Although there are no photos yet, I think we as users may be able to add photos using Flikr. I added a photo of a gas station to Step 1 of Core 6k, word あつりょく 【圧力】 pressure.

In addition, you can browse and add sentences for each of your words to help reinforce the meaning.

shakkun: I got the version with spaces from you. Similar like you I hide the English translation but also the kana version. I think they are both best used only as a reference, just in case.

So far I hardly ever see the kana and the spaces, simply because the vocabulary is quite easy in the first 10 steps. But if you check out the new sentences you will see that there are more difficult words included, where at least I will have to revert more often to the kana version to check the correct reading.

If you are looking for one single word/reading the spaces do help for a quick orientation. So I definitely would like to see the spaces again, also because the new sentences tend to be longer.

EDIT: Correction, I combined the audio files and picture files you provided with the sentences (plus kana and translation) which I downloaded directly from iKnow. That is why they had the spaces.

nest0r Wrote:Weird. I bet it's somehow tied up in the specs of the mp3 and how Anki handles it, though. Are you using a Mac? I saw something in Anki release notes for Macs about fixing scratchy audio in later versions.

On a related note, anybody figure out how to hotkey the 'play' button in Anki? I get tired of using the mouse to do it every time I want to repeat.

ctrl+r

Wow this is an amazing find. Thanks a ton.

Okay the new series is up at the forum. They made some changes to the formatting on the sentences which actually made the whole process quicker. I also had a duh moment when I realised screwing around with macros to remove the kana spacing was unnecessary when you can just do a simple find+replace in calc. I've included both versions (with/without spaces).

These are TOTALLY UNTESTED btw. I haven't even tried importing them yet, will probably do that later today.

Edit: Forgot to convert from .ods to .xls. Those without OpenOffice should hold off while I reupload it.

what forum are you talking about shakkun?

also does anybody know what this new developer tool stuff is all about?
http://developer.iknow.co.jp/

This one. Proper xls version is uploaded now.

Hashiriya Wrote:what forum are you talking about shakkun?

also does anybody know what this new developer tool stuff is all about?
http://developer.iknow.co.jp/

It's in the FAQ that commercial and private entities can develop content for use with iKnow. My guess is companies like CosCom and JapanTimes might create data sets (word, sentence, photo, audio) from their materials as a way to advertise their books.

Also looks like a faster way to get items from iKnow instead of data mining the individual websites. Seeing as it's Common Creative License, you're not doing anything wrong.

As I said, it's very ambitious. I look forward to seeing how it develops over the next year.

I'm changing my opinion on this iKnow site. For now I might be a little ahead to enjoy it but definetely it is becoming an awesome resource.

And it smells like a rails app.

i see you are making lists on iKnow now nukemarine ^_^ we should all add each other from kanji.koohii.com .... my name is Hashiriya on iKnow also... feel free to add me anybody ^_^

hey guys i found a video of the iknow for the mobile phone... looks pretty cool:

Nukemarine Wrote:As I said, it's very ambitious. I look forward to seeing how it develops over the next year.

Their sentences and voice samples are really nice, but I wouldn't want to have to use their website to study. A great deal of time is wasted waiting for the animations to finish playing, searching through multiple choice answers for the correct answer, and so on. Of course, if you're more interested in a pretty interface than studying efficiently, they certainly seemed to have nailed the prettiness side of things on the head. It's really nicely presented.

resolve Wrote:

Nukemarine Wrote:As I said, it's very ambitious. I look forward to seeing how it develops over the next year.

Their sentences and voice samples are really nice, but I wouldn't want to have to use their website to study. A great deal of time is wasted waiting for the animations to finish playing, searching through multiple choice answers for the correct answer, and so on. Of course, if you're more interested in a pretty interface than studying efficiently, they certainly seemed to have nailed the prettiness side of things on the head. It's really nicely presented.

Make no mistake in my statement, their data with Anki makes for a great combination. Also, I'm still not fully sold on their SRS algorithm.

Now, iKnow's interface may not be as efficient as Anki, but it is efficient and an efficient way to study. You're saved effort of sentence mining if that's your desire. The ability to share items is easy. Importing from a list is just the click of a mouse. It tracks how well you do, how much you do over time, and if it's time to review previously learned material.

For the multiple choice, there's two ways to look at it. One is that some people like multiple choice, but at least iKnow makes it between 10 choices. I prefer to know the answer prior to seeing the choices, so if I don't know and then realize it after seeing the choices, I still mark it wrong.

Also, it's likely the interface will change over time.

Where Anki REALLY thumps it: It's a pain (at the moment) for bulk importing of facts. I think you have to utilize the developer's tool to do something like that. You have little power on the testing of facts.

Again, something like that may change in time. It may even be done by using the developer's tools. I don't know, as I'm not a programmer. Anyone look into that? Hell, it may be someone like yourself can provide tools for users to import data/facts from Anki to iKnow and vice versa, or utilize Anki in iKnow. Way beyond me though.

Nukemarine Wrote:For the multiple choice, there's two ways to look at it. One is that some people like multiple choice, but at least iKnow makes it between 10 choices. I prefer to know the answer prior to seeing the choices, so if I don't know and then realize it after seeing the choices, I still mark it wrong.

My issue with it is that hunting for the correct choice in 10 choices is a big waste of time. Multiple choices are useful for teacher given tests because it makes marking the answers easier. I don't believe they have much merit in self study.

Resolve, here's some issues I have

1. Multiple choice - gotta agree with you here. However, I can see the designer's thinking on the matter: pseudo self study, with the program being your grading teacher.

2. Overuse of English - well, until people start putting in J - J cards (similar to how they're doing Eurodite vocabulary with E-E definitions) we're stuck with it.

3. No context when given only kana for words - this is a big issue for me.

A few others of course.

Out of interest, do you find it completely beyond salvation, or can your issues with it be fixed in your opinion?

Nukemarine Wrote:I prefer to know the answer prior to seeing the choices, so if I don't know and then realize it after seeing the choices, I still mark it wrong.

Also, it's likely the interface will change over time.

Where Anki REALLY thumps it: It's a pain (at the moment) for bulk importing of facts. I think you have to utilize the developer's tool to do something like that. You have little power on the testing of facts.

Again, something like that may change in time. It may even be done by using the developer's tools. I don't know, as I'm not a programmer. Anyone look into that? Hell, it may be someone like yourself can provide tools for users to import data/facts from Anki to iKnow and vice versa, or utilize Anki in iKnow. Way beyond me though.

If you see the word, and haven't gone to the choices yet, you can pick 'no' at the bottom and it will review the word instead of showing you the choices.

As for the import... They recently (about 2 days ago) released the API. You can even make new word lists and upload pictures and everything. Someone just needs to write a better importer and you've got your wish.

Edit: It strikes me that the importer might be an interesting project. I don't know enough about what's needed/wanted to do it yet, though.

Why on earth would someone want to import their Anki deck into iKnow? I still don't understand the point of using the website to review at all. You already have one-click importing into Anki already without losing anything, and you don't have to deal with multiple choice or English if you don't want.

Quote:You're saved effort of sentence mining if that's your desire.

You already are with Anki. iKnow spreadsheets.

Quote:The ability to share items is easy.

I'll give you this one.

Quote:Importing from a list is just the click of a mouse.

See above.

Quote:It tracks how well you do, how much you do over time, and if it's time to review previously learned material.

Anki already does this perfectly.

I'm not trying to be argumentative, I'm actually genuinely curious if there's something about the online apps that I'm missing. I've barely touched them. There only seems to be downsides compared to Anki (with the exception of sharing material, which you could do without reviewing there).

shakkun Wrote:Why on earth would someone want to import their Anki deck into iKnow?

I have the simplest of answers for this: I like iKnow better.

The interface is more friendly to me, and I have more fun doing it. More fun = more likely to stick with it.

Anki does a great job, don't get me wrong, but it's boring. It's a work tool, rather than a play tool.

i agree, i also like iKnow's interface better... i don't have any problem remembering any of the items i have completed either...

Weirdly, that interface seems to work better than a simple "did you remember that? yes/no". I don't know why maybe because it's more of a game, more stimulating for the brain.

wccrawford Wrote:

shakkun Wrote:Why on earth would someone want to import their Anki deck into iKnow?

The interface is more friendly to me, and I have more fun doing it. More fun = more likely to stick with it.
Anki does a great job, don't get me wrong, but it's boring. It's a work tool, rather than a play tool.

iKnow's material is fantastic - great example sentences, pictures and audio. The wealth of high quality material makes learning new information really easy and fun. I think that's where half of the fun lies.

The interface is very polished and accessible and does feel more like a game than a tool. I can certainly see how it would appeal to the masses - by default words are learnt in groups of 5 or 10, focus is placed on the words rather than the sentences, and everything is nicely animated with sound effects. It's easy and doesn't feel like drilling.

I'm a Japanese learner and a busy person, so a system like the above doesn't really appeal. I don't have time to play games or sit around for a pretty animation to complete. If you're a casual learner then iKnow is probably more friendly and fun, but for me, I want to learn a lot of Japanese in the minimum amount of time possible, and I don't need pretty graphics to urge me on.

Nukemarine: you asked if the interface is beyond hope - well, I can certainly see a target market for it, and I'm not saying it's necessarily bad. I just think it's a bad choice if you want to learn a decent amount of material in a set amount of time.

My favorite thing is that calendar that suggests, "You should study 20 more items today." I wonder if I had a third party constantly telling me, "You should study 10 more kanji today," if I would have completed Rtk1 sooner.

resolve Wrote:I'm a Japanese learner and a busy person, so a system like the above doesn't really appeal. I don't have time to play games or sit around for a pretty animation to complete. If you're a casual learner then iKnow is probably more friendly and fun, but for me, I want to learn a lot of Japanese in the minimum amount of time possible, and I don't need pretty graphics to urge me on.

Nukemarine: you asked if the interface is beyond hope - well, I can certainly see a target market for it, and I'm not saying it's necessarily bad. I just think it's a bad choice if you want to learn a decent amount of material in a set amount of time.

I don't understand this at all unless you have a terribly slow internet connection.

I don't have to worry about finding my own sentences and checking their accuracy, transferring spread sheet info, scanning book pages, or having to use programs to try and grab audio bits from web pages like everyone is forced to do with Anki. I mean heck look at all the effort that has had to occur in this forum when it comes to finding good Anki data. The effort and time for Anki is far longer than the split second it takes to watch an animation.....not to mention you can completely skip those animations anyway.

With iKnow I cue up the site and I've instantly got 6,000 sentences (well soon to be 6,000) with EVERY single bit of information I need including perfect audio. No work, no hassle, no nothing. With any bit of free time I have I can fire up iKnow and get in a good session.

I work 40+hrs per week and go to college a few hours short of full time and I think iKnow is far SUPERIOR for a busy person like myself who is hard core about his Japanese language study. It's been taking me about 35 minutes to add 20 new sentences in iknow, test them and review the old ones. That's pretty darn fast if you ask me.

It should be interesting to note that you can make iKnow harder than what it is. I don't have to write down a word, repeat what was said, look at the sentences, hell, I can put it all in Romaji.

Like Resolve pointed out, the emphasis is on words and vocabulary. Now, for anyone that failed a sentence in Anki due it missing one of the five pseudo new words, can appreciate the forced +1 method that iKnow creates. It forces me (well reminds me) to not worry about knowing the other words in the sentence.

Anyway, how I've adapted my study method with iKnow

1. For each step I try to do 30 items for every 200 items.

2. If it's a new item (0%), I write out the sentence entirely (preferably by listening only).

3. If it's a studied item, well, that's where some iKnow faults start to rear.
3a. First, I look at the vocabulary list of the 10 items being reviewed (look only, I don't look at the meaning or hear the pronunciation. I have to do this until they allow a playing of the sentence when asking kana word to meaning.
3b. When I'm given the kana word, I think of the meaning and how to write it out WITHOUT looking at the choices. With that, I go to the choice screen or just select NO.
3c. If I got it right, I try to write out the word using the audio (so from memory). I don't write out the entire sentence, just the conjugated form of the word in the sentence. I do however, think about what the sentence looks like in my head, and shadow the pronunciation.

4. After that, it's just doing the next 3 or 4 tests for each of the vocabulary words.

5. After 30 items are done for a step (or 60 items on a merged steps), I go onto the next higher step. I do this till the time limit I set for myself is passed (usually two hours).

At the moment, I've been doing this and a bit of the movie method. Step 3 in iKnow introduces many Onyomi words. It definately revealed I had a major weakness in that area. So go in order of words I missed, and created a movie for all the kanji with that Onyomi.

Overall benefits: It's a amalgam of the Sentence Method, SRS, Vocabulary method, Shadowing, Feedback concepts. Each word you're given includes context (photos and sentences). You have a great resource to shadow. You're given loads of vocabulary, which after doing UBJG for a while, I realized I had serious problem in that area.

It's hard to explain. It feels more structured. It has faults, but not enough to make it a deal breaker.

I still think Resolve has the best SRS on the market. iKnow will have mass appeal. We as users will determine when it's best to use either.

Everybody is waiting for me to voice my opinion on iKnow, and so simply I have to give it:
I'm having loads more fun reading Death Note and Ghost in the Shell with my trusty 大辞林.

Or, to put it more aptly, I was so eager to read Japanese "in the wild" after finishing UBJG, I couldn't imagine going back to a learner's resource.

I'm curious, Nukemarine, are you reading Japanese books or manga or anything? It's just that you've been here for so long, I'm wondering why you would use another learner's resource.