Technical Japanese = technically difficult

I’ve decided to try and use my communting time on the bus to and from campus every day more effectively. Up until now I have been reading books on my older Sony Clie, mostly Sci-Fi books that my brother emails to me in text format. There’s still a near-endless supply where that came from, but I’ve decided that I could put that time to better use by studying Japanese. I’ve always intended to learn technical Japanese, mostly because even though I have years of experience speaking Japanese and speak it primarily at home, I’m embarrased that I can’t even do the most simple explanation of my research or any chemical/scientific/mathematic discussion without being instantly flummoxed by my lack of pertinent vocabulary. Now I do have some photocopied pages from a textbook on technical Japanese terminology, but I don’t have the title page so I don’t know the actual name, author, or publisher of the book. So this is all I have to go with currently. Still, it’s a lot for me to learn before I go on to more.

So to make use of my Clie, I’ve found the nice little program KingKanji that lets you make and use flash cards to study on your palm. It works great and I love it. It comes with lots of vocabulary lists, but unfortunately they are all “Japanese 101-202” level stuff, so even reviewing them gets really boring. I was hoping that some enterprising Japanese student would have some vocabulary lists that I could use, but I didn’t find anything. So I’m making the flashcard files myself from the photocopied book that I have. To get an idea of the vocabulary I’m working with, here is the list on page 13: 化学的諸量 (various units of measurement in chemistry):

モル [モル] /mole (M, amount of substance)/
比容 [ひよう] /specific volume/
アボガドロ数 [アボガドロすう] /Avogadro’s number/
分子 [ぶんし] /molecule/
粒子 [りゅうし] /particle (not subatomic)/
原子番号 [げんしばんごう] /atomic number, Z/
…のモル分率 […のモルぶんりつ] /mole fraction of …/
…の質量分率 […のしつりょうぶんりつ] /mass fraction of …/
…の容積分率 […のようせきぶんりつ] /volume fraction of …/
…の重量モル濃度 […のじゅうりょうモルのうど] /molarity of …/
濃度 [のうど] /concentration/
平均自由行程 [へいきんじゆうこうてい] /mean free path/
行程 [こうてい] /distance, path length/
熱力学的温度 [ねつりきがくてきおんど] /thermodynamic temperature/
絶対温度 [ぜったいおんど] /absolute temperature/
セルシウス温度 [セルシウスおんど] /Celcius temperature scale/
気体定数 [きたいていすう] /gas constant, R/
ボルツマン定数 [ボルツマンていすう] /Boltzmann constant/
熱 [ねつ] /heat, Q/
仕事 [しごと] /work, W/
内部エネルギー [ないぶエネルギー] /internal energy/
エンタルピー [エンタルピー] /enthalpy/
エントロピー [エントロピー] /entropy/
熱容量 [ねつようりょう] /heat capacity/
比熱容量 [ひねつようりょう] /specific heat capacity/
熱伝導率 [ねつでんどうりつ] /thermal conductivity/
浸透圧 [しんとうあつ] /osmotic pressure/
…の化学ポテンシャル […のかがくポテンシャル] /chemical potential of …/
溶解 [ようかい] /dissolve, solution/
溶解性 [ようかいせい] /solubility/
溶解度積 [ようかいどせき] /solubility product, K = [Ag+][Cl-]/
化学平衡 [かがくへいこう] /chemical equilibrium/
溶液 [ようえき] /solution (usually aqueous)/
溶質 [ようしつ] /solute/
単位 [たんい] /unit of measurement/
平衡定数 [へいこうていすう] /equilibrium constant/
難溶性 [なんようせい] /insolubility/
適用 [てきよう] /apply (a concept or principle)/

You’ll probably notice that some of these terms towards the end are not units of measurement. They are other pertinent words that I put in on my own. I think it’s pretty interesting how some words like specific heat capacity have full kanji words, but others like entropy are just transliterated. I wonder what characters they use for entropy in, say, Chinese? Probably something like ‘chaos’.

This is pasted directly from the flashcard file, you can see that the encoding is pretty simple. The first is the word in kanji, then in brackets is its reading in kana, and then between slashes is it’s meaning in English. You can set the program to show which of the three you want so you can quiz on English, reading, or kanji. Also it has different modes for learning, quizzing, and reviewing the lessons. Quite a good program, in my opinion.

When I get a little farther, I’ll start posting these flashcard files on a seperate page. I don’t know if anyone will use them, but someone might (if they are able to even find it…)