Off-topic: I’ve been watching the Twitter public timeline lately and think that that would be a great place to harvest sentences.

This is a bit off topic, but I have been trying out the reading to writing method for a little while now, and I have to say that it’s been working out very very well. I have to say bravo, you’ve upped the bar even more once again. Thank you for all the help you’ve been to those of us who are doing japanese self-study, it’s greatly appreciated.

For a discussion on math terms in Japanese, a good place to start would be Wikipedia:
ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E6%95%B0%E5%AD%A6

From that main page, you can link to any one of the different fields in math (geometry, statistics, algebra, etc.), and learn the different terms for each field.

As far as Singaporeans, maybe it’s part of the North American english influence through popular media.

*On a side, completely unrelated note, do you ever say “maths” in North America or is it always “math”? Here in Singapore, we officially follow the British and use “maths”, but I’ve noticed a disturbing trend where younger people use “math” more and more.

Not Khatzu, but I see these kind of questions a lot and I think there is a pretty easy answer.

Regarding Time Investment:

Reading all these posts by Khatz since about summer time, I think I’ve come away with a pretty good understanding of the general method. Of course, it seems easy enough; AJATT. But people seem to always have these specific questions despite the simplicity of the term.

Anyway, I think the learning method could also be called and summarized as “All Japanese All The Time -While- Learning Something New Everyday”. That is, the environment is first and foremost key. Japanese should be going all the time if possible. If not, as much as you can. But, then, on top of that, you should be learning new stuff everyday. Heisig, words/sentences, whatever.

So, if you’ve done Heisig (and if you haven’t you should), and you’re reviewing sentences while learning new stuff and have this awesome environment up and running — don’t worry. Just make sure you are picking up new things everyday in addition to watching anime/listening to the music.

One last note about watching anime/listening to music.

Just make sure that if you are watching/listening to some Japanese as some primary activity (ie, it’s not just background noise), that you are engaging it as much as you can, bringing as much to the listening experience as you can. Listening as an activity and hearing a looped background are two different modes of listening. You said you can’t mine movies/anime at all right now. It’s still fine to watch those for hours, as long as 1) you are still doing other things where you are picking up/learning stuff and 2) you are actually paying attention to the Japanese (no English subs etc). Don’t worry about mining so much for now. Listen intently. Listen to the rhythm and the flow of the language. If you can get even just a single word, try to write it down. Look it up, try to understand an example sentence.

So yeah, as long as you’re picking up new things in other activities, knock yourself out watching Japanese things you don’t (YET) understand. Just try to listen carefully and get as much as you can. And if you haven’t done Heisig, do it.

oda999.tea-nifty.com/kokoro/

The website is about (from what I gathered) the psychology of women and men and why they act the way they do in certain situations with the hope that if the other sex understands each other’s behavior then relationships will improve.

The podcasts are interesting (although the background music is fairly cheesy), but the kicker is they have transcripts of each podcast that you can follow along. These transcripts are not word for word, but they seem to be pretty close. These were a nice change of pace for me from the other types of podcasts I’m listening to.

I think that it’s definitely a good idea to be able to get through legal language, as when I was living in Japan I didn’t have enough confidence in my Japanese so I didn’t even attempt to look through any paperwork that I got for anything, so I was kind of in a constant state of worry that something might go wrong and I wouldn’t be able to deal with it. But looking at the example you put above, I understood it (although some of it just in a 何となく way) and I’m going to make an effort to acquaint myself with legal language so I don’t feel so helpless when I go back 🙂
Your posts always inspire me to go out and do something to improve my Japanese, so thank you! 🙂

I admit I’m mostly bringing this up to tell an actual success story about schooling and language learning that’s been working out great for me. A little bit of background info: I learned Japanese half-heartedly/with sucky methods (learning 2 kanji a day…*shudder*) for about a half a year until I discovered this site in August. Since then, I’ve been following the AJATT method as closely as possible, and it’s produced great results. Anyway, in my city there’s a school that Japanese parents send their kids to every Saturday to learn kanji, Japanese math, etc. All instruction is in Japanese, and you actually can get in trouble for speaking English there. In my earlier stages of learning I would help out in the library there when my friend’s mom would take me (I’m 15). About a month ago, though, I got to take part in the high school class for the first time. I’ve been 3 times now, and it’s been an awesome experience. The class is usually just 3 students and the teacher, and we discuss the upcoming elections, learning English, globalization, サブプライムローン, all kinds of fun stuff. And it’s truly all Japanese, all the time. I’m by far the worst in the class, as the other students are generally semi-recent transplants from Japan, but, as we all know, just being surrounded by the chatter is edifying.

So on the off-chance anyone here is in a similar situation (age-wise, Japanese school proximity), I highly recommend trying to work yourself in. It’s a great way to become part of the Japanese community while improving your Japanese.