Learning Japanese and Having Fun
Learning Japanese is about reading Japanese Newspapers, getting the obscure jokes in Japanese TV Shows and having real discussions with Japanese natives beyond small talk.
Great stuff...but we want it now! We want fluency as fast as possible! And we jump in with the latest and greatest "technique".
"If I study X hours every day with Lightning Method XYZ, I can learn Japanese in 12 months!"
And when you burnout, you don't just tire of that technique - You actually get sick of Japanese.
It's the process that matters. The process of learning a language. And the most important metric is enjoyment. Not speed, not efficiency, not acquisition rate. Enjoyment. Because if you don't enjoy the process, you'll never finish. And you may even resent the Japanese you did learn...
The effective study tool encourages exploration, play and enjoyment while preventing burnout.
Take a look below and Check Out the Beta!
Can Burnout Be Eliminated?
Yes.
Variety is the key. That's what exploration is. It means finding what increases your interest in Japanese.
Burnout arises when we do the exact same thing over and over. At first we reap the benefits, then we fatigue, and if we keep pushing, our desire to learn can vanish altogether!
Context is important. Variety is important. Interesting material is important.
Burnout doesn't have to be overcome or managed. It can be eliminated by stopping it at the source.
For a more thorough discussion of what burnout is, check out Burnout and Language Learning.
Intrigued? Join the Beta!
Context
Everything is in Context.
To add Kanji, add an interesting sentence that uses it. To add a word, find a vivid example of its use. Run across an new grammar pattern? If the sentence is interesting, bring it.
Note the words "interesting" and "vivid". Mining boring sentences is a great way to burn out.
As you explore Japanese, looking for books, movies, TV shows, and websites that interest you. You'll find sentences that make you laugh, emotional sentences, informative sentences, and fun sentences.
Poetry, short stories, speeches, riddles, novels, blog posts, forum comments. There are sentences everywhere, find the ones that interest you.
Context is not just having compounds for Kanji and sentences for words. It's the imagery that the whole sentence produces in your mind. The more interesting the imagery, the easier and faster the review.
Get Started! Join the Beta!
More Context
Don't be afraid to add sentences with unfamiliar Kanji. Each Kanji won't be reviewed until it appears in at least two sentences.
Why?
By collecting interesting sentences that evoke vivid imagery, you build a stronger feel for each Kanji and Kanji compound.
And by waiting for more than one sentence, we'll have seen the new Kanji in context, read it, and hopefully run across it in our pleasure reading.
All of those interactions serve as hooks in the mind to associate with the new character.
When you look at a list of Kanji and immediately "see" all the Japanese words you've seen them in, you'll get it.
Join the Beta and start building your feel.
Check out the Stream.
Right Now On FeedMe Japanese
The Bookmarklet. You may have used it with delicious or some other link sharing website.
Here we use one to highlight interesting sentences in what we read and quickly copy them in for analysis and review.
But more than that, we save a link to the page where you found the sentence and share that link for others to see.
At any time you can check the stream to see what others have been reading.
It's a great way to discover new websites to explore, some may even become regular destinations for you.
And every link is tagged with the words of the sentences that were collected from it.
When you look up a word, you'll also see the occasional link to a page that uses that word. It if looks interesting, click through and explore.
Move Over Study, It's Time to Explore.
How do you learn new Kanji and new Words?
Do you make a list a memorize it?
Create stories or mnemonics?
Flashcards?
However you first get it into your head, you still need to build your feel.
Ever notice, in English, how hard it is to give a definition for all the words you effortlessly read, write, hear and speak?
Sometimes you can invent one on the spot, but usually you just rattle off example uses of the word, right?
How is it that those words are so internal to you, but you can't recite definitions for them?
It's because language isn't something you do, it's something you use while doing anything and everything.
You use language while getting the news, researching something that interests you or finding stuff to make you laugh.
In other words, you explore. So, instead of getting frustrated when we miss something, let's turn that into an opportunity to explore.
For example, forgetting the reading or writing of 傘 isn't a failure, it's an ideal starting point.
Using related searches from users of Yahoo.jp we find 自転車 傘. This leads us to an interesting page about a special hands free umbrella system for bicycles. Taking inspiration from that page, we tweak our search to 自転車の傘 and find an interesting youtube video in Japanese about bicycling in Japan.
Now we've seen and heard 傘 in multiple contexts. We've gotten out of the dictionary to see how the Japanese actually use it and we gotten off of english websites for a while. And we've only been exploring for 5 minutes!
Join the Beta and spend more time on Japanese websites. Really.
Furigana Without the Crutches
Taking on new words can be frustrating. Especially when those words contain new kanji as well. On top of learning the reading of the word and the writing of the kanji, you need to get the meaning based on context.
If you've ever made flash cards for yourself, you know the pain of remembering the meaning but forgetting reading. You put it in your failed pile knowing that the next review will be annoying.
Around these parts, the meaning comes a little easier because of context. But how can we reduce the friction of getting those readings down?
Simple: display the reading of new words as furigana so you can focus on understanding whole sentences.
As you find more examples of each word or gain mastery of each sentence, the furigana disappear. Note in the above screenshot that not every word with Kanji has furigana.
Readings, meanings and writings don't magically enter your head at the same time. FeedMe deals directly with that reality to keep you moving.
Sentence Analysis
Break them down....Quickly.
While reading an article, you run across an interesting sentence that you don't fully understand, but think is key to the rest of the article.
You want to break down the sentence but you don't want to look up words left and right. You want to get back to the article. You want to get back to Japanese!
We'll break down the sentence for you. You dive in and select the right word for homonyms, split a word if the system matched too long a word, or ignore an unimportant word.
And using the keyboard shortcuts, it's really, really fast.
Rethinking SRS
A Spaced Repetition System, or SRS, is a tool that prioritizes what you review by spending less and less time with what you know or find easy, and more time with what you don't know or find difficult.
But no matter how smart the system, it's still just a big long study list that you have to revolve your day around.
Do we have to review every day even if it means we don't do anything else with Japanese? No reading, no listening, no fun?
Suppose for the next two weeks you only have 1 hour a day to do anything with Japanese, Should you only study?
Maybe you'll be on vacation for a week. Why not just bring a music player and listen to Japanese music and podcasts? Can an SRS adapt to the time off and help you towards your goal instead of punishing you with hundreds of items to review?
We've built an SRS that adapts to you and the reality of your Japanese journey.
The keys are Momentum and Pooling.
Momentum
You've been reading, writing, speaking, listening and thinking in English all day. You sit down to spend some time reviewing followed by watching a Japanese TV show, some food, and a couple of hours reading Japanese stories, the news and blogs.
How quickly does that switch from English to Japanese occur? How quickly do we get into "study mode"? Can we ease ourselves in? A warm-up, if you will?
Let's start with the material we know better, the easier reviews, to gradually switch our minds over, then dive into the more challenging and new material.
This process builds momentum making the harder reviews easier. Day to day, this is nice, but if you miss a couple days or find yourself away from all things Japanese for a week, this is crucial.
Try the Beta and see the difference momentum makes.
Pooling
Pooling is limiting daily review and managing new, old and difficult material.
When you limit your reviews to, say, 75 per day, there may be more that are "reviewable". Priority is given to going deeper with what you know. Then, you take a peek at new sentences or kanji. And finally, you review the most challenging material.
This means that some kanji and sentences that really give you trouble and some new material will be held off until you've mastered what you already have.
It encourages you to take what you've seen deeper and deeper which makes going broader with new words and kanji, easier.
See how pooling helps in the Beta.
Culling
Your New Best Friend:
The Delete Button.
For every boring sentence that you dread reading again there's one you'll enjoy. Delete the boring ones and keep moving.
Japanese is big. You won't run out of sentences.
Japanese Names
Japanese names are rough. Heavy on Kanji and light on context.
We've integrated over 700,000 place names, surnames and given names from Monash University's ENAMDICT Japanese Proper Name Dictionary.
And because you don't have to mark every word for review, you can leave them alone with furigana help until you're ready to tackle each one.
Join the Fun!
Wherever you are in your Japanese journey, FeedMe can help.Register for the Beta Test!