう＝竜, Midori just says

components: 龍

Whereas imiwa? has

Radical 龍 「りゅう」dragon
Components 立竜田乙

The one kanji being the simplified version of the other in this case. Of course that is the ON reading of the kanji for the KUN reading, たつ, there is also the homophone 辰. Jack Halpern’s Kanji Learner’s Dictionary has a cross reference at the end of entries. Finally for English speaking dragons there is ドラゴン。

芸は身を助く

Finding it somewhat amusing to pay attention to long strings of kanji in the dictionary. Such as
姉妹友好都市関係

So I’m in Kyoto and doing reasonably well. I reallly need to work on the reading and buildings out a vocabulary.

Curious to know more about what you mean by “doing reasonably well.”

For example I managed to have a basic conversation this morning about 山椒味噌 and learnt that it was good on tofu. I can do food ordering, ticket buying, answer where I’m from. All basic stuff but it’s become relatively facile. I struggle with much more complex topics as I have more grammar than actual words.

On the other hand I’m a little hamstrung by the fact that my wife speaks pretty good Japanese and often jumps in. However I can now understand a good deal of what she says. We were the only people in a Kappo restaurant last night and she had a long conversation with 板前さん, Andy I understood a lot.

As an example 板前さん was very concerned about the price of eggs in Australia, as he had been to Korea and they were very expensive.

Speaking of long strings of Kanji in the dictionary

中華料理店症候群

阪神大震災

Also, this clears up something that has puzzled me for a while: https://japanese.stackexchange.com/questions/11416/the-%E9%98%9D-radical-or-%E9%83%A8%E9%A6%96-in-%E9%83%A8-and-%E9%99%AA

漢和辞典
陰陽和合

台中関係

触手冠動物

Okay, like the way くうぶん, 空文, is translated as “dead letter.”

I’ve just found a major flaw with Memrise, which I’ve been using for flash cards for ages now. It doesn’t test you on Kanji to Kana or Kanji to English.

Can anyone recommend something better, preferably with audio?

Took a break from this language. Easing back in now. Don’t know the answer to Ed’s question, sorry. I always have mixed feelings about, mixed results with flash cards. Just the morning trying the flash cards in the Japanese app, which are pretty well done but no audio.

Haven’t used Anki in quite a while, they might have something.

You can always use Midori, which I have stanned for before. It will make flash cards of any list, pre-existing or of your own construction. To get the audio you will have to click through the (i) button and then, if it is a kanji click through a definition and then click on it and select “Speak.”

Tons of stuff on Anki, it seems.

I’ve been using an app called Kanji Teacher, which, unsurprisingly is pretty focused on teaching Kanji. I guess it is the opposite of flashcarding apps as it is more focussed on reading the kanji and learning the various On/Kun readings. It’s grouped by JLPT level or school year and it’s working out quite well. A supplementary tool.

夜寝る前に、お風呂に入るといいですよ。

So one thing I finally realized is that apps don’t come with the own speech generator, it is built into the iPhone. D’oh!

Their own

If you download the high quality Japanese Siri voice some apps use it and sound better - not all apps though.

Doesn’t actually sound bad. Just that it’s now obvious why sometimes the reading is off.

Interesting thing I just learned was that the kanji 見,
meaning “see,” was simplified in Chinese to be 见. Of course I knew about the theoretical existence of such differences but hadn’t noticed such a common example until today.

Doing the Duolingo Japanese to English course in order to improve my kanji reading, as I may have told you and I came across 聞 being used to mean “to tell,” which Midori lists as an archaic meaning, it is more usually defined as “hear, ask, listen.”

To be more precise, the kanji itself is not being defined as such, but

きける【聞ける】
 
ichidan verb, transitive verb
to tell (archaic)

Okay, think I may go back to LingoDeer for a while

i feel bad for not helping you guys enough, this should be helpful though

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hyGytj1Tirc

this one is meant for japanese speakers, but it might help

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CKjaFG4YN6g

Hm. Seems like busuu has tidied up and spruced up their Japanese and Chinese courses.

guys! I am two weeks into my year plan to learn enough Japanese for a little trip, and I have sort of become reasonably proficient in Hiragana. Katakana by the end of the month.... and then what? What next? Apps, the Genki book, Busuu? What say you?

Try LingoDeer, and get a good dictionary app like Midori

tbh soda, you could just go right now! you don't really need to speak any japanese to travel there. and reading hiragana and katakana won't get you very far since there are thousands of kanji characters you'll need to memorize to read things in a useful way and that'll take more than a year. but if you want to learn things to be cool while travelling, maybe just practice some phrases to use at restaurants, when asking for help, stuff like that. generic counters, one more, please, thank you, I don't understand, check please, etc. there are probably good youtube vids for this stuff? midori could also help in a pinch, esp since it works offline.

if you want to learn stuff because it's fun, genki is a pretty good textbook. you should be able to string together some basic stuff after finishing the first one and you'll learn some of the grammar basics. also, I haven't played with it much but tangoristo is a news app with furigana to help you read the kanji words. might help with reading comprehension and maybe even provide some conversation topics too?

Whilst it is possible to have a good time in japan without any Japanese you will have a better time with some basic skills, especially if you get outside Tokyo.

I’ve spent a couple of weeks in Sapporo at language school and a week volunteering on and farm in rural Hokkaido. It’s been great for my japanese and a whole lot of fun. I’m passing through Tokyo today and had a lovely Izakaya experience in Kamagura, able to navigate the menu a little and chat a little with the other people at the bar. My strategy to buy time is to order 日本酒をおすすめください and 漬物 which buys some time to work out what’s going on with the rest of the menu.

My learning for today is あら汁、fish soup made from leftover bits of fish, a very bisque like consistency, very delicious.

I have a question about placements of counters, which seems to be addressed in this thread https://japanese.stackexchange.com/questions/8136/positioning-of-quantities-using-counters although I feel that there is a fourth option to the ones discussed there.

Namely Q N P V, in their notation.

Although it does seem much more common to see Q の N than just Q N. Of course these are less both much less common then the Q appearing after the noun somewhere.

Just did some more of the Reverse tree on Duolingo, which is really a slog but seems to be very gradually improving my kanji identification, and which also just led me to read Tae Kim’s chapter on conditionals, which was quite helpful.

Level 2 of lingodeer is here.

Right now I’m working on consolidating my grammar and vocabulary learning. I’m using wanikani.com kaniwani.com and bunpro.jp

Of these the last is drilling grammar and really useful, it’s orgnasised by JLPT level but cross references with tae Kim, Maggie Sensei and a lot of different text books.

All three tools integrate together which is good, but aren’t free.

I’m mulling JLPT N4 next June. I should have done N5 this December but forgot about the application deadline.

We had dinner with a Japanese colleague of my wife and I didn’t suck too much, my comprehension is getting really good even if my speaking still sucks.

Most importantly though I should get about 3 months in japan next year.

Ha, I had some pipe dream about doing N5 this year as well.

Thanks for the info about Level 2. Saw the Coming Soon but didn’t check the past few days. Level 2 in some other languages as well.

Still have quite finished their Japanese Level 1.

I'm still looking for something to really drill the hell out of conjugations, it's still a weak area for me.

Yeah, good luck with that

Okay, with this kind of sentence I am starting to sort of see what is going on
もし彼が歩くのなら、私も歩く。

Shouldn’t that be

もし彼は歩いたら、私もあるく。