My practice sentences...
- Thread starter zxuiji
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- 5 May 2013
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Don't do that. It's a well known fact of SRS (spaced repetition system) memorization that a ratio of around 80% success allows you to memorize the most information. Forgetting is natural, and trying to memorize perfectly means that you end up learning less in total.
That is to say, if you practice twice as many words at 80% success rate, then you'll have learned 1.6x more words than trying to hit 100% success rate.
If I understand correctly, memrise is basically an SRS flashcard system with a lot of multimedia options and premade flashcard decks (which they call 'lessons', but don't misunderstand, they are decks of digital flashcards.)
For your reference: Spaced repetition - Wikipedia
I also use a spaced repetition system (Anki), and so does Mike Cash, although I'm constantly forgetting the name of his favorite system. So, first of all... they are great at assisting you in learning and retaining vocabulary, but they really don't do anything beyond that. That is, you won't learn much in the way of grammar from them. If you have a lot of full-sentence cards (or questions or whatever your app calls them), you might learn some common fixed expressions and reinforce grammar that you already understand, which is also useful, but it's hardly everything.
The other thing is, that while 80% is the theoretical ideal learning rate, a lot of people (including me) find it really frustrating to fail that often. I aim for a 90% success rate in my reviews, because while it may not be the mathematical maximum, it feels a lot better and it's a lot easier and more enjoyable to review when you're answering correctly 90% of the time. (Maybe this is an artifact of school grades where 90% is often the cutoff for top marks, or maybe it has to do with the way we are emotionally hurt more by failure than we are gratified by success. Or maybe it's just me... many people do run at a strict 80% rate for mathematically ideal learning.)
I don't use memrise so I can't say for certain, but common ways of manipulating success rates are 'difficulty' levels in correct answers (wrong / easy / normal/ hard), settings that adjust the review period scaling, and rates at which new cards are added. Oh, and 'extra' reviews, or 'cram' modes, which review in addition to the set timings, which you should basically never use unless you're desperately pushing to pass an upcoming test. They're terrible for your long term learning efficiency.
The defaults in most quality apps (and memrise has a good reputation) are pretty good and you shouldn't screw with them to try to hit an unrealistic '100% success rate'.
I did watch the video and I don't know that I feel good about that course you're using. I like the A/V cards with their full sentences, but you also had a bunch of romaji only cards, and then you had a bunch of cards that seemed to be full kanji. You should really be using all-kana right now, and a slowly adding in kanji.
Romaji is fine for starting out, but you should be done with it by 2 months into your studying, and everything should be kana or kana/kanji mix. As for kanji... well, that's a big hurdle, and you want to pace yourself, learning 5 or 10 a day. If you just drop into full kanji mode right away, I expect you'll be endless lost with similar-looking kanji. (Some people do have excellent visual memories though... I'm not one of them, I mixed up kanji endlessly until I went back to the start at systematically learned them with Heisig's mnemonic system, 'Remembering the Kanji'.)
- 15 Mar 2002
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- 5 May 2013
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I was checking in with someone on A Certain Other Language Learning Forum about this, and have suggestion for a memrise course for you that follows Tae Kim. That way at least, what you're drilling in memrise and what you're reading about in Tae Kim will line up.
Check out the 'suggested guide to Japanese literacy':
SGJL 04 - Tae Kim's Japanese Grammar pt 01, SGJL, Japanese grammar, Basic Grammar, Grammar Guide, Tae Kim, Guide to Japanese - Memrise
He also says, "While the course is technically easy, I recommend telling him to "translate" the sentence or word from English to Japanese then check the sentences to see how well he did (and repeat the correct line regardless)."
(He is himself the author of the course that he suggested, but I wouldn't hold that against him. He has a long history of providing lists and guides for new students of Japanese and now he's making memrise courses and youtube videos.)
Check out the 'suggested guide to Japanese literacy':
SGJL 04 - Tae Kim's Japanese Grammar pt 01, SGJL, Japanese grammar, Basic Grammar, Grammar Guide, Tae Kim, Guide to Japanese - Memrise
He also says, "While the course is technically easy, I recommend telling him to "translate" the sentence or word from English to Japanese then check the sentences to see how well he did (and repeat the correct line regardless)."
(He is himself the author of the course that he suggested, but I wouldn't hold that against him. He has a long history of providing lists and guides for new students of Japanese and now he's making memrise courses and youtube videos.)
zxuiji
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- 27 Feb 2017
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- #155
おはよ
Only just read your posts, thanks for the tip about tae kims course in memrise, as for stickystudy I will give it a try after I complete the courses I downloaded, the around 80% thing is my current scenario so I will take that into account and just continue with the course instead of frequently reviewing.
Only just read your posts, thanks for the tip about tae kims course in memrise, as for stickystudy I will give it a try after I complete the courses I downloaded, the around 80% thing is my current scenario so I will take that into account and just continue with the course instead of frequently reviewing.
In regards this statement Chris said, for anyone who watched the video and didn't notice like he didn't, the modules I pulled up on the side mid way through are treated as seperate courses. I started the video on the "...(no script)" versions and the kana/kanji that you saw later on where in the versions without that "...(no script)" attatched to their name
As for this which Mike said, that's something I tend to do before I fill out a reviewed item (I think I actually said 1 or 2 under my breath during that video), I also cover the words with my hand to see if I can remember without hints.
zxuiji
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- 27 Feb 2017
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- #156
Shoulda mentioned this when I downloaded the tae kim course but I don't plan on revisiting the forums until I have completed the existing part of the course which is 163 sub courses, I've done 8 so far so I think it will be roughly a month to 2 months before I reappear here, if this thread is archived by then then I'll just a new one.
zxuiji
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- 27 Feb 2017
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- #158
Was reading a translated chapter online and the translater mentioned this sentence:
俺にだって空豆くらいのプライドはある
Putting aside the kanji I currently can't read I went ahead and read the kana outloud for the hell of it but stumbled at は because I wasn't sure whether to read it as wa or ha, is there a general rule of thumb to use when determining that?
俺にだって空豆くらいのプライドはある
Putting aside the kanji I currently can't read I went ahead and read the kana outloud for the hell of it but stumbled at は because I wasn't sure whether to read it as wa or ha, is there a general rule of thumb to use when determining that?
- 15 Mar 2002
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When it is used as a particle, it is "wa". When it is part of a word, it is "ha". In this case it is a particle.
- 22 Feb 2008
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There is a well-known example of ambiguous Japanese sentence: ここではきものをぬいでください. Two interpretations are possible for this sentence.
ここでは着物を脱いでください。
Koko de wa kimono wo nuide kudasai.
Please put off your clothes here.
ここで履物を脱いでください。
Koko de hakimono wo nuide kudasai.
Please put off your shoes here.
Now you can see how important and convenient kanji is to convey the meaning correctly, right?
- 15 Mar 2002
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You'll find the same situation applies to へ. When it is a particle, read it as "e". When it is part of a word, read it as "he".
zxuiji
Sempai
- 27 Feb 2017
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- #163
Think I only ever glanced at that particle before I got the memrise app so I forgot it even existed, but thank you for clarifying, does the same situation apply to any other particle? Or is there other rules of thumb to keep in mind for the other particles that I'll be learning?
- 22 Feb 2008
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It's impossible to read out the kana correctly without knowing the meaning, as my example shows. You need to recognize that は is a particle in ここでは着物を脱いでください。 or プライドはある, and therefore it should be read as "wa" at first glance. (In other words, usually it's OK you just become able to do that since you wouldn't encounter ambiguous cases so frequently.)
zxuiji
Sempai
- 27 Feb 2017
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- #166
Well because of the pride being katakanised I did think it might be, I just wanted to be sure since I'm still learning to differentiate between the two. Still focusing on memrise for now though, since the amount of words I've supposedly learnt has gone over a hundred now I've just today taken to trying to recall them without the app's visual clues, I basically copied out all the english versions (with the section they were in) into a list recently and then on another notepad I today attempted to write their hirigana and if I think remember it the kanji, after which I refer to memrise to see if I got them all right and relearn what I've forgotten (frankly I'm aiming for 100% hit rate until the number reaches around 1000, then I'll switch to that 80% thing), with this I was thinking it should help ingrain the words into my head so that I'm not spending a lot of time trying to remember the meaning of words and instead focus on the meaning of the sentences that I'll be moving onto after.
- 15 Mar 2002
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You're welcome.
So I take it you are not using Tae Kim and the Memrise deck for Tae Kim. Is that correct?
zxuiji
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- 27 Feb 2017
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- #169
I am using the memrise deck (it just doesn't give a non-visual clue mode so the notepad stuff is in addition), as for the guide once I'm able to read 800+ kanji I'll start reading it in between gaming (Dunno if you play it or not but in FFXV there's plenty of oppotunities to put the controller down for a minute or two which is when I would do my reading) since I'm in the habit of trying to read the kanji as well which really slows me down since at the moment I don't know enough japanese words.
- 15 Mar 2002
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I'll be 52 soon, so I'm from a generation that grew up without easy access to video games and consequently never developed the habit. My son is a professional video game programmer but I have zero interest in them myself.
I think you're going about learning Japanese in what I can only think of as a completely whack-assed way that makes no sense whatsoever, but you know that already. Would you like to guess how many kanji (and kana) and how many Japanese words I knew before I started in on learning the sort of thing everybody here has been begging you to do?
I think you're going about learning Japanese in what I can only think of as a completely whack-assed way that makes no sense whatsoever, but you know that already. Would you like to guess how many kanji (and kana) and how many Japanese words I knew before I started in on learning the sort of thing everybody here has been begging you to do?
zxuiji
Sempai
- 27 Feb 2017
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- #171
It may be wackass but it works for my short attention span, if I try to do bulky 学 all at once I simply lose interest quickly but if I break it up I end up retaining enough interest to continue learning, besides which I'm not in a rush to learn にほんご (I don't remember the かんじ yet as that was seperate course and infrequent), I'm only doing it because I'm impatient with translators or some decent stories get dropped part way in after I've already gotten into it, I'm not planning on visiting にほん anytime soon or talking to visiting にほん人 so it's fine if I take it at my own pace. As for guessing how many かんじ you new before you started learning the grammar I guessing that since you most likely have a better attention span than me and are most likely able to ignore the passing かんじ that you coudn't read you probably started with 一 or 二 at most. Incendently the additional notepad stuff seems to be helping since I'm remembered more than 昨日 (I think that's きのう unless I remembered wrong). And yes since I don't yet have the grammar down I'm just practicing the words by slipping them in my english, incidently would 学大 have carried the same meaning as bulky study or am I needing a particle and/or re-order there, I didn't use 大学 since I already know from the Tae Kim deck that means college - in case you're wandering I've just finished section 35 today, it's already included some grammar stuff in earlier sections too.
zxuiji
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- 27 Feb 2017
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- #174
For now just the decks, I'll move onto the guide after the deck is done since the deck is including grammar anyways - I need to よみ the guide because some of the grammar already mentioned by the deck is still not clear to me in it's usage, for example I wasn't sure whether to use that が particle when I asked about 学大 to form this: 学が大
- 22 Feb 2008
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1)
The single kanji 学 usually can't be used to represent a noun "study".
studyの意味 - goo辞書 英和和英
2)
"Bulky" is an adjective. 大 can work like an adjective in some compound words, but it's not a noun anyway. Thus, it's not the problem of particle. が is a subject marker (or object marker for specific verbs/adjectives). The predicative(verb, adjective or copula) is always needed to use it at least in modern Japanese. You need to learn the function of particles before using it.
The single kanji 学 usually can't be used to represent a noun "study".
studyの意味 - goo辞書 英和和英
2)
"Bulky" is an adjective. 大 can work like an adjective in some compound words, but it's not a noun anyway. Thus, it's not the problem of particle. が is a subject marker (or object marker for specific verbs/adjectives). The predicative(verb, adjective or copula) is always needed to use it at least in modern Japanese. You need to learn the function of particles before using it.
