Update and Reading

I recently received my JLPT certificate in the mail! Many of my friends also took the JLPT and passed their exams as well. This year I would like to take the JLPT N2. I heard it’s more difficult to pass than the N3, so even if I do not pass this year, I will not be discouraged.

Lately, I have been thinking about language learning a lot. I finished reading a book called ‘Fluent Forever,’ which is about concrete steps a language learner can take to learn a language. I really enjoyed reading the book and its appendixes. It helped motivate me to use Anki again. I like using Anki, but the deck building process can be a little convoluted at times.

‘Fluent Forever’ introduced and reminded me of many aspects of the language learning process. Specifically, it mentioned the developmental stages of a L2 (foreign language) learner, pronunciation, frequency lists and Anki. I want to explore the concept of developmental stages of language more. Basically, the developmental stages of language refers to the process of learning a language. For example, we learn present tense before past tense etc. Of course, this is not the best explanation of this concept, but I think if I understand these stages for L2 learners it will make me a better L2 learner and a better English teacher.

Pronunciation is something I struggle with, not so much with Japanese, but there are some sounds that I need more training in. The book talks about how to tackle pronunciation, so I am going to try to incorporate that advice into my studies.

Frequency list are something I keep hearing about in passing, but I have not used them very much. For Japanese, I mostly use JLPT vocabulary list or vocabulary list provided by my textbooks. I would like to try out learning vocabulary through frequency lists, because I have heard a lot of good things about it.

Anki is a free online SRS (spaced repetition system) flash card website and app (the iTunes app is not free and cost about $25, while the Android app is free). You can build your own flash cards with whatever features you want (audio, text, pictures etc.) or download and use flash card decks shared by other people. I do not use Anki regularly so, I had to look a lot of things up to figure out how to build a custom deck. Also, Anki uses HTML when you create fields or question cards, so that can be confusing. It helps to know HTML, but you can use Anki without knowing it. Anki is a great free resource that is customizable, so I am going to try using it again.

漢字の館とお化け達：小学生1-6

If you have a Japanese 3DS, you may have heard of the 漢字の館とお化け達 (Kanji no yakata to obake-tachi: shougakusei) series. Or if you are considering investing in a Japanese 3DS, this is a game you can buy for it to help in your Japanese language studies. 漢字の館とお化け達 is a Kanji learning game series for Elementary school students. Each game gives you writing practice for the kanji that Elementary school students learn for each grade level, for example, the first grade game has all the kanji that first graders learn. If you play the entire series, first grade through six grade, it is possible to learn or rather practice 1006 kanji. The series focuses on writing kanji, recognizing kanji and kana reading skills. 漢字の館とお化け達 is broken down into three gates or types of kanji drills: 書き書きお化け, かくれんぼお化け and 書き取りお化け.

The first gate, 書き書きお化け, introduces 5 kanji by displaying each kanji on a big ghost (or obake), giving you one or two of the readings for the character in a small green box on the top left 3DS screen in kana. On the bottom 3DS screen, you have to write the kanji. There are options to end your study session, change your writing speed (the options are fast, normal and slow) or to erase the last thing you wrote on the bottom screen. After the game recognizes what you wrote in the bottom 3DS screen, whether you finished or not, the character the game recognizes your writing as will appear in a small box on the top 3DS screen below the ghost (オバケ).

The second gate, かくれんぼお化け, has multiple picture frames of various sizes on the top 3DS screen, which a kanji will move behind, so only parts of the character will be displayed through the frames. Again in the bottom 3DS screen, your goal is to draw the kanji based off the parts of it you can recognize on the top screen.

The third gate, 書き取りお化け, is a timed activity unlike the other two gates. A small オバケ slowly blows out a row of candles as you attempt to read a group of hiragana on the top 3DS screen and write the accompanying kanji for it on the bottom 3DS screen. This activity has the potential to give you a lot of points or rather, kanji written if you have a wide vocabulary and can remember and write the kanji for hiragana words quickly.

After you finish each quick activity, one of the gate activities, your written kanji will be added to a list of (whatever grade level you are playing) kanji for the game that will list how many times you have written each kanji. After you write a certain amount of kanji so many times, pieces of a hidden puzzle on the top 3DS screen disappear and your rank for the game goes up. The rank starts out low at E and rises until rank S, where the all the panels are uncovered in the puzzle panel.

Japanese with Video Games (part 4)

Recently, I mentioned using non-traditional study methods for my Japanese studies. While it may be a no-brainer to many people to do things in the foreign language they are studying or rather look to material, that native speakers of the foreign language use, for foreign language study material, it is still a fairly new concept for me. Lately, I have decided to use my love of video games as study material for Japanese, since I really like Japanese video games. In this post, I talk about playing video games in Japanese.

What if you just want to play video games in Japanese? Then start! Actually, playing games in another language can be intimidating, especially when after you get the game you realize how much vocabulary you have never seen before or if you have a limited knowledge of the language. I remember when I first played Gailardia, I was so confused at the beginning and even attempted playing the English and Japanese versions side by side. I began playing the Japanese version with a dictionary in hand and I constantly would attempt to write down new terms and play the game (both English and Japanese versions) at the same time. (The text was really small on my phone and my kanji knowledge was lacking when it came to playing video games.) Needless to say, playing both versions of the game got old really fast. After playing for a while, I had built up my video game vocabulary enough to know how to fight monsters, buy potions and other basic equipment, stay at an inn and save the game. I stopped playing the English version of the game and started playing the Japanese version only. I started to recognize more and more kanji and while I did not remember every term I came across, looking up the same terms over and over pushed those terms into my long term memory and allowed me to recognize the characters and their meanings, which has helped me in playing other games of similar genres in Japanese and remembering the kanji later when I came across them in a different context.

Also, I attempted to play Pokemon awhile ago and I did not get very far, because I attempted to look every new term up in the dictionary. I had looked up more than 200 terms (vocabulary and kanji) by the time I got to route 2 or so. It was a bit discouraging and I stopped playing that particular Pokemon game (it was not Pokemon X or Y), but it was a good experience. I did start playing Pokemon X in Spanish, which I have studied longer and found that to be a fun experience, since I rarely pick up a dictionary to play the game and I can guess the English equivalents of Pokemon attacks through the animation. So learning vocabulary through contexts is more enjoyable for me if the medium is a video game.

Using video games as a learning resource can be an enjoyable experience or a painful one. It just depends on how you interact with the game and utilize it as a learning resource. As for me, I found that using the dictionary an excessive amount destroys the enjoyment I get out of playing a video game, but it can be a necessary evil to just begin playing the game. The good thing about video games is that many of the ‘characters’ on some games only say one thing or the same type of expressions and if you speak to them enough, you will start to remember and understand what they are saying. As long as you are enjoying yourself, video games can be a great way to get repetitive practice without feeling as though you are doing the same exercise over and over.

Have you played any video games in Japanese? How was your experience?

 

Japanese with Video Games (part 2)

Recently, I mentioned using non-traditional study methods for my Japanese studies. While it may be a no-brainer to many people to do things in the foreign language they are studying or rather look to material, that native speakers of the foreign language use, for foreign language study material, it is still a fairly new concept for me. Lately, I have decided to use my love of video games as study material for Japanese, since I really like Japanese video games. In this post, I am going to discuss watching other people play video games and how you can learn from that.

What do you do if you do not have time to play video games or you enjoy watching others play games more than playing them yourself? There’s the internet. There are people playing Japanese video games online on websites such as YouTube and recording themselves doing it. Some of them talk while they play the games, so although the video games themselves may not have audio for their characters’ conversations, you can just listen to the person playing the video game talk about it or sometimes even read the text on the game aloud as they play. Another option is NicoNico, a video streaming website and app (available on Japanese Nintendo 3DS and PSVita) similar to YouTube which has plenty of videos of people playing video games, sometimes in groups, and you can get the bonus benefit of listening to speech from the video game and the person(s) playing the game.

Another way to watch people play video games is the video game streaming website and app, Twitch. Twitch is worldwide, so you can find channels from countries other than your own that play video games you are interested in watching and there is the added plus of the chat feature. You do not have to participate in the chat, although it would be good written practice, but you can look to it as a form of reading practice and the chats usually revolve around the video game being played, so you have some context to go off of no matter when you begin watching the channel. I actually have not used Twitch a lot in terms of Japanese practice, but I have watched games played in other languages. There are plenty of gamers on Twitch playing video games in Japanese. Many of them are using the Japanese versions for speed runs of the game, but it still is good reading/listening practice, even if the pace seems a bit fast, but even in speed runs, there are some portions of the game (i.e. movie scenes) that cannot be skipped through.

Can you think of any other websites where you can watch others play video games in Japanese?

Japanese with Video Games (part 1)

Recently, I mentioned using non-traditional study methods for my Japanese studies. While it may be a no-brainer to many people to do things in the foreign language they are studying or rather look to material, that native speakers of the foreign language use, for foreign language study material, it is still a fairly new concept for me. Lately, I have decided to use my love of video games as study material for Japanese, since I really like Japanese video games. In this post, I am going to discuss using Japanese video games as listening and reading practice.

How do you make video games into listening practice? One obvious idea is to play a video game in a foreign language that has voice actors and listen to what the characters in the game say. Although not everything will be vocalized, when you do hear audio, it will a good opportunity to test your listening skills at native speed or your ability to keep up with the speech as the subtitles (if offered in the game) flash by. (Of course, playing a video game in a foreign language usually requires buying said game or game system or both! depending on whether or not the game/game system is region locked. I will discuss some of the ways you can get Japanese video games in the third part of this ‘Japanese with Video Games’ posts.) Many games, especially home game systems have narrator or character audio. You can watch Japanese tv commercials for video games online or videos that Japanese game companies create to discuss their latest games and systems.

Playing video games in another language is mostly reading practice rather than listening practice. There are a lot of games that do not have audio, which makes for good reading practice. Games marketed towards children have furigana above kanji or may be written completely in kana! While video games are not books, they can have a surprisingly large amount of text. I like playing RPGs, which usually have long storylines and subquests. Some RPGs (role-playing games) allow you to do things not possible in other types of games such as sub-plots, which can help you build your vocabulary beyond the usual parameters of the game. Playing games in Japanese will expose you to a lot of vocabulary that you may not be exposed to in Japanese classes and can be a good supplement to using textbooks or studying kanji. While I was studying for the JLPT N3, I played Youkai Watch 2 Honke, which exposed me to not only vocabulary and kanji from the JLPT N3, but also from N2 and N1! Seeing the kanji and vocabulary in use in the video game helped solidify them in my memory more than just studying them from a textbook.

Have you used video games as listening or reading practice? What kind of games do you play and how was it effective?

 

Japanese 3DS: 電波人間 (The ‘DENPA’ Men)

I first discovered 電波人間 on the Japanese Nintendo eShop. I watched a video and saw one of the DENPA men talking and thought, ‘This will be good listening practice!’

Actually, the game uses some kind of text to speech program and the audio is a little hard to understand, because it’s a computerized voice. So, it’s easier to just read the text than understand the quickly spoken and hard to understand voice of the main character, which is the only person in the game that has audio for his voice. (The new 電波人間のRPG FREE has audio for all of your Denpa ningen!)

I bought 電波人間 1 and 2 last year when 電波人間 3 had just came out in Japan, and they were promoting the series with a sale. Since then, 電波人間のRPG FREE has also come out.

What is 電波人間? 電波人間 are creatures that look like people that you can find anywhere there are radio waves. The literal translation is something like electric radio (wave) humans. Of course you need and 3DS and one of the 電波人間 games to see and catch them. Each of the games in the series has it’s own storyline. But in each game you have to assemble a team of 電波人間, which have different attributes depending on their color, equipped clothing, and antenna or lack of an antenna. Sometimes in the games, you solve other people’s problems and each game has various dungeons that you can explore, fight your way through and discover treasure.

Recently, I have been playing the free 電波人間 game. It has a lot of updates and you can decorate the island and houses your characters live in. There’s also a lot of event dungeons, sales and event 電波人間 that you can get.

Japanese 3DS

A Japanese 3DS is not that much different from the US version of the 3DS. I admit, when I first bought mine, it took a while to set up. Things that were easy to read for me in English, I did not understand in Japanese. But with my American 3DS and my Midori (Japanese-English dictionary app on iPhone) in hand, I managed to do it after what was probably a few hours. I also managed to learn a lot of technical vocabulary as well.

One thing that I noticed about my new Japanese 3DS was that games on it were very expensive. It shouldn’t have surprised me, because I had seen prices of video games at electronic stores and Book OFF. But compared to video game prices, games in Japan can be about $20 more expensive. A lot of new games cost around $50 or $60, whereas on the US 3DS, games are around $40 or $30. Physical games and downloadable games can be around the same price. Some games are only available through download and a lot of games on Japanese 3DS do not make it to America or take about a year to be released for American 3DS systems. Some games are relatively cheap for download too, less than $10.

Having a Japanese 3DS is great for studying Japanese. Not only can you buy Japanese games and play them in Japanese, which is great for reading practice and broadening your vocabulary, but you can watch videos on it as well. About every week, Nintendo comes out with Nintendo Direct videos and other Nintendo videos, which you can watch either on the 3DS or on their YouTube channel. I was also able to sign up for a NicoNico (ニコニコ動画) account through my 3DS and start watching videos in Japanese on it. Also, when you view games on the Nintendo eShop, many of the games have tv commercials or other videos that introduce the game that you can watch.

There is also a lot of free applications and games you can download and use on the 3DS. Although they have many in-app purchases available, there’s still a lot you can do for free.

JLR: Japanese Kanji and Kana

I thought it was about time to invest in Kanji. So, I got a big Kanji reference guidebook to kanji and kana. It’s called Japanese Kanji and Kana: A Complete Guide to the Japanese Writing System. I got this book mostly for the 2,136 Joyo kanji it covers, but I was pleasantly surprised by all the other stuff in it.

Features:

• 2,136 Joyo kanji.
• Kana. (amazing katakana guide that goes over non-traditional sounds/writing like “ti” etc.)
• In-dept Introduction. (explanations about orthography, punctuation and stuff I don’t usually see in other programs)
• Indexes. (By radicals, stroke count and readings)

Conclusion:

Although I like my dictionary apps with their 1st grade through sixth grade and JLPT kanji and my kanji apps, I’ve wanted a Joyo Kanji resource for a while. This book has a lot more information that I was expecting.

JLR: Verbling

Verbling is another website you can use to practice your speaking and chatting (instant messaging) skills in Japanese, or whatever language you’re studying. I don’t remember the first time I heard about Verbling, but I recently rediscovered it when I decided that my language skills in both Japanese and Spanish wouldn’t improve very much if I didn’t practice speaking in addition to all the other type of studying I do. Speaking is a valuable skill that I have been avoiding practicing because it’s really nerve-wracking to think about. But that’s just something you have to get over as a language learner.

What I like:

• Chat box (send text messages/instant messages through the chat feature)
• Video feature, if you want to see who you are talking to.
• Audio only feature, if you don’t want to share your face and background or if you don’t have a webcam.
• English lessons (this is only good for people learning English, but I like this feature too.)
• Conversation starters are suggested to you in the language you are learning (with English translation) to help promote actually talking in both languages in the exchange and avoid awkward pauses in the conversation so that you make the most of your time.
• Congratulatory stars under the video screen to encourage your partner as they speak in your native language (good grammar etc.), which will flash across the screen in real-time.
• Add friend feature after you’ve talked with someone over Verbling if you want to continue speaking with them as a language partner.

What I dislike:

• I wish they had lessons in other languages besides English.

Conclusion:

I’m still learning how to use this website, so I can’t say much about it seeing how I’ve just started using it. But, some things I noticed during my first few attempts were: your connection on Verbling depends on each person’s individual Internet connection so you may experience problems and it may take you some time to find a partner (I had to wait a few minutes before someone else was on the site). I didn’t speak with any Japanese speakers, so I don’t know how many are actually on the website. But, it is listed as a language on the website.

Resource:

http://www.verbling.com

JLR: The Japanese Page

I haven’t written about a website JLR in a while, so here’s another one: The Japanese Page. I haven’t used this website, but I discovered it in the past and wanted to write about a JLR website instead of an app for a change.

What I like:

• It’s free.
• Beginner lessons
• Intermediate and some Advance lessons
• Free ebooks
• Free downloads
• Kanji practice (stroke order, multiple kanji lists such as JLPT N4 [I think the website goes by the old JLPT levels])
• Listening practice and audio for ebooks
• Seems like there are ways to connect with native speakers for language exchanges (you teach English and they teach you Japanese according to the Japanese advertisement on the right side of their website)
• Teaches kana (hiragana and katakana)

What I don’t like:

• I don’t actually use this website so I can’t really say I dislike anything, but I would like for them to update their JLPT level lists in accordance with the new levels (N5-N1)

Conclusion:

This seems like a good, free resource. If you have used this website, please comment below and tell me about your experience with it.