Language Connection Fridge Magnet Poetry. (Based on a Koichi learning tip)

Hello

I expect you have seen the latest, excellent Tofugu Japanese Learning Tips video about making connections between language items.

Making Connections, Making Japanese Fluency.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pTlAy_gkyCc


EDIT (Jul 28 2015): There is also now a Tofugu blog post about the same subject.

http://www.tofugu.com/videos/how-to-become-fluent-in-japanese-fluency-make-connections/

I really like this exercise, but I don’t like having a bunch of actual record cards all over my studio. I made this userscript toy so I can play language connections fridge magnet poetry on my WK dashboard.

I had some fun using it so I have tidied it up and added some features and put it on Greasmonkey - Thanks to my colleagues on Slack for testing it and making suggestions (and pointing out typos).

It picks sets of random cards from sets of language points.

You can have multiple sets and drag the cards around within their set or between sets. Double-click a card to delete it. Copy the text from all the cards in a set in one line. The dragging function stops you from selecting the text on the card so there is a [c] button to copy it. Use the button to delete a whole set.

It comes with a small set of language points in the code, but using the buttons at the bottom you can save your own lists of things into it (input them as comma separated lists), which are saved to your local storage so stay there for next time.

That’s all it does, picks a bunch of random things for you play around with. It applies no rules to the things it picks, so one time you might get five nouns in a set, but that’s good because then you can go and see if there are connections between those nouns without having to use any particles or verbs. As Koichi says in the video, it is just as important to find that there are no connections as to find that there are some. Then if you find there are no connections between your five nouns, keep them, make a new set and this time only add some particles. Then, can you connect the nouns you have using your new particles? Or maybe add a few verbs. Can you use these verbs to modify the nouns? The possibilities for falling down rabbit holes of research are … a lot.

You can add a bunch of sets and make a Haiku.

If you want some adverbs, or maybe some past tense conjugations you can add them, either in the custom section or wherever you want.

It applies no sanity checking to the input because you can put anything you want in as CSV. You could use it to decide what to have for dinner.

Get it from Greasy Fork if you fancy it:

https://greasyfork.org/en/scripts/11137-wk-language-point-connector-cards

Tested in Greasmonkey and Tampermonkey on Linux and Windows.

[SCREENSHOTS]



Select sets of cards.





Drag them around (The cursor is a hand when you are over a draggable card but that didn’t show in the screenshot).

Drag within sets


Drag between sets


Copy the text.



Input your own lists of items.





Versions History.

0.1.0

https://greasyfork.org/en/scripts/11137-wk-language-point-connector-cards

Immediate additions/fixes to do:
* Remove “Clear” button and add to main set.
* Make it possible to drag cards into a newly created empty set.
* Multi set copy text.
* Ad-hoc single item entry field.

Possible future updates:
* Have it able to read a selection of your unlocked vocab from the WK API.
* Save your current sets between page refreshes and in jStorage so you can come back to them.
* Drag reorder whole sets




5 Likes

This looks super handy! I’ll definitely have to have a play around with it later when I have the time. Practising connecting my knowledge up sounds like a fantastic idea that I absolutely should do, like one of those “why am I not doing that already?” things. The stuff I know is all a bit disconnected as it stands…

1 Like

I don’t yet really know what kind of “connections” this is about since I’m currently too lazy to watch the video (though I already read your text), but I’ll play around with it nevertheless.
Seems like a neat script, thanks for sharing.

This is the man teaching me kanji.




2 Likes
mgs2ss said... This is the man teaching me kanji.





 His は is even worse, hahahahah


gregorspv said...
mgs2ss said... This is the man teaching me kanji.





 His は is even worse, hahahahah


 that was cruel.

Why are you weirdos taking screenshots of youtube videos?

俳句を作って来てください。





Er. Because true native-quality handwriting is always such a shining example of neatness and looks exactly like the textbook print, am I right?

Anyways, I probably butchered the medium, but I had a go!



多い蟹
大きい水に
鰐を待つ

Hoooooly crap! Such a great idea! Thanks!

On playing with it more, some suggestions:

  • definitely a bigger pool of material to play with one way or another
  • you couldn’t pull them from WK, obviously, but some kana-only words would be useful for sentences
  • I don’t seem to be able to delete the top set even if it’s not the only one left - would like to be able to for tidiness’s sake (right now I have to swap everything in it with the next set down one by one)
  • could we have a way to re-order sets?
  • if you create a new set but don’t generate anything in it, you don’t seem to be able to move existing items into it - make this possible?
  • would it be possible to move several items at once?  Maybe by dragging a box around them, or shift-clicking?
  • I’d like a way to find specific words for when I know where my sentence is going and want to complete it in a specific way - a search bar? I gather I could add them as custom, but does that double up on the number of times they are stored if they already exist in the pool?
  • how about a multi-set version of the “convert to text string” feature? Maybe a checkbox on the side of each set, and it compiles the checked sets into text with line breaks between sets

Seriously though, this is really good fun to play with - and putting it on the dashboard means I’ll see it every day! \o/

EDIT: Ah, no, I see how word-adding works now. Searching would still be nice, but this serves the purpose well enough. May get clunkier with much larger pools of material, though?

EDIT2: Oh! And more verb conjugations would really improve variety, although I imagine that’s not easy to add comprehensively for each verb you include. If you did, though, some kind of right-click-to-change-conjugation for existing verbs on the board? Maybe even a polite/casual toggle. All of the above and this would probably make this my dream tool for playing with Japanese.

This is a really cool idea, thanks! I’ve only used it for a little bit, but I’ve already learned some interesting new ways these words connect such as the phrase 医者にかかる.

Aleithian said... Hoooooly crap! Such a great idea! Thanks!
 Hey, thanks Alethian, you are welcome :)



Lyrisath said... On playing with it more, some suggestions:

 * definitely a bigger pool of material to play with one way or another
* you couldn't pull them from WK, obviously, but some kana-only words would be useful for sentences

I think you answered these two with your edits.

* I don't seem to be able to delete the top set even if it's not the only one left - would like to be able to for tidiness's sake (right now I have to swap everything in it with the next set down one by one)

The “Clear” button empties the top set
 
Next time I update it I will change the button to say “Clear current set”. Actually I will probably add an [x] to the first set and remove that clear button - it originally only had a single set, that clear button is left over from that and isn't really relevant now.

* could we have a way to re-order sets?

Ah, interesting, let me see if I can figure that out. If so, then yes.

* if you create a new set but don't generate anything in it, you don't seem to be able to move existing items into it - make this possible?

Yes, good one. I'll fix that.

* would it be possible to move several items at once?  Maybe by dragging a box around them, or shift-clicking?

Hmm, nice idea. I am not very optimistic about this one but I will look through the jQuery docs and see if this is possible.

* I'd like a way to find specific words for when I know where my sentence is going and want to complete it in a specific way - a search bar? I gather I could add them as custom, but does that double up on the number of times they are stored if they already exist in the pool?

Not sure about this one. The point of this is to connect what you have, or to find there is no connection. You want to be able to add a specific word? I could add a single input box so that you type in your word and press a button add that to the current set.

* how about a multi-set version of the "convert to text string" feature? Maybe a checkbox on the side of each set, and it compiles the checked sets into text with line breaks between sets

Yes, I like this idea a lot. I will add it to the list.

* Seriously though, this is really good fun to play with - and putting it on the dashboard means I'll see it every day! \o/

Great, thanks for playing with it.

* EDIT: Ah, no, I see how word-adding works now. Searching would still be nice, but this serves the purpose well enough. May get clunkier with much larger pools of material, though?

Yes, I think it might. I am not sure what the jStorage limit is (probably plenty for text like this).

* EDIT2: Oh! And more verb conjugations would really improve variety, although I imagine that's not easy to add comprehensively for each verb you include. If you did, though, some kind of right-click-to-change-conjugation for existing verbs on the board? Maybe even a polite/casual toggle. All of the above and this would probably make this my dream tool for playing with Japanese.   

Interesting ideas. I would rather not make it do any grammatical figuring out for you (like conjugating verb). I think that if you get a past tense verb you have to work with that. However if I add the input box that lets you add one specific item that would give you this option. For example if you got 食べます and your current game made you want to be talking about the past you could go to the single input box and add 食べました or 食べた and replace your 食べます card with it.

Thanks for playing with and thanks for all the great suggestions (nice crab alligator hiaku too, very apt).
riya said... This is a really cool idea, thanks! I've only used it for a little bit, but I've already learned some interesting new ways these words connect such as the phrase 医者にかかる.
 Ah, great, thanks for playing with it. Yes, that kind of unusual connection is exactly the spirit of the Kiochi tip I think.
RayderBlitz said... I don't yet really know what kind of "connections" this is about since I'm currently too lazy to watch the video (though I already read your text), but I'll play around with it nevertheless.
Seems like a neat script, thanks for sharing.
 Hey, you are welcome, RayderBlitz. Thanks for trying it. I definitely recommend watching the video if you get a chance.

I love it when scripts yield such useful directions for learning, watching my bandwidth at the moment so not watching any videos, but I like the script.

Btw, I had to edit the script run at document-start for chrome tampermonkey. It seems that the script misses the $(document).ready bus otherwise and doesn’t initialise.

It would be great if this allowed you to use only the SRS groups that you wanted. Say if you just wanted to do this with burned items so you 
didn’t stuff up your srs.

An example of where this done is wanikanify.

Ethan said... I love it when scripts yield such useful directions for learning, watching my bandwidth at the moment so not watching any videos, but I like the script.

Btw, I had to edit the script run at document-start for chrome tampermonkey. It seems that the script misses the $(document).ready bus otherwise and doesn't initialise.
 
Ah, ok. Thanks for that. I am making a few (rather slow) changes to this, I'll check that too. Thanks for trying the script.

rade134 said... It would be great if this allowed you to use only the SRS groups that you wanted. Say if you just wanted to do this with burned items so you 
didn't stuff up your srs.

An example of where this done is wanikanify.
 Ok, that's interesting. I am adding some stuff to this so you can import Vocab from your unlocked items. I'll try to include an SRS level option too. Thanks for the suggestion.

This seems to be incompatible with my Burn Reviews userscript so if anyone reports your script not working, it could be because they’re using my script.

Edit: In case anyone would like to use both, I found out they (sometimes) work together if you go to the dashboard by clicking either back or forward on your browser.

Samuel-H said... This seems to be incompatible with my Burn Reviews userscript so if anyone reports your script not working, it could be because they're using my script.

Edit: In case anyone would like to use both, I found out they (sometimes) work together if you go to the dashboard by clicking either back or forward on your browser.
 Ah, ok. Thanks for letting me know. I will check that and see if I can do something to stop it conflicting.

I just installed this, Hoovard… and I don’t notice your script (app part of it) anywhere on Wani Kani. I looked at the Script settings, so I saw which two pages it was supposed to work on, however even after refreshing pages I am seeing nothing. I was really excited to try this out. Such a fun idea, and useful, too.

<s>In your screenshots, they are close-ups of the app/script at work… do you have any that show the whole web page, to point me to perhaps where I am supposed to notice this? My assumption was the bar at the top with numbers of lessons, reviews, levels, etc. There is no apparent change for me. I am using Firefox and Greasyfork. I used the first link in your original post.</s>

EDIT: Oh, I found it! It has finally appeared after doing some lessons. Not where I expected to see it (below the “recently unlocked” area, is that right?) but I found it! Never mind.