Jalup Themes
The Japanese Theme Language Contest had the goal of gathering people of different expertise, and pooling all of their specialized vocabulary into one place. At 20 cards a person, everyone chose a topic, found 20 sentences with themed vocabulary from that topic, and provided the readings, English definition, and Japanese definition.
Their hard effort and amazing work forms the Japanese Theme Language Package.
What’s inside?
1. 13 themes (20 sentences each)
– Chemistry
– Military/Weapons
– Internet Error Messages
– Common J-RPG Terms
– Weightlifting
– Theatre
– Medical/Diseases/Injuries
– Butler/Maid Polite Speech
– Comedy RPG
– School J-Drama
– Traditional Japanese Music
– Space/Military
– Variety Show
2. Reading, J-E and J-J definition for every item (only the new introduced word is defined, the whole sentence is not translated)
3. 260 Anki cards (you can remove the J-E or J-J field depending on your level)
4. 44 page PDF file containing everything for the non-Anki users
Contest Winners
The 3 best entries, as voted on by all those who participated:
1. Chemistry (Newbee)
2. Common JRPG Terms (Matt V)
3. Internet Error Messages (Valgaav)
Congratulations to these three. And a big thanks to everyone else. All of the entries were really done well.
Buy now
Jalup Themes – $19.99
Refunds
Didn’t find it to be of use? Not quite what you thought you needed? No worries. Send an e-mail to adshap (at) japaneselevelup (dot) com within 30 days after your purchase date to ask for a 100% refund, no questions asked.
Founder of Jalup. iOS Software Engineer. Former attorney, translator, and interpreter. Still watching 月曜から夜ふかし weekly since 2013.
Since this isn’t structured like the Intermediate and Advanced 1000, how would you say people in J-J should approach this? I imagine there will probably be other unknown words in the definitions and sentences.
Matt gives a good answer below. Go through it, adding what you can understand, work through and branch the stuff that is manageable, and save for later what is way over your head.
This sounds like a great idea, I would definitely like more themed ideas! As far as your decks goes, which one is assumed to be done before this? (Like, is this something you could get after finish Jalup Intermediate sentences, or the advanced one?)
It’s tricky to give it a J-J difficulty evaluation, since it was made by 13 authors of widely varying levels on 13 subjects of widely varying complexity. My entry (JRPG Terms) was made to mostly branch off the JALUP Intermediate. The others range from Beginner-friendly, all the way to Advanced and beyond.
I’d say give it your best shot, but don’t be afraid to fall back on the included English definitions if you get stuck. The JP definitions will still be there to challenge again later =)
Ah, I thought it was actually based on one since it says “only the new introduced words”, which I thought meant that it assumed a specific previous knowledge, but it just means for the themed words haha. Thanks! (Ill wait until I get to intermediate to give it a try)
For that price I can get behind this <3
I look forward to seeing everyone's hard work~~
I did the first 20 and I really liked the cards ^.^ I only deleted 5 and about another 5 had words I knew but kept anyway to practice those words more. There were a good 10 words I didn’t know in the first 20 cards so I am happy~~
Glad you are getting good use out of it. I think there’s a nice balance in the difficulty of the cards (some easy, some average, some hard). And everyone can take away something useful
I hope we do this contest again and get even more topics!
Imagine if we did this enough we could have a plethora of topics. We could either put them in packs like this or people could choose the mix of topics they wanted in the (perhaps not so far but not so near) future. We would need a considerable base to draw on if it was a mix and match, but making packs like this we can do from the start.
Creating a flexible/varied resource like this by our community of users would be such a unique feature. I love this site. Very pleased with the experience and hope to participate again.
Another one could be interesting! I would probably do art terms…since learning more is my goal for this month anyway!
This was an amazing idea, I wish I would’ve contributed. After buying it I took a look at the words and they seem to be extremely helpful due to the categories. These focus on a lot of things Japanese learners are interested in.
Hi~
I paused doing this deck for a while but have resumed doing it now. I have a question about 箏 which appears in a couple of sentences. The furigana say to read it こと but then I noticed the second time the sentence appeared there was a note in the Japanese definition section that said it is read そう. Please let me know how I am supposed to be reading this kanji ^.^
Looks like it can be both.
Ahh okay, cool. I’ll just pick whichever one I like then while keeping the other one in mind then I guess, lol
That awkward, but amazing moment when the Japanese explanation is actually more helpful than the English translation because you have zero knowledge of military/weapons… Totally made my day!
Will there be another one?
Another contest? There might be a possibility if enough people are interested.
I think there are many people interested in another one. Where are my supporters at?
I’m behind you Sully!
If we do another Theme Deck, I’ll make an entry for it =)
Dude, if possible, make all the entries and branch from Intermediate!