I’ve recently been able to improve my review accuracy quite significantly (from ~80% → ~95%) by using ChatGPT so I thought I’d share… Main thing I do is get to those words that I just can’t seem to get into my head. Before I’d just try to “go harder” on those words with mixed success… What I do now is that if there’s a word I screw up I put it in ChatGPT and say:
“for each word in japanese, provide me with the meaning and then three english pronounciation mnemonics (be creative!)”
This then gives me a bunch of new ideas for mnemonics and I find by mixing and matching I’m able to retain better. I then write the new mnemonic in the notes section of the word.
The other thing I’ve been doing is if there’s a word where the I don’t understand the kanji combinations, I then use another GPT to talk more about the word (e.g., explain 昨年 vs。去年）
It’s probably not a surprise my reviews are getting better since I’m spending more time on the words, but even though it’s more time per word, I find in aggregate it’s probably saving me time over the long-term…
Update: I’ve been using it also when first learning new vocabulary where there is no mnemonic. Here’s an example
致命的 = fatal
Mnemonic from ChatGPT: Think of a “chief” (ち) making a “major” (めい) mistake that leads to a lethal consequence (てき).
You kind of have to fill in the blanks but this had no reading explanation since it was just "use the on’yomi readings’ and it was nice to quickly get a mnemonic
One example is for 相次ぐ (meaning: successively) here is one of the mnemonics it gave: “Picture someone saying “Aye” (あい) as they “tug” (つぐ) a rope, with each tug following the previous one.”
I tried ChatGPT for this and considered it a lost cause, but I just tried it with your prompt for some problematic vocabs and it actually gives me useful ideas!
Thanks.
Chat GPT developed to be a perfect tool for language learning as it can explain very well if you ask precise enough. Especially for grammar points its suprisingly accurate and understands spoken language as well.
However, I never used it for mnemonics. I will try this too, thanks!
Well, aside from the problem it still has with just making things up out of whole cloth. Which, don’t get me wrong, is perfectly ok if you want it to make things up, such as devising mnemonics, but honestly when it comes to accuracy, even Google Translate is better.
Well, the greatest difference to normal translaters is it’s ability to include context. You can have increadibly accurate translations because there is focus on the actual meaning of a sentence. You just have to insert the right command to get what you want. Google translater is not accurate at all if you ask me. Especially for more complex or longer phrases or a whole text.
Try ask Chat GPT to write in different dialects or eras. This is just insane xD
But as always, there is no 100% hitrate for accuracy of course, so you still need to be careful and double check sometimes. Still, its amaizing how much is possible.
I think it’s great for intermediate-level learners where you’re able to critically evaluate the output and suss out “hallucinations”. The really bad thing with ChatGPT is not that it’s often wrong, it’s that it’s convincingly wrong.
Still, I regularly use ChatGPT to help be translate and break down complicated Japanese sentences and it works generally well for that.
I’m a little more worried when I see a complete beginner immediately use ChatGPT as some sort of private tutor to learn Japanese. It’s too often wrong or inaccurate when meta-analyzing the language as opposed to merely translating it.
ChatGPT is surprisingly extremely good at translating and explaining the choices it made. You can also keep iterating (asking questions about the same sentence) which is a big plus compared to other translation tools or even compared to forums where anyone can respond anything, even newbies who don’t really understand the topic well. Even official teachers are not always great but because you don’t know the language well, you don’t realize. I’ve had a few English teachers that were worse than me in English while I was in school and many students didn’t realize because they didn’t know enough to be able to notice. So I’m assuming that it’s also the case for Japanese (maybe even worse since Japanese is harder to learn)
English is my second language and the few times I used ChatGPT to translate stuff back and forth between English and French, it was incredibly accurate.
I understand that Japanese is a lot more different than French but even if ChatGPT hallucinates 10% of the time, having a free tutor for the remaining 90% is awesome. Realistically, the 10% you learn wrong won’t matter. Will you really move to Japan and use it wrong or will you really have time to use it wrong on you 2 weeks trip? And even if you do, after getting it wrong a couple times, you will adapt. It’s a lot easier to correct the remaining 10% after learning the first 90%. (here I’m obviously not talking about learning 90% of the whole language, I’m talking about being right about 90% of the stuff you learned)
Any luck with 模様? I’m failing to remember that “imitation” + “formal name title” means “pattern”
I quizzed my favourite llm, Mistral.ai , in both English and French, but it failed to come up with a mnemonic that helps me remember the meaning of 模様.
様, especially when using the on’yomi よう, comes up in words meaning “pattern” or “style” or “condition” a lot. Like, a lot. And it’s weird that WaniKani only teaches one of those, instead relying on ten different usages of the さま honorific.
That f’ing guy is pissing me off. He keeps imitating my formal name title. That’s MY formal name title, and he keeps imitating it. And not just once, it’s a pattern with that guy. I know it’s intentional, because it’s a pattern.
(to be honest I don’t have a mnemonic for the reading because I’ve gotten it wrong so much I can HEAR the voice from wanikani reading it to me perfectly in my head on sight now. Which, I guess, bonus, I’ll never mess up the pitch accent either)
Thats exactly what I meant
The explanations are very precise and you can ask as much as you want. Sometimes teachers struggle to find different explanations or forget some important parts. Of course, they are no machines and cant remember 100% always even if its mother tongue. I wouldn’t say chat GPT is better than a real teacher, but its free! And if you have a chance to actually practice japanese speaking, it can be a huge boost.
However, as it is an AI tool, its not perfect and you should question twice if something seems off.
Chat GPT can be wrong, and will even admit it if you point it out. It will always answer based on your questions and if you don’t ask precisely, it might fail to give the desired response or repeat a mistake. “Is this word in this sentence correct for this situation? Is it informal or formal speach? Please describe the use of this in real life? Explain everything like a pirate! Arrgh”
I get the impression also that it has improved quite a bit since it was first made available, so some of my opinions I formed earlier on I have softened over time. I sometimes get it to do translations of things like book blurbs, where I understand the original text and I’m confident I can spot when it messes something up but am too lazy/not good enough at composing English to translate by hand myself. I generally ask for it to give me three draft translations and then pick the one or the parts I prefer. Last time I used it was for the blurb of 少女マンガじゃない! | L23 and I was quite impressed that it preserved the alliteration in the final line 私がほしいのは、敵じゃなくてトキメキなのに!! with “I want romance, not rivals!!”.
But I still only use it for stuff where I feel capable of cross checking its output.
So this reminds me of another topic which tries to use this idea and incorporate it into the review system itself, albeit limited to images only. If that interests anyone, know that they could definitely utilize motivated individuals to help out.
That said, at the end of the day, the effort you put into learning a mnemonic goes a long way for your retention later. I will also admit that sometimes the mnemonics here are not that easy to visualize, and so this idea seems attractive. Though the old way is/was to basically create the new mnemonic yourself when the old wasn’t doing it for you. The way I see it, this is useful as a way to jumpstart the creative process, but probably limited to that.
