No Sweat Cantonese (Review II)

Right after I finished "A Cantonese Book", I went right into "No Sweat Cantonese" for another go. Everything I said in the first review still holds. The only difference is that I've been in HK long enough and have gone through some other materials enough to get a better idea of what they were trying to explain. It felt less like a book to learn from and more like a practice book for the stuff I learned elsewhere. Anyways, I got through the entire book this time and it was a lot less frustrating. Probably because I just got finished with "A Cantonese Book" and it was tough to consider "No Sweat Cantonese" as a serious source of Cantonese education. It would be like playing basketball with a five year old. I'd get some practice dribbling, but wouldn't break out in a sweat. This is an especially appropriate example since I suck at basketball. As I mentioned in my last review, there were a couple of useful tidbits here and there, but nothing worth the price of the book.

A Cantonese Book (Review)

I picked up this package when I first arrived in HK. At first, I was pretty disappointed that the box was much bigger than the book and 2 CD's that were included; deceptive marketing and all that. Anyways, overall, I enjoyed the set. It didn't cover much, but I did feel like I got a decent grasp of what there was. First the good stuff. Everything was written in characters. I'm sure I've mentioned it before, but I had romanization when it is not accompanied by the corresponding characters. There were also plenty of chances to learn to read and pronounce and practice the different grammar structures. There were also a variety of exercises. I'm not sure of how useful they are, but at least I never got bored going over them.

Now for the bad. This book is pretty thin with some big fonts. In other words, it doesn't go over much. A lot of the grammar wasn't very clear and seemed to go for the learn by intuition approach. I've been around enough textbooks to get an idea of what they want to get across, but for someone starting out fresh, I can see how they might get frustrated. Another point of contention is that there were no translations given for the example sentences. I was about 98% sure of the meanings, but that last 2% does a lot for peace of mind.

I don't think it is the best book to learn Cantonese from, but I do think it is a good book to start from, especially when considering the lack of variety and quality in other Cantonese materials out there.

Anki (Review)

Anki is a cool little app. I found online. It is a flashcard program made specifically for Japanese. Automatic kana input, statistics regarding the kanji you have stored, detailed graphs on the progress. Good stuff. However, the program can also be used for other languages or topics. These last two months have pretty much been dedicated to input (2,500 Japanese words and 1,700 Korean words) and review. Took a lot of time, but worth the effort since it helps with retention. This program also uses spaced repition, which is the best way to commit things to long term memory. The extra advantage, though, is that you can decide how far you want to push the next review for a particular word. All it requires is being honest with yourself. This is definitely the best flashcard program I've found. You can download it at http://repose.cx/anki/index.html

Defense Language Institute Foreign Language Center: Korean (Review)

*Disclaimer: I took this course in the Summer of 1995 so things have proabably changed a lot since then.....or not.

This school is run by the military and provides language training to all branches of the armed forces. In my case, I was enrolled in the 63 week Korean course. Korean is considered a Category III language, which, in military lingo, means damn hard. Classes begin at 9am and finish around 3pm if I remember correctly. There are about 30 students per section, each section broken up into 3 classes of 10 students each, and roughly 5 or 6 teachers per section. The books at the beginning were pretty mediocre and were obviously produced by the lowest bidder. But the materials do improve as the course goes on.

This was a crash course in the language in every sense of the word. There was no stopping for anyone. If you fell too far behind, you would be put into another newbie section. Quizzes were given at the beginning of every day on material that has NOT been covered in class meaning that you had to study 80-100 words a day on your own time. Teachers would rotate every hour and this is a big point; the quality of teachers really was not consistent. My favorite was an ex ROK Colonel, who I'm sure considers the Geneva Convention to be mere suggestions (who knows how many bodies he's buried?). His primary pedagogical tools were fear and intimidation. On the other end of the spectrum, there were teachers who couldn't speak English (I think immersion only works when you are IN the country, otherwise it is just frustration) and teachers who subscribe to the 'read straight out of the book' school of teaching. I'm pretty sure that the majority of the instructors do not have a background in Korean language education. The only requirement was probably being a native speaker.

I was young at the time and in my 'I don't have to study as hard as everyone else because I'm Half Korean' phase, so I will be the first to admit that I definitely could have done more to learn the language, but even still, I thought the course was poorly organized. I really felt that the teachers didn't communicate with each other so one class was getting criticized for not knowing words that only another class was taught.

Also, there was a considerable gap in our language. After graduation, we could say integrated circuit of electricity (회로선), to establish diplomatic relations (수교하다), and landmine (지뢰), but wouldn't be able to say 'the rabbit went up the mountain' or 'no ice, please'. I guess it is understandable considering the purpose of the course, but there have been many who went to Korea afterwards and couldn't hold a normal conversation.

The main problem was that the course was pretty unorganized overall in comparison to the way other languages were taught. Rather than improve the course to increase the number of qualified linguists (enrolling 10 soldiers to get 10 linguists), they dumped as many students as they could into the course and hoped for the best (enroll 500 soldiers to get 10 linguists). This is not to say that I did not learn anything. To the contrary, I learned a lot. But I wonder how much more I could have learned if the 63 weeks were put to EFFECTIVE use.

An Integrated Approach to Intermediate Japanese (Review)

I am a big fan of books published by the Japan Times and this is no exception. The cool thing about this book is not it's long yet manageable readings. It isn't the immense amount of useful vocab and grammar that is guaranteed to come up when conversing, reading, or listening to Japanese. What makes this book so great is that it helps students read Japanese without depending so much on the furigana. All the readings are written with furigana-less kanji so your brain learns to adapt, but the pronunciations are just a few pages later in the vocab list so that you can look things up quickly. By the end of the book, I got this warm fuzzy feeling knowing that I CAN read Japanese.

I should clarify that last statement; you won't learn to pronounce every kanji, but your eyes and brain will have been trained to read without depending on the furigana as a crutch. Kinda like having that first shot of hard whiskey without gagging on your way to becoming a full-blown alcoholic. This is important since you will eventually have to graduate to tougher materials that don't cater to the kanji illiterate. It is slow going sometimes, but well worth the effort. This is an excellent book to graduate to from the Genki series.

Integrated Korean: Advanced Intermediate 1 (Review)

There is a significant jump between the Intermediate books and the Advanced Intermediate books. Up until now, the previous books were pretty easy going, but this next one really upped the ante. The dialogues and readings are a lot longer, the vocab for each chapter is pretty extensive, and the grammar comes at you non-stop. This book covers a variety of topics that go beyond the usual beginner blather (The weather is really nice, isn't it?) and covers a lot of ground in terms of vocabulary and grammar. In other words, this book really starts getting into the nitty gritty. The English sections covering culture has also been removed. Probably in order to make room for all those pages of vocab and grammar.

Complaints are the same; random unintroduced words scattered here and there throughout the book. But then again, it could just be my lack of retention from the previous 4 books. Anyways, all in all, I really enjoyed this book; it really allowed me to begin sinking my teeth into the language.

Remembering the Kanji: Vol. 1 + Reviewing the Kanji (Review)

I started this book in Oct of last year and finally got through it. But it was worth every second. The system introduced is a bit unorthodox in that it introduces a method that will allow you to write and know the meaning of 2042 Chinese characters ( Specifically, the Japanese government's list of regular use kanji and some change), but not the pronounciations. The nickel tour of the method is to introduce common elements found throughout the wide world of Kanji, assign some meaning, and use your imagination to create stories using those elements to get to the meaning. For example, the meaning of 器 is utensil. When you break it down, you see four 口's (element meaning mouth) and one 大 (element given the meaning of st. bernard). Put it all together and the story you might come up with is a st. bernard tied down to a dinner table with four hungry mouths at each corner holding their UTENSILs and getting ready to eat the poor st. bernard. Ridiculous story, isn't it? But that is exactly why you will remember it. The book will give you the stories in the beginning, but eventually, they will only give the elements and the stories will be up to you. It sure beats writing characters over and over and over again until you think you have it mastered. This really does cut down the time it takes to learn the characters.

The book has its critics, mostly for not teaching in the same order as regular Japanese students need to learn and also for not teaching the pronounciation. According to the author, as adult non-Japanese learners, it would be a mistake to learn as Japanese children when it would be far more effective to learn in the order that best accommodates us. As far as the pronounciation, there is a second volume that attacks the Kanji with a whole other sequence. The author basically stipulates that breaking everything down and tackling it one at a time is far more effective than trying to learn everything about one character at the same time. While it is frustrating to know a character but not know how to write it, in the grand scheme of things, I'm thinking the author is correct.

Reviewing the Kanji is a website designed to help students using this book. It is a Godsend. It really burns the Kanji in the mind by using timed intervals that best help with memory retention. Just input the characters you have studied and you will be quizzed by having the meaning of the word up for you to write the corresponding Kanji. If you get it right, it goes to the next column for which you will be quizzed at a later date. If you get it wrong, you start from the beginning. The more you get it right, the less you are quizzed, etc. And the site is always updating its features. You can input and share your stories, there is a very friendly forum for help and support, you can track your progress, etc. All in all, good stuff. The book claims that a hardcore learner who spends the majority of the day studying and using its method can learn all 2042 kanji in a month. With this site, I believe it. So buy the book and check out the website here.

Integrated Korean: Intermediate 2 (Review)

This book seems to change gears significantly from the previous volumes in that there is far less vocabulary, but definitely more reading. In the previous books, new vocab took about maybe six pages. The vocab in this volume takes no more than three. The dialogues are much longer but still short enough so as not to be overwhelming. In addition, at the back of each chapter there is more reading. Definitely a good thing. Overall, I'm liking how this is progressing as it is beginning to ease into longer compositions. The only annoyance for me is the sprinkling of words that haven't been introduced. I'm sure some pedagogists will insist that this will help learners extrapolate meaning through context. While that is true in real life, I'd prefer my textbooks to give it to me straight instead of having to guesstimate.

Genki II: An Integrated Course in Elementary Japanese (Review)

I finally finished this book. Actually, I went through it twice. Lots of good stuff in here making it my favorite Japanese text. The way the Kanji is thoroughly integrated into the book exposes the student without overwhelming him. The reading material in the back was also great. Full of kanji and gave you a taste (although admittedly not to complicated) of what it was like to read Japanese. But this text is worth its weight in gold by using the KISS (Keep It Simple, Stupid) method to explain honorifics and humble form, as well as the passives and causitives (話される、話させる、話させられる). Can't recommend this book and this series enough. It is the most thought out and user friendly basic Japanese textbook series I've seen and doesn't shy away from Kanji.

Integrated Korean: Intermediate 1 (Review)

Volume three of the KLEAR series. The dialogues in this book are still focused on practical situations such as buying clothes finding an apartment or what not. These dialogues are longer than the first two volumes and based on spoken Korean. Don't be under the impression that this is enough to actually allow you to go out and do those things, the dialogues are not that long. But at least you will have an idea of what to expect. Anyways, the longer dialogue is simply a way to help the learner get used to reading. I'm sure later volumes will have more complicated readings based on written Korean. I can't quite put my finger on why, but I enjoyed going through this volume. Probably because it started going beyond the 'Hello. I'm fine, thank you. And you?' feeling of the beginning books of the series

Integrated Korean: Beginning 2 (Review)

This is the second volume of the Klear series. This really is a great series despite its flaws. While the problems of the first volume continue into this one, there is one underlying fact: this series expects you to learn Korean. This isn't some learn in 10 minutes type of book or that ridiculous Korean thru English series coming out of Seoul University. This is a Korean book for real learners. Supportive evidence: Each chapter has about 5 pages plus of vocab. Doesn't stick to the 'Gee whiz! Korea is so great.' dialogues found in a lot of other books and offers more focus for more practical situations. Don't get me wrong. There are plenty of cultural items and explanations that are very interesting and gives the reader more of an apprecation of the language and society, but doesn't leave the bad aftertaste of nationlist fervor in your mouth. Anyways, to put it simply, this book is trying to get the learner up to speed real quick and knows there are no shortcuts. Specific to this volume, the reading material is still very easy, but the amount of vocab and grammar makes even this volume probably better than most of the other books out there. Good stuff.

No Sweat Cantonese (Review I)

I made it about halfway through this book before I decided to put it aside for awhile. Each chapter was broken down in sections: vocab, conversations, phrases, grammar. This is not so bad. I thought it was a nice layout. The problem is that there were obvious holes in the lesson plans. For example, only the vocab section included characters. Everything else was romanized. Despite my loathing of any book that looks down on its students by only using romanization, this wouldn't have been so bad had there been more explanations about how the elements of the sentences were put together to mean what they mean. Basically, you had a sentence or phrase phonetically written out and its colloquial meaning underneath. There was no way a student could break the sentence apart to see how it worked so that he/she could begin making his/her own sentences. To further complicate matters, almost all chapters used unintroduced grammar and vocab that were not explained until later chapters if at all. There were also plenty of editing errors like multiple tones on one word or typos. The CD also did not always follow the format of the book. The Chinese language font used was also pretty difficult to read; too bulky and unclear.

However, there was some good points. There are little nuggets of value sprinkled here and there such as the high falling tone was not that commonplace or that the 'ng' sound at the beginning of syllables could be dropped completely. Unfortunately, all in all, this is a glorified phrasebook and not a very good one at that. I titled this as Review I because I didn't finish the book. Maybe after I've gained more understanding of Cantonese, I will go back to it to finish it. But for now, it is at the bottom of my list of things to read.

Integrated Korean: Beginning 1 (Review)

This book is part of the University of Hawaii's Klear Textbooks series for Korean. There are so few good books teaching Korean and even fewer that teach at upper levels. My criteria in finding a series that would help me review my Korean was one that built up to an advanced level. The Klear series has 10 books with 2 books per level: beginning, intermediate, advanced intermediate, advanced, high advanced. There are also some good auxiliary texts that look really nice. All in all, it fit what I was looking for. The first book has 7 chapters. That doesn't seem like much but each chapter is 30 to 40 pages long and covers a lot of material. I was actually surprised at the amount of stuff introduced in the first book and I was happy with my choice. Now for the bad. The authors explanations are a bit muddled in some places and barely adequate in others. The mix of advanced linguistic terminology, cases of bad punctuation, and putting too many words in one explanation while not saying enough for another makes this a sometimes annoying read.

Example: "When a plain plosive consonant or the fricative consonant ㅅ is preceded by a plosive or fricative consonant, it is reinforced to become a corresponding tense consonant....."

I'm sure that there is a much clearer way of saying this. Grammar and such should always be explained in a clear and easy to remember way. In any case, this book could have used some more editing to make the explanations clearer. Since my Korean is pretty decent in the first place, it didn't bother me much, but I'm having a hard time imagining a beginning student being able to get through it. If I didn't already know what they were talking about, I'd be at a loss.

Anyways, for my own purposes of filling up some holes and reviewing my Korean, this is a good book that has a lot of potential to be better.

Genki I: An Integrated Course in Elementary Japanese (Review)

I just finished the first volume of Genki Japanese. This book was published by the Japan Times and I still haven't found a series that matches it in quality....but then again, I haven't been actively looking for any other series. The best thing about this 2 book series is that it introduces the kanji from chapter 3. There really seems to be some unspoken (well, sometimes spoken) belief that foreigners can't learn kanji so a lot of materials out there don't even try. Billions of Chinese and millions of Japanese use characters so it can't be all that difficult to learn. It just takes the right approach. It doesn't say much for any book that claims to teach Japanese, but think kanji, a PILLAR of the language, is too difficult for a student to grasp. The grammar explanations were very clear and easy to understand. Also, I really enjoyed the reading materials at the end of the book. There was an ever increasing amount of kanji introduced, but I never felt overwhelmed. I started to get this warm fuzzy feeling from reading and comprehending all the reading passages and it only encouraged me to keep studying more. Yeah yeah. I know it is a beginning book and the materials weren't all that hard, but I still enjoyed it enough to give myself the proverbial pat on the back for getting through the reading. Another aspect I enjoyed was that this book seemed to focus on the more mundane and common situations a student might find him or herself in. There were no chapters about going to a tea ceremony or flower arranging (that might come up in the 2nd volume). Instead, we had sections on getting pictures developed and words needed to get around the train system. Good stuff.

I mentioned in a previous post that I never learned Japanese in a school, but through actual immersion (not being able to order food was a great motivator to learn). I wanted to fill in the gaps of my Japanese by going back to the basics through the Genki series. For my purposes, this was a great book and I have no complaints.

Pimsleur's Cantonese I (Review)

Just got finished (for the 3rd time) with this set. 30 audio-based lessons at 30 minutes each for a total of 15 hours. Honestly, I think the Pimsleur method is fantastic as it forces you to use your brain instead of just parroting whatever the narrator is saying. It is also great because it helps me get a feel for the language and how the tones and rhythms work together. Now for the bad. There were a couple of times where I was not sure if I was hearing what I was supposed to be hearing, but there was no way for me to check since it does not come with any written material. Very frustrating when I had to replay some portion of the tape over and over again trying to figure out what they were saying. In this case, being audio-based is this product's best and worse aspect. Also, this is ridiculously expensive and as much as I like it, it is not worth the money. Better to borrow it from the library or something. That being said, I look forward to sets II and III.