日本語 Study Page
**Due to the sure volume of stuff to cover… this page is a constant work in progress…
Quick Guide
- Introduction
- Japanese Text Books
- Remember the Kanji Status/Kanji Status
- My Three Year Plan to becoming fluent in Japanese
- PROJECT: Conquer My Japanese Surroundings (CMJS)
- Kanji Town (Preliminary Ideas)
- Links and Resources
Introduction
Hajimemashite! My name is Joshua Wheeler– At the start of 2004 I began my quest to do, what has become, the single most hardest thing I’ve done in my entire life: Learn Japanese. I started taking classes at Clark College where I learned Hiragana and Katakana and basic grammar, then I transferred to Lewis and Clark where I studied intermediate grammar and vocabulary, then finally for one semester I moved to Sapporo, Japan up in Northern Hokkaido to study intermediate-to-advanced Japanese (aka Conversational Japanese).
As many who have traveled along the same path, I’ve used an array of text books for different classes. All total my studies have cost me and my family I dearth of money and time and it’s hardly close from over. This individual page isn’t a blog as much as progress report on how I’m doing in Japanese overall. Since I didn’t have a blog until most recently– I’m not going to cover everything, except for all the books I’ve used over the years- At the bottom of the page is a report on what I’m doing now to advance my studies, as well as, tips I may add from my blog. Overall this is more for me, but if it assists you in any way then I’m glad I could help.
It’s a hard long road– but it’s not impossible!
“Fight On” – Gokusen
Textbooks Books I’ve Used:
Yookoso!
Back many moons ago I started with an earlier edition of Yookoso! An Invitation to Contemporary Japanese. Yookoso, as I remember, was part of a complete Japanese curriculum aimed at getting students prepared for Japanese language learning. The beginning was often written in “Romanji” the romanized version of Japanese and easy to follow. Yookoso– atleast in earlier editions– also made a point to interject culture lessions into it’s series and culture notes like how to pass buisness cards or how to introduce yourself properly in Japanese.
Overall, for the complete newbie, Yookoso may be a good start for you if you do it with a class that has all the materials (tapes, handouts, workbook, etc.).
Nakama
When I arrived at Lewis and Clark College in 2005 the Japanese Classes there used a different textbook then Yookoso! Yookoso at the time didn’t have a second year book so Nakama sort of left off where Yookoso stopped. Nakama is a bit different then Yookoso as it’s more ‘language oriented’ then culture oriented.
The book I used was Nakama 2. This book was split into 10 Chapters and was organized to teach the student both useful vocabulary, grammar, and situational Japanese.
A Chapter in Nakama covers 9 basic categories:
- Functions - As in how to do something, ask for something, or some functional compontent of operating within Japanese. For example, Chapter 3’s function is: Asking for favors and offering help and suggestions; Expressing how to do something.
- New Vocabulary- Pretty self explanitory, Vocabulary in each chapter will complement the functions section, Dialog, Culture, Language, and any other unfamiliar vocabulary you might encounter in the chapter.
- Dialogue- Dialogue is often an exchange in Japanese between two people to help assist the student in learning how to implement the functions.
- Culture- Like Yookoso, the culture section will handle some cultural element of Japan (like vending machines, or telephones)
- Language- this section makes up the bulk of the chapter. It’s the grammar portion of the chapter that explains various forms of the language.
- Kanji- This book tackles Kanji- I don’t know how many, but probably the top 500.
- Reading- Nakama has a reading section that challenges the student to read a paragraph and answer questions about it.
- Listening- Listen is paired up with tapes so it’s important that you use Nakama in a class setting or have all the materials before moving forward.
- Communication- Nakama assumes you’re in a class so there’s a small activity that you do to communicate with people.
Overall Nakama is very organized and good for a full balanced class study session of Japanese– For independent learners it’s also full of useful vocab, sentences, and reading paragraphs- If you want to know more about Nakama I encourage you to visit “Friends of Nakama.”
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Minna No Nihongo (more information here from 3A)
When I went to Japan to study intermediate Japanese and conversational Japanese at Hokkusei Gakuen University they used this book. Minna No Nihongo could be described as the Japanese’ Answer to teaching foreigner’s their Language. At first Minna No Nihongo can be intimidating only because book 2 (on it’s own) is completely in Japanese. While it may seem impossible at first– serious learners of Japanese will know the value of having 1 book out of a set of books in full Japanese is very valuable. There is an English translation and grammar book that goes with this too which is a lot like Nakama.
Overall, before I used Minna No Nihongo (lit Everyone’s Japanese) I would have preferred Nakama. However– Minna No Nihongo’s book which is in Full Japanese is actually more useful as it immerses you in Japanese. If you are a serious student you’ll get this book along with the English Translation Notes and Grammar notes, and the workbook.
Time Required
Minna no Nihongo I: 100〜150 hours
Minna no Nihongo II: 100〜150 hours
Lessons
Minna no Nihongo I: 25
Minna no Nihongo II: 25
Vocabulary Items
Minna no Nihongo I: 1,060
Minna no Nihongo II: 900
Basic Sentence Patterns
Minna no Nihongo I: 79
Minna no Nihongo II: 73
Minna No Nihongo FAQ (taken from 3A Corporation)
James Heisig’s Remember the Kanji 1.
Remembering the Kanji, Vol. 1: A Complete Course on How Not to Forget the Meaning and Writing of Japanese Characters. Starting in March I picked up a PDF copy of the Remember the Kanji (RTK) which covered 400 characters. How I found this book was more of a fluke then anything else, but I believe it was destiny.
Controversy over RTK goes from this is the worst book on Earth that teaches you absolutely nothing to this is the sacred Bible of Kanji.
James Heisig wrote this book with the intent of offering students of Japanese, albeit often discruntled students, a chance at learning all 1,945 Jouyou Kanji as well as an additional 107 kanji used for Names. Heisig doesn’t promise that his book will teach you how to ‘read the kanji’ or how to say in Japanese each Kanji’s name, nor does he help you figure out how his book will integrate into your Japanese studies. Because he doesn’t do this– often people will jump to the conclusion that this book is a hairbrain attempt at throwing you off your game– Yet that would be a GRAND OVERSIGHT as this book rather revolutionizes the way you study Japanese.
As a tool, RTK explains that to know Japanese is to know ALL kanji. Often books on Japanese (as mentioned earlier) will try and throw Japanese as an entire set at the student at once. Emphasis on Kanji is marginalized as books cut the entire 1,945 government regulated Kanji set to the ‘top 500.’ If you seriously contemplate the study of Japanese you will invariably come to realize how problematic this can be. While the top 500 characters will get you around Japan more easily, even the most advanced student will be crippled by kanji they don’t know yet. RTK does you the favor of teaching you in a very simple formula not only how to “Remember the Kanji” in his book, but how to study, learn, and remember Any kanji anywhere. This is done by breaking Kanji up into primatives (not to be confused with radicals).
Remember the Kanji Status/Kanji Status
My current Remember the Kanji Status is that I am at 1200+ Kanji Characters! My Anki Deck Statistics as of 5/12/2009 are:
Deck created: 2.3 months ago
Total number of cards: 1225
Total number of facts: 1225
Card counts
Mature cards: 768 (62.7%)
Young cards: 435 (35.5%)
Unseen cards: 22 (1.8%)
Correct answers
Mature cards: 97.0% 163 of 168
Young cards: 92.6% 1717 of 1854
First-seen cards: 89.6% 867 of 968
The 1203 seen cards in this deck contain:
1209 total unique kanji.
Jouyou: 1149 of 1945 (59.1%).
Jinmeiyou: 30 of 287 (10.5%).
30 non-jouyou kanji.
Jouyou levels:
Grade 1: 70 of 80 (87.5%).
Grade 2: 110 of 160 (68.8%).
Grade 3: 128 of 200 (64.0%).
Grade 4: 128 of 200 (64.0%).
Grade 5: 109 of 185 (58.9%).
Grade 6: 99 of 181 (54.7%).
JuniorHS: 505 of 939 (53.8%).
(1) Unseen Cards refer to cards that have yet to be tested. In Anki, these cards do not count in the overall percentages or totals until they have been seen.
My Three Year Plan to becoming fluent in Japanese
So now that I’ve been doing RTK for awhile I probably should lay out a three year plan for how I’m going to accomplish my fluency goal. So far there’s a number of resources available for PostRTK that’s worth my while to check out and do.
Year 1:
- -Finish RTK1 and continue my reviews [both Anki/k2] (given).
***Start New Anki Deck (or add with tags):***
- -AJATT 1-MAN (10k) sentences with an emphasis on my CMS/CMJS strategy (See below)
- -Work on Tae Kim’s Basic Grammar sentences (~180)*
- -Tae Kim Essential Grammar (~340)
- -Smart.fm Core 2k Steps 1 and 2 (400)**
- -Smart.fm Core 2k Steps 3 through 6 (about 800)
- -Start CMJS-1 (see below)
- -Start blogging to my Lang-8 page
*I’ve had an eye on reading Tae Kim’s guide for sometime, but much of the lessons there also correspond with Minna No Nihongo’s grammar lessons which I also would like to incorporate as well.
**Smart.fm used to be iknow.co.jp which I blogged about and used for a brief amount of time– Perhaps with Kanji from RTK under my belt, giving Smart.fm a new shot wouldn’t be such a bad idea (especially when I like the user interface).
Year 2:
- -Continue RTK Reviews
- -Start CMJS-2- Vocab, Sentences, etc.
- -Get involved more with community activites utilizing Japanese
- -Smart.fm Core 2k Steps 3 through 6 (about 800)
- -Smart.fm Core 2k 7 – 10 (800)
- -Tae Kim Special Expression (~240)
- -Consider buying Minna No Nihongo Advanced Japanese (if applicable).
- -Start Adding Daily Yoji Sentences or writing my own Yoji
- -Use what I know to form better lang-8 blog-posts
Year 3:
- -Continue RTK reviews.
- -Consider starting RTK3 (likely if not already)
- -Start CMJS-3, & CMJS-4– including purchasing books and magazines.
- -Contribute More to Lang-8 blog.
- -Perhaps, start a blog at http://ch.kitaguni.tv/
More to come as I think about it. (This plan is ever evolving)
PROJECT: CONQUER MY JAPANESE SURROUNDINGS (CMJS)
Project “Conquer My Japanese Surroundings” or CMJS is a strategy I plan to use to become both more familiar with my surroundings, as well as work to attain fluency in Japanese. The Project will be structured much like Khatzumoto’s All Japanese All The Time Method (AJATT). In AJATT, the objective is to add about 10,000 sentences into a SRS program that you would like to learn. In the process of learning sentences you learn vocabulary, grammar, and all the other trappings of Japanese. As a concept it works out well and is applicable to many regardless of whether they’re in Japan or not.
CMJS will take a somewhat different route. Seeing as I will be living in Japan already I think it would be prudent use my surroundings as a learning tool. Starting with my remote control, toilet, or heater– CMJS will aim at tackling Japanese from the immediate (my house) to the world just like how the Prince in Katamari Damacy rolls up ’stuff’ in his Katamari ball starting with a paper clip to eventually the world!
CMJS will be separated in five distinct phases (with the last one being optional):
- CMJS-1 will cover all the Japanese vocabulary, sentences, and kanji compounds within my immediate environment. As a part of my Job I’ll be living in a Japanese place (apartment or house) with all sorts of (confusing) Japanese, then I’ll also work in various offices with yet more confusing Japanese. Project CMJS-1 will be to “Conquer” all that confusing Japanese I run into on a day to day basis so that getting around my house or the office will be ‘doable’. So as far as my AJATT “Sentences” or “Study Content” — I’ll start with things like: My Daily Mail, Memos (from the office), Schedules, Name Rosters, Flyer’s, Manuals, and other stuff (like remote controls, the water heater, stove top, groceries, kitchen appliances, the laundry, etc.). Once I feel comfortable with my surroundings I’ll then move to CMJS-2.
- CMJS-2 will cover all things Local. From City Offices to Malls to Train Stations- The Japanese involved with these places will be my focus until I feel confident within my local area and around local people then I’ll move on to CMJS-3.
- CMJS-3 will cover all Prefectureal, Statewide, or Regional based Japanese. This might be news about an event happening in a town next to mine or news from a vacation place somewhere in my Prefecture. This also includes vacation flyer’s, travel reports, prefectural magazines, and other prefectural news. An additional Part of CMJS-3 may even include local-dialect if applicable.
- CMJS-4 is for all things National or not covered in CMJS-1 through 3. This will include all national Television, Radio, Music, and Information about or from the government. This probably will be the biggest of all the CMJS’s.
- CMJS-FS (Further Study)- CMJS-FS is if in the future I specialize in a particular field. CMJS-FS will follow along the same lines as CMJS-1, but will likely be more comprehensive based upon what field I end up going into.
More developments on CMJS as I develope it further.
Kanji Town (Preliminary Ideas)
(Still formulating my Kanji Town idea)
Links and Resources
Links to come soon.. in the mean time see links posted to the right.
