I said a while ago that I moved, well, part of that has involved learning a new language. Following the martial arts maxim,
Do not seek to just blindly copy and emulate your teachers, instead seek what they sought.
I set about trying to find the tools and strategy that worked best for me to accomplish the goal of learning a new language quickly and well.
I found that the king of SRS (spaced repetition systems) and Japanese language learning tools is the humble PDA
So, First go to http://www.japaneselanguagetools.com/ and get an Axim loaded to the gills with Japanese – English dictionaries. Then get bazillions of example sentences from ftp://ftp.cc.monash.edu.au/pub/nihongo/jp_examples.fpw.tar.gz and stick that on the PDA’s SD Card (get a big one, the bigger the better)
Once that’s done you have a Japanese-English-Kanji-Stroke order-readings etc Dictionary that easily outperforms any of the commercial J-E ‘Wordtank’ kind of dictionaries,you can add further pimpage too by adding the worlds finest SRS on it by adding PocketStackz from http://www.stackz.com/Stackz/ppc/ppc.htm
after that’s installed add the vocabulary files from http://www.stackz.com/Stackz/Archive/Archive.php
That’s well on the way to being the King of language learning helpers, but adding Declan’s voice flash cards (Yes: VOICE, they speak the words at you!) and the Kanji software will quite honestly put you over the edge!! get them from here -
http://www.declan-software.com/pocket_pc/japanese/index.htm
The Declans and Stackz site has files for all the JLPT levels and quite frankly, any words you’d ever need!
Free trials are available for all the software listed above (Obviously not the Axim)
Good luck!
NB: I am in no way affiliated with these sites, but I do fully recommend the products.
50 000円 is a lot of money to me, and I recently bought a Sharp denshi jisho with Kanji writing possibilities. However, the PDA-way still seems very tempting after reading through japaneselanguagetools.com.
The thing that bothers me most about the wordtank is how hard it is to look words up from english to japanese. I have to write my word, look through like 5 words (which I don’t know the reading of) by using the jump system between dictionaries. Would you say the PDA is still the way to go?
fl0www:
There is no doubt that the PDA is a better way to go. See if you can get rid of the wordtank and get the PDA.
Using the example you gave; If I look up a word in English, I can have one screen that has the English dictionary definition, Japanese translation(s), readings, hundreds of example sentences and words that begin/end with that word.
if it’s not already provided by the dictionary entry and I don’t know the readings; with one click I can get the reading for that Kanji .
If I then get really excited by the new Japanese words, I can copy and paste them into the Stackz SRS system to help me learn them and the definition by heart as soon a possible. Or I could just cut and paste the info and email it to someone/myself direct from the PDA wirelessly!
All of this happens very quickly and in full colour. The Wordtanks need to evolve to be honest.
Good luck with the Japanese!
My two bits:
I’m learning Japanese just now. I am lucky to havea native speaker teacher who really understands both English and Japanese, and I’ve been listening to a podcast called Japanese Pod 101, which has basic, intermediate and hard (or something) levels. You have to pay for the premium service, but the free podcast is great for practicing comprehension.…
Declan Software are happy to offer readers of this blog a discount of 10% for additional individual (non-bundled) purchases made through our web site. Please use the following coupon: DECL-WHMK-OED
In particular you might be interested in our new ** WordFile Creator Pro ** software. It is designed for use by serious students of Japanese who wish to create custom syllabus-specific audio wordfiles. The software provides access to Declan Software’s online audio library containing over 9000 native speaker audio recordings of the most common Japanese words, expressions and phrases.
Full details are available here:
http://www.declan-software.com/japanese/index.htm#wordfilecreator
Thanks for your interest.
—
Ethan
Declan Software