My Yaruki （やる気）

Recently when I started to learn Hangul I noticed how easy learning another languages characters/alphabet actually is, now a few years ago this would have been a different story before all the meta skills that I've picked up along the way while learning Japanese.

In little over a week I've learned how to read and write 한굴 and this is with missing days here and there, but if it wasn't for Anki and the huge amounts of shapes/variations I've seen while studying Kanji/Kana I doubt that I would have done it so fast with a 100% retention.

This all comes down to meta skills basically smaller skills that you pick up along the way to learning the main skill that your after e.g. Japanese I've picked up how and what an SRS is which basically helps me never forget material and using mnemonics to remember characters, all skills that will potentially stay with me for a life time and will keep on helping me in the future.

Also the other side to it is that in the process of learning another language other languages become easier to learn this comes down to the fact that your brain becomes more used to handling the data that you feed it i.e. this and this make up the structure of a sentences or this this and this make up this shape which forms a Kanji, basically your training your mind to get good at language learning. Thus why a lot of people who know a second language from when there very young find it much easier to learn more languages, they've processed so much information giving there brain more ways to just 'click' with the information that its given.

To sum up if you have the opportunity to learn new skills then dive in learn all the processes along the way, learn all the techniques to mastering the target skill that your after, as you can guarantee one day you will be glad you did if nothing else it will make you a more rounded individual.

Another great article explaining meta skills can be found here

또봐요

Well seen as Blogger sucks for creating static pages and the blogger provided "about me" page is lacking, so the only other option is to create a normal post and then link to the post page via an about me button, which will do until I can be bothered to switch from blogger.

Summary

Hmm where do I start, my real name is Matthew or Matt which ever you prefer, its a long story were the name Tibul came from but have used it for many years on the interweb to the point were people think its my real name, I live in the UK although that's not were my future lies one of my greatest ambitions is to live and work in Japan.

Since my ambition to move to Japan started a few years ago its improved my lifestyle ten fold before my Japan dream I was content with byding my time playing online games and watching Anime all day long, after my day at 'the' dead end job, not all bad but i felt there was more for me.

Will do a post soon on my own experience with self motivation and improvement of oneself and how having ambitions, goals and determination will lead you somewhere doing nothing will lead you nowhere.


This Site

Started this site as originally a place to just record how I was doing with my Japanese studies, but since have realised how useful it can be to blog whats on your mind and is slowly growing into a place for me to blog about my other interests such as self motivation/improvement and everything Japanese.


Hobbies/Interests

Thought this would be best as a list since I have so many :)

• Japan/Japanese subculture
• Language learning
  
• Self Improvement
• Gaming
• Technology
• Photography (would like to do this more)
• Fishing
• Blogging
• Weight Lifting

Career

Firm believer that if you never list your experience/skills that possible opportunities may never arise, worked in the IT industry for about 5 years now and have gained a wide variety of skills over that time.

Including:

• Wide knowledge of hardware/software
• Working Knowledge of Server software from Windows NT to Windows server 2008 and Linux Ubuntu Server
• Working Knowledge of a wide variety of client OS including Windows, Mac and Linux
• Networking technologies and application
  
• Knowledge of setting up and deploying of small to large scale networks including inter/intra site communications
• Backup Technologies

Computer

Recently got my first Mac in years and have been completely turned after many years of using windows machines and working with them every day, its great to have a breath of fresh air really cant see me ever going back to Windows you can see my review of my Macbook here

Find Me

Now for some links were you can find me, feel free to add me.

Twitter - Now one of my regular haunts
Lang-8 - Trying to write in my Journal more and help others were I can
xbox360 Tag - Tibul
smart.fm - Trying to do more iknow excellent learning resource and a great community

Will add more as and when :)

Thought I would do a quick rundown of some language resources (mostly for Japanese) that have been useful to me and may be useful to you.

Reviewing the Kanji

Without this site I would probably have given up on learning Kanji a long time ago so i owe a lot to it, basically for those who don't know RevTK is an SRS (Spaced Repetition Software) for people who are using the Remembering the Kanji book and have learned some kanji but would like to not forget them what you need is an SRS like the one at RevTK or anki etc.

RevTK also has other great features such as the ability for users to share and make there own stories and a great forum to boot.

Anki

My Preferred SRS for learning and remembering sentences.

Smart.fm

Previously known as iknow an excellent learning resource for those who have just finished learning the Kanji and are moving onto learning sentences etc I usually use this to first learn the sentence/word then move it over to Anki to keep in long term memory.

Great example sentences with audio and visuals to help you learn and also a great community of people sharing content.

Lang-8

Only signed up to this one recently but really like the idea basically you write in your Journal with the language you are trying to learn and other users correct any mistakes you make and you can do the same for others seems excellent for improving your "putting together your own sentence skills" :D

Read The Kanji

Recently had somebody twitter me this, I've only had a quick go and it seems like a good way to help learn the reading for Kanji and also has example sentences for each, you can even use it as an SRS system for learning the different vocab from the JLPT's

If anybody else has recommendation that you feel should be included in the list please feel free to comment.

Well I recently took it upon myself to add an extra language to my life, through Japanese I've become more and more interested in learning languages just love learning new stuff and having a deeper understanding about different languages and cultures really appeals to me.

For a while now I've been thinking to myself once I'm fluent in Japanese I'd like to start Korean but why wait that long when I can start now, Its not going to be on the same scale as Japanese I'll only work on Korean when I fancy a change from the Japanese, Japanese will always be my love.

The great thing I've already noticed with Korean is how simple there writing system is with not needing to know Kanji and only 24 characters in there alphabet no wonder they have one of the highest literacy rates on the planet.

After only 2 days I know the majority of 한굴Hangul there alphabet and find it easy to remember probably a direct cause of learning Japanese gave me the meta skill of remembering characters much easier (more on this another day)

Will talk more about Korean over the comings days as I finish learning the 한굴

Now for a quick Japanese stats update.

Deck created: 4.4 months ago
Total number of cards: 1464
Total number of facts: 1464

Card counts
Mature cards: 870 (59.43%)
Young cards: 404 (27.60%)
Unseen cards: 190 (12.98%)

Correct answers
Mature cards: 95.7% (600 of 627)
Young cards: 86.7% (9725 of 11221)
First-seen cards: 88.4% (1218 of 1378)

The 1274 seen cards in this deck contain:
767 total unique kanji.
Jouyou: 740 of 1945 (38.0%).
Jinmeiyou: 5 of 287 (1.7%).
22 non-jouyou kanji.

Jouyou levels:
Grade 1: 70 of 80 (87.5%).
Grade 2: 143 of 160 (89.4%).
Grade 3: 147 of 200 (73.5%).
Grade 4: 112 of 200 (56.0%).
Grade 5: 77 of 185 (41.6%).
Grade 6: 65 of 181 (35.9%).
JuniorHS: 126 of 939 (13.4%).

Well I finally bit the bullet and downloaded the plugin for smart.fm formally know as iknow.co.jp so that I can easily import sentences and not have to manually enter them which can be time consuming this also has the added bonus of it importing the audio aswell which is a great aid.

You can download from the Anki plugins page here once installed you can edit the card model to your liking I personally have mine set to recoginiton only as I do with all my cards then all you need to do is locate the list that you would like to import copy the url and choose to import smart.fm sentences from the menu then sit back and relax.

This has already saved me much time especially after a busy day and I just want to get down to learning new things and not have to enter for an hour first which should stop me being as lazy sometimes :)

Currently adding sentences from the core 6000 series as after a while of adding grammar sentences I've gone back to adding vocab especially after reading even more about vocab being everything from over at Emilio Wuerges blog On How To Learn Japanese

Will add an Anki stats update shortly.