Smart SRS and Why You Should Use It

When I was making my N1 grammar cards it made me feel pretty good that when they were finally done, they could help other people as well. I had actually been thinking with a particular friend in mind because he had said he was going to take the test this year, but when I mentioned to him that I posted the cards up he said he'd never heard of Anki. I'm not exaggerating when I say I was floored. Maybe that's a slight overreaction, but from my standpoint I can't even imagine SRS review without using a smart application. Don't confirm or deny because I doubt I can handle the repeated shock, but I suppose there might be other people out there making flash cards on...*gasp!*...cards! There are a number of reasons why you should stop and I want to go over a few of those.

SRS Apps are Smart
Anki allows me to easily answer each card with multiple choices. Choose hard and I'll see the card again sooner, easy and I will see it much later. Not only does this help keep information in mind until it can be bound to long term memory, but it also reduces the tedium of seeing cards you know too well. Another benefit is that I don't toss old cards into a box and forget to look at them again months later when I might have forgotten them.

SRS Apps Reduce Clutter
On a related note...no cards! Cards take up a lot of space and are wasteful. I already have a phone and computer, so using Anki doesn't take up any extra money, resources or space.

Anki Uses Cloud Storage
It only takes one button press to syncronize my cards on my phone with those on my PC. This makes it easy to create cards on a PC where I can easily switch between languages or access the web and then load them onto my phone. It also means I can't lose my cards to a freak mishap.

Loading Media into Cards
I'd be really impressed to see someone load a sound clip into a paper flash card. You can load just about any common media into Anki cards including pictures, sound and video. You can even insert hyperlinks. This goes hand-in-hand with what I think is really the best way to learn anything: bind the terminology with some real, tangible experience. Binding information to stories and imagination works well too as James Heisig found when he came up with his method of Kanji memorization. Getting creative with making flash cards can take a lot of time, but so can memorizing things. Putting in the work up front may in many cases produce better results in the long run.

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How I Make and Use my Cards
What I'm studying lately is a lot of information taken from a standardized test. The first thing I've been doing with my vocab deck is making a card for each entry in my vocab book. That's a lot of cards. Something like two thousand when I'm done, I think. There's far too much material to remember it all through rote memorization. To get it to stick I have to tie it to memories wherever I possibly can. One method is putting some time between studying each lesson and taking the mini quiz. Another is reading a novel every day and taking note when I see words I have learned. If it's one I struggle with, I make a card out of the whole sentence and tag it with the author's name. Sometimes I simply ask a person about the word. Do they actually use it in conversation? In writing? Is it old? Is there a kanji for it? What kind of nuance does it have? How does it compare to its synonyms? Anything that is pertinent and especially interesting will help me remember the word later on. And finally, one of the best ways is to go out of my way to use the word. Use it wrong and people will make a funny face (hopefully) and I can ask why. Use it correctly and the conversation will flow smoothly. I feel good about it and remember it based on that emotional experience.

Memorizing information in bulk is terribly boring. I don't think there is any way around that, but I do think there are many ways to do it as efficiently as possible. And there are ways to set yourself up for reinforcement and encouragement when you read something smoothly, express yourself in conversation, understand key information or simply realize that you aced a question on an inefficient, unnecessary standardized test. Good luck to anyone else taking the test this July! Only three more weeks to go!

Studying grammar for N1? Try this deck of Anki flashcards.

It's not perfectly complete, but here is the deck that I am making to study N1 grammar. I realized that I need to share it ASAP if it is going to be of use to anyone else. There are a few grammar points from N1 that aren't in there because most of these were made using 1級 study materials.

I use it in conjunction with the 総まとめ vocabulary book, which I am also making a deck for, and with Murakami novels. His work contains a surprising amount of the N1 vocab and grammar. That goes against everything people told me about how I would never need what I'd learn when studying for this test. Anyway, I find that discovering words in context after I have studied them helps get them nice and stuck in my memory. Sometimes I go out of my way to use them in conversation, even when it will be awkward because no one actually says it. Then I have a good laugh with the person I'm talking about and I can bind the word to that memory too. A little shrewd? Sure, but worth it in my opinion =)

I hope it helps you as much as (I think!) it is helping me! Good luck with your studies!

日本語能力Ｎ１文法　Ａｎｋｉデック

The Wrong Kawasaki: Unlocking Google Barriers with Second Language

There is a lot that can only be learned by reading materials in the original language. You might find plenty on Japanese history or anime in English, but if you want to know what it is like to grow up in Kawasaki and if you want to know why people consider that area dangerous, you have to search in Japanese.

That wasn’t a conclusion that I came to easily. For years I avoided using the net in Japanese where I could. There is so much information in English that it’s not necessary in many (if not most) cases. The wall that I hit was Kawasaki. Apparently I hit it as hard as if I had ridden a Kawasaki motorcycle into it, because bikes were the *only* thing I could get Google to bring up. Well, I'm thankful for it because it got me to step out of my comfort zone and I learned some things that I doubt I'd have found anywhere in English.

Something I am likely to return to many times when I talk about translation and language learning on this blog, is that for a number of reasons elitism and insecurity mingle freely within students of Japanese. Judgmental attitudes are everywhere on the net, in university, on the street, in the bars, cafes and workplaces. Discussing why that is would probably be interesting (and here's a blog post that does so, though I do disagree with her on a number of points), but for now I'm more interested in trying to free myself from it. For my own part, it is relieving to admit that I had a mental block against even trying to use the net in my second language.

I know for some people, making active use of their second language is first nature. But I also know that, like myself, it isn’t natural or automatic for many others. When I taught English as a second language, I found it very difficult to get students using Google in English. I knew it would be a huge benefit to them because of the sheer volume of information available on the internet in English. These days I feel foreign language teachers ought to be able to do, or at the least ought to be learning to do, anything they preach to their students as indispensable. I should have taken my own advice long ago, but sometimes (read, usually) I find that I have to be forced into taking the necessary steps forward.

If you are studying a second language and aren't already doing this, I encourage you to learn new things in your second language. Don't just study the language, but seek out topics that you can learn about for the first time and do so with the vocabulary and grammar you have available to you. Learn the words and structures you need to grasp what you're reading, but focus on the information and what you need to know from it, rather than on the language itself. I think one of the effects of this practice is to learn and be conversant about things you might not be able discuss in your primary language. That was something I encountered for the first time working with transparent circuits, and it is something I'm still studying in English so I can catch up again.

And if you try it and it doesn’t help much, or even if it is just boring, no sweat! Unlike expensive textbooks, finding materials on the net is free!

If you’ve had some experience with this, or even if you think it is total rubbish, let me know in the comments!

Reference, Resource, Research: Bizarre Flower Images

This story I'm working on right now has to with flowers in some respects and I thought I'd share some of more unusual ones that I've found while looking up pics and info about them. Here is the Pinterest gallery that I found which has all the original links to the images. There are a lot of great photos in there that I decided not to repost. Definitely worth a look.

Writing Resources to Sharpen your (S)words

Not long ago at a convention-esque 40k event I met Steve Parker, one of the writers for Games Workshop's Black Library publishing house. He was a very friendly and encouraging guy. When he gave me some advice on resources for honing my writing skills, I was excited and keen to lose more sleep to this part of my life than I already do.

There were essentially two resources that he recommended to me. The first is the Writer's Digest Elements of Fiction series. Each of those books was written by a different author and focuses on a specfic area of writing fiction. The one I'm reading first is Orson Scott Card's Characters & Viewpoint. I'm about a third of the way through it despite being hopelessly transfixed by A Storm of Swords. So far it seems pretty good, but it's hard to say much about it without finishing it and trying some of Card's methods. The best of it so far has been about knowing the needs of your story and asking a lot of questions. I hope to finish this one around the time I finish my current picture book project. I won't be starting the next picture book until around January and in between I'm going to write some short fiction.

The second resource is an online writers' workshop called Critters. At first I thought to sign up for the time being and then come back to it when I have a story I want critiqued. As it turns out, however, once you register you have to critique a story each week to maintain membership. Oops. I signed up prematurely, but that's really for the best. Procrastination is less than worthless. I've done a month's worth of critiques so far. Each week it is easier to identify and describe what I feel is wrong. Just as importantly, it's easier to say what I think could fix it. I even reread a story I wrote four years ago. I looked at it through fresher, more critical eyes and saw ways to write it how I had originally intended to.

Steve Parker told me that the value in a workshop group is really in being able to identify and communicate what is wrong with stories that don't work for you. After doing this for even a little while I can see how true that is. I am still looking forward to getting some of my work critiqued, however, because I've been reading some of the other critiques that get posted and there is a lot of very good advice given for each story posted. I strongly recommend giving this a try if you are anything as isolated from other writers as I am here in the mountains.

Happy writing and happy critting to you!