Useful Stuff
So Anki might be the best way to memorize characters, but I might have found something Just as sweet.
Normally, when I’m surfing through a Japanese website or reading, and I can’t figure out a word, I hop over to Jim Breen’s WWWJDIC for all my internet dictionary needs. I however, had to format my harddrive recently (I’ll talk about that later…) and while reinstalling Firefox, I stumbled across a plugin called ぺらぺら君 (Peraperakun). This plugin is a mouse over Popup Japanese Translator. Modded from Rikai-chan and uses the EDICT (Same as Jim Breen’s WWWJDICT) dictionary. Allows you to see the pronunciation and English meaning of Japanese words when you place your mouse over them. So now, instead of opening another tab, entering in the word, and sorting through pages of results, I just hover my mouse and Viola!
I highly recommend this plugin to ANYONE studying Japanese. It translates into English/French/German/Russian.
Head over to Perapera’s WordPress or Go straight to the Firefox Addon Site
Find the Japanese —>Other Language Dictionaries that are required for the program.
I know this saved me lots of time, and I’ve only had it for a day and a half.
—————
Anki might be the greatest program ever for anyone trying to learn Japanese. Kanji, the bane of most students, is mostly about raw memorization. Anki even means Memorization in Japanese (暗記 : あんき) This program is very basic, it shows a flashcard, and in your head, or preferably—out loud, you say the word. Then you click the ‘Show Answer’ button to find out the reading of the word. You then scale how difficult that word was for you by choosing one of four buttons, Again (Soon), Hard (9 Hours), Good (4 Days), or Easy (9 Days). Depending on what you selected, it will reuse that flash card in that amount of time. That way, harder cards that you get wrong, you will see more often.
You can also create your own dictionaries that allow you to work on specific words, Kanji, or phrases that you’ve been having difficulty with, or need to learn for a specific class. You can check out their website by clicking HERE or by clicking on the image at the top of this post. I highly recommend it to all Japanese/Chinese/Korean language learners. Hell, it’s probably useful for any student, whether it be language, medicine, or law. Anything that requires memorization.
