Comments on: Sentence-Picking in Action: Making Lemons Into Lemonade

By: The Sentence Phase Explained «

The Sentence Phase Explained « — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 03:47:13 +0000

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By: Tony

Tony — Tue, 18 Dec 2007 05:47:07 +0000

Just to come back to this for a second since it didn’t hit me the first time, but if you want to use a TV drama or something instead of a movie you could use drama note at the side which as far as I can tell is accurate.

By: Tony

Tony — Tue, 11 Dec 2007 04:53:59 +0000

There is a way to do it by copying the dvd to an image and making an avi then using vobsub. However, when you try and open that file as a text file to rip it with japanese (it might work for someone using a Japanese OS, I’m using English Windows and it doesn’t) the file with be super garbled. I think there is another way as well but it’s also really difficult. There may be a Japanese version of vobsub which would make it easier but I don’t know of it.

By: khatzumoto

khatzumoto — Mon, 10 Dec 2007 21:30:04 +0000

@Saleem
Fair question. Since DVD subs are stored as images not text, you do require some extra processing (perhaps optical character recognition/OCR) to get it done, but it should be possible in theory. There appears to be some commercial software here: www.soft29.com/dvd_subtitle_ripper.html
that does the job. The question is whether it handles Japanese text properly right out of the box…

By: Saleem

Saleem — Mon, 10 Dec 2007 12:21:14 +0000

Hey Khatz,

Forgive me if this is an incredibly stupid question or if you’ve already answered this somewhere (looked for a bit but didn’t see it): Is there a way to strip the subs from a dvd or video ts file? To some format where I could just cut and paste them?

My admittedly not-a-programmer’s brain feels like there should be a way, and it would really help with sentence-mining. Feel free to mock me if this question is absurdly computer-illiterate or has already been answered.

By: Tony

Tony — Sun, 09 Dec 2007 15:49:01 +0000

Hey! Thanks 😀 I was looking up some things the other day, I can’t remember what the all were but two of them were 合宿　and 飼う, but all I was getting were a lot of websites with advertisements. This will speed things up a lot! I tried to see if there was a way to search through this blog categorizing website (it has different categories of blogs and then links to the top 100 in each category or something) but it didn’t seem to work too well. Much appreciated!

By: khatzumoto

khatzumoto — Sun, 09 Dec 2007 11:05:12 +0000

@Tony
Will do. Look out for an article soon. Till then, try this to keep you going: www.slashdot.jp.
By the way, my usual criterion for good website is “looks decent and professional”. Shallow, but works. I generally search by Google Japan www.google.co.jp. I recommend you use the Japanese Google specifically because it seems to be optimized for Japanese websites (I recall reading that Google do manual tweaking on search queries)…

By: Tony

Tony — Thu, 06 Dec 2007 14:12:17 +0000

Since it looks like you missed my question about the online resources and there’s no bumping: can you put the reputable magazines and whatnot links on the sidebar or post them here? I know how to do the web search on sanseido but that’s it for finding good things not going through advertisements on websites.

By: khatzumoto

khatzumoto — Thu, 06 Dec 2007 10:10:01 +0000

>So do you type out the definitions yourself?
No…copy/paste as far as possible. Typing eats time.

By: Jimmy

Jimmy — Thu, 06 Dec 2007 10:07:54 +0000

>Direct entry into the SRS rather than entry into some intermediate file/format.

So do you type out the definitions yourself? I’m sorry if you already wrote about this somewhere…

Oh, and I tried opening Khatzumemo on a friend’s AU phone. I couldn’t get it to work, but I don’t know if that is a problem with AU in general. In any case, thanks for taking the time to look into it for me, as well as the encouragement!

By: khatzumoto

khatzumoto — Thu, 06 Dec 2007 00:08:46 +0000

@Jimmy
>Do you have any suggestions to speed up the process?
Direct entry into the SRS rather than entry into some intermediate file/format. That’s the main thing. Other than that, just focus on enjoying yourself and “being” Japanese; that’s what this is about. You’re on the right track.

I’ll find out about the cellphone. BTW, I recommend AU. DoCoMo is overpriced, and Softbank try to wrap you like a warm tortilla in a long, prohibitive contract. Also, Willcom are the runt of the litter with sucky signal and high-priced phones. Go AU…but, just to be sure…test if you can use KhatzuMemo prior to getting the phone, in fact, let me contact you about that…

By: Nivaldo

Nivaldo — Wed, 05 Dec 2007 17:41:05 +0000

Just wanted to say some more things like:
When I’m listening to japanese music, sometimes I begin not to understand it but to follow the sounds almost fluently and sometimes even without a single break. Everytime it happens, it inspires me to go further and then comes my brother to watch TV **CONFLICT**. Also, about my english, I think you may not remember but I said it was due to many subbed movies, songs and will to speak english. As that kind of material here is almost if not free(on TVs and Radios), I just had to get my ears working and my eyes pointing to the right textual input. But with japanese, it’s been a little more difficult, though not impossible, for example, I managed to get 333 MB of japanese music and some GB of anime. That’s why I’m going for it. It’s my dream since I was 8, damn it. It’s not too late although I’m 19 by now, right? Well, see you.

By: Nivaldo

Nivaldo — Wed, 05 Dec 2007 17:30:09 +0000

Wow, thanks Khatz! I didn’t know I had such a great chance(some 60% based on their student-master culture) of success. Well, the people I found here are near my house so I hope they accept the suggestion. However, they look busy but yep, my brother said that once, one of them got out for a lunch while reading the “Domingo(sunday)” newspaper. It could mean that at least one of them is trying to learn portuguese. To be honest, I was thinking about talking to them today, but I was waiting for your reply to see if it was correct. My father doesn’t even want to know about Japan but kept reading some magazines about Japan I had brought from the ambassade for 3 HOURS. I don’t really understand him but I don’t care, I’m going and that’s all. My brothers aren’t going to collaborate either as the computer is near the TV, **Conflict**. So, I began thinking about all possibilities(almost scientifically), and this one came up. I’ll let you know about the result.

By: Jimmy

Jimmy — Wed, 05 Dec 2007 14:24:27 +0000

I am having no trouble at all finding sentences, but I am finding that it physically takes a long time to make entries in my SRS. It’s not that I am bored (I actually enjoy the process quite a bit); I just want to get in as many sentences as I can. Do you have any suggestions to speed up the process? Also, I’m planning to get a cell phone soon. Which one do you think is best for using khatzumemo (I live in Japan, so I know it comes down to three companies)?

By: khatzumoto

khatzumoto — Wed, 05 Dec 2007 05:55:29 +0000

＠Nivaldo
I was just thinking, you could suggest it as kind of a “homestay” arrangement. A lot of people in Japan host students of Japanese in their home, and that’s exactly what you’re suggesting…The only difference is that yours is in Mozambique…

By: khatzumoto

khatzumoto — Wed, 05 Dec 2007 04:49:30 +0000

It’s actually a genius idea. Try it…there’s no guarantee of agreement from the either side, but you don’t know these things until you try. Maybe you can…have your parents help negotiate, and figure out a way to offset costs [food, utilities]. Japan has a tradition of students (弟子/でし) living with their masters (師匠/ししょう) in some craft, as part of becoming a student (弟子入り/でしいり). Also, maybe, those Japanese people in Mozambique need help with Portuguese? And you know English and Japanese, and many people from Japan know Japanese and some English, so…it seems like it could potentially work out.

Also…you could try to talk to your fam and have them get involved in your Japanese project?

Also, what is it you did with English to get it to this level? Try that.

Let me know what you work out…I think that’s a really cool idea, though…

By: Nivaldo

Nivaldo — Wed, 05 Dec 2007 01:23:04 +0000

Hey, Khatz. Maybe you don’t remember but some time ago, I came with a somewhat stupid question about problems and you answered pretty energetically. Thanks for that. Now, going to the subject, I’m DYING everyday. Yep, really dying. My family is killing my Japanese, I don’t have headphones so I’m forced to listen to music in a very low volume, result = “almost nothing is caught” and I have to listen to Portuguese every f*****g day, from waking up to sleeping due to this problem. After thinking for a long time, I came with the answer. Switch to a Japanese person’s house literally, I mean, waking up, doing things and sleeping in a Japanese person’s house. I’m really tired of being killed everyday. But, I don’t know if this is the right thing to do, I mean, is it polite to come out of nothing and say “I want to live with you for some time.”? I guess not. But, that would be ideal. What do you think, Khatz? Is that too drastic? If it is, what course of action should I take? BTW, there are only 100 immigrants here in Mozambique. They are VERY rare. Thanks for everything! See you

By: khatzumoto

khatzumoto — Wed, 05 Dec 2007 00:34:58 +0000

＠lloyd
1) I originally learned kanji with the intention of using them for Chinese first, applying the Heisig method to www.zhongwen.com; I just happened to end up focussing on Japanese instead. So…my knowledge of kanji was acquired with Chinese in mind from the beginning. Having learned about ~4500 kanji…I find that I can kind of learn more sort of “by osmosis”, like, it takes very little effort to pick them up; there must be a threshold somewhere, after which anything else is easy to pick up…

2) As much time as necessary to do 100+ reps and 30+ new entries. So, as long as it takes to do the basic minimum for the day, and beyond that I continue until I get bored of it. It was the same then and is the same now. Anything from 90 minutes to 4 hours(?)…I don’t like keeping track of numbers, I find it distracting to the task at hand, so I just focus on getting it done: it takes as long as it takes. My policy with language is to give it any and all time available; everything revolves around the language and not the other way around; everything else gets scheduled to get done is as little time as possible, the rest of the time all goes to language…So, maximize Chinese time and minimize everything else. If it’s not SRSing it’s TV/movies, if not that than music/talk, if not that then books…whatever.

By: lloyd

lloyd — Wed, 05 Dec 2007 00:03:59 +0000

hey, khatz. two quick questions that me and my friend came up with while discussing your last blog entry…

1) has you’re laddering up to chinese, are you trying to use a heisig-esque method on chinese kanji or does your knowledge of the composition of kanji that you picked up from japanese all the new chinese kanji to “stick”?

2) how much time every day are you spending on the SRS and how much were you spending everyday when you were learning Japanese?

thanks!

By: suffah

suffah — Tue, 04 Dec 2007 16:17:30 +0000

Wan,

Thanks for the link and tips.