[s0apgun]

Ahhh that photo made me smile. The best arcane secret.

rahsoul Wrote:I really recommend either getting them on kindle, or reading them on a computer with Rikisama or something similar.

Any idea how to download books to the Mac? I'd like to be able to buy Japanese books and read them on my Mac. The Kindle for Mac app only links to the U.S. Amazon store, not the Japanese one.

JapaneseRuleOf7 Wrote:

rahsoul Wrote:I really recommend either getting them on kindle, or reading them on a computer with Rikisama or something similar.

Any idea how to download books to the Mac? I'd like to be able to buy Japanese books and read them on my Mac. The Kindle for Mac app only links to the U.S. Amazon store, not the Japanese one.

You have to make a Japanese iTunes account.

Okay, I have that . . .

drdunlap Wrote:This was the absolute worst part. D: Keep on going!!

Thanks. I'm pretty stubborn too, so fingers crossed I get there...I picked up 4 Murakami novels (and a load of other books and manga) when I was in Singapore back in May (not that I could read them then, but I got a bit excited with the huge Japanese range in Kinokuniya), looks like I'm on the right track anyway- just need to get reading...

One thing I'm curious about - when if ever, did you go fully monolingual on the cards? And did you ever try branching? The reason I ask, is that I went full j-j on my anki cards 3 months ago, but with all the branching, and adding 20-30 new cards a day, it got a bit out of hand. I ended up spending nearly all my time on Anki, and almost none on native materials. I also think with the branching I'm spending far too much time learning words that aren't very common. Which I think is probably the wrong way to do things, and the tremendous amount of reviews and fails was dragging me down...

I like your card format, so I think the best plan now is to go back thru the 1800 j-j card I made, delete probably half of them, and change the formatting slightly.

speck Wrote:The reason I ask, is that I went full j-j on my anki cards 3 months ago, but with all the branching, and adding 20-30 new cards a day, it got a bit out of hand. I ended up spending nearly all my time on Anki, and almost none on native materials. I also think with the branching I'm spending far too much time learning words that aren't very common. Which I think is probably the wrong way to do things, and the tremendous amount of reviews and fails was dragging me down...

I tried the branching from JALUP and it seems like a good idea on paper but not when you actually try to do it... That's another story. I started off with a single word that led to a definition (in japanese) that I couldn't understand. Then when I tried to get definitions from all of the unknown words I got a ton of unknown words. This seemed to be adding what felt like 50-100 cards for one word. I stopped that after less than a day and just kept on using Core 6k.

JapaneseRuleOf7 Wrote:

rahsoul Wrote:I really recommend either getting them on kindle, or reading them on a computer with Rikisama or something similar.

Any idea how to download books to the Mac? I'd like to be able to buy Japanese books and read them on my Mac. The Kindle for Mac app only links to the U.S. Amazon store, not the Japanese one.

I don't have a Mac, so I really can't help. I know for PC that there is no way to access books from your Japanese account (that I have found), you must have a Kindle Paperwhite. So you would have to get the books from possibly other bookstores (I don't know any Japanese ones) or torrent them.

I spent a week trying to figure it out and just ended up buying a Paperwhite, worth it to me. Maybe Xankaputo is talking about buying the Japanese books through iTunes instead of Amazon? I'm not sure, as I don't have an account.

@rahsoul So now that you have a Paperwhite, you can access the Kindle Japan store okay? Are you doing that from outside of Japan? Because everywhere I look, I get mixed info about the possibility of doing this. (And I don't want to throw $140 just to get told that I can't access the store.) If it's true, that would save me an insane amount of money on shipping.

rich_f Wrote:@rahsoul So now that you have a Paperwhite, you can access the Kindle Japan store okay? Are you doing that from outside of Japan? Because everywhere I look, I get mixed info about the possibility of doing this. (And I don't want to throw $140 just to get told that I can't access the store.) If it's true, that would save me an insane amount of money on shipping.

Yep everything seems to work fine. I bought the kindle on my U.S. Amazon account, unregistered it, and then registered it to the Amazon Japan account I had made just previously. I can't guarantee that Amazon will never track me down and ban my account, but it's been working for 6 months, and I've downloaded books and manga.

Definitely don't link accounts, and as an extra precaution after you get the books on your kindle I would save the files somewhere (worst case scenario you can at least strip the DRM and still have the books you paid for to read on any device).

Also, if you've never bought anything on Amazon Japan I would make an account and buy your first book before getting the kindle, just to make sure everything is set up and works properly before spending the money on a kindle (better to be out $5 than $100). You shouldn't have any problems though.

The only downside is I have the ad supported version and those remain in English, which annoys the immersion side of me.

Edit:
Just to clarify, I've never been to Japan, and didn't use a Japanese VPN, so this works as a pure western endeavor.

Okay, my newest plan is to download the new Mavericks OS X for mac, which includes Apple Books. I understand I can purchase Japanese books through that. Unfortunately the Apple servers are swamped right now, so downloading Mavericks is temporarily kind of impossible, but in a week or so I'm hopeful I'll have that up and running. If so, I'll write an article on my site about how awesome (or not) it is for Japanese books.

ryanjmack Wrote:I tried the branching from JALUP and it seems like a good idea on paper but not when you actually try to do it... That's another story. I started off with a single word that led to a definition (in japanese) that I couldn't understand. Then when I tried to get definitions from all of the unknown words I got a ton of unknown words. This seemed to be adding what felt like 50-100 cards for one word. I stopped that after less than a day and just kept on using Core 6k.

JALUP is great- I learned a lot form it. Everything up to the branching point worked wonders, and I'd been really happy with my progress.

I tried branching for nearly 3 months. It does get slightly easier, but not much. I found I was looking up a ton of words from descriptions (which when I looked into frequency charts, were almost never used). That in itself isn't really a problem, or wouldn't be if I could remember them. When they came up for review I would have almost no idea how I got there, and without any english to guide me, I'd spend easily 5 mins trying to work it out by going thru previous cards. I also found myself 'cheating' a lot, by taking a quick peek at a j-e dictionary. It just got too much, and I ended up with hundreds of reviews that I didn't really understand. I did learn things this way, but I think there must be a more efficient way- I was spending all my time getting thru reviews, and none on native material.

That's why I really want to know how drdunlap did it, and if he branched everything. I have followed a pretty similar path to him so far, and the example card he posted is somewhat similar to the way I have been doing things. It looks like (I'm guessing here) he used a Japanese description and example sentence, but with an english key word (which I was doing, minus the English key word). Which would speed the whole process up immensely. And his Japanese is pretty killer- so if it worked for him, then great! Sign me up!

JapaneseRuleOf7 Wrote:If so, I'll write an article on my site about how awesome (or not) it is for Japanese books.

Totally off topic, but I love your site Ken. I try and avoid reading it on the train however- sitting on public transport laughing at your phone earns you some strange looks...

Cheers...

This is a pretty awesome set of milestones I can work with, thanks a lot drdunlap. I've only been studying since February, so it's been 9 months, and this last month was Freshers' month... my alcohol tolerance has gone up wayyy too much, haha. Now to play hard and work hard...

@rahsoul: Thanks a ton for the info! I've had an amazon.co.jp account for years now, because I use it to buy books.

One other question: did you use different e-mail addresses for the two Amazons? I have both Amazon.com and Amazon.co.jp on the same e-mail, that's why I ask. I wonder if that might mess up logging in down the road.

forgive me for being off-topic, but I am wondering where I can get games like MGS4, FF13, Chrono Cross, Chrono Trigger & co. in Japanese. Does anybody have any hints?

hyvel Wrote:forgive me for being off-topic, but I am wondering where I can get games like MGS4, FF13, Chrono Cross, Chrono Trigger & co. in Japanese. Does anybody have any hints?

I usually get new games from yesasia.com or play-asia.com - both usually have free worldwide shipping, and they both take about the same time to get to the UK. Just make sure that you buy the Japanese version when ordering (sometimes they sell several variations of each game).

You can always try ebay too- but I find that to be more expensive (the buy it now prices are quite high, and usually there is a shipping charge). Every so often you find a seller who sells stuff on auction, and you can get some real bargains (I picked up a Super Famicom, and a bunch of games for next to nothing a month or so back)...

Another vote for play-asia.com. I use them almost exclusively.

If I did it again.. I'd probably just get started sooner. My first year was incredibly unproductive. :||
That's about it..!?


Branching is the reason I quit sentence cards. It didn't feel efficient..
My cards all have Japanese definitions but I couldn't read them for a long time. NOW they're very handy, however. For nuance and synonyms and.. stuff. I knew they would be useful someday so I threw them in but I still look at the English in my cards as well. I don't see any reason to avoid English like the plague. Makes things quicker! As long as I also understand the Japanese thinking behind the words I'm using I'm good to go.

rich_f Wrote:@rahsoul: Thanks a ton for the info! I've had an amazon.co.jp account for years now, because I use it to buy books.

One other question: did you use different e-mail addresses for the two Amazons? I have both Amazon.com and Amazon.co.jp on the same e-mail, that's why I ask. I wonder if that might mess up logging in down the road.

I have two different e-mail addresses. I didn't have a Japan one before, and I had read a horror story of a linked account getting banned (so he lost both accounts) so I made sure to keep them separated. If you have proof of address in Japan then I think it's OK in Amazon's TOS to have the account.

If I had another credit card I would use separate cards too, just to be sure. lol I am a bit paranoid though. If you've been buying other stuff on your Japan account already I guess it would just be the same.

hyvel Wrote:forgive me for being off-topic, but I am wondering where I can get games like MGS4, FF13, Chrono Cross, Chrono Trigger & co. in Japanese. Does anybody have any hints?

Besides everyone's recommendations, I've had good experiences with checking Amazon USA as well. Usually the prices are ridiculous, but they often have them selling used for a good price. I picked up Tales of Vesperia for $40 and Xilia for $25, plus free two day shipping. =) Search for "Japan Import" or the Romaji name of what you're looking for, might get lucky.

Edit:

Oooo, I forgot. Sony is all over digital content at the moment, so if you sign up for a Japanese PSN you can get a ton of stuff fairly easily. Japan Playstation Plus is a must if you do. It's not hard to sign up, you just need to get Japan PSN cards, I find Solaris to be the best ($57 for $50, plus they are nice).

http://www.solarisjapan.com/products/Pla...-5000.html

speck Wrote:

JapaneseRuleOf7 Wrote:If so, I'll write an article on my site about how awesome (or not) it is for Japanese books.

Totally off topic, but I love your site Ken. I try and avoid reading it on the train however- sitting on public transport laughing at your phone earns you some strange looks...

Cheers...

Thanks, glad to hear it. My goal is to ultimately write something funny enough to make you pee yourself a little bit on the train. Now that would be awesome. You can thank me later.

hyvel Wrote:forgive me for being off-topic, but I am wondering where I can get games like MGS4, FF13, Chrono Cross, Chrono Trigger & co. in Japanese. Does anybody have any hints?

Like everyone else said play-asia is pretty good. Also for Asia versions (generally cheaper than Japanese) you could try mariio128.com, they are based on Hong Kong, just make sure to check if game has Japanese audio/text because some Asia versions of games come in different languages.

I came back to read this and am curious about one thing: At the end of your intense study period where you read four novels and started in on a fifth, did you have roughly 6500 words in Anki--or around 9500? Given that you could almost read dictionary-free, I'm assuming it was the latter, but thought I'd ask in any case.

Just added it up! I had 6745 words in Anki. Although that doesn't, and the current number (11,000) doesn't, reflect how many words I actually know. There were words from my first textbook that I never put into Anki. Words I use all the time and couldn't imagine forgetting I don't put into Anki.. etc etc. (I also haven't added anything to Anki in about a year and a half.. (；´∀｀) Maybe I should do that again sometime for technical mumbo jumbo.. but the learning process has become so organic that maybe it would just be a waste of time. I can't remember the last time I thought of Japanese as foreign.)

Either way- it's not like I knew what every word meant without looking it up. I had to guess sometimes but that allowed me to move forward at a nice pace. :]

I too have come back to this thread countless times to read about your journey. You've inspired me to finally give up on the mind-numbingly boring drills, grammar, exercise books, etc. that I've felt so compelled to subject myself to extensively over the past year or so. I've almost completed my first novel "Kitchen" by Yoshimoto Banana, which I am reading with a Japanese friend who is reading the English version as her first novel.

I'm not decrying the importance of getting a foundation through deliberate studying of the language fundamentals, but I believe that there comes a point much sooner than I thought where taking the training wheels off yields much better results... And of course it's a sort of realizing the fruits of your efforts, so it's quite enjoyable.

That being said, my private tutor told me that novels like Kitchen are probably at the upper levels of proficiency because of the writers styles and that magazines and perhaps even news would be easier to read. Manga, of course, as well. I'm trying my best to guess the meanings of most words, and I'm actually keeping the anki additions to a minimum.. Maybe 4 or 5 words that give me trouble but I think are useful, per reading session, day. The others that are actually useful I just stay confident that I will come across again. Deliberate Anki reps has also classically made me depressed about the whole process so I've pretty much abandoned the idea of studying massive amounts of cards. Dictionary lookups as well only when I can't read a kanji or if I absolutely must know the hard meaning of a word because it's vital and I'm clueless. It's made this reading and drama watching much smoother and the overall more relaxed approach is refreshing.

So, again, thank you for your inspiring story and your replies to all of our questions. :-)

I don't always read forum posts, but when I do it's this one and I read it over and over.

Since I have what fiction (and non-fiction) to read covered, I was just wondering what you would recommend as a substitute for those lectures you had where your teacher went over nuances of the language with you.

I'm thinking, for example, of purchasing The Routledge Course in Japanese Translation as well as Studies in Modern Japanese Translation. This is partly because I want to translate Japanese fiction later on, but also because I think it may approximate the sort of valuable lectures you were able to attend.

Anyway, I'm sure there are some good books in Japanese for this. I just don't know which ones. And you may have some good advice as you know much better than I what was covered in that class!

As before, thanks for any response you take the time to write. This thread's already been a big help to me and I'm sure many others.