Study Tools Ahoy!

Some of the most important things I can think of to bring over to Japan are a set of tools I can use to make my study time as effective as humanly possible. I don't really have the spare cash to buy a brand-new cool electronic dictionary like many students of Japanese do, but honestly I don't really think I'm gonna need one. I have plenty of stuff I can carry around with me that'll do the trick.

The coolest thing I have is, of course, my phone. I'm gonna have to permanently set it to airplane mode since I won't get service over there (obviously), and anything that uses the internet is gonna be a wash (unless I'm connected to WiFi--I don't know how common that is over there though). Still, I have some really cool tools on my phone that, in my opinion, makes it almost as good as a fancy-pants 電子辞書.

The IME for droid phones, Simeji

I have an IME called 'Simeji' on my phone. IME, by the way, stands for Input Method Editor and it's basically a way to type in a foreign language using either a QWERTY keyboard or some other layout. Here's a neat online one for when I'm on a computer that doesn't have an IME installed on it, like my work computer. Anyway, essentially Simeji is just a way for me to type in Japanese, which is very useful since I have a number of Japanese dictionaries already installed on my phone.

I have a program called WWWJDic and it has a pretty okay J-E dictionary on it for quick look-ups, but where the program really shines is its ability to let you draw in unfamiliar characters and look them up for you based on stroke order and character shape. I'm sure this is going to be insanely invaluable when I'm out and about and need to look up a character I don't know. That's one thing that's pretty interesting about the Japanese writing system: there's no real way to "sound out" a word like you can in English. If you don't know a character, the only hints as to the pronunciation or the meaning are the little elements that make up the character, and even those can get pretty esoteric and obscure.

On top of that, I also have a program called DroidWing which is simply a program that displays dictionary files that are saved in EPWING format. The nice thing is that I already have two EPWING dictionaries from a while back: スーパー大辞林, a very good J-J dictionary, and 新和英大事典, a well-respected J-E dictionary. They're older editions, but perfectly fine for what I'm going to be doing.

The dictionary program that comes with MacOS

Now, as far as computer tools, I feel like I have a bit of a leg up in that department as well. I bought a Macbook Pro a few months ago (mostly because I'm gonna need a good reliable laptop when I'm overseas), and as it turns out, it contains a very good J-J dictionary and a progressive J-E learner's dictionary, which is actually one of my favorite dictionaries I own. The cool thing about this dictionary program is that you can highlight any word in any application, and press a certain key combination--the dictionary opens and shows you the definition of the word in whatever dictionary you want. Very useful for reading webpages or other documents.

What's also pretty cool about my laptop is that I installed a part of the OS that allows me to use the trackpad as a writing surface for character recognition. The only problem is that it's actually part of the Chinese IME, instead of the Japanese one. That means I can only look up characters that are shared between Japanese and Chinese. Luckily that's still a lot, but I kinda wish there was one specifically for Japanese. Maybe in the future.

I also have a bunch of books, though I'm not sure of how many I'm actually going to bring over there. I have the first volume of Genki, which I completed my freshman year of college at Cincinnati. I also have the second volume which I sorta worked through myself. I don't think I'm gonna bring those books because I have limited space and they cover stuff that's pretty basic. However, I also have An Integrated Approach to Intermediate Japanese, also from the Japan Times, and I think I'm gonna bring it. It covers a bunch of stuff I'm still pretty shaky on, and has a lot of exercises that I can use to supplement my coursework. As if the coursework isn't gonna be enough.

I feel like I need to mention this, in case anyone reading this is in the process of learning Japanese: Tae Kim's Japanese Guide is honestly one of the best Japanese-learning resources I've ever seen. I keep a hard copy on my laptop and on my phone for quick reference. Particularly, his grammar reference is absolutely spectacular and comes with tons of examples.

I also have a number of intermediate novels and articles I've accumulated over the years, most of which are above my level right now. Still, I'm probably gonna end up bringing them with me. Why not? What's a couple extra pounds in my suitcases? At the very least, they'll give me something to struggle through on the plane.