Nihongojouzu

Remembering the Kanji 2 and 3 reprinted

Volumes 2 and 3 of Remembering the Kanji are now available for pre-ordering on Amazon or direct from the publisher, University of Hawai'i Press. Copies of the earlier edition of Volume 2, which deals with the readings for the kanji set out in Volume 1, are still available in shops and online, but Volume 3 has been out of print for a while. Remembering the Kanji 3: Writing and Reading Japanese Characters for Upper-level Proficiency covers an additional 1000 kanji based on the primitives described in Volume 1, and adds a few bonus primitive elements. It is also possible to place an order through Nanzan University, where James Heisig teaches. Hardcore paperless people can always opt for the e-book version of RTK3.

New General Use Kanji from 2010

What do the following kanji have in common?

「奈」「岡」「熊」「梨」「阜」「埼」「茨」「栃」「鹿」「阪」「媛」

If you guessed that they all belong to the names of prefectures, you'd be right.

「奈良」「岡山」「熊本」「山梨」「鹿児島」「大阪」

「岐阜」「埼玉」「茨城」「栃木」「愛媛」

But that's not all they have in common - none of these kanji belong to the official General Use or Joyo kanji. Despite the fact that these kanji are widely known and commonly used they have managed to escape inclusion in the official list of kanji that you simply have to know. The Nihon Keizai Shinbun reports that the Council for Cultural Affairs has finally caught on, and from 2010 these 11 kanji will be included in a new, revised version of the Joyo kanji. In practical terms this means that schoolchildren will have to not only be able to read the "new" kanji, they will have to learn to write them - there goes my party trick whereby I challenge people to write the kanji for Ehime...

Original article: NikkeiNet

Kanji extensions for internet domains: .日本 from 2009

The Asahi Shimbun had an article this morning about the introduction of non-alphabet internet domain extensions. In response to demands from countries where the roman alphabet is not used, ICANN decided in November last year on a policy allowing non-alphabetic extensions. The example given in the article was kanji: from 2009 it will be possible to have a URL which looks like this:

http://OOOOOOO.日本

Since 2001 it has been possible to use non-alphabetic characters for domains, eg:

http://日本.com

So from 2009 this will be possible:

http://日本.日本

The details of the policy will be hammered out this year. Though the article focused on Japanese, naturally these changes will also allow the use of Arabic, Devanagari etc.

NB According to the TV news, Japanese seniors will find the changes helpful, as they haven't really taken to those newfangled roman letters.

Facebook: Kanji Box

Users of social networking wunderapp Facebook know that not only is the site a great way to waste whole days throwing sheep and zombie-biting people but you can also keep tabs on all of your friends. I spend more than enough time online and ignore anything on Facebook except messages (so if you have been wondering why your ninja invitation lies unanswered - now you know!) but I am only human, and when I noticed an app called Kanji Box my curiosity was piqued. Kanji Box is a simple quiz application which operates within Facebook. It allows you to choose an ability level (grasshopper through to JLPT Level 1) and then test yourself on kana, kanji and vocabulary. Once you have trained up via the drill function you can sit a quiz and then get feedback in the form of stats: having a score is a great motivation because it gives you a clear target to beat next time you sit the quiz. The stats page also shows your progress in terms of both JLPT level and 常用漢字 - General Use kanji (plus the 人名用漢字 - kanji used in personal names). I gave the quiz function a try. Fast, straightforward and fun - if you are going to blow off some time online at least with Kanji Box you are learning something (not that zombie-fighting isn't a useful skill......). The best part is the social networking aspect - you can invite friends and compare scores. Nothing quite like the motivational factor of "OMGWTF! - Tom scored 1076 points on JLPT Level 1! My score is pathetic - better start drilling." (cue Rocky theme song)

Since we are all wont to visit Facebook at some time or other I recommend Kanji Box as a way to harness the power of constructive procrastination. The only downside - at some point your concentration will waver and you will start seaching for that girl who used to sit next to you in kindergarten. And it's a minor bugbear, but I like kanji for either the singular or plural - "kanjis" sounds like a type of fruit or a venereal disease.

(I'm off to see if I can match Tom's score.)

Remembering the Kanji Flashcards

On Polarcloud, the site behind the wonderful rikaichan plugin, you can download printable kanji flashcards for use with James Heisig's Remembering the Kanji (Books 1, 2 and 3). The cards come in two zip files and are in PDF format. Cross off "can't afford flashcards" and "don't have time to make flashcards" from your list of excuses for not studying.

Nintendo DS Kanji for Beginners: Tadashii Kanji Kakitori-kun

Via JapanProbe - Tadashii Kanji Kakitori-kun (正しい漢字かきとりくん)  is Nintendo DS software aimed at elementary school children, making it perfect for beginner students of Japanese. It looks like fun, and kanji + fun = good. If I get my hands on a copy I'll do a review (promises, promises!!)

How many kanji can you read?

Meguro Language Centre, source of some excellent JLPT resources, has a nifty kanji quiz on its website. The quiz is honour based - just tick the box next to the kanji or kanji compound if you think you can read it. There are 200 kanji/compounds and if you get them all right you are assessed in the 1900-2000 kanji range. Not having to write the readings and the tendency for people to tell themselves "but I knew that!" mean that this quiz is not super reliable but it provides a ballpark figure. How will you fare?

The Kanji SITE

The Kanji SITE is back. I found this kanji study resource ages ago but the guy who maintains it let the project sit fallow for a few years, so the site only covered the JLPT kanji up to Level 2. The resurrected site features a blog and a bookshop and the developer aims to have the Level 1 kanji added but given there are a lot of them don't hold your breath.

The Kanji SITE is all about the Chinese characters. They are laid out in JLPT order and in batches. Click on any kanji within a batch and via Javascripty wizardry up pops the reading, meaning and sample compound words. If you want to print out lists of kanji to stick up in the toilet (making use of those spare moments) The Kanji SITE makes this very easy. On the down side the readings are given in romaji - if you are studying kanji you should already be weaned off romaji (if indeed you were ever romaji-breastfed) and anyone studying level 3 or Level 2 needs to be able to read the kana fast, which means reading kana as much as possible. I found that some of the kanji info links didn't work but given the site has only just come back from the dead this is to be expected. Pretty design too.

漢検DS: Kanji Kentei on the Nintendo DS

There is a God. September 28 will see the release of a Kanji Kentei (漢字検定) training  application for the Nintendo DS. Check out an overview here. A full review when I get my hands on it.

もっと脳を鍛える（Motto Nou wo Kitaeru)

The Nintendo DS Lite is a beautiful creature which can get you all hot and bothered just by looking at it, but without software you have little more than a sexy, expensive paperweight. Enter もっと脳を鍛える. Developed by Dr Ryuta Kawashima, a neuroscientist and author of the bestseller "Train Your Brain: 60 Days To A Better Brain", もっと脳を鍛える　is marketed as a series of exercises aimed at stimulating the brain to keep you mentally young. The game is referred to as Dr. Kawashima's Brain Training 2 in Europe & Australia and Brain Age 2 in the USA (did someone think the word "training" would put Americans off? ) but since these versions are in English they are useless as Japanese study materials and I offer them only by way of interest and because I wanted to be a pedantic wanker and point out that while the American translation does retain assonance, Brain Training is both a better translation of 脳を鍛える and it rhymes.

Observant readers will note that  the  inclusion of the word もっと　(more) in the software title (the number 2 in the English language versions)  implies that there is an original version in existence - and yes, you are correct, 脳を鍛える　(Brain Training) exists, but もっと脳を鍛える looked more interesting so I bought it first.

Fire up the program and you are greeted with an animated Dr Kawashima head on the left and a menu on the right. You can take a trial run お手軽版, do your daily training 毎日トレーニング　or 'download play', ie connect wirelessly to other DS users within range and  share data.

Dr Kawashima's head is very helpful and offers lots of advice during the course of your brain training. His advice is of course in Japanese, and this is where your Japanese reading starts to get a small workout. It is possible to ignore what the head says and just hit the 次へ button but that would be a waste of an excellent chance to learn some new kanji, right? 記録済み?  You have already finished today's training and your results recorded.

There are a whole bunch of  training exercises  including simple maths calculations at high speed and musical note recognition but let's take a look at the meat and potatoes - kanji.   

The first kanji test consists of various kanji radicals floating around - your job is to draw the kanji they make up. Nice and easy at first. If you can't put two trees together you probably aren't ready for もっと脳を鍛える. I'm not being cruel - the challenges get difficult real soon.

After having my arse served to me on a plate I took great pleasure in watching Japanese friends struggle to put some of the kanji back together. The super-awesome-wonder feature is that you can go back and redo every test as many times as you want - until you can draw every kanji - real mastery learning. Great for learning radicals and good writing practice.

The second kanji check gives you a sentence in Japanese with one of the kanji replaced by katakana - your job is to draw the kanji. Trickier than the radical check because you don't have the components in front of you - pretty much a case of you know it or you don't. 10 basic (I won't say easy) problems and one 難しい (ie a real bastard you are unlikely to have ever seen before) kanji per level. For example, my first daily training included 罷. Again, the ability to keep going back and redoing the quiz means that you can learn a lot of readings.

The brain workout for each day is set and once you have completed it you receive a hanko mark showing that you trained your brain on that day. If you don't train every day Dr Kawashima's head tells you off.

As you progress new tests are introduced - and when I get to that stage I will write another post.

The verdict - although according to the DS I have the brain of a 54 year old man I can say that I have achieved 2 things by using this software:

1. I know a fair few more kanji than I did a week ago.

2. I had a good time doing so.

Highly recommended.