Well, I've put all the sentences into anki, and then reviewed them all multiple times by now, and any errors I found I went back and changed it in the google doc. So there has been at least one check of sorts for every card. Of course I didn't check them against the book, I just found any mispellings or strange kanji with my own knowledge.

Some of the sentences were overly kanjified, like 出来ます　（できます） but I didn't change them because it would be a lot of work, and also because some people prefer to overly kanjify. It's an easy enough exercise to edit them yourself using guidance from an EDICT dictionary, their 'usually written with kana alone' advice is pretty good. Using arabic numberals is more natural these days in written Japanese. The grammar points are pretty obvious if you read through the book as you add the sentences, and this is the advised method of learning them. You should go kanji sentence to kana sentence and English. To learn the grammar, read the book first.

If you want to add more context, go ahead. Note your revision in the notes part, I think no one is really willing to put in much more effort for this project, so if you want to do something, go ahead. If you want to put the English in your cards but have it invisible, just add an English field, and then in the display properties make the English field use a white font colour. Now you won't be able to see the English in the answer unless you highlight it with your mouse.

cangy Wrote:As for anki, how is everyone arranging their cards? I'm doing english to kanji and vice versa, but I think nukemarine at lease isn't using the english? I imagine you have to go from english to kanji if you want to learn how to use the grammar rather than just recognizing it?

Most of the people on this site are using a method called AJATT which they learned from a guy called Katzumoto who "claims" he learned fluid Japanese just by studying japanese sentences using SRS. According to his advice, going English to Japanese (That is, attempting japanese output) is a bad idea. What he's saying is that you will speak unnatural japanese if you try to force output, instead you should get good at passive japanese (understanding instead of producing) and then output will come naturally and it won't be odd.

I'm saying he because I personally don't agree fully. I do however agree that passive knowledge of Japanese is a lot more important than active knowledge, so you should focus on recognition cards instead of production cards.

Cangy,

For set-up, I go Production by doing Audio to Kanji (technically, it's recognition, but production is writing in my head or on paper the sentence). I then go Recognition by going Kanji to Pronouncing it correctly. The english, notes and definitions are there only in case I don't recognize the concept of the sentence.

For correction, yeah, some get corrected as we go along. Now, what you should do is correct your own sentences in Anki and add corrections to the spread. It's just not possible to remerge a deck to take into account changes others have made.

I agree about the grammar points being included in the spreadsheet. I'm in the process of putting together a table of contents which then is a matter of cutting and pasting into the main spreadsheets notes section. This was done in part 1 and 2 by me, but abandoned as annoying during the project. This'll be very important for parts 3 and 4 as verb variants can get confusing going off only by the English translation as the guide.

The Over-kanjifying was a call due to UBJG using only JLPT 3 and 4 kanji. Yeah, うち　and 家　hold different meanings and pronunciations being the best mistake in the kanjifying. However, reading over manga and karaoke and subtitles I notice that there's wiggle room in everything. We don't have the native level intuition to decide when it best to leave as kana. So my thinking is kanjify it so you get the kanji training. As pointed out, it's not too much of a stretch to change it to kana again.

As for the English sentences, yeah, some are wrong or don't carry the concept the sentence too well. I did not think it was a big deal, however, I was not thinking people would be doing English to Japanese flashcards. If you are doing that, yes, make sure the sentences are exactly how you want them. Granted, you should vet each and every sentence prior to putting them in your flashcards.

I just have to say, it's a useful book that has some big drawbacks. In addition, there are problems putting the sentences into a spreadsheet format. Fortunately, that's all done, so now it's either polishing the spreadsheet or the individual vets the sentences for his own desires. For example, I have been shortening my sentences. However, I would not put such changes in the public spreadsheet. If I ever post my audio files, I would have to export my Anki modified sentences though.

Anyway, good luck. Hope you do it faster than I've been going at it.

I don't think over kanjified sentences are bad. This is because when I've read sentences that have kana instead of kanji, I've been able to recognize the word anyway.

alyks Wrote:I don't think over kanjified sentences are bad. This is because when I've read sentences that have kana instead of kanji, I've been able to recognize the word anyway.

Problem being that when you eventually write your own sentences, you might put kanji instead of kana which looks really odd to native Japanese.

I requested permission to access this document.

my e-mail is ajjr**e@gmail.com (** added for spam protection)

I can also help out if you need it.

Tobberoth Wrote:Most of the people on this site are using a method called AJATT which they learned from a guy called Katzumoto who "claims" he learned fluid Japanese just by studying japanese sentences using SRS.

To be fair, he doesn't "claim" to have learned fluid Japanese, he just claims it.

Ok, thanks for your advice.

I think I'll stick with english<->kanji for now. I think if you were doing the UBJG sentences as part of your 10,000 sentences along with enough other input then I'm prepared to believe you won't need to go english->kanji (although I don't think it would be harmful because the corrections are immediate...). But in my case the only sentences I'm doing for now are these, and my goal is to be able to use this basic grammar accurately in writing and conversation, so I think doing english<->kanji will be better for that...

nukemarine, please let us know when you have the table of contents ready as I think that'll be a big help. If you put it in the spreadsheet I think it'd be better in it's own column.

I'll add a usually-kana column to use for production and use the current overly-kanjified one for recognition. I'll just be starting at the start though, so if anyone else is concerned about writing with unnatural kanji use and wants to add the extra column from where they're up to, that'd be great too.

Hey guys, sentance number 144 "信号は緑から黄色に変わります。" Is incorrect. It should read 信号は青から黄色に変わります。Somebody changed the kanji from blue to green thinking it was a typo in the book, but the original sentance is correct. In Japan, we call the green traffic lights blue...

kerosan41 Wrote:Hey guys, sentance number 144 "信号は緑から黄色に変わります。" Is incorrect. It should read 信号は青から黄色に変わります。Somebody changed the kanji from blue to green thinking it was a typo in the book, but the original sentance is correct. In Japan, we call the green traffic lights blue...

not quite... 青い means green as well as blue (conceptually they are shades of the same color). So they are still calling the lights green, just with a different word. But yes, saying 緑 is wrong.

Jarvik7 Wrote:

kerosan41 Wrote:Hey guys, sentance number 144 "信号は緑から黄色に変わります。" Is incorrect. It should read 信号は青から黄色に変わります。Somebody changed the kanji from blue to green thinking it was a typo in the book, but the original sentance is correct. In Japan, we call the green traffic lights blue...

not quite... 青い means green as well as blue (conceptually they are shades of the same color). So they are still calling the lights green, just with a different word. But yes, saying 緑 is wrong.

not quite... 青い means blue as well as green (conceptually they are shades of the same color). So they are still calling the lights blue, but they intend green.

Likely a mistake on my part (seeing that I posted the first two chapters). Please feel free to correct it.

Granted, as translation says green, it's good to point out the note kerosan wrote.

kerosan41 Wrote:not quite... 青い means blue as well as green (conceptually they are shades of the same color). So they are still calling the lights blue, but they intend green.

Your post makes no sense.

http://www.guidetojapanese.org/forum/vie...hp?id=3543

Check out that post for more one the subject.

rich_f Wrote:Send some sort of proof of ownership-- like a photo of your book with a piece of paper in the picture with your email address on it.

So we just send a picture that we have the book? where would i send it to?

Jarvik7 Wrote:

kerosan41 Wrote:not quite... 青い means blue as well as green (conceptually they are shades of the same color). So they are still calling the lights blue, but they intend green.

Your post makes no sense.

It's true though, they are calling them blue, it's just a different blue which we considers green Since it's wrong to call the lights 緑, we can't say that they are calling them green, because they aren't, they are calling them blue.

Tobberoth Wrote:

Jarvik7 Wrote:

kerosan41 Wrote:not quite... 青い means blue as well as green (conceptually they are shades of the same color). So they are still calling the lights blue, but they intend green.

Your post makes no sense.

It's true though, they are calling them blue, it's just a different blue which we considers green Since it's wrong to call the lights 緑, we can't say that they are calling them green, because they aren't, they are calling them blue.

Nah, he just copy & pasted my post which did make sense and garbled it a bit. Blue and Green are conceptually the same thing in Japanese. It's not a different green and a different blue. 緑 just defines a certain shade of that color. So just as you wouldn't call a red traffic light maroon in English, you wouldn't call the green light 緑 in Japanese.

If you translate the sentence into English then green is the correct translation because 青 means both blue and green and you as a translator have to infer which they mean because in English we do differentiate between the two base colors. Translation is not a direct word replacement thing, you need to do a lot of thinking as well.

I don't know where people get this 青 means blue but they intend green crap. Maybe they just can't wrap their minds around the concept. Hell, even EDICT/KANJIDIC manage to get the definition right.

Can someone give me some advice?


I've started to go through the book by transferring the sentences into Anki. I try to remember them as I type - then let Anki take care of long-term memorisation. I add three cards per point - production, recognition, and audio recognition.

It's going okay, but I'm having real trouble with flashcards containing longer examples. I suppose they're not even really that long, but something like "I come to school at eight-thirty every day. And I study from nine to four. After classes I sometimes play tennis" really gives trouble, especially as I slowly go through, transcribing into kanji.

I was considering breaking them down into smaller bits, but obviously I want to be able to understand longer passages. Is it advisable to break them down for now? Or to just plow ahead, even if the reviews take a while?

The other question I thought I'd mention is whether its worth taking some of those cards out? Maybe the production ones, as per Khatzumoto's advice.

If anyone's got some thoughts, I'd appreciate it.

Jarvik7 Wrote:

Tobberoth Wrote:

Jarvik7 Wrote:Your post makes no sense.

It's true though, they are calling them blue, it's just a different blue which we considers green Since it's wrong to call the lights 緑, we can't say that they are calling them green, because they aren't, they are calling them blue.

Nah, he just copy & pasted my post which did make sense and garbled it a bit. Blue and Green are conceptually the same thing in Japanese. It's not a different green and a different blue. 緑 just defines a certain shade of that color. So just as you wouldn't call a red traffic light maroon in English, you wouldn't call the green light 緑 in Japanese.

If you translate the sentence into English then green is the correct translation because 青 means both blue and green and you as a translator have to infer which they mean because in English we do differentiate between the two base colors. Translation is not a direct word replacement thing, you need to do a lot of thinking as well.

I don't know where people get this 青 means blue but they intend green crap. Maybe they just can't wrap their minds around the concept. Hell, even EDICT/KANJIDIC manage to get the definition right.

You're just agreeing with us. The point is that your first post wasn't as correct as the corrected one. They aren't calling the lights green since as you yourself are saying, blue and green is the same thing in Japanese, midori is the color of plants and vegetables. Since we can't translate 青い as "blue/green, a conceptual mix", we call it "blue" because if you write one blue and one green box, japanese people will call the blue box 青い more often than the green one. Thus, we say they are calling things we consider green "blue", but they obviously intend green for us since traffic lights are obviously green to us. You said "So they are still calling the lights green, just with a different word" but they aren't. They are calling the lights the same color as they call heaven, with the same word. Thus, they call them blue. To us they are green. Therefor "They call them blue, but intend green". We don't mean japanese want to say 緑 but say 青い to be funny or anything, "intends" here just means that their concept isn't the same as ours.

If you want to teach beginners in Japanese how Japanese people talk about traffics lights you can't say "They call them green." You could however say "Japanese consider green a shade of blue, so they call lights 青い which in general translates to blue. They aren't colorblind, they mean/intend/know it's green, but to them it's the same as blue."

nickoakden Wrote:Can someone give me some advice?


I've started to go through the book by transferring the sentences into Anki. I try to remember them as I type - then let Anki take care of long-term memorisation. I add three cards per point - production, recognition, and audio recognition.

It's going okay, but I'm having real trouble with flashcards containing longer examples. I suppose they're not even really that long, but something like "I come to school at eight-thirty every day. And I study from nine to four. After classes I sometimes play tennis" really gives trouble, especially as I slowly go through, transcribing into kanji.

I was considering breaking them down into smaller bits, but obviously I want to be able to understand longer passages. Is it advisable to break them down for now? Or to just plow ahead, even if the reviews take a while?

The other question I thought I'd mention is whether its worth taking some of those cards out? Maybe the production ones, as per Khatzumoto's advice.

If anyone's got some thoughts, I'd appreciate it.

Not that I'm saying anything for sure, but I'm noticing a couple things with your methodology that could potentially make things easier:

1. Do you really need to make three cards? You can go either/or on production and recognition. You also could merge your audio cards and production cards. That would mean you produce the text from the audio.
This alone could lighten your load considerably.

2. Go ahead and break them down. It won't really affect your ability to read longer sentences, and could potentially help. If you see a long string of text and you understand all the individual parts, then you've got it made.

3. Feel free to delete as many cards as you want. If a card drains your energy and makes you groan and whine to do it, then cut it. It's not worth it. If doing production/audio cards is boring to and you don't like doing them (or a particular one) then delete. If you seriously consider whether you should delete a card or not, it's usually a green light to do so.

UBJG has a lot of repetition of concepts. This is good for harder concepts, but on simple grammar points without any new vocab, it's boring. Feel free to delete the cards that don't have anything new on them. (Or if they have a new word you want to learn, delete it and find another example sentence.)

Tobberoth Wrote:Therefor "They call them blue, but intend green". We don't mean japanese want to say 緑 but say 青い to be funny or anything, "intends" here just means that their concept isn't the same as ours.

青 means green just as much as it means blue. Why decide to translate it as blue just because there are other words that mean green. (There are other words that mean blue too)

Anyways Japanese don't call them blue but intend green, they call them 青い and intend 青い. You as a translator have to pick the natural word to call it in English since English has no equivalent to the word 青い.

Thanks for the input Alyks - I think once I've streamlined my methodology, I can really start to plow ahead. I probably need to remember the AJATT mantra - if it isn't fun, don't do it.

Hmm, I'm starting to get a bit wary of adding too many 私は...ーます　sentences. One thing I learned from my trip to Japan was that casual Japanese is essential. I understand why they teach the politer stuff first, but I found myself wishing I knew the plain stuff, on a very regular basis.

Unfortunately, UBJG doesn't have anything in plain form. I wouldn't mind, but I haven't found a good place to get more casual sentences, so I'm adding these exclusively. I could change them myself in simple sentences, sure, but then I'd run the risk of making a mistake, which I'd then hammer into my brain with Anki.

Hmm.

nickoakden Wrote:Hmm, I'm starting to get a bit wary of adding too many 私は...ーます　sentences. One thing I learned from my trip to Japan was that casual Japanese is essential. I understand why they teach the politer stuff first, but I found myself wishing I knew the plain stuff, on a very regular basis.

Unfortunately, UBJG doesn't have anything in plain form. I wouldn't mind, but I haven't found a good place to get more casual sentences, so I'm adding these exclusively. I could change them myself in simple sentences, sure, but then I'd run the risk of making a mistake, which I'd then hammer into my brain with Anki.

Hmm.

Don't worry. You have two options:

1. Understand that learning a lot of polite form won't hamper your casual Japanese ability in the long run and continue using UBJG.

2. Realize that UBJG is kinda dumb for doing that and move on to real Japanese sources to teach you polite form.

Both are valid.

nickoakden Wrote:Hmm, I'm starting to get a bit wary of adding too many 私は...ーます　sentences. One thing I learned from my trip to Japan was that casual Japanese is essential. I understand why they teach the politer stuff first, but I found myself wishing I knew the plain stuff, on a very regular basis.

Unfortunately, UBJG doesn't have anything in plain form. I wouldn't mind, but I haven't found a good place to get more casual sentences, so I'm adding these exclusively. I could change them myself in simple sentences, sure, but then I'd run the risk of making a mistake, which I'd then hammer into my brain with Anki.

Hmm.

You can't really add too many. Most people, myself included, have the opposite problem. I lived in Japan while studying and even though we started with studying polite form, as soon as we learned casual form, we became extremely good at it since it was the only thing we used outside of the classroom... give it a month and suddenly, it becomes really hard to speak in polite form. We had gotten almost fluent in casual form, without ever training polite form in that way. It took a LONG time for me to learn to speak in polite form even close to as fast and as natural as I speak in casual form. In fact, I'm still much better at casual form.

So don't worry about it, keep training your polite form. When you learn casual form and get more material in it, it will stick right away (the reason it's casual is that it's more simple, it feels easier to talk like that, even if the grammar might be harder as a beginner).