My experience with AI (specifically chatGPT) for a language learning tool is that often it doesn’t get the meanings of phrases quite right. It can help to include a photo of a whole page rather than just typing in a phrase to give some context for meaning. I’ve used it to help check my translations of Japanese Pokemon cards and it does a decent job most of the time.
I think it can be helpful in some situations but shouldn’t be leaned on too heavily, and definitely should be relied one alone. It seems like there are some Japanese language specific tools that could be worth checking out too that others have mentioned above!
Interesting discussion about AI going on. I will admit that for a bit I relied too much on Yomitan and AI when reading, to the point that I wasn’t even reading, just copy-pasting sentences into the AI:face_with_peeking_eye:
So now I changed my approach when I’m intesive reading: I do a full read of a chunk of text first, without lookups or anything. Then I try to parse what it says on my own, even if I don’t know some words in it, and I come up with a possible translation of what it says. Then I do a second pass looking at words in yomitan. Then, if I still have major doubts about a sentence, I plug the conflicting part into the AI.
This has helped me advance faster than just plugging things into the AI, because, to be honest, I forget like 90% of what the AI tells me
There’s also a real life version for YouTube content. If you don’t find a word in the anime content it might be worth a looks as well if you haven’t seen it.
Kakehashi for Wanikani has a similar feature integrated, as in immersion kit. It’s an app for iOS Android that uses the Wanikani API key to use the data from there. It has several exercise options, one of which is to listen to short Anime audio tracks and identify missing Kanji. Another option is to link to Apple Music or similar to import songs and read along with the lyrics, including translations and grammar points.
Thanks for organizing this! Tried reading よつばと! digitally a few months ago, but looking forward to participating in the book club now that I know a bit more vocabulary and grammar.
I think I recognize that book! Or at least the publisher. I am patiently waiting for September so I can order the whole of last year’s Nikoli’s quarterly volumes since they won’t ship single volumes to the US right now. I would be game to participate.
Hello everyone, this is my first post on the WK forums! Really excited to finally start reading after having procrastinated for so long! I have recently finished Genki 1, and shall be starting Genki 2 in a few days, so I thought why not join the Summer ABBC to start building a habit of reading, and try to use whatever I have learnt so far. My main goal is to have fun, because I know I won’t be able to understand everything lol. Looking forward to reading with you all.
I ordered the full set of Amazon.jp, why not right? I eventually plan to get an e-reader to make look ups easier, but even on my desktop PC the Yotsuba vol1 scans linked to previously are hard to parse visually; physical should be a lot better. Looking forward to this; I went through some Crystal Hunters volumes, but this is my first real immersion attempt.
I’m so excited to begin! This is my first WK reading club, and it is a good source of accountability for me for reading practice. I’ve done so much listening practice in my Japanese studies that I totally neglected reading native material for a while . I have a physical copy, which is gonna probably help me feel like I’m actually reading instead of staring at a screen wall of words loll. The funny thing is I’m far enough studying where I can consume native content more organically, and I’ve actually been grinding out a couple graded readers and slowly easing my way into an easy light novel (of course, with a high learning curve), so my reading speed has actually gotten way up. However, I hope this club can help me read more carefully and to analyze grammar and vocab while taking it at a slower pace. I hope I can eventually read some of my favorite manga/ln adapations from anime I love!! But for now, this is my first Japanese manga so I’m excited!!
Hmm from what you’re saying here, you may be reading for the beginners book club. From what I know, it mostly uses the same material, just at a faster pace. If you feel like this club is going a bit too slow for you, you may want to take a peak at when the next beginners book club starts.
Ok, thanks for the heads up! For now, I want to start slow with easing into the club, but yeah, I’m probably going to look into that after we complete this one. I think I underestimated my reading skills once I started reading haha
I have been interested in joining a book club for a while, but honestly felt a bit intimidated.
But I found a cheap used copy of the first book and figured it might be a good chance to try it out.
I dont know if I will just be lurking and using the club to read along, or if I will actively participate yet.
It will be my first manga in Japanese! But I have been reading the NHK easy news (with difficulty, its getting easier), and some very low level graded readers to get me used to reading.
My used copies all arrived today. I read through most of chapter 1 last night, mostly doing extensive reading vs trying to understand everything. I was pleased at how much I grasped, some entire pages I could fully understand.
Reading a manga that’s much more casual, real life speech its interesting how often things go from ‘barely recognizable because everyone is using casual/slang speech textbooks don’t cover’ to someone busting out a Genki I example sentence, e.g. some of the kids getting more formal when talking to Yotsuba’s dad.
That’s one of the interesting things about Yotsuba compared to other stuff I’ve read up to this point. There’s a lot more variety in the way characters speak.
. I have a physical copy, which is gonna probably help me feel like I’m actually reading instead of staring at a screen wall of words loll. The funny thing is I’m far enough studying where I can consume native content more organically, and I’ve actually been grinding out a couple graded readers and slowly easing my way into an easy light novel (of course, with a high learning curve), so my reading speed has actually gotten way up. However, I hope this club can help me read more carefully and to analyze grammar and vocab while taking it at a slower pace. I hope I can eventually read some of my favorite manga/ln adapations from anime I love!! But for now, this is my first Japanese manga so I’m excited!!
We can do this together!