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I just finished RTK1 and like a lot of you, I'm doing the sentences method. I'm sure everyone else that is doing this is having similar problems. Where do you get all these sentences from. Now I'm using the file that people made for KO2001 and it's great, but for some people who don't have the book, they are stuck without sentences or have to find things(type things) themselves. Anyways, my idea is to use Lang-8. Lang-8 is a website where you write a blog in Japanese and then Japanese people correct it for you(grammar, kanji errors,ect).Now if we write a blog and someone corrects our sentences, we can use these corrected sentences in our SRS. However I think the really useful part about this is, we can post these sentences without having to worry about copyright laws. If we could get 10 people to write a blog every week and then post 5 of the corrected sentences with hiragana and translations, we could all have 50 new sentences each week. In 6 months we could have 1200 or more sentences.
After we have a good amount we could also compile them into a spreadsheet or divide them into 3 or more spreadsheets(beginner, intermediate and advanced, ect). This is also a good chance for people to practice writing in Japanese. The real reason I think this will be helpful is people won't have to type things up as much. For me too much of my time is spent looking for sentences and then typing the sentences. With this everyone will have a huge repository of sentences about many different things, they can just cut and paste into their SRS. And they won't have to worry about lack of translations or readings, ect. What do you think?
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Good luck. I personally would have actually started the beginner spreadsheet as a proof of concept before posting. If you want to get an idea like this started, you really have to show people it's doable, and not just post about how you think it's a good idea.
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I dont think its a good idea, because the sentences arent originating from native speakers. So, they might be 'correct' per se, but still perhaps a bit odd.
Of course, if someone really wanted to do that, they could just look at many of the corrected entries that are already viewable on there...
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Of course I can find sentences. I can't find them with readings and translations that I can easily put into a SRS. I can't just ram my phone bill into the DVD drive of my computer.
I know they aren't coming from native speakers, but this could be fixed by having a native speaker look over them and make sure they don't sound too strange. Besides textbooks aren't exactly natural and even native speakers don't all speak the same way, so even when you are learning something from a friend you might be picking up something that only your friend says or only certain people say. I don't think you can "sentence mine" that problem away. The only way to learn what words people say most often is to speak to Japanese people and read lots of Japanese from different sources. Unless you're planning to do 100,000 sentences I don't know if you can learn to speak and write naturally through SRS(please don't say AJATT, because I've had people tell me his Japanese is good, but not like a typical Japanese person).
My idea was just a way for people to get some free sentences, so they didn't have to spent there time preparing to learn Japanese. If I have 2 hours to study everyday, I want to spend at least 1 and a half of those hours studying. I don't want to spend 1 hour looking for(typing) sentences.
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Hey, guys, Chandlerhimself is just tossing out an idea. Feel free to agree with his thoughts or not, but the level of snark on this thread is rather high.
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Its not a bad idea, but I think one of the strengths of using a book like KO is you are making the most use of your study time, in the sense that you are studying the Highest frequesncy kanji compounds and voc.
After RTK, I did a little sentnece minning, and surfing websites for sentences, but I found it too time consuming and also I wasnt ever sure if word I found was a common word or not, without checking.
The sthing about KO is it prioritizes your Kanji compunds, readings, and voc study, so that you can be up and reading most things (60-70% at book one, 90% at book two) asap.
I felt that if a lot of people were contributing to blogs, then you would get a range of sentneces for sure, but they might range from Final Fanasty words to computer terms, and while that may be a good thing in the long run, I think compound frequency study is a better plan of attack.
Still, the idea has some merit. Perhapase we could make a KO book 3 with the frequesncy list for the kanji that KO 1and 2 dont cover, using lang 8.
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Life is strange, you live in Yokohama (I envy you) and have trouble in finding sentences, I live in Italy and have the exact opposite problem. I have too much sentences to add in Anki ^__^.
Namely I'm doing KO, plus I read Death Note (and there are plenty of sentences to mine there). Again I watch a lot of doramas and every word pops to my ears is a potential source of sentences from dictionary examples. And there are all those casual sentences I meet here and there too (receipts from online sellers, advertising and so on).
Since a lot of sentences from KO are a bit trivial for me, I decided to not add every sentence to Anki, maybe giving precedence to "native" material would be better (using Tiger&Dragon's script is more challanging ^_^).
By the way, in about three months of AJATT I have about 1900 facts in Anki (with 900 kanji). I think there are a lot of sentences out there, I don't think it's necessary to do this blog posting activity. Best to spend time in mining native sources. ^_^
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Lang-8 has a lot of Japanese written by native speakers as well. I wouldn't enter in corrected sentences too much, since they started as non-native and then often they are corrected to be passable Japanese, but maybe not the best.
Lot's of Japanese people use the site and write comments, blog posts, and forum topics in native Japanese. So those would probably be a good source. Just bear in mind the style, which is written Japanese for the internet...which will of course be different than spoken Japanese or more formal writing.
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Some people here aren't reading my posts. I never said I don't have sentences. I'm sure I have over 100,000 sentences in my apt right now. What don't have is time to waste typing them into anki and figuring out what they mean. The reason the KO2001 project is so good is, it saves time. I can go and copy everything from a spreadsheet and import it into anki in less than 5 min. I can't type 15 example sentences in 5 min. Maybe some people here are good at typing.
zazen666- I don't think this should replace KO I think you could use both at the same time. You said when you started it took too much time to mine for sentences. I just want to give people like you(and me), who don't have time, something they can put into their SRS and then use their time for studying and not searching. Your idea for a KO vol3 is good. I think it would be great if everyone got together and made a list of sentences using those kanji.
For me it makes no sense for everyone to make their own cards when we can all just share cards. I'm sure everyone on here has different things they want to do when they learn Japanese, but for the most part it wouldn't be a bad idea to use another persons' sentences if it saves time.
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I like the idea of subject based sentences. If we had 20 people working on it and each person found 5 sentences, you could have 100 new sentences about any subject the next day. I thought Lang-8 was a good idea, because it's not copyright protected and it's a chance for me(and others) to see their mistakes and correct them. However the main thing was just getting more sentences. The is no reason why we have make things harder on ourselves.
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Ｔｈａｎｋｓ ｆｏｒ ｔｈｏｓｅ Ｔａｅ Ｋｉｍ ｌｉｎｋｓ， Ｐｈａｕｎａ． Ｄｉｄ Ｉ ｍｉｓｓ ａ ｐｒｅｖｉｏｕｓ ｌｉｎｋ ｔｏ ｔｈｅｍ ｏｎ ｔｈｅ ｆｏｒｕｍ？
いただきます。
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As of late, the hard core approach to "the sentence method" has been the subject of some blogs. And I agree with them for the most part.
Consider: I make a new account on RTK, add in 3005 kanji the first day. What have I accomplished? The kanji were always there. Ok, so I take those 3005 kanji, add a story to each and every one of them. Have I accomplished much? Not yet. Ok, I can now just start reviewing the kanji, right? Yeah, but I'm going to be missing virtually every one. The key part was that I had access to 3005 stories that I can add fairly quickly, but just having that is not what'll really count.
I approached the sentence method in a similar way I approached the kanji: one at a time. Sure, that might be one at a time but 30 in one day. With the kanji, I looked at the story and the kanji and drew it down. Nothing radical about it. With the sentences, I look over it, get any definitions or notes that are needed, then write it down once. Again nothing radical. Those sentences don't go from spreadsheet to the SRS until they are vetted.
Even then, it does not mean a thing to me until they get about a month between reviews (kanji and sentences). Anki is great as these cards are listed as mature, and RTK I look at it as stack 4+.
Guess my point ends up is: By the time you get to blogs as your sentence source (and blogs are your thing of enjoyment to read), you should be able to cut and paste a japanese sentence, put in the appropriate definitions (probably using online j-j dictionaries), maybe even add an audio clip. After 1000 or more sentences, you rely less on the english translation. Not sure why, it just comes about. The big thing is you're not typing in the sentences. You just read a blog, saw a word in a sentence you didn't know. Looking up the word, you now understand the sentence fully. Now you're using that sentence to help you remember what that word means. Copy and paste the whole way.
I was thinking we'd use the coordinated spreadsheets for the beginner level stuff we all need at the, well, beginning of our studies. Early on, I saw the futility of throwing every sentence into a spreadsheet (Rosetta Stone, upto unit 3, ughh). My current thinking now is the minimum to get us each into what we like: anime, drama, Japanese girlfriend, walking downtown Yokohama, etc.
What I notice: I'm going to do what I like to do (view Dramas, Karaoke, mangas, walking around). As I do sentences, I tend to get more enjoyment from what I like to do (see above). At times, I was putting off what I liked to do to do sentences. This led to a bit of burnout now and again (including the last week). So, I do what I like to do, realize there's more to figure out so I'd like to go back to RTK and sentences again.
Sorry for the ramble. Needed to get a bit off the chest now and again.
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Okay, probalby an absolute newb question, but .... about those spreadsheets in general (I've never heard about them before I came to this site anyway).
How exactly can I put them into Anki?
Copy and paste every single sentence? That's not that much faster than typing, so I suppose there's a faster way to do it?
Please enlighten me.
Thanks and sorry for the OT.
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Thanks for the links to those sentences. I didn't know about those resources. I didn't know all those resources were public. I'm glad they are all in one thread now, so everyone can find them easily.
