These sentences are nice to have, but is there a way to switch it around so you see the english phrase, and then need to recall the japanese phrase?

there sure is.... it's called studying with the English courses....

It's been out for a while, but you can get RSS feeds of most anything in iKnow now. This is perfect for redoing the stripped data earlier.

http://developer.iknow.co.jp/

Here's an example links

http://api.iknow.co.jp/lists/19053/items...er_page=20

It's in xml, so you get a nice method to have: Kana Word, Kanji Word, Audio of word, English meaning, Kana Sentence, Kanji Sentence, Sentence Photo, Sentence Audio, Sentence meaning.

That's 9 items. Plus, the photo will be the larger variant and not the thumbnail of before.

Of note if you look at the api page link above, you can import lists and items, including audio and photos.

Looking at this, I understand now how iKnow is going for a broad application. Someone could develop a program that scans a page of Japanese, compares it your studied items list, and highlights those words you haven't studied in iKnow. Heck, it may mix with furigana injector to put furigana above only words you have not studied. Another program may let you right click on a word to add it to your iKnow list. Hell, someone may make a way to so it works with Anki

As they recently opened an API contest, it's likely items like above will get released to work in conjunction with iKnow.

Hashiriya Wrote:there sure is.... it's called studying with the English courses....

I was referring to Anki...

When I open the uploaded deck with anki, I see the japanese sentence and need to translate it to english. However, I don't see a way to flip them around and go from english to japanese, unless i am missing something.

Invert the question and answer format in the model properties.

But before that, reconsider your desire to reverse the questions. Doing production sentences on other people's translations is rarely a good idea. iKnow's English translations sometimes vary somewhat from the Japanese.

resolve Wrote:Invert the question and answer format in the model properties.

But before that, reconsider your desire to reverse the questions. Doing production sentences on other people's translations is rarely a good idea. iKnow's English translations sometimes vary somewhat from the Japanese.

True that. Sometimes I'm like, wtf, I'm a noob and I know that's stretching it; the translation.

The only time it would be good to do production of sentences would be in the very beginning stage, where you are translating sentences according to a set patter -- and don't know enough of the language to do so in any other way.

An example with English sentences would be:

My apples are under the bed.
My book is under the table.

The sentences are both of the form: "My xxx is/are under the yyy" -- you could get practice using the preposition 'under', as well as conjugating the verb 'to be' and forming plurals, depending on how many things are under some other thing.

kazelee Wrote:True that. Sometimes I'm like, wtf, I'm a noob and I know that's stretching it; the translation.

Yeah I don't know how words are learned through the website but I REALLY recommend checking words yourself individually and not just relying on the translation. For one thing, the difference between transitive/intransitive verbs is often ignored. Like the sentence will be "方針が決まった" and the translation will be something like, "I decided on the future policy" which is wrong (方針を決めた).

Also I noticed quite a few doubles with slight differences. For example,
水平線に太陽が沈んでいった。
and
地平線に夕日が沈むところだったの。
Bizarrely have the same translation.

Also I've noticed a few people don't know about the spreadsheets so I'll post the link again:

iKnow sentences at ajatt.pseudosphere.net

I've uploaded the sentences, audio and (thumbnail) images for the Core 2000 and Core 6000 sentences here, and zort has kindly premade Anki decks.

I consider myself done with iKnow now, so I won't be doing any future series (if there are any). After all that I only ended up using about 800 of the sentences ;(

i've for the most part completed the majority of the 2000 series and my Japanese has improved leaps and bounds... i can follow tv shows at a fair level now (something i wasn't able to do in the past) my only complaint is that iKnow doesn't teach grammar that well... it does however throw new grammar points in every now and then but doesn't give any explanation of them... just a direct english translation... japanese 6000 series seem to really start to turn up the difficulty for me in terms of grammar and more vague words...

my impression of iKnow is that it accomplishes it's object well (to increase vocab) but is only a supplement to additional study etc... as for me, i think my plan is to complete iKnow for the 10,000 words it is planning on offering and after that i will probably switch to anki and go monolingual dictionary... i will say this though, iKnow works charms for listening skills and developing correct pronunciation for Japanese words...

nest0r Wrote:So who's finished the Core 2000 sentences? + How'd it work out for you...

Worked great(increased my vocabulary a lot) but I wouldn't recommend only using the sentences with anki alone. As people have said the translations aren't all very literal but that's because they're meant to be used with the definition of the word you're studying. The actual site tells you the definition for that word and then the sentence is there to get context how it's used. Since you know what that word means and already know most of the others a literal translation isn't required.

If I was starting over here's what I'd do: Set the lesson to goal oriented mode on iKnow. Set it for something like 20 days, this part really depends on your study habits. Then after I get a course 100%, add it to anki and then just review it from then on in anki.

Im only a few hundred in and I am only using Anki really but what I'm doing is:

Q:
Image.
Audio.
English translation in white text.

A:
Meaning in large text.
Reading in very small text.

Listening skills lead to good communication skills and thats important for me. That is a focus.

So I listen and look at the picture and attempt to write down the full sentence (sometimes with furigana if I am unsure of it exactly).

If I can't recognise a word I'll listen a few times and try and guess how to write it (with my Heisig keywords) if I have an idea of what it might mean from the context.

If I cant get it still, then Ill highlight the English text to make it visible. Its kind of a pain to do this so I only introduce English if I really need to.

Then when im happy with what I have I show the answer. I have to look kind of hard to read the furigana because I made it small. Its easier to just listen to the audio a few times and then look at the furigana if i cant get it.

So the idea is that I dont have any English. Its just straight Japanese to Japanese. Its slow though but I feel like im learning well. I really break down every sentence this way and have to think about everything.

http://www.alljapaneseallthetime.com/blo...image-hack

Its kind of based off this idea but modified a bit. iKnow is proving a great source so far. I really couldnt be bothered getting the images and sounds to make my own sentences for fundamental things at this stage. Thoughts? Am i clear? This felt very rambling.

Yeah, I really think that iKnow is great to "learn" vocabulary words, but I'm not too impressed with the long term SRS. Now, there is a way to export: Kanji word, Kana word, Audio word, English word translation, Kanji sentence, Kana sentence, English sentence translation, Audio Japanese sentence, Context photo of sentence. However, it is not in a spreadsheet yet (especially with words). When that occurs (or I can figure out how to do it myself), I'll start switching over. Use iKnow to "learn" then Anki to remember what I learned.

Once I realized I can improve my vocabulary by concentrating on the vocabulary while using context sentences, it changed things. I saw what I was doing wrong with UBJG and KO2001. I saw the faults with AJATT's Khatzumoto's suggestions on how to approach the SRS and sentence mine.

For grammar (or kanji for that matter), iKnow should not be used. I still advocate something like Tae Kim's sentences with Anki for grammar, and here for Kanji (or Anki if that's your thing).

Cracky, Hashiriya, thanks for the motivation to keep up with iKnow. Now that I'm not on medical light duty (due to a broken foot in September) and back to my ship, my time for studying has dropped significantly. Motivation to keep up with it is really helping.

Nukemarine Wrote:Once I realized I can improve my vocabulary by concentrating on the vocabulary while using context sentences, it changed things. I saw what I was doing wrong with UBJG and KO2001. I saw the faults with AJATT's Khatzumoto's suggestions on how to approach the SRS and sentence mine.

What do you mean by this? You are far further along this path than me.

New stuff slated for iKnow, possibly sometime next month.

"Enhanced API support. What this means is that 3rd parties can develop software to interact with iKnow and your data. The possibilities are STAGGERING. Consider, you complete the Core 6000. Now you're going to watch Death Note. One program can scan the Death Note script for word frequency, compare the words against those you already know, compile a vocab list of new words, then upload the new vocab list to iKnow. Another application might look at your learned items, then on Japanese websites add furigana to words you don't know (and preload definitions). Another application might allow you to right click on a word on a Japanese page to add it to your vocabulary study list, along with sentence and photo if needed.

Podcasts of your study lessons. Activate this, and the system generates a podcast of your daily study session (it'll say the word, then the sentence). These are done in 90 second blocks of 10 words."


Pretty awesome stuff IMO.

thanks for the info activeaero... iKnow always seems to impress me with the stuff they come up with keep at it Nukemarine... i think i will try to do 150 words a day at least once college starts back and stuff... i have often wished that i could quit my job and college etc. and just focus completely on Japanese for one year. but alas, i haven't won the lottery yet >_< cracky was the person that motivated me to complete as much as i have on iKnow lately.. i was like WOW look how far ahead that guy is!! if he can do it i can right? i must have listened to the same couple of BGM music CDs a million times trying to keep myself focused while i studied during the last month... i think it will be awhile until i can ever listen to them again lol! don't worry if you can't move as fast as you could before with your progress Nukemarine... just make SOME progress every day and little by little you will get to where you want to be.. anyways, keep studying hard everyone ^_^

Just took a look at the site again for a second time since this thread was started (back when there was not much content on iKnow) and am really impressed. This is a great example of integrating technology and studying. Having this much 'data' in electronic format is also great because it could always be easily reproduced/provided with other study programs that come out if the makers wish to give such permission.

To any beginners out there using iKnow a lot: make sure to keep listening to natural Japanese sources too. The sentences spoken by native speakers are very high quality, but imo a tad bit slower than normal speech. They are also (and this is important) pronounced much more clearly than normal speech.

I won't be using them, but want to also extend thanks to Shakkun and zort for compiling it all for everybody to use.

I've seen a lot of criticism for iKnow's translation, but just how "bad" is it? I wanted to go through the 10,000 words which will eventually be offered, as well as use the sentences uploaded to do most of my Japanese studies. This would seem to be ideal since I don't need to sentence mine or do grunt work; I can just sit down and study. Would my Japanese be awful if I studied exclusively from it, or would it just sound a bit off here and there?

cjswanson1355 Wrote:I've seen a lot of criticism for iKnow's translation, but just how "bad" is it?

It's not bad, exactly. Rather than simply re-word a literal translation, for some sentences, they seem to try to match the translation more to the pictures. There are only a few occassion where this was done noticeably (to me). But I might find it occuring more often as I gain more ability in the language.

cjswanson1355 Wrote:I wanted to go through the 10,000 words which will eventually be offered, as well as use the sentences uploaded to do most of my Japanese studies. This would seem to be ideal since I don't need to sentence mine or do grunt work; I can just sit down and study. Would my Japanese be awful if I studied exclusively from it, or would it just sound a bit off here and there?

Hmm... How bout you test it out and tell us if anyone thinks you talk funny. You could correct it by shadowing some novels or something later.

yeh, i absolutely recommend doing anki after iknow.... you need the "real" japanese context from real-world stuff to speak more fluently... i think beginning with iKnow's 10,000 words is a very good starting point though... you would better pronounce most of the words that you would run into in anki with the foundation of all that shadowing that you had done with iKnow i would imagine....

on a side note, i have a Japanese friend on iKnow that has completed over 10,000 words for english on iKnow... she's a housewife that just studies on iKnow all day long everyday since last year... her english to me is absolutely perfect... she said that she studied english in the past when she was younger and just mixed what she learned with iKnow and now speaks and reads fluently...she's never been to an english country before also... so, i guess it can be done the same with japanese too... we just got to put the time and effort into it is the thing....

sutebun Wrote:The sentences spoken by native speakers are very high quality, but imo a tad bit slower than normal speech.

Actually, they are way slower.. So I agree with you: listening to stuff that was made for native speakers is vital.

Nukemarine Wrote:It's been out for a while, but you can get RSS feeds of most anything in iKnow now. This is perfect for redoing the stripped data earlier.

http://developer.iknow.co.jp/

Here's an example links

http://api.iknow.co.jp/lists/19053/items...er_page=20

It's in xml, so you get a nice method to have: Kana Word, Kanji Word, Audio of word, English meaning, Kana Sentence, Kanji Sentence, Sentence Photo, Sentence Audio, Sentence meaning.

That's 9 items. Plus, the photo will be the larger variant and not the thumbnail of before.

That's great! And you can open the xml files directly in Microsoft Excel and it groups the data automatically... I have attached the xls file that excel generated after opening the xml file.

http://www.mediafire.com/?elnww1jvglj

That is just a rough conversion and has a lot of duplicates. I think you can customize the way excel imports the xml data so that you can eliminate redundancies.

On a different note, inspired by the "Kanji list for manga" topic:

Has anyone tried making/know of lists people have made, for specific series (manga, anime, drama, films, games, etc.)? I've seen a Gundam one lately, and a couple of English ones, but not much (though I haven't used iKnow much).

I don't mean every word that appears in a series or anything, but more special/unique words to the series to help people better understand it. Words that aren't very common, words that get used a lot, ones with special significance, etc.

albion Wrote:Has anyone tried making/know of lists people have made, for specific series (manga, anime, drama, films, games, etc.)?

I've thought about this, but don't really have the time to do it right. I was thinking of starting with easy mangas (like Yotsuba&) and putting almost all the words in. Then working up to harder mangas and books and leaving out the easy stuff.

I would probably skip anything in the first 400 on iKnow, though, as you should do that as a minimum anyhow.

I just wish I had time. -sigh-

I actually just recently made a 100 word list on iKnow, all from various vocab while going through my Sailor Moon manga I own. I originally made it just to be a list for myself (because I was tired of every time I went to read my manga in bed before I sleep, I couldn't understand a lot because of my low vocab.), but decided to just make it public anyways. But it doesn't really have much for 'rare' or 'specific' words, a lot of it is still rather common vocabulary.

Anyways, it still might be helpful to some though: http://www.iknow.co.jp/lists/37269