I've never once used mnemonics for vocab, mostly because I've never found it necessary. I think the huge amount of homonyms would make it fruitless though.

Quote:mnemonics are key. Before I knew what RTK was, I used them to survive 2 years of basic Japanese classes. It's silly (aren't they all, really) but I learned 落ち込む（おちこむ）by thinking of Zoro (from One Piece) giving a fitting curt response such as お or ち, and combing his hair こむ.

I know mnemonics are a personal thing, but how do you remember that mnemonic - what does it have to do with those kanji or with the meaning of the word?

I think it's good to learn the component words 落ちる and 込む, and other similar words like 落ち着いて.

For learning a compound like 理科 it helps to learn other common words like 料理, 理解, 理由, 科, 科学.

One trick I remember is repeating sounds. Something KO2001 does this in some sentences; don't know if on purpose or not.

Here's an example: 理科を理解できないよ。 (りかをりかいできないよ) Repeating りか makes it easy to remember.

I've found that reading copious amounts of Japanese webpages really helps. I've found after seeing words so many times, I no longer really look at the kanji in detail - I see the general shape and my brain just knows what the word is. I think the best way for vocab is to use a combination of Anki and just read as much as you can.

thermal Wrote:There is nothing inherently wrong with what you are doing, but the way most of the people here believe the best way to learn is to get a lot of exposure and make sense of it bit by bit. I am back in Australia now, but average about 12 hours a day (including sleeping). Generally we try and understand real Japanese because it is interesting like from an anime or manga and don't study it other than in it's real unalloyed form.

I personally believe that learning language is a primarily unconscious process, so using translations and focusing on grammar and vocab, won't get you very far. I tried for 2 years doing this way, 1 of those living in Japan and I didn't never became good. Anyway, just my thoughts.

I agree completely that the ideal is to immerse oneself in the language, unfortunately for me I'm not really interested in Japanese manga, films or music (although I do like NHK, but I'm not sure if it is possible to get it over the internet), so forcing them on myself seems a bit pointless, but maybe I should make more of an effort.

@Jarvik <- "I've never once used mnemonics for vocab, mostly because I've never found it necessary. I think the huge amount of homonyms would make it fruitless though." That is a serious problem, and a reason that systematising the process is kind of impossible. However, it does make it easy to relate the sound of one Japanese word to another, so you can use this as leverage.

Don't worry about success-rate, you'll be reminded till you get it.
You used the example 高速道路 and you only knew 高 from another word. Get some intermediate things and build up so you are going i+1.

vosmiura Wrote:

Quote:mnemonics are key. Before I knew what RTK was, I used them to survive 2 years of basic Japanese classes. It's silly (aren't they all, really) but I learned 落ち込む（おちこむ）by thinking of Zoro (from One Piece) giving a fitting curt response such as お or ち, and combing his hair こむ.

I know mnemonics are a personal thing, but how do you remember that mnemonic - what does it have to do with those kanji or with the meaning of the word?

I think it's good to learn the component words 落ちる and 込む, and other similar words like 落ち着いて.

For learning a compound like 理科 it helps to learn other common words like 料理, 理解, 理由, 科, 科学.

One trick I remember is repeating sounds. Something KO2001 does this in some sentences; don't know if on purpose or not.

Here's an example: 理科を理解できないよ。 (りかをりかいできないよ) Repeating りか makes it easy to remember.

Me and you are actually in pretty strong agreement here - I definitely think knowing components helps understand words better. At the time of learning おちこむ (out of Genki I) I had no knowledge of either of its component words, though it would have been good to. To be fair, the beginning student will most likely not want to start out with a vague word like 込む, which functions as more of a compound component than an actual static meaning itself. But in general, outside of beginning cases, I absolutely agree that just like in RTK we break kanji into components, breaking characters into components helps.

As for 理科 and chaining similar words, it's helpful. My problem is not in kanji recognition however, but speaking production. And while taking a moment to think about the kanji can be helpful, I wanna reinforce the sound and make it seem more natural and correct to me, representing science. (Logic + Department, while it makes sense, doesn't do it for me) Again, to each there own.

As for the comment about "homonyms making mnemonics pointless," I don't follow you in the slightest man. It's not about learning 12 different words with the same pronunciation, just one. And just like RTK, after learning the mnemonic and solidifying the meaning, the mnemonic itself fades away. (I haven't used the おちこむ one in 2 years, just thought it'd be a funny example) Not to mention りか has only one apparent homonym, and that's "blossom," which is for obvious reasons gonna be less common.

Man, I'm really putting off studying typing all this out.... X_X Good luck internet dudes.

IceCream Wrote:um, im really not sure why anyone would need mnemonics to remember words. As other people have suggested, just enter some more cards with the kanji using the same reading in another word or another context.

Just to clarify, I use mnemonics for vocab incredibly sparingly, and ONLY when I have trouble remembering the word after repeated attempts. I can barely think of 3 or 4 I've ever created, but sometimes it's nice when all else fails. (I don't spend large portions of time reinforcing it like kanji or anything)

bandwidthjunkie,

What kind of stuff do you like in English?

IceCream, what alternative do you suggest instead? Brute-force memorization? That's like saying "why use Heisig to remember the kanji when you can just write each one out a bunch of times and remember it." Mnemonics work, and they make the process efficient.

bennyb Wrote:mnemonics are key. Before I knew what RTK was, I used them to survive 2 years of basic Japanese classes. It's silly (aren't they all, really) but I learned 落ち込む（おちこむ）by thinking of Zoro (from One Piece) giving a fitting curt response such as お or ち, and combing his hair こむ.

I recently had trouble retaining 理科（りか）"science," so I now think of the word Eureka! And it sticks. It's all in the vein of RTK, sometimes rote memory works, sometimes words are kanji appear unique enough to be learned with little effort, but when you make repeated errors and have trouble with long term retention, mnemonics are a real life-saver.

This.

When traveling in Asia I learned some words and phrases of the native language of one island I stopped at. I never used or thought about it since, but I still remember two words: "how are you?" (gogai?) and "thank you." (ayoi.) because I came up with mnemonics for those. The rest is gone.

That is the power of mnemonics.

And for the crazy people of this forum, it should be possible to do 100 vocab a day using mnemonic techniques. Think about it.. that's a college educated active vocabulary in just a couple of months.

vosmiura, if you want to learn any other language in the world (except Chinese and Korean obviously), your only option is sound based mnemonics. They do work. Yes kanji-based mnemonics are possible and efficient, but these are only useful when you know the readings. Otherwise a sound mnemonic or some combination of the two is required.

IceCream Wrote:.

Long term, you are probably making your job much longer if you're using mnemonics, cos they take so much time to come up with. For writing kanji, i get it, but for vocabulary, it's going to be too much. And, if you're coming up with sound mnemonics, there's also a good chance you're going to end up pronouncing words strangely.

First this is why for basic words I use a E-J Memorization device, hook the word into my brain in English, then forget about the English definition as I learn how it really works in Japanese.
_____________________


There is a tendency on these boards to think that kanji is the End-All of Japanese. The thing I have the biggest problem with is those bloody darn adverbs, Seriously the amount of adverbs using 何 and no other kanji is hurtful. Then you get into the fact they are all so bloody minute　(微妙 Works so much better in this Sentence), mnemonics are not going to help.

I have my advanced Japanese for foreigners 副詞　Learners Vocab Book that excludes all the adverbs taught at basic beginner and intermediate level, and says they hand-picked only the adverbs that are frequently used in everyday life. The book has over 1000 adverbs in it!, most of which have no Kanji by nature. Almost all of which are not onyomi readings of Kanji if they have it.　

You finished with Kanji in context? congrats?! time to move onto the adverbs

thermal Wrote:bandwidthjunkie,

What kind of stuff do you like in English?

Well I listen to Texan country music radio, BBC radio 4, a bit of opera, I read mid-twentieth century American and European literature (I'm a big fan of Henry Miller), and I watch action movies, The Wire, 24, Trailer Park Boys ... and really really cheap and exploitative reality TV. Basically I listen to things for emotion, read things for inspiration and watch TV to make me stupid. Any suggestions?

Edit: While I was in Japan I enjoyed watching 相撲, 碁 and 歌舞伎 on TV, but none are particularly good for your Japanese and I couldn't even find a 歌舞伎 DVD in HMV in Japan; my girlfriend just laughed at me when I asked where I could buy one, so I suppose it is hard to get.

IceCream Wrote:For action movies, try going to http://www.dramacrazy.net and http://www.mysoju.com/

Thanks, they are great links, I like the look of Mr. Brain.

I'm trying out Iversen's wordlist method too, but for Korean. I group the words by kanji, so it'll work for Japanese too. For example, I search for ~10 common words that use 上 and make a list. Then 10 words for 中, and so on. This way you quickly learn and get used to the readings.

What kind of English websites to you follow?

I am yet to get into Japanese music. I know there is good stuff but don't know what it is. I have peculiar tastes so can't rely on recommendations from people.

I don't know what mid-twentieth century literature is, but I can think of some inspirational stuff. I'm reading 海辺のカフカ which is about a boy who runs away from home on his 15th birthday. It's fairly emotional so far.

I also recommend ２０世紀少年 (20th century boys) the manga. You may think you don't like manga, this is what I thought, but this is crack. I personally like extremes of stuff, I like heavy metal or classical music. I like books and movies, but I thought manga was just a weak mix of the two. Jack of all trades, master of none kind of thing. Yet actually manga's strong point over video is each picture is made exactly as the author wants. Each picture exactly conveys the emotion of the characters at that moment and from this it gets to you more than video in some ways, which doesn't have this feature.

If you like darker stuff there is いきがみ which is set in a dystopian world where children are injected at the age of 5 with a capsule. 1/1000 of these capsules contains poison which will be released at an already determined time when they are between 18 and 24. The idea being that those that don't die feel lucky to be alive, they look after their bodies, don't take stupid risks and generally become good people. This benefit is deemed more than the loss of 1 in 1000 people. Then they have agents who tell those 1/1000 24 hours before their prearranged death that they will die. It's kind of cool, but quite dark (too dark for me actually.)

There isn't much Japanese TV that will make you stupid. Something like GTO may be to your style. A brutish teacher dealing with the class of the worst kids in school.

mafried Wrote:vosmiura, if you want to learn any other language in the world (except Chinese and Korean obviously), your only option is sound based mnemonics. They do work. Yes kanji-based mnemonics are possible and efficient, but these are only useful when you know the readings. Otherwise a sound mnemonic or some combination of the two is required.

Yes that's true, but I don't use mnemonics myself for Japanese vocab because I find just plain rote memorizing them with the list method to work well enough for me.

I know rote memorization can be a dirty word amongst us who are so used to using mnemonics for RTK, but at the end of the day the best method is the one that lets you learn in the fastest time, and in the case of vocab I find repetition to be the fastest and most direct way. It works especially well when you learn words in groups.

IceCream Wrote:I don't know how Vosimura does those nice graphs, i can't find them in anki, but here are my stats on my biggest deck:

I added those graphs myself in a plugin so I could try to see how my progress changed since I changed my method.

Quote:Correct Answers
Mature cards: 97.2%
Young cards: 85.4%
First-seen cards: 59.9%
So, by the time the cards are getting to be mature, there's really not a whole lot of difference. I'm not sure 100% retention is sustainable in the long term.

Yeah, long term I don't think there is going to be much difference in retention rates.

I just wanted to mention the method because I thought it's working pretty well since I started it.

By the way, I shared a plugin that will show you these graphs.

It's called "Kanji and success graphs". It's a modified version of "Kanji Stats" because "Kanji Stats" wasn't working for me anyway, so I fixed it and added these graphs.

This is my latest stats:



It's 50 days since I started my version of Iversen's method, and somehow it looks like I got 100% on all mature cards added since then (2 weeks worth), which is very surprising because I thought learning the vocab would only help to get cards into short term memory.

vosmiura Wrote:By the way, I shared a plugin that will show you these graphs.

It's called "Kanji and success graphs". It's a modified version of "Kanji Stats" because "Kanji Stats" wasn't working for me anyway.

Looks awesome.

Do we need to install something else?
This is on Windows XP.

Quote:Traceback (most recent call last):
File "ankiqt\ui\main.pyc", line 2401, in loadPlugins
File "C:\Documents and Settings\J966386\Application Data\.anki\plugins\Kanji and success graphs.py", line 35, in
File "matplotlib\__init__.pyc", line 719, in
File "matplotlib\__init__.pyc", line 273, in wrapper
File "matplotlib\__init__.pyc", line 360, in _get_data_path
RuntimeError: Could not find the matplotlib data files

Edit: okay, I got that error when I opened Anki.
If I ignore it, and try to show the graphs, it says

Quote:To display graphs, Anki needs a .dll file which you don't have. Please install: http://www.dll-files.com/dllindex/dll-fi...ml?msvcp71

I already see a file called "MSVCP71.dll" in the Anki directory.
I replaced it with the download file above, but Anki would not start correctly.

Hmm, ok I will check it in a little while.

Ok, I changed it. Give it another try.

Thanks, that fixed the problems!

I see the graphs.
They look strange for my deck.
The "Kanji" graph shows the history from a year ago (goes up fast, levels a bit, then goes up fast again, to about 1100) until about -30 days, then it just drops to 0.
The "Success rate (new)" graph shows a flat figure of 35 for most of the past year, then it just drops to 0 at about -70.
The "Success rate (young)" graph shows the graph (mostly above 80%) until -30, then drops to 0.
The "Success rate (mature)" graph shows the graph (mostly 100%!) till -70, then it drops to 0.

It's probably my deck, since I imported from another deck (about 50 days ago), which I'm pretty sure loses some history (review time etc).
Also I haven't added any new cards in about a month (according to the "First answered" graph).

I'll try on one of my other decks later tonight.

Ok, I made another change so the graph is based on when the card was firstAnswered instead of created, so that might work better for you.

vosmiura Wrote:Ok, I made another change so the graph is based on when the card was firstAnswered instead of created, so that might work better for you.

Yeah, I think that helped, Thanks.

I think I also understand better what the graphs represent.
So, for instance, the "Success Rate (mature)" graph doesn't show how your success rate has changed over time (which is what I first thought), it shows how you success rate varies based on the age of the card, right?

The graphs looked okay

The first three all cut off when I stopped answering new cards (same behaviour in my other decks).
The "Success Rate (mature)" graph cuts off about 21(?) days before that.
I'm not sure that makes sense, shouldn't items added more than 21 days from now be mature?
For instance, on one of my decks (I was playing around with deck formats a while ago) the first three graphs all cut off about 3 weeks ago. But the "Success Rate (mature)" graph cuts off at over 100 days ago. Shouldn't items I added a month ago already be mature?

IceCream Wrote:yeah, it's definately making a difference to how easy your finding new and young cards, isn't it?

thanks for the plugin!!
i'm getting an error though too...
...
ImportError: No module named japanese.stats
do i need something else to make it work?

Yeah, you need to download the top shared plugin "Japanese Support" for Anki or something like that. It's 13 mb, and it's the most downloaded, so you should have no trouble finding it then.

Turns out my RtK rates aren't really that great. I guess that's what I get for starting in March and finishing in July...I can't remember any of the mature cards!

avparker Wrote:I think I also understand better what the graphs represent.
So, for instance, the "Success Rate (mature)" graph doesn't show how your success rate has changed over time (which is what I first thought), it shows how you success rate varies based on the age of the card, right?

Yes you're right.

I might add a switch for "success rate over time" because that might be useful too for seeing your good & bad days - to check which is better reviewing in the morning or drunk at 3am .

I changed the plugin to just show "success rate over time" as that might be more useful in general.