Archive for the ‘Languages’ Category

Sad Kanji Kentei news – failed level 4

Monday, July 11th, 2022

Some rare sad news…. I failed the Kanji Kentei level 4 exam (漢字検定試験4級) by enough points to actually say “ok, this was not just bad luck”)

Level 4 is 315 kanji, significantly more than level 5 which has 220 or so kanji. Subsequently I spent much more time studying for level 4 than I spent on level 5. What’s a bit vexing is that although I spent all that time, I think I mainly failed the exam because of kanji from earlier levels (such as 5, 6 etc.) for the following reasons:

  • I just can’t remember all of them since I’m not actively using them
  • There is a lot more vocabulary derived from kanji combinations than in previous levels

What’s not so vexing is that the exam is “only” 3500 yen per taking. Could have been much more expensive.

So, this happened after I dumped memrise…

Sunday, May 15th, 2022

I’m not blaming anyone if they don’t follow my blog…. it’s not exactly moving quickly with lots of updates.

One of the things I posted about often was memrise and how many points I got etc. It was nice while it lasted but the horrible ads in between exercises made me delete that app faster than Hazel can say booze (see “Girls with Slingshots”)

So I ended up with a lot free time after dumping memrise. Or not really. I rather ended up with time that was not blocked by memrise anymore. Not the same thing.

Anyway, what’s a man got to do with a brain the size of the earth, an ego the size of Jupiter and a language-curiosity as big as the sun?

One word: Kanken.

Although that’s actually 5 words:
Japan Kanji Aptitude Test (日本漢字能力検定, Nihon Kanji Nōryoku Kentei)

It’s just that nobody calls it the full name. Mostly it’s Kanji Kentei or Kanken.

Anyway, it’s about Kanji (surprise, suprise) and here you can find all of them, by level:
https://www.nihongo-pro.com/kanji-pal/list/kanken

As usual in Japan, it’s start at the highest number with the simplest level (still not sure why they do this… it’s limiting) and I quickly rushed through 10 and 9, then decided to officially take level 8 (paper version), then proceeded to use the computer-based test to take (and pass) 7, 6 and 5.

Which means I’m currently studying for level 4. I just need to keep working at it, I guess. It’s doable. and it gives me brain something to do apart from all the other stuff I do.

Keep your fingers crossed for me.

memrise updates….

Sunday, April 25th, 2021

A bit on the late side but….

December 2020 was the month where I scored incredible 3 million points in month… The screenshot only show 2.9 million points. Either I’ve forgotten the 3m screenshot or I’ve deleted it by mistake. Anyway, it’s not the kind of thing foolishly brag about. Believe it or leave it 🙂

Unfortunately, that took quite a toll… I’ve had a real dip in performance after that for two months but it’s gotten better in the meantime.

Regarding the level, I’m less than 2 million points away from level 18 as of today (20210425) and although I’m still a far cry away from my previous longest streak (1394 as per screenshot above), I’ve dragged most of my enrolled across the 500 day streak threshold again

swissalpo2 is back!

Tuesday, April 28th, 2020

On April 28th 2020 I surpassed swissalpo2 in number of total points on memrise. He was my long-term goal (and secret rival). Secret as in he probably didn’t know about me pursuing him although he follows me.

He’s a pro subscriber so I started to get worried when two months ago his activity fell to zero. So in that sense it was really easy to bridge the last 4 million points that separated us. Standing still target…

With the COVID-19 pandemic going on, there’s no telling what happes to other people. So I started to get really worried. But just when I decided to write this post, he came back and put in 9000 points in one day. swissalpo2 is alive.

Welcome back!

Memrise: new point record in March 2020

Saturday, April 4th, 2020

I previously posted a screenshot of a 2 * 10^6 points monthly score in Memrise.

This time (March 2020), I was able to surpass myself… 2’240’000 points. But it wasn’t all fun, it’s turning into hard work to score that many points. Getting up 5 o’clock every morning, three sessions a day… hmpf. I know, there are other people getting even higher scores, but I also have other interests.

March 2020 was fortunate circumstances, which helped a lot…. one week alone, 31 calendar days… it all helped.

OC meme

Thursday, February 6th, 2020

For some reasons, I find this funny. It also makes me say “where isse my pizza” with an Italian accent in my head over and over again.

Nintendo, please don’t sue me.

Memrise – good news and bad news

Saturday, December 14th, 2019

Memrise…. I’ve posted several times about it already.

The good news is, I crossed the 60 million points line. It’s just a number but still… quite a high number and I’ve been adding at least 1 million points per month for at least the last 24 months. Sometimes something as simple as perseverance can result in progress.

The bad news is on December 7th 2019 I lost *all* my streaks, probably due to a bug. I did the daily points required to keep the streaks alive on all 14 or 15 courses I’m doing at the moment, so imagine my shock when I wake up and my precious 1394 days streak is gone. Since the streaks of all course were reset that cannot possibly have been my mistake. Contacting support was useless (there was a reply but it was not helpful).

To add insult to injury, in the latest version Memrise I get stupid notifications like “Keep your awesome streak alive” but the highest streaks I have since the incident is 8. Go figure if I’m happy or not. Since I believe in voting with my money, I will not pay for the full subscription anymore.

A new monthly record-high memrise score

Saturday, June 1st, 2019

In May 2019 I accumulated a cool two million points on memrise. A screenshot will follow later. This is the first time I crossed that particular threshold, usually I end a month between 1.5m and 1.8m points.

According to the stats (I’m a premium member for the time being), I spent 31h in May learning – which is probably correct but this is the “learning” stat. A big chunk of those points come from repetitions which are not included in that stat. So the overall time spent on memrise in May was between two and three times that much (31 days multiplied by on average 1.8h).

Actually, the same goes for the streak stat – the streak only counts learning events – but only on the website. If one day you do only repetitions (even if you do 10’000 of them), your streak is gone.
The app on the other hand adds to your streak if you reach your daily goal.

For this reason, my streak on the website if around 270 now but in the app it’s around 1210.

Update 20190611: I promised you a screenshot, here it is:

a cool two million points in one month ^_^

Another memrise threshold crossed… (two, actually)

Monday, May 6th, 2019

Last week I passed the incredible landmark of 50’000’000 points on memrise, my most often used app for learning languages and vocabulary.

I think I started using memrise five or six year ago so I must have made on average between 8’000’000 and 10’000’000 points per year. Go me!

During the same years I’ve gone though all the redesigns that memrise has taken, not all of them for the better (honestly, none of them were really for the better). The last re-design (“let’s do away with the rockets and remove most of the colours too”) is kind of an eye-bleacher. Most of the buttons or icons unfortunately now follow the “flat” design which does not work pretty much anywhere (iOS, Windows 10, LibreOffice) but because Apple started this crap, everyone seems to be eager to follow suit.

Together with crossing the line of 50’000’000 points, I’ve also surpassed a mempal I’ve been following for a long time: Donnerwoelkchen. When I first followed her (doing a HSK level 6 course), she was roughly 25’000’000+ points ahead so I promised myself to catch up to her in points before she reaches the 50*10^6 – I made it work but it was close… she really pushed the envelope in the last two months so I had to make a bigger-than-usual effort.
Also, I’ve unfollowed her since 😉

Although it is unclear if I will stick around memrise to do another 50’000’000 points, I’ll forge ahead for the time being…

Keep on learnin’!

Books I’m reading at the moment… December 2018

Sunday, December 2nd, 2018

The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant part IV by Stephen R. Donaldson (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Chronicles_of_Thomas_Covenant)

The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant part V by Stephen R. Donaldson (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Chronicles_of_Thomas_Covenant)

星空を願った狼の by Shiina Takasato (https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E9%AB%98%E9%87%8C%E6%A4%8E%E5%A5%88)
http://iss.ndl.go.jp/books/R100000002-I026521234-00
I was reading this previously but lost interest throughout (when I bought it, I was told “it’s funny”… maybe it is not in a terry-prattchet-funny-way). Maybe I’ll make it to the end this time

Desperation by Stephen King
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desperation_(novel))

红豚 by a friend of a co-worker… correct name to follow 🙂

American Gods by Neil Gaiman
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Gods)
I picked this up in used books shop. I “know” Neil Gaiman from his collaboration on Good Omens (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Good_Omens) with the late Terry Pratchett. It’s good to hold a physical book in the hand while reading because I mostly read e-books on my tablet, but it’s just not the same.

PADI Tec Deep Diver Manual
Not sure if I will ever do this… but it’s interesting to read about it, at least at the moment.