The Problem with Learning New Skills

There has been quite a drop in the number of posts in this blog and that is indicative of a drop in pace of my learning Japanese. At first, the lag developed when I took a short break to deal with my friends death. After a few days I continued to use it as an excuse. Eventually it got harder and harder to motivate myself to study. I had cut the Pimsleur lessons back to three a week, stopped reading further in TextFugu, and even spent a week of doing only maintenance on my WaniKani and not learning new unlocked items.

I finally decided to get back in the saddle today and to my surprise, one of the sections I covered in TextFugu was about "The Dip." This is when after initially learning a new skill the amount of results coming out of effort put in begins to drop, at least for awhile. This means that the intermediate stage of learning a skill is riddled with putting more effort into it and getting less out of it. I was running into this before I took my "break" and was a factor in my lack of motivation.

I'm familiar with this concept, I have seen it before with Spanish, IT knowledge, and singing. It's really important to push through it because after you pass "The Dip" the amount of effort required for results is lower.

So, this is me picking it back up.

To be fair, I didn't completely stop learning. Pimsleur offered some really good new grammar points and I have gained a ton of new vocab from WaniKani and Anime. I did try to focus on learning more vocabulary than anything else. Being able to read and write more words will really make learning the grammar points more fun. You can only go so far with basic nouns and verbs before you start to get worn out using them over and over.

I have been working in my head on a full Japanese post about myself. There are a few more things I'd like to pick up before I write it, so it will be "in the pipe" for awhile. The upside is that I am able to write full paragraphs now. Granted, my skill level shows, but I can do it none-the-less.

The Difference Between Round and Round

I unlocked more vocabulary on WaniKani today and I came across something fun and odd. Previously I had learned the word 丸い which means round. Today I learned 円い which also means round. 丸い refers to things that are more 3 dimensional like a ball or a cylinder being round. 円い refers to flat things that are round like a drawn circle or a coin. 円 is the character for ￥ or yen. So if you can think of a coin being flat and round, that's what you would use it for.

The kicker is 丸い and 円い are both pronounced まるい! Two different words meaning the same thing but written differently depending on context. Maybe a little confusing, but I think it makes sense to. In English we would need to write that something is flat and round to distinguish it from something that is just round. At least 日本語 has a nifty shortcut.

A Slow Week

I decided to use this week as a review week. I haven't started any new material. I have basically only been reviewing my Anki decks and doing my WaniKani reviews and lessons.

Speaking of WaniKani, I hit level 2 last night after completing my review before heading off to bed. This unlocked a TON of radicals, Kanji and vocab. I woke up early this morning (well I have been doing that this whole week to get used to DST) and completed all the lessons. I just finished the first post-lesson review and I'm surprised at how well I'm doing. Kanji isn't as hard as i thought it was going to be. Once you really start to get used to it it's not as terrifying. Sure there is a lot to remember but that challenge is pretty fun.

I also have nearly mastered Katakana. I'm still iffy on some characters. シ、ツ、ン、ノ、ソ throw me off quite a bit. I'm finding it is easier to practice reading loaner words than actual Katakana characters. Really, Katakana comes down to word recognition since you kind of fudge the pronunciations sometimes anyway. The TextFugu Katakana and Katakana Words Anki decks have been  extremely helpful. I have them combined so I get a mix of words and individual kana every day.

I did Pimsleur Monday - Wednesday. The level II is much more fast paced and intense. Also, the one I have is not the same edition as the level I have so I'm having to learn some different vocab on the fly. This is challenging considering I do this on my ride home from work. So, I'm taking this level a bit slower. All though, I did learn the following phrase that I will end with.

あいにく、失礼しなければならないんです。
(Unfortunately, I must excuse myself)

Kanji, Onyomi, Kunyomi, Okurigana, Furigana, Hiragana, and Katakana (to a lesser extent, Romaji)

Introdocution

This post is as much for my sake as it is for anyone learning Japanese. The writing and reading of Japanese is complicated by the fact that there are 3 writing systems (4 it you count Romaji, which I don't) used in conjunction with each other. One of those writing systems, Kanji (漢字) has several different ways to be read. So unlike English and most (if not all) European languages, not only do you have to learn pronunciations and dialect when reading, Japanese has the added complication of learning several ways to read the same language, and, the necessity to learn them all in order to actually begin reading in the language.

Hiragana (平仮名), Katakana (片仮名), and Romaji

Hiragana and Katakana are the Japanese Syllabary. It similar to an alphabet, except each character (文字・もじ)  represents a syllable usually either a vowel or a consonant and a vowel. For example the syllables for a, e, u, i, o, and ka are あ、え、う、い、お、か in Hiragana and ア、エ、ウ、イ、オ、カ in Katakana. There is one syllable that is a consonant by itself and that is ん・ン for 'n'. For the most part every Hiragana has a matching Katakana, but there are more Katakana than Hiragana combinations.

So, why does Japanese have 2 syllabaries?

Katakana

As I mentioned above, there are more Katakana combinations than Hiragana. Katakana is primarily used for loaner and foreign words, scientific words, and for emphasis (in stead of using italics). The additional Katakana combinations help approximate the sound of foreign words in Japanese. Japanese handles loaner words differently than most languages I have encountered. Many loaner words in English retain their original pronunciation or honest attempts at them. Japanese, however, imports them in their native pronunciation and often alters or shortens them. As an example, スーパー is the Japanese word for Super Market. It imported just Super and transformed it to a native pronunciation. It sounds something like soo-pah. Another example is my name マーク which is pronounced similar to mah-ku.

Hiragana

Hiragana is used to write Japanese words and particles, and is used as Furagana (振仮名) & Okurigana (送仮名).  Basically, any Japanese word for which there is no Kanji for, or for which the Hiragana usage of the word is more common than the Kanji, will be written in Hiragana. In addition, all the particles in Japanese are written in Hiragana (for some reason わ is written は).

Furigana (振仮名)

Furigana is the Hiragana written above Kanji (when Kanji is written left to right) or to the right of Kanji (when Kanji is written top to bottom) to aid in the pronunciation of the Kanji. This is used in children's literature for words children may know but have not yet learned the Kanji. It is also used with difficult Kanji (meaning not part of the standard 2000+ Kanji) or old archaic Kanji and Kanji usages to aid in pronunciation. While Furigana is helpful, you will likely see it rarely. So don't go thinking you can get away with not memorizing the readings of Kanji because you falsely assume Furigana will be everywhere. Due to technical limitations I can't really give a written example here but below is a picture depicting it.

Furigana

Okurigana (送仮名)

Okurigana is the Hiragana that follows a Kanji as part of the word. The Okurigana let you know information such as what form and conjugation of a verb is being used, which words with a similar Kanji is being used, and other things I haven't learned completely yet. I will cover readings of Kanji in the next section, but generally, a Kanji followed by Okurigana will mean the Kunyomi reading is used. One example of Okurigana is 大きい which means big. The part in red is the Okurigana which indicates it is the word big where in 大した the Okurigana indicates it is the word for considerable or great. Same Kanji, two different words and 2 different readings. Confused yet?

Romaji ( ローマ字)

I don't consider Romaji as part of Japanese. Romaji is the westernization of Japanese words. I have been using it through out this blog (Hiragana, Katakana, and even Romaji are all Romaji forms of the actually Japanese words). It exists only to make a word readable in western languages and is not normally used in Japanese. There are some exceptions. Some loaner words which have not been imported to Katakana and for which there are no direct translations into Japanese do appear in Romaji. One example I ran into while studying billiards related terms is "scuffer." Hell, most spell check programs don't even recognize scuffer as a word. But, I have seen it in Romaji on large number of Japanese billiards related websites. There are multiple ways of importing Japanese words to English but none of them are official and some are used in some instances and others in others. So there is really no point learning this or even considering it part of Japanese. Notice the "Roma" in Romaji is written in Katakana? Yea, Roma, as in Roman. Makes my case for it not being truly Japanese.

Kanji (漢字) and its Onyomi (音読み) and Kunyomi (訓読み)

As if the Kana's weren't confusing enough, but at least easy to learn, ultimately, most Japanese writing and Reading will require knowledge of Kanji. Kanji are character imported from Chinese. The Chinese would visit Japan and teach them their writing system. But they didn't just do this once. Each Dynasty came and taught the Kanji to the Japanese and brought with it their new pronunciation. The Japanese in their great wisdom and abhorrence of future learners of the language decided to keep the Chinese readings, all of them, and add to it their native Japanese words. This means that a single Kanji will have multiple ways to be pronounced (readings) and multiple meanings.

When I started learning Kanji this was so damn confusing. I would see words like 大きい, 大した, and 大家族 and just assume that 大 was one word and pronounced the same way and meant big. Having listened to a large amount of Japanese I started to notice things that were large or big had several different ways to say they were big. I just assumed that, as in English, they were all synonyms. Turns out they were all the same word, kind of. They all use the same Kanji. So what the hell is all this mess?

What the hell is a Kanji

First, you have to realize that a Kanji is separate from its reading (how it is pronounced, I'm going to use "reading" here on without this clarification). A single Kanji represents an idea or concept of sorts. 大 is a Kanji imported from Chinese. You can still see it in regular use in Chinese and has about the same connotation (I know this informally after watching something in Chinese and gleaming from context that they were using 大 to relate to an increase in size). It can have several different readings depending on it's context. Sometimes there is a rule to know which reading is which, and sometimes you just have to memorize it.

By itself, a  Kanji is not a word. It can be used by itself as a word, but by itself it is not a word (don't worry, I'm explaining this now). This is the second part of Kanji you must know. Kanji is separate from its vocabulary. The meaning or translation of a Kanji is derived from its context, not its mere presence. You may see a Kanji by itself in a sentence and in that context the Kanji is a word. You may see a Kanji with other Kanji and that will make it part of a compound word where its concept may retain its meaning, but the translation as a single Kanji word will not be present. You may also see the Kanji with its Okurigana in which case the Kanji with the Okurigana combined is the word, but not the Kanji by itself.

Combine those two concepts with the knowledge that Kanji is imported Chinese characters and you now know what they are. It is all very contextual as to what the Kanji does.

Onyomi

The Onyomi (音読み) of a Kanji is its Chinese reading. This is the 1-5 different ways a Kanji has been taught to the Japanese by the Chinese as the pronunciation of the Kanji. I often see this referred to as the "On" reading, On-reading, or Chinese reading on various Japanese<->English resources. In modern usage, most Kanji will only use 1 or 2 of its Onyomi and in many cases (at least I'm finding) one is used more than the other. Continuing with the 大 Kanji, it has 2 Onyomi たい and だい. As you can see, they differ only slightly. Another example is 力 which has two more different Onyomi りき and りよく.

That's great that we know these Kanji things have a Chinese reading associated with them, but what do we use it for in JAPANESE??? This was not clearly laid out in any place I could find. It was pretty frustrating. It was as if other sites just expect you to know what the hell and Onyomi was and how to use it. TextFugu offered the best explanation for this, but it is not available in their free content.

The Onyomi for a Kanji need to be memorized because there are no clues given to you by the surrounding Kanji or Okurigana. The Onyomi is used in cases of compound Kanji words. 大家族 means big family and 大 uses the だい Onyomi (だいかぞく). I learned this word from Clannad's theme song, if you are wondering. Why does it use だい instead of たい? I don't know if there is a rule. 大変 which uses the たい Onyomi (たいへん both characters use their Onyomi here) and means big problem or very strange (it has a contextual translation) and you hear everywhere in Anime. So, I don't  know but, I do know that if you remember the readings you can kinda guess which one to use if you are brushed up on your vocab.

So, mainly it will be used when the Kanji is with other Kanji.. except numbers. What? There are other exceptions, but the biggest one is numbers. I have noticed that Japanese numbers retain their Onyomi  when by themselves and sometimes use their Kunyomi when mixed with other Kanji. Really, though, the number Kanji never really change meaning, so you if you mess up reading them aloud, I think you will be understood but maybe showing your lack of familiarity with the language. These are everywhere though, so they are impossible to ignore. After I have my counters all nailed down, I will have more info on numbers and their readings.

Kunyomi

The Kunyomi is the Japanese reading of a Kanji. I often see it referred to as the "Kun" reading, Kun-reading, Japanese Reading, or standard reading (this is damned confusing, sites who use "standard reading" should be shot). In the intro to this section I said that the Japanese decided to mash their own word pronunciations on the Chinese characters. Luckily, for the most part, they provided a guide for when this is used. Usually when  Kanji is by itself it will likely use its Kunyomi reading. When a Kanji is followed by Okurigana it will also likely use its Kunyomi.

Continuing with my 大 examples, 大きい meaning big uses the おお Kunyomi (おおきい). Occasionally you will see 大 by itself and it is read the same as 大きい. This is informal, but I have seen it done.

A Kanji may have multiple Kunyomi as well. The Kunyomi for 上 (above) is うえ, あが, あげ, and のぼ. By itself, 上 uses the うえ Kunyomi. The 上がる (あがる using あが Kunyomi, meaning to actively lift or raise something) and 上げる (あげる using the あげ Kunyomi and meaning for something to rise on its own) give a hint as to which Kunyomi they use with their Okurigana. 上る (to rise, as in to rise in power), on the other hand uses the のぼ Kunyomi and doesn't give any hints. You just have to memorize that one (I mess that one up all the time in my flash cards because it is an odd exception, I just try to use some mnemonic about Oda Nobo-naga rising to power on his own without the help of all that extra Hiragana).

Now there are some exceptions to Kanji with Okurigana. 大した uses the Onyomi reading たい instead of the Kunyomi reading (たいした). I have read these exceptions are rare and you just have to memorize them. This one is not so hard because it is fairly common and the Onyomi for 大 is also everywhere. I'm nervous about finding others that do this, though.

Conclusion

You can see why Japanese ranks in the top 10 hardest languages for English speakers to learn. While the spoken language is fairly consistent and logical, its written counterpart is a mess ripe with rules and exceptions and multiple writing systems combined. Be prepared to spend days worth of your life pouring over different Kanji and vocab words memorizing what system to use where and how. Luckily, once you can start reading basic Japanese, you can start to pick up the rhythms and nuances. Easier. But it is a large hurdle before you can even do that. With just over 2,000 Kanji in modern usage to use in an extensive modern vocabulary with a mixture of Katakana loan words heavily sprinkled in, you have your work cut out for you. Just as I do.

Still Chugging Along

I took a day of yesterday from Pimsleur which I resumed today. I'm at a break in TextFugu because I need to get my katakana skill sup a bit before going on. I just don't get the chance to see katakana as often besides loaner words, which I already know a bunch anyway. Once i feel I'm ok with my katakana I will continue on with TextFugu.

Speaking of textFugu, I started using their WaniKani site to learn and practice Kanji in addition to the Anki decks from the TextFugu site. I also picked up the Ultimate Vocab deck from the site which is free when you are a member and have been learning new things from that as well. Right now I'm having trouble with 事. It just eludes me every time I see it. But, between what I had already gleaned with my previous Kanji studies and with what all i have learned in the past few weeks, I seeing that i can read a lot of signs and such in Anime.

Anyway, WaniKani is addictive... like crack cocaine levels of addictive. And it is working. I remember the 音読み for just about everything and I make it a habit of learning it for new Kanji i look up. Maybe this weekend I will explain 音読み and 訓読み this weekend, since I now understand what the hell they are and kind of when to use them. the 訓読み for numbers has helped a lot with those strange counters. I found out they use a form of the numbers 訓読み so it's just a matter of remembering that and then adapting. The 音読み has helped me read and understand more multi-kanji words.

Here is a side effect: I can understand some written Chinese now even though I cannot pronounce it in Chinese. I realized this when I was watching a YouTube video of a strange Chinese commercial. I knew a good percentage of the Hanzi so even though I didn't know exactly what they were saying I did have an idea without looking at the subtitles.

 The last few days have been kind of tough outside of the Japanese learning. I did learn one more form of condolence:

ご冥福を祈ります。(ごめいふくをいのります)

It can be translated as "rest in peace".  It translates literally as I pray for your happiness in the next world. The kanji for 冥福 are made up of "dark" and "fortune." I think it has a kind of macabre beauty to it.  In any case: ご冥福を祈ります、エミリー様。

My Condolences...

DISCLAIMER: This may be morbid, so forgive me in advance if it seems so. It's no secret that I have always handled death in ways that most people don't understand. As a result of my "odd" behaviors, I no longer attend funerals and try not to be around others who are grieving.

This post comes with sad news. A childhood friend and sweetheart of mine was reported missing this weekend and I just received word that her body has been found. I haven't been close with her in many years, but she did come hang out for my birthday celebration this past year. I've always had a soft spot in my heart for her we never officially dated, but we were really close in Jr. High and High School. She was always such a sweetheart, strong willed, funny, and pretty damn smart.

Needless to say, I'm broken up about this news. But, I'm also a student of Japanese. This is where the morbidity may come in. As I take a break from my tears I became curious how the Japanese give condolences. I guess there is really no good time to learn this, just like there is no good time to fill out a will or get life insurance. It's simply a morbid and often unpleasant topic. But learning is a coping mechanism. And for me, studying is helping ease the pain a bit.

I learned 2 phrases.

ご愁傷様でございます。 (ごしゅうしょうさまございます)

and

心よりお悔やみ申しあげます。(こころよりおくやみもうしあげます)\

The first (ご愁傷様でございます) is kind of weird from an American worldview. It just kinda acknowledges that someone is grieving. This is the polite form you use with someone who is not in your family.

The second(心よりお悔やみ申しあげます） means "condolences from the bottom of my heart" basically (more literally, condolences rise from my heart). I believe this one is ok to use for family or friends, but is maybe too informal for strangers.

In any case, I had to learn that and write this out to kind of deal with what's going on right now. I know it's morbid, but it helps.

You know you have been studying Japanese when...

• You say "Yes. Ketchup, 2 please." to the drive thru worker.
• You have stopped saying 1 million and have completely replaced it with 百万(ひゃくまん).
• Your friends stop talking to you because they are annoyed with you constantly throwing Japanese into the conversation.
• You start correcting the subtitles.
• Yoda-speak no longer sounds odd.
• You dream in Anki format.
• You have the Google IME installed on every computer you touch.
• When you talk to yourself, you start using it as a chance to perfect your accent.
• You start wishing you could have kids so you could give them a Japanese name.
• You say to yourself "I could watch another house of cards episode, but I have a wanikani review due in a few minutes."
• Your "perma-tabs" include google translate, jisho, and at least 1 of the 40 some of learning sites you are using.
• Google gave up giving you English only results even when you search with only English words.
• You update your language learning blog/log religiously.
• Sleep? But I only have 3 more lessons until the next chapter!!!

Benchmarking Your Self-Studies

People who take traditional language classes have it kind of easy in at least one way. While standardized tests are are not an exact science, they do allow for progress tracking. When you are studying a language on your own, you don't really have any guide posts to tell you "You should be here and doing this." Even if you are taking a structured self-study course the tests and end points can seam trivial, especially if you happened to already know the material in a section.

So how does one measure their own results? I don't know. But I can tell you how I do mine. When I started this I installed a few apps on my phone that are basically Japanese flash cards. They break things up like hirigana, kanji and phrases into  sections and track your accuracy completing the sections. I don't think they are valuable learning tools so much as they have proven as great ways to track how far along I have come.

When I started 2 months in January, I could complete each of the hiragana sections in 15 minutes with about 70% accuracy (that's that built in exposure working in my favor). Today I was able to complete all the sections combined in under 5 minutes with 99% accuracy. Damn you ち and さ and き, I know you, but you look so damn alike I press the wrong one sometimes. Incidentally, my trick for remembering ち vs さ is that ち's bottom does NOT for a "c" for it's "chi" sound. Anyway, that is some remarkable improvement.

I decided to stop tracking the Kanji I have learned on this blog. It's getting unmanageable since I'm getting them from multiple sources. But, according to one program , I know close to 300 now. It's still not enough to read kid focused Japanese websites yet (some of the Kanji I know are more advance words, so I have this strange gap between easy common kid friendly kanji and some more esoteric rarely used Kanji).

This brings me to something I read somewhere and I agree with now. Don't bother trying to track how many Kanji you know. 1) the number doesn't mean anything. You could know 3000 of the completely wrong Kanji and not be able to navigate your way out of a train (電車駅) or subway(地下鉄駅) station. 2) You may not actually know as many as you claim. This is true even for native speakers. Many young native speakers have Kanji Amnesia which is like "I'll know it when I see it or my phone/computer popes it up when I type the hirigana." Great reading comprehension with 0 recall ability. 3) It is no actual measure of progress. As you learn more Japanese you will learn more Kanji, yes, but as you learn more Kanji you may not actually learn more Japanese. This was certainly the case when I was studying Remembering the Kanji.

So how do I track my progress? By trying to read Japanese sites. Sometimes I get nothing, sometimes I get pieces, and sometimes I'm lucky and get decent chunks of info.. While I can't actually put it to number like I can my kana, I can say it has certainly improved from "The fuck are all these symbols???" but is still nowhere near any kind of admirable comprehension level. When I can read the front page of any online Japanese kids newspaper without having to look anything up, that will be my first milestone. My final milestone will be reading all of 新世界より. It was one of my original goals for learning the language in the first place.