It's what I keep hearing. If this is true then I don't see it as worth it since smart.fm has the same vocab and it has audio for all of it correct? I just want to make sure before I do buy it.

Thanks.

I'm not exactly what you mean by that, but the KO audio is pretty much as you'd expect. The quality is OK, and it provides an exact transcript of the sentence. There's not much else that could be said about it. I personally didn't like the woman's voice used in the 2nd half of the book, but I got over that pretty quickly. The guy in the first half was pretty good imo.

There is nothing wrong with it. I can't see that being the deciding factor to not get the book.you should probably choose KO or Smart based on length of sentences/money/avaibality.

blackmacros Wrote:and it provides an exact transcript of the sentence.

I remember a few sentences where the audio is a little bit different from the sentence. One time 明日 is read as あす, while the furigana displays あした. Another time a unwritten を is pronounced for a suru-verb for which it is optional.

xaarg Wrote:

blackmacros Wrote:and it provides an exact transcript of the sentence.

I remember a few sentences where the audio is a little bit different from the sentence. One time 明日 is read as あす, while the furigana displays あした. Another time a unwritten を is pronounced for a suru-verb for which it is optional.

I also noticed a case where 三角形 is pronounced さんかっけい, while the book lists it as さんかくけい (both are okay).
But actually, that's not so bad, you can bet I remember both of them now!


I don't think there's anything wrong with the audio from the book.
In fact, I've been going through adding it to my existing Anki deck because I'm hoping it'll help me with some of the readings I get mixed up.

blackmacros Wrote:I'm not exactly what you mean by that, but the KO audio is pretty much as you'd expect. The quality is OK, and it provides an exact transcript of the sentence. There's not much else that could be said about it. I personally didn't like the woman's voice used in the 2nd half of the book, but I got over that pretty quickly. The guy in the first half was pretty good imo.

>>This.

I think for me it came down to a simple case of which voice I wanted to add into my SRS, and I personally liked the smart.fm voice actors a little better. But of course, your mileage may vary.

Note on the smart.fm lists: while the listbuilders did try to find exmple sentences with audio wherever possible, not every vocabulary item will contain an audio reading. Also, it's only fair to mention that just as in KO2001, there are occasional issues with different pronunciations used in audio and text examples. Probably more so than KO2001, considering that the smart.fm lists were never meant as a professional effort for commercial sale.

However, the KO2001 provides audio for only the 3 or so example sentences given in the books/e-book; the advantage of smart.fm here is that the group tried to find sentences for every vocabulary item given in the reference section for each kanji. So the sheer volume of sentences, and possibly audio, is slightly greater with the smart.fm lists.

If you're worried that the e-book will be an unnecessary purchase, maybe you could try out just the smart.fm lists for a little while and see how you make out. You may find that you're doing fine without the need for any extra resource support. And if you decide that you do need a little something extra, (or if you simply want to support the company who originally developed the lists) you can always buy the product down the line...

Choose based on the content of the sentences, not the audio.

I found the audio in ko2001 reaaaaaalllly boring. Doesn't help that boring sentences are being read by the most boring voice. If you want to do ko2001 I would suggest doing the smart.fm lists instead.

The audio is clear but the guy speaks a bit slower than I would want. For example he pauses unnaturally long between some parts of the sentences. Although as a beginner it's easier to comprehend that way. So far I'm finding the audio OK though.