Sebastian
Member
Registered: 2008-09-09
Posts: 520
I know some people have created spreadsheets for the Kanzen Master books, but I have the Shin Kanzen Master N1 grammar workbook and wonder whether someone has started typing it too.
How different are the Shin Kanzen Master books from the old ones?
If no one has started yet, we could start now. Is anyone interested?
sikieiki
Member
From: No
Registered: 2009-11-05
Posts: 124
Im interested in finding a spreadsheet of N1 grammar as well. Hell, any grammar is fine.
Theres sites like renshuu.org / jgram with all the data I need, but there doesnt seem to be a way to get at the actual data without browsing several hundred pages - and some of the examples are clearly wrong. I am surprised no one has done this yet.
I've got the KM1 book but typing up the sentences is too much work. Then again, it could probably be done in a few hours.
Last edited by sikieiki (2012 July 24, 7:17 pm)
Well a good initiative would be discussing an agreed upon template. As I mentioned earlier I'd be interested in a cloze delete deck, but I'm afraid that I'll just end up memorizing the sentence and the associated cloze, so I'm not sure what the best method would be.
As an example, take the 「。。。ようにも。。。ない。。。」 construct (http://jgram.org/pages/viewOne.php?tagE=younimonai), and an example sentence:
頭が痛くて、起きようにも起きられなかった。
I have a terrible headache, and I cannot get up even though I want to
What would be the best way to test this grammar with cloze delete? cloze the whole verb, part of it, only the conjugation? etc Some options would be:
頭が痛くて、起き__にも起きられなかった。
頭が痛くて、起き____起きられなかった。
頭が痛くて、起き__起き__。
頭が痛くて、__ようにも___なかった。
頭が痛くて、起__起__。
I think each of these would have some utility in making the reader think actively about what proper choices could be made.
But, to be honest, I think a lot can be learned from looking at example questions. On N2 the only difficulty came when the multiple choice options had all answers identical save one particle in each option, or two very similar answer choices like fill in the blank with "として" or "としては" and at that instant you're taking the test and think "oh s**t, what is the true difference between the usage of those grammar constructs?" and that's what understanding that problem will demonstrate.
SOOOOO, I'd like to see cards that are more similar to the test problems themselves. Either multiple answer choice and you have to quickly identify _why_ 3 of the 4 options are wrong, and really understand the essence of that selection.
My ideal setup (infinite time assumption):
1) one key example sentence for each grammar point that is cloze-deleted on key grammar point (maybe two sentences if it's one of the more varied grammar points)
2) a collected set of test-like cards (multiple choice answer, sentence arrangement)
Regarding point 2, in the ideal case with the drill books, KM, and the other popular options we could easily get for each grammar point 3 or 4 question cards. That means we'd be prompted with 4 unique sentences that test any N1 grammar point, forcing the student to consider said grammar point against what are the most likely options that would trip one up.
That's more than two cents worth of rambling... Realistically, I'll probably just keep reading books and listening to podcast and not do anything of this, but if this spurs any thoughts or excitement I might be game.
And as one follow up: If you look at all the N1/一級 questions and categorized all all problems by their right answer, and then looked at the entire distribution of wrong answer options that are paired with each tested grammar point I assume with the statistics available you'd be able to see what grammar constructs are grouped in questions.
That is, obviously if the correct answer uses the (二級) grammar construct "＜Verb (plain form)＞たび(に)", which means something like "every time", to have the wrong options with meanings wildly different from "every time" would be too easy. More likely options of grammar points that have similar but subtle or obvious differences/applications would be posed.
If anyone wanted to do this, it might be revealing. You might find something like for questions that test the grammar point "たびに" the wrong answer options are always from a specific set of 5 other similar grammar points -- and fairly enough, you, the learner of Japanese, should understand the distinguishing points between these grammar points. Anyway, just some thoughts 
rich_f
Member
From: north carolina
Registered: 2007-07-12
Posts: 1541
Yeah, same here. I used the grammar examples as passive (and if I didn't find enough, I grabbed some from some grammar books), and put the multiple choice questions in as-is.
For OCR, I highly recommend e.Typist14.0 for windows. There's a 30 day free trial that works just fine. After that, you need to shell out $130 or so. But of all the commercial OCR programs I've tried, I like it the best. Try the sample version first until you figure out how to use it, though. It's not intuitive. I may have posted some notes about it in a thread somewhere about a year ago.
