nest0r wrote:

phauna, my total disagreement with you about production cards aside, do you feel like KO's built-in redundancy affected how you graded yourself with the SRS? As in, knowing you'd come across these words again very soon in new cards, were you more lenient about how you failed/difficult'd yourself? I've been pretty neurotic about it, but I'm thinking it's a waste of time to be too strict.

I find myself sometimes doing that, but not too often. Mainly if I am reviewing a lot of cards that dday and I dont want to spend to much time on one card, and I hit the target kanji, then I wont worry to much if I make a little slip on another kanji in the sentnece, if its one that I feel I pretty much know and a main kanji in another sentence.

nest0r wrote:

Sometimes these 50 card audio-->kanji sessions can get intense, especially when I'm like 'no stupid, this time it's "wo suru", not "suru"! Idiot, you failed!' or 'That was "na", not "no"! 50 lashings!'

Man, that sounds way too harsh. I mostly just test words that I want to know the kanji writing for. If I can hear the whole sentence, I'll know which words those are and try to write them. If I can't hear them, well then that's a failure just like not being able to write them

But over small parts like not writing a を? I think Misaki (or whatever the female voice is called) says が　in a strange way and I sometimes have a hard time hearing exactly what the particle is in a fast sentence, but I wouldn't fail myself over that.

I don't know if that is very helpful in the end for learning. Every tool for learning has some benefit, but I think the benefit you can get out of it is like a math log curve; the benefit decreases when people start to use it too extreme. I mean, I don't even trust myself to listen to every exact word an English speaker says because I kind of suck at hearing sometimes. Trying to use the text to voice and test your hearing for every minute part of a Japanese sentence sounds a little overboard. The best way to improve listening is just simply to get lots of Japanese input by listening to lots of Japanese, so I'm not sure how helpful it would to transcribe the TTS exactly or fail yourself.

Check your goals with the activity, and see if you think how you are doing it actually measures up to those goals.

sutebun wrote:

nest0r wrote:

Sometimes these 50 card audio-->kanji sessions can get intense, especially when I'm like 'no stupid, this time it's "wo suru", not "suru"! Idiot, you failed!' or 'That was "na", not "no"! 50 lashings!'

Man, that sounds way too harsh. I mostly just test words that I want to know the kanji writing for. If I can hear the whole sentence, I'll know which words those are and try to write them. If I can't hear them, well then that's a failure just like not being able to write them

But over small parts like not writing a を? I think Misaki (or whatever the female voice is called) says が　in a strange way and I sometimes have a hard time hearing exactly what the particle is in a fast sentence, but I wouldn't fail myself over that.

I don't know if that is very helpful in the end for learning. Every tool for learning has some benefit, but I think the benefit you can get out of it is like a math log curve; the benefit decreases when people start to use it too extreme. I mean, I don't even trust myself to listen to every exact word an English speaker says because I kind of suck at hearing sometimes. Trying to use the text to voice and test your hearing for every minute part of a Japanese sentence sounds a little overboard. The best way to improve listening is just simply to get lots of Japanese input by listening to lots of Japanese, so I'm not sure how helpful it would to transcribe the TTS exactly or fail yourself.

Check your goals with the activity, and see if you think how you are doing it actually measures up to those goals.

While I understand how you feel, it's probably a good idea to be very strict with such things, simply because you might get used to "skimming" when you hear actual Japanese conversations later (or even worse, when you're in one) and will miss the particles. Remember, in Japanese, particles are vital, changing them around changes the whole meaning of the sentence.

One of the abolute hardest things for people who haven't lived and studied in Japan is to hear Japanese properly... when someone talks to them really slow, they understand, but when the conversation goes to a native level, they are lost. Since you're studying with the goal to not become one of those people (I suppose) I suggest you put effort into hearing every part of the sentence. Of course, as long as you keep it on a level you enjoy.

This is especially true if you're aiming for JLPT2 or 1, where the listening tests are really hard unless you have a very good ear for everything in a sentence.

sutebun wrote:

I think you're missing the point of what I'm saying.

It's important to practice listening and become used to hearing authentic Japanese.

The question I'm posing then is, "is forcing yourself to transcribe sentences exactly as read by a *TTS* a good mode of progression for listening comprehension?" Likewise, you can also ask, "is the benefit worth the extra-time you have to burden?"

I think it's fair to say that using TTS for learning purposes is pretty new. Nearly everyone who has attained a high level of proficieny in Japanese or any language likely hasn't used it before. So by no means is it necessary. I don't want to spark a debate about this; I am just trying to say that sometimes it's important to ask ourselves if what we're doing is actually beneficial.

I like using TTS how I use it, think it is beneficial, and does not require much extra time or effort in my studying. If I were to fail myself for every sentence I could not transcribe exactly, or if I added all the extra time that would come from playing sentences multiple times or even just writing out whole sentences, that would make the SRS take too long. In the end I just don't think the extra practice would offset the time required.

If people feel different, that's their call. But think about if you're using your time efficiently.

TTS itself isn't necessary. But listening to native speed speech is. TTS is a substitute for that. The arguments for being strict on listening apply to both.