Kana Flashcards from White Rabbit Press

[JoelOwens]

Hi all - Just wanted to share something that has helped me a lot. I have listened to the podcasts for several months now, and had a kana symbol chart at my work desk for about 5 months now - couldn't remember squat off of it. Looked at some DIY flash cards - don't even bother.

So I finally broke down and bought the Kana flashcards from the Jpod101 store. These use a special technique of picture mnemonics to teach you sound-to-symbol (e.g. - Reindeer antlers for the character "RE"). I can't stress to you how powerful a teaching tool this is and I would strongly recommend to anyone just starting here - Don't put it off, get their cards today! These cards combine several tools including font variations and stroke order - Did I mention it teaches you many Japanese words? - and I can honestly tell you it will put you light-years ahead if you are new to this, as I am. You'll be surprised how much more you can learn from the podcasts by understanding exactly what syllables are being used. I wish I had bought these right when I started, I'm sure I'd be a lot farther along than I am.

The method I found most powerful is to look at the 'cheat-side' back of the card and learn the main character of that card using the 'pict-o-gram', repeat it out loud a few times. At the bottom of the 'test-side' front are 5 words in Kana using that character. Try to pick apart each word, flipping the card front-to-back to 'cheat' the answer if you don't recognize a given character. Look at each word until you can read it out loud fluidly from the test-side, repeating several times. This way you will pick up several characters each card; by the time you get halfway thru the deck, you'll be sight-reading many of the words! They've done a lot of work on these cards to make them most effective - You can see samples in the jpod101 store of what a couple of cards look like. There is a Kata deck and a separate Hira deck, plus a couple of full chart cards.

Another idea - Get a friend to drill you on the cards! This is a great method (and your friend will definitely laugh when you hit the "ma" card)

In right around 1 week - studying about 30-minutes to an hour per night I had the kata kana down pretty solid and found that I could actually navigate around Japanese web pages; Friends, this was a big WOW for me, even though I'm reading slowly, it's really great! I'm halfway through my 3rd week owning these and I have about half of the Hiragana set down, and I keep hitting the Kana deck just to make sure I am good on it as well.

Just goes to show this old dog can learn new tricks!

Joel

[debondtjan]

Without even reading your review, I already ordered them today I looked at the samples first, and I knew immediately this was the way I'd want to learn it.

Learning just by looking, got me bored too fast. Anyway, the mnemonics are great

[JoelOwens]

You won't be a bit disappointed. Hira is a little harder to learn, but so many texts are written in this that it's important.

I have also noticed (with a little DVR freeze-action because I'm just a slow, beginning reader) that I can read texts that cover the screen of NHK TV news!

You are so right, dbondtjan - The mnemonics are everything, probably the best leveraged learning tool on the card.

One other note: You might locate some of the clear plastic playing card cases and use them to carry your Kana cards with you. The original box that comes with the two decks is ok, but you'll need to keep the rubber-bands around each deck. I'm still checking the stores...

I carry them anywhere I think I might have to spend some time waiting, I can take them out and practice - in the waiting room, over lunch break, etc.

~joel

[debondtjan]

After using them a couple days I am really satisfied! I learned the Hiragana the rather hard way, but the katakana using the flashcards. I must say 'wow'. I learned the katakana in almost an hour (90% without mistakes)! Off course, already knowing most of the hiragana did help me a lot.

For a dutch speaking person like me, it's sometimes necessary to think of another mnemonic. Although I know a lot of english vocabulary, some things I never heard before

I'm certainly going to order the kanji flashcards too. There's a reduction on the full kanji pack Now I'm just hesitating if I should follow the heisig method first or not... learning Spanish in parallel doesn't make things easier

[mikepinkerton]

I did a search over the weekend, in fact, and came across the following site:

http://learnthekana.com/

It has its own mnemonics which differ from the ones on the rabbit cards (which I also own, I wanted something online), and some of them are kinda goofy, but aren't they all

Hope that helps someone who doesn't want to shell out the money.
-Mike