Hey! So, I’ve put up example sentences in “sentence starter packs” before, but, I don’t think any of those were actually sentences that I had personally used before. Just to give you an idea of what life is really like on the streets of my SRS, here are some examples of sentences that I’ve entered over the past few days.
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+++QUESTION+++
『夕凪の街 桜の国』
+++ANSWER+++
ゆうなぎのまち さくらのくにゆうなぎ【夕R凪】
〔気象〕夕方､海岸の近くで､海風と陸風が交替するとき､しばらく無風状態になること｡《対語》朝なぎ｡ -
+++QUESTION+++
人口に膾炙している、ヤクザ物とは違う、オーセンティック（真正）な心優しい広島弁が使われている。
+++ANSWER+++
じんこうにかいしゃする【人口に膾炙する】
〔なます(膾)やあぶりにく(炙)が美味で多くの人の口に合うことから〕
広く世間の人に知れわたる｡有名である｡ -
+++QUESTION+++
ＩＴ革命において、主要先進国のナショナルフラッグキャリアは熾烈な国際競争を繰り広げ、
+++ANSWER+++
しれつ【熾烈】〔戦いなどの〕勢いがはげしく盛んなようす｡激烈｡猛烈｡ -
+++QUESTION+++
這不是愚蠢是什麼？
+++ANSWER+++
zhe4 bu2 shi4 yu2chun3 shi4 shen2me0？yúchǔn【愚蠢】
愚かである．まぬけである;のろまである．
¶這種做法太～/こんなやり方はあまりにばかげている．
¶～無知wúzhī/愚鈍で無知． -
+++QUESTION+++
用高成本但無效能的方式邀請親友分享喜悅，還要讓遠道來祝福的親友付費，這不是愚蠢是什麼？
+++ANSWER+++
yong4 gao1 cheng2ben3 dan4 wu2xiao4 neng2 de0 fang1shi4 yao1qing3 qin1you3 fen1xiang3 xi3yue4， hai2 yao4 rang4 yuan3dao4 lai2 zhu4fu2 de0 qin1you3 fu4fei4， zhe4 bu2 shi4 yu2chun3 shi4 shen2me0？fēnxiǎng【分享】
（喜びなどを）分かち合う．
¶～勝利的喜悅xǐyuè/勝利の喜びを分かち合う．yuǎndào【遠道】
はるか遠い道．遠路;はるばる．
¶～而來/はるばるやってくる． -
+++QUESTION+++
清浦 奎吾
+++ANSWER+++
きようら けいご【奎】
■また｡ひとまたぎの長さ｡周代の約三尺(六九センチメートル)に当たる｡
■{名詞}二十八宿の一つ｡十六の星から成り､その形が人のまたを開いた姿に似ている｡天文家は文章をつかさどる星座と考えた｡規準星は今のアンドロメダ座に含まれる｡とかき｡ -
+++QUESTION+++
「はいはい、はい。
私が首を突っ込むようなことじゃありませんでした。
だったら浮気なんかするなっつーの！」と呟く。
+++ANSWER+++
つぶや･く【呟く】
ひとり言を､またはひとり言のように小声で言う｡ぶつぶつ言う｡ -
+++QUESTION+++
聽神經主管聽覺和身體平衡的感覺■
+++ANSWER+++
ting1shen2jing1 zhu3guan3 ting1jue2 he2 shen1ti3 ping2heng2 de0 gan3jue2 ■
聴神経は聴覚と身体の平衡感覚を司っている。へいこうかんかく【平衡感覚】〔生理学〕重力の方向に対するからだの位置やつりあいを知る感覚｡体位を正常に保つのに役立つもので､脊椎(ｾｷﾂｲ)動物では前庭と半規管がそれをつかさどる｡
《参考》ひゆ的に､バランスのとれた物事のとらえ方･感じ方をいう｡へいこう【平衡】
①〔天秤の両端にかけた物の重さが等しくて､竿(ｻｵ)が水平である状態の意から〕ある一つの物体に加わる二つ以上の力がつりあってその物体が静止の状態を保つこと｡｢からだの平衡を失って倒れる｣つかさど･る【S司る･S掌る】
②管理･監督をする｡支配する｡てんびん【天秤】①はかりの一種｡中央を支点とするてこの両端にさらをつるし､一方にはかる物､他方に分銅(ﾌﾝﾄﾞｳ)をのせ､つりあわせて物の重さを精密にはかる器械｡てんびんばかり｡
-
+++QUESTION+++
諸位的雙肩上肩負著未來■
+++ANSWER+++
zhu1wei4 de0 shuang1 jian1shang4 jian1fu4 zhe0 wei4lai2 ■
将来は諸君の双肩にかかっている。そうけん【双肩】
②〔ひゆ的に〕ある人の身｡〔責任･任務などを負うときに使う〕
《参考》｢双肩にかかる｣を強めて｢かかって…の双肩にある｣の言い方もよく使う｡ -
+++QUESTION+++
這些不同的字形往往都有各自使用的範圍和語境・・・
+++ANSWER+++
zhe4xie1 bu4tong2 de0 zi4xing2 wang3wang3 dou1 you3 ge4zi4 shi3yong4 de0 fan4wei2 he2 yu3jing4 ・・・yǔjìng【語境】
コンテクスト．文脈．wǎngwǎng【往往】
〔副詞〕往々にして．ややもすれば;しばしば．
¶小李～學習到深夜/李君は夜更けまで勉強することがよくある．
¶由於yóuyú粗心cūxīn～引起大錯/不注意からしばしば大きなまちがいを引き起こす．
¶這裡都是原始森林yuánshǐ sēnlín,～四、五十里不見人煙rényān/ここはすべて原始林で,2,30キロ行っても人家が見當たらないことがよくある．おうおう【往往】
《副詞》そうなりやすい場合がよくあるようす｡しばしば｡時として｡
《参考》｢往往に｣｢往往にして｣の形で使うことが多い｡
《類義語》ときどき｡時折｡折々｡
Whoa! O_o;
*stumped*
Khatz, do you ever find yourself reading the Japanese pronunciation of a word in Chinese? Like in your 1st sample, I read 膾炙 as kuai4 zhi4 immediately. Do you experience the reverse of that?
btw, I don’t if you know, but 膾炙人口 is a 成語 in Chinese.
I notice you put 「這不是愚蠢是什麼？」 in 2 cards. One by itself and another in a longer sentence. Is this intentional? Or were they from two different extracts? If so, is the purpose to aid in understanding one sentence by itself?
BTW, can you recommend any good native Japanese fiction? Preferably science fiction or fantasy but anything is good.
Also, you used 清浦 奎吾 as a sentence. Just to learn the kanji?
@quend
>Khatz, do you ever find yourself reading the Japanese pronunciation of a word in Chinese?
Absolutely. Specifically, when some document starts with a long, unbroken string of kanji. Then I’ll unconsciously read it in Chinese until I hit a kana and realize my mistake. For example, I was walking (I take lots of walks) on Thursday night, and saw a sign that said: “交通安全” (こうつうあんぜん), and I internally read it as “jiao1tong1 an1quan2”. It only happens when I already know the Chinese reading, though.
>Is this intentional
Yes. It’s because I was having trouble recalling the reading of 愚蠢 in other QA pairs, so I wanted to see it in as many places as possible. Also, if a sentence is really long, I often enter the original, whole sentence + most/all of its component clauses; this helps me get used to long sentences but provides some breaking-down so I’m not overwhelmed with one big thing to remember.
>BTW, can you recommend any good native Japanese fiction?
I actually don’t read a lot of fiction in any language, all my non-comics are non-fiction…but…I’ll let you know soon if I come across something good.
>you used 清浦 奎吾 as a sentence. Just to learn the kanji?
清浦 奎吾 was a PM of Japan. I wanted to learn to read the character 奎…it’s meaning was easy enough to remember that I haven’t bothered learn it as a separate kanji. Furthermore, this is how I learn personal and place names.
do you still really write out the pinyin for every single word in the sentence?? Isnt it just useful for the word that you are trying to learn? I cant imagine it not a waste of time to write the pinyin for “這些不同的字形..” I mean, you should have those characters down by now, right??
Yeah, I have a program that auto-generates pinyin [I am soooo cool 8) ] for me, so it’s no more work for me to do it for one char than for all chars (in fact…it’s less work).
＠quendidil
Have you looked into 吉本ばなな or 村上春樹（むらかみ はるき）? They’re both pretty popular Japanese fiction writers, and I believe they’re styles are on the easier side. I’ve read some of their stuff, and it is interesting.
@khatzu
What dictionaries are you using? The Japanese one doesn’t seem to be either 広辞苑 or 大辞林. The 中日辞典 looks to be the 小学館中日辞典第2版. That’s the one I have, and it has the exact same example sentences that you have in your SRS. I see you aren’t messing with the 簡體字 that the dictionary uses exclusively. Do you know those as well, or have you decided just to not deal with them?
@Glenn
Wow, you really know your dictionaries.
>Do you know those as well, or have you decided just to not deal with them?
I suppose I do get to see the jianti when I do lookups in this particular dictionary, but
I find fanti much more logical, so, I deal almost exclusively with them. We’re changing back, dude, end of story 8)
The j-dic is…Super日本語大辞典
It just turns out that I have the same words in my SRS as you do. heheh I have 広辞苑 in my 電子辞書 and I copy-paste from 大辞林 at the goo site, so I’m pretty familiar with those two. I don’t think I’ve heard of スーパー日本語大辞典, but I’m guessing it’s got the 250,000 or so words that the two dictionaries I use have (maybe more?).
I agree with you about trad chars, but still, I was really thrown off when I saw 丰 for 豐 and 击 for 擊, as in I had no clue what they were supposed to be until I saw the TC. I was just wondering if you’ve had that problem at all, because I’m sure you can’t have the good fortune of everything you read being in TC.
>I was just wondering if you’ve had that problem at all
Yeah, definitely.
@Glenn
So far, I’ve read quite a bit of manga (デスノート、クレイモア、らきすた、最遊記、すずか、ちょびつ、 SLAM DUNK, ちょびっ）, but as for longer texts, I am currently reading 涼宮ハルヒの憂鬱, ハリー・ポッタと賢者の石、 時を掛ける少女、 マリア様が見てる, 灼眼のシャナ and two High School guide/textbooks on 漢文 and 物理. I have read some of 村上春樹 in translation before though. Japanese books are quite expensive here in Kinokuniya though, so I can’t afford to buy some of the thicker mainstream fiction books too often.
I do have some “visual novels” on my computer though, like カノン, CLANNAD, fate stay/night, AIR, かな妹、月姫 and others of a less plot-heavy and more graphic nature.
Hi Khatzumoto,
I have a random question from one of your old posts. You mentioned that you were using stickers to mark unknown readings in your books, and that the ones you found didn’t stick well enough to destroy the surface of the page when you took them off. Do you mind sharing the brand and/or where you got them? I’ve tried a few that I found near me, but they all rip off the text underneath when I take them off.
“Avery” brand. “Garage Sale Labels” . They say “removable” on them (Avery also make a non-removable kind). They have several sizes, you obviously want the smallest or next to smallest kind…
Those Avery stickers were ones I bought in the US, at my college bookstore. I ran out of them so now I use a local Japanese brand.
Khatz, I’ve come across 愛せない a few times recently. Is this a slang word from 愛する to 愛す or legitimate Japanese?
AFAIK, v. legit.
For more about 愛せない and する verbs in general, see this post: www.sf.airnet.ne.jp/~ts/japanese/message/jpnGm9OizSsGm20Zd6H.html
Also, check out the rest of the thread for more discussion on it. I found it quite enlightening.
Hey man, your methods are fantastic. I’ve been doing the SRS trick for the last 5 months and I’ve noticed a MASSIVE difference in retention.
Just got a question for you. You say 10,000 sentences. My SRS program (Anki) inputs each sentence twice, one as question-answer, the other as answer-question. Are you saying that 5000 sentences, either way (10000 in total) is the way to go, or is it 10,000 unique sentences, 20,000 all together in my SRS? At the moment I’m up to 508 unique sentences, 1016 all up.
Cheers,
Bucko
Definitely 10k UNIQUE
Bucko, you can switch off the reverse cards in Anki (and Mnemosyne for that matter). Most likely you’ll only want it one way.
Khatz, think the time will come when someone (or group) will create a site similar to Reviewing the Kanji, but with one to two thousand sentences organized and vetted for efficiency to get the foundation started for Japanese? What would be your current opinion of such a site?
@Charles A.
I think I’m all for that. Everyone could share the same foundation, but from there branch on out in different directions according to personal taste.
Excellent website.
I’ve just started using your technique for the sentences (SRS). (As you recommended, I’m using mnemosyne (on ubuntu))
For all those using mnemosyne or similar programs with import methods, and as a follow-up to what Charles A. said, do you think it would be possible for you to “export” your sentences (editing the one you’d feel uncomfortable about :)) . I’d really like to be able to edit someone else’s personal deck of cards and add my own (contributing it back, obviously).
Anyway, if you feel uncomfortable about this, sorry for the request and in any case, Thanks again for this absolutely fantastic website.
Also, btw, you said: Do the Remembering The Kanji thing now and thank me later. Now, I want to officially thank you. :))