Hi, I’m sorry if this issue has already been addressed here. Nevertheless, recently I’ve been going through a couple of studies regarding extensive reading in Japanase and I came across this pedagogical suggestion about variation of furigana exposure.
My observation is that reading materials with unknown kanji is too difficult without furigana being switched on, but at the same time when furigana is switched on we often rely almost exclusively on furigana which prevents us from getting the benefits of reinforcing our already existing kanji knowledge.
My suggestion is to include an option for furigana to appear only above unwknown words or somehow make it possible for Lingq to detect which kanji characters we already know (perhaps even manually) and block furigana from appearing above words containing them.
This would be extremely helpful. From the studies I’ve read it is clear that kanji characters pose a major obstacle to a huge majority of learners who try to include extensive reading in their learning program. Any action that would at least partially reduce the risks of entering the vicious cycle of frustration caused by unfamiliar kanji would be very much appreciated
hmmm, this was never a big issue for me. I think the best policy here would be to start with short, simple content with the furigana turned off. If you’re studying kanji and reading consistently you should be able to improve.
Also having separate lingq’s for kanji doesn’t seem practical, especially for Japanese when there can be 10 readings for one character. Even at an advanced level, you can still encounter readings you’re unfamiliar with.
Yeah, I reckon that separate lingq’s for kanji isn’t the greatest idea but having furigana appear only above unknown words would be in my opinion not only beneficial but also technically manageable. I doubt it would be of any harm for users to at least have this option.
The problem is not that we are not aware of the fact that more extensive exposure to Japanese texts gradually decreases this initial struggling; the problem is that this initial struggling requires a lot of effort to overcome. I stumbled upon this problem in case studies over and over. I just think skill-building approach to learning kanji doesn’t suffice. I believe we should be willing to experiment so that we can find a way of making enjoyable and comprehensible input accesible to Japanese learners sooner than after months of struggling with motivation and drilling of kanji. We just cannot ignore the orthographic difficulties hoping they diseappear after some time without suffering heavy casualties in terms of Japanese language drop-outs
Yeah, I think that suggestion makes sense, and could help bridge the gap between an elementary and intermediate level reading level.
To play the devils advocate though, maybe those who struggle getting past this stage won’t make it much further whatever resources are available. After all, Japanese is a very difficult language for people in the west, and if you lack the motivation to read kanji, it might not be the language for you.
But, of course I agree with you. We should be trying to make the learning process as painless as possible. If there’s a demand for this type of tool then I’d be all for it.
I have to admit I prefer not to have furigana on. If I don’t know a word, the hint usually provides the reading. As for the multiple readings “problem”, I think it’s a bit over-rated, as it doesn’t take too long even for beginners in time to start intuitively knowing which reading fits the context (aside from advanced level). Just like the beginner can’t tell when は is read as ‘ha’ or ‘wa’ at first, but soon gets used to it and doesn’t really think about it after that. The fact some LingQ readings are ‘incorrect’ doesn’t matter - neither can Google Translate (shown in their romaji) always get it right. Machine translation at present can only provide the common statistical result across the board.
neither can Google Translate (shown in their romaji) always get it right
Yes that’s true, but the lingq furigana is much less accurate than google translate because of the way words are spaced. If lingq could get to google translate levels of accuracy then there wouldn’t be much of an issue at all.
I think the lingq furigana as it is right now poses a significant obstacle to beginning learners, who don’t know when to disregard a reading that is obviously incorrect.
Maybe beginners could have a pop-up (which can be turned off) to advise only the common statistical reading is given, so not necessarily is accurate. Six years ago we didn’t even have furigana, and the spacing was horrendous compared to now.
I think this is a good idea. What I’ve been doing to deal with the new readings of unknown kanji on LingQ is twofold: The first thing I do is include the reading in the definition when I create it so that it’s easy to access. The second thing is I listen to the audio of the lesson after I’ve read it through once.
Listening to the native read through it and following along it particularly helpful. There have been a number of times where I thought a kanji had one reading and then the native used an alternative one.
