[OT] Nobby needs to learn... how to learn...

[nobby]

Hello there,

I'm taking a LVL 4 japanese exam in December along with the class i teach at my college.

However i found a kind of dictionary of words that are specially needed for the exam. There's 727 words needed to be known and i currently don't have most of the vocabulary learned already.

The list is shown here, ---> http://www.jlptstudy.com/4/jlpt4_vocab-list.html

As you can see, the list is shown in japanese text.

I have no problem reading and understanding how the words are said, i merely require some pointers on best memorisation methods which could possibly help me.



As a psychology student, I shouldn't be asking this. But i wish to get a picture of what works for most.

[Dribble Joy]

God my hiragana skillz have gone down the toilet of late....

I dunno dude, stick them around the house on random doors and stuff.

I really dunno, I've been getting the feeling recently my brain is dying. Knowing my luck I've got a tumour to pair up with the one that's probably growing in my lungs, can't think of anything else the pain on the right side is....

[Hell-demon]

Get those flurescent post it notes and plaster them all over your bed room with phrases writ on 'em. You'll see them constantly all over your room, thus reinforcing the words.


Or just have lots of practical conversations in japanese. Learn quicker through doing.


Or just give up.


Do that. Go get some poon.

[StevenJ]

I can remember things I've heard much better than things I've seen... I recorded lots of formulae for my physics exams, and that seemed to work ok.

With that many symbols to remember, when not all the essence can be captured in words ("up line, down line, wavey line across") I don't know how this will help, mind... though you did ask what others found useful :angel:

[nabbl]

I always did it like that:

Learn the words from 1-100. Learn them again from 1-100 constantly repeating the exercise.
Next Day: Learn the words from 101-200. Try to memory them the whole day.
Next Day: Learn the words from 1-200. You will realise that you forgot some of the first 100 words and maybe some of the other 100 too. But that doesnt really matter. Because therefore some other words are very easy to learn.
Then learn the words from 201-300. The next day you can repeat 1-300. You will experience, that You will miss the most words out of the 101-200 words.
But no problem. Then learn from 301-400 and repeat the next day from 101-400.

I think thats the best way to get 750 words. Its a hard piece of work though.
If you have enough time, try to do that in 50ish steps. Should be easier then.

[Deno]

One technique I find very useful for remembering things like verbs and adjectives that usually dont relate to somthing physical, a good way to remember them is to try and incorporate them into an interesting sentence or situation. Its actually easier to remember a unique situation or event than simply a word that doesnt have any imagery or meaning attached to it - other than the rough translation into english. It takes longer to memorise words this way, but if you do it right you wont forget them.
If you have until december then I think it is very possible to memorise them all thoroughly, if you break it into small parts and dont try to cram in too much at once. It would get very disheartening if as soon as you learn a bunch of 50 , you have already forgotten the previous 50. Anyway, good luck in the exam, im sure you'll be fine for it.

[Dribble Joy]

I quite like studying languages, particuarly japanese as it's so completely different in it's structure and mechanics and logic system.

Alas, this thread's subject is where I utterly fail at learning them, as I have no capacity in the slightest for vocabulary. Nothing stays in other than random odd phrases (j'abite dans une ploubelle for example). So while I really want to learn japanese, I have no chance learning to speak it, let alone the thousands of Kanji. I've allready forgotten nearly all katakana too, I can't even write my own name anymore.

[Deno]

Im very interested in linguistics too. I've learnt french and im starting spanish soon, but it takes a lot of dedication and perseverance to learn a language on your own without any help from what I've heard. Japanese is a very difficult language, and I would highly respect anyone who manages to even gain a moderate level of fluency in it. So many aspects of it are different from english in regards to syntax, lexicology and even just the way Japenese people think. Oh and btw DJ, its 'j'habite dans une poubelle' ;P

[Dribble Joy]

I thought the H was dropped too? Meh, I dunno. It's 10 years since I had a french lesson.

As for Japanese, I more or less understand the mechanics of the language (like when learning a programming code, you know how something works but you still need to go find a book to find the actual command), yes it's completely different but my brain all in patterns (logic or otherwise) so it makes sense. Learning what the words are is a different matter.

[Deno]

Yeh, I think logical minds (someone who does computer programming like you is perfect example) are the best at learning languages, especially the grammar and syntax side of things. Nah the 'h' is never dropped in french unless your lazy at typing as it does sound roughly the same (though not quite) I was actually pointing out your spelling of the word for bin, but that was probably just a typo ;) I've always thought it would be interesting to learn an asian language, but from what Ive heard, they are incrediby difficult, and im not overly interested in asian culture anyway. The great thing abut learning european languages is that a lot of them have high lexical similarities. You only need to look at the romance family of languages (french, spanish, italian etc) to see how they share a great deal words (or similar words) Unfortunately for us english speakers though, we use a germanic language, so the grammar is quite subtly different between english and.. say french.

[Dribble Joy]

Physics not programming, but we do learn some of that anyway.

[nobby]

I sat in bed, recorded the first 45 words, the あ sound words.
Sat listening to my recording... "number one, ああ, ah ! oh ! number two, あう、 to see, to meet"

etc, sat reading and listening through the list for 30 mins before going to sleep listening to my recording.

Although i must admit i remember some words i previously didn't... if I did gain any knowledge through sleeping unconscious learning, it would have been 3 words at most : \


Guess i'll go for the Chinese school Military style way of learning ...


argh !

Learning from a dictionary is painful :p

[Nullvoid]

Try looking up the 'method of loci', maybe visualization of that kind would work out well for you.

[Setlec]

Start downloading animes or hentai... lol i have some cool links TBH pm me if you want to have them...


Cheers

[Xeno LARD]

Well hats off to you nobster. I have no idea about any of that.

[DrRisk]

Close your eyes and think of England.

[Asurmen Spec Op]

Yeh, I think logical minds (someone who does computer programming like you is perfect example) are the best at learning languages, especially the grammar and syntax side of things. Nah the 'h' is never dropped in french unless your lazy at typing as it does sound roughly the same (though not quite) I was actually pointing out your spelling of the word for bin, but that was probably just a typo ;) I've always thought it would be interesting to learn an asian language, but from what Ive heard, they are incrediby difficult, and im not overly interested in asian culture anyway. The great thing abut learning european languages is that a lot of them have high lexical similarities. You only need to look at the romance family of languages (french, spanish, italian etc) to see how they share a great deal words (or similar words) Unfortunately for us english speakers though, we use a germanic language, so the grammar is quite subtly different between english and.. say french.
I'd say that logical minds are the best at learning most things ;)

[nobby]

Close your eyes and think of England.


eughh... *shudders*

[DrRisk]

Fine. Get deported back to whatever fiery pit you came from then