cherry valley forever

titsay

⁂

#extradirty
Today's Document
DEAR READER
Alisa U Zemlji Chuda
Aqua Utopia|海の底で記憶を紡ぐ
Misplaced Lens Cap
Xuebing Du

JBB: An Artblog!
Game of Thrones Daily
No title available
No title available

izzy's playlists!
"I'm Dorothy Gale from Kansas"

pixel skylines
dirt enthusiast
Three Goblin Art
Sweet Seals For You, Always

seen from United States
seen from Indonesia

seen from Germany

seen from United States

seen from United States
seen from United Kingdom
seen from United Kingdom

seen from Australia
seen from United States

seen from United Kingdom
seen from Malaysia
seen from United Kingdom
seen from South Korea

seen from Slovakia

seen from Malaysia
seen from United States

seen from United Kingdom
seen from Philippines
seen from United States
seen from Austria
@3languagesin3years
Japanese is an incredibly fun and rewarding language (if you’ve ever wanted to learn it for ANY reason, most importantly including the “silly” reasons) but the fearmongering and capitalist intervention involved in the language learning process have given it a reputation as an “impossible task” for English speakers, leading to confusion and dkn learners and weird pessimist attitudes about the whole thing. In this thread I will explain how to effectively learn and retain Japanese. This is a tried, tested and true method; probably 99% of all people who try to learn Japanese give up, but everyone I’ve met who has tried and stuck with this has been at or above N3-N4 after 6 months or less including me
You can teach yourself Japanese for free if you have a little free time every day and a computer
1. Drill yourself on hiragana and katakana. These are the phonetic building blocks of Japanese, think of them as equivalent to english letters. This site is a good resource in general. Once you have a solid grasp on this, DO NOT LINGER HERE; move to step 2. You will master kana later.
2. Download Anki. This is a flashcard service. They have a paid app if you’re willing to invest for it, but if not, they have a mobile website (create an account and sync it with your computer).
This is the deck you’re going to download. Import it to Anki and do this every day. I have learned the hard way (twice) that skipping this is bad. If you become overwhelmed, you can change the number of new cards and reviews by clicking the cog next to the name of the deck!
3. Cure Dolly (Youtube, grammar) + transcript. She has kind of a posh accent, you might want to turn subtitles on. Watch a few videos when you feel like it but most importantly set up 4 and 5 as soon as possible
4. Yomitan (must have) is a browser extension that functions as a pop-up dictionary. you need to install dictionaries for it to work. here are some dictionaries you can use with yomitan and explanations of what they do
5. READ. DO NOT LET YOURSELF GET STUCK BEFORE THIS STEP. JUST READ!!!! Most people who fail to learn Japanese do so because they are afraid of not being ready to move on, which is counterproductive. Just read. When you were a child did you spend years on vocab and grammar before reading? No I bet you did not. Pick something to read and learn what you don’t already know by reading in Japanese.
Jiten.moe has a list of novels and visual novels that you can read on your computer sorted by difficulty. So does jpdb. There’s also this document. There’s also this document. Hey look this website is cool too
For visual novels: download LunaHook. It “hooks” to your VN and allows you to use Yomitan on words you don’t know. Turn off the translation feature, it does nothing to help you learn
For literary texts: ttsu e-reader supports epub and htmlz files.
You can also learn Japanese by watching anime, but it’s a little more convoluted and requires a lot more patience.
For manga, utilize Mangatan, but I don’t recommend this right out the gate because when you’re first learning sentence structure you’ll want something with complete sentences.
Set your computer up for mining vocab before you start reading. Once you finish your kaishi deck, you can drill your mining cards (I didn’t do mine until after finishing kaishi because it was too much).
Most importantly: reading is going to be hard at first. It is going to piss you off. You need to muscle through with this because this is where the bulk of your learning will happen. After a while you will just feel like reading because you love reading! Try not to pick something too hard for your first read, but if you’re interested in the story you might be able to muscle through something a little tougher.
Remember to consult yomitan and cure dolly where needed, that’s what it’s there for. As you can see I am quite normal about the Japanese language, so if you have any other questions or need help with anything else feel free to shoot me an ask and I will get back to you promptly. Japanese is not your enemy and it is not impossible. It is your friend
OP: The difference of the nine tones in cantonese ....Can you actually tell
I am never going to complain about Greek Duolingo again
I mean, I am. But still.
So, as some of you know, my family has been coming to this tiny Greek seaside village for several years. Just over a week ago I came out here with my mum, under the impression that early September, after the height of the summer heat, would be a good time to have a holiday. ANYWAY Storm Daniel had other ideas about that. Locally things are improving (I'm actually really pissed off about the disaster-porn tone of most English-language media coverage, but that's another post). The power is back on, there's running water most of the time, and though the latter is not drinkable, a truck from the government came and handled out free bottled water yesterday. But we are currently kind of stuck. Can't do tourist things. Can't go home. There aren't any local flights out until Saturday and the road to Thessaloniki is still closed.
So this evening, feeling kind of aimless and depressed, I go down to the nearest beach with a couple of binbags and start cleaning up in an effort to at least do something positive. I always try to do this at least once out here and obviously, after the storm, there's a lot more plastic and rubbish than usual.
At some point I find this large, round bit of metal - some kind of machinery part, I think -- that's too big for the bag, so I take it to the bins on its own, leaving the rubbish bag on the beach. And when I come back for it, something among the stones beside it moves.
Specifically, it pulls its head sharply inside its shell
So, meanwhile I've been trying to learn some Greek with the help of Duolingo.
I currently have a 33-day streak and... I have questions. Shouldn't I be able to use the past or future tenses by now? Shouldn't I be able to say "x is like y"? I can't do those things. But one thing I absolutely can say all day long is έχω μια χελώνα : I have a turtle.
This is far from the limit of Duolingo Greek's turtle-related content. "An obsession with turtles" is my mother's characterisation. I can inform you that the turtle is not a bird, and, improbably, that the turtle is drinking milk. I can introduce you to a turtle in company with a horse and an elephant. As far as Duolingo is concerned, it really is turtles all the way down.
Now this, you may be able to see, is not a turtle. It has claws rather than flippers. It is a tortoise. I know there are wild tortoises in Greece: my aunt once rescued a pair of them shagging in the middle of the road -- but that was up in the mountains. I've even seen one myself, but it was also on a road and very dead.
I am 95% certain they don't belong on beaches. There's nothing for it to eat, except, unfortunately, a lot of plastic. Even if it gets off the beach it will immediately find itself on a road where it could get hit by a car. I'm pretty sure it must have been washed down by the floodwater and has been just sitting there, dazed, ever since.
Now obviously the first thing I want to do on encountering this unusual animal is to go and tell my mummy, so I do. The tortoise immediately brightens her day. She agrees that the tortoise is not happy on the beach and needs to be taken somewhere safe. it gets surprisingly wriggly when picked up so we put it in a carrier bag with some grapes and cucumber and go looking for somewhere to rehome it.
We find a path leading up between the houses towards a likely-looking field, but before we get very far a dog in a yard goes berserk and a man's head pops over a fence and demands to know what we're doing. He does this in English, as evidently we're just that obviously tourists.
"I found a tortoise on the beach!" I explain. "We want to find somewhere to put it."
"A what," he asks.
"It's like a, you know," I begin and then to my astonishment I find myself saying... "μια χελώνα"
"Oh! A turtle!" he says.
"But from the land. δεν είναι χελώνα", [it is not a turtle,] I say, as I am worried he will tell me to put it back near the sea where I found it. As it turns out it actually IS a χελώνα, Greek does not distinguish between turtles and tortoises, but I don't know that; I can't even name the days of the week or identify any colours other than pink yet, give me a break.
The man's entire demeanour changes and thaws. He does not worry about my turtle-that-is-not-a-turtle conundrum. He knows where οι χελώνες come from and where η χελώνα μας belongs. He leads us through a gate into a courtyard area.
"[somethingsomething] μια χελώνα," he explains to the assembled onlookers, of whom there are, suddenly, a surprising number.
"ΜΙΑ ΧΕΛΩΝΑ!!!" crows the throng of delighted small children, who are, suddenly, everywhere.
"μια χελώνα!" I agree, accepting that at least for current purposes, that is what it is.
"Μπορούμε να δούμε τη χελώνα σας; [can we see your turtle?]" asks an adorable little girl, shyly, and I understand??
The children fucking love looking at the χελώνα and showing it to them is kind of magical?
I finally put the tortoise down on the grass of this wild area off to the side of the courtyard, and marvel aloud that it is weird that I barely know any Greek except how to say μια χελώνα.
"I think she will soon run off," a kind lady called Aspasia assures me, seeing I remain slightly anxious about its fate. "I don't know why I'm saying 'she'. I suppose because χελώνα is feminine in Greek."
"Yes! I know that!" I exclaim, thrilled.
"Well done!" she says. And also she asks if we are OK for drinking water after the storm and if we need any help with anything and is just generally incredibly lovely and now we know more of the neighbours!
So "μια χελώνα" has just become, by a long way, my most-used and most understood and all-around most conversationally successful phrase in Greek. So I guess I have to admit I was wrong to doubt Duolingo's wisdom: it is correct to be obsessed with turtles. And I concede that prior to learning how to count to ten or to distinguish right from left, the simple ability to yell the word TURTLE over and over again is, it turns out, a crucial element of the responsible traveller's social skills.
(I am pretty fluent in Italian and turtles haven't come up in conversation even once?)
In linguistics, a filler is a sound or word that is spoken in conversation by one participant to signal to others that he/she has paused to think but is not yet finished speaking. These are not to be confused with placeholder names, such as thingamajig, which refer to objects or people whose names are temporarily forgotten, irrelevant, or unknown.
In Afrikaans, ah, em, and eh are common fillers.
In Arabic, يعني yaʿni (“I mean”) and وﷲ wallāh(i) (“by God”) are common fillers.[2][3][4]
In American Sign Language, UM can be signed with open-8 held at chin, palm in, eyebrows down (similar to FAVORITE); or bilateral symmetric bent-V, palm out, repeated axial rotation of wrist (similar to QUOTE).
In Bengali, mane (“it means”) is a common filler.
In Catalan, eh /ə/, doncs (“so”), llavors (“therefore”), and o sigui (“it means”) are common fillers.
In Czech, tak or takže (“so”), prostě (“simply”), jako (“like”) are used as fillers. Čili (“or”) and že (“that”, a conjunction) might also be others. A person who says jako and prostě as fillers might sound a bit simple-minded to others.[5]
In Danish, øh is one of the most common fillers.
In Dutch, eh, ehm, and dus are some of the more common fillers.
In Esperanto, do (“therefore”) is the most common filler.
In Filipino, ah, eh, ay, and ano are the most common fillers.
In Finnish, niinku (“like”), tota, and öö are the most common fillers.
In French, euh /ø/ is most common; other words used as fillers include quoi (“what”), bah, ben (“well”), tu vois (“you see”), and eh bien (roughly “well”, as in “Well, I’m not sure”). Outside of France, other expressions are tu sais (“you know”), t’sais’veux dire? (“you know what I mean?”), or allez une fois (“go one time”). Additional filler words include genre (“kind”), comme (“like”), and style (“style”; “kind”)
In German, a more extensive series of filler words, called modal particles, exists, which actually do give the sentence some meaning. More traditional filler words are äh /ɛː/, hm, so /zoː/, tja, and eigentlich (“actually”)
In Hebrew, eh is the most common filler. Em is also quite common.
In Hindi, matlab (“it means”) and “Mah” are fillers.
In Hungarian, common filler words include hát (well…) and asszongya (a variant of azt mondja, which means “it says here…”).
In Icelandic, a common filler is hérna (“here”). Þúst, a contraction of þú veist (“you know”), is popular among younger speakers.
In Indonesian (Bahasa Indonesia), anu is one of the most common fillers.
In Italian, common fillers include “tipo” (“like”), “ecco” (“there”) and “cioè” (“actually”)
In Irish Gaelic, abair /ˈabˠəɾʲ/ (“say”), bhoil /wɛlʲ/ (“well”), and era /ˈɛɾˠə/ are common fillers, along with emm as in Hiberno-English.
In Japanese, common fillers include eetto, ano, sono, and ee.
In Kannada,Matte for also,Enappa andre for the matter is are the common fillers.
In Korean, eung, eo, ge, and eum are commonly used as fillers.
In Lithuanian, nu, am and žinai (“you know”) are common fillers.
IN Maltese and Maltese English, mela (“then”), or just la, is a common filler.
In Mandarin Chinese, speakers often say 这个 zhège/zhèige (“this”) or 那个 nàge/nèige (“that”). Another common filler is 就 jìu (“just/precisely”).
In Norwegian, common fillers are øh, altså, på en måte (“in a way”), ikke sant (literally “not true?”, “no kidding”, or “exactly”), vel (“well”), and liksom (“like”). In Bergen, sant (“true”) is often used instead of ikke sant. In the Trøndelag region, skjø’ (“see?” or “understand?”) is also a common filler.
In Persian, bebin (“you see”), چیز “chiz” (“thing”), and مثلا masalan (“for instance”) are commonly-used filler words. As well as in Arabic and Urdu, يعني yaʿni (“I mean”) is also used in Persian. Also, eh is a common filler in Persian.
In Portuguese, tipo (“like”) is the most common filler.
In Romanian, deci /detʃʲ/ (“therefore”) is common, especially in school, and ă /ə/ is also very common (can be lengthened according to the pause in speech, rendered in writing as ăăă), whereas păi /pəj/ is widely used by almost anyone.
In Russian, fillers are called слова-паразиты (“vermin words”); the most common are Э-э (“eh”), это (“this”), того (“that”), ну (“well”), значит (“it means”), так (“so”), как его (“what’s it [called]”), типа (“like”), and как бы (“[just] like”).
In Serbian, znači (“means”) and ovaj (“this”) are common fillers.
In Slovak, oné (“that”), tento (“this”), proste (“simply”), or akože are used as fillers. The Hungarian izé (or izí in its Slovak pronunciation) can also be heard, especially in parts of the country with a large Hungarian population. Ta is a filler typical of Eastern Slovak and one of the most parodied features.
In Slovene, pač (“but”, although it has lost that meaning in colloquial, and it is used as a means of explanation), a ne? (“right?”), and no (“well”) are some of the fillers common in central Slovenia, including Ljubljana.
In Spanish, fillers are called muletillas. Some of the most common in American Spanish are e /e/, este (“this”), and o sea (roughly means “I mean”).[6], in Spain the previous fillers are also used, but ¿Vale? (“right?”) and ¿no? are very common too.
In Swedish, fillers are called utfyllningsord; some of the most common are öhm, ja (“yes”), ba (comes from “bara”, which means “just”), asså or alltså (“therefore”, “thus”), va (comes from “vad”, which means “what”), and liksom and typ (both similar to the English “like”).
In Ukrainian, ой /ɔj/ is a common filler.
In Urdu, yani (“meaning…”), falan falan (“this and that”; “blah blah”), umm, and aaa are also common fillers.
In Telugu, ikkada entante (“Whats here is…”) and tarwatha (“then…”) are common and there are numerous like this.
In Tamil, paatheenga-na (“if you see…”) and apparam (“then…”) are common.
In Turkish, yani (“meaning…”), şey (“thing”), “işte” (“that is”), and falan (“as such”, “so on”) are common fillers.
In Welsh, de or ynde is used as a filler (loosely the equivalent of “You know?” or “Isn’t it?”). Ym… and Y… are used similarly to the English “um…”.
Remember that this stuff is really important for fluency of speech. I’ve encountered a bad attitude among language teachers before: “we don’t teach filler words, because that’s not “normative” vocabulary, and it encourages students to sound unsure.” But that’s so, so wrong.
All people use filler words in conversation and even in formal settings. It’s a way to keep the flow of speech when the train of thought pauses; it holds the audience’s attention and actually helps maintain clarity of thought. What’s more, these words are instrumental for language learners, who need to pause more often in their speech than native speakers. Allowing them to pause without breaking into their language (saying a filler word in their language) or completely breaking the flow of their speech allows them to gain fluency faster.
My high school Japanese teacher did it right: “etto” and “anou” were in the second lesson. Teach filler words, people!! And if you’re studying a language and don’t know them, look at this list!! It has a lot!
More portuguese fillers: “ahn” (uh), “é” (it’s), “aí” (then), “tipo” (like), “né?” (right?).
Important because now I can be a dumb bitch in more than one language. Thank you!
Quebec French additions: fak or fa’que (contraction of “ça fait que”, meaning so) and tsé (shortened, differently-pronounced version of the French “tu sais”, meaning you know).
My New Favorite Chinese Dictionary Resource
A couple of months ago, I discovered a great new resource, 教育百科 from the Taiwanese Ministry of Education. It is a Chinese-Chinese dictionary, so it’s best for high-intermediate and advanced learners.
Here’s an example entry using the word 爆炸. As you can see, there’s pinyin and zhuyin provided. Those blue blocks show the different dictionaries that contain entries for 爆炸. Yes, they even have Hakka and Hokkien entries for some words!
Continuing on, there’s some audio, definitions (in Chinese of course), and a couple examples.
Where this dictionary really shines is for chengyu. Here’s an example of what you get for the chengyu 听天由命.
There’s almost too much here explaining the origin and history! Seriously, it’s too much content.
Here’s my favorite part: the example sentences. Some chengyu I’ve looked up don’t have this many example sentences, but some have even more.
Lastly, there’s even a comparison section to compare and contrast other similar chengyu.
I’ve been doing a one year chengyu-a-day challenge for the past 10 months or so, and I found that for some chengyu, Pleco just didn’t cut it. There weren’t enough example sentences! I ended up stumbling across this resource, and it’s been so useful.
Pleco is usually still my first stop, but when I need more, I head over to https://pedia.cloud.edu.tw/ or https://dict.idioms.moe.edu.tw/ (the latter also has a lot of the same chengyu content but leaves some things out).
I really love languages. I love being able to understand people who don’t speak the same language I learnt when I was a child. It’s fantastic, it’s magical. I love it when I hear people speaking a foreign language and I love it even more when a native speaker listens to them and their eyes go wide and a smile crosses their faces. I love being able to speak with people from all over the world. I love the languages I speak and the ones I don’t. I love accents, I really enjoy listening to different accents, they are all beautiful and every one of them tell us a different story. Languages are not only a tool, they’re also part of our identity and that is why I love them. I do not express myself the same way in English or in my native language and that’s wonderful. It doesn’t matter if a language is spoken by millions of people or just a few thousands. Every language is amazing and perfect and everyone should be aware of that. Learning a language is hard and requires a lot of effort but it pays off because it brings people together and it makes us better as individuals. Go learn a language guys, you won’t regret it.
It turns out that feeling overwhelmed/uninterested/tired/whatever about your target language can easily be solved by just. Listening to music in that language.
Our Japanese class found it funny that in common terminology "food" isn't very distinguished from specifically "rice" until it was pointed out to us that in English "meal" is "loose roughly ground grain"
humans be like staple crop
Hello! I'm sorry if this has been asked before, but how do you become proficient at handling conversations in Japanese/handling grammar very well? I read your post on the JLPT, and it addressed issues I have been tip toe-ing around--indeed, passive actions such as listening or reading are easier than the active ones. How did you go about that? Did you write a bunch of sentences daily? Did you have a conversation partner? What would you rec. to someone who lives outside Japan? Thank you!
This is an excellent question, and one that I get asked a lot irl by Japanese people in particular. Let’s talk about gaining fluency and the ways we can go about it!
How to Gain Fluency in Japanese (and Other Languages)
Speaking Fluency versus Accuracy
Language proficiency is divided into two separate categories:
Fluency: Although there are no widely agreed-upon definitions or measures of language fluency, someone is typically said to be fluent if their use of the language appears fluid, or natural, coherent, and easy as opposed to slow, halting use. In other words, fluency is often described as the ability to produce language on demand and be understood.
Accuracy: Correctness of language use, especially grammatical correctness and word choice.
By the above definitions, a “fluent” speaker may make grammatical mistakes, but they can speak without having to stop and think too much about conjugations, word choice, etc.
An “accurate” speaker can speak with nearly zero grammatical/word choice mistakes. However, the speed of their utterances isn’t generally taken into account, so it could take an “accurate” person twice as long to articulate the same idea as a “fluent” person.
Ideally, you need to strike a good balance between these two qualities when speaking. I have a boss, God bless him, who is 100% fluency and 0% accuracy and…man is it hard to understand what he’s saying sometimes, but he can generally get his point across just barely. I have another coworker who is 100% accuracy and takes about 3 minutes to form a sentence because he wants it to be perfect.
How to Increase Speaking/Writing Accuracy
First, let’s talk about the easiest thing to improve, which is accuracy. It’s also (in my opinion) the least fun thing to improve, because it means grammar books and vocabulary memorization.
You can only use a language accurately if you know what is correct and what is incorrect, and you can only learn that by studying grammar and vocabulary (or if you’re a native speaker and picked it up innately, you lucky bastard).
So here’s some things you can do to increase your accuracy:
For example, if you’re having a hard time using the passive, you need to review that part of your textbook and find some exercises to drill it into your head.
Say the correct thing aloud. Lots. Sometimes I just walk around my apartment and narrate everything I see/do like a crazy person, but that’s good practice.
Write example sentences using the grammar you’re struggling with and say them aloud too.
There’s a bunch of cool apps that connect you with native speakers that can help correct you too! I used to use HelloTalk, I think.
If you’re a creative soul, when I was studying for the JLPT, I took 1 grammar point and 5 vocabulary words from my JLPT study books and used them to write a 2-page short story about the adventures of ネギ, a stray black cat that smelled like green onions because she napped in an onion field. Then I had a Japanese friend check it over for me and mark mistakes. I hand-wrote them to improve my abysmal handwriting at the same time. It was really fun! I sometimes think about doing it again just for funsies.
When someone corrects you, don’t feel like your entire life is over and you’re a failure and you’ll never get it right haha. I’ve seen people fall into that hopeless mindset, and that’s just nonsense. It’s a good opportunity for learning and nothing more! Say the correct thing you’ve just been taught out loud, then write it down if you can. And, if possible, find a chance to use it in conversation asap.
How to Increase Speaking/Writing Fluency
Now this is the hard one. Especially for those learners who do not have native speakers nearby.
I’m going to be dead honest with you. I started formally studying Japanese at uni, and I had a Japanese roommate/best friend since year one. I had a 4.0 GPA in my Japanese classes (and only my Japanese classes lol) because I was and still am a MEGA NERD about it.
…But it wasn’t until I studied abroad in Japan my 4th year of uni that I gained fluency.
There are a lot of things that can hold us back from fluency. An interesting thing I’ve noted is that Foreign Language is perhaps the only subject in which a student’s personality can directly affect their progress. To gain fluency, you have to go forth and speak, but if you are naturally a shy person, that is going to hinder you. If you are the kind of person who takes mistakes/failures poorly, you will be less likely to take risks and try to say harder sentences. In contrast, you can get full marks in math regardless of the above personality traits.
I’m not saying that you have to be an outgoing explosion of a human being in order to gain fluency. But what I am saying is that you have to be willing to seek out conversations, and you have to be willing to take chances. Get out of your comfort zone. Use that new word you picked up the other day. Try to explain something that is difficult for you.
My problem was that, while I lived with a native speaker who would have happily taught me anything I asked, her English proficiency was much higher than my Japanese proficiency. And when I struggled to say something in Japanese, I’d fall back onto English. And when she told me something I didn’t understand in Japanese, she’d repeat it in English instead of Japanese, because that was easier for us both. The same thing happened when I was in Japanese class as well. I always had the assurance that I could fall back on English.
But when I elected to study abroad in Japan for 3 months, I knew that this was my big chance. So on the host family form in the “other requests” area, I wrote that I specifically wanted a host family that could not speak English. I was setting fire to my crutches, and I was scared but excited to see them burn.
By the end of my three months in Japan, I had gone from “Chotto matte kudasai” and needing a minute to form my reply, to “Okay, yeah I see that movie too and I liked the action scenes, but I didn’t care for the story little.” (I’ve underlined mistakes that I would have made in Japanese, to show you that I sacrificed some accuracy to obtain higher fluency.)
So, in short, the easiest and quickest way to increase your spoken fluency is to throw away all the crutches you can and use the language as much as possible. Every single day. Even if you’re just having an imaginary conversation with yourself! And like I said, there are a bunch of cool apps that connect you with Japanese people who want to learn English and you can do language exchanges with them. I had a lot of fun with those in the past.
As for increasing writing fluency…well. That’s a tough question with Japanese, because I can type Japanese at like 100 wpm, but my Japanese handwriting fluency is at a 10/100. I can read and type at the level of a native Japanese high school student, but I can only write the kanji that 7 year old can write. That’s no exaggeration.
The big reason for that dichotomy is that my work is paper-free. 100% of my work is done on screen, so about the only time I have to write out something is when I’m filling out a form, which includes my name (katakana), address, and maybe occupation.
If you want to increase your Japanese handwriting speed, just keep on writing. Write those little short stories about ネギ like I did, or find some writing prompts (I just started a side-blog with writing prompts yesterday btw) or keep a little diary. Make opportunities to write.
How to Have Nice Handwriting in Japanese
Okay, full disclaimer: I am the absolute LAST person qualified to talk about this, because I have awful handwriting in Japanese.
Unless you have prior experience with a different language that uses kanji, or you lack the keen eye of an artist, you will likely struggle to develop neat handwriting.
Personally, I really like using this app called Japanese Kanji Sensei. It’s on Android (not sure about iOS), and if you pay just a few bucks you can make your own kanji sets and stuff. Anyways, it will show you how to write the characters prettily. It gives you a good frame of reference for what nice, pencil/pen-written characters (versus calligraphy characters). It has hiragana and katakana on it too!
I get a stylus and write out the characters on this app for the muscle memory, so my hands remember the sensation of writing a certain character. (The muscle memory is different if you only use your fingertip.) This muscle memory and repetition is how Japanese people learn how to internalize kanji as well. I really enjoy and recommend this app. I’m sure that there are others out there like it too.
Summary
TL;DR: Review your textbooks, take risks, use every resource available or make your own, and just have fun with it! 💗
Hey guys! I’m a huuuuuuge linguistics nerd. I’m making an online directory of free resources to help learn a language! If you could share this that would be much appreciated, I’d like to help people learn if I can! More will be added as I find more resources!
so you want to learn ASL:
ASL Connect
The ASL App
SignSchool
Bill Vicars - YouTube
Particles Masterpost!
Particles come after the part of speech they’re indicating. Some of them (such as 은/는 or 이/가 or 의) are dropped when speaking in 반말, but they must be used when speaking in 존댓말.
은/는 – indicates the subject (who is doing the verb, what/who specifically are you talking about). Can also be used for comparison or emphasis.
오늘은 날씨가 아주 좋네요. – The weather’s so nice today. (compared to recent/other days)
을/를 – indicates the direct object (what is being acted upon).
난 아까 김밥을 먹었어요. – Earlier I ate kimbap.
이/가 – indicates the topic (clarifies the who/which/what). *Used in negative sentences!
커피가 좋은데 난 마시면 머리가 좀 앞아요. – Coffee is nice/good but if I drink it my head hurts. 저는 미국 사람이 아니라 캐나다 사람이야. – I’m not American, I’m Canadian.
도 – ‘also,’ ‘even though.’ Can also be used for emphasis.
난 대학생이에요. 오빠도 대학생이죠. – I’m a college student. You’re also a college student, right? 아직도 안 시작했어? – You still haven’t started? 매워도, 엄청 맛있네. – Even though it’s spicy it’s really delicious.
께서 – honorific topic; can replace 은/는 or 이/가.
선생님께서 왔어요. – The teacher came.
에 – at/to (time or place); per (time).
학교에 가야 되지. – I have to go to school. 오후 3시에 집으로 돌아갈게. – I’ll return home at 3pm. 이 약을 하루에 2번 먹어요. – Take this medicine twice a day.
에서 – at (where the action happens); from.
미국에서 왔어. – I came from America. 인천공항에서 만나자. – Let’s meet at Incheon Airport.
부터 – from (time or place).
이비행기는 부산부터 제주도까지 가고 있어요. – This plane is going from Busan to Jeju Island. 오후 4시부터 공부했어. – I’ve been studying since 4pm. 그 학생은 나를 처음부터 싫어했어요. – That student hated me from the beginning.
까지 – all the way up to (time or place).
삶이 힘들어도 끝까지 보기 마세요. – Even though life is hard, don’t give up until the end. 머리부터 발끝까지 예뻐. – You’re pretty from head to toe. 4시까지 기다릴게. – I’ll wait until 4pm.
의 – possession. my, her, his, etc. *저 + 의 = 제, 나 + 의 = 내
그 학생의 가방은 멋있지. – That student’s bag is awesome. 오바마께서는 미국의 대통령이에요. – Obama is America’s president.
들 – plural.
여러분들 (everyone), 학생들 (students), 그들 (them), 애들 (kids)
만 – only (usually replaces 을/를).
어제 공부만 했어. – Yesterday all I did was study. 난 아침에 우유만 마셔요. – In the morning I only drink milk.
하고 / (이)랑 / 와/과 – and/with (between two nouns). (*와/과 is formal, 하고 is more informal, (이)랑 is more conversational)
저는 지난 주에 친구와 해변으로 갈 겁니다. – Next week I’m going to the beach with my friend. 엄마랑 셀카를 찍었어. – I took a selfie with mom. 김치하고 고추장을 사야 돼. – I have to buy kimchi and pepper paste.
(으)로 – by means of; in the direction of; asking for a favor.
인터넷으로 찾는 중이에요. – I’m looking on the internet. 산으로 갑시다. – Let’s go to the mountain. 그건 영어로 말해도 돼요? – May I say that in English? 창가 자리로 예약해 주실 수 있어요? – Can you reserve a window seat for me?
에게 / 한테 / 께 – to. (*에게 is polite, 한테 is more conversational, 께 is very respectful)
아버지는 언니한테 돈을 줬어. – Dad gave my sister money. 선생님에게 다 이야기해요. – I tell everything to the teacher.
에게서 / 한테서 / (으)로부터 – from. (*에게서 is polite, 한테서 is more conversational)
오늘은 내 생일인데 남자친구한테서 꽃다발을 받았어. – Today is my birthday and I got a bouquet from my boyfriend. 선생님에게서 많이 배웠어요. – I learned a lot from my teacher.
(이)나 – gives the impression of “good enough.” Replaces 이/가 or 을/를.
떡볶이 없어? 그럼 김밥이나 먹자. – There’s no spicy rice cakes? Then let’s just have kimbap. 시간이 있으면 커피나 한잔할까요? – If you have time, shall we get some coffee?
Grammar Masterpost
보다 (더) – more than
emphasis (very, a lot, a bit, etc.)
present tense forms
future tense forms
imperative form
위해(서) – in order to
~(으)려고/~(으)러 – in order to
워해(서) vs. (으)러
~지 말다 – to not do
말고/아니고 – instead of
age
~을 때 – when
~지만/~는데 – however
~ㄴ/은/는데 – giving context
좋겠다 – it’d be nice if
제일/가장 – best/most
~ㄴ지 – since
~에 대해(서) – about
~아/어 드리다 – to do for
때문에 – because of
~(으)니까 – because
~거든요 – because
것 같다 – seems like/I think
~잖다 – you know
가져가다 vs. 가져오다 – take with/bring with
알다/모르다 – to know (how to)
편이다 – rather/sort of
만큼 – as much as
일단/만약/처음 – once/first
particles
~(으)로 – with/by means of
은/는 vs. 이/가
~(이)나 – good enough
수학 – basic math
~에 따라서 – according to
~자니(까)/~(으)려고 하니(까) – intended to, but
이다 vs. 있다
받침 pronunciation rules
Korean sentence structure (SOV)
any / every / some / none
안 vs. ~지 않다 – negatives
처음/다음/지난/마지막 – first, next, last
Websites for learning Korean
(i will only be adding links)
Howtostudykorean.com
Freshkorean.com
Talktomeinkorean.com
90daykorean.com
Koreanclass101.com
Topikguide.com
Coursera.org
Koreanwikiproject.com
Easytolearnkorean.com
Studytopic.go.kr
Sooandcarrots.com
Rawkorean.com
Ilovelanguages.org
I will keep adding if i find more websites.
These are only websites and not apps or yt channels
Unique and out of the box language learning resources you probably haven’t heard of!
• Lyrics Training - Lyric fill in game
• Radio Garden - Listen to the radio anywhere in the world
• Language Reactor - Browser extension to learn with Netflix, YouTube, etc
• BaBaDum - Fun vocab games
• Linguno - Listening, vocab, and conjugation exercises, plus 10 daily crosswords in each language
• Bilinguis - Read a small selection of classic, older books in a bilingual side-by-side style. Some have audio reading as well!
• Lyrik Line - Read and listen to poetry in your target language!! Huge selection
• Top 40 Charts - Top 40 music hits in countries around the world.
• Kiosko - Daily newspaper covers all over the world. Clicking on one takes you to the news website to read more
• Lexicity - For all of you ancient language obsessed people!! Amazing and thorough resource for many ancient languages
-> Click on the link below to get links to all those sites + more information about them!
These are 10 language learning resources that you have likely never heard of. Covering everything from audio to books to ancient languages.