Forum topic subscribe and flashcard deck folders?

[Zelg]

こんにちは。

Regarding forum topics, is there a way to subscribe via email to a specific thread? Like if I create a topic can I receive an email stating that the topic has been replied to? I've seen other forums do this and while most of them I found it annoying (the option was forced and you're not able to select which threads you want to be emailed about) I think it would be great to be able to have I guess a "watch list" option that I can add to and subtract from so I didnt have to keep specific thread titles in my head.

As far as flashcards go, I'm wondering if maybe it would be possible to make folders for decks so we can keep it a little more organized. I'm a bit OCD with them I'm finding. I have a deck for the vocab of each lesson I've done in the absolute beginner lessons (25 of them) and its getting a bit cluttered. I suppose I can condense them down after I've learned them well enough into bigger decks but I would really love the ability to create a folder that says Absolute Beginner season 1 Decks, have all those decks in there and then create another folder for Season 2 or whatever I'm working on next.

Not a huge deal but I think it might help organize it all.

[mmmason8967]

Regarding forum topics, is there a way to subscribe via email to a specific thread?

When you are typing your message, there is a set of checkboxes below the Save Draft, Preview and Submit buttons. The bottom one is "Notify me when a reply is posted".

You can make this checkbox tick itself automatically by using the User Control Panel. The link to the User Control Panel is at the top of the page, in the grey box below where it says Board Index < Feedback & Support < Feature Requests.

In the User Control Panel, first find Board Preferences and then, within that, find Edit Posting Defaults. Turn on the option for Notify me upon replies by default.

I have a deck for the vocab of each lesson I've done in the absolute beginner lessons (25 of them) and its getting a bit cluttered.

For what it's worth (which is probably not that much really), I used to do the same thing with flashcards. I found that I was actually learning which deck each card was in, especially with the kanji. For example, if 嘘 (uso, a lie) came up, I might not be sure because (to me) the kanji looks similar to 暇 (hima, free time); however, if I knew that 暇 wasn't in that deck, I'd get 嘘 right without really recognising it.　So I prefer to build large decks containing all the vocabulary for a series. I build them up by adding one lesson at a time, mainly to avoid getting the rather discouraging "200 Cards Due Now" message.

マイケル

[Zelg]

mmmason-san.

Ty for your reply. As im typing this reply I now see the check boxes below.

As for the decks, last night I was realizing I was having the same trouble with the smaller decks as you described. Along with the smaller decks I do still study the core 100 deck I have, so I'm kind of doing both. I find the smaller decks easier as a starting point but there is definitely a point where like you said if I add two similar words to a big deck then I realize I dont know them as well as I thought.

I think what I may end up doing is continue to have my mini decks for each lesson and as I learn those to a comfortable point then I will condense them into bigger and bigger decks. What I started doing for kanji that look similar to me, for example けいさつかん　警察官　and じゅうぎゅういん　従業員　and also かんごし　看護士 (I guess their not THAT similar but as a noob they are lol) is that I have a separat deck called Spare Words and I move the problem words together into that deck and I cycle through and mouse over each kanji and go over the pronunciation and the visual differences until I can fully tell them apart. I think before I was kind of relying on seeing one character, like the last one for かんごし and seeing instantly recognizing it and going "oh I know that" but I had no idea what the other two actually were. So in that respect, having a small deck to help differentiate similar looking kanji is a great help and now when i'm going through my core 100 I dont have a problem recognizing those three.

My problem with bigger decks is that its much harder for me to learn the words initially, so I feel like I spend 30 minutes cycling through 10 words a few times but each time it adds in a new word and just confuses me more. So I think initially getting ot know the words on a smaller level in smaller decks is a good starting point, but like you said, definitely is not great for long time memory when presented with a similar looking kanji.

Whether that practice will continue to be suitable i'm not sure. I may actually finally give in and get a kanji book and get to physically writing them but I think I'm fighting that.

Thanks again for your info.

[mmmason8967]

I think what I may end up doing is continue to have my mini decks for each lesson and as I learn those to a comfortable point then I will condense them into bigger and bigger decks.

Oh, that's a great idea! I think I'll try this approach as well. It should also be good for controlling how rapidly cards get added to a master deck and so avoid the dreaded "200 Cards Due" message.

... for example けいさつかん　警察官　and じゅうぎゅういん　従業員　and also かんごし　看護士 (I guess their not THAT similar but as a noob they are lol) ...

Same for me! It seems to be the kanji with multiple horizontal lines that are hard to remember. They look different when they're side-by-side, but when you get them one at a time it's a very different story.

I may actually finally give in and get a kanji book and get to physically writing them but I think I'm fighting that.

Same again ... I know that I avoid writing and at the same time I'm fully aware that it's the method that works for me. I spent weeks trying to learn the kana by any method other than writing, but when I finally gave in and worked through the Jpod101 Kantan Kana videos, it only took me part of one weekend.

If you want a kanji book that isn't Remember The Kanji, you could try Essential Kanji by P G O'Neill. It's basically just a list of 2,000 kanji starting with easy ones and building up from there. It's very cleverly thought out, in that the sample words for each new kanji only use other kanji that you've already done. It gives you stroke order and each kanji is shown in the standard brush-style form along with a handwritten example done with (I think) a ballpoint pen.

マイケル

[community.japanese]

Zelg-san, マイケルsan,
kon'nichiwa!

Interesting topic here.
Since each learner should have his/her own best way, I wouldn't comment much about "how to use" our feature,
but I defo understand the difficulties in learning kanji. We (Japanes) all also have faced at least once, and
some people like me is continuously facing them

Is there any specific "reason" for confusion (between/amongst similar kanji)?
The best way is always to give some funny story behind kanji.
For instance, I often wonder if what the left part of 瞬 used in 一瞬 (= one moment/second) was, which is "eye" (目).
I can't remember if it was "eye" (目) or "ear" (耳), so I usually remember this as "we SEE the moment with EYE".

Hope this can give some "silly" idea to help you

Natsuko(奈津子),
Team JapanesePod101.com

[Zelg]

mmmasonさん、

I'm happy to have given you a small idea regarding the flashcards. I hope it works out. Thanks for the book recommendation, it will definitely be something I'm going to look into. It sounds like something I would take to easily.

奈津子。

As far as confusing kanji goes, I think the confusion mostly has to do with me just now giving kanji a good look. I can definitely see the differences between kanji but at a quick glance a lot of them can look the same. The past few days while doing my flashcards I've been focusing more on each individual kanji in a word and saying the pronunciaction for each kanji and then repeating the word before I move on to the next flashcard. I'm not having a much easier time seeing the differences. In another thread the kanji 語 was mentioned in an example and I was quickly able to recognize it and put a sound and meaning to it. It seems like a small moment but felt like an enormous accomplishment lol.

I think a major part of the issue had been being able to recognize the different parts of the kanji and then I read about radicals and while I didnt really study any radicals, I saw someone explain the different radical locations and just seeing that I was able to kind of break the kanji into different parts in my head and dissect them a little and realize they're not just a bunch of lines smushed together with their sole purpose being to give me a headache

I've done a little bit of what you suggested with creating a story or word to associate with the kanji. Sometimes I feel it works and sometimes not but if it helps a little then its good, right? 腕 for "arm", I've been able to associate the left part of the kanji as arm and for whatever reason I dont have an issue remembering the rest of the kanji with it and I'm not confusing the left part for arm with other kanji.



A little side question regarding your name, 奈津子。 I've noticed that 子　is an horific suffix used after a name, so I'm curious if your name is Natsuko or Natsu and if it is just Natsu if writing　奈津子さん　is appropriate or it なつさん　is more commmon?

[ericf]

As far as confusing kanji goes, I think the confusion mostly has to do with me just now giving kanji a good look. I can definitely see the differences between kanji but at a quick glance a lot of them can look the same. The past few days while doing my flashcards I've been focusing more on each individual kanji in a word and saying the pronunciaction for each kanji and then repeating the word before I move on to the next flashcard. I'm not having a much easier time seeing the differences.

This is where I find getting a pen and paper and actually writing the characters is what counts. I tend to write the kana for several words down the side of a page. Then, from memory only, try to write the kanji in the next column. When I've done the column I'll go back and look up the ones I couldn't do, and check the ones I did, against a dictionary/whatever filling in the blanks or correcting as needed.
Then fold the page so the kanji are hidden but the kana is still visible and rinse & repeat until you can do the whole column from memory. It'll end up looking like this (when unfolded again)
ちいさい　小さい　小さい　小さい　小さい　小さい　小さい
おおきい　大きい　大きい　大きい　大きい　大きい　大きい
らいげつ　来月　来月　来月　来月　来月　来月　来月
ごぜん　　午前　午前　午前　午前　午前　午前　午前
etc. but with more mistakes/corrections - except for the last column hopefully ;-) Then repeat the same set again the next day again until you can do the whole column correctly.


And I don't do this anywhere near enough.
(then again I'm learning Japanese for fun not drudgery.)

In another thread the kanji 語 was mentioned in an example and I was quickly able to recognize it and put a sound and meaning to it. It seems like a small moment but felt like an enormous accomplishment lol.

It is. Good on you!

I've done a little bit of what you suggested with creating a story or word to associate with the kanji. Sometimes I feel it works and sometimes not but if it helps a little then its good, right? 腕 for "arm", I've been able to associate the left part of the kanji as arm and for whatever reason I dont have an issue remembering the rest of the kanji with it and I'm not confusing the left part for arm with other kanji.

You'll find that left part of 腕 in many of the kanji for body parts, particularly internal organs:
肝（きも）liver
腸（ちょう）guts
脳（のう）brain
心臓（しんぞう）heart
Don't worry about the rest of each character for now, just note that they've all got a radical that looks like a squashed 月 (actually I believe it's not 月 but a very squashed/simplified 肉（にく）meat ) so if you see a new character that has that radical on the left you can guess it's quite likely to be a body part.

A little side question regarding your name, 奈津子。 I've noticed that 子　is an horific suffix used after a name, so I'm curious if your name is Natsuko or Natsu and if it is just Natsu if writing　奈津子さん　is appropriate or it なつさん　is more commmon?

It's not an honorific suffix (I hope you meant honorific not horrific ;-) as far as I know, it's just part of the name and quite common for girls' names. 子 means 'child' (in this context), for example 秋子（あきこ）、autumn child or 洋子（ようこ）、ocean child. But think of it as one word and don't split it.

[Zelg]

lol..yes you are correct. I meant honorific and not horrific. What a terrible typo that was.

Your writing exercise sounds like a great idea. I'm also just learning Japanese for fun so I dont exactly have any deadlines or strict curriculum to go by and I'm very bad at getting myself to do the more tedious and less exciting parts. That said I'm definitely thinking I should work that into my study.

Thanks again for your always helpful comments.

[community.japanese]

Zelg-san, エリックさん、
kon'nichiwa!
Wow, thank you, エリックsan, for the perfect explanations!! I was to write 月 part related to organs.
How nice to see your help first (so that I don't have to struggle "what's the best and simple English to explain..." )

Zelg-san, I know what you mean by no curriculum or deadline.
It's always difficult to keep ourselves motivated enough to study constantly, isn't it? I'm lazy and I prefer watching
sitcom than studying

Brilliant ideas for stuying kanji, both of you
Let's see if I can find some more funny and crazy ways so that all of us (including me) can enjoy learning kanji

Natsuko(奈津子),
Team JapanesePod101.com