He who tries to defend everything, defends nothing.

-Frederick the Great

Okay, so that quote doesn’t directly fit the title (or this article), but a modification of it does.

He who tries to learn everything, learns nothing.

This, however, does match my point. Many, many times there are great ideas that fall to the wayside because of a lack of focus. Many times I, too, have been guilty of this. It’s ever-to-tempting to bounce around in Japanese, not focusing on any one thing.^[1] It’s an easy trap to fall into: you start Kanji, but then realize you need kana too. While jumping to hiragana, you realize you need to learn both sets of kana and how to read them. Soon after, that annoying little voice inside your head^[2] reminds you that you need to be able to understand it, speak it, write it, carry on conversations with native Japanese people…

Woah, boy. Easy.

Slow down for a moment. Back the hockey puck up. Aren’t we putting the cart before the horse here? If you aren’t even through the Kanji phase, why are we talking about anything else?

You’re looking at the big picture, that’s why. You’re trying to emulate Rembrandt when you can’t even hold a paintbrush yet. It’s akin to attempting to make Escargot when you burn scrambled eggs. You have motorized the cart while forgetting to tell the horse. Poor horsey.

Looking at the big picture (that is, looking at everything that we “have” to learn) is not only dangerous, but it’s unproductive as well.

The Big Picture on Why to Not Look at The Big Picture

Why dangerous, you ask? Simple – looking at the large scope of learning (or getting used to) Japanese can make it look like a daunting, near-impossible, endless task.^[3]

By nature, humans don’t like monumental tasks. Japanese “in general” is what many consider a monumental task, but, let’s face it: learning any new language is. Keeping the scale of this in mind is dangerous because it is very demoralizing if you sit and think about it. So, instead of thinking about how much there is to do, put that energy into completing one more task.

So, why is it unproductive? Honestly, that’s pretty self explanatory as well. The more time you think about the list of things to do, the less time you’re spending actually learning Japanese. Again, spend that energy learning Japanese instead.

Learning “everything”^[4] won’t happen. Don’t focus on becoming fluent. Don’t focus on making lists of what you have to do, or keeping progress as you go. Do focus on where you are currently. Do focus on the task at hand.

Do one more card. Learn one more Kanji, kana or sentence. F the big picture, you don’t need it. Nobody ever learns all there is to learn about Japanese anyway, so the “big picture” of “everything” is useless.

Focus on the task at hand. Focus on completing that next attainable goal you’ve set.

We’ve all run into it at some point in our lives. That “something”^[1] out there which people question why you have or have not done it. Or better yet, they crack on you or even berate you for something you’ve done or not done that goes against what they believe to be right. The most readily available example I have is movies.

How many times has someone asked you, “Hey, have you seen that new [insert movie title that apparently everyone has seen but you]^[2] movie yet?” You then answer with a “No”, which is then followed by one of the following responses:

• A contorted, confused facial expression resembling that of a baby who just ate an orange peel.
• Gasping in surprise
• An elongated “Whaaaat?” or “Why noooot?”
• “Do you live in a cave?” ^[3]
• All of the above (incidentally, always the right answer, except for when it’s C).

Doesn’t it ever make you wonder why people react this way? It’s almost as if shame is cast down upon you for not having seen the movie. I mean, come on. How dare you. We all know you purposely didn’t see it just to be a rebel^[4]. Like someone stepped on their rubber ducky. When you stop and think about it, it’s pretty strange that the typical response is like this. Why is it normal for people to downplay something they don’t understand or agree with?

It goes back to humans hating change by nature. It’s because we hate and/or fear what we don’t understand. It’s also because we don’t like confrontation^[5]. I mean, if things are fine, then why mess them up, right? People also hate to be proven wrong. All of these things are just in our nature, or so we’re told.

My personal thought on this is that it’s taught behavior. From when we are small, we are taught not to talk to strangers, finish all the food on your plate and to do things the way our parents do them (or more infamously, “Do as I say, not as I do”). We’re taught that conforming to society leads to success. But, success in who’s opinion? Society’s or yours? Aside from the obvious correct, legitimate reasons behind teachings like this, there are so many more reasons that are just plain wrong. Doing something because “society” deems it “normal” doesn’t make it right. Eating all the food on your plate when you’re full isn’t what’s right. In fact, it can have very negative consequences.

Take for example someone getting the crap kicked out of them on a busy city street. The “normal” reaction (that is, the action taken by most) is inaction, or to not get involved – it’s what we are taught from when we are small. Don’t get involved in someone else’s business. In this example, the normal thing to do isn’t the right thing to do. The right thing to do would be to intervene, even if that’s only calling the police. Perhaps that was not the cleanest example I could have used, but it does illustrate the point to just do something. We all know that if we were the guy getting beaten up, we’d want someone to do the same for us.

In many cases, the same applies to Japanese (at least for me – I’m sure there are many who can relate, though). Some people get legitimately confused (even offended(!) for some reason) when I tell them I am learning Japanese. I had one person ask me 5 times why I wanted to learn such a “hard” language, and “what’s the point?”. It really struck me as odd to begin with, especially since I gave entirely legitimate reasons each time she asked. I gave answers like “Because the culture fascinates me”,”because I’ve wanted to for years” and “because someday I’d like to be an interpreter and translator”.

Interestingly, none of these answers were good enough. After the 5th time of being asked, it became clear to me that the person was looking not for the literal answer to the question, but instead was trying (weather they realized it or now) to play down learning Japanese and get me to agree with them on it. They were trying to bring my efforts down, labeling them as “pointless” because “there’s so much here (in the U.S. of A) to learn and discover”. But, being brutally honest, they didn’t like my learning Japanese because it’s different.

They were essentially telling me that learning Japanese was wrong because it is “foreign”. In frustration, I spouted out the answer that I wished I’d thought of long ago:

“Why not learn Japanese?”

And what do you know – I couldn’t get a valid answer from that person. Befuddlement, however, was plentiful.

I realize this comes off as a bit of a rant (and it is on some level), but I wanted to express an epiphany I had during this conversation.

Why do I care what this person’s views on learning Japanese are if they aren’t supportive? What possible positive effect could it have on my Japanese to listen to this train of doubt and questioning? How is an isolationist attitude about “learning Chinese”^[6] going to help? More importantly, how are the above items going to hurt my Japanese if I allow it to continue?

If someone you know is being “anti-Japanese” (not like racism, more like against your learning of the Japanese language for whatever reason), ask them to explain themselves in detail – then prove them wrong. Work your Japanese skills to the point where you can show them why it’s useful, enjoyable and awesome.

Prove them wrong by doing more. As my wife pointed out in an argument we had – saying you’re going to do something and then not do it is worse than saying nothing at all^[7]. Trying to prove a point about learning Japanese is pointless^[8] if you aren’t going to actually do it.

Secondly, tune that sort of negativity out – completely and indiscriminately. Put on headphones and listen to Japanese music or radio. Do SRS reps. Use the energy they spend trying to bring you down to boost your drive to do better. Get more comfortable with Japanese.

About my point above: the great thing about movies is that they will always be there – maybe even in Japanese one day. When they do come out in Japanese, see them then. Otherwise, keep your focus on the attainable goals you set and keep on truckin’, you bad mother trucker.

NonstopTUBE links from today:

http://tinyurl.com/bq7w37y

http://tinyurl.com/cbdab6o

http://tinyurl.com/c7pgnx4

I may decide to keep this page updated occasionally with new links, if there’s enough demand.

Edit: Just kidding, this was April Fool’s if nobody figured that out…

Seriously. It’s too hard. Don’t do it. It’s so difficult with all those Kaji all over the place…

After looking around the interwebs for a bit for a 日本語 calendar, I was surprised how few there were out there that had what I was looking for. I wanted a カレンダー (karenda / calendar) that had the following:

• Month in Kanji with furigana
• Day of week in Kanji with furigana
• Numeric Day
• Kanji day with furigana

Finally, I decided to just make one up myself. So, it can be found here:

http://allnihongo.com/downloads/_karenda2013.pdf

Enjoy!

“Kana”, collectively ひらがな(hiragana) and カタカナ(katakana) are what I consider the mortar which holds the Japanese language together. More importantly, they are what makes learning Japanese beyond simply speaking possible. After all, why learn a language at all if you’re going to remain illiterate?

Before I dive too deep into that discussion, let’s take a moment and go over what kana are, and why they are so important. There are two types of kana, which are:

ひらがな (hiragana)

Hiragana is one of two Japanese “syllabaries” used in everyday writing. Each “symbol” represents a sound, or syllable of Japanese. These can then be strung together to form words. If you take a quick look at the kana tables, you’ll see that there are two sections – one for ひらがな (hiragana) and one for カタカナ (katakana). You’ll notice each of these have a “romanized” section of text below them, giving an indication of how they sound. All sounds in Japanese contain a vowel, most accompanied by a consonant. The only exception to this is the sound ん (the consonant “n”, or sometimes “m”), which is by itself. Every sound in Japanese is represented by the contents of this table. For now, just focus on hiragana.

Hiragana was originally developed from simplified versions of Chinese Kanji in the cursive script style during the 5th century, and was used to indicate pronunciation. Hiragana was originally considered “women’s writing” because it was adopted strongly by women due to the fact that they were unable to obtain the same education as men at the time. Historically,  hiragana was only used in personal documents, where katakana and Kanji were always used in official or legal documents. Nowadays they are all mixed together and used everywhere.

Technically speaking, you could write every word in Japanese in hiragana and still be “correct”. However, this is extremely uncommon and gives the appearance of being uneducated (which is true if you’re still learning, but still). In fact, children first learn hiragana and katakana before learning Kanji. As they get older, they learn to use Kanji in sentences.

Hiragana has several uses, including (but not limited to):

• Particles (future posts will discuss this topic)
• Japanese words which don’t have Kanji associated with them, or if the Kanji is not part of the 常用漢字 (じょう・よう　かんじ / jouyou Kanji), or “common” Kanji set. An example of this is こんにちは(konnichi wa / good afternoon / good day).
• Parts of words which don’t have Kanji. An example of this would be 新しい (あたら・しい / atarashii), which means “new”. The red highlighted Kanji is pronounced あたら(atara). The rest of the word, (しい / shii), is written in hiragana.
• Furigana, which is written in hiragana. Furigana are small hiragana written above or below a Kanji to tell the reader how that Kanji is pronounced. This is most often found in materials written for younger audiences still learning the Kanji, or in publications making use of Kanji outside the “common” Kanji set. Furigana is an awesome learning tool for beginners of Japanese.

All of these reasons above (especially the last one) are the reason it’s so important to know all hiragana like the back of your hand. In fact, once you have mastered hiragana, you should completely dispense with Romaji (romanized spellings of words) and only use Hiragana for learning Japanese.

I may expound on hiragana more at a later time, but since this article is just meant to be an overview I will move on to…

カタカナ (katakana)

Katakana is similar to hiragana, with some key differences. Each “symbol” still represents a sound, but has a different use. It can be recognized by its use of more angular lines versus the cursive-like flow of hiragana. If you refer back to the kana tables, you’ll also notice this “syllabary” also contains additional sounds not technically found in Japanese. Katakana has a few uses which are again not limited to the list below:

• Proper nouns, including names and business names. Example: ニコニコ動画 (にこ・にこ・どうが / niko niko douga / “nico nico douga” – literally means “smile video”). 
• Foreign loan words. For example, スパゲティ (supageti / spaghetti). Words like this are “Japanized”, or made to sound as close to Japanese as possible given the sound restrictions of the language. This example also highlights the point of the additional sound ティ ( ti – pronounced like “tea”). Japanese does not contain this sound, but the closest equivalent of ち (chi, pronounced “chee” as in cheese) doesn’t sound right.
• Onomatopoeic words and emphasis. For example,  ペコペコ (ぺこ・ぺこ / peko peko / to be awfully hungry).

Katakana was originally developed from simplified Chinese characters to indicate the correct pronunciation of Kanji in the 9th century. By the 14th century, a one-to-one ratio between these symbols and the sounds of spoken Japanese was developed. The word “katakana” literally means “part [of Kanji] syllabic script”, the “part” meaning that the characters originated from portions of Kanji. Another interesting fact is that katakana was at one time considered “men’s writing”, the counterpart to hiragana above.

Overview of the Phase 2 Process

Given the above information about hiragana and katakana, I will now go back to my previous example of kana being the mortar which holds together the bricks of Japanese. The bricks are the Kanji from phase 1. They make up most of the language, but mean nothing by themselves (at least for the purpose of this discussion). Similarly, the kana serve to fill in the gaps, but again do not stand on their own. However, together, they form the sentences, ideas, structures of Japanese. Consider the following example sentence, which contains all three “scripts”:

私はスパゲッティが大好きです。 (わたしはすぱげていがだいすきです。 / watashi wa supageti ga daisuki desu. / I love spaghetti).

The red is Kanji, with green being the hiragana and blue being the katakana. They all are glued together form a single idea.

As this article is meant to be just an overview, I’ll table further discussion about the kana scripts themselves here and refer back to Remembering the Kana by Heisig.

As for the process itself, phase 2 is relatively lightweight in comparison to Phase 1. Essentially you should proceed through the book, covering about a lesson or two per day. I personally got through the book in about a week, but that may be a bit aggressive for some.

One additional step I took was writing the kana several times each and every time their card came up. What this does is helps to solidify handwriting skills and make the kana more readable. Be sure to take your time with this – you’re far better off learning to write them correctly the first time than having to re-learn them later on because you blew through this phase too quickly. This phase is small as it is – don’t rush it.

For each lesson, make sure to add cards to your (newly created) SRS deck, complete with examples. Work these reviews in with your daily rotations of Kanji and you’ll be reading kana in no time.

A Few Things to Note

1. I mentioned above that children learn kana first, then Kanji. Children’s brains learn better this way, but my research tells me adults learn differently. You could technically reverse phases 1 and 2 if you wanted to.
2. I didn’t cover pronunciation in detail here because Heisig’s book does it really well. I may write up my own guide some day, but for now Remembering the Kana is the best resource available for this.
3. As an extension to point #2 and other points made above, pay as much attention to stroke order and direction as with Kanji. It will serve you well in the future, trust me!

Related Articles:

• Introduction to the Japanese Writing System
  
• Why Using Romaji is Bad for your Japanese Health
• Phase 1: Kanji
• My Method For Learning (Remembering) Kanji

So you think you’ve learned a sentence. You can look at your SRS card and read it perfectly every time without hesitation. However, have you really learned it - completely? More importantly, do you understand it?

In many cases, probably not. Allow me to explain. There are some criteria that come to mind when stating a sentence has been fully learned. For starters, you should be able to:

• Read the sentence out loud from the card, without hesitation (for the most part). Easy peasy.
• Write the sentence correctly the first time while looking at the card.
• Speak the sentence from memory without needing to look up part of it.
• Write the sentence in its entirety from memory without having to look up any part of it (including kanji!).

The last two are the real test. If you have gotten this far, that’s awesome. However, there’s still one more thing:

• You should understand the idea of the sentence in its entirety – not just be able to recite it at will. Anyone can parrot a sentence. Perhaps you can paraphrase it, because you understand the general idea.

By understanding the idea, I mean that you understand each part of the sentence and how they affect each other. Having a solid understanding of the idea of each sentence becomes a much more powerful tool. It allows you to modify the sentence to fit your needs, thus forming new sentences – or new ideas. New ideas lead to more new ideas. Your brain’s fuzzy logic will begin to pick up on this concept and apply it at some point. Sooner or later you might not even need to study sentences, once you can pick up on the idea of carrying on a conversation. However, that’s jumping a bit ahead, so I’ll table that topic for now.

To illustrate what I mean, let’s consider the following example:

それは新聞だ。　That is a newspaper.

In this case, you are basically saying the object near the person you are speaking to is a newspaper. However, let’s say that you are holding the newspaper, and want to tell the other person that it is a newspaper. You could modify the sentence by swapping a word:

これは新聞だ。 This is a newspaper.

While this is a rudimentary example, my point is illustrated clearly. Understanding the sentence gives far more power than just memorizing it as a whole. So when you study your sentences, make sure to understand it.

When I first launched this site, I had prepaid the hosting through January of next year (2013). However, it was not long after this that I realized the err of my ways as the host I was on wasn’t exactly speedy or reliable. So, being that said hosting is due to expire soon, I took the initiative and moved the site early. As some of you may have noticed, there were some hiccups. However, these should all be resolved now. I’m also taking this opportunity to streamline and clean up some things around the server.

If anyone spots anything that looks off, I encourage you to leave it in the comments below and I’ll address it.

Occasionally, I need to remind myself that learning Japanese isn’t work – or at least it shouldn’t be. If it is, then something has gone terribly wrong.

Japanese should be more like that super-addicting MMO that people want to play 24x7x365 (or 366 this year). It should be like that book that you don’t ever want to put down because it’s that good.

Learning Japanese should be as fun (if not more-so  than your favorite hobby. If it’s not, it’s going to be difficult to stick with.  You might wind up falling off the wagon.

So what, then, can be done to remedy this situation of boredom? How can we take Japanese and make it into something fun?

Here are a few suggestions:

• Do it in small chunks – maybe 2-5 minutes each. Maybe 3 Kanji reviews, or learn a sentence at a time. Even the most fun activities can become monotonous and boring if you spend too long a stretch of time with it. Keep it short, keep it simple, just make sure to come back and visit it more often.
• Try doing something that doesn’t feel like studying. SRS reviews help, sure – but they aren’t (by far) the only component to learning. Maybe watch an episode of your favorite anime series or a television show dubbed in Japanese. As you recognize words, sentences and expressions, you’ll technically be studying while doing nothing but watching some t.v.
• Play some games in Japanese. There are tons of them online, just Google it.
• Remember to use passive learning. Sometimes not paying full attention to what you are studying can pay off in the long run, simply from the extra exposure you get by just having it around.

After a break from updating allnihongo (but not a break from Japanese, mind you!), I have returned a happily married man. However, that being said, I have spent much of the time I have been back catching up on things which have been neglected during the time I was away.

I’ve got some new articles brewing, but they aren’t all shiny-like and polished just yet. However, I can say that they will be coming out soon, probably next week.

Stay tuned!