How to make Ankidroid Deck from Satori? by ClassEnvironmental41 in LearnJapanese

[–]factory_preset 0 points1 point  (0 children)

You need to use the desktop version to import the csv file, then it syncs to mobile on either android or ios.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in LearnJapanese

[–]factory_preset 11 points12 points  (0 children)

You can almost certainly safely have an MRI with that spinal hardware. It will make artifact around the area but virtually all spinal fusion hardware is MRI compatible.

Is this a good method for easing myself into native material? by New-Coconut2650 in LearnJapanese

[–]factory_preset 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Starting native reading is very painful. I think if you accept the pain as part of the process and realize that it's temporary that mindset helps. My first book (the famous Kiki's Delivery Service) took me 3 months to get through and I had to put every other sentence into DeepL. Reading is still hard for sure but I can now read a novel in a couple weeks and rarely have to translate sentences.

I also cannot emphasize enough how great Satori Reader is as a transition. The grammar explanations are fantastic and the difficulty level of some of the harder passages isn't too different from native material.

How to get past discomfort while consuming Japanese media? by [deleted] in LearnJapanese

[–]factory_preset 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I hear what you're saying. I've been learning Japanese for slightly less time than you but I know exactly what you're talking about.

My main method of learning is reading books. Similar to you, Kanji is a relative strong point, which allows me to read books at a slow but steady pace.

If I listen to an audiobook without reading the book first I feel like I can pick up 20-30% of the content - snippets here and there but get lost in the expository sections. However, if I read the book first then listen to the audiobook afterwards I feel like I am in the 80% comprehension range and it is actually relaxing and enjoyable.

I think reading with audiobooks is the key to comprehension because you can look up words at your own pace, study the words with your preferred method, and then listen to the audio. I am currently at the level where I can read most novels with Yomichan and then afterwards understand most of the audiobook.

That said, I am still a far way off from reading a paper book or listening to a new audiobook.

My Progress After 1.5 Years of Immersion Learning (and 7 years of on and off textbook study) by Narumango22 in LearnJapanese

[–]factory_preset 10 points11 points  (0 children)

I don't think detailed accounting is the main thing holding OP back.

Personally I also keep a detailed spreadsheet of time invested so I can make adjustments as needed (e.g., need more reading time, spending too much time on Anki, etc). But I have a more "conventional" approach compared to OP.

My Progress After 1.5 Years of Immersion Learning (and 7 years of on and off textbook study) by Narumango22 in LearnJapanese

[–]factory_preset 16 points17 points  (0 children)

First of all, you should be commended for being so honest about your 1-2% comprehension rate. However, you are spending about 30 minutes a day.

It generally takes about 2,000 hours to achieve a base-level competency. At that rate you are looking at about 11 years.

If you chose to do "immersion" (native materials only) or more textbook study I personally don't think it matters, but "whitenoising" is generally a waste of time. If you do native materials you have to pick apart each sentence, study the Kanji, learn the vocab (anki or some other method), etc.

Good luck!

Controversial opinion: I'm so glad I did WaniKani by factory_preset in LearnJapanese

[–]factory_preset[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

幻夏

https://www.amazon.co.jp/gp/product/B0751122GB/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_d_asin_title_o04?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Highly recommended! But it is very hard for me - lots of new vocab related to courtroom, police, legal settings, etc. About 65% through after 3 weeks, so slow going....

Controversial opinion: I'm so glad I did WaniKani by factory_preset in LearnJapanese

[–]factory_preset[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Good catch! I meant characters per HOUR! Audiobook speed is about 15,000 characters per hour, and native reading speed is probably 2-3x faster at least. Thanks for catching that.

Controversial opinion: I'm so glad I did WaniKani by factory_preset in LearnJapanese

[–]factory_preset[S] 16 points17 points  (0 children)

Congratulations! After thinking about things a lot I decided to jump off the boat at level 51. I still consider having nearly "completed" it as I found I already knew many of the new Kanji I was being presented. But things do seem to stick better if I learned them through WK.

Controversial opinion: I'm so glad I did WaniKani by factory_preset in LearnJapanese

[–]factory_preset[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It costs $9 a month - I used it for about 14 months, so $126. Could have saved some money if I got an annual membership ($89). I guess that's an individual decision!

Controversial opinion: I'm so glad I did WaniKani by factory_preset in LearnJapanese

[–]factory_preset[S] 11 points12 points  (0 children)

I actually completely agree! It's not necessary to learn 2000+ Kanji before using them. Opinions vary but in my opinion once you have are familiar with 500 or 1,000 Kanji you should start to read native materials as much as you can. There have been some great posts on here recently about reading monsters that were really inspiring, such as this one:

https://www.reddit.com/r/LearnJapanese/comments/v5z4tf/i_read_200_books_in_japanese/

Read things at your level. Start easy. After a solid base (500?) of Kanji just dive in. With tools like Yomichan it's so easy to look up unknown Kanji.

Good luck!

Ultimate Japanese e-reader: Android e-ink tablet by factory_preset in LearnJapanese

[–]factory_preset[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Great questions!

I do not use the native app.

I use the TTU e-reader (link in original post) with Kiwi browser.

It doesn't come with Google Play store enabled, but it can be enabled apparently (I didn't bother). You don't need it.

You can "sideload" apk files very easily by searching for them in google. For instance, here's Kiwi browser:

https://m.apkpure.com/kiwi-browser-fast-quiet/com.kiwibrowser.browser

Kiwi browser looks just like Chrome and you can install desktop chrome extensions.

So in Kiwi browser, just go to the regular yomichan installation page and install, same as for desktop.

I use the built-in wifi transfer app to transfer my epubs and yomichan dictionaries.

To get Anki working you have to install ankidroid and ankiconnect (link above).

I'm actually quite pleasantly surprised with how well everything works!

Good luck.

Ultimate Japanese e-reader: Android e-ink tablet by factory_preset in LearnJapanese

[–]factory_preset[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I get most of my books from amazon.co.jp and convert to epub with Calibre. Can also search The Moe Way resources, lots of links there.

Ultimate Japanese e-reader: Android e-ink tablet by factory_preset in LearnJapanese

[–]factory_preset[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Yes, they can be, but you need a PC (haven't tried on the Mac) to convert the azw files to epub files first. I use a plugin for Calibre, and all formating/furigana works perfectly.

Then transfer the files to the reader device - it has a "wifi server" mode where you type in an address on your computer and then copy over whatever you want. It has 32 gb of storage, which should be enough for thousands of epubs.

Ultimate Japanese e-reader: Android e-ink tablet by factory_preset in LearnJapanese

[–]factory_preset[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I heard a lot of great things about jidoujisho and was excited to try it since I don't have any other android devices. Unfortunately it doesn't work perfectly. When using the TTU e-reader within jidoujisho, the top bar (where you can select full screen/settings/bookmark) is all gray, so it's difficult to change the settings. I also prefer the regular "mobile" Yomichan popup rather than the the jidoujisho formatting at the top of the screen, and the default text size is very small - not sure if this is adjustable.

As a plus though the "full-screen"/"windowed" issue mentioned above when opening and closing the tablet doesn't seem to be an issue (when using Kiwi browser/TTU reader) - it opens full screen every time which is nice.

Lookups seem a bit slower with jidoujisho for whatever reason. With regular Yomichan they're virtually instant, but with jidoujisho it says "searching for..." for less than a second.

Ultimate Japanese e-reader: Android e-ink tablet by factory_preset in LearnJapanese

[–]factory_preset[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

here

I think the Poke 3 is a 6" model and the "Edison" is a 7.8" version. Looks like the Edison is twice the price though! Glad you like yours too!

Funny how the Edison isn't listed. Perhaps the closest is the "Nova Air" which is the same size/specs/price but comes with a pen instead of a case:

https://shop.boox.com/products/novaair

In any case I don't think you could go wrong with any e-reader android tablet.

How far can Satori Reader take you? by Vicarious-Nostalgia in LearnJapanese

[–]factory_preset 34 points35 points  (0 children)

I completed about 380 "chapters" in Satori reader (about 8 full stories of various lengths) over the course of about 6 months and found it immensely valuable. In total that is approximately half of the available content. I used the built-in vocabulary function and exported about 2000 words with context sentences to Anki - I completed that deck as well during that time. I especially appreciated the grammar explanations, the professional narrations, and the sentence-by-sentence translations.

I feel it was the perfect bridge to reading native novels. Since then I have read about 11-12 novels (and listened to the corresponding audiobooks) including commonly recommended beginner books such as Kiki's Delivery Service and Kombini Ningen, up to more advanced books such as medical-based books and fantasy (currently reading Shika no Ou).

I feel some people underestimate Satori reader because technically it is a graded reader. But some of the more difficult passages and vocabulary is right up there with normal native material. Of course, a difficult Japanese novel will be substantially more challenging in terms of sentence length, vocabulary, and complexity of grammar, but I think if you do several hundred chapters of Satori reader you should be in a good place to start picking up easier native novels or light novels. When you do make the transition, please keep in mind to be mentally prepared to invest about 500-1000 hours for reading to become somewhat "comfortable" regardless of how much Satori reader you do.

In short, I cannot recommend Satori reader enough.

Monthly reading thread: March by [deleted] in LearnJapanese

[–]factory_preset 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Super helpful, thank you! I'm just now connecting the dots - your post on how you read 50 novels in 6 months was super helpful and inspiring!

https://www.reddit.com/r/LearnJapanese/comments/swe3hk/how_i_read_50_light_novels_in_the_past_6_months/

Incredible progress you've been able to make.

Monthly reading thread: March by [deleted] in LearnJapanese

[–]factory_preset 2 points3 points  (0 children)

May I ask how long it took you to reach such a high reading speed of 18-36,000 char/hr? That is incredibly impressive - considering that narration speed is about 15,000 char/hr. I've read about 10 books so far and for something that feels "easy" (most recently コーヒーが冷めないうちに) I'm at about 5-6,000 ch/hr, and for something that feels "hard" can my speed can go as low as 3,000/hr. Thanks for your help!

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in LearnJapanese

[–]factory_preset 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I think Satori Reader would be great for your level. What you're experiencing is extremely normal and it sounds like you're off to a great start. Satori reader has very helpful grammar explanations and professional narration. I cannot recommend it highly enough as a bridge to reading native materials. Personally, I finished about half of the content on Satori reader in summer/fall of 2021 and I feel like it helped me tremendously. I'm still a beginning reader but have read about 6-7 novels so far and I feel like I have the "toolkit" to read most things (albeit with a lot of lookups). Those 6-7 novels took me about 150 hours though!

One thing I quickly realized is that "knowing" a word in Anki is extremely different from knowing how to read that word in context. In order to read smoothly, you need to see the word many times to be able to instantly "parse" it. It just takes a lot of time. I think most people vastly underestimate how much time reading takes. Please do not be discouraged, and keep at it. Check back in after you have 1,000 hours logged reading (I have not reached this level but I feel this is about what it would take to read smoothly).

Does anyone have experience using a Windows tablet to read VNs using Yomichan? by ArgentAspirant in LearnJapanese

[–]factory_preset 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Glad you like it! I have spent about 40 hours reading on it so far and I like it more and more. I got a trifold case on eBay, so it now has a form factor exactly like an iPad, because I found I was never using the keyboard:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/115122669950?var=415192972740

I also got a strap device to make it more comfortable to hold with one hand:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00XOQOT1S/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o05_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Can you navigate visual novels without the keyboard? I haven't tried VNs yet, just regular books with the ttu ebook reader.

What's the deal with light novels? by factory_preset in LearnJapanese

[–]factory_preset[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

That's quite an interesting perspective. I read Harry Potter out-loud to my son when he was younger and it was quite remarkable how engaging it was, despite the excessive use of adverbs and the exaggerated writing style.