If reading without a dictionary is too difficult, maybe you could find some material with translations such as parallel texts or phrasebooks. This way you can quickly find definitions without having to use a paper dictionary.

Last edited by nadiatims (2011 December 03, 9:34 pm)

undead_saif wrote:

If you have a smartphone maybe Anki is available?

vvvv

Zarxrax wrote:

Problem is, internet access and electronic devices are prohibited.

Last edited by vix86 (2011 December 04, 8:12 am)

undead_saif wrote:

Zarxrax wrote:

Problem is, internet access and electronic devices are prohibited.

Ankidroid doesn't need an internet connection, sync before and after work.

You could always bring along a sheet of lined paper with whatever new vocab you're learning written down on it.  Leave a blank row or two, and then in your downtime, just practice writing those new words.
Or you could print out a few interesting news articles, or parallel text stories.  Bring a highlighter, and read over the text without a dictionary. Highlight any unknown words, and then when do have access to a dictionary later, you can look those words up.  Then you could maybe make another sheet of paper with the definitions and pronunciations of the new words, so that the next day you can re-read the text, but this time you'll have your own personal glossary to help you read.

The writing thing sounds like a good idea. Maybe you could draft lang-8 entries. If you can't remember the kanji for a word, just write it in kana until you have access to a dictionary. You could even just scribble notes and bullet points. As long as you're thinking in Japanese and making use of your knowledge, it's going to have a benefit in the long-term.

If you're adding a set number of new cards to Anki each day, try printing them out as a vocab list and learning them at work. It'll make your reviews go more smoothly at home.

Jarvik7 wrote:

vix86 wrote:

undead_saif wrote:

Ankidroid doesn't need an internet connection, sync before and after work.

Maybe his smartphone is steam powered.

LOL sorry I didn't notice, don't ask me how I didn't, maybe work effect?

you could read manga or a book, and plow through it. if there's things you don't understand you can write them down and then look it up later.

there are some things you can use context to define, so it's decent practice. there are so many times i read an article and i don't understand certain sentences until i read all the other sentences and get it.

but yeah, writing stuff down that you don't understand (or even just marking it to look up later) can help.

howtwosavealif3 wrote:

don't lots of people like them polyglots try to avoid using dictionaries

While there is a lot to be said for not leaning on the dictionary too much, the pronunciation can not really be deduced from reading Japanese unless you are reading a work with full furigana. There are certainly trends and the more you know the better you can guess, but unlike phonetic languages where mistakes are minor and easily recognized the first (or next) time you hear the word, a mistake in interpreting the pronunciation in Japanese could be a completely different reading. I find myself reaching for the dictionary a lot more often when reading a novel than a manga - I can blip over a word once, stabbing a guess at the meaning from kanji and context, but if it's repeated I just have to look it up. (Probably because I pronounce in my head as, for example, 'probably かん as in China, じ as in letter' which is an awfully long and disruptive phrase to subvocalize, or else as the known common verb readings associated with each character in other cases, which is slightly less disruptive but still nags at me that I need to look it up sometime.)

I try not to reach for my dictionary when I'm sure of the reading but hazy on the meaning (I have a lot of words like that for various reasons that mostly sum up to years of haphazard studying). There are plenty of full furigana manga, of course, (also a source of many words that I learned the reading but not the meaning... ), but there is a potential that people will look down on you for reading comics (which is odd because they'll be in awe if you read an easy light novel and contemptuous of you if you read a much more challenging manga... not sure how many light novels have furigana, but then there are juvenile novels that do. There's also the Furigana Times, though I've never subscribed.) Of course, being looked down on matters in any concrete sense only when the workplace is somewhere you're developing your career, or if there's a chance the supervisor would react differently and, say, ban the comic books while permitting novels or newspapers.

There are, I should mention... paper dictionaries. I used Shogakukan Progressive until I invested in an electronic dictionary, and it's true that they are slower but - once you are used to kana-order - no slower than looking things up on the 'net on a 3G phone. Considerably slower than looking things up on a real computer and network connection, and completely blown away by an electronic dictionary, but, eh. Well, except when your first stab or two at pronunciation are wrong ... paper character dictionaries are a nightmare, really. The Grammar Dictionary series is also a good paper study that can be opened at random for a few minutes of study, and a useful resource to have around besides.

Last edited by SomeCallMeChris (2011 December 05, 12:33 am)

qwertyytrewq wrote:

Any ideas on how to make my idle brain study/revise Japanese while my body does its brain-not-required job?

That's a really difficult time to utilize, but, you can write some words on a 3x5 card and peek at them once in awhile to run them through your brain (or in your case, flip through a cell-phone flashcard program, at least on your breaks.)

For similar situations, I've tried to get Japanese songs stuck in my head, with -some- success, but I really have to put some significant effort into studying lyrics or else I end up with a wordless tune playing in my head, or worse yet, only the bits that are in English! That's not worth the time involved outside of work unless you actually want to learn every bit of those songs anyway.

Going old-school and memorizing 'pattern sentences' may help. I hate that kind of rote memorization, but if you put together a list of pattern sentences and learn them word for word so that you can repeat them in your mind while you're at work it could be some help. It may be more enjoyable if you memorize the lines from some show instead of some dictionary or textbook.

I'm a little reluctant to simply mentally flip through my vocabulary or kanji because I don't have anything in front of me to assure me that I have it right and I don't want to reinforce an error... however, sometimes I find myself doing just that. 
Also I find myself mentally composing potential lang-8 entries that I'll probably never write, but if you're better about getting it out of your head and onto paper that could actually be useful.