snispilbor wrote:

RE:  How to add sentences with no English translations.

One trick I've discovered is, instead of adding an English translation, you can just add a contextual note.  So instead of putting "There are too many slimes, we need more manpower!" on the answer side, you could just put "(Dragon Warrior hero when all the slimes attack)".  I do this for my video game mining, and combine it with invisible text.  In some sense it's BETTER, since a direct translation often LACKS key contextual information.

This is an interesting thought.

Incidentally, I'm not convinced that there is any difference between using English or Japanese definitions on cards. This is because although "translation" is in some sense bad when processing Japanese in the long run, I don't think this is just E->J translation but any sort of substitution that you are performing in your head. If you are substituting Japanese phrases for Japanese words in your head it will be no better. Personally, I do use English on my cards; I think no matter what you do, when you encounter in normal writing words that you have so far memorized primarily in your SRS you will have to perform some sort of mental translation. In other words, I consider an SRS to be a combination of a sort of mnemonic device that you use to to sort-of remember words until you can really remember them and a study tool to continue remembering thereafter. However, I don't think the mental "translation" you will have to do initially is bad as a temporary method of memorization; it is still 100 times faster than looking up the word, and if you keep seeing the word you will memorize it in a more natural fashion.

I imagine that people who have used RTK will know what I am talking about, since it seems to be a similar sort of mnemonic device which is used to speed up the development of a more natural type of memory.

Edit: As another example, when I initially memorized the hiragana and katakana, I made up mnemonics for most of the characters. These mnemonics were very slow compared to real memorization but they let me study the characters much faster than without them since when I forgot a character I could fall back on the mnemonic. In a sense, I think that you can't expect sentences in an SRS to be much better. I actually hadn't thought of it in this way until just now and it seems slightly depressing so I wouldn't mind if someone can convince me I'm wrong.

Last edited by mystes (2008 July 11, 1:24 am)

Interesting how this thread has splintered into several topics.

Regarding the point I made earlier, my students talking about "hating studying" is simply to quote from them. What they mean by it is the traditional classroom/textbook oriented learning environment where students memorize grammatical rules and vocabulary in order to pass tests but can't use the language worth a damn. (BTW, my students are all doing languages exchanges, so I learn Japanese from them and we are
not in a traditional environment.)

Another distinction of those who learn English from TV programs like Friends is developing the proper use of "filler" words, such as "like" "kind of" "you know" "by the way" etc, which can only really be used well by learning them in context - and don't disparage these little words - your language will never sound natural without them, your Japanese included.

Too many textbooks have too many non-native type sentences, beginning with 私は。。。for example, to be natural. I can speak for an hour in Japanese about likes, dislikes, passions, backgrounds, etc, and maybe use 私　twice in that time. It's a structure used to help westerners learn, but it's not natural. That's just one example.

Another example of a perfectly correct but perfectly useless English sentence that almost all ESL students have had to write at some point or other is: "This is a pencil." I've been speaking English for more than 40 years, and I can't ever remember using that sentence, and except for being sarcastic, I can't think of a time I would even use it. Of course it's a pencil ... DUH. Sure, they learn grammar and vocabulary, but why not make the sentence useful at the same time, like "Where is my pencil," or "This is delicious." Two similar sentences structurally, but both might be used more than once in 40 years.

Sentence mining is brilliant, and my Japanese is advancing rapidly because of it. The best sources, though, are Japanese sentences that are written/spoken for other Japanese, not for second-language learners. That is how native Japanese learned their language, and how native English speakers like me learned English. Any other way is doing yourself a disservice.

Sorry for the long post

Last edited by timcampbell (2008 July 11, 1:46 am)

I think some grammatical constructions are kind of easy to miss without reinforcement from an English translation, at least initially.  For example, all the uses of よう、　like  ～ようにします、　～ようになります。　　This distinction between these two is quite fine, and other uses such as the quite similar meaning よう、みたい and らしい.  Without constant reinforcement of what the difference is of these, I can see myself skipping over sentences containing them without truly separating the nuances.  Of course once I've learned them I can dispense with English if I so choose.

alyks wrote:

Why English translations? Define the sentence components.

Q:
私の名前がアレクスです
A:
わたし [Me]　の [Possessive part.]　な-まえ [Name + Now = Name] アレクスです
or
わたしの [My. Defines the following in as mine, as per の] な-まえが [Name + Front of = Name. が used as *description*] Edit: Corrected. Staying up sixteen hours will make you think not good.

This isn't exact. But the point I'm trying to convey, is you're trying to understand the sentences, not translate them to English. You want to get out of English thinking and into Japanese thinking. You have to understand what the sentences is trying to tell you, and know how each part of the sentences functions. I believe this is possible without trying to constantly translate to English. (It's just a clutch, really.)

Myself, I use English sentences because I test sentence production (going from English to Japanese). I find production is much more helpful than recognition, but since I use Anki, which makes it easy to have both, I typically use both for the same sentence.

Moreover, it can often take longer to read your notes than to compare to a translation. I only use notes when some detail is untranslatable or to point out pitfalls. I'd often just ignore the notes -- which is just as well since I often ignore the English translation when I already know the sentence. (I do it so much that I have to put critical details in bold. For instance, "みなさん, not みんなさん".)

- Kef