I’ve acted on my idea for the website. I’ve purchased www.gattsu.net, grabbed some hosting, and setup shop. I’m currently working on adding the content I desire for the site. Please go to that site for updates. I will no longer be updating this blog here. I am leaving this blog here in case wordpress ever allows me to publish a blog via an rss feed from another site. Then I’ll just make this site mirror mine. =) See you at the new site!
Lance…
I’ve been thinking… Just blogging about my progress is note only unhelpful to others, it’s probably incredibly boring. My original concept for this blog was that it was more for me than anyone else. The more I think about it, the more I am convinced that I need to do MORE. You see, Khatzumoto’s Blog is great, and there is a LOT of stuff there, but there isn’t much organization. By this I mean, aside from a few categories, you have to search for what you need. This is good and bad. It is bad because this is time consuming and you can “lose” the viewer if they get bored. On the other hand, this is really good because it forces you to examine articles that you might otherwise have missed. You can see something that catches your eye and learn more. Great stuff.
So what’s the big deal then? Khatzumoto has a great site, and we don’t need another one, right? Right. We don’t need another Khatzumoto site. There are, however, some needs of the community that I believe are not met by Khatzumoto. Specifically, a forum area to share experiences, and more tools to help the community. (Please don’t take this as any sort of criticism of Khatzumoto’s site. He’s doing a great job and there is NOTHING wrong with his site.)
To that end, I think I will change the format here. Over the next few days I will be moving the blog over to my paid web hosting. I will then start running software(probably geeklog) that allows me to impliment some of my plans. if you’d like to help, let me know. More to come…
I’ve been toying with the idea of creating a game to help people learn Kanji. See, here’s the general idea. You pull up the game, and sign in. The system asks you the highest Heisig RTK Kanji frame number that you know. You then drop into the game with all the other players. You are given a Kanji meaning and given 10-15 seconds to write that Kanji on a little drawing pad on the screen using your mouse (or a stylus if you have a touch screen). Once the time is up, everybody’s drawings are shown to everybody else next to the Kanji they should have drawn, and everyone commences rating the accuracy and penmanship of the other players. Once all ratings are in, the system shows the winners for the round in 3 categories: accuracy, penmanship, and speed. (The system handles the speed rating.) The points in each category are added up and the players are ranked according to score for the round. When a player leaves the game, the system saves their accumulated points. Each day, week, and month the rankings are updated so a player can see how they fare in relation to other players. At the end of the month, the “Kanji Champion” is determined. His or her name go down on the Champion’s list, and everybody’s stats are cleared.
I am so tempted to write this. It sounds like it could be a LOT of fun. I *am* a programmer, but my web programming skills have slipped a bit due to disuse. Perhaps it’s time to dust off the ol’ Perl, PHP, or Java cap and go to work… I’d be interested to hear your comments, suggestions, and ideas on the game. Speak up man! (or woman!)
So… Despite having the new child and being much shorter on time, there has been progress. I am approaching 200 Kanji memorized! Heisig’s RTK philosophy is interesting. Learning the Kanji in English IS easier than learning them in Japanese, I believe, but I’ve been taking a bit of flack from friends and co-workers who doubt that this new way of learning Japanese will work. Of course, these nay-sayers have never really checked in to “the program”, so they really don’t understand what they are criticizing.
I’ve told several people this, and I’ll say it to all of my happy readers who chance upon the site. MARK MY WORDS! In 2 years I will be speaking Japanese, and not the broken Japanese of someone who’s taken a few courses. REAL Japanese. I’ll be reading books and fluent. You just watch. If after two years I’m not much further than I am now, I’ll eat crow. Heck, I’ll eat my shoe. Seriously. I’ll post pics too. On the other hand, if all goes well, not only will I be fluent, but my wife, my two sons, and myself will all be living in Japan. (This latter part may take a little longer as I’ve got a lot to learn about what work will be available to me in Japan, and how to go about getting that work.) So.. on with the show!
My apologies for the lack of updates. My wife gave birth to a beautiful baby boy on Wednesday Dec. 19th. Ryan Nicholas was born at 7:46am, weighed 7.2 pounds, and measured 20.5 inches. Right now helping my wife is the priority. I’m still learning Kanji, I’m just not blogging about it. It’s going a little slower than I would have liked, but thats to be expected. Take care and Merry Christmas!
So much to do… So much to do… So I’ve been thinking about how I’m going to immerse myself in all things Japanese. In some ways I’m already there.
Incidentally, this list came from here. The more I read of Khatzumoto-san’s site, the more I see I have to do to get where I’m going. No matter. Keep making sure I’m on the right course and then STAY ON IT. GATTSU!
Alright… So I’ve been messing around with things a little bit more, and I think I’ve come to a decision. For now. =) I’m actually surprisign myself with this. I’m going to use JUST the PalmOS portion of Stackz (PalmStackz) for my standard drilling. I’ll also use Anki for Palm OS, which is a flashcard program I’ve used for years. It can do multiple choice, which I think helps a lot when first learning stuff. Finally, I’ve installed and played around with KingKanji and I’ll be trying the 30 day trial of that out. I like not having to carry around pencil and paper to practice my Kanji writing, and KingKanji actually gives me feedback on my Kanji. I’m planning on doing at least a little pencil work with each Kanji, bujt I’ll do that at home. My PDA is where I’ll be doing most of my learning. Very nice if I do say so myself. As usual, let me know if all none of you who are reading this have any better ideas. =)
Once I get through the Kanji phase of the program, I may mix things up again as far as software goes, but this works for me. So… I’ve done the first lesson of Remembering The Kanji(RTK). And by done I mean I’ve read through it, and I can identify each character on site. I’m now working on going the other direction. (See the meaning and write the character.) I should be moving on to lesson 2 tomorrow.
At this point I’m planning on just seeing how many I can do in a day. the first 15 were a breeze. If this keeps up, I think I could do 40-60 a day, given enough time. And that just may be the deciding factor. Time. 20, at least, should be no problem, and I can probably pick up the slack during the weekends. I guess we’ll see. Assuming I can keep a pace of between 20 and 60 Kanji a day that works out to roughly 1-3 months to learn all the Kanji. I don’t plan on taking shortcuts to “get it done”, so I’m leaning toward the 3 month figure, but we’ll see if I can keep up a quicker pace or not.
Alright… I’ve put a ton of thought in to the whole SRS thing. I thought I was totally set on buying Stackz. I went so far as to place my order, but something just felt all wrong. So I canceled it. So then I started looking for a replacement. The thing is, it’s gotta run on PalmOS. At first I was going to use an older program called Anki for PalmOS. (Not to be confused with the free program of the same name that runs on Windows, Mac, and Linux.) I already own a copy of it, and somebody had already created the RTK (Remembering The Kana) list for it. But then I realized it wasn’t a true SRS. It was just flashcard software. It doesn’t track your successes and failures and bring the ones your having trouble with up more often. It just throws them at you in random order and thats it.
So then I hop back to Stackz, but think about purchasing JUST the PalmOS version, which is only $15. This would be perfect. But then I remember a small program called KingKanji. I tried it once a long time ago and thought it would be great to buy if I ever actually start learning Kanji. So I went to the website, and was really impressed. You can actually practice stroke order on your PDA and it lets you know how your doing. I was almost ready to buy. Then I realized, it was NOT SRS software. Again, it was just flashcard software. *sigh*
Well, I think I know what I’m going to do. I think I’m going to buy the PalmOS version of stackz, and just use paper to practice the actual writing. If anybody has advice I’d love to hear it.
Lance…
I know I said I wasn’t going to document the whole system, but I think some sort of explanation is in order. This will serve to reinforce the process to me, and if my new acquaintance Khatzumoto-san takes a look he can correct my misconceptions. It will also serve as an overview of what I plan to others who may read this blog after the fact and start to become curious about the process being used. So, without further delay, here is “The System”, and the particular way I intend to use it.First, I will mention the steps as outlined by the wonderful folks at Antimoon:
Now the same method as adopted to Japanese by Khatsumoto-san at AllJapaneseAllTheTime:
Comment: No, as far as I know, Khatzumoto-san is not a jerk. He seems a great guy. Shutup and trust me. You’ll thank me later. =p
Alright, now what does this translate to for me? Well, read on…
And that’s it. I have plans for after all of this, but I’ll share those later. Take care.
Lance…
Gattsu is a Japanese adoption of the English word “Guts”. It’s use is (as I understand it) similar to the English usage in the sentence “He’s got guts.”. It’s meaning is about sticking it out through adversity. I think. I chose this name because that is the backbone of my method. Let me explain..
About two years ago a weighed about 240 pounds. I was in poor shape, and had been diagnosed with non-insulin dependent diabetes. I lived with this for a while, but then decided I was not going to be another statistic. I tried various diet plans, and stumbled upon one that seemed right. I committed myself 100% to this diet. I now weigh 195 pounds, and am no longer diabetic. I used “gattsu” to pull myself through the process of losing weight.
Was it easy? No at first. But gradually my habits changed to be in line with my chosen way of eating and losing weight and in time, I naturally made the right decisions. “gattsu” was required early on to keep going. Once I started seeing results, success was enough to keep me on the path.
So… Back to Japanese. I plan on using “gattsu” to learn Japanese. And when I say “learn”, I don’t mean to master a few phrases and some basic grammar. I mean complete and total fluency. I plan to eat, drink, breath, sleep, and live Japanese as much as life will allow, and when I’m done, I’ll be not just conversational, but fluent as any average Japanese adult.
What’s that you say? You say it will take more than “gattsu” to accomplish this? Well, you’re right. I’m not an idiot. I have a plan, and luckily for me, it’s a plan that has worked for others. It’s certainly not a mainstream plan, but it’s one that works 100% of the time for those who stick with it. Here’s the scoop:
Some time ago there were a couple guys in Poland that set out to learn English. They decided that endless hours of studying grammar in classrooms settings is not going to make them “fluent”. I mean, how can you speak quickly and naturally if you have to spend precious moments thinking about your sentence structure? So they devised an unorthodox way of learning. They learned to read and pronounce English first. They essentially learned to properly sound out words they saw in English. They then got in to English by reading, by watching movies, and by playing games, all in English. When they came across a sentence they didn’t know, they would write it down and learn it. Learning it does not mean they picked apart the sentence to learn its grammar. Rather, they strove to understand the meaning of the sentence. In time, as they continued to do this, they started to grok (grasp) English intuitively. Sentences that they had never seen or heard made sense to them. Their minds were learning English the same way a child born to English speaking parents would. Through learning, listening, repeating, and a little experimentation.
Don’t believe me? Ask yourself this. Does a 3-4 year old child know what a verb, or a noun is? Did somebody sit down with them, throw endless amounts of vocabulary words and make them read tightly packed definitions and examples of grammar and proper usage? No. They listened. Their sentences at first were simple. But they built on that. They learned “want cookie”. They then figured out that they could say “want milk” and get milk, or whatever they wanted. They learned “I” meant me, and figured out they could say “I want a cookie”. Their knowledge continued to increase and build upon what went before until eventually they became fluent English speaking adults.
You might be thinking “That took them years and years to accomplish!”. You’re right, but guess what? I have a distinct advantage. I’m already an adult. I already have an understanding of basic and advanced concepts of life. I don’t have to learn what rain is. I don’t have to learn how to walk while I figure all this out. I know all that. I just have to learn Japanese. Mark my words. Two years from now, I’ll be speaking Japanese fluently.
Still don’t believe me? Check out the web site that documents their way of doing things: Antimoon
STILL don’t believe me? Check out the web site of Khatzumoto-san, the guy who learned fluent Japanese in 18 months using the system: AllJapaneseAllTheTime
STILL don’t believe me? Fine. Go sign yourself up for a class somewhere or something. We’ll see who’s speaking fluently first.
Think there may be something to this? Read on. I plan on documenting what I do. At this point I’m not going to tell you the steps involved. That is well covered on the two web sites listed above. Instead, I’m going to tell you specifically what I do, and how things are going. I’ll record my discoveries here, and maybe those will help the next person.
This web site is for me too. I find that documenting things like this helps me get through. It helps me stick to it, and occasionally, somebody reads it and gives support, or ideas, or whatever. Thats great stuff.
I do have one word of warning. This blog will not be all in English. As a matter of fact, by the end of it, it will be completely in Japanese. I may translate portions of it for the purposes of showing non-Japanese speakers where I ended up, but for now, it behooves me to use as much Japanese as possible. My apologies to those who wish to follow my adventures but can’t because they can no longer understand them. That’s a ways away, but it will happen. Until then, enjoy the English. =)
Well… Here I go… Since nobody else is reading this, I’ll say it to myself: GANBATTE!
