Nihongojouzu

JLPT Level 4 Vocabulary Quiz

Charles Kelly, hot on the heels of his adjective quiz, has just put out a new  vocabulary  quiz for Level 4 of the JLPT (Japanese Language Proficiency Test). The quiz is based on 727 words of vocab from the JLPT Level 4 Vocabulary List put together by  Peter van der Woude, who scored a guernsey in my post about his JLPT study page. Charles Kelly points out that a chap from the The Japan Foundation (which publishes the Test Content Specifications) suggested he put a disclaimer on the site stating:

"...that it does not offer any official information on the JLPT. In fact there are no official lists of vocabulary to choose from. Your lists should be viewed as useful tools, not a comprehensive guide."

I mentioned a similar caveat in my post on the test specs- the vocab lists can be a great start but don't be surprised when words NOT on the list appear on the test. You have been warned.

Nagoya University Japanese WebCMJ Grammar Online

Nagoya University WebCJM Japanese Grammar Online has a 20 Lesson selection of quizzes covering basic Japanese grammar. Based on the book A Course in Modern Japanese (CMJ) [Revised Edition] they look like this:

Lesson 12 Exercise 1

Change the form of the verb into potential forms:

食べる　

imperfective affirmative
imperfective negative
perfective affirmative
perfective negative

Very dry and jargon-heavy but if you ever want to teach Japanese or win arguments over the difference between perfect and perfective then highly useful. Seriously, though not by any means exciting this is good solid stuff.

100 yen shop picture cards

I wrote about the bargain study materials to be found at 100 yen shops (１００円均一, or in common parlance "ひゃっきん”） in the post Cheap Resources. Japan resident Myles Spooner has kindly written to me telling me about some picture cards he recently discovered:

I always look for study materials at 100yen shops. I went to the seria せりや 100yen shop and I stumbled upon some learning cards. They had them for math, aisatsu, norimono etc. I guess these are for children. Beside that I found some sakana type cards, and insects/bug type cards. On one side is the picture of the fish/insect and it is written in hiragana. On the other side it has a description of the animal as well as the name of the animal in kanji! I never knew the kanji for fugu etc.

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention the best part. I have no idea for the fish what the name could possibly be in English 'cause all fish look the same to me. The English is written for each animal! Great, eh? What a steal at 100en.

From the look of the pictures Myles took these look perfect for beginners  - especially people who have just arrived in Japan. First, use the cards to learn a whole bunch of basic nouns.

And then use the animal descriptions (lots of hiragana, not too many kanji) to practise reading.

The Importance of Reading Comprehension

Adamu at MutantFrog Travelogue has written an excellent piece on the importance of developing good Japanese reading comprehension skills. Adamu points out a number of great resources for practicing reading and the discussions carried on in the comments sections make some good points too. While I am of the "learn the sounds of the language first" camp I have to concede that for anyone seeking to use Japanese for work, simply being fluent will not cut it - you have to be literate as well, and this means lots of reading. One comment accused Adamu of being harsh in his assessment of the skills of many Japanese language graduates, but I think he is being realistic - if you put the hours in you can achieve literacy in Japanese, but most people just don't put the hours in.

Harry Potter and reading for vocabulary

I need to work on my vocabulary. This becomes obvious to me every time I venture outside the familiar confines of friend or work-related conversation. I have some parallel goals. I want to learn the words in context - learning a new noun means that I will probably understand it next time I hear it on the radio, but I want to be able to use it in conversation, so I need to know how  and when to use it too. I also want a finite goal each day so when I have achieved it I can say "Great. Done. Time to play with my cat."

My objectives, in a nutshell:

1. Increase my vocabulary
2. Learn the words in context
3. Have a finite goal each day

Here's a technique I have been using for increasing vocabulary through reading (or conversely reading for vocabulary). I confess I stole and modified it from Dougal Phillips, Australian Japanese language wizard and owner of becomingagun.com but I can't refer you to his original article because it lived at a now defunct Geocities site and has yet to reappear on becomingagun.com, so here is my precis.

Each morning I read one page of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, or rather ハリー・ポッターと賢者の石。

Why Harry?

a. I already know the story, which helps me guess meaning.

b. There is a lot of speech throughout the book, so I am learning a lot of words and phrases I can employ in conversation.

c. Heaps of new vocab, especially descriptive terms.

d. I kind of fancy Hermione.

And I follow these steps:

1. I limit myself to one page a day. Only one? Yep. Just one. Some days there will be more words than others, but it averages out. The point is that I have a clear goal - and achieving it feels good.

2. I read the page, pencil in hand. For those of you who like to keep study books pristine I say "get over it". You are here to learn, and writing in your book will aid that aim (keeping the book clean satifies no learning need that I can think of).

3. When I encounter a kanji I am not familiar with I put a line next to it and then write a "K" in the margin. For words I do not know I do the same thing, but use "M" (for "meaning"). For phrases which I understand but are not yet part of my verbal arsenal I write a "U" for "Hey, that's a cool expression - I think I would like to USE it"

4. When I get to the last character on the page I stop, even if the story is terribly exciting and I want to know what happens next. Harry and his pals will still be on the page when I get back.

5. I transcribe all the kanji, words and phrases into my Kokuyo notebook, in three columns. Left hand side for kanji, middle for the reading and the right hand side for the meaning/explanation.

6. I get out my trusty Canon Wordtank, look up meanings, readings etc and add them to the note book.

7. I turn the words into flash cards and review them. I am using paper flashcards to keep  me away from the computer but iFlash or FlashcardSuite are just as good.

Here's a sample from page 243 (which I read this morning)

• 措置       そち        a step, a measure
• 必死       ひっし       inevitable
• 堪える     こらえる     bear, stand, endure,
• 当惑       とうわく　　　perplexity, embarassmment      
• むき出す   むきだす　　show, bare (eg teeth)    
• 押し殺す    おしころす    suppress (eg laughter)
• 大理石     だいりせき    marble
• 存分に     ぞんぶんに   to one's heart's content   
• 掠める       かすめる     steal, pilfer, filch
• 破る        やぶる　　　　break (This one I included because I forget how to write it)
• 褒美        ほうび        prize, reward
• 背後        はいご　　　back, rear   
• 睨み       にらみ　　　a glance
  
• 口を利く  くちをきく　talk
• ツン                            a sharp movement of the head
• そっぽをむく　　　　　look the other way

And do I achieve my objectives? (Assuming I stick to the plan - and I do)

1. Increase my vocabulary
Sure do. Take today's list - 16 "words". Not bad. That's 112 per week, 448 per month or 5376 a year. Less if you take weekends off. Some days there are only a few words I don't know. On the other hand, when Dumbledore starts talking the page is soon covered with pencil marks.

2. Learn the words in context
I write the page number of the book in my notebook so at any time I can immediately look up the word and see how it was used.

3. Have a finite goal each day
The 1 page a day rule is important. If you read 2 or 3 pages before taking stock of new vocabulary you will likely accumulate a huge list of words which take a long time to transcribe, causing you to lose interest and motivation partway and leading to you abandoning the activity. Reading and looking up the words for only one page should take you no longer than 30 minutes, so you can do it in the morning before work/school or at lunchtime. The psychological aspect is important - "just a page" is easier to face than " a few pages" and knowing you can knock the task over in half an hour makes it less likely you will procrastinate.

The down side - at approximately 450 pages it will take a year and a half to read one book. But I am guessing that the better my vocabulary gets the less words I will need to write down and I should be able to progress to 2, or even 3 pages a day. But first things first.

I am not directly helping my reading fluency with this stop-write-transcribe approach, but that is OK because my aim is not fluency it is vocab. For fluency I am ready Densha Otoko - no dictionary, no stopping and writing, just plowing through it and guessing where necessary).

Try this method out, see if it works for you and let me know any pitfalls you face.

Notebook, Wordtank, novel - Accio!

How not to sound like a textbook

One common affliction of the beginner student of Japanese is that she speaks like a textbook, reproducing written Japanese phrases verbatim in conversation, eg:

私は昨日松山に行きました。　

This is grammatically correct. Say it and you will be understood. But you sound like a textbook. The speaker probably meant to say "I went to Matsuyama yesterday".  If that was the case, then:

昨日松山に行きました。

would do the job. Assuming a conversation between two people there is no need to throw in the 私は　- the person you are talking to knows from context that you are talking about yourself. If it was your cat who went to Matsuyama yesterday then feel free to throw in うちの猫は　because unless you are holding the cat and pointing to it as you speak context does NOT tell the the other person who went.

So at one level the distinction is between the written and spoken word.

But there is also the factor of register. Say you are talking with a peer, a friend, a buddy. 昨日松山に行きました  is way more formal than necessary, and may have the effect of making you sound like you want to maintain some distance from the person you are talking to. At the least you will sound unnatural because your friends will be using the dictionary form/casual form.

昨日松山に行った

or even just：

昨日松山行った

The problem is compounded when answering questions:

Aさん：　　昨日どこに行きましたか？
Bさん：　　私は昨日松山に行きました。

Walking textbook syndrome. Cut the 私は　for a start (see above). And 昨日　- it can go too - you don't need it because it was in the question. You can even lose the に行きました　because that is understood from the question too - all you really need to say is: 松山.

Aさん：　　昨日どこに行きましたか？
Bさん：　　松山。

(Sticklers might want to stick a です　or a でした　on the end as a nod to formality)

I mention this because I am currently enrolled in a course on teaching Japanese and the instructor, a witty and droll woman by the name of Uno Sensei, broached this issue during class the other week. The point arose as Uno Sensei explained one of her fundamental precepts - that teachers should teach from the textbook, and NOT teach the textbook. She gave the example of the verb to give (to another): あげる。　In many textbooks you will find examples like 友達に本をあげます。　Uno Sensei explained that while this was wonderfully correct Japanese it simply was not what people say when they hand a book to a friend. What would people actually say when handing over a gift? A simple どうぞ.

Uno Sensei's point was that a teacher has the responsibility for ensuring that not only do the students learn good, grammatical Japanese but that they also learn how to speak the way Japanese people speak in the real world. She was very clear on the point, telling everyone in the seminar room that it was their responsibility to point out where textbook Japanese and real life Japanese diverge.

We were covering  the topic of time, and how to ask what time someone gets up:
何時に起きますか？

Uno Sensei picked people at random and asked them: 何時に起きますか？
She then had people answer in full sentences like:  ７時に起きます。

Now there is a reason for having students answer in full sentences - it gives them experience in using new phrases and helps them internalise forms through use. But I had to ask - how do you get students to both remember new forms but also speak the way a Japanese person would - the two goals seem mutually exclusive.

Uno Sensei's answer was simple. When addressing the teacher you answer in full sentences, but when talking amongst classmates/friends you should just answer naturally:

先生: 何時に起きますか？
Aさん:  ７時に起きます。

Eさん：　何時に起きますか？
Fさん：　７時。

In this way you associate the teacher with formal answers and class mates with casual Japanese speech, in effect creating separate memory pegs for each kind of Japanese. When it comes to writing something down you should be able to access the more formal speech you used with Sensei, but on a beer-fueled karaoke night of debauchery the casual forms should flow.

Nihongoresources.com

Nihongoresources is an excellent collection of....well, I think the name gives it away. Amongst other things the author (Michiel Kamermans, AI researcher and poet) has created a 285 page grammar guide downloadable as a PDF, a Kansai-ben dictionary, a giongo/mimesis dictionary and an extensive coverage of the Joyo kanji. I enjoyed the description of verb conjugations because of the way Michiel explained the relationship with classical Japanese, making it much easier to see how the language works - so much better than just saying "this is a Group 1 verb and this is Group 2". Great stuff. Hours, nay, days of learning joy. Highly recommended for all levels. Go, read, learn, enjoy.

The Super Dictionary

I am not a fan of PDAs - Personal Digital Assistants that is- Public Displays of Affection are fine, especially if I am the recipient. Between a PowerBook, iPod, Wordtank and mobile phone I feel I have enough gadgets and I like the kinaesthetic aspect of taking notes in my trusty Kokuyo 105 by 148 mm Campus notebook. Some people however love PDAs - and this hint is for them. Peter Rivard has written an article about setting up a PDA to be a super dictionary - for those people who are yet to fork out for a Canon Wordtank or other electronic dictionary you may be persuaded....

261 Commonly-Used Japanese Adjectives

Online resource guru Charles Kelly has just uploaded a Flash-based quiz on the ii-adjectives marked as commonly used in EDICT as of 2006-07-14. Straightforward stuff - you are given an adjective in kanji/kana and you have to pick the correct meaning from 4 or 5 options (depends on which quiz you pick). I gave it a whirl, did 100 questions and got paddled - only 82% correct. A lot of sneaky bastard never-heard-in-conversation chaps like ねばりづよい　and いちじるしい, which makes it perfect for people studying for JLPT 1kyu. English-日本語 quizzes too.

Colloquial Kansai Japanese

Making a determined attempt at being the Japanese language book with the longest ever title: "Colloquial Kansai Japanese まいど！おきに！関西弁 The dialects and culture of the Kansai Region ", this tome is a well written, thoughtful explanation of that most colorful tongue - Kansai-ben.

On a shopping expedition to Kobe and Osaka last weekend I was drawn into the black hole that is the Kinokuniya bookshop in Umeda, There I stumbled upon Colloquial Kansai Japanese. I picked it up more out of curiosity than anything else - I harbour no burning desire to master the tongue of the manzai wit, but the book's easy conversational tone sucked me in and I decided to take a copy home (after paying for it of course).

Colloquial Kansai Japanese starts out with an introduction to the basics of Kansai-ben, simple stuff but well laid out and easy to follow, for example, contractions:

Standard Japanese        Kansai-ben        English
よく                              よう                    very, well
おもしろい                    おもろい             interesting

Then to words unique to Kansai:

Standard japanese        Kansai-ben         English
あたたかい                    ぬくい                  warm
ころぶ                          こける                  fall down

It was at this point, page 13, that I was hooked. Why? Because everyday I am bombarded with Mishima-ben, the dialect of the city I live in, and by reading CKJ I could see how closely related the two dialects are. I have worked out the basics of Mishima-ben but if I had possessed CJK I could have saved a lot of time.

eg こうた　is Kansai/Mishima dialect for かった, whilst もろた　is もらった。

My point - the book is useful not only for people in the Kansai region but for western Japan generally - hell, with the number of Osaka TV personalities these days it is useful for anyone who watches TV.　

Following the introduction the book goes on to describe 15 survival words (eg あかん、ほんま、おる、や）providing plenty of example sentences along the way. The contextualisation of all the examples makes Colloquial Kansai Japanese very easy to follow, and the healthy dose of notes on usage means that you can start using Kansai-ben straight away. The examples have both romaji and kana/kanji, so even beginners are catered for. Later chapters present a further 15 basic words and masses of sample conversations. There is even a dictionary/glossary at the back.

Those who click through to Amazon to purchase this choice tome may be surprised to note that the book has yet to garner even a single Amazon review, which would make sense if the book was newly published, but it came out in 1995........The answer is simple - in its former incarnation the book was called Kinki Japanese. Anyone with Japanese Geography 101 knows that Kinki is another name for the Kansai region and it doesn't take a great deal of brainpower to work out that someone finally realised that for an English speaking audience the title Kinki Japanese may not have been the best way to market the book.

174 pages and only 1200 yen too. A bargain. Do yourself a favour.