Tailoring Smart.fm

Big News!

I have discovered a way of actually tailoring Smart.fm to work better for me. As you know, Smart.fm consists of goals made by individual users. They take a ton of time any effort to make, two things I am short on. I've been using the goals created by the user scuda and I will be forever grateful to him for making the goals. My only problem is with the sheer size of them. On average they included 150 or more kanji. And they are organized to break with the Heisig lessons. My study method completely disregards the lessons. By the time I finnish learning a single goal, considering my rate of learning, its time to move on to the next goal. Thus far, I have yet to master any of the goals.

However. And this is a big however. One I had resigned myself to the belief was not possible. Within any goal, one can go in and choose individual items and add them to a tailor made goal of any size. Therefore, I can go in to scuda's goals, pick an choose my 100 kanji for the week and spend that time mastering them. I am ecstatic right now. Here is how it works. Simply visit the page of the goal. Click on the 'more items' link. Click 'more' again at the bottom of the page, until all items with in the goal are visible. Check the boxes of the items you wish to include in your tailor made goal. Select 'bulk actions' and 'add to goal'. Title you goal and create it. To add additional items to that goal, follow the same steps and when prompted, choose to add to the goal you've already created. Smart.fm seems to keep the itemsin the order in which you add them.

Without the aforementioned funk, I probably would have never discover this. See. Funks are good, in their own way.

Funks

Ok. So I've started calling them funks. Days where studying just does not work out. For what ever reason, be it: the weather, irritating people in my life, the fact the universe has turned against me, on these days, kanji just does not agree with me. It has happened twice now, and I have accepted that these funks will occur from time to time. The most important thing, is when they are over I must pick myself up, brush my self off, and get back to work.

My first funk occur the week before my first big review-week and I was able to use one of my review days as a study day. My second funk occured on Wednesday. To compensate, this week I will only study 74 kanji. Next week I will tack five additional kanji on per day, meaning 25 per day. I've come to the realization that when I fall behind, it is best to catch up slowly and not overwhelm myself.

This most recent funk has put me in a better mind set concerning Rosetta Stone. I have mapped out the remainder of my lessons and concluded that I should be able to complete it, provided no further unforeseen funks, in 38 days, which will be October 2, 2010. I will then employ that 30-40 minutes of time, formerly allotted to Rosetta Stone to a 2 week intensive Japanese Grammar study. I believe I have built up enough of a foundation for a focused study. After that, I will return to Rosetta and spend a day on each of the 48 core lessons, focusing on reviewing the vocabulary and the grammar points. I don't have nearly enough vocabulary down to even attempt reading news articles or blogs, and until I do, Rosetta, is my best practice arena. I will write and type my own sentences using their vocabulary and some of my own. In the process I plan to review some of the other Japanese Language books I have collected and also to post journal entries both here on this blog and on Lang 8.

I choose to believe these funks are an important component to my learning process, as long as I choose to recover from them. In an effort to keep myself motivated, I will be posting on this blog far more often. The content will always be related to my efforts to learn the Japanese language, however, they will also be entertainment oriented. Films, television and anime are the best resources I have for hearing the language. As I seek new content, I plan to share.

Reviewing The Kanji

Reviewing the Kanji

This is by far an insanely useful site if you want to follow the Heisig method.

Smart.fm

Ever wondered if there were an easier way to systematically learn information. The people at Smart.fm have figured out a way. The web based software creates a learning schedule that adapts to the individual’s performance and needs. There are tons of user created goal that you can opt to study and then master. The most useful ones for the Heisig Method were created by a user named Scuda and can be found here. He has created massive grouping of Heisig's lessons to study. Personally, I would have preferred smaller groups, however, I do not personally have the resolve or time to create them myself. And that is the beautiful thing about Smart.fm; you can create goal with content concerning any topic. Simply create an account so that it can keep track of the goals you explore and the progress you make.

iKnow offer a long term learning process, which works on its own schedule to teach you the material. The settings can be modified should you choose to study at your own pace.

Drill Beta is a drilling application that adapts to the user to make learning more efficient.

BrainSpeed is a fast pace fun arcade game that can be used as a quick review tool.

A final useful item can be found here. Another user created a goal involving the Kana with the additional syllabary. The BrainSpeed game under this goal is particularly beneficial for review.

Smart.fm was an indispensable tool during my first review week.

500th Kanji Milestone

I will admit my wrong doing for the whole world to know. I hit a slump on the 26th of August which jumbled up my entire schedule. Luckily, today was the first day in my review week, which meant I had plenty of time to play catch up. On a wonderfully good note, I discover a new study tool called Smart.fm that I will detail in great length in my next post. I am short on time, as I have much reviewing to do. But today marks my 500th kanji milestone. I believe that warrants fireworks.

English Grammar Review: Terms

In studying a new language, a basic and obvious thing to do it to perform a refresher on your own. My grade school years were a jumbled mess because I switched schools often. Therefore, my grasp of English grammar is sketchy. I generally know whether a sentence is correct if it sounds "right", but the reasons elude me. In short, I have difficulty quantifying my grammatical knowledge, so I plan to start with the basics and work from there. The following notes have been taken from both books and the internet.

Abstract Noun: A noun that refers to an idea or quality that cannot be identified by one of the sense. Common ones include, shame, delight, tolerance. See also concrete noun.

Adjective: The word that modifies (limits or describes) a noun or pronoun.

Adverb: A word that modifies (limits or describes) an adjective, a verb, or another verb.

Agreement: The correspondence of one word with another, particularly subject with verbs and pronouns with antecedents.

Antecedent: A word or group of words a pronoun refers to. See also pronoun reference.

Appositive: A word or phrase following a noun or pronoun that renames or explains it.

Article: A, An and The are articles. They are usually regarded as adjectives because they precede the noun. The may be definite or indefinite.

Auxiliary Verbs: A helping word (or words) used to form a verb phrase Common verbs include Be (am, are, is, have, been, etc) and Have (had, has, etc) and others (do, can, shall, will, would should, may might and must). See also helping verb.

Clause: A group of words containing a subject and verb. It may be either dependent or independent.

Comma-Splice: The misuse of a comma between two independent clauses in a compound sentence.

Comparative Degree: The "more," "less", or "-er" form of those adjectives that can be compared. See also positive degree and superlative degree.

Complex Sentences: A sentences containing one independent clause and at least one dependent clause.

Compound: Two or more words or word groups linked to form a single unit.

Compound-complex Sentences: A sentence containing at least two independent clauses and one or more dependent clauses.

Compound Sentence: A sentence with two or more independent clauses but no dependent clauses.

Compound Subject: Two or more subjects governed by the same verb. See also subject.

Compound Verb: Two or more verbs governed by the same subject.

Concrete Noun: A noun naming something that can be perceived by one of the senses. Common ones include, butter, elevator, scream, buzz. See also abstract noun.

Conjugating A Verb: A way of showing all tenses of a verb.

Conjunction: A word that connects words, phrases and clauses. See also coordinate conjunction, subordinate conjunction.

Conjunctive Adverb: A verb that connects independent clauses after a semicolon.

Coordinate Adjectives: Two or more adjectives of equal importance that modify the same noun.

Coordinate Conjunction: A word that connects two or more words, phrases, or clauses of equal rank. Common ones includes, and, but, so, for, nor, and or.

Correlative Conjunctions: Pairs of conjunctions used to join part of a sentence of equal rank. Common ones include, either ...or, neither ... nor, not ...only ...but also, both ... and.

Dangling Modifier: A modifier that has no word in the sentence for it to modify. It is left dangling and consequently ends up modifying an unintended word.

Dangling Participle: A participle serving as a modifier that has no word in the sentence for it to modify.

Declarative Sentence: A sentence that states a fact or makes a statement.

Demonstrative Pronoun: A word that is used as an adjective or a pronoun that points out an item referred to. Common ones included, this, that, these and those.

Dependent Clause: A group of words contain a subject and verb but unable to stand on its own. A dependent clause must be subordinate to and independent clause in the same sentence. See also subordinate clause.

Direct Object: A word that receives the action of the verb.

Elliptical Construction: A construction in which one or more words are omitted but understood.

Essential Modifier: A word or group of words necessary for the identification of the object being identified. See also restrictive modifier.

Formal Language: Language appropriate for formal situations or occasions and distinguished from informal language and colloquialisms.

Gerund: The "-ing" form of a verb when it is used as a noun.

Imperative Sentence: A sentence expressing a command. See also command.

Indefinite Pronoun: A pronoun that does not refer to a specific person or thing. Common examples included, anyone, some, few, many and none.

Independent Clause: A group of words containing a subject and verb and capable of standing alone. See also main clause.

Indirect Object: The person or thing receiving the direct object, and usually placed in a sentence between the action verb and the direct object.

Infinitive: The base form of the verb, preceded by to: to think, to run.

Informal Language: Language appropriate for informal situations and occasions and often uses contradictions and colloquialisms.

Intensive Pronouns: Pronouns than end in "-self" or "-selves" and emphasize their antecedents. Common ones include, myself, yourselves, ourselves.

Interjection: A word or phrase expression emotion but having no grammatical relationship to the other words in the sentence. Common ones include, yes, no, oh, well.

Interrogative Pronoun: A pronoun that is used to form a question: who, whom, what, which, whose.

Intransitive Verb: A verb that does not require an object. See also transitive verb.

Inverted Sentence: A sentence that is not in the usual word order of subject-verb-object.

Irregular Verb: A verb that forms its past tense or past participle by changing its spelling. Common ones include, bring (brought), think (thought), and run (ran).

Linking Verb: A verb that connects the subject in the sentence with another word (usually a noun, pronoun or adjective) that renames or describes the subject. Common ones include, to seem, to become, to feel and to appear.

Mass Noun: A noun referring to something that is usually measured by weight, by degree or by volume rather than by count. Mass nouns are nouns that cannot be counted. Common ones include, assistance, money and height.

Misplaced Modifier: A word or group of words misplaced in the sentence and therefore modifying the wrong word. See also dangling modifier and squinting modifier.

Modifier: A word or group of words modifying the meaning of another word in the sentence.

Nonessential Modifier: A word or group of words modifying a noun or pronoun but essential to the meaning of the sentence. They are set off by commas. See also nonrestrictive modifier.

Noun: A word that names a person, place or thing.

Noun Clause: A dependent clause, functioning as the subject, direct object, predicate nominative or indirect object in the sentence.

Object: A word or group of words receiving the action of or affected by an action verb of preposition. See also direct object, indirect object, and object of preposition.

Object of Preposition: A word or group of words following a preposition and related to another par of the sentence by the preposition.

Object Pronoun: A pronoun that is used as an object. It may be used as a object of a preposition, the object of verb, or an indirect object.

Participle: The "-ing" form of the verb (the present participle) when it is used as a adjective, or the "-d", "-ed", "-t", or "-n" form of a verb (the past participle) when it is used as an adjective.

Person: The form of the pronoun or verb used to show the speaker, the person spoken to, or the person spoken about.

Personal Pronoun: A pronoun that changes its form to show person: I, you, he, she, they etc.

Phrase: A group of words lacking both a subject and verb.

Plural: More than one.

Positive Degree: The form of the adjective or adverb that makes no comparison, heavy (positive degree), heavier (comparative degree), heaviest (superlative degree).

Possessive Pronoun: Pronoun that shows ownership. Common ones include, my, mine, yours, his, hers, its, our, etc.

Predicate: The verb, its modifiers, and any objects in the sentence. It makes a statement about the subject of the sentence.

Predicate Adjective: An adjective that follows a linking verb and modifies the subject.

Predicate Noun: A noun that follows the linking verb and names the subject.

Predicate Pronoun: A pronoun that follows the linking verb and identifies the subject.

Preposition: A words that shows a relationship between its object and another word in the sentence. Common ones include, at, by, from, to, behind, below, for, among, with, etc.

Prepositional Phrase: A preposition and its object. Common ones include, on the table, above the cloud, for the evening, etc.

Progressive Form: A form that expresses action that continues to happen.

Pronoun: A word that takes the place of a noun or another pronoun.

Pronoun Form: The form of the pronoun based on its use. They change their form when they are used as subjects or objects or to show possession.

Proper Adjective: An adjective formed from a proper noun. They are usually capitalized, but not always.

Proper Noun: A noun referring to a specific person, place or thing. They are capitalized.

Reflexive Pronoun: A pronoun ending in "-self" or "-selves" and renaming the subject. They are objects of verbs and prepositions.

Regular Verb: A verb that forms its past tense by adding "-d" or "-ed". See also irregular verb.

Relative Pronoun: A pronoun that introduces an adjective clause. Common ones include, who, whom, whose, which, that, what, and whatever.

Run-On-Sentence: Two independent clauses run together with no punctuation to separate them. They can be corrected by placing a semicolon or a comma and coordinating conjunctions between two clauses.

Sentence: A group of words containing a subject and a verb and expressing some sense of completeness.

Sentence Fragment: A group of words lacking an independent clause and therefore unable to stand alone.

Sentence Types: Sentences classified on the basis of their structure. There are four types in English: simple, compound, complex and compound-complex.

Simple Sentence: A sentence containing one independent clause.

Slang: An informal word or expression not accepted in formal writing by careful or educated users of the language. It is short lived or temporary and should be used sparingly.

Split Infinitive: An infinitive with a modifier between the to an the verb. They are avoided by most careful speakers and writers.

Squinting Modifier: A modifier that makes the meaning of the sentence ambiguous because it can modify either of two words.

Subject: The part of the sentence about which the predicate make a statement. A simple subject does not included any modifiers, a complete subject includes modifiers, and a compound subject consists of two or more subjects. See also predicate.

Subordinate Conjunction: A word that joins a dependent clause to an independent clause.

Superlative Degree: The most, least or "-est" form of those adjectives and adverbs that can be compared. Common ones include, most beautiful, least valid and greatest. See also comparative degree, comparison and positive degree.

Tense: The form of the verb that shows the action being in the past, present, or future times. The most common tenses are: simple present, present perfect, simple past, past perfect, simple future, future perfect.

Transitive Verb: A verb that requires an object in order to complete its meaning. See also intransitive verb.

Verb: A part of speech that describes action or a state of being of a subject thereby tells what a noun or pronoun does or what it is.

Verb Phrase: A verb that consists of helping verbs and a main verb.

Voice: Transitive verbs can be either in active voice or passive voice. When the subject in the sentence performs the action being described by the verb, they are in active voice. When the action described by the verb is done to the subject, transitive verbs are in the passive voice. See also active voice and passive voice.