Hacker News Reader

Comment by buf | Hacker News Reader

I want to learn Japanese.

3 months ago I changed my phone's language to Japanese. Everything is Japanese - maps, services, apps that read from the default phone language.

Oddly enough, instead of learning Japanese, I just use my phone less.

View on HN

That's kind of funny.

Similarly, I stopped listening to any music on my iPhone once I got an iPhone 7. Unexpected side effect of having no headphone jack, but I always forget the dongle somewhere. So, no more music from the iPhone. I listen to old am/fm talk radio again instead.

For a second I thought you were implying that not listening to music is a good thing. Glad to hear that's not what you believe.

Oh no I think it's a very bad thing. My implication is that I either shouldn't have bought an iPhone 7, or maybe that Apple pulled the headphone jack a decade too early.

I always leave the dongle on in-ear headphones, that way I never forget them. Sure, the problem still exists for listening in a new environment (a friend's car, as someone here gave as example), but not with your own headphones.

(mind you, I do not listen with in-ear headphones when I actually want to enjoy music, but they sure are a lot easier to bring with me than my "real headphones")

Edit, as a bonus, as I almost always have my in-ears with me, is that I most often also have access to the dongle while in new environments as well.

I really enjoy the sound from in ear headphones, but I had an issue where wearing them too often was causing ear wax build up near my ear drum. I actually temporarily lost hearing in my left ear because because of this. Basically, the ear buds did not allow the ear wax to naturally flow out of the ear. This caused wax buildup near my ear drum and reduced the ability for my ear drum to vibrate. I had to rinse my ear with warm water every day to eventually clear it up. Just a cautionary tale.

My experience was just that the wax buildup is gross, and the popping sound from the headphone losing, regaining, and losing seal was really loud and uncomfortable. Now I just use high quality over-ear headphones, which sound better to me anyway.

well they did come out with a replacement for corded earphones, just that cost is nearly ten times as great as what they replace and there is now a market for creating an lanyard so you don't lose the individual Airpods.

I have no inherent issue with the removing the headphone jack since the included earpods do use a lightning connector. Not sure if those existed at launch

Not using headphones too often is a very good thing, unless there are at a sufficiently low volume (which is never the case).

My life changed slightly when I decided to enable the EU recommended setting for volume on the iPhone. Not sure if this feature is available outside of EU but it's great.

It is on android.

Oh, you're talking about hearing damage. I'm simply talking about listening to music in general.

Buy AirPods. Honestly.

I considered it but I'm not a big fan of headphones, I usually listen to music at home or in a car.

One of the most annoying situations was when I had a great podcast I wanted to share with someone on a long drive, pulled out the iPhone 7 to plug into their car stereo and.... new-ish car.... but AUX only.... no dongle..... never mind!

I believe Apple removed the headphone jack 5 or 10 years too early. Bluetooth is not that great, and it's also not that widespread. AUX is not a floppy or CD drive, it is everywhere and works great and allows for high quality audio, no troubleshooting, no compression, no hassle. The alternatives (dongle? Bluetooth?) is comparatively nowhere and does not work great.

Wait what? You forget the dongle but don't use headphones? How many different cars do you drive/how many aux cables do you use? Just keep the dongle on the cable.

Personally I bought Bluetooth headphones and that's it, imo people are being too dramatic about it.

Bluetooth radio transmitter for the car is like $100 (for a good one). Quality is only slightly worse than radio (for a good one).

Problem solved. Enjoy

Worse than radio? That's not what I have experienced.

I'm using a 1,5€ BK8000L module (http://www.electrodragon.com/w/BK8000L) that I soldered to my old stock autoradio, replacing the tape audio circuit, and the quality is much better than FM.

Sounds like you're connecting the device directly to the audio system. With a radio transmitter, you're broadcasting on an fm band that the car picks up via the fm tuner.

Of course if the person is willing to attach something to the car audio as you have, that's the best!

I'm not sure what you were suggesting before, then, when saying that a bluetooth transmitter is worse than radio... ah unless you were talking about some kind of device => bluetooth => fm => autoradio contraption?

I didn't think about that, yeah, but the OP said they had an AUX input, so quality should be good with a (even cheap) bluetooth adapter on that.

Parent forgets the dongle, but will somehow remember to pack the AirPods? I love mine, but I don't think they'll solve the problem described.

I've lost my dongle twice now, but only because of being in a hurry during travel or packing. Otherwise it's always attached to my headphones and I don't really have that problem. Although I've considered getting BT headphones to use so I would just stop having that problem. But then I'd never be able to play music at people's houses, so...

I am always confused about posts like these. iPhone 7 comes with lighting headphones. Why can't you use those? No dongle required.

A lot of people already own headphones that are usually more comfortable / sound better than the standard Apple earbuds.

I suppose it's not "can't", but "won't."

It's a one-device investment, you can't even use them on macbooks without a dongle converting it to 3.5mm jack let alone people who have 2 phones and the other being an Android, can't use the headphones on Android tabs or laptops. No point getting locked in.

I rather not listen to music at all, but to do it with Apple's headphones. Never been a fan of those.

Go to Japan, get a girlfriend who doesn't speak English. Takes about 6 months after that to become fluent.

Oddly enough, I just use my girlfriend less.

(On a more serious note, 6-month girlfriend fluency in Japanese is something I've observed a few times, and it's a great stepping stone but mostly just barely functional. Especially when your situational choice of e.g. verb form broadcasts so much about your educational background)

putting oneself in a position where you interact with a person whose first language is not English does tend to increase the odds you will learn a second language provided both are interested in that outcome

Maybe enable TTS so that you heard what you're reading? I once played Metro 2033 on my own "hard mode": Everything on hard, HUD on minimal, text in Russian, spoken on Russian.

When you play the game, listen to what's being said and read the subtitles, you can actually learn the alphabet while playing the game. I still can't read Russian fluently, but I can now decipher/map each individual letter to a Latin version and such at the least understand what's being written! Sadly, a lack of time made me stop playing.

Duolingo introduced japanese language recently. Here you go, now you have a reason to use your phone.

My most productive year, which included majoring in Japanese, was when I was living in an apartment without access to internet (no smartphone either by this time). Since then I wasn't able to focus so intensely on learning vocabulary or kanji.

The last few days I really feel the effect of having to check my phone every hours or so. This article motivate me to turn it off for the week. Thanks!

I did the same thing! The difficult part is looking up kanji I encounter in app UIs, you can't exactly copy+paste them and manual lookup is annoying.

I feel no shame suggesting that you get the Pleco app. It is the best Character/Kanji dictionary that exists today. You can also draw them to look them up + tons of other stuff.

I only run open source software on my phone. However, I think there are some similar FOSS apps for Japanese on F-Droid, I'll have to take another look.

I wonder about this. Can't you just lock down the app to the point where you don't have to worry about it phoning home or accessing certain information? Or is it just ideology that's stopping you?

Not to my satisfaction, no. But I can't also install it in the first place because I don't have the Play store on my phone. Ideology is a part of it too.

You don't need the Play store for Pleco. You can download the apk from their website for free.

Instead, you should set it to Netherlands (Dutch). The words are largely reminiscent of the corresponding English words but you might get a giggle out of some of them.

That's not how you learn japanese.

I imagine it's probably a decent way to practice it though, assuming you have enough working knowledge of the language to still get around your phone.

Edit: Well, except for the part where they admitted they just started to use their phone less.

It's a good method, but not for a beginner.

I have, in reality, seen 2 people do this and they were both already quite grounded in the Japanese language (several years).

Reply on news.ycombinator.com