@kyotokanji: exactly!

@transtic: a parallel text is not needed in this method, but if you had a Japanese text along with a Japanese oral reading of the text you can memorize the text via retranslation then listen to the oral reading for intonation and recognition of the spoken language.

kyotokanji Wrote:Indeed so, I think most people have misunderstood the direction the traslations would go in. My native language is English, so I would find a piece of authentic Japanese literature. I would then traslate it into English as well as I could. I would then hide away the origonal Japanese text and look at the English version. The next step is to translate into Japanese from my English text. Then make a comparison of the origonal Japanese text and my text. If I have over 90 percent correct then i've completed the task. Is that right?

Direction-wise that's what we want to be doing L2 -> L1 -> L2. In the majority of our cases that means from Japanese to English then back to Japanese.

It's not necessarily the "getting over 90% right" that's important. A large part of what it's about is noticing what you are getting "wrong" or the difference in your JP text with the original.

Noticing any commonality in one's mistakes allows us to focus our study on our weaknesses.

Using this technique in conunction with a JP teacher may be especially useful. As one doesn't necessarily need to reproduce the original JP text exactly to gain useful insights into our own knowledge, or lack of...

One further point to note is that leaving a period of time between putting the JP into English and then going back to JP is probably a good idea.

One would have to ask: Was it the translating back and forth that gave proficiency in English, or was it that he was reading English material.

Nukemarine Wrote:One would have to ask: Was it the translating back and forth that gave proficiency in English, or was it that he was reading English material.

Often when you read over something you naturally don't pay 100% of your attention to it. When you're forced to reproduce what you have read and then compare it to the original you can see where you made mistakes. It helps to train you to use grammar and sentences like a native speaker. Although I think that that guy must have studied at least 2-3 hours per day to get as good as he was. However, it didn't help his accent much.

stehr Wrote:

synewave Wrote:I'm a big fan of retranslation and try to encourage my students to have a go. Probably don't do enough of it myself though

From what I've read about the technique. Short, complete texts are regarded as best.

The idea is not to translate word for word but to produce a text in L1 that sounds as natural and idiomatic as possible.

This is exactly the method used. Whatever was translated into english does not have to be 100% grammaticly accurate, as long as the contents of the text are fully comprehended. But when translating back to Japanese you have to shoot for 100% accuracy, then you grade yourself using original document.
[snip]
Again, the main focus should be on the accuracy and errors of the "re-translated (Japanese)" portion of the text, not on the accuracy of the translated (English) portion. In other words, the english can be sloppy as long as the re-translated Japanese is true to the text. Of course practice makes perfect so I will often translate and re-translate up to 3 times on a really hard text (that's 6 total translations), until I get above 90% accuracy.

Hi, I'm a bit confused as I think stehr and synewave made completely opposite statements on one important point of this technique (and it may be that both styles work).

First just to clarify terms:
I'm a native English speaker, so English is my L1 and Japanese is my L2.

According to synewave:
I would find an authentic L2 text (i.e., Japanese text) and translate it into L1 (i.e., English) that "sounds as natural and idiomatic as possible." I would then translate it back into L2 (Japanese) and compare my L2 text with the original L2 text.

According to sterh:
I would find an authentic L2 text (i.e., Japanese text) and translate it into L1 (i.e., English) but as this is not the primary focus this first translation can be sloppy and ungrammatical so long as when I translate it back into L2 (Japanese) my re-translation is true to the original L2 text.

So which might be better and why?

Do I make my L2-to-L1 translation (i.e., from Japanese into English) as natural and idiomatic as possible AS WELL AS aim for the same when I re-translate the text back into L2 (i.e., from English back into Japanese)?

Or do I let the L2-to-L1 translation be sloppy and ungrammatical so long as it triggers a true-to-the-original L1-to-L2 re-translation? (If I have the right idea on this it might be somewhat like Mangajin's intermediary translation that was a fairly word-for-word translation. To help students better understand Japanese constructions and grammar, etc.)

Again I just want to clarify that the two of you are making very different points on this aspect and why you (or anyone else who is familiar with the technique of re-translation) feel one style might yield better results, etc.

Thanks.

Just suggested that to my girlfriend and she added a great idea to improve further on that system.
1) Listen to some Japanese audio many times and then write down what is being said.
2) Translate this into English.
3) Translate back into Japanese.
4) Say aloud what you have in your translation and compare with the origonal Japanese audio.
This helps those who become great at reading/writing a language but aren't good at speaking/listening, a trap we can all fall into.

This technique of re-translation is very interesting, but...

I haven't tried it, but the first reaction that comes to me is that it looks like it could become a boring task. It may yield great results, but is it worth the effort? Aren't there better (and lighter) ways to achieve the same goals?

These are just some thoughts.

@ Chadokoro_K - While what we are both talking about is 'retranslation' and as you rightly point out our ideas on how it's done do appear to be contradictory, I don't think it's necessarily a case of one of us being right and the other wrong...if it was, I'd obviously be right

But seriously, what works for the individual is probably the "right" thing to do. I believe stehr probably has more actual experience of doing retranslation tasks. However from what I have read, the aim is to "produce a text in L1 that sounds as natural and idiomatic as possible."

Then if you put the first translation to bed and come back to it after say 24 hours to put it back into Japanese, having a natural English text to work from means, in my estimation, that it becomes more an exercise in thinking how one says X in Japanese. Rather than an exercise in trying to remember what the Japanese text you read yesterday said.

It would be interesting to find out what sort of time scales stehr is working to.

@ kyotokanji - what your gf suggests is similar to a technique 'dictogloss'

EDIT: typo

Well, retranslation sounds fine and dandy, but hardly something you're equipped to start doing right after you finish RTK1.

For my part, my Japanese is 100% self-study. Never took a course. Didn't know a single Kanji before I cracked open RTK1 (OK, not strictly speaking true, I did know 雨).

When I finish the first book, I will know almost no On-yomi or Kun-yomi at all. I'd assumed I'd just go on to RTK2, but lots of people seem to hate that one. So the question stands: where do we go next? Is Trinity the one and only answer?

This retranslation technique reminds me of the technique Benjamin Franklin used to become a skillful and eloquent speaker. You can read about it in his autobiography, which I would recommend to anyone.

He took texts by authors whose prose and reason he admired. He went through them and wrote down the basic points made by the author. He then took those points and shuffled them up.

At a later time he took these points and ordered them as he thought the speaker would to make his case. Then he tried to reproduce the original from them, and made comparisons.

-- Daniel

I think the point isn't translation, but producing accurate Japanese from a non-Japanese source(you're English translation/notes). So the English can be sloppy, since the key is to write Japanese, not English. If the English is distracting from the structure you need for the Japanese, that's no good... If I did this, I'd like parallel texts so that I can check my understanding of the Japanese. I don't want to try translating something back and forth, and not even understand some parts of it in the first place.

yukamina Wrote:I think the point isn't translation, but producing accurate Japanese from a non-Japanese source(you're English translation/notes). So the English can be sloppy, since the key is to write Japanese, not English. If the English is distracting from the structure you need for the Japanese, that's no good... If I did this, I'd like parallel texts so that I can check my understanding of the Japanese. I don't want to try translating something back and forth, and not even understand some parts of it in the first place.

Hmm. I think you make a good point there. Translating from japanese to sloppy/word-for-word english without being able to check yourself and make sure you're getting the correct implied meaning of the japanese may lead to reinforcement of a mistake when you translate back to japanese from english. In other words, you see your translated english text and think you understand what it means, but those words directly translated may have a different implication in japanese. Then you translate that back into japanese, and even if you reproduce it with 100% accuracy, you may still fail to grasp it's meaning and then use that sentence incorrectly in another situation.

Synewave's method may be superior in this respect, as translating to idiomatic english, sleeping on it, then translating back to idiomatic japanese would ensure comprehension. But that does sound like it would be quite a chore and not very interesting.

synewave Wrote:But seriously, what works for the individual is probably the "right" thing to do. I believe stehr probably has more actual experience of doing retranslation tasks. However from what I have read, the aim is to "produce a text in L1 that sounds as natural and idiomatic as possible."

I definitely agree that one should use the method that works best for him or her. The two styles that you and stehr describe probably emphasize different aspects of the learning process.

Also, as you said, the method you described probably aids more in "thinking how one says X in Japanese" as well as (hopefully) being able to actively produce. Assuming one's ability is up to the task, this method would probably build natural and idiomatic language skills in both directions.

However, in thinking about it (and as Brett points out), this method of doing retranslation "might" be too time consuming if one's goal is simply to improve one's output of natural, idiomatic, and grammatically correct Japanese.

In the past, I did a lot of translation tasks but the focus was always on getting accurate as well as natural-sounding grammatically correct translations, not on using this as a tool to improve my Japanese.

I would also like to hear from stehr or anyone else who has used retranslation methods to improve their Japanese (or other L2) ability:

How much time do you allow between doing translation and retranslation?
Which of the two methods do you use and why do you feel it works better for you?

Thanks!

@Yukamina and Brett:
Someone mentioned Nipponia earlier in this thread as a source of parallel texts. I'm not familiar with this journal, but using this or something like it should alleviate your concerns about reinforcing an incorrect understanding.

Chadokoro_K Wrote:@Yukamina and Brett:
Someone mentioned Nipponia earlier in this thread as a source of parallel texts. I'm not familiar with this journal, but using this or something like it should alleviate your concerns about reinforcing an incorrect understanding.

Yes, this looks like it would work. Also, there is something called the Hiragana Times that does something similar, but you have to pay for it (although there is a torrent for it in pdf form floating around out there...). Here's a sample: http://www.hiraganatimes.com/hp/magazine/sample/006.pdf

Another option would be Giles Murray's japanese literature books, which I haven't checked out yet but seem to get good reviews.

nac_est Wrote:This technique of re-translation is very interesting, but...

I haven't tried it, but the first reaction that comes to me is that it looks like it could become a boring task. It may yield great results, but is it worth the effort? Aren't there better (and lighter) ways to achieve the same goals?

These are just some thoughts.

It's actually pretty fun and a nice way to study away from the computer. However it is important to choose a text which is above your current level, in other words has many new vocabulary and is very difficult to understand. It should also be something which captivates your attention, a subject you're interested in.

synewave Wrote:It would be interesting to find out what sort of time scales stehr is working to.

1. First I choose a Japanese text, it should be above my current level and have lots of new vocabulary. I have found that newspaper articles and short-stories are ideal (anything less than 300-400 words in totality), one or two chapters of a manga can work too, written like a script for a play/movie.

2. Then I start on creating a vocabulary list. I use a paper dictionary to look up all of the words in the article, then any words I can't find I use an edict to look-up. This can take anywhere from 30 minutes to 2 hours

3. Now I can choose to memorize the vocab list or to simply continue on translating.

4. Then I translate the entire text into English onto a notebook (college-ruled) making sure to leave every other line blank (double-space). The translation is not necessarily 1-1, but it is also not necessarily perfect English. It should be translated in a way so that you will not be too confused on re-translation. Again, a parallel text is not to be used - I will explain why later. This step can take up to two hours with a larger text and you'll be pretty drained, so I usually sleep on it and do the retranslation the next day.

5. I put the Japanese article away and begin to translate the English back into Japanese. I left a space under each line of the English so that I can write the retranslation under it. This step is usually a bit faster because you don't have to refer back to the article, just the vocab list.

6. Now the fun part, checking your Japanese with the original article. I usually highlight or circle anything that I got wrong, call myself stupid, pull out clumps of hair, etc. Now is a great time to also check up on your English translation and note places that could have been written better so you could have a more accurate translation.

7. Start over at step 4! Yes.. If you feel you had a significant number of mistakes and that the translating was still slow and difficult, start over. The second go-round will be much easier and you will notice a significant change in your understanding of the text and both English and Japanese translations will come out way better. My second re-translation usually comes out at 95-98% accurate.

* total time: 2-3 days (4-8 hours depending on size of text and level of difficulty)

?How well does it work? By the end you've pretty much memorized whatever you were retranslating, now whenever a similar topic comes up you should have 80-90% understanding of whatever is said. With newspaper article for example, if a similar topic or a continuation of the story comes up it should be readily understandable. It also gives you time to ask questions about hazy areas of the text that are difficult to understand, which helps greatly with memorization.

*drawbacks* -it is very intense. It's like taking a final exam, like your head's going to explode. On top of that it does take... I'd say a minimum of 4 hours. Though I'm sure it could be done faster. Also, the whole process has to be finished within a week because if you put it down for too long you may never pick it back up, (especially a newspaper article).

*On parallel texts* Personally I do not like parallel texts, I always disagree with parts of the translation. Parallel texts are an interpretation of the translator, basically the personal opinion of the translator. They're not 100% accurate. If you really get stuck on something just ask someone. I don't even trust dictionaries sometimes. The reason is because things don't ever translate perfectly. Ex : Watashi = I , wrong! -> wastashi=wastashi & Boku=Boku. Sometimes during retranslation I will put Watashi or Boku or Anta or Yatsu or whatever in the English translation in place of I/you/he, if it's not apparent that they would be used. You will see that through the process of retranslation you will automatically, naturally pick up on the nuances in the article read, if not on the first try then on the second. A parallel text should only be used on a sentence that's really got you stumped, but I've found that asking a native speaker is the best route. Just talking about the sentence or vocabulary with someone will really help it to stick in your mind.

stehr, thanks for writing up the details of the process you use. It really helped me to understand not only the nuts and bolts of how you go about retranslation but also why you do it this way.

I think I'll give it a try sometime.

I agree that the translation in a parallel text is ultimately the translator's interpretation so it is not necessarily the best or only way to translate something, but if someone doesn't have a native speaker readily available to help them on points they don't understand a parallel text might be a useful learning aid so long as they remember that there is a lot of room for variation and use it as a meaning "hint" only rather than the end-all be-all of a translation.

stehr Wrote:I don't even trust dictionaries sometimes. The reason is because things don't ever translate perfectly. Ex : Watashi = I , wrong! -> wastashi=wastashi & Boku=Boku. Sometimes during retranslation I will put Watashi or Boku or Anta or Yatsu or whatever in the English translation in place of I/you/he, if it's not apparent that they would be used.

I strongly agree with this point; my current Japanese class is interrupted by one member in particular who insists on having an English counterpart for everything.

As for what I am doing post-RTK1 (with an originally good but now very rusty Japanese foundation that only ever included working knowledge of 1,000-1,200 kanji tops)...

After RTK1 I initially dove into RTK3 (while the rhythm of creating stories/etc was still strong), however as I prefer not to use only Heisig's keywords I had a lot of extra work to do investigating the meanings and vocab usage of the kanji and I just plain burned out. (Yeah, I know, I might not have burned out had I just stuck with Heisig's keywords, but it seems silly to get so far and then stop what I've been doing.)

So after getting almost all of my RTK1 kanji successfully into the 4th stack I stopped reviewing individual kanji and did nothing for 6 months but read a tiny bit in Japanese and watch some tv programs, etc.

I finally came to the point where I wanted to do daily SRS review of kanji again, but not simply individual kanji review. So I am creating a SRS of "Kanji in Context" and I am reviewing the writing of the kanji using a sentence, phrase or grouping of words given a (hiragana) clozed word prompt.

In essence, I'm creating an SRS that will allow me to review the writing and meanings of kanji while I'm reviewing/learning reading and vocab meaning. I figure that after doing the whole book once through for clozed words, I will next review by writing the entire sentence from hiragana into kanji and kana. I just started less than a month ago but already my writing speed of kanji and sentences has really increased.

Someday I'd like to be able to write notes or letters in Japanese almost as fast as I can do using the alphabet. And when I get stuck for which kanji to use I will (hopefully) think about it in terms of other Japanese words that use it rather than an English keyword. (This is probably similar to what wrightak hopes to accomplish with his Japanese keywords list but I am using vocab in sentences and phrases. Once I get a more solid chunk of vocab I also plan to look at wightak's Japanese keywords list to see if there are any Japanese keyword additions that I can make to it.)

As Kanji in Context contains the joyo kanji (plus two) and about 8,000 vocab items it should be a solid Japanese SRS that I can add sentences to for the vocab in the reference book that aren't used in the workbook and for words using RTK3 kanji, etc.

Of course this is just the SRS portion of my study, but I want to see how well new vocab and its usage "sticks" using a sentence-based SRS.

I may also try the retranslation method stehr is using. If I do I will advertise for a language-exchange partner and use my L1 translation and L2 retranslation of texts as the materials we would discuss for my side of the exchange. (This would hopefully reinforce and verbally activate some of the new vocab as well as catch any mistakes, etc, in meaning and/or construction.) I'll let you know how it goes.

I'd like to keep my SRS creation and review to 2-3 hours/day for the next six months or so. And then to an hour or so for the next six months after that as I (hopefully only) make additions to it.

The rest of my study will include more light reading of Japanese texts and listening to Japanese for enjoyment rather than study. As the time devoted to my SRS decreases I will increase the time spent on enjoying things in Japanese.

Chadokoro_K Wrote:I'd like to keep my SRS creation and review to 2-3 hours/day for the next six months or so. And then to an hour or so for the next six months after that as I (hopefully only) make additions to it.

I love making files for SRS review but doing the reviews definitely feel like work.

As for post RTK1 options, as mentioned in other threads the 漢字検定 (kanken) might be worth looking at. Regardless of Japanese ability, one can find a suitable level.

EDIT: typo

synewave Wrote:

Chadokoro_K Wrote:I'd like to keep my SRS creation and review to 2-3 hours/day for the next six months or so. And then to an hour or so for the next six months after that as I (hopefully only) make additions to it.

I love making files for SRS review but doing the reviews definitely feel like work.

As for post RTK1 options, as mentioned in other threads the 漢字検定 (kanken) might be worth looking at. Regardless of Japanese ability, one can find a suitable level.

Yeah, SRS REVIEWS feel like work whether they are kanji, word, or sentence review.

I hope that the very act of making them (which is more enjoyable than reviewing them) will also help some of this stuff sink in.

A Japanese professor of English in Japan (who spoke excellent English) told me that his secret had always been to spend 15-30 mins a day REVIEWING the basics of the language in addition to USING English to communicate, read, write, listen to movies, etc. So I guess my main goal for creating this SRS is to have it to draw on for an eventual 15-30 min daily review of the basics later on down the road.

I also have some of the kanken books and agree they are are a good resource with levels appropriate for everyone. And I actually had a lot of fun studying for the kanken exams. Part of it was that it felt good to take the very same test as Japanese people...err...kids. If they offered the kanken in my area of the US I'd probably be going that route.

Anyway, I've given myself a 6 month time-period in which to (hopefully) get my Kanji in Context SRS made. So hopefully it won't be endless toil and I'll eventually get down to a 15-30 min daily review of basics and more time for the fun stuff...like studying for the kanken.

Chadokoro_K Wrote:I may also try the retranslation method stehr is using. If I do I will advertise for a language-exchange partner and use my L1 translation and L2 retranslation of texts as the materials we would discuss for my side of the exchange. (This would hopefully reinforce and verbally activate some of the new vocab as well as catch any mistakes, etc, in meaning and/or construction.) I'll let you know how it goes.

If you can find a language exchange partner who would speak to you 2-3 hours per week and speak only in Japanese, plus the retranslation, I can promise you can become fluent in 6 months. This is assuming that you have a strong base of elementary Japanese, (ie you should be at a level where you can pretty much breeze through a book like Genki 1).

This is exactly how I got fluent in Vietnamese. Because they're so poor over there I was able to hire a girl paying her way through college (who didn't know English) to call me 3 times a week and we would talk about whatever was on our minds for an hour or so. I payed her 120$ per month and that included phone cards that she would buy to call me on because it was much cheaper for her to call me through the internet phone services in Vietnam.

I noticed that my progress in being able to speak my mind really exploded after 3 months. Even my teacher said that at first it took me about 30 minutes formulate even one story that should have only taken two minutes, thank god she was patient enough to listen to me! Now I'm so comfortable that this year I am taking the class "Vietnamese for Fluent Speakers" at my college, a finishing class for Vietnamese refugees. For me writing letters, reading texts, newspaper, listening to news, having conversations, and even understanding other dilects is now spontaneous and easy.

Also, once you have a large enough vocabulary base (5,000+), learning new vocab is instantaneous.

I'm not quite comfortable enough to start doing that in Japanese but I'm also thinking of finding a Japanese exchange partner to practice speaking with in the upcoming months.

There are several programs where you can talk for free on like Yahoo Messenger providing you have a microphone. If you can find a partner then hook me up too! thanks

Terhorst Wrote:This retranslation technique reminds me of the technique Benjamin Franklin used to become a skillful and eloquent speaker. You can read about it in his autobiography, which I would recommend to anyone.

Thanks for mentioning this little gem. Thanks to your post, I got curious about Franklin's autobiography and now I'm working my way through it. It is indeed quite interesting, and available for free online.

First of all I would like thank rtkrtk for reviving this thread. The internet connection whre I live now is frequently interrupted -- often for weeks at a time -- and so I missed stehr's suggestions to me.

@stehr:

I haven't yet had a chance to try the retranslation methods and/or web-phone language exchange partner method you suggested but I think your suggestions are very good.

At one point in time (sigh) I used to be fairly fluent in Japanese (I passed Level 1 of the JLPT and found the listening section to be a breeze, etc) and even did technical translation my first few years back in the US but have since switched careers and not needed to use Japanese for the last eight years (on top of spending almost all of my time studying in other areas which meant I have had no time for pleasure reading in Japanese or English) so my skills in Japanese have really rusted over and atrophied.

I think the methods you describe would be of great help to people at any level from solid elementary and up. And for those at that solid elementary level you should indeed experience an explosion of proficiency after about 3-6 months. I had the pleasure of experiencing this way back when living in Japan with my Japanese partner and helping to raise two Japanese kids.

I still converse with the (now grown kids) and my ex but of course this is for communication and they would not have the patience to be language exchange partners in the same sense as you describe.

If I ever do make contact with folk interested in online language exchange using similar methods I'll be sure to hook you up.

Cheers and thanks again for the suggestions. I also think they will be perfect for someone like myself who is looking to revive fluency. I'm actually looking to learning some Thai and Mandarin or Cantonese so I may get the opportunity to explore this method in these languages first.

@chadokoro_K

I feel your pain, my friend. Sometimes I forget old words in Vietnamese, easy words that I should be able to recall, but somehow get stuck, there's nothing like that feeling. This is because I took a year off Vietnamese to go through RTK1 and learn the basics of Japanese.

It's true that retranslation is really not needed after gaining fluency because new words are so easily acquired as the base of vocabulary broadens. In your case, it would probably be simpler to learn Mandarin or Viet rather than Thai, just due to the sheer number of word similarities and your level of Japanese. I've found that I can often guess the readings of Japanese Kanji based on studying "chu han" which makes up over 70% of the Vietnamese language. I'm sure that Thailand has borrowed a few words from Chinese but probably not many. Either way it's still exciting, best of luck.

stehr Wrote:@chadokoro_K

I feel your pain, my friend. Sometimes I forget old words in Vietnamese, easy words that I should be able to recall, but somehow get stuck, there's nothing like that feeling. This is because I took a year off Vietnamese to go through RTK1 and learn the basics of Japanese.

I'm glad to know it's not just me.

stehr Wrote:It's true that retranslation is really not needed after gaining fluency because new words are so easily acquired as the base of vocabulary broadens.

Retranslation might not be really needed after gaining fluency but I think it could still be an interesting and useful tool. Just as someone remarked that Benjamin Franklin used a similar method to become a more skillful orator, I think that retranslation could also benefit people at upper-levels of fluency in a foreign language. The trick is to always pick something that is challenging. And certainly someone who is at upper levels of fluency should be able to go through the steps you describe more rapidly than people at lower levels of fluency. I remember having to make a presentation in Japanese on biology and the basics of cloning techniques -- topics I don't even know in English. I looked up websites in both languages on these subjects. Did retranslation for both the Japanese and English articles I found, made vocab lists for both, etc. End result was I got through the presentation, but better yet I really retained that vocubulary for a long time even though it wasn't stuff I would normally encounter. Imagine the benefits of doing something similar using materials that are more relevant to one'e life and interests.

stehr Wrote:In your case, it would probably be simpler to learn Mandarin or Viet rather than Thai, just due to the sheer number of word similarities and your level of Japanese. I've found that I can often guess the readings of Japanese Kanji based on studying "chu han" which makes up over 70% of the Vietnamese language. I'm sure that Thailand has borrowed a few words from Chinese but probably not many. Either way it's still exciting, best of luck.

Yeah, I only tried to learn Thai while staying in Thailand for seven weeks but Thai seemed really different to me whereas the cross-over in many of the readings and forms of the kanji and the hanzi will probably simplify at least the reading and writing aspects of Chinese over Thai and may enable me to make more connections with the spoken language as well. I remember having an "a ha" moment when "watching" (literally) a Mandarin drama in Mandarin with Hanzi subtitles -- not understanding a bit of the spoken language except for things like "sheh sheh" (my poor attempt at the pinyin for "thank you") when an exasperated young woman said "ma" (which I know means mother) to her mother but instead of the kanji that the Japanese use the hanzi diplayed in the subtitles was woman radical + horse..."So THAT'S why 'mother' is pronounced 'MA' in Chinese, I thought to myself." I'm sure I'll have many more "ah ha" moments like that if I study Chinese.

Thanks again for sharing your experiences and techniques. Good luck to us all.