repdetect2 Wrote:I'm not sure what the community here thinks, but I've heard people actually enjoy using iknow.jp. It's still an SRS, but the presentation, goal setting and tracking I have heard many find appealing...I've actually thought about looking into it myself.

I liked it when it was free, but I didn't think it was worth what they started asking for it, so I quit using it. It's all down to whether or not the individual thinks it's worth the money (I don't like their recent copywrong bullying though, so I'm biased against them anyway).

I prefer Anki though, because of the flexibility and simple interface, but again, this is a personal preference; both programs do effectively the same thing.

sholum Wrote:(I don't like their recent copywrong bullying though, so I'm biased against them anyway).

I learned about this just yesterday through the Where are all the good core decks thread. Kinda turned me off from trying them out.

CreepyAF Wrote:In another thread I mentioned how I sucked at language acquisition. Some perceptive people mentioned that I didn't suck at acquisition, but more likely I suck at motivation.

This struck a chord with me so I've spent some time thinking about why my motivation sucks. My conclusion: I'm not really head over heels for Anki.

Does anyone know of other learning systems/study techniques suitable for someone at an early-intermediate stage of Japanese?

This is probably a dumb question, but I feel like I've been heavily relying on Anki for so long that I've forgot how to think outside the SRS box.

I believe this language manual (LACE manual) might help you for language learning variety. I haven't read the phonetics manual so I have no clue if it will be helpful.
http://pikkert.com/lace-download/

If the pdf is too long, you can check out this blog post "25 Ways to Find or Create Comprehensible Input" . Probably my fav entry from this site. It's short, concise and gives great ideas for language learners. This is where I discovered the LACE manual.

My suggestion is to not quit using Anki but use it as an instrument for your Japanese for it is a powerful instrument. But Anki is just that: an instrument. That's like wanting to learn how to play a piano and assuming that just being in the presence of one will make you a pianist. xD Being able to play a song on an instrument well requires a lot more than just "showing up". It's also not a quick process. Learning the piano keys, reading music and basic chords provide a good foundation to eventually learning how to play chords and down the time, a song. Also immersing in the music helps immensely with what sounds "right".

Same goes for learning Japanese. I don't assume Anki will be the one having me do all my learning. That's actually the number one rule of Supermemo's 20 rules of formulating knowledge (RULE #1: Do not learn if you do not understand). You should probably read this and see if you're breaking anymore SRS rules cuz it seemed like you were breaking rule #1 which of course almost everyone who has ever used an SRS program has done at some point.

TD;LR: supplement Anki with other learning resources.

[Zgarbas]

CreepyAF Wrote:

sholum Wrote:(I don't like their recent copywrong bullying though, so I'm biased against them anyway).

I learned about this just yesterday through the Where are all the good core decks thread. Kinda turned me off from trying them out.

The thing is that iKnow got bought out by another company, which is why I think they changed their copyright status. I think that they were mid-negotiation when they recalled the anki decks since 'btw most of our target audience has free access to our content because of this informal agreement we made a few years back' isn't very appealing. Not sure what DMM's stance is on it now.

RawrPk Wrote:My suggestion is to not quit using Anki but use it as an instrument for your Japanese for it is a powerful instrument. But Anki is just that: an instrument. That's like wanting to learn how to play a piano and assuming that just being in the presence of one will make you a pianist. xD Being able to play a song on an instrument well requires a lot more than just "showing up". It's also not a quick process. Learning the piano keys, reading music and basic chords provide a good foundation to eventually learning how to play chords and down the time, a song. Also immersing in the music helps immensely with what sounds "right".

TD;LR: supplement Anki with other learning resources.

I agree with this pretty much completely, except that I would say that Anki is a tool or an aid rather than the instrument. If you want to play the piano you can't do it without a piano. But you can, and many people have and do, learn Japanese without Anki.

Rather than a piano I would liken Anki to water wings. Very useful when learning to swim, but not something one aims to go on using for one's entire swimming career. I agree it is a flawed analogy because one will probably find Anki useful for proportionately longer than water wings. But essentially the principle is the same.

I think nearly everyone is essentially saying that what lies beyond Anki is the big, scary, wonderful world of really using Japanese. That is what really makes the elements of Japanese turn from "learned facts" to second nature.

Exactly where you start depends a lot on what works best for you and suits your own learning style. There are lots of good suggestions here and it might be good to try a bit of everything (that sounds helpful to you) and see where you settle. Over time you will probably broaden your range of input and output more and more.

Zgarbas Wrote:

CreepyAF Wrote:

sholum Wrote:(I don't like their recent copywrong bullying though, so I'm biased against them anyway).

I learned about this just yesterday through the Where are all the good core decks thread. Kinda turned me off from trying them out.

The thing is that iKnow got bought out by another company, which is why I think they changed their copyright status. I think that they were mid-negotiation when they recalled the anki decks since 'btw most of our target audience has free access to our content because of this informal agreement we made a few years back' isn't very appealing. Not sure what DMM's stance is on it now.

Oh? I never knew they were being purchased, I thought they were just re-branding and wanted to knock out some fair and legal competition, since they were switching back to a subscription model.
I don't think that DMM would go through the effort of continuing to enforce it, considering the amount of content they own that floats around the internet quite openly. I can understand why Damien wouldn't want to risk legal action though, even though that content doesn't actually infringe on anything.

CureDolly Wrote:I agree with this pretty much completely, except that I would say that Anki is a tool or an aid rather than the instrument. If you want to play the piano you can't do it without a piano. But you can, and many people have and do, learn Japanese without Anki.

Rather than a piano I would liken Anki to water wings. Very useful when learning to swim, but not something one aims to go on using for one's entire swimming career. I agree it is a flawed analogy because one will probably find Anki useful for proportionately longer than water wings. But essentially the principle is the same.

I think nearly everyone is essentially saying that what lies beyond Anki is the big, scary, wonderful world of really using Japanese. That is what really makes the elements of Japanese turn from "learned facts" to second nature.

Exactly where you start depends a lot on what works best for you and suits your own learning style. There are lots of good suggestions here and it might be good to try a bit of everything (that sounds helpful to you) and see where you settle. Over time you will probably broaden your range of input and output more and more.

Heh you make a good point. I didn't really think about the analogy too carefully and just recalled reading an article that tried to correlate language learning with music. I just picked a piano as an example cuz it was the first instrument that came into mind.

Well, I guess to make the analogy more fitting I think the tool in my said scenario would be the metronome. It helps musicians keep in beat when playing music but one doesn't use it for their entire music career. Especially not for concerts!

I've never heard of the term "water wings" before so I had checked with Google-sensei to see what it was. I know them as floaties. But I do like your analogy and comparing native Japanese as a vast open sea. It is big, scary, and wonderful.

Dudeist Wrote:

cracky Wrote:Online is actually a great way to make Japanese friends that you share common interests with. Especially if you don't live in Japan.

You can also probably talk to them more often than once a week.

I know people do it, but considering the time zone difference [11 hours] and how hard I find it to find local yokels with common interests, I don't know how I'd do it.

It's not as hard as it might seem. Go on japan-guide.com Classifieds or a similar site (though I've found Japan Guide to be the best). Put an ad out. Start talking with people via email. Pretty quickly, you'll likely move the chat to Line or Facebook, and continue to communicate asynchronously throughout the week. Once every week or so (as your schedule allows), arrange a Line or Skype call.

I've made a number of friends this way - some of whom speak some English, and a number who speak little to no English. Hell, this is even how i met my wife.

The time difference is a schlep (it's 16 hours for me), but it's not insurmountable.

bouzunikukerya Wrote:It's not as hard as it might seem. Go on japan-guide.com Classifieds or a similar site (though I've found Japan Guide to be the best). Put an ad out. Start talking with people via email. Pretty quickly, you'll likely move the chat to Line or Facebook, and continue to communicate asynchronously throughout the week. Once every week or so (as your schedule allows), arrange a Line or Skype call.

.

I've moved around a bit in my time and with one exception I've never maintained a friendship via email with anyone I've know in real life. Been able to re-establish in real life but emails just die out pretty quick.

Facebook chat is a bit different but not by much.

I suppose if you are seeking out someone who is also seeking out a language partner it might be a bit different. Also it may just be me.

Like the joke about the girl who tells the guy that "it happens to a lot of men" aside of the question of just how many, you have to ask, maybe it is the girls fault being the common denominator. Except we are talking social intercourse and I am in the girl in this scenario

[s0apgun]

bouzunikukerya Wrote:

Dudeist Wrote:

cracky Wrote:Online is actually a great way to make Japanese friends that you share common interests with. Especially if you don't live in Japan.

You can also probably talk to them more often than once a week.

I know people do it, but considering the time zone difference [11 hours] and how hard I find it to find local yokels with common interests, I don't know how I'd do it.

It's not as hard as it might seem. Go on japan-guide.com Classifieds or a similar site (though I've found Japan Guide to be the best). Put an ad out. Start talking with people via email. Pretty quickly, you'll likely move the chat to Line or Facebook, and continue to communicate asynchronously throughout the week. Once every week or so (as your schedule allows), arrange a Line or Skype call.

I've made a number of friends this way - some of whom speak some English, and a number who speak little to no English. Hell, this is even how i met my wife.

The time difference is a schlep (it's 16 hours for me), but it's not insurmountable.

There's a great app on the iPhone called HelloTalk and you can make lots of language exchange friends.

ファブリス Wrote:edit2: I can only imagine how even more useful listening is today when you have Google. When I listened to the BBC all I could do is write down something, and use a paper dictionary. Now, you hear this weird word "scrumptious" and you're probably busy playing World of Warcraft on the computer already so you alt tab and type "scrumpous" in Google, and it tells you that sumptuous is a word. You're not sure, so you click that little speaker icon in the google result next to the definition, and now you know that wasn't it. So you try different spellings and you type in scrumptous" and Google tells you "Did you mean: scrumptious?" Kids these days...

I just wanted to say how much this resonates with me. This comes closest to summarizing why I'm studying Japanese now.

I did JET from 2000-2002, and knew no Japanese before. Back then, it would have been very hard to get proficient in the language, or use it in any meaningful way, without actually living there. My Japanese learning basically stopped once I got off the plane after returning. And I had so little usage for it back here that it atrophied.

Now though, technology seems like a wave that is just revolutionizing language learning. So even though Japanese isn't particularly relevant to my life now, I do have this historic connection to it thru JET. And technology is making it so much easier to learn I'm like "hey, why not?"

@oliver14 All 6 of your posts are advertising your website. Maybe you should just... stop at this point.

Considering this is a forum for sharing Japanese resources, I don't think it is inappropriate for me to drop by very occasionally and let people here know about the apps I've produced - especially since one of them is new. I don't have a lot of time to spend posting about other off-topic stuff...guess I'm too busy making resources. If you have any to share I'd be happy to hear about them.

[Zgarbas]

While users who make their own resources are free to share them on the forum, there is a difference between that and blatant product advertising.

Unless you are a sponsor of Reviewing the Kanji, advertising on the forums is not allowed.

The forum rule applies regardless of whether the product/service is currently free or not.

(2015-10-11, 11:49 am)CreepyAF Wrote: In another thread I mentioned how I sucked at language acquisition. Some perceptive people mentioned that I didn't suck at acquisition, but more likely I suck at motivation.

One talent exists and is a huge boost, but it's useless to consider unless you're measuring your potential (dad I'm ganna be an astronaut, well kid do you have an IQ of 150?). If you've already learned a language then it is safe to say you can learn another one. Talent checks out so let's get to doing stuff.

But doing stuff is hard, and so you need lots of motivation to do hard stuff.

That's where most people go wrong, doing stuff doesn't have to be hard, take the path of least resistance. If it's hard change the method. I imagine that's the reason most people switched to RTK.

So don't look for motivation, you've got enough talent though it may not be exceptional. Now we need a method that is easy and gives result. I personally can't recommend one since I'm not at that level, but if I'll make a suggestion based on a video game analogy. To learn to play video games you can:

1. Watch people play them. (reading, listening to media)
2. Watch instructional videos. (textbook, instructional material)
3. Play the video games. (speak and write the language)

Now it is obvious the first two alone won't let you play CS:GO, you need at some point to get your hand at playing the thing. So use 1 and 2 as a goal to achieve 3, and all the while take it easy. Again the best progress is the easy slow progress. Give yourself time (10-20 years should do it). If you don't feel a method is working change it, if it's hard but works, reduce the intensity. And one more repetition: don't look fore motivation, take it easy.