Negative tense nouns are step 二 of 四 when it comes to noun tenses (present/future, negative, past and past-negative.) We already know about positive/future tense nouns so this is the next thing on the list. Per Koichi-san, this will help to solidify knowledge of basic Japanese noun grammar as well as create the building blocks to past-negative noun tenses!
So far, we've learned a lot of sentences like, 'It is a monkey.' 'It is a cat.' 'It is an apple.' The syntax for saying 'It is not _____.' is very similar. You just replace the です with the negative form of です, which is じゃありません. It's a mouthful and hard to pronounce. So to say 'It is not a monkey' you'd say さるじゃありません.
Koichi-san mentions that eventually we will learn the less formal version of じゃありません which is shorter and easier but not useful in almost all situations like the neutral formal version that we're learning now. *Random brainpick: I'm guessing the format for negative nouns I learned using the My Japanese Word Coach on the Nintendo DS was the less formal one as there was no じゃ, only ありません.*
There were a couple of new vocab words introduced here which I want to note, although Koichi-san stressed the vocab is not really something to hang on here. It just wouldn't be my style to let something new go un-noted! I want to know it all! (If my brain can keep up!)
cherry - さくらんぼ
peach - もも
tangerine - みかん
bicycle - じてんしゃ
newspaper - しんぶん
apple - りんご
We practiced a few sentences based on a picture of a みかん. The first one was the question: みかんですか to which the answer was はい、みかんです because the picture was of a tangerine. Next was the question さくらんぼですか to which the answer was いいえ、さくらんぼじゃありません because the pictured fruit was not a cherry.
*いいえ is no in 日本語 while はい is yes.*
The practice for this lesson was more than I could complete tonight so I will finish this blog post tomorrow!
またね!
5.22.2012
Season 二.一 - Asking questions in Japanese / Radicals 一
Basically, to ask a question in Japanese, you simply add the particle か to the end of a sentence. There are some exceptions (aren't there always??) but this is a general rule of thumb to follow. At least for now while we're just in the simple grammar stages
For example, the sentence でんしゃです can be turned into a question by simply adding か to the end - でんしゃですか. You go from stating that 'it is a train' to asking if it is a train.
As far as the first radicals lesson, we looked at the one-stroke radicals which we need to learn the one-stroke kanji. They are as follows along with their mnemonics:
This radical consists of a single, horizontal stroke. What’s the biggest, single, horizontal stroke? That’s the ground.
This radical is shaped like a barb, like you’d see on barb wire. Imagine one of these getting stuck in your arm, and think about how much it would hurt to pull it out with that hook on the end.
This is a single stick, standing upright. It even looks like a stick. The stick is standing up straight because it can stick out of the ground (radical), which is why it’s vertical.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
At the end of this lesson was a practice session that included です and ですか sentences along with a new Anki sentences deck that consisted of questions that was merged with the existing Anki sentence deck and a new Anki deck for the radicals detailed above.
I covered this lesson in its entirety last time I sat at the study cubby, but needed to get to blogging on it which is what this is all about. I haven't been doing well with getting into the cubby every day but I'm trying to stay motivated to change that. I need to be here AT LEAST three times a week.
Onward!
For example, the sentence でんしゃです can be turned into a question by simply adding か to the end - でんしゃですか. You go from stating that 'it is a train' to asking if it is a train.
As far as the first radicals lesson, we looked at the one-stroke radicals which we need to learn the one-stroke kanji. They are as follows along with their mnemonics:
- Ground 一
This radical consists of a single, horizontal stroke. What’s the biggest, single, horizontal stroke? That’s the ground.
- Barb亅
This radical is shaped like a barb, like you’d see on barb wire. Imagine one of these getting stuck in your arm, and think about how much it would hurt to pull it out with that hook on the end.
- Stick｜
This is a single stick, standing upright. It even looks like a stick. The stick is standing up straight because it can stick out of the ground (radical), which is why it’s vertical.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
At the end of this lesson was a practice session that included です and ですか sentences along with a new Anki sentences deck that consisted of questions that was merged with the existing Anki sentence deck and a new Anki deck for the radicals detailed above.
I covered this lesson in its entirety last time I sat at the study cubby, but needed to get to blogging on it which is what this is all about. I haven't been doing well with getting into the cubby every day but I'm trying to stay motivated to change that. I need to be here AT LEAST three times a week.
Onward!
5.04.2012
Time for another catch up post!
Heeeeeey! So it's been awhile again. Not as long as I thought it had been since I last posted though, so that's awesome! Good thing this time (like last time) is that I've still been studying 日本語 quite a lot lately, even though I haven't been posting about it.
Since my last post, I've covered a few sections of TextFugu to complete Season 一 in it's entirety! ^_^
Going to summarize what I've done since I was here last. It's a lot so it will make for a long catch up post so try to keep up. :)
Passion List
I created my passion list, which is a list of 二十 vocabulary words that revolve around something that I am extremely passionate about -- Ron Paul and the message of liberty!! Koichi-san wanted us to create this list of vocab words so we can associate something we already like into our 日本語 studies to keep us motivated.
Here is my passion list!
liberty - ふき
government - せいじ
president - だいとりょう
doctor - いしゃ
economics - けいぜいがく
gold - おごん
debt - ふさい
revolution - かくめい
Constitution - けんぽう
America - アメリカ
republic - きょわこく
representative - ぎいん
war - せんそう
freedom - ふき
money - おかね
bank - ぎんこう
prosperity - はんえい
people - ひとびと
speech - えんぜつ
rights - じんけん
I created my worksheet, looked up the vocab using the radical online dictionary Koichi-san referred to - http://jisho.org/ - and created my Anki deck to study these words. I know most of these pretty well by now. Viva la かくめい!!
Japanese Grammar with Yoda
Next up was a section called Japanese Grammar with Yoda. In this section, there were a few Yoda highlight videos which were entertaining, especially since I'm not particularly familiar with Star Wars. Point being in this section is that when speaking Japanese, the order we are accustomed to in English is flip-flopped. Yoda's way of speaking is sort of parallel with this at least in the simplest and most basic forms of Japanese grammar. For example, in English, we would say 'It is a strawberry' but in Japanese the flip-flopping that occurs makes it actually 'Strawberry it is.' So needless to say, we covered and practiced です in this section and created very basic sentences with various nouns like strawberry, grapes, etc.
In this section, I did end up learning some new vocab words so gonna record those for future reference:
strawberry - いちご
monkey - さる
pumpkin - かぼちゃ
grapes - ぶどう
banana - バナナ
There were others used but I knew them already like でんしゃ, つなみ, とまだち, すし, さけ, さしみ, すもう, みず, せんせい, からて, いぬ and ねこ.
Also this section, we practiced using the words from the passion list with です.
Lastly there was a new Anki deck introduced for download for the various TextFugu sentences we worked on in this section and a practice ひらがな worksheet to make sure we had them down prior to moving on to the next section: Intro to Kanji!!!
Intro to Kanji
This section was just purely information for the soaking about how most Japanese learners learn Kanji according to how Japanese school children learn Kanji and how that method fails most non-Japanese who are attempting to learn the language. This is mainly because Japanese school children learn Kanji in procession based simply on the meaning of the Kanji, not the complexity of the characters themselves. I mean they learn Kanji that are sometimes in excess of 15 strokes before they learn Kanji that have one stroke because the word meanings themselves are less complex. Koichi-san detailed how the TextFugu methodology for Kanji learning was different and thus actually much more effective for learning to read Kanji quickly as we would be focusing on complexity as far as number of strokes and not meaning of the words. Koichi-san also stressed that it isn't really necessary to learn how to write Kanji at this stage and wanted us to focus more on learning to read it.
He also introduced the concept of the 80-20 rule. Developed by Vilfredo Pareto, the 80-20 rule states: “80% of the efforts of something come from roughly 20% of the causes.” We will also utilize this concept in learning Kanji. Koichi-san believes that:
In essence, the TextFugu method for Kanji learning totally turns the traditional method on it's head. Using the TextFugu method we will:
First - learn the radicals - sort of the building blocks of Kanji
Second - once the radicals are learned they can be put together to build Kanji
Third - continuing this progress - as previously mentioned we'll learn Kanji by the complexity of the characters themselves vs. the meanings. This helps us to build on concepts we've already learned through teh first and second steps to create learning more and more complex Kanji with far less brain-strain
Fourth - using practice worksheets, unconventional memory tricks and other tools to study the Kanji and move them into long-term memory
No time like the present to get started so next up was...
Intro to Radicals!
This section began groundwork for learning actual Kanji. Radicals are very rarely taught in 日本語 but that's not really a good thing. Kanji radicals are basically like the letters of the alphabet so to speak. In 英語, we had to learn the letters that make up words before we could actually learn words and that's how radicals work too. Kanji are typically made up of several pieces so instead of just trying to remember what strokes go where, we can actually learn the different pieces of the kanji that make up the strokes. LOL, not sure if this will make sense to an outsider, but it makes sense in my head. For a final attempt at explaining, the kanji for 'walk' is made up of 8 strokes. Instead of remembering 8 separate strokes, we can actually just learn the three radicals that make up the 八 strokes. The radical method is really supreme for the purpose of long term memory and that's what learning a language is really all about.
We'll start off learning the radicals only made up of one stroke each, then use those radicals to learn the 2 stroke radicals then use those to learn the 3 stroke radicals and so on and so forth. The methodology really is designed to keep building upon things you know so as to reinforce and strengthen the learning you do.
In order to learn the radicals, we'll use mnemonics. Here are the steps:
またね!
Since my last post, I've covered a few sections of TextFugu to complete Season 一 in it's entirety! ^_^
Going to summarize what I've done since I was here last. It's a lot so it will make for a long catch up post so try to keep up. :)
Passion List
I created my passion list, which is a list of 二十 vocabulary words that revolve around something that I am extremely passionate about -- Ron Paul and the message of liberty!! Koichi-san wanted us to create this list of vocab words so we can associate something we already like into our 日本語 studies to keep us motivated.
Here is my passion list!
liberty - ふき
government - せいじ
president - だいとりょう
doctor - いしゃ
economics - けいぜいがく
gold - おごん
debt - ふさい
revolution - かくめい
Constitution - けんぽう
America - アメリカ
republic - きょわこく
representative - ぎいん
war - せんそう
freedom - ふき
money - おかね
bank - ぎんこう
prosperity - はんえい
people - ひとびと
speech - えんぜつ
rights - じんけん
I created my worksheet, looked up the vocab using the radical online dictionary Koichi-san referred to - http://jisho.org/ - and created my Anki deck to study these words. I know most of these pretty well by now. Viva la かくめい!!
Japanese Grammar with Yoda
Next up was a section called Japanese Grammar with Yoda. In this section, there were a few Yoda highlight videos which were entertaining, especially since I'm not particularly familiar with Star Wars. Point being in this section is that when speaking Japanese, the order we are accustomed to in English is flip-flopped. Yoda's way of speaking is sort of parallel with this at least in the simplest and most basic forms of Japanese grammar. For example, in English, we would say 'It is a strawberry' but in Japanese the flip-flopping that occurs makes it actually 'Strawberry it is.' So needless to say, we covered and practiced です in this section and created very basic sentences with various nouns like strawberry, grapes, etc.
In this section, I did end up learning some new vocab words so gonna record those for future reference:
strawberry - いちご
monkey - さる
pumpkin - かぼちゃ
grapes - ぶどう
banana - バナナ
There were others used but I knew them already like でんしゃ, つなみ, とまだち, すし, さけ, さしみ, すもう, みず, せんせい, からて, いぬ and ねこ.
Also this section, we practiced using the words from the passion list with です.
Lastly there was a new Anki deck introduced for download for the various TextFugu sentences we worked on in this section and a practice ひらがな worksheet to make sure we had them down prior to moving on to the next section: Intro to Kanji!!!
Intro to Kanji
This section was just purely information for the soaking about how most Japanese learners learn Kanji according to how Japanese school children learn Kanji and how that method fails most non-Japanese who are attempting to learn the language. This is mainly because Japanese school children learn Kanji in procession based simply on the meaning of the Kanji, not the complexity of the characters themselves. I mean they learn Kanji that are sometimes in excess of 15 strokes before they learn Kanji that have one stroke because the word meanings themselves are less complex. Koichi-san detailed how the TextFugu methodology for Kanji learning was different and thus actually much more effective for learning to read Kanji quickly as we would be focusing on complexity as far as number of strokes and not meaning of the words. Koichi-san also stressed that it isn't really necessary to learn how to write Kanji at this stage and wanted us to focus more on learning to read it.
He also introduced the concept of the 80-20 rule. Developed by Vilfredo Pareto, the 80-20 rule states: “80% of the efforts of something come from roughly 20% of the causes.” We will also utilize this concept in learning Kanji. Koichi-san believes that:
20% of kanji makes up 80% of all that is written, therefore we’re going to learn that 20% first, so you can start using your reading abilities in real-life situations as quickly as possible (which is really the best way to practice, anyways).The goal TextFugu aims to achieve in respect to Kanji is to get us reading it as soon as possible and to help us learn the most useful things first.
In essence, the TextFugu method for Kanji learning totally turns the traditional method on it's head. Using the TextFugu method we will:
First - learn the radicals - sort of the building blocks of Kanji
Second - once the radicals are learned they can be put together to build Kanji
Third - continuing this progress - as previously mentioned we'll learn Kanji by the complexity of the characters themselves vs. the meanings. This helps us to build on concepts we've already learned through teh first and second steps to create learning more and more complex Kanji with far less brain-strain
Fourth - using practice worksheets, unconventional memory tricks and other tools to study the Kanji and move them into long-term memory
No time like the present to get started so next up was...
Intro to Radicals!
This section began groundwork for learning actual Kanji. Radicals are very rarely taught in 日本語 but that's not really a good thing. Kanji radicals are basically like the letters of the alphabet so to speak. In 英語, we had to learn the letters that make up words before we could actually learn words and that's how radicals work too. Kanji are typically made up of several pieces so instead of just trying to remember what strokes go where, we can actually learn the different pieces of the kanji that make up the strokes. LOL, not sure if this will make sense to an outsider, but it makes sense in my head. For a final attempt at explaining, the kanji for 'walk' is made up of 8 strokes. Instead of remembering 8 separate strokes, we can actually just learn the three radicals that make up the 八 strokes. The radical method is really supreme for the purpose of long term memory and that's what learning a language is really all about.
We'll start off learning the radicals only made up of one stroke each, then use those radicals to learn the 2 stroke radicals then use those to learn the 3 stroke radicals and so on and so forth. The methodology really is designed to keep building upon things you know so as to reinforce and strengthen the learning you do.
In order to learn the radicals, we'll use mnemonics. Here are the steps:
- Take advantage of “flashbulb” memory - we remember things that are traumatic or shocking more thoroughly than other memories - think about how you can remember minute details about certain events in life - like where you were when 9/11/01 took place
- Make things ridiculous - we'll use crazy little stories so as to enhance our memories - you don't remember ordinary things like you do outlandish things
- Use Multiple Senses
- Put together memorable stories - flashbulb memories + ridiculous stories
- Practice - makes perfect!
またね!
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