Graduated in 2012 with Master’s degree in Information sciences and Computational linguistics with a minor in Japanese studies. Lecturer of Japanese and Korean language at the Univesity of Zagreb, Department for linguistics. Worked as a researcher at the Institute for Linguistics and at the Department of Information and Communication Sciences on two EU projects.
Tekst tekst This paper presents the results of a year-long project MemAzija which took place at t... more Tekst tekst This paper presents the results of a year-long project MemAzija which took place at the University of Zagreb, Croatia, with the goal of producing systematic and sustainable materials for e-learning of Asian languages in Croatian language. We have covered four languages within the project: Japanese, Korean, Hindi and Sanskrit. The materials for the each language were created by a language teacher and a team of collaborators, using most common textbooks useed in Croatia for the reference. Our goal was to create e-learning and m-learning materials which can be most beneficial to a learner because they should follow the classroom curriculum as much as possible. Secondary goal of the project was research of the correlation between e-learning using space repetition algorithms and learners' improvement of vocabulary, grammar and writing. This project concentrated on written language performance, i.e. did not test speaking and listening skills. This is due to the format of the materials and short-term length of the project, but it is certainly planned in the future should this method be proven successful. The first phase of the project consisted of conducting the comprehensive survey with the learners of Japanese, Korean, Hindi and Sanskrit throughout Croatia, and learning about difficulties in their studies, specific needs in the study materials, and their attitudes towards e-learning (Janjić, Librenjak and Kocijan, 2016). Second phase was the creation of the materials according to the survey results, on the e-learning and m-learning platforms Memrise, Quizlet and Anki, and their employment in the language classrooms as much as possible. Throughout the project, we have conducted language testing every three months, in order to assess the improvement in students' performance. Final phase is reviewing the results and using this input in order to improve the materials for the new generation of
This article deals with a specific topic in e-learning – acquisition of language grammar with the... more This article deals with a specific topic in e-learning – acquisition of language grammar with the help of application designed to follow language class curriculum, and the analysis of errors collected by the application. Specifically, we are interested in Japanese language and Croatian learners. For the purpose of this research, we have analyzed all the Japanese verbs and grammatical forms for A1 and A2 levels, and systematically added them to a simple application, which was distributed to students for a six months trial usage. Based on the user inputs, we have analyzed the most common lexical and grammatical errors. This article provides detailed information about the most commonly mistaken Japanese verbs and grammatical forms, and explains the most likely reasons behind these errors. The purpose of this research is to promote e-learning and CALL in Japanese education, and help teachers and learners of Japanese language in Croatia and wider. Since most data is not language dependent, results of this research can be used by any Japanese language instructor or student.
This paper presents the methodology and results of creating Croatian language materials for e-lea... more This paper presents the methodology and results of creating Croatian language materials for e-learning and m-learning of Japanese language vocabulary through Memrise platform. Firstly, we have assessed previous research on the subject of vocabulary acquisition and e-learning, as well as the existing free platforms for language content creation. According to both the literature review and assessment of e-learning tools, Memrise was chosen as most fitting platform. Secondly, materials were creating using language textbooks Genki 1 and 2 as a reference, since they are main Japanese textbooks used in Croatia. Upon the completion of the e-courses, they were distributed to the students and their results recorded. After two semester usage with the group of 27 university students, those who have regularly used Memrise for learning have had 40% better grades at the end of both semesters. Although vocabulary is only a part of the cumulative language acquisition process, sustainable learning e-system can help students to improve all their language skills. We have found that students mostly enjoy using Memrise to study, and that it is beneficial to their results. This paper deals with specific issue in language learning – the acquisition of vocabulary, and the development of innovative e-learning and m-learning methods in order to overcome the issue in question. We will deal with Japanese language, and Croatian learners in this paper. Japanese, as a non-Indo-European language, presents a challenge in the vocabulary acquisition area, since a Croatian learner cannot memorize words with the aid of similarity (as is the case with the Indo-European languages), or in most cases, is not exposed to native speakers to such extent that he or she can acquire the language naturally. Since vocabulary and grammar are building blocks on which other language skills – listening, reading, speaking and writing – can grow, it is important to ensure that learners develop their vocabulary well: both in volume and with consistent speed. In Croatia, most learners of Japanese use traditional methods of studying vocabulary. According to the survey across Croatian cities where Japanese course is available (Janjić, Librenjak and Kocijan, 2016), only 25% of students have had a chance to encounter e-learning and m-learning in their language classrooms, while they rate the relevance of such study methods 4.5 out of 5, and the average interest of a student in using e-learning or mobile learning is 4.1 out of 5. These figures state that digitalization of Japanese materials in Croatia is well wanted and necessary.
Methodology of foreign language learning in the past 70 years tends to favor the acquisition of s... more Methodology of foreign language learning in the past 70 years tends to favor the acquisition of skills and know-how tips for the successful application in various social situations. In order to be a well-versed user of a foreign language, it is necessary to learn both grammar and syntax and on the other side, vocabulary. Today's technology enables the usage of different applications in order to achieve the objectives of teaching foreign languages. Thus students have the opportunity to use different applications either (or both) in the classroom in the presence of a teacher, or alone at home as a supplement to the classroom work. As a part of a larger project, supported by European Social Fund, we researched Croatian students' attitudes towards technology usage in learning Asian languages. The research of attitudes is one of several goals important for our project that also includes the development of materials for e-learning, implementation of the e-tools in the classroom, and testing student's improvement in knowledge every three months. This paper deals with the first phase: a field research of students' attitudes. Our goal was to present the state-of-art of the students' self-described knowledge, issues in learning and willingness to use technology in learning. We plan to compare these results to empirical results in later phases of the project. Croatian students (N=203) studding in Zagreb, Rijeka, Varaždin and Split participated in the survey, answering a number of questions on the use of modern technology in Japanese (N = 104), Korean (N = 46), Hindi (N = 32) and Sanskrit (N = 21). They expressed their views on questions related to specific difficulties in learning vocabulary, grammar or writing system of a particular language. They also answered questions about their attitude towards teaching materials such as course books and general attitudes about technology in learning. We used students' feedback into account during the process of developing e-materials for each of the mentioned Asian languages.
This research presents guidelines for usage of multimedia in learning Japanese writing system for... more This research presents guidelines for usage of multimedia in learning Japanese writing system for international learners. The writing system in question, the Sino-Japanese script called kanji, consists of at least 2000 commonly used ideograms. Such system presents a great obstacle in acquiring Japanese language for a great number of international learners. The research consists of three parts. Firstly, we provide an overview of existing multimedia tools for learning and teaching the Sino-Japanese script. Secondly, we present the results of survey among 47 international students. They have been surveyed about their methods of learning kanji in classroom and self-study, as well as their perceived difficulties and problems. Lastly, we talk about the experiment about using multimedia in teaching and learning kanji. The group of 6 students spent one semester learning kanji using modern multimedia method, such as websites, videos and smartphones. The group was successful in acquiring a large number (300-400) of characters with greater retention and reported enjoyment in the process, which had been the biggest issues in the acquisition process.
Croatian language distinguishes three types of adjectives according to their meaning: qualitative... more Croatian language distinguishes three types of adjectives according to their meaning: qualitative, material and possesive adjectives. The possessive types of adjectives are further devided in two subtypes first of which answears the question 'which' or belonging to whom (bratova kuća – brother's house) while the second one answears the question 'which kind' and resembles more to qualitative adjectives (bratska ljubav – brotherly love). In this paper, authors are mainly interested in the first type of possessive adjectives, especially when they describe something belonging to a proper noun (first name, last name, geographical names, etc.). Since Croatian dictionary of proper names in NooJ has over 41 000 entries, it would be quite time, as well as space, consuming to build a possessive adjectives dictionary for all those nouns. Thus, we have decided to find the patterns for derivation of such adjectives directly from a noun it describes: • First names: Marko -> Markov, Ana -> Anina • Last names: Matoš -> Matošev • Geographical names: Zagreb -> Zagrebački, Split -> Splitski Building grammars for recognition of this type of possessive adjectives is important since it should raise the recall for both NP and PP chunks in processing Croatian texts.
The paper discusses formation of numeral nouns in Croatian language using NooJ morphological gram... more The paper discusses formation of numeral nouns in Croatian language using NooJ morphological grammars. Description of this semantic group using productive morphology in NooJ is important in order to minimize the number of unnecessary entries to the dictionary, thus saving on space and time. Numeral nouns in Croatian language can be considered as a specific group of words since they possess a limited number of semantic roots (numeral part) and their endings are from the finite number of suffixes. Syntactically, they are used mostly in the same manner as nouns. We believe that detailed description of numeral nouns will increase both precision and recall in recognition of noun phrases and prepositional phrases . This will be demonstrated by reapplying the local grammars for recognition of and chunks to the corpus.
NooJ has so far been used in various analyses of textual data in a wide variety of natural langua... more NooJ has so far been used in various analyses of textual data in a wide variety of natural languages. In this project, we intend to explore the possibility of using NooJ for the analysis of sheet music notation which can be turned into textual notation with LilyPond software. Selection of two pieces chosen from a large database of classical music available online will serve us as test corpus for this stage of our project. Description of a dictionary of terms used in sheet music notation together with the description and examples of 20 syntactic grammars used for processing sheet music are given in detail. This introduction of music to NooJ opens up the doors for different analysis such as stylistic analysis of authors, composer comparison or musical genre detection to name a few.
This article deals with the users of Wikipedia and their usage and opinions re- garding Wikipedia... more This article deals with the users of Wikipedia and their usage and opinions re- garding Wikipedia in comparison to printed encyclopedias. A representative sample of high school and university students from Zagreb was surveyed. It is investigated why students tend to use Wikipedia significantly more than printed encyclopedias, even though they are considered more accurate and re- liable, which is important in educational usage. The results of the survey may serve as guidelines for both users and profession- als, i.e. encyclopedists. Various issues with Wikipedia which also need attention in this context, e.g. the development of Croatian Wikipedia, are briefly ad- dressed. The goal of this work is to broaden the awareness of recent phenomena in ency- clopedic, or generally, information science, in order to aid in improvement of encyclopedic products
Tekst tekst This paper presents the results of a year-long project MemAzija which took place at t... more Tekst tekst This paper presents the results of a year-long project MemAzija which took place at the University of Zagreb, Croatia, with the goal of producing systematic and sustainable materials for e-learning of Asian languages in Croatian language. We have covered four languages within the project: Japanese, Korean, Hindi and Sanskrit. The materials for the each language were created by a language teacher and a team of collaborators, using most common textbooks useed in Croatia for the reference. Our goal was to create e-learning and m-learning materials which can be most beneficial to a learner because they should follow the classroom curriculum as much as possible. Secondary goal of the project was research of the correlation between e-learning using space repetition algorithms and learners' improvement of vocabulary, grammar and writing. This project concentrated on written language performance, i.e. did not test speaking and listening skills. This is due to the format of the materials and short-term length of the project, but it is certainly planned in the future should this method be proven successful. The first phase of the project consisted of conducting the comprehensive survey with the learners of Japanese, Korean, Hindi and Sanskrit throughout Croatia, and learning about difficulties in their studies, specific needs in the study materials, and their attitudes towards e-learning (Janjić, Librenjak and Kocijan, 2016). Second phase was the creation of the materials according to the survey results, on the e-learning and m-learning platforms Memrise, Quizlet and Anki, and their employment in the language classrooms as much as possible. Throughout the project, we have conducted language testing every three months, in order to assess the improvement in students' performance. Final phase is reviewing the results and using this input in order to improve the materials for the new generation of
This article deals with a specific topic in e-learning – acquisition of language grammar with the... more This article deals with a specific topic in e-learning – acquisition of language grammar with the help of application designed to follow language class curriculum, and the analysis of errors collected by the application. Specifically, we are interested in Japanese language and Croatian learners. For the purpose of this research, we have analyzed all the Japanese verbs and grammatical forms for A1 and A2 levels, and systematically added them to a simple application, which was distributed to students for a six months trial usage. Based on the user inputs, we have analyzed the most common lexical and grammatical errors. This article provides detailed information about the most commonly mistaken Japanese verbs and grammatical forms, and explains the most likely reasons behind these errors. The purpose of this research is to promote e-learning and CALL in Japanese education, and help teachers and learners of Japanese language in Croatia and wider. Since most data is not language dependent, results of this research can be used by any Japanese language instructor or student.
This paper presents the methodology and results of creating Croatian language materials for e-lea... more This paper presents the methodology and results of creating Croatian language materials for e-learning and m-learning of Japanese language vocabulary through Memrise platform. Firstly, we have assessed previous research on the subject of vocabulary acquisition and e-learning, as well as the existing free platforms for language content creation. According to both the literature review and assessment of e-learning tools, Memrise was chosen as most fitting platform. Secondly, materials were creating using language textbooks Genki 1 and 2 as a reference, since they are main Japanese textbooks used in Croatia. Upon the completion of the e-courses, they were distributed to the students and their results recorded. After two semester usage with the group of 27 university students, those who have regularly used Memrise for learning have had 40% better grades at the end of both semesters. Although vocabulary is only a part of the cumulative language acquisition process, sustainable learning e-system can help students to improve all their language skills. We have found that students mostly enjoy using Memrise to study, and that it is beneficial to their results. This paper deals with specific issue in language learning – the acquisition of vocabulary, and the development of innovative e-learning and m-learning methods in order to overcome the issue in question. We will deal with Japanese language, and Croatian learners in this paper. Japanese, as a non-Indo-European language, presents a challenge in the vocabulary acquisition area, since a Croatian learner cannot memorize words with the aid of similarity (as is the case with the Indo-European languages), or in most cases, is not exposed to native speakers to such extent that he or she can acquire the language naturally. Since vocabulary and grammar are building blocks on which other language skills – listening, reading, speaking and writing – can grow, it is important to ensure that learners develop their vocabulary well: both in volume and with consistent speed. In Croatia, most learners of Japanese use traditional methods of studying vocabulary. According to the survey across Croatian cities where Japanese course is available (Janjić, Librenjak and Kocijan, 2016), only 25% of students have had a chance to encounter e-learning and m-learning in their language classrooms, while they rate the relevance of such study methods 4.5 out of 5, and the average interest of a student in using e-learning or mobile learning is 4.1 out of 5. These figures state that digitalization of Japanese materials in Croatia is well wanted and necessary.
Methodology of foreign language learning in the past 70 years tends to favor the acquisition of s... more Methodology of foreign language learning in the past 70 years tends to favor the acquisition of skills and know-how tips for the successful application in various social situations. In order to be a well-versed user of a foreign language, it is necessary to learn both grammar and syntax and on the other side, vocabulary. Today's technology enables the usage of different applications in order to achieve the objectives of teaching foreign languages. Thus students have the opportunity to use different applications either (or both) in the classroom in the presence of a teacher, or alone at home as a supplement to the classroom work. As a part of a larger project, supported by European Social Fund, we researched Croatian students' attitudes towards technology usage in learning Asian languages. The research of attitudes is one of several goals important for our project that also includes the development of materials for e-learning, implementation of the e-tools in the classroom, and testing student's improvement in knowledge every three months. This paper deals with the first phase: a field research of students' attitudes. Our goal was to present the state-of-art of the students' self-described knowledge, issues in learning and willingness to use technology in learning. We plan to compare these results to empirical results in later phases of the project. Croatian students (N=203) studding in Zagreb, Rijeka, Varaždin and Split participated in the survey, answering a number of questions on the use of modern technology in Japanese (N = 104), Korean (N = 46), Hindi (N = 32) and Sanskrit (N = 21). They expressed their views on questions related to specific difficulties in learning vocabulary, grammar or writing system of a particular language. They also answered questions about their attitude towards teaching materials such as course books and general attitudes about technology in learning. We used students' feedback into account during the process of developing e-materials for each of the mentioned Asian languages.
This research presents guidelines for usage of multimedia in learning Japanese writing system for... more This research presents guidelines for usage of multimedia in learning Japanese writing system for international learners. The writing system in question, the Sino-Japanese script called kanji, consists of at least 2000 commonly used ideograms. Such system presents a great obstacle in acquiring Japanese language for a great number of international learners. The research consists of three parts. Firstly, we provide an overview of existing multimedia tools for learning and teaching the Sino-Japanese script. Secondly, we present the results of survey among 47 international students. They have been surveyed about their methods of learning kanji in classroom and self-study, as well as their perceived difficulties and problems. Lastly, we talk about the experiment about using multimedia in teaching and learning kanji. The group of 6 students spent one semester learning kanji using modern multimedia method, such as websites, videos and smartphones. The group was successful in acquiring a large number (300-400) of characters with greater retention and reported enjoyment in the process, which had been the biggest issues in the acquisition process.
Croatian language distinguishes three types of adjectives according to their meaning: qualitative... more Croatian language distinguishes three types of adjectives according to their meaning: qualitative, material and possesive adjectives. The possessive types of adjectives are further devided in two subtypes first of which answears the question 'which' or belonging to whom (bratova kuća – brother's house) while the second one answears the question 'which kind' and resembles more to qualitative adjectives (bratska ljubav – brotherly love). In this paper, authors are mainly interested in the first type of possessive adjectives, especially when they describe something belonging to a proper noun (first name, last name, geographical names, etc.). Since Croatian dictionary of proper names in NooJ has over 41 000 entries, it would be quite time, as well as space, consuming to build a possessive adjectives dictionary for all those nouns. Thus, we have decided to find the patterns for derivation of such adjectives directly from a noun it describes: • First names: Marko -> Markov, Ana -> Anina • Last names: Matoš -> Matošev • Geographical names: Zagreb -> Zagrebački, Split -> Splitski Building grammars for recognition of this type of possessive adjectives is important since it should raise the recall for both NP and PP chunks in processing Croatian texts.
The paper discusses formation of numeral nouns in Croatian language using NooJ morphological gram... more The paper discusses formation of numeral nouns in Croatian language using NooJ morphological grammars. Description of this semantic group using productive morphology in NooJ is important in order to minimize the number of unnecessary entries to the dictionary, thus saving on space and time. Numeral nouns in Croatian language can be considered as a specific group of words since they possess a limited number of semantic roots (numeral part) and their endings are from the finite number of suffixes. Syntactically, they are used mostly in the same manner as nouns. We believe that detailed description of numeral nouns will increase both precision and recall in recognition of noun phrases and prepositional phrases . This will be demonstrated by reapplying the local grammars for recognition of and chunks to the corpus.
NooJ has so far been used in various analyses of textual data in a wide variety of natural langua... more NooJ has so far been used in various analyses of textual data in a wide variety of natural languages. In this project, we intend to explore the possibility of using NooJ for the analysis of sheet music notation which can be turned into textual notation with LilyPond software. Selection of two pieces chosen from a large database of classical music available online will serve us as test corpus for this stage of our project. Description of a dictionary of terms used in sheet music notation together with the description and examples of 20 syntactic grammars used for processing sheet music are given in detail. This introduction of music to NooJ opens up the doors for different analysis such as stylistic analysis of authors, composer comparison or musical genre detection to name a few.
This article deals with the users of Wikipedia and their usage and opinions re- garding Wikipedia... more This article deals with the users of Wikipedia and their usage and opinions re- garding Wikipedia in comparison to printed encyclopedias. A representative sample of high school and university students from Zagreb was surveyed. It is investigated why students tend to use Wikipedia significantly more than printed encyclopedias, even though they are considered more accurate and re- liable, which is important in educational usage. The results of the survey may serve as guidelines for both users and profession- als, i.e. encyclopedists. Various issues with Wikipedia which also need attention in this context, e.g. the development of Croatian Wikipedia, are briefly ad- dressed. The goal of this work is to broaden the awareness of recent phenomena in ency- clopedic, or generally, information science, in order to aid in improvement of encyclopedic products
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