*ekg's leech battle blog - a study log of sorts

[ekg]

So, I’ve been doing less and less reviews. Now the workload is around 100 items/day. That’s left me with energy to read up on grammar! (took me long enough! )

I’ve settled for “An introduction to Japanese - Syntax, Grammar & Language” by Michiel Kamermans.

I like how it’s written, the easygoing language of it. But, I still find myself struggling with some of the grammar terminology in English (as I feared). It’s been ages since I was taught language in school, so what grasp of grammar I had in either English or my native tongue, Swedish, is more or less gone. It’s become either internalized or forgotten.

I confess I’m not sure I get the meaning of verb forms. (iz feeling stupid)

Kamerman’s explanations

Summarized:

未然形 【みぜんけい】 (n) (gram) imperfective form
連用形 【れんようけい】 (n) (gram) conjunctive form, continuative form
連体形 【れんたいけい】 (n) (gram) participle adjective, attributive form
仮定形 【かていけい】 (n) (gram) hypothetical form 已然形 【いぜんけい】
命令形 【めいれいけい】 (n) (gram) imperative mood

Below is some info from Wikipedia because I wanted to see if it was explained in some other way…

連用形 men’yokei) -i
is used in a linking role (a kind of serial verb construction). This is the most productive stem form, taking on a variety of endings and auxiliaries, and can even occur independently in a sense similar to the -te ending. This form is also used to negate adjectives.

連体形 rentaikei) -u
is prefixed to nominals and is used to define or classify the noun, similar to a relative clause in English. In modern Japanese it is practically identical to the terminal form, except that verbs are generally not inflected for politeness; in old Japanese these forms differed. Further, na-nominals behave differently in terminal and attributive positions; see adjectives, below.

仮定形 kateikei) -e
is used for conditional and subjunctive forms, using the -ba ending.

命令形 meireikei) -e
is used to turn verbs into commands. Adjectives do not have an imperative stem form.

The thing is, as I kept on reading, I recognized the examples given. My brain just melts when seeing the terminology for it.

I only truly “get” the meaning and function of 仮定形 【かていけい】 hypothetical form and 命令形 【めいれいけい】 imperative mood. The others are a blur. Especially with the explanation on how the verb stems are handled.

That being said, I have no problem recognizing all of these forms.

Not sure how to proceed. I mean, knowing the inflections of actual words is the important part. Though, I was intending these grammar studies to ground my immersion knowledge in theoretical knowledge and a deeper understanding of Japanese.

For the moment, I’m gonna keep on reading and maybe come back to this chapter to see if the info has settled a bit more.

---

As for my leech squashing attempts, as expected, the leeches are gradually going down in numbers again. Right now I have 125 of them.

At least that’s something to celebrate! ^>^

[hughesgeorgem]

@ekg

The others are a blur.

For 未然形 you’re talking 合わない、合わず、合われる、合わせる etc. Though you likely already know this. I think as long as you know these things, being a blur is okay.

連用形 is conjunctive, you might have seen it used it native material in the same way that て conjunctive is used. Also it has additional functions like 見直す or 話し続ける.

Lastly for 連体形, you modify nouns with verbs 話せる犬.

I’m betting you know all of this already, but maybe talking about it helps to consolidate?

[Sproingle]

@ekg

Kamerman’s explanations

Oh lordy, my eyes glazed over on the first entry. I was never taught the higher level of ‘grammar terminology’ in school. I vaguely recall “subject” and “predicate” as possibly being the last terms we learned. High school was more about phrasing, comprehension, structure and how to write essays, short stories and the like. We didn’t get examined on what tense, how to use verbs, conditions. I took Italian (reluctantly) in the last 3 years of high school and remember just starting to touch on verb conjugation outside of immediate present, past and future. That was hard enough for my lousy brain to cope with!

I hope you are able to keep trundling along with it and join the dots as you go along.

[ekg]

@hughesgeorgem

For 未然形 you’re talking 合わない

This one makes more sense now. I think I have a pretty good feeling for the -nai forms of verbs.

連用形 is still a bit vague to me (but Kamerman’s definition of it covering the use of “helper verbs” gives me an inkling.) Also your explanation for 連体形, “you modify nouns with verbs 話せる犬” makes a lot more sense to me now. Thanks! ^>^

Googling “terminal form” (apparently dictionary form) got me some more grammar resources.

Japanese Grammar - Part 2

Verbs can be semantically classified based on certain conjugations.

• Stative verbs indicate existential properties, such as to be (いる iru ), can do(出来る dekiru ), need (要る iru), etc. These verbs generally don’t have a continuative conjugation with -iru because they are semantically continuative already.
• Continual verbs conjugate with the auxiliary -iru to indicate the progressive aspect. Examples: to eat(食べる taberu ), to drink (飲む nomu ), to think(考える kangaeru ). To illustrate the conjugation, 食べる ( taberu , to eat) → 食べている ( tabete-iru , is eating).
• Punctual verbs conjugate with -iru to indicate a repeated action, or a continuing state after some action. Example: 知る ( shiru , to know) → 知っている ( shitte iru , am knowing); 打つ ( utsu , to hit) → 打っている ( utteiru , is hitting (repeatedly)).
• Non-volitional verbs indicate uncontrollable action or emotion. These verbs generally have no volitional, imperative or potential conjugation. Examples: 好む ( konomu , to like, emotive), 見える ( mieru , to be visible, non-emotive).
• Movement verbs indicate motion. Examples: 歩く ( aruku , to walk), 帰る ( kaeru , to return). In the continuative form (see below) they take the particle ni to indicate a purpose.

Oh, joy, more verb categories…^^;

[rwesterhof]

Aargghhh, the verb forms is something I’ve been dreading and I know it needs to happen. I have a similar problem to what you describe. I can try to memorize how to form the volitional and potential forms, but the English terms mean nothing to me (and I’m doubting whether the Dutch equivalents would either). So it’s a brush up of base grammar terminology as well as the Japanese conjugations that I’ve been putting off for too long now…

[ekg]

Maybe we can both work on the verb grammar and feel stupid together rather than on our own! And support each other to get through this part of Japanese grammar.

[prouleau]

I used to have a book that calls these forms the a-form, i-form, u-form, e-form and o-form as per the vowel that terminates them. It makes the terminology easy to remember.

[ekg]

I think I’ve seen those names before also, and that’s also part of why these categories confuse me so.

Also, it’s not like I have lists of verbs in my head, categorized and ready to use. If I were to write a sentence I’d just use whatever word I needed to convey my point and use whatever verb form required. I’d honestly fall back on intuition then. (=immersion learning examples of use). It’s just that, I’m not sure I’m actually using the right forms…>_>

[ekg]

I’m amazed at how much easier it is for me to wrap my head around other grammar points in Kamerman’s guide. Like using と and や in lists and the difference between them. と=exhaustive lists, や non-exhaustive lists.

Also, finally, I’ve got a much clearer idea of why and how Japanese define distance from the speaker/listener they way they do!

Of course! This is why and how it works and why I always felt a bit unease about the difference between あの and その. Well, I’m sure to keep these straight going forward.

[ekg]

I’ve made it to another milestone: 5000 burns!

To “celebrate”, I’ve decided to start reviewing the burned items a bit using the Self-Study Quiz. There are too many items that I’ve still not encountered in the wild for them to stick permanently, even when burned. So, it only feels prudent to check my retention after burn.

There are 2 ways to go about this. Either through the Self-Study Quiz menu, where I can set a maximum number of items to 50 or I can use the Item Inspector to list all my burned items. That in turn allows me to quiz the current page I’m on, which will give me control of what to quiz (and allowing me to be systematic about it) and not quiz me on 5000 items at once.

I’m gonna try both and see which I prefer. I kind of like the idea of quizzing all items at least once more, and the item inspector gives me that kind of control. But, honestly, I think it’s a better test of my recall to have the items scrambled and randomized.

In any case, I feel like this is a good time to do this and doing them in smaller chunks should make this a more leisurely thing. After all, I’ve still got 119 leeches to get better at.

頑張るそう!

[prouleau]

Congratulations on your 5000 burns. How did you manage to get the exact number? It sounds like magic to me.

Item Inspector has tools to help you select which burned items you want to study. They are described in the Studying Large Tables section of the Item Inspector top post. These tools are meant to select the appropriate items for studying when the table has thousands of items.

[ekg]

I’ll be sure to check that out then. Thanks for the tip.

(and yeah, I knew I had 4 items left to burn before reaching 5000, so I simply wrapped up the session after burning those items. Turned out I didn’t have more burns in cue today anyway. )

[ekg]

Time for an update!

I’ve been utilizing the Item Inspector to the full extent as of late. I’ve been going through chunks of burned items, avoiding the radicals because they’re not that useful to cram again, and slowly I’m moving up the lower levels for now.

I’m creating a list of failed items as I do so. I think that for some items where I’m unsure of rendaku, meaning or something else, I’ll just have to cram them the traditional way: writing them down 20 times or more in a notebook by hand or similar

I probably need something more time consuming than just a “quiz”, and using physical work like hand-writing has worked for me in the past.

Also, leeches are now down to 105!

Gradually, they’re disappearing.

[ekg]

I’ve had a lot of burns as of late. And it has shown as an increase in leeches. Y_Y Typical, but unsurprising.

Today, however, I’ve had a couple of great review sessions, which has brought the leech count down to 106 leeches again (from 118 a couple of days ago).

It’s hard to know what those burn reviews will spring on you. Some of them goes smoothly others are rough. Or I just have a bad day. It can’t be helped I guess. I just try my best and hopefully I’ll get close to 80% burned by the time my subscription runs out.

Some more stats of my current situation: very few items in apprentice, guru, and master…and almost 60% burned items!

Not surprisingly, that means reviews are down numbers. I’m seeing more days with <100 or even <40 reviews.

Also the workload graph shows this shift…

Overall, I think I’m doing fine.

I also started using KameSame again recently as a way to do the 10K list of common words. I’m not sure I’m going to continue however. I feel reluctant to get another SRS going somehow. Or maybe I’ll do like last time: I’ll just do lessons to work on production and then ignore the SRS/reviewing part of it.

I’ve also come to realize that I can’t use the API in scripts after my subscription runs out (as that’ll only get me access to lv 1-3). I emailed the WK team and that’s what they said. Which means I should devote all my extra energy on my WK leeches in the higher levels until the sub runs out.

I could always use KameSame after July for the common word list and the JLPT lists, rather than right now.

Now, I wanna make the most of the Leech trainer, Self-Study Quiz and the Item Inspector. But, I’m also gonna use the Item Inspector in July to extract a final list of leeches to work on on my own. Also, a list of items I never burned would be good to have for self-study.

But, overall, I perhaps just feel like I’m starting to outgrow SRS. I like it, as a daily routine. But as for learning new stuff, it’s time to move on.

Reading is the future for me! ^>^

[Sproingle]

Heya! I’ve just read back through your leech battle and hoping you might be able to answer a couple of questions for me?
My pile is teetering at nearly 300 and while I occasionally use the Leech Trainer and Item Inspector, just wondering how you structured tackling your larger loads.
I saw that you smashed through all of them in one hit a few times, was that your general strategy, or did you start breaking them into chunks?
Did you do much handwriting out of the sticky blighters? You did have some word lists here, did you write those out?
I don’t consistently train leeches, (seriously need to fix that), but when I do, I pick selections at random and don’t know if this is actually working.
Anyhoo, thanks for putting up with my sticky-beaking

[ekg]

Lots of question! I’ll try my best to answer them! ^^’

1 My pile is teetering at nearly 300 and while I occasionally use the Leech Trainer and Item Inspector, just wondering how you structured tackling your larger loads.

I saw that you smashed through all of them in one hit a few times, was that your general strategy, or did you start breaking them into chunks?

I’ve done both.

I do find it to be very efficient to systematically work my way through my leeches - the entire lot of them. Both for the overview that gives, but also the extra quizzing of items that I might actually have under control.

It’s because it’s just hard to tell when a leech will stop being a leech for you. (I recently failed to burn “to be afflicted, to fall ill” 患う【わずらう】again for the umpteenth time! Y_Y But others progress to burn after you put that extra bit of effort into them).

So doing them all, trains both harder and easier leeches making sure at least some of them will progress again to guru-master etc. and decreasing that total leech count.

But, I also use the Item Inspector to break the leeches up into more manageable chunks for quizzing (one page at a time). I then start with the leeches with the highest failure count and move toward the easier ones at the end of the list across a couple of days.

I don’t force myself to do the whole lot, unless I have the energy for it. Just doing as many items you feel like doing is good.

Did you do much handwriting out of the sticky blighters? You did have some word lists here, did you write those out?

I was planning on doing this, but in the end only did a couple. Not worth mentioning. And I’ve been working on some of the items on the lists, but not in a systematic manner, like I planned to.

It’s just that I often have trouble with kanji - and I don’t really know the stroke order and I don’t wanna learn bad habits before I’ve again re-read the Tofugu article about stroke orders and looked into handwriting more.

But, once my subscription runs out, I’ll probably again have to consider just making a long list and do repetition writing of items by hand. I do think it’s a good way to do memorization, but it does take some time doing. >_>

I don’t consistently train leeches, (seriously need to fix that), but when I do, I pick selections at random and don’t know if this is actually working.

Being consistent about leech training is probably the most important part. Just doing 1 or 2 sessions of the Shin-Wanikani Leech trainer and maybe a one-page quiz from the Item Inspector every week, helps you keep those leech numbers down.

For example when the shin-wanikani leech trainer reports 50< leeches, I’ll do 1-2 session each day until 0. Then I’ll ignore the script for a while again, doing other stuff.

IF you have energy to spare, be systematic about it. As that increase the gain from your leech training.

300 is a LOT! It steals time and energy from current level reviewing. So, I suggest putting aside that bit of time every week to do some leech training as it will make the normal reviewing sessions more fun (less failed items after all).

You don’t have to do it slavishly. Just doing a bit by bit will help you a lot in the long run.

[Sproingle]

Thankyou so much for such in-depth explanations.

@ekg

use the Item Inspector to break the leeches up into more manageable chunks for quizzing (one page at a time). I then start with the leeches with the highest failure count and move toward the easier ones at the end of the list across a couple of days.

This is what I sort of did for a while, then changed over to random selections. I’ve also got the Leech setting at 1 -includes failed last review. Just changed it to 1.01 and only dropped 30 so yeah, a bit of work there!!

@ekg

For example when the shin-wanikani leech trainer reports 50< leeches, I’ll do 1-2 session each day until 0. Then I’ll ignore the script for a while again, doing other stuff

I will try this, it’s a good baseline.

@ekg

You don’t have to do it slavishly. Just doing a bit by bit will help you a lot in the long run.

@ekg

IF you have energy to spare, be systematic about it . As that increase the gain from your leech training.

^^These! I’ve not been systematic at all really, but you’ve given the option to go at your own pace.
Perhaps it’s time to do a log/blog/thing too!
Once again, your advice and insight has been very helpful, I hope I can do it justice.

[ekg]

I hope it helps you too! ^>^ Ask again if you wonder about something!

[ekg]

I confess to having been totally slacking off as of late!

My leech count has been around 125 for the longest time. All those burn reviews I’m doing tend to give a steady influx of leeches to keep the number around that. And since I haven’t been following my own leech squashing program, the lower level leeches aren’t moving up the SRS levels either.

Right now I have 115 leeches though, so some kind of improvement since the last week.

But, maybe it’s not that surprising that I haven’t been leech training as of late. I’m now participating in 3 book/anime clubs. I’ve been watching Oishinbo and looking up new words, nearly daily. So, my Japanese studies are certainly not lacking. ^>^

Still, I think that since I have the day off work I should do a real leech training session of all of them. I should be able to push the number under 100. Theoretically…^^;

I guess, it’s time for me to get cracking!

[ekg]

I’ve finally gotten to one of my WK goals: 70% burned items. It feels nice to have managed to get this far! ^>^

Now if only my leeches would give me a break, but not much is happening on that front. I clearly need to work harder if I’m to get rid of the 97 leeches I’m currently battling before my subscription runs out!

In other words: time to do another round of leech training!