Japanese Language

12:15 AM

@djahandarie I used to ignore net score, but then I started feeling bad about piling on downvotes for new users. Unless something is really bad these days, if I see a negative score on a "bad" question from a low rep user, I'll hold off from voting.

Though I know that's not the encouraged behavior, it just feels bad to ask your first question and get slammed with a -5.

Troyen

12:34 AM

I was doing RTK "quickly" until I ran out of index cards. Need a better way to make 2000+ flash cards. Digital ones don't teach me how to write the kanji.

plus, shuffling a deck of say, 300 cards is kinda a pain

Anonymous

1:00 AM

I have maybe 3000 physical flash cards. I don't tend to use the old physical ones, though--it'd be too much effort managing them. I use Anki for long-term retention.

Anonymous

Somewhere north of 8000 cards in Anki

Anonymous

Now, I haven't done RTK, so correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't the goal to go from keyword to writing it down? It seems to me that Anki could serve that purpose: it could show you a keyword, then you write it on paper, then you check to see if what you wrote is correct.

Anonymous

So you could use virtual cards and write.

Troyen

1:35 AM

The emphasis in RTK1 was primarily on reading over writing, if I remember correctly.

I haven't used Anki

Does it allow me to go through a huge set of cards and then let me go through the ones I missed right afterwards? Or does it try a "smart random order" (which ends up in me repeating cards I already know and not focusing on cards I want to when I want to)

Anonymous

Hmm, I thought the focus was on writing. I'm going to go check

Troyen

I don't see how you could write some of those kanji when it discourages practicing them more than a couple of times

Some kanji strokes are a little hard to pull off

Anonymous

"[T]he kanji are best reviewed by beginning with the key word, progressing to the respective story, and then writing the character itself. Once one has been able to perform these steps, reversing the order follows as a matter of course." on page 6

Anonymous

So Heisig suggests starting by going from keyword to writing the character

Anonymous

The story functioning as a mnemonic for writing primitive by primitive

Anonymous

1:50 AM

Of course, you don't have to do it the way he suggests.

Troyen

Right, but he also describes in one of his "intermissions" that you shouldn't be overly practicing the writing because that falls under "memorization"

and I think in his example he says if you're writing each kanji 5 times, you're doing it wrong

Anonymous

You mean on page 45?

Troyen

Maybe, I don't have my book with me right now

It was in one of those sections between chapters, and I didn't make it past lesson 10.

Anonymous

"A final note about reviewing. You have probably gotten into the habit of writing the character several times when memorizing it, whether you need to or not; and then writing it MORE times for kanji that you have trouble remembering. There is really no need to write the kanji more than once, unless you have trouble with the stroke-order and want to get a better "feel" for it. If a kanji causes you trouble, spend time clarifying the imagery of its story. Simply rewriting the character will

Troyen

Yeah, that line "There is really no need to write the kanji more than once"

Anonymous

1:56 AM

reinforce any latent suspicions you have that the "tried and true method" of learning by repeating is the only reliable one--the very bias we are trying to uproot. Also, when you review, REVIEW ONLY FROM THE KEY WORD TO THE KANJI, NOT THE OTHER WAY AROUND."

Troyen

I did do the review from key word to kanji at least

Anonymous

So, I personally understood this to mean "when you review, that is, when the flash card for a particular key word comes up, do not write the character repeatedly; write it once and move on to the next review"

Anonymous

Perhaps I've misunderstood

Troyen

I understood it as "when learning the kanji, don't try to write it too much or else you'll revert to memorization, which is what this book is trying to avoid"

Anonymous

Hmm. It's unclear to me what he means by "when memorizing it", upon rereading

Troyen

2:00 AM

We need a tie-breaker interpretation ;)

Anonymous

Hehe!

Troyen

Learning kanji with vocabulary is tough if you don't have a critical mass of kanji. It's easier when you know some of the kanji in a compound, but if you have to learn them all at once...

Also have to have a good focus. Most of the stuff I'm interested in reading is unfortunately way above my skill level.

Anonymous

Of course, some kanji only appear in pairs. That is, you'll rarely encounter 咆 without encountering 哮, as well

Anonymous

So you're more or less stuck learning it as a unit, 咆哮

Troyen

Yeah, but I only know somewhere between 500-800 kanji "well" (I think?), so I have a ways to go

Anonymous

2:04 AM

Making myself read a novel really helped.

Troyen

I tried that. I made it through the prologue...after 22 hours. :)

Anonymous

Ah... are there easier things you'd enjoy?

Anonymous

Older video games tend to have less kanji.

Anonymous

Some manga has furigana on absolutely everything

Troyen

Possibly. I originally started learning Japanese so I could read a Japanese book series which never got translated to English. That's still way above my level, but if I could find the equivalent of some young adult novels, those might be easier.

Furigana is kinda distracting sometimes, I find myself reading it even when I don't need to.

Anonymous

2:07 AM

Ah, something like light novels? Though they aren't necessarily a lot easier than reading regular novels

Troyen

Manga is tricky because it can be hard to tell when there is a context jump. Even with English-translated ones, I sometimes miss that the scene has changed for a few panels.

Anonymous

Light novels tend to do weird things with kanji and furigana, too.

Troyen

We have ...light novels (?) in English. Books that were maybe 150 pages (and printed in a normal-sized font) aimed at 5th-8th grade level readers.

Which is what I meant by "young adult novels"

As opposed to the 700 page novels for adults :)

Anonymous

In English, "young adult" is a marketing category aimed at 9th grade and up, as distinct from "children's literature"

Anonymous

That has nothing to do with who actually reads them, of course

Troyen

2:12 AM

9th grade? The section at my library was closer to middle school.

Anonymous

Hmm, this article claims ages 12 and up for YA sfwa.org/2013/02/…

Anonymous

It's all marketing, anyway, so I have to confess I'm not terribly interested in the ages they target

Anonymous

I guess that would be more like middle school.

Troyen

12 and up sounds about right.

At least in English, it would be easier to read. Fewer obscure vocabulary words. Less complex sentences.

Anonymous

I've found that light novels tend to be light on the exposition and have a bit more dialogue, but I haven't read way too many. They have lots of unusual kanji (with furigana) or unexpected furigana, which I think is a type of wordplay

Anonymous

2:20 AM

And in general they have a lot more furigana

Anonymous

I kind of feel like they're a distinct thing, and not exactly like young adult

Anonymous

Though I have to admit there, I haven't read a lot of young adult books, either.

Anonymous

I spent most of my youth reading my mom's vintage SF collection :-)

Anonymous

One trick you can use, if you like, is to read book that's been translated. Either into Japanese or from Japanese works, as long as you have a copy in both languages

Anonymous

You can use the translation as an answer key, or you can use it if you get lost and can't figure out what's going on to prevent yourself from getting more lost as you read further

Anonymous

2:25 AM

Or, you can read it in English first, then read it in Japanese. You'll have the background context in mind to help you understand and you'll never be totally lost

jkerian

@Troyen FWIW, I interpreted it as "only write it once when you're reviewing" as well

I think the closest analogue to light novels would be "airport novels"... but that's mostly just based on usage.

Anonymous

2:50 AM

I'm kind of sad this question got closed, but I'm not sure I can argue with Dave M G's comment: japanese.stackexchange.com/questions/11113/…

jkerian

3:33 AM

... the heck happened to chat there?

Anonymous

I don't know, but there's a meta question for it: meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/166411/chat-redirecting-to-a51

Troyen

4:09 AM

Well, you could argue with statistics, like out of a million songs, X% have one feature

to establish trends for what is "common"

Anonymous

Yeah, I don't agree that there's no way to be objective about it

Troyen

but it's unlikely to be

Anonymous

Oh well. If someone can think of a way to improve the question, I'll probably vote to reopen.

Troyen

I think our conversation totally swamped the person-with-a-yellow-gravatar's question

Anonymous

Yes, sorry about that, @小太郎!

小太郎

4:18 AM

I don't mind :P

Anonymous

@小太郎 ejje.weblio.jp/sentence/content/…

小太郎

Okay, so it seems to be 売っている when I compared that page to 売る

jkerian

5:08 AM

@Mechanicalsnail: Do you think we can remove that FAQ-proposed tag?

Mechanical snail

@jkerian Which question?

jkerian

the one on meta

nvm... andrew changed it

Troyen

6:48 AM

huh, I remember voting to close that question, but I guess my vote expired

Andrew Grimm

7:46 AM

@Troyen I VTCd it too.

Andrew Grimm

8:29 AM

Maybe I'll have to find a perishable souvenir based on Japanese eras that doesn't include which era it was before @Dave takes back his comments saying "stupid ... obviously ... completely crazy" in chat.stackexchange.com/transcript/511?m=5668728#5668728

chat.stackexchange.com/transcript/message/6317574#6317574 has a souvenir with Japanese era dates, but it also has 平成 in it.

Or maybe @Dave wasn't pinged when I posted a picture of that souvenir.

Troyen

8:45 AM

There's a question in the review queue that has a bunch of close votes, and every single one is for a completely different option.

If I hypothetically cast the fifth vote and picked a still-unpicked option, I wonder what it would say

Probably the last option chosen actually, but it'd be mildly amusing to see "closed for pretty much every reason imaginable"

Dave

9:33 AM

1) this conversation took place 183 days ago and you are still on it? Might want to grow a slightly tougher skin...
2) I did not respond to that picture you posted because I did not think it was an argument worth restarting, but if you insist: will you please go read that backlog, note how I only commented on how unlikely Japanese dates **without mention of the era** would be and tell me how that photo you posted (where the date is very clearly prefixed with its era) invalidates that.

Andrew Grimm

10:30 AM

Talking of tough skin, ell.stackexchange.com/q/205/54 (ELL question, not JLU question) is now only the second most downvoted question. Hmph. I don't like being second best!

xTCx

1:59 PM

@snailplane - my questions are based on sentences. I read a sentence and ask questions according to it.
Future users who may stumble into the same sentence may wonder about it as well and such questions could be of help to them, don't you think? ;)
Also, my questions are usually short and really straight-forward, and therefore, in my opinion, it would be much better to ask 50 questions with 2 in each, instead of 100 (in terms of organization, simplicity etc...).

In your comment, you wrote: "So, since A and B don't depend on one another, they should be in separate questions."

Anonymous

You didn't read that answer very carefully. He didn't suggest that there was a limit on how often you could ask questions. Instead, both answers suggested that you can ask questions as often as you want, as long as they're good questions. That means that they show research effort.

Anonymous

The odds of someone having the exact same two questions about the exact same sentence are quite low. If that's your reasoning for asking them together, the questions are probably too localized and will never be of any use to anyone else, so they should be closed

Anonymous

However

Anonymous

They can be of use to future users

Anonymous

You have to look at the questions more generally than that.

Anonymous

2:11 PM

If you ask about し as a conjunction, that's a lot more likely to be useful to other users in the future.

Anonymous

So, it'd be a much better question. "Why is し used as a conjunction here?"

Anonymous

The reason I linked to Troyen's answer is to point out the "research effort" part.

Anonymous

On Stack Exchange, you can vote an answer up or down. One of the criteria it shows you when you mouse over the arrow is whether the question shows research effort

Anonymous

It's not the only criterion.

Anonymous

But you don't appear to have made any effort to figure out the answer to your own questions. Some of them could be solved simply by checking a dictionary

Anonymous

2:14 PM

Some of the questions you've asked are more interesting than that, at least in my opinion

Anonymous

But not all.

Anonymous

So, I recommend that you 1. ask one question per question, 2. attempt to research the answers to your own questions

Anonymous

You don't have to listen to me, of course.

Anonymous

But if you ask multi-questions with no research effort, I will probably downvote :/

Anonymous

(As an aside, I haven't always asked the best questions, either. I think it's important, though, so I plan to work on that.)

xTCx

2:29 PM

First, I'd like to address the "research part" you commented on...
I DID and ALWAYS research before I post, whether in a dictionary (which I'm using anyway for finding Kanji - so there's no reason for **me** to NOT look it up.), or looking for anything in Google.
Second thing you must understand, is that I'm learning Japanese (3rd language) through English (which is my 2nd language) and sometimes I may not get my answers by searching, either because I don't use the right keywords, or because I sometimes don't understand difficult linguistics terms.

Anonymous

Oh, I'm sorry--let me try to clarify.

Anonymous

I didn't mean "you didn't attempt to research the questions at all"

Anonymous

What I mean is you didn't "show research effort"

Anonymous

You should explain what you've done to try to solve the problem so far

Anonymous

Have you tried to use 国語辞典 before? It's hard at first, but they're really useful :-)

xTCx

2:41 PM

I see... so that is the problem...? I used to do it before but always thought it was useless and didn't do any good to the question.. now that I know someone actually looks for it as a trace of effort, I will :)

and hmm not really... do you know of any good one?

Anonymous

In my opinion, this FAQ question describes this question here: "Also, what does 入るより translate into?"

Anonymous

You might not be aware of this, since the "FAQ" link doesn't lead to these questions, but if you click "Meta", there are a bunch of questions tagged "FAQ" which contain additional information about the community.

Anonymous

(I personally found that confusing when I started using the site.)

Anonymous

There are two free 国語辞典 on Yahoo, 大辞林 and 大辞泉

Anonymous

dic.yahoo.co.jp

Anonymous

2:44 PM

You can also search two Japanese-English dictionaries on that site

Anonymous

They're helpful because they have examples for each use

Anonymous

And yes, I think the community might react better to your questions if they feel you've tried to find out the answer, but couldn't.

Anonymous

You might also be interested in the "Resources for Learning Japanese" page: meta.japanese.stackexchange.com/questions/756/…

Anonymous

I suppose on reading that meta question again, it doesn't quite describe your question. After all, 入るより isn't a "long japanese phrase". But it still feels kind of like it because of the "no research effort" part

Anonymous

It's not something I'd vote to close, but I think the question could be improved

Anonymous

2:50 PM

(BTW, when you use the dictionaries on Yahoo!, pay attention to the drop-down that says 「で始める」. You might often want to change it to 「で一致する」 for exact matches, for example.)

Anonymous

There's also a glossary of terms on meta: meta.japanese.stackexchange.com/questions/352/…

Anonymous

So, about technical terms: I commented on your question suggesting it was the 中止形. That means the 連用形 used as a conjunction; 連用形 is what you called the "stem form"

Anonymous

I hope that part is clear!

Flaw

I see the circular argument of "cannot ask questions because don't know enough; don't know enough because cannot ask questions".

Anonymous

Do you think that's what's going on here, Flaw?

Anonymous

2:57 PM

My personal opinion was that separating unrelated questions was more important than showing research effort, though I tried to talk about both subjects

Flaw

I think as a general rule of thumb, questions cannot be too trivial.

Individual questions should be segmented

Questions should have clear indication of what asker intends to find out

The problem is when the question of "what is trivial" is answered by different people.

In the perfect system of everyone using their votes, the consensus of "what is trivial" for assessing the acceptability of questions would be solved.

Anonymous

Well, we don't have a "general reference" reason for closing questions

Anonymous

But the up and down vote buttons do talk about showing research effort. What do you think about that? A "trivial" question is fine, if they've tried to find the answer and were unable?

Anonymous

That's how I'm thinking about it right now.

Flaw

If they tried to find the answer and were unable, is it trivial then?

A truly trivial question would have the answer plastered all over the internet's metaphorical walls

Anonymous

3:04 PM

Well, I'm using your word, which is why I put "trivial" in quotes. I don't think of questions in those terms

Flaw

Sorry, physicist tendency. Everything is either impossible, or trivial. It is impossible until it becomes trivial.

Anonymous

To be clear, I think the only question is whether Stack Exchange is being used as a dictionary or not. It isn't a dictionary, so "what does A mean" in general isn't a great question

Anonymous

But "what does A mean? The dictionary says such-and-such, but I don't understand how that describes this sentence / the definition doesn't seem to work here" is better

Flaw

@xTCx (1) There isn't a limit on number of questions (2) Questions "bump" other questions so if you ask a lot of questions, some of your questions might get less attention because it got moved down.

@xTCx Also, if you have many short questions, you can try asking them here on chat.

You will get rather quick feedback and you can handle the questions more effectively with quick exchanges rather than one long post.

Anonymous

3:28 PM

@xTCx I'm just learning Japanese, so someone else might know better, but when I read 攻撃モーションに入るより早く, I think it's sense 14 of 入る in 大辞林, and より早い means "more 早い than"

Anonymous

So he's moving out of the way of the enemy's attack motion before it even begins

Anonymous

However, it says 早く rather than 早い

Anonymous

And it appears before a comma, so I think it's been used much like バックダッシュし, as a conjunction

Anonymous

The -く form is the 連用形 of an adjective, just like し is the 連用形 of する

Anonymous

連用形（れんようけい） is what you called the "stem form"

Anonymous

3:32 PM

So the sentence links together three clauses separated by commas

Flaw

The sentence should roughly read "I back-dashed and put some distance between me and the enemy faster than he could get into his second attack."

@snailplane Slightly different in terms of the role

Anonymous

I suppose it modifies バックダッシュし？

Flaw

I dont think 早く is used in the conjunction sense here.

Yes I think so too.

Anonymous

Hmm. I wish I understood better. I kind of feel like it's both.

Anonymous

But I'm not sure whether that makes sense

xTCx

3:40 PM

So according to you it's parsed as (入る)(より早く

and not （いるより）（hayaku)

sorry keyboard is a little broken

Anonymous

yori

Anonymous

Oops

Anonymous

より is a 格助詞 (かくじょし） "case particle"

Anonymous

Isn't it?

Anonymous

Or is this another より…

Anonymous

3:42 PM

I'm so bad at Japanese. ;-D

Anonymous

I think it links what came before to a predicate

Anonymous

So, より links the phrase ending in 入る with 早く

Flaw

早くする - do fast
～より早くする - do fast (with ~ as a standard of comparison); do faster than ~

Anonymous

Analyzing is hard.

Anonymous

I read that sentence a while ago without ever stopping to think about it

Anonymous

3:49 PM

I think I understood it

Anonymous

But I like analyzing, because it points out the limitations of my understanding, sometimes.

Anonymous

I suppose sometimes I read things and don't realize I'm not quite getting it 100%.

Anonymous

Like for example, I mixed up いる and はいる

Anonymous

(I did, didn't I?)

Anonymous

Sense 2 of いる at 大辞林 dic.yahoo.co.jp/…

Anonymous

3:56 PM

Trying to explain モーションに入る was difficult for me, and I think it revealed a misunderstanding I didn't know I had when I first read the sentence.

Anonymous

Well, I tried my best to help ;-D

Anonymous

(That sort of misunderstanding is why I'm so nervous about writing answers. I try my best to research answers thoroughly, though, to avoid misleading people!)

Anonymous

@xTCx I found this forum post related to your question: guidetojapanese.org/forum/viewtopic.php?pid=51330

xTCx

Sense 2 is the bold-faced "2" or the circled one? not used to this dictionary yet...

Anonymous

No, it's my fault for being unclear

Anonymous

4:07 PM

I meant sense 1-【2】物などが内側に移動する。

Flaw

It's read いる ?

Anonymous

I assumed it was はいる when I read it, but he said いる and you went along with it, so I assumed I was wrong

Anonymous

:-)

Anonymous

That's why I asked. Did I mix them up?

Flaw

I don't know. But Sense 14 of はいる that you gave made a lot of sense.

Anonymous

4:09 PM

That's what I assumed it was when I read it.

Flaw

あるプロセスを始める

Anonymous

I wonder how often I mix up はいる and いる

Anonymous

For that matter, あく and ひらく

Flaw

攻撃モーションにはいる - to get into the process of attacking

Anonymous

So, in my mental image, he's back-dashing out of the way before the second attack even begins its swing

xTCx

4:12 PM

はいる sounds more like the answer

Anonymous

(The only reason I have a mental image of a "back-dash" is because I've played Castlevania. Hehe!)

xTCx

I still don't find 物などが内側に移動する in the link you posted o_o

Anonymous

Ugh, it might be because my settings default to 大辞林, but the link goes to 大辞泉 instead

xTCx

Uhh yea there it is :)

Anonymous

Sorry about that. Yahoo's links do that. I made a search bookmark which specifies 大辞林 in the URL, but I must have entered the phrase into the search box instead of using my bookmark.

Anonymous

4:16 PM

I'll try harder to remember to click on 大辞泉 then back to 大辞林 before creating a link.

xTCx

It's ok ! :D dont worry

Anonymous

:-D

xTCx

So... how long have you been learning Japanese?

Anonymous

Fifteen years

Anonymous

Almost, anyway.

Anonymous

4:16 PM

So I should probably be a lot better at it than I am :-)

xTCx

Oh, wow nice!
I've been learning it for about 2 years between school and stuff, so I kinda am still a beginner.. :/

Anonymous

Well, the amount of time you have to put into it makes a big difference, but years isn't the best way to measure

Anonymous

But since I don't pay any attention to how many hours I put into studying, I have no other way to measure. So, I don't really. Measure, that is.

xTCx

Yea... well you have a lot of experience probably with learning, do you have any idea how to learn kanji? I usually read books, and use flash cards to remember words, but I don't know how effective it is :S

Anonymous

There are lots of ways to learn kanji.

xTCx

4:21 PM

I know, I've seen and heard of a lot, but do you know of something that's actually not boring and effective?

Flaw

Time interval recall.

You can try Anki, but it can be boring

Anonymous

@jkerian would point out that "time interval recall", referring to a flashcard program like Anki, is mostly a way to not forget information you've learned, rather than a way to learn it in the first place.

Anonymous

Anki is really effective for that, though.

Anonymous

For long-term retention, that is.

Flaw

Hm, I guess learning it initially is different

Anonymous

4:23 PM

Reading also helps you remember kanji you've already learned

Anonymous

As to the initial approach, there are a lot of ways--for example, some people like Heisig's system, "Remembering the Kanji". (I'm not a fan, personally.)

Anonymous

There are other systems which systematically break kanji into components, like Kanji ABC

Flaw

I guess use the same way you normally use to learn your first language.

Anonymous

I like to learn kanji in context as I go

xTCx

Yea, I'm using flashcards, anki is boring and I don't like to rely too much on electronic devices.

Flaw

4:24 PM

How do you pick up new words and ideas? By learning them in context I guess

Anonymous

So, in the last book I read, I came across a lot of new kanji, looked them up, wrote them down, and learned them there

Anonymous

I do my initial learning all on paper, usually.

Anonymous

(I take notes on my computer, too. It's a lot faster. I definitely prefer taking notes on paper, though!)

xTCx

I prefer all of my learning on paper, I hate relying on electronic devices, they are so distracting!

Anonymous

You can either 1. use a whole "system" like Heisig, or 2. continue doing what you're doing and try to identify problems in your approach and solve them.

Anonymous

4:25 PM

For example

Anonymous

I prefer paper, too.

Anonymous

But I have 8000+ cards in Anki, and managing them by hand is basically not going to happen.

xTCx

yea i prefer option #2, all of the systems I've came just make it more complicated than it is in my opinion

Anonymous

I should know, since I have an awful lot of flash cards on 3x5" index cards, too :-)

xTCx

true, but anki may not be as available as paper flash cards in times.
as i said im also in school so using a mobile device in class is not a good thing to do :P

but yeah when you have 8,000+ cards, it's probably better

Anonymous

4:29 PM

I think paper cards are better, if you ignore the time cost of creating them and managing them

Anonymous

So, in the short term, for a small deck, I think they are better.

xTCx

That's not a problem, I usually order a pack of ringed index cards and write down the words, this way I get the stroke order as well

Anonymous

Do you do a lot of writing Japanese? I find that learning to write kanji helps me remember them a lot better than simply learning to recognize them

xTCx

Maybe organizing them by subject, or by type of learning would be better, since then you could prioritize them and learn more efficiently with paper flaschard

Hmm.. not really

i do find myself copying kanji from my flashcards

Anonymous

I don't think organizing them by subject is really better.

xTCx

4:31 PM

but my vocabulary is not rich enough to actually write sentences just like that

Anonymous

You can practice writing, but mix languages in your notes

Anonymous

If the languages you mix are Japanese and English, I recommend writing horizontally :-)

Anonymous

To begin with, you can write readings and examples in Japanese

Anonymous

You can also write definitions in Japanese if you think it's useful to you. Like if you learn a definition, and there's one word you don't know in it, you can underline that word in the definition and write it in English

xTCx

What you mean by definitions?

definitions of what ?

Anonymous

4:34 PM

I don't know, it depends on how you're studying.

Anonymous

What do your flashcards represent? Vocabulary items? Kanji?

xTCx

vocabulary items

Anonymous

What do you write on the back?

xTCx

i learn vocabulary and pick kanji as i go

the reading in japanese and the definition in english

Anonymous

Ah, I see

xTCx

4:37 PM

I also don't remember how to write words, but I can recognize some... which is another problem i have

Anonymous

Remembering how to write is hard. There are several ways you can use mnemonics to remember how to write

Anonymous

I tend to use mnemonics only for cases where I can't remember without them.

Anonymous

Other people come up with mnemonics for absolutely everything, and it apparently works for them

xTCx

I have never tried it to be honest, i should though

Anyways, after spending about 4-5 hours learning Japanese today, it's time to get some other things done before the end of the day for me, so I'm going off now :)
Nice meeting you and thanks for all your help !
Let's chat again some time ~

Anonymous

Ah! Have a good night!

jkerian

5:01 PM

I realize our questions/day are a bit low... but I'm curious why we haven't been moved to a full site yet: area51.stackexchange.com/proposals/7526

djahandarie

5:45 PM

I don't know much about the whole stackexchange system. I guess it's exactly because our questions/day are low, but who knows.

Anonymous

If I asked about reading 入る as いる versus はいる, it wouldn't be a duplicate of this, would it? japanese.stackexchange.com/questions/6877/…

djahandarie

Well, the answer on that question wouldn't apply to the question you're proposing, so I guess it wouldn't be a duplicate.

Though I'm not sure if there's a good answer aside from "context".

Anonymous

Well, surely no better one-word answer.

Anonymous

I know the general strategy of "which word seems to fit best?" but I think you can be more specific if you're talking about particular verb pairs/sets.

djahandarie

I'm not sure there's a good long answer. The only way "Whichever definition fits the context." can be elaborated on is with examples, but I'm not sure how illuminating that'd be. But, might as well ask it, I don't think it's a duplicate.

Anonymous

5:54 PM

Well, you said that already, but I'm not sure it makes sense. It suggests there are no patterns

Anonymous

Which I think isn't true

Anonymous

I remember reading something along the lines of: いる is the older word, so it tends to be preserved in set phrases like きにいる

Anonymous

But in the common case, as a standalone verb 入る is はいる

Anonymous

Do you think that's incorrect?

djahandarie

I think I'm not the best person to ask. ;)

Anonymous

6:07 PM

That's my problem. Neither am I!

Anonymous

I'm trying to look it up, though :-)

Anonymous

Oh, and いる is also preserved in compounds like 入り口 and 出入り

Anonymous

Or just as the noun 入り, I guess.

Troyen

6:41 PM

huh, someone went through most of my old questions and voted up/down - that's unusual (for me)

@jkerian There isn't a definitive objective answer, and it's a question a lot of people have had. But in general, of the five stats, "traffic" seems to be the most important, followed by "number of 2k/3k+ rep users" (to handle site maintenance without mods)

Also important is the community evaluation score, we'd really need better content than is otherwise available

@xTCx It's better to ask 100 questions instead of 50, if the 100 questions are unrelated.

I assume you're talking about japanese.stackexchange.com/questions/11141/…

The し question was fine - especially since you proposed your own hypothesis for what it meant, but isn't really related at all to the 入るより aside from being in the same sentence. So someone who has a similar question might read it and see all this discussion about 入るより and think the し part isn't addressed at all.

It also makes it more difficult to search and classify questions. What if your two questions are about two different grammatical topics? How would we tag the question? Seems like the chances of a search engine indexing keyword properly is lower.

Finally, it makes it harder to go into depth in the answers. Maybe someone is an expert with the し construct but doesn't know what 入るより is (for sake of argument) - since they can't post a full answer to all your questions, they might not post an answer at all (I know a few people on JLU that do this, cough @Chocolate :) ).

But by separating them out, the 入るより expert answers the 入るより question and the し expert answers the し question and you're likely to get more detailed answers because they're more focused on a single topic so they can use the time spent otherwise answering both questions just adding more examples to their answer.

I know this question wasn't the best example, but I'm trying to illustrate the bigger picture behind the guidelines.

I don't even know how to begin comparing japanese.stackexchange.com/questions/9764/… with "other resources on the internet"

what would I search for?

@xTCx japanese.stackexchange.com/questions/9877/… is an example of a "simple" question where someone showed their research. You just have to give the impression that you're doing some of the work too.

Well, that question certainly beats its competition...from Yahoo Answers. ;)

@snailplane Can you add some examples to your japanese.stackexchange.com/questions/9847/… question? Maybe that'll help people come up with an answer.

jkerian

7:20 PM

@Troyen yeah... one slight concern I've had about JLU, is that I'm not sure how many high rep users we have right now

I know of several high rep users who no longer drop by

Troyen

I know I'd no longer be able to close vote ;)

@jkerian Thoughts on editing someone else's answer to include their own comment in the answer? Looking at japanese.stackexchange.com/a/9672/162 specifically

Comments get deleted without a lot of review and they can't be undeleted. Plus, it's harder to link to a comment than an answer and it'd really make the answer better.

xTCx

Oops

Troyen

Also, since there are less than 30, you could grab a list of all 3k rep users and then mark off the ones that haven't been seen in a month.

I'll try it and see if the reviewers complain.

xTCx

@Troyen - Thanks. I have deleted the question, and I will be more careful next time I ask a question.

Troyen

Oh, you don't have to delete

Just trying to help you going forward

xTCx

7:27 PM

It's okay - I got my answers already, and I'm sure there are similar questions...

Troyen

(In fact, if you delete a bunch of your questions, I think the system bans you for vandalism, so that can be dangerous!)

jkerian

sawa got hit with that at one point

Troyen

Since the community evaluation is now in the queue, do you think it'd be helpful to have a meta post for discussion on it? Last time around there was a bunch of stuff in the comments where people could iron out different expectations and also do some site cleanup.

But this time around, the results are only visible to mods :/

Anonymous

I was thinking of revising my question about とある. I haven't gotten around to it yet. I need to do more research first

Troyen

It was in the eval, that's how I noticed it. And it didn't really have an answer that answered the question.

xTCx

7:32 PM

What exactly is the difference between a 'beta' community site to a full one? does it actually make a difference in terms of user experience etc..?

Anonymous

I didn't include examples originally because I didn't feel like they were relevant to the function of と, but you could look at, for example, the title 「とある魔術の禁書目録」

Anonymous

And also because the dictionary entry I linked to included a couple examples, IIRC

Troyen

The "beta" site isn't "official", so it's not promoted as heavily on the other official sites. The reputation requirements for privileges are also much lower since there aren't a lot of high rep users.

Also, early betas have a lot of back-and-forth about what the site should be about or include

Anonymous

I found this question about the subject, which suggests it's the same と in とにかく, and so forth: detail.chiebukuro.yahoo.co.jp/qa/question_detail/q1180590256

Anonymous

dic.yahoo.co.jp/…

xTCx

7:35 PM

So in essence, in order to be promoted and get more users, you need more users, loop much?
I think it is because not many Japanese learners are aware of this site/community yet... which is sad because it can be so helpful for learners in all levels...

Troyen

Right, it's a circular problem, that has slowly been improving as we show up more and more on search engines

And (I guess) people promote the site off-site, but only mods know how effective that is

xTCx

I'd promote it if I could, but I don't know a lot of people who are interested in learning Japanese.

does everything needs to show up as "Excellent" in the area51 page you posted?

need*

Troyen

Not necessarily, but it helps. Then again great stats don't always equate to immediate promotion. (huh, last time I checked that was all excellent, though not anymore)

Travel just got promoted and isn't all Excellent.

But also has 4000 visits a day

jkerian

Heh... is this what I think it is? Sortof a "cursive"-like writing book? amazon.co.jp/exec/obidos/ASIN/4072548707/guideline09-22/…

xTCx

Still, "Startup Business" has much better stats in almost everything... seems weird to me.

silvermaple

7:49 PM

Hey all

jkerian

'morning

silvermaple

I'm looking for the best way to translate this phrase 関係を与える影響

I want to say "The impact of the relationship between"...or "the result of this interaction" or something

jkerian

Why don't either of those work?

Anonymous

@Troyen I updated my question: japanese.stackexchange.com/questions/9847/…

silvermaple

I don't think they're wrong per se, just i'm not sure which is the best/most natural

Anonymous

7:56 PM

Sometimes translators do a first pass to get the meaning down, then rewrite the English to sound more natural

Troyen

8:58 PM

Almost always, I think.

gibbon

Oh you haven't tried translating from korean.. the translator step is useless. And I swear if you put spaces differently within a sentence you always get completely different output.

Troyen

Well, translation is an art, not a science! ;)

Anonymous

@gibbon I would never refer to machine translation as translation, if that's what you mean

Anonymous

It's certainly not what I meant by doing it in two steps :-)

gibbon

@snailplane I was just commenting on what Troyen said.

Troyen

9:08 PM

I meant human translators.

Machine translators seem to skip the second step and sometimes miss the first step.

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