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+--- Thread: What are good ways to study besides SRS? (/thread-11684.html)
What are good ways to study besides SRS? - learningkanji - 2014-03-14
I already do hundreds of cards in Anki daily but for the times I'm not doing that, what are some things I could try? I tried reading native materials before but I don't know enough vocabulary yet. I've done over 1200 words in core2k/6k but that's barely anything. I keep trying to think of things to do in Japanese but I'm not sure what.
What are good ways to study besides SRS? - Dustin_Calgary - 2014-03-14
I've always been a fan of driving through workbooks that have you answering questions etc., getting graded readers, actual conversation practice with natives, lang-8 etc.
I've even learned japanese kids songs for the practice, and now my kids can do some too ^^
Lots of options before hitting actual native material aimed at adults :p
What are good ways to study besides SRS? - rokudo - 2014-03-14
Try reading some NHK easy news articles. Learn the lyrics to your favorite Japanese songs so you can sing along. Identify your weak points in grammar and try to brush up on them.
If you don't have or use Rikaisama yet, I would definitely recommend it.
What are good ways to study besides SRS? - DrJones - 2014-03-14
You can try to read japanese texts that have a (reasonably good) translation written below.
You can also translate japanese sentences to your language, and next day try to translate your translation back to japanese, and check the differences.
What are good ways to study besides SRS? - kanttuvei - 2014-03-14
Just think of "reading native materials" as studying and you will do fine. It takes a lot of effort in the beginning even for easy texts. Since those graded readers are very cheap, I have gotten quite a few of them. You will need to know some basic grammar to proceed.
There are words you will encounter on almost every page and they will stick very quickly. Each story is about 20 pages, so in those 20 pages you will encounter the same topics and words several times (will also stick). Then there are words which you won't see so often and are a bit more difficult to remember.
A page from 1年生:
しかし、まわりの 人たちは おしゃべりに むちゅうで、ほとんど きいて いません。
そのころの おしろでは、 だまって 音がくを きく 人は あまり いなかったのです。
「ぼくの 音がくを、 みなに きいて もらうには どうしたら いいだろう。。。。」
モーツァルトは、すこし かんがえてから 大きな こえで いいました。
A page from 3年生:
駅のホームにある駅名表示板。駅の名前が、ひらがなと漢字で大きく書かれていて、読みやすいですね。
ところで、そのすぐ下に書かれたアルファベットには気づいていましたか。
これは「ローマ字」といいます。
ヨーロッパやアメリカを始め、この文字を使う国の人であれば、日本語がわからなくても、ローマ字のつづりを見
いたいローマ字は、どうして日本に広まったのでしょう。
A page from 4年生:
「それ行け！ とつげき！」みごと、大勝利をおさめました。
「ばんざい。ナポレオンの作戦はすごいや。」だれもがナポレオンを、見直しました。
その後、十五才でパリの陸軍士官学校に入学。やがてフランスの軍隊に入りました。
ゆうしゅうなナポレオンは、みんなをまとめる指揮官として活やく。
そして仕事が終わると部屋にこもり、本を読みました。
貴族生まれの兵士が、よるのパリへと遊びにいくなか、まずしいナポレオンにとっては、本だけが友だちでした。
なかでもルソーという人が書いた本に心を熱くし、何度も読みかえしました。
ルソーは「国の政治の中心は人民である」と説いていました。
What are good ways to study besides SRS? - Daichi - 2014-03-14
Have you given graded readers a try? Have you tried parallel texts like Read Real Japanese Fiction or Breaking into Japanese Literature? What about shadowing lessons from something like Assimil?
Plenty of stuff to try if you haven't.
What are good ways to study besides SRS? - learningkanji - 2014-03-14
I have not tried those. What are grader readers? Also any recommendations for books that have an accurate translation?
What are good ways to study besides SRS? - Kuzunoha13 - 2014-03-15
Lately, I've been going through some Visual Novels. I'm not sure how common this is, but a lot of times an English patch is released as a stand alone file. After you buy the game and install it, you can make a copy the installation folder. Then, apply the patch to either file - now you have one Japanese VN, and one translated VN. So what I do is read the Japanese version for a few scenes, and if I don't understand anything, check the English version for the "translation". A few piece of really cool pieces of software are Interactive Text Hooker, Translation Aggregator, and Atlas. If you set these up correctly, they can actually pull the script from the VN (and possibly other JP text programs) and display it in a separate window. You can actually copy/paste this text, but you can also configure it to show furigana above the word, and the definition in tooltip - it's really convenient. There's also a translation feature, but it's pretty underwhelming.
What are good ways to study besides SRS? - quark - 2014-03-15
learningkanji Wrote:I have not tried those. What are grader readers? Also any recommendations for books that have an accurate translation?Graded readers are books designed for learners of a second language, so they use much simpler grammar and vocabulary than most other books.
I'd also recommend looking up the Aoi Tori Bunko and Tsubasa Bunko series of books. They have full furigana and there are quite a few translations of classic novels available.
What are good ways to study besides SRS? - Jackdaw - 2014-03-15
Chokochoko has a library of graded readers available for free at: http://chokochoko.wordpress.com/the-great-library/
Here's another useful link too while I'm at it. Children's stories with glossaries and line-by-line breakdowns and translations:
http://life.ou.edu/stories/
VNs and NHK Easy are likely a tad too advanced for you right now, so I wouldn't recommend that. But you could start practicing reading slice of life comedy manga (shounen, typically).You'll see that by the time you've gone through a full volume or two, a lot of them shares the same vocabulary and should subsequently become more manageable to read. Plus, I've found comedies are well suited for study, because you get double the kick from both getting the joke and the Japanese, which in turn goes a long way to make the process feel less like a slog.
What are good ways to study besides SRS? - Aikynaro - 2014-03-15
I haven't tried it, but the reading-listening method is popular on other parts of the internet and seems like it wouldn't be too painful. http://learnanylanguage.wikia.com/wiki/Listening-Reading_Method
What are good ways to study besides SRS? - poblequadrat - 2014-03-18
I hope I'm not going too off-topic, but someone mentioned Assimil, and I am curious about pairing Assimil with SRS. I did the whole Assimil course a long time ago and it does teach you a fair bit of basic grammar. It's by no means complete, and some things would benefit from more explanations, but I thought that it was very good for people starting from zero.
So, seeing how effective SRS is with Heisig, I wonder about replacing the active phase with an Anki deck to be reviewed since lesson one.
What are good ways to study besides SRS? - Danchan - 2014-03-31
You might want to give JapanesePod101.com a try for a while if you feel really stuck. I used it for six months back in 2009 and got something out of it. Definitely though, while material that has been made for learners and which contains a lot of English can help you when you are starting out, it can easily turn into a crutch.
Diving into graded readers like people have suggested will probably give you more results for your time. Just remember not to feel too worried if you can't understand everything.
Another option? Lingq.com. Graded readers + sound + attached database for building up vocabulary. I did a bit of German study a couple of years ago with it and it worked really nice.
What are good ways to study besides SRS? - SomeCallMeChris - 2014-03-31
I highly recommend Erin's Challenge, https://www.erin.ne.jp/
The order is a little weird since each lesson has a basic and an advanced skit, but, as a beginner watch all the basic skits and check out the vocab and key phrases sections too. Once you've been through all the basic lessons you can go back to the start and review the basic skits and also try to understand the advanced skits.
(The 'advanced skits' or 応用スキット depending on how you're viewing the page, are pretty close to natural dialogues, so a real challenge to listening comprehension. Not so very hard if you're relying on the subtitles.)
Also LR (listening-reading) method as mentioned above, I think is really good. I've never really done LR as such, but I've kinda borrowed LR bits, and found it helpful. If I learn a third language I'll probably do some serious LR because it's pretty impressive. Erin's Challenge works -with- L-R techniques anyway.