The Electronic Era
- Sebastian Samaroo
- Jan 31, 2018
- 8 min read
I haven't made a 'real' update post in two months, so i'm sure the two people that are actually reading my blog are wanting to know what I have accomplished. I'm very happy to say that this has been a very productive month and I am progressing (slowly but surely) in this language!
Hold up... What does this title have to do with Japanese?
Ah yes, thank you reader for that amazing transition. To answer that question you asked let me ask you a question: how did people learn languages before the internet? I personally do not know. While writing this blog post I looked it up and even asked a friend, but I still could not find an answer that satisfied me. One source said that they just knew multiple languages because they were surrounded in them everyday. One source said that when exploring they just immersed themselves with those people that knew the language and learning through trial and error. One source said that foreign languages were not even needed because everyone in one region spoke the same thing. My friend Abhay (click here to see his blog; he's learning the guitar which is much more interesting than Japanese) who is an absolute genius at history said that there were teachers who were native speakers of both languages and just taught it regularly. I'm sure that I could keep researching and keep finding more information that differs from what is said here, and they all might be wrong, or they all might be right. Who knows? If you could not guess, the reason the title is called 'The Electronic Era' is because the internet has given the opportunity for people like me to pursue things that could not have been done (as easily) in the past.
Duolingo Accomplishes Dreams
I think it's best for me to start with the app that I have used the most: Duolingo. Before the start of this quest I actually knew about Duolingo and how easy/fun it is to learn a language with it, but I did not use it at the start because I didn't think it had Japanese. However, when I downloaded it to brush up on my Spanish I started to scroll through the languages to see what there was. While scrolling, I had realized that staring me in the face was the word 'Japanese'. At first I thought I was too tired and I was reading the words wrong (because it was fairly late at night), but as I kept reading it over and over again I realized that the word on the screen was not going to magically create a new one; so obviously I added it to my Duolingo languages. Duolingo (as I said earlier) doesn't feel like a chore, it feels more like a game.
I have so far learned up to greetings (so the basic of the basics) and there are a variety of activities that Duolingo has used to help me learn up to this point. The first one being the picture on the right. In this you would see a sentence and they would give you a word bank to choose from. You would have to choose the words in the correct order to make the sentence. Because I am such a legend at this language I correctly put in the answer. I didn't get it wrong at first. Nope.
Another activity that it makes you go through is something like cards. For example: at the top you would have a 'romaji' character - let's choose 'yo'. Underneath it there would be multiple choices: (the options that I am going to give might be an actual example, or it might not) よ, す,も, ま. Of course everyone here is taking Japanese so everyone knows the answer, which means I don't have to say what it is. (Psst, if you don't know you can check out my other post and figure it out... It's in the first picture).
The final activity that is given for the Japanese course (remember that underlined part, I will refer to it later on) is the matching section. The title basically explains it. You are given some words/phrases on the screen and you would have to match them with their corresponding pair. I didn't mention this but every single activity here works both ways with the language (Japanese -> English and vice versa).
Now the underlined part. What it means is that there are more activities that Duolingo gives, but it's not there for the Japanese course. I mentioned that I was also doing the Spanish course. In that course there are speaking and listening activities, so I think a way to improve Japanese sections is to integrate those aspects into it.
You can probably tell that I am generally happy with Duolingo and what it provides. However, it is not perfect. One thing that I do not like about the app is that it reminds me every day that I'm alone on the app (See the Picture to the left). However, if I wanted to add someone I would be able to add my friend Manya! (Wow what a smooth transition). She's learning Korean and is actually making progress with her language unlike me; so there really isn't any reason to not check out the blog. I also realized while adding the link we did the same type January blog post, and since I did mine after her someone could call me a plagiarizer. I swear I'm innocent though. It just happened like that by accident. Please believe me.
Review Thoroughly with Tinycards
So Duolingo is great for learning, but as I am still on the alphabet I would like to really drill the letters into my brain. This is where Tinycards saves the day (it's created by the same people who made Duolingo). I don't know if I've mentioned this in a previous blog post, but I prefer doing things electronically. I have a few reasons for this. Mainly being that if I get paper, I do not keep it organized. I find some place to stuff it and just forget about it (usually it's my school bag). Also, paper kills a lot of trees. I wouldn't call myself a 'treehugger' as my daily life is harmful to the environment, but reducing paper is still something I do to feel good about myself. Anyway, flashcards are what many people use when trying to memorize certain things, but they take up a lot of paper. Tinycards are basically flashcards but (in my opinion) better.
Why is it better than paper flashcards?
Well a major plus for me is that I can't lose them: that's always good. Alright I'm done. This is probably getting annoying so I'm done talking about my carelessness starting from now.
One reason as to why I love Tinycards is because it's really easy to use (I mean I use it, so that should signal to you how simple it is). Take the picture to the right for example. For this specific set of cards It shows you the 'romaji' of the character. Then you would have to choose the corresponding hiragana character for it. That's all. If you tap the right one then good on you, but it not then it just would bring it back later on for you to do.
To say something is easy to use is one thing; however if it is easy to use and nothing is yielded then there is no point in using it (this reason is sort of an add-on to the previous one). From my experience this app has helped a lot in my memorization. I have studied on this app every day for about 10 minutes and I see myself making progress. Slow progress, but progress nonetheless.
Finally why I love this app so much is because it's tailored to you.
It really hones in on the words you struggle with. After recognizing the words it would give you them more often until it detects that you know it well. It would then move on to the next set of words, and the next, and so on. It's never ending, but you can decide when you know the set because of a magic button on the (not very) top right. You can see it on the picture; it's called 'quiz' and well surprise-surprise it's a quiz using the cards you studied.
Tinycards is a great app for review, and doesn't have to be used only for languages. Say you had that biology exam coming up and you really needed to remember those key terms to bump your grade up. You can create an account and make a set that works for you.
If you have used Tinycards in the past and don't agree with the points I have here. If you think it's not as good as I am making it out to be then that's fine; however there is one thing you have to admit: The faces on the cards are amazing.
The next two apps are called 'Japanese' and if they are not going to make a creative title then I'm not going to make a catchy sub header.
No I did not group these two together because they shared the same name. Wait, that's wrong. They do NOT share the same name; one app is called 'Japanese' and the other is called 'Japanese!'. The exclamation mark at the end really sets them apart.
I grouped them together because I have not used them that much, so I don't have an opinion yet, but I do intend to use them in the future.
The first app (the one without the ending punctuation) seems like it's mainly for travelling. The app contains
some big themes that people might need for travel; some examples of these big themes are 'General Conversation', 'Emergency', and 'Eating Out' in the free version. There is also a 'PRO' version which includes themes like 'Tongue Twisters', 'Dating', and 'Colors and Prints'. Yeah I can see myself using Tongue Twisters everyday. In these themes there would be words that pertain to them (whoa I had no idea). Take example the picture to the left; for the 'Eating Out' there includes many different options for ingredients you might ask for.
I can see myself using this in the future mainly for learning new vocab words, or just for brushing up on the main things I would need to get around. I also feel that I would use this a lot just for learning the pronunciation of words. As an example of why I would need help in this, I am just going to use a letter 'れ', this is written (in romaji) as 're', however it sounds more like a mix between 're' and 'le', basically an extremely soft 'r'. This will get more complicated the more I delve into the language so it would be helpful to have something that I can base myself off of.
The second app is just another general Japanese app, nothing too extravagant. There are six lessons in total that are each broken up into tens of different sections. Three of these lessons are focused on the letters and the other three are sentence structure and kanji. There are also explanations that show up depending on the section you are on.
Why I haven't used this app that much is because it's not free. To use most of its features it requires payment. It's not to say it's expensive, it's only about 30 qar for everything but it's still money. However, I feel I would pay for it just for one reason: its writing. And I don't mean the writing as in sentence structure, I mean the literal formation of the letters. I tried out the first section in the first activity and jeez it was like I was in kindergarten all over again. (NO I DID NOT FAIL TO STAY IN BETWEEN THE LINES, I WAS TRYING TO WRITE IT FROM MEMORY AND THEN IF IT SENSED I WAS SOMEWHAT CORRECT IT WOULD THEN ALLOW ME TO PROCEED).
Some final notes for this post
As I was writing my final sub header I literally sighed in relief. That was an extremely long post. I did not intend for it to be this long originally, but after I wrote my introduction and my first two sections I realized it couldn't be helped; so, I hope that I was able to make this list/update post somewhat enjoyable to read and you aren't just glancing through this last part. I'm sure you know what I mean; when you are looking at the words on the page and they enter and exit your brain immediately. Anyway, I hope to keep up this steady pace of learning Japanese for future blog posts and beyond! さようなら！
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