Archive for the ‘Wikipedia’ Category

Dump summary

Monday, June 18th, 2007 by Agro Rachmatullah

kanji scroll

It has been a long time since my last word and kanji dump, hasn’t it? My last dump was more than 2 months ago :).

Even though my word and kanji hunting isn’t as intense as before, thankfully I still managed to do it. For the current dump (here, here, and here), I gathered a total of 184 kanji and 954 words. It’s not as scary as it sounds, because I didn’t cram it afternight. It took around 2 months, so that’s only around 3 kanji and 15 words per day which I think is very lousy :). The key is “persistence” (oh, and Mnemosyne).

So now my kanji count is 1829 and my word count is 9265. As can be expected, even with that amount of kanji I still can’t read a “random” Wikipedia article satisfactorily. Click here to visit the article on Thomas Alva Edison viewed with my eyes. Kanji not yet learned are colored red, and there are still a significant amount of them.

I shouldn’t be satisfied yet…

Wikipedia Dump: Einstein

Monday, June 18th, 2007 by Agro Rachmatullah

Albert Einstein

After going far back in time with Aristotle, I hunted words from the article of a more recent thinker, Einstein (2007-04-05). I got 68 kanji and 257 words.

Here are 5 selected new words from the article:

  • 学術 (gakujutsu, science)
  • 特殊 (tokushu, special); this is the “toku” used in tokusatsu.
  • 相対 (soutai, relative); tokushu and soutai is used in 特殊相対性理論 (tokushu soutai-sei riron, special theory of relativity)
  • 爆弾 (bakudan, bomb)
  • 核兵器 (kakuheiki, nuclear weapon)

Here are the kanji:

縫患遽慰歓捏歪廃滞到陳拍傾泊尉挟憩賽粗貌穂翠豸俸恣榛核虐瘤莫爆皃伴伎拗障衆党装槍倶討應群巾揶鉱云殊拭鹸培炉桑謡勘諮凱峡症揄髭棄惜把益渉偏

And all the words:

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Kenapa aku (dulu) tidak mau jadi dokter

Saturday, May 5th, 2007 by Agro Rachmatullah

Cerebellum highlighted in blue

Aku barusan ngeliat (sebagian) One Litre of Tears episode 1 yang ditayangin Indosiar. Tahu kan? Ini drama menyentuh yang diangkat dari buku harian Kitou Aya, pasien Spinocerebellar ataxia (SCA). Pernah dijiplak Indonesia jadi Buku Harian Nayla (jiplak, bukan adaptasi, wong sama sekali tidak mengakui sumber cerita aslinya).

Aku sebelumnya udah pernah namatin drama yang dibintangi Sawajiri Erika ini. Minjem CD-nya adikku, suara asli Jepang dengan fansub Inggris. Tadi nonton soalnya penasaran aja, seperti apa versi dubbing-nya. (nggak berencana nonton lanjutannya, harus ngerjain TA dan nggak mau numpahin liter ke-2)

Secara umum dub-nya OK lah. Tapi aku cukup kaget dengan penyebaran informasi yang salah di beberapa menit pertama. Versi Indosiar menyebutkan bahwa pengidap penyakit ini akan “susah menggerakkan anggota tubuh, susah berbicara, dan mengalami gangguan berpikir” (kira-kira, nggak kurekam soalnya). Lalu belakangan disebutkan bahwa perlahan-lahan pengidap juga akan mengalami “…hilang ingatan” (kira-kira juga).

Aku bukan dokter, tapi dari yang kubaca di Wikipedia:

Generally, a sufferer retains full mental capacity but may progressively lose physical control.

Kata Wikipedia, mental (termasuk kemampuan bepikir dan ingatan) tidak terganggu, hanya saja perlahan-lahan kendali fisik bisa hilang (kesulitan berbicara, menggerakkan tangan, dll). Jadi, skor akurasi teknis -1 buat Indosiar. Seingatku, terjemahan fansub yang kutonton juga tidak menyinggung-nyinggung tentang gangguan pada fungsi mental. Pingin denger dialog Jepang aslinya tapi CD-nya lagi nggak di sini.

SCA adalah penyakit yang belum bisa disembuhkan. Selain 1 Litre of Tears, aku juga pernah nonton/baca beberapa cerita lain tentang penyakit-penyakit yang tak bisa disembuhkan. Film A Beautiful Mind diangkat dari kisah nyata John Nash, matematikawan penerima Nobel Ekonomi yang terkena Schizophrenia (ada adegan Igo-nya!!!). Film The Notebook merupakan adopsi dari novel dengan judul yang sama, kali ini tentang Alzheimer. Ada juga game novel interaktif yang mengangkat gagal ginjal kronis.

Di cerita-cerita tersebut, kita diajak menangis melihat betapa tidak berdayanya manusia. Ini abad 21 dengan segala kejayaannya seperti pembuktian Teorema Terakhir Fermat, disket holografik 3.9 TB, dan teleportasi kuantum. Tapi kita masih hidup dihantui berbagai penyakit yang belum ada obatnya. Di manakah sirup sakti Doraemon yang sekali teguk bisa menyembuhkan semua macam penyakit?

OK, kembali ke… uhm… inti dari postingan ini. (aku nggak punya laptop)

Apa cita-cita pertamaku? Jadi dokter kandungan. Ya, benar. Kok bisa? Karena saat ibuku bertanya “Agro besar mau jadi apa?”, aku diajarkan jawaban “dokter kandungan”. Omonganku waktu itu masih belum sempurna, jadi mungkin yang kuucapkan semacam “o-te… andunan”.

OK, mungkin itu bukan cita-cita. Aku hanyalah bagai pensistesis suara seperti Festival. Waktu itu aku masih terlalu kecil untuk tahu apa itu “cita-cita” dan “dokter kandungan”.

Setelah aku cukup besar untuk membayangkan berbagai cita-cita, anehnya “dokter” sama sekali tidak pernah kuminati. Orang-orang banyak yang mengatakan hal-hal seperti “jadi dokter nanti kaya…”, “jadi dokter banyak duitnya…”. Mungkin itu yang membuatku anti. Bukan anti duitnya, tapi karena orang-orang HANYA menekankan duitnya, jadi seakan-akan dokter hanyalah mesin pencetak duit yang membosankan. Pasien bertanya, kita mendiagnosis dan memberi obat, orang sembuh, dan kita dapat duit. Aku milih yang lebih menyenangkan aja misalnya bikin komik (salah satu cita-citaku zaman SD dulu).

Tapi, cerita-cerita tentang penyakit yang tak bisa disembuhkan tersebut merubah sudut pandangku tentang pekerjaan di dunia kedokteran. Sebetulnya sejak sebelumya aku tahu bahwa ada penyakit yang belum bisa disembuhkan (contoh populernya AIDS), tapi itu hanyalah pengetahuan semata yang tidak menyentuh. Di lain pihak, dengan mengenal sosok seperti Aya hati ini benar-benar sakit karena aku tidak bisa berbuat apa-apa melihat dia menderita. Ingin rasanya bisa membantu dia. Ya, aku menjadi terbuka pada alternatif di dunia kedokteran selain menjadi buruh pencetak duit yang hidup bahagia ever after. Alternatifnya adalah meneliti penyakit-penyakit ganas tersebut, mencari obat yang menjawab rintihan orang-orang yang masih menyimpan sebenih harapan. Sama-sama bertujuan menyembuhkan layaknya dokter pada umumnya, tapi yang ini jauh lebih menantang dan menarik buatku.

Ah, tapi manusia itu terbatas. Kalau kita mencoba menjadi segalanya, kita malah tidak akan jadi apa-apa. Aku nggak berencana pindah ke kedokteran, tapi paling tidak aku sekarang lebih mengapresiasi dunia tersebut. Toh perkembangan di satu bidang ilmu akan mempengaruhi bidang lainnya kan? Laser, mainan para fisikawan, kini jadi alat penting di dunia kedokteran. Proyek komputasi terdistribusi Folding@home membantu usaha pencarian obat kanker. Jadi aku bisa sedikit puas, karena berada di dunia MIPA yang cukup dekat dengan bidang kedokteran.

強く前へ。。。

Dump summary

Saturday, April 14th, 2007 by Agro Rachmatullah

My previous word dump was 24 days ago. For the current series of word dump (this, this, this, this, this, and this), I collected 129 new kanji and 625 new words. That makes my total kanji count 1645 and word count 8311.

For songs, I’m starting to get the hang of it. It’s now not rare to find songs lyrics which I can completely read. But for Wikipedia articles, it’s still no good. Here’s the Wikipedia article on Einstein viewed with my eyes. There are still lots of red (unknown) kanji.

Wikipedia dump: Aristotle

Saturday, April 14th, 2007 by Agro Rachmatullah

Aristotle

What better way to continue from Newton and Galileo than to hunt words from Aristotle (2007-03-13) itself? I got 47 kanji and 132 words.

Here are the kanji:

羅矜矯羞獣導逍践捉繹寡侍廊倒偉韻衡岐巧謬僭顎倣浄庸損厚豪遍辱侮奉均液貢聘肯妥層乾湿疇善潔財粋醜

And the words:

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Am I learning Japanese or Biology?

Sunday, March 25th, 2007 by Agro Rachmatullah

One essential aspect of learning a language is learning its vocabulary. In my Japanese study, this tranlates into learning kanji which are the building block of many words.

Most kanji are for things I am familiar with. Some examples are 人 (hito, person), 玉 (tama, ball), and 火 (hi, fire). Many are for common animals like 虫 (mushi, insect), 亀 (kame, turtle), and 猫 (neko, cat). Unexpectedly, I quite oftenly encounter kanji for an animal or plant that I have no knowledge about.

An example is 藤 (fuji, tou) which is the kanji for the plant genus Wisteria. It is found on many people’s name, such as 藤本美貴 (Fujimoto Miki), 後藤真希 (Gotou Maki), and 工藤新一 (Kudou Shin’ichi).

Using KANJIDIC or EDICT, I only get a brief description like “wisteria”. That is useless for someone with a shallow knowledge such as me, but enough as a pointer to get more information elsewhere. If I’m not online, my next stop is Stardict, which gives more detail such as “a climbing plant with purple or white flowers”. At least I could know that “Wisteria” is a plant, not something else like “hysteria”. My final stop is of course Wikipedia, which gives detailed descriptions and more importantly, images!

I’ll share some of the new living things I’ve discovered… Do you know them?

Wisteria

Wisteria

In Japanese, it is フジ (藤, fuji). And no, Mount Fuji is written differently. It is native to Japan and other countries including eastern US. It can climb by twisting itself along any available support. As I have written above, it is used on many people’s name. Anyone knows its Indonesian name?


Cicada

Cicada

In Japanese, it is セミ (蝉, semi). I found it on Berryz Koubou’s song titled “Semi”. It is a family of insect that makes a lot of noise (but it’s different from Cricket). According to Wikipedia Indonesia, the Indonesian name is Tonggeret (never heard it before).


Chrysanthemum

Chrysanthemum

In Japanese, it is キク (菊, kiku). I found it on an author’s name (菊池, Kikuchi) at the digital library Aozora Bunko. In Japan, this plant is a symbol of death and are only used for funerals (which means, don’t give it to your Japanese girlfriend). 菊花紋章 (kikukamonshou) is the name given to the position of Japanese emperor. By the way, I recently went to Moro department store and found a Chrysanthemum product. It is a Chinese product and how happy I was to see the character 菊 written on the box :). The Indonesian name is Seruni (never heard it before too).


Manchurian Violet

Manchurian Violet, Viola mandshurica

In Japanese, it is スミレ (菫, sumire). I also found it on a writer’s name (薄田泣菫, Sasakida Kyuukin, and please don’t ask me what “sasaki” means). Is it also “Violet” in Indonesia?


Japanese Royal Fern

Japanese Royal Fern, Osmunda japonica

In Japanese, it is ゼンマイ (薇, zenmai). I knew what a fern is, but I was curious whether this fern has a striking difference (nothing striking to a layman like me). Strangely, it is the kanji used in Rose (薔薇, bara), which is where I found it. In Indonesia, ferns are called paku or pakis.


If you want to be able to read people’s name, you’ll be sure to encounter lots of these exotic kanji. It’s almost like they’re forcing us to be a botanist or zoologist. You’ll also find these kanji in songs and literatures (e.g., novels), because writers want to look cool by using obscure characters.

As a closing, note that I use katakana to write the name of the plants and animal above. This is a modern practice, which originates from the scientific community. Even in the Japanese Wikipedia, the article for dog is titled イヌ (inu) despite its kanji 犬 being taught in grade 1 elementary school. It is probably a sensible decision, considering that there are countless living things on Earth.

Dump summary

Wednesday, March 21st, 2007 by Agro Rachmatullah

My previous dump was on 2007-03-03, 18 days ago. During the period, I learned 202 kanji and 733 words. So, now my kanji count is 1516 and my word count is 7687.

But well, even that amount still sucks. Look at these marked Wikipedia articles: Aristotle, microbiology, Linux. The red kanji are the ones I haven’t learned (still damn lots of them!).

Gotta catch ‘em all?

Anyway, the posts for this dump batch are this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, and this. If you’re from the main page, they’re the n consecutive blogs below this one :).

Wikipedia dump: Galileo

Wednesday, March 21st, 2007 by Agro Rachmatullah

Galileo Galilei

Another major accomplishment! I managed to learn the kanji and words from the Japanese Wikipedia article on Galileo (timestamped 2007-02-19 12:36).

Here are the 96 new kanji:

慣皇罠布破璧庁宛並従忠汐宅碩担丑看潮靖批翌促撤姓技噂贋脇庇往衛比而剥齎秤態識紐査郊斡炙禁虔退攻荘執阻旋兼擁凹拠訴昇扶凸払塔尼威肩抗抵軟斜依盲拒審稿拓称奪舶曇響沿疑域迫俊憲枢刺控措即敷釈邸誉埋但

And 205 words:

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Wikipedia dump: Isaac Newton

Saturday, March 3rd, 2007 by Agro Rachmatullah

Sir Isaac Newton

On previous Wikipedia dumps, I only hunted for new words with known kanji. For this time around, I also studied any new kanji that stands in the way!

Anyway, I managed to study all kanji in the Wikipedia page of Isaac Newton (timestamped 2006-12-5 08:25). Being able to read from top to bottom without occasional dictionary checks is very satisfying!

There are 83 new kanji:

巡任苛伸聖銘鎖預遺邦郷驚髪闇防革評諸造葬仰亘逸遂講跡軌幣座恐因就展創恒捕監廷弾刑刊墓如勤句叙哲唯務専射姪存双却碑磁粒析率略異系価績礎祖窓築楕殆偽政晩暦充烈熾献派涯混溶

And 162 words:

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