learning kana and kanji from audio tapes

[QwertyJPC]

http://www.audioforum.com/cat/Japanese.htm

look at the fourth bullet...

What do you guys think of this?

I'm planning to take this course when I get the money to do so...


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[Mulboyne]

You certainly wouldn't want to misplace the textbook with that set

[Charles]

What will they think of next? Driving instruction books in braille?

Forget audio tapes about kanji. Go buy this:

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/4893580914/

This is the best book series on kanji I know of. Yeah it's expensive, but the whole series is cheaper than your tapes. The "Bonjinsha Kanji Book" series will take you from zero all the way through the whole ~2000 jouyou kanji. I'm using the last two books, ooh are they tough.

[Taro Toporific]

Driving instruction books in braille? Forget audio tapes about kanji. ...

Hee, hee.

Ok, ok. Language labs and audio tapes have been widely thought of as a poor learning methodology for more than 30 years now. Linguistic research has really dumped on their learning value.

However, Japanese is DIFFERENT in that people do talk in robotic patterns of greetings and whatnot here. My judo sensei had a running bet that he could conduct business all day with just the phrase "Daijobu and appropriate gunts: He never lost. Learning the top 100 phrases perfectly will get you far...far enough to get into some "adventures."

The best value for your money is borrow the boring-but-basic USForeign Service Institute Language Courses from your library or nearby college. Ask yout reference librarian for an interlibrary loan if they don't have they tapes. Put that on your iPod for 3 months and you'll be ready for some kool huntingin soft underbelly of Shibuya that learning kanji will never provide.

[QwertyJPC]

well...

i don't have an ipod...

I already bought the quick and simple Pimsleur approach tapes...

so scratch that i guess..

[Skankster]

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I say no.

Make that a big no.

You CAN learn kanji by just looking at cards etc.
BUT it will take you near 10 times the exposure (per kanji) than it would by just writing it.

Any kanji you write 10 times is yours to the death (in a reading context).
So just sit down with a good text and one of those kanji journals for elementary school kids and start writing.
You should aim for all of the mombusho kanji.

when you finish you will have enlightened yourself to guru level.
Should take about 3-4 mo.s

[vir-jin]

[Skankster]

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dang

Where can I find that thing in Japan? Bic Camera?

[Caustic Saint]

Where can I find that thing in Japan? Bic Camera?

Yup.

[yakinoumiso]

Where can I find that thing in Japan? Bic Camera?

Yup.

For those of you that can't make it to a big electronics shop, I bought my first denshi-jisho from Aiko, they drop shipped it domestically and I got it in two days. They're okay to work with.

The one thing I wonder about this is, do you have to imput in the correct stroke order? I have a similar program on my treo, and use the one in Wiin IME. On both, it doesn't matter how perfect the kanji looks, it doesn't work if the stroke order is out of sequence.

[Charles]

However, Japanese is DIFFERENT in that people do talk in robotic patterns of greetings and whatnot here. My judo sensei had a running bet that he could conduct business all day with just the phrase "Daijobu and appropriate gunts: He never lost. Learning the top 100 phrases perfectly will get you far...far enough to get into some "adventures."

Oh, it's even worse than that. I was just reading that book by Yamada Haru, she describes a stunt a friend of her pulled. One of her friends did not understand a single word of Japanese, but she taught him aizuchi techniques, and put him in a skit with Japanese native speakers, to be presented in front of Japanese native speakers. He would just grunt "un" and nod his head at all the appropriate times as the nihonjin talked to him. He totally fooled everyone, people came up to him afterwards and were convinced he lived in Japan, he kept up the act and was never revealed until they'd ask him where he lived and he could only answer "un."

Anyway, I always say that Japanese is about 50% aizuchi (like un and hai), about 45% kimari monku, and only about 5% original content that you actually want to convey.

[Charles]

The one thing I wonder about this is, do you have to imput in the correct stroke order? I have a similar program on my treo, and use the one in Wiin IME. On both, it doesn't matter how perfect the kanji looks, it doesn't work if the stroke order is out of sequence.

ALL the pen-input devices require you to input kanji in the correct stroke order. The recognition algorithm depends on two factors: stroke order, and stroke crossing. You can draw the kanji as sloppily as you like, but as long as the stroke order and crossing is correct, it will recognize it fairly accurately.
Stroke order isn't really that hard to do, after you learn the first couple hundred kanji, and learn the basic rules, you will know how to draw any kanji in correct stroke order. The first basic kanji are the building blocks of the later kanji.

A related note:
Skankster is right, flash cards are still the way to go, IF you use them correctly. You should practice writing kanji from flash cards too. Keep a pad of paper next to the cards, and try to write the kanji down before you flip the card to see if you're correct. Remember, there are two basic kanji skills, recognition AND production. If you only learn to recognize them, you still will have trouble producing them when you write. You have to exercise ALL the memory channels for effective memorization.
But it sure as hell isn't going to take a mere 3-4 months to memorize all the jouyou kanji properly.
As you get to higher levels, there are more effective ways to study than flash cards. The Bonjinsha Kanji Book 1000+ series is particularly effective at the advanced techniques. For example, they start teaching whole groups of kanji with the same radical, with subtle ways to discern meaning or pronunciation. This is more like native speakers' ways of using kanji, very worthwhile. Once you get to a higher level of kanji knowledge, rote memorization becomes less effective, you need a better view of the whole system to keep everything straight.

[devicenull]

eh, my v80 does that and gives 20 characters to choose from based on the input. usually gets it in there even if the order is wrong and can recognize simplified. I suggest looking on sites like http://www.kakaku.com for shit like this. Bic is such a fucking ripoff most of the time.

[vir-jin]

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dang

Where can I find that thing in Japan? Bic Camera?

Guess so. But it's so much cheaper in Akihabara. get out of the JR left hand and then straight forward along those little shops. The casio shop is about 100 m from the station.