Holizz versus the Web

Welcome to today’s lecture on the Tom method of learning Japanese. As all the best lecturers, I shall use bullet points and nothing else.

• Watch anime (and non-anime Japanese films and TV) every day.
• Read Japanese weblogs. Start with something that isn’t a newspaper and is about a subject you like (I read Yukotan Hour).
• If you’re using Firefox, get Moji. You can highlight single kanji or whole words and it’ll give you readings, information on the radicals, and everything.
• Use a dictionary, a translator, the Unihan database, a charmap utility. And most importantly, remember that these are not infallible (especially translators), but they can be useful if used appropriately.
• Look up every interesting word you hear.
• Subscribe to Japanese learning feeds: Kanji a Day at ようこそ, japanese.about.com.
• Read manga. Even if it’s in English you’ll still pick up lots of sound symbols (what does Chiyo-chan being hit on the head by a ball sound like? べん).
• Speak Japanese all the time. Think it even if you don’t say it out loud. Pick a phrase you’re thinking of and see which words you know in Japanese and have a shot at constructing a sentence even if you have to substitute in English words (for instance, wetです—it was a rainy day).
• Make some Japanese friends and practice on them (as in use the odd Japanese phrase, not treat them like a personal tutor).
• Oh, and don’t forget to read the weblogs of ex-patriots! They may not necessarily have much Japanese language in them, but they tend to have a lot of cultural anecdotes.

Today I did something productive. Unfortunately it wasn’t coursework. Nor was it attending lectures.

I learnt some more kanji, bringing my total up to 40. That’s half of what’s required for the JLPT (Japanese Language Proficiency Test) level 4 exam. I’m really pleased with myself.

Japanese is more important than coursework, I think. It’s certainly easier than the CASS2 coursework (Computer Architecture and Systems Software 2). When I go to the lectures I generally try and understand what’s going on for the first fifteen minutes then give up and learn Japanese.

Today I decided to learn the days of the week, because I was having trouble remembering them. They seemed very arbitrary because I didn’t know the meaning of the sounds. When I saw the kanji it all made sense.

(No I won’t go easy on you and give you the Rōmaji.)

This way I only have to remember which day is which kanji (meaning), then recalling the reading (sound) is easy. The alternative is to arbitrarily remember the sounds of the days; which, as we all know from A-Level Psychology is less memorable than remembering the meaning. Kana (Hiragana and Katakana) tells you what something sounds like and the meaning must be in your head, kanji tells you what it means but the sound must be in your head.

• I fixed my comments feed today. Turns out there was already a patch for it in the bugreport. Although the attachment there has a bug, for which I have a patch.
• Yahoo has a Geek Statue, because apparently they beat Gmail/Google Mail. I’ve tried to log into Yahoo mail several times; each time it tells me my session has expired (on the UK version it puts me into an infinate redirect loop). And yes, I’m accepting cookies indescriminately. So no, Yahoo haven’t beaten Google in mail for the simple fact that Google Mail works and Yahoo Mail doesn’t. (Attempting to reregister = fill out the form, submit, arrive at the same form emptied of all values with no explanation). The help system doesn’t seem to be of any help, either.
• I haven’t been swimming for a week now. It’s working out well. I have more energy to spend on other exercise and learning Japanese because I don’t start my day by exercising before I eat. Lately I’ve been exercising my legs. Mostly stretching and kicking. I’ve touched each of my big toes with each leg stretched, but I’m yet to touch them at the same time. That’s taken me much closer to my goal in just a few days. I can also kick at about head height.
• I got some kanji flashcards from eBay the other day. They’re quite good. Already I’m understanding the relation between the いち、に、さん counting system and the ひとつ、ふたつ、みっつ counting system. The days of the week seem a little less arbitrary in kanji too.

Today we had a little test in 日本語のじゅぎょう (Japanese class). For introduce yourself, I wrote something similar to this:

私はトム・アダムスです。イギリスじんです。Bradford からです。たんじょうびはにがつじゅうくにちすいようびです。

Never one to miss an opportunity to show off I also gave 私のけいたいばんご (my phone number) in kanji.

そして、露蓮さんのウェブログすきだ！