The fact that it only takes two or three hours to learn hiragana & katakana makes the widespread use of ローマ字 even more bizarre. I could understand it if they took months or even weeks to learn, but they don't, not even close. If someone can't commit half a day to learning a straightforward set of characters then they clearly haven't got the motivation to learn an entire language. But, on the other hand, avoiding a book of useful sentences because it's written in ローマ字 is just as illogical.

I haven't read all the posts in this thread, but this discussion is about DBJG, right? I sentenced mined that book awhile back and I thought the romaji provided was very useful for when I was typing the sentences into the computer. I was still just a beginner at that point and it would have taken me at least 5 times longer to finish the book had it not been for the romaji. Of course, once the sentences had all been entered, everything had been converted to kana/kanji and I never had to look at the romaji again except on the rare occasion I needed to use the actual book.

Thus my point is, for the purposes of sentence mining, romaji hardly makes any difference.

Another advantage of romaji is that I can type faster with it. Kanji selection eats up a fair amount of time and changing the IME to Japanese input is a mild annoyance. Sometimes I like to put romaji rather than kana quotes on forums like this because it's easier and everybody from beginner on up will understand rather than just intermediates and advanced, and yet this is seen as flame-worthy by some.

Dragg Wrote:Kanji selection eats up a fair amount of time

You don't need to select 漢字. You can easily type spaced ひらがな. Never read the manual of your IME?

Dragg Wrote:and changing the IME to Japanese input is a mild annoyance.

Why change? I am on Japanese input all the time. Maybe you didn't realize that you can even input ローマ字 using it. And switching between ひらがな, カタカナ and ローマ字 is just a button press away (shift+space, q and l on my pc). Hell, I could even use tab to let it automatically complete English words for me. I can write a lot of letters not on my keyboard like ∇ and Σ by typing their names in English, pressing space and choosing them in the "漢字" selection dialog. I can even teach it new words, phrases and symbols.

Dragg Wrote:Sometimes I like to put romaji rather than kana quotes on forums like this because it's easier and everybody from beginner on up will understand

Yeah, because rikaichan doesn't exist.

Besides in Hepburn and its various variations ローマ字 is written rōmaji, rômaji, roumaji or roomaji, but never romaji. Is using and therefore teaching incorrect spelling really helping beginners? Most of these mistakes can only happen while using ローマ字, because the 漢字 selection that annoyes you so much uncovers such misspellings quite efficiently.

sheetz Wrote:I sentenced mined that book awhile back and I thought the romaji provided was very useful for when I was typing the sentences into the computer.

Seeing e instead of へ, wa instead of は, o instead of を and ō for おお and おう was not that useful for me, while trying to enter the sentences into the computer.

xaarg Wrote:Seeing e instead of へ, wa instead of は, o instead of を and ō for おお and おう was not that useful for me, while trying to enter the sentences into the computer.

But overall I'd still say it was several times faster entering the sentences having the romaji present than not. I honestly don't think I would have even finished the book otherwise.

xaarg,

I agree, if I was to write only in hiragana it wouldn't make much of a difference but that's not what I was talking about. Some "purist" would probably find a reason to complain about pure hiragana and no kanji anyway. I use the Iphone to access this site most of the time and switching languages is a bit more annoying than that. But thanks for the tip about the Windows IME shortcut; no, i have not read the manual for it.

I used to have Rikaichan but it stopped working for some odd reason. It took me a long time to come across it so I kind of wonder how many beginners know of it. Dfinitely recommendable though.

But i get your points...

Guys, you are forgetting that you are only a beginner for a very short amount of time.
If it takes 2 years to learn JP, you are a beginner for 1-2 weeks only.

Dragg Wrote:But thanks for the tip about the Windows IME shortcut; no, i have not read the manual for it.

Well, I rarely use Windows and its default IME, but it certainly has such shotcuts as well and you should be able to change them. If you are pretty fluent in Japanese, I would recommand to use ATOK 2009 instead of the default Windows IME. I myself mostly work on Linux, so I use UIM-skk most often.

Dragg Wrote:I used to have Rikaichan but it stopped working for some odd reason.

You might just try to install the latest version and the lastest dictionary. Sometimes when Firefox updates older extensions are disabled until you update them too.

sheetz Wrote:But overall I'd still say it was several times faster entering the sentences having the romaji present than not.

Using OCR (Abbyy Finereader 9.0.0.1042) on the Japanese sentences works pretty well for this book. Unfortunatly it does not work as well on the ローマ字, because the letters with macrons are not properly recognized.

xaarg Wrote:Why change? I am on Japanese input all the time. Maybe you didn't realize that you can even input ローマ字 using it. And switching between ひらがな, カタカナ and ローマ字 is just a button press away (shift+space, q and l on my pc). Hell, I could even use tab to let it automatically complete English words for me. I can write a lot of letters not on my keyboard like ∇ and Σ by typing their names in English, pressing space and choosing them in the "漢字" selection dialog. I can even teach it new words, phrases and symbols.

Unfortunately, those of us who speaks different languages can't use that since romaji mode in the Japanese IME lacks letters such as öäå etc. It can be hacked in the registry to work but that messes up some applications, World of Warcraft and Live Messenger for example.

Tobberoth Wrote:Unfortunately, those of us who speaks different languages can't use that since romaji mode in the Japanese IME lacks letters such as öäå etc. It can be hacked in the registry to work but that messes up some applications, World of Warcraft and Live Messenger for example.

Woot woot, world of warcraft shout out! represent!

xaarg Wrote:I myself mostly work on Linux, so I use UIM-skk most often.

What are the advantages of using skk? It doesn't seem to be any more efficient at first glance.

uberstuber Wrote:What are the advantages of using skk? It doesn't seem to be any more efficient at first glance.

My reasons for using SKK:

1. You don't have to press enter after typing kana. You don't have to use space much either.
2. You can switch quickly between hiragana and katakana (q key, by default).
3. You can customize its dict to include heisig keywords. Eg, /hsdecameron turns into 旬.
4. It does not convert the whole sentence to kanji automatically, you have to explicitly tell it where you want to use kanji and where you want to use kana, so you end up getting extra okurigana practice. Eg, it's 集まる, not 集る or anything else.
5. It has some nice conversions, like /10m30d turning into 10月30日 and /189231 into 十八万九千二百三十一.

I've been also using Azik for quite some time now, which is basically romaji input plus a few shortcuts for long vowels and common words, and keys for troublesome characters, like っ and ん. For example, p = おう, so tp = とう, sp = しょう, gyp = ぎょう, cp = ちょう. There are also shortcuts for あい, えい, うう, あん, いん, うん, etc. Also, ds = です, ms = ます, st = した, km = かも, etc.

Here's a whole sentence example with skK+azik:

うーん…安いのは一万円代からあるけどあんまり安すぎるのも
よくないから 最低でも三万円くらいのがいいかも…

u-qz.YasuInoha/10000y<space>Dq<space>krarukedoaqmariYasuSugirunomo
yokunqkr Sqtw<space>dm/30000y<space>kurqnogaiikmz.

More info about both:
http://www.h4.dion.ne.jp/~apricots/uimskk/tutorial.html
http://hp.vector.co.jp/authors/VA002116/...ikinfo.htm

Let me try with anthy:

u-nn...<enter>yusuinoha10000en<space x4><enter>dai<space x3>karaarukedoannmari<enter>yasugirumoyokunaikara.<space><right><f6><right><f6><right><f6><enter>saiteidemo30000ennkurainogaiikamo...<space><right><space X3><right><f6><right><f6>

I counted it with my fingers and it was about ~130 characters. Yours was around 115.
It was not such a great gain. And this was a really bad example of text. Most texts I see fit much better into anthy scheme.

Now a text from wikipedia:

ウィキペディアはオープンコンテントの百科事典です。基本方針に賛同していただけるなら、誰でも記事を編集したり新しく作成したりできます。ガイドブックを読んでから、サンドボックスで練習してみましょう。質問は利用案内でどうぞ。
現在、ウィキペディア日本語版には約 583,802 本の記事があります。

wikipedeliahao-punnkonntenntonohyakajitenndesu.<space><enter>
kihonnhousinnni<space>sanndousiteitadakerunara,<space>
daredemokijiwohennsyuusitariatarasikusakuseisitaridekimasu.<space>
gaidobukkuwoyonndekara,<space>sanndobokkusude<space>rennsyuusitemimasyou.<space>
situmonnhariyouannnaidedouzo.<space><enter><enter>
genzai,wikipedelianihonngobannniha<space><space>yaku583802<space><space><space><space>honnnokijigaarimasu.<space><enter>

Tobberoth Wrote:Unfortunately, those of us who speaks different languages can't use that since romaji mode in the Japanese IME lacks letters such as öäå etc. It can be hacked in the registry to work but that messes up some applications, World of Warcraft and Live Messenger for example.

Exactly! It's such a waste of time to always switch between the different keyboards, but I guess there's no way around it *sigh* Otherwise no äÄ, üÜ, öÖ, ß *hrmpf*

I just made a conscious decision some time ago to stop using áéóíúâêôãẽõç on everything but formal stuff.
It works fine for Portuguese.

mentat_kgs Wrote:I just made a conscious decision some time ago to stop using áéóíúâêôãẽõç on everything but formal stuff.
It works fine for Portuguese.

Unfortunately, it doesn't work at all in Swedish since åäö are real vowels, råd and räd are two completely different words

Tobberoth Wrote:

mentat_kgs Wrote:I just made a conscious decision some time ago to stop using áéóíúâêôãẽõç on everything but formal stuff.
It works fine for Portuguese.

Unfortunately, it doesn't work at all in Swedish since åäö are real vowels, råd and räd are two completely different words

Don't forget rad, rod (old word) and röd.

With T-code (direct input method):

iSoron Wrote:うーん…安いのは一万円代からあるけどあんまり安すぎるのも
よくないから 最低でも三万円くらいのがいいかも…

fedobetjngdetehinowot;n'h.cifusabet'fubemehjngwu'usateca
h,hynideh.cicgprdicawawot;hycidetesodedeh.catj

mentat_kgs Wrote:ウィキペディアはオープンコンテントの百科事典です。基本方針に賛同していただけるなら、誰でも記事を編集したり新しく作成したりできます。ガイドブックを読んでから、サンドボックスで練習してみましょう。質問は利用案内でどうぞ。
現在、ウィキペディア日本語版には約 583,802 本の記事があります。

vqlexqpydtlrs,hizjdom,wefpwev.wen.ter,iodx6odiwedu
otfivoq,ti7rakhonadetodjbusaniciheivdicafcdxsiumtghotohjdkhohyz,hnhotohjdidpmewedu
mtmuh;wdbamosi'kbedih.gihebyweh;oibamogadiwcpuhonazimehowvfedu
,tfxhi.ytba.b.dit'fevgdu
htp.hevqlrxqpydtlrs,tpfinlwrtihivnnetydahetytusufitefcdxsofuhjmewedu

Exactly two keys for each character and no space or enter. However I would need to use anthy for 29 of them as I have not learned those characters yet.

Impressive =O
How does T-code works?
I've checked your other thread here http://forum.koohii.com/showthread.php?p...3#pid46123
but now I can see no correlation with the sounds from what you type. What is your keyboard layout?

mentat_kgs Wrote:Impressive =O
How does T-code works?
I've checked your other thread here http://forum.koohii.com/showthread.php?p...3#pid46123
but now I can see no correlation with the sounds from what you type. What is your keyboard layout?

I use the dvorak layout (modified to have Swedish letters and some other symbols on AltGr) and there is actually no correlation.

The key combination for each character was decided by its frequency; high-frequency characters like ー(do), い(de), 。(du), で(di), と(ha), し(ho), 、(he), は(hi), た(to), の(te),に(ti), て(na), な(ni), ・(nu), る(sa), が(so) and を(si) are typed without moving from the home row (ie aoeuidhtns, or in querty, asdfghjkl and the opposite for low-frequency characters like 賛(7r) and 典(6o).

Typing Japanese with T-code is like typing English, but with two keys per character. I get exactly the character I want without having to know the reading, and then convert the input to the right kanji. That is especially useful when I type up text from books that do not use furigana.

I really like it and typing feels much smoother than with anthy/IME. Of course, learning T-code takes more effort to learn and practice, but I realized earlier today that I can use easy sentences from 2001KO for typing practice (option in Anki).

I'm using dvorak here too. But I still don't understand what you want to say.

Isn't it harder to remember how to type the kanji than to know the reading?

mentat_kgs Wrote:I'm using dvorak here too. But I still don't understand what you want to say.

Isn't it harder to remember how to type the kanji than to know the reading?

And more to the point, isn't it a lot more useful to memorize readings than arbitrary codes based on frequency?

Tobberoth Wrote:

mentat_kgs Wrote:I'm using dvorak here too. But I still don't understand what you want to say.

Isn't it harder to remember how to type the kanji than to know the reading?

And more to the point, isn't it a lot more useful to memorize readings than arbitrary codes based on frequency?

No, because I don't memorize the codes; I rely on muscle memory to produce the character I want. If I don't remember how to type a character, I look up the key combination and make a note to practice that character so my fingers moves correctly without needing to think about it.

Besides, what does readings have to do with typing? Pronunciation never matters when we type in other (European) languages. Using the same argument for English, we should be using a layout with the International Phonetic Alphabet. I imagine it would be something like this:

The IPA keyboard layout have the most common sounds used in European languages (placements chosen to fit English) with national variants for languages with rare sounds (like the unique Swedish ske-sound). The input is done by typing in the pronunciation and converting to the wanted word, i.e. type too and you get too, to or two. This allows the user to type in many different languages with a single layout (if you have the necessary dictionaries).

Some would rearrange the IPA symbols to better fit their native language, but most would use the standard layout. Eventually someone would come along and suggest a layout with the alphabet so that you could type directly what you want without converting. People would wonder why, since you would have to actually memorize/know the correct spelling for every single word and isn't it more important to know how the words are pronounced since you can't often tell from the spelling? After all, you only need to know the spelling if you are going to write something by hand and how often does that happen today?

tl;drThis post became longer than I planned, but I hope that analogy made a bit more clear why I think it is worth learning something like T-code. I want to be able to type Japanese words without having to recall readings, just directly type them as I do when I type to, too or two in English.

Pauline Wrote:No, because I don't memorize the codes; I rely on muscle memory to produce the character I want.

That's memorization, silly. Instead of memorizing the keycodes, you could just as well practice the readings though. Sure you have to press the space button, but that's half the fun. You could practice reading with this T-code, but I'd imagine if you got lost it'd be utter [deleted].

Pauline Wrote:

Tobberoth Wrote:

mentat_kgs Wrote:Besides, what does readings have to do with typing? Pronunciation never* matters when we type in other (European) languages. Using the same argument for English, we should be using a layout with the International Phonetic Alphabet. I imagine it would be something like this:

If that were true people would never* type "shear" instead of "sheer", hear instead here, there instead of their, etc. Most go by ear, and don't double check. A lot of this can be tacked up to laziness on the typer's part, though.

That international layout does make a lot of sense, though. Wonder why no one thought of it...

There's nothing wrong with t-code, I even considered using it. It's just, not convenient enough in my eyes to give it a try. Perhaps when I have reached a higher level in Japanese, where I think far far faster than I type, it may become of use. I'd probably just use dvorak or something else by that point, though.

On a side note: Have you ever considered the Piano?

*Never used to highlight the use of never...

kazelee Wrote:

Pauline Wrote:No, because I don't memorize the codes; I rely on muscle memory to produce the character I want.

That's memorization, silly. Instead of memorizing the keycodes, you could just as well practice the readings though. Sure you have to press the space button, but that's half the fun. You could practice reading with this T-code, but I'd imagine if you got lost it'd be utter [deleted].

Yes, but I was answering on memorizing which letter combinations that produces which character i T-code. That would be pointless as characters are assigned to physical keyboard key combinations, and the gibberish I wrote up is what you get when you press those keys with the dvorak layout.

Quote:If that were true people would never* type "shear" instead of "sheer", hear instead here, there instead of their, etc. Most go by ear, and don't double check. A lot of this can be tacked up to laziness on the typer's part, though.

Yeah, I shouldn't have been so general, specially when chatspeak relies on that to be decodable. Perhaps adding "grammatically correct text" or something like that would make it better.

Quote:That international layout does make a lot of sense, though. Wonder why no one thought of it...

Maybe, but you would get lower speed and fluidness when typing. There is also the problem that one language's most common sounds probably not the same as another language's.

Quote:On a side note: Have you ever considered the Piano?

What do you mean?

We should probably move the further discussion on T-code to this thread.

Somewhat on topic:
AJATT is one learning strategy that we think will be more effective in the long run compared to more conventional approaches. Some examples:
* RTK vs. frequency lists
* sentences vs. grammar + vocabulary
* real japanese speach vs. canned dialogue