i hear the voices when I'm dreaming

I really wish I could just ... install languages into my brain.

I was talking to an aide today about stuff relating to when I was in undergrad, and mentioned the thing where I used to be near-fluent in German but then didn't practice it enough and basically have nothing left but residual pronunciation and a few random words and phrases. Also my last German class was in the 90s anyway so I have no internet terms.

I've tried resurrecting it with casual Duolingo use, but these days I can't remember new stuff easily, especially gender and cases. I'm managing Spanish ok, with two genders and four words for "the" (gender x plurality), but German has three genders (plus plural, though IIRC plural isn't gendered, so it's sort of a fourth gender) and at least four cases (nom gen dat acc) and therefore a fuckton of words for "the" (five unique ones, der die das den dem, but der is masc nom and also fem dat/gen, and den is masc acc and also plural dat) and while I can chant "der die das die, den die das die, dem der dem den, des der des der" all I want, I can't make it stick, and even more I can't make it stuck in practice because I can't remember the gender of nouns to save my life. And Duo treats all errors the same -- ich lese eine Buch [should be ein] is counted as wrong as ich lese ein Apfel -- which isn't fair because I'm pretty sure people would understand what I'm saying with the first one even if it sounds wrong!

But I miss German. And my Spanish is ... okay at understanding written, but weak at generating. Especially if I'm put on the spot; my mind goes blank. And I can't understand fast spoken. And I'm crap at tenses.

Plus I'm goofing off with both Yiddish and Ukrainian on duo, but at some point it will get too hard and I'll stop. And I used to do Japanese, at least able to read hirigana and was working on learning the kanji, but that's gone poof, and I didn't even get to the grammar. And I'd love to be able to learn Korean, but ... at least I had some familiarity with Yiddish alphabet (because Jewish stuff) and Cyrillic (because of the Russian I took in college). I don't need yet another completely different alphabet system.

I haven't done any serious language study in a while, either. One lesson per day on Duolingo, sure. But learning languages takes repetition, all the more so because I can't learn by (hand) writing any more. So I could maybe get my German back if a) I didn't let myself get distracted with other languages, b) I typed stuff up and made neat charts and whatnot, c) I wrote down Every Fucking Vocab Word with its greenery and referred back until it stuck, and ... basically treated it as A Job.

But I'm too lazy and too tired and too braindead for all that.

Sigh.

So there's this sensory institute that does different trials -- in the past they've done, like, olives, and chocolate, and cheddar cheese, and ice cream. Er, not at the same time, obviously, but. You get a sample and judge things like appearance and taste and texture -- in this case, it was a melon study, and it was first just judging the visual of the outside of the melons, then samples of that melon to taste and rage for color and firmness/softness and sweetness and juiciness and sourness. And then there's water that you use to cleanse your palate and then you get a different sample. The melon one was four samples.

It's kind of fascinating. Though you never learn the results of the study.

Also, you get a small amazon gift certificate. But that's just kind of a bonus.

Anyway, I did the melon tasting study today, and one of the people working at the sensory institute has her mom over, and the mom is practicing Japanese calligraphy. She's got premade kanji card things, and then adding someone's name in katakana to make it personalized. She asked if I wanted one, and hell yes ^_^

so I got one that means "fun" (楽 stylized to look like a person dancing) with my name in katakana :D :D

( picture )

And it gets better.

At the time it was described as meaning fun, which is true, but kanji have multiple meanings. I used the radicals I could identify (the lower half looks like the tree radical) to identify it on jisho.org, and it turns out that a) one of the readings is pronounced remarkably similar to how my rl last name would be japanesified, and b) the kanji can also mean music, so is found in words like musical instrument, sheet music, and orchestra, as well as in things like optimistic, hobby, enjoyable, delightful.

So it is unexpectedly extremely appropriate. I mean, I didn't know any of this at the time -- there were only a few base designs, one for enjoyment and one for love and I'm not sure what the others were, but I do like to have fun and to dance (or "dance") to music, and I liked how it looked. And then I went and looked it up, because curious.

So I super love it and I kind of want to write her a thank you note. In Japanese. lol.

...I did make the mistake of saying thank you in Japanese and also mentioning that I was learning, so she kept saying things to me expecting me to understand, and I then felt awkward because I can recognize occasional kanji and can say watashi wa amerikajin desu (i am an American) but not much more. Konnichiwa and sayonara (and the latter in the japanese pronunciation not the American one) and arigatou, but really I just can point to occasional kanji and go "that means tree" or whatever.

So I seem to have very persistent trouble mixing up two particular kanji, 立 (stand) and 六 (six) I mean, not when they're side by side like that, but I keep reading the wrong one. Especially since 六つ and 立つ are both vocab words that pop up. They don't share meaning, they aren't pronounced the same. they aren't even the same parts of speech -- the first is muttsu, a counter word (adjective I guess?) meaning "six things", and the second is tatsu, a verb meaning "to stand".

I know the difference. I just ... pick the wrong one. Frequently.

I also seem to like to mix up 日 (sun/day) and 月 (moon/month), not on their own but in connection with numbers. 六月 rokugatsu means june (I suppose the kanji could also plausibly mean six months? or would that need an additional counter? NB I do know of the Wikipedia page on counters, I'm just being lazy. And sticking to what wanikani uses.) and 六日 muika means six days, but I keep recalling the wrong one. And 月 uses the ichi/ni/san numbers and 日 uses the hito/futa/mit numbers (except not for ichi, because ichinichi is fun to say) but I don't always remember which uses which.

Which is the other thing I mess myself up on: kun vs on readings, when to use which, and *which* is which. Wanikani doesn't teach every reading of each kanji, just the most common one(s), which might be either kun'yomi or on'yomi.vit does say, but I don't remember it. And the theory is that it's faster to learn one pronunciation that occurs the most often, and learn the others when they crop up in vocabulary, but then I try to shove the wrong pronunciation in. 立つ tatsu (to stand) takes the ta reading of 立, but 市立 shiritsu (municipal) takes the ritsu reading of 立, and the main thing that keeps me from trying to put shita as the reading for the latter is that shita is the pronunciation of 下 below (which is sa in words like 下がる "to fall" but shita when used alone) and I wrote a note for myself that 市立 is not 下.

...and then they ask me for the kanji pronunciation they taught, which is neither sa nor shita but ka.

Anyway.

I'm also having minor kanji mixup issues with a few other pairs. 午 and 牛. 石 and 右. 方 and 万. If I'm really tired, 九 and 力 and 刀. I know the differences if I'm paying attention, but if I zone out just a little bit I get it wrong. (And I'm not even trying to write them, which is good because as you can tell, tiny differences matter.)

And I have a bad habit of misreading/mistyping the hiragana *in the vocabulary word* and not checking against what's there -- I will see 生まれる -- umareru, to be born -- but type umoreru うもれる or something, and even though I got the kanji part right, I don't notice the hiragana difference. It's worst when it's a typo, but regardless of whether I meant to type it right, it should be obvious. And it's not. And I submit and get it wrong.

(Luckily the only consequence of "wrong" is that I review it again sooner. There's no permanent grade or score, no points to lose, no punishment. It's nice.)

Four is shi, except when it's yon. "Four things" is yottsu (the n changes, because fun)
Eight is hachi, except when it's ya or some variant thereof. "eight things" is yattsu.

...fine, except. "Four days" is yokka (again, the n changes into "duplicate the next consonant") ... but "eight days" is yōka, not yaka or yakka.

Whyyyyyy.

(Rhetorical question.)

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Cuteness: the word/kanji for child is 子. The word/kanji for dog is 犬. The word for puppy? 子犬.

(Not everything makes this much sense. Though I am also amused that unskillful / bad at, 下手, visually "translates" as "below hand". I bet 上手, above hand, is skillful / good at. And volcano is, of course, 火山, fire mountain. ...I haven't figured out why entrance is 入り口 -- enter+"ri"+mouth -- whereas exit is just 出口 -- exit+mouth.)

(And I really really wish I could stop reading letters wrong. Hiragana, not kanji. I keep reading リ as い, confusing こ and に, and a few others trip me up... and I'm way more solid on hiragana than katakana, which has シ ツ ソ ン (shi, tsu, so, n). And kanji are just as bad; it took me a while to figure out the difference beteeen 右 and 石, which is kind of important since one means right (not-left) and the other means stone.)

So the website I'm learning kanji with, wanikani, has a SRS system where any item has a knowledge level, answering questions correctly adds a point, answering wrong removes a point, and at a certain threshold you unlock items using that item. Er, that was confusing. (I've had a long day -- choir retreat 9-3 -- and I'm too tired to sleep, so I'm doing other stuff instead. Like babbling in my journal.) So you start with a handful of radicals; once a radical has a high enough score, you unlock kanji using that radical (or any combination of radicals you know well enough); once a kanji has a high enough score, you unlock vocab using that kanji (or any combination of known kanji).

So you do lessons as they become available, and then review at intervals until you know the bits well enough to unlock more lessons. If a review session bumps any radicals or kanji up over the threshold, you might unlock 3-5 lessons (I mean, someone who answers everything perfectly may have bigger clumps of lessons, because of unlocking a bunch of stuff at once, but that's not me. Especially when I do things like confuse 九 and 力, or whatever.

I'm too tired to sleep so I decided to do a review. A couple items bumped over the threshold so I knew I'd have a lesson or two waiting.

...I have "42+" lessons. Because apparently, in addition to unlocking vocab based on the kanji that changed status, I unlocked the entire next level, which includes more radicals, more kanji, and more vocab.

...

I think I'm going to wait until it's *not* almost midnight (and I'm not braindead, gah) to start that.

(Sometimes I think I'm crazy for trying to learn Japanese -- or at least for trying to learn kanji -- because I'm so not used to logographic writing. (Is that the right word? Too braindead.) I mean, it makes interesting connections between words (entrance 入り口 is (enter)-ri-(mouth)) but argh. And most kanji have at least two pronunciations; the site only teaches one, but then sometimes vocab uses the other. (One and two are ichi and ni, but "one thing" and "two things" are hitotsu and futatsu.) So it's a ton of stuff and it takes years to learn -- literally. ...I guess it keeps me busy? Lol etc.)

Current status of learning Japanese: progress is being made! I have hiragana down pretty well; I have katakana somewhat down, but it's a lot slower ("this letter is ... re. This letter is ... ma? No, su" levels of slow) and more error-prone. But I do have a few sentences, and I can recognize a handful of kanji -- 私 and 名前 and 何 and 元気, though with the last I can never remember which order the two go in.

I'm using two main apps (not counting the ones for kana and for kanji), and they've both been cracking me up.

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Duolingo is mostly in "hiragana with occasional individual words" rather than sentences. Some words are sticking, mostly ones I was already familiar with (watashi, arigatō, sayōnara, and 1-10) or have something to hang them on (neko already had cat associations, inu has dog associations because shiba inu), but the rest just aren't sticking at all.

But, uh.

Occasionally it gives me super hard stuff, like manga, which translates to ... manga. And emoji translates as emoji. Who knew?!? ^_^

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Memrise seems to be sticking better, and also has sentences and stuff. (私の名前は……です! Watashi no namae wa ... desu. "My name is..." Except I don't know how I'd transcribe isabeau. イザボ maybe?) And it's mostly sticking, except for some of the kanji. I'm totally hopeless at, uhhh, *looks it up* 調子 "condition", which I can recognize but not generate, and can not remember the pronunciation, chōshi, to save my life; 乾杯 "cheers" I can reliably remember the second bit with the up arrows, but the first I just randomly flail at the available kanji options until it says I'm right. And for the kanji, they don't give the option of using hiragana instead -- 私 (watashi, I/me) is always 私 and never わたし, just like marina is always winter and never Christmas.

But I digress.

So, okay: with languages like Japanese that have different lettering systems, they have "translation" of letters, e.g. "き" to "ki (hiragana)". (And I am very glad for the (hiragana) even though sometimes I do things like stare at "me (hiragana)" and wonder why "私" isn't one of the options...)

Now, each item has three (sometimes four) associated objects: English written version, Japanese written version, and Japanese audio (sometimes also video). And there are lots of options for how they drill you: a) translate from English to Japanese; b) translate from Japanese to English; c) given Japanese audio/video, select or transcribe the correct Japanese text; d) given Japanese audio/video, select the correct English translation; e) given Japanese text, select the correct Japanese audio; f) given English text, select the correct Japanese audio. Basically, all permutations of English/Japanese/audio.

In the context of actual words, like いいえ "no", this is all very useful. Ditto sentences.

In the context of the letters, option f is *really fucking hilarious* to me.

I mean. Drilling that や is "yo" is useful. Drilling that "yo" is よ, also useful. Drilling that "yo" sounds like "yo" ... um ... not so much.

So in addition to duolingo, I have fallen in love with memrise -- it's another language learning thing, similar but different. It has an adorable space/alien theme (idek but it's cute) and uses real people as speakers and generally does a good job as far as I can tell in the two days I've been fooling with it.

The only quibble I have is that when it is in free type mode (instead of picking the correct option or refrigerator magnet style things, it has you spelling), the keyboard it has you use is tiny. Limited keys, but smaller than the native iOS keyboard, and when I'm in bed with my glasses off and my cpap mask half blocking my vision, it's hard to tell the difference between q and o and a, or between i and ¡ and !, or whatever. And the line of keys is in random order, so I'm doing a lot of squinting.

But I like the other aspects of the interface, and I like that it starts with sentences like "what's up" or "hi" or "let's go" or "please", instead of the "the man eats an apple" that many of the duolingo courses start with. (Not welsh, though -- dw i draig!)

I dabbled briefly In Danish before deciding a) Danish pronunciation/spelling is wacky, and b) it was silly having memrise on one language and duo on another while also doing hiragana in a different app. So I decided that I'd do Japanese in all three. I have hiragana to the point where I can sound it out -- not really reading it yet, the way I can read Cyrillic, because it's very much "okay か is ka and ん is n and じ is shi... no, ji.., so ... oh, kanji", but at least I know the letters. I am a little :/ at the prospect of katakana also (whyyyy have two syllabaries) and more so at kanji, but ... eh. So far duo and mem are both just using/teaching in hiragana.

(The other app I'm using is "Learn Japanese!!" The first lesson is free, but you gave to pay for the rest -- $2 for the hiragana pack, $8 for the whole thing which includes katakana and some basic lessons, which isn't bad; same company has a kanji app, presumably similar model. I know I could have stuck with free tools, but this one is good about teaching you how to write, which is nice reinforcement rather than just staring at the characters.)

...I'm trying to convince myself that I shouldn't also do the Spanish unit on memrise. I'm not sure how successful I'll be in that regard.