Next!

あまりにも一般的になってしまい、俳句がもともと日本のものだということを知らない人達さえいるほどです。

What function is the ほど performing? It’s in the opening paragraph of an article about haiku. My take on the meaning of the whole sentence is something like “They’ve become so popular that there’s [a great number] of people who don’t even know that haiku is something that originated in Japan.” but I don’t really get what the ほど is doing.

あそぶ = the act of playing, or enjoying yourself, or having a good time. Playing with friends, say – it’s not used in the sense of “playing a game” or “playing soccer” like it is in English.

As for する versus やる, やる is a little bit more casual.

N4 or N3. Dunno. I might pick up the N3 study guide and see what it looks like, but in the end I still think my listening ability is the limiting factor.

MisterM2402 [Michael] wrote:

@Joel: I think it wouldn’t be *too* bad a method if you were only learning how to write them (a la Heisig) since you could cover a lot of the fewer stroke kanji a lot more quickly.

Yeah, but… since Koichi regularly says not to bother learning how to write them, doesn’t that make Koichi’s method the exact opposite of what he was trying for? =P

MisterM2402 [Michael] wrote:

Really, I think the RTK/WK method of introducing kanji is the most logical because it involves thinking of kanji in terms of radicals than in terms of strokes, which is by far easier.

Koichi was trying to do that, but somewhere along the line, he got sidetracked…

MisterM2402 [Michael] wrote:

For the longest time, Koichi championed the “fewest strokes to most strokes” ordering; I guess he’s realised that way wasn’t actually that good after all.

To be fair, his argument made sense on paper. In practice, though, since you can’t really make any basic sentences until you hit at least the seven-stroke kanji, it makes progress a little tricky. You can’t even count to ten without first learning the five-stroke kanji…

SadPanda wrote:

It would be better if all of the mnemonics used unique nouns…

I kinda disagree, but the thing is, the best mnemonics for things are always going to be the ones you make yourself – they have meaning to you, and that’s what matters. The way everyone thinks is different. Sure, Koichi’s mnemonics can help, but feel free at any time to just forget about his and invent your own.

Yeah, but on the other hand, there’s essentially no reliable conjugation or pronunciation rules.

Apparently the three hardest languages to learn in the world are English, Arabic and Japanese. Looks like you’ve already got two of those down pat… =P