atama warui Triglot Senior Member Japan Joined 4704 days ago 594 posts - 985 votes Speaks: German*, English, Japanese
| Message 25 of 256 17 June 2012 at 11:35pm | IP Logged |
I wouldn't be impatient, really. See, it takes Japanese kids 6 years to learn just 1000 Kanji. Sure, they're kids, they learn at school, their order is different and a lot of other reasons exist that makes them taking longer understandable, but - really, 6 years.
2000 Kanji is a feat. Do it with Heisig only for now, because you'll end up confused and then frustrated if you mess with his system. If you really focus, you can get to the end in a very good time - and then the biggest obstacle is gone.
Take your time, that's what I do as well. After all, learning a language is always a long road, more so for Japanese than most others.
In the end, what counts is not how long it took, but how much fun there is still left. Burning out is counterproductive. :)
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dampingwire Bilingual Triglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4668 days ago 1185 posts - 1513 votes Speaks: English*, Italian*, French Studies: Japanese
| Message 26 of 256 18 June 2012 at 8:14am | IP Logged |
I'm not really circumventing Heisig (and I only peeked ahead by two :-)). But I am
starting to come across more and more Kanji and if they're starting to stick I think
I'd rather have the associated story now rather than later. (Maybe not for the ones
that are trivial to remember, but certainly for some of the more complex ones).
If I get to finish Heisig by the end of the year I'll be pleased: that's less than
50/week from now, so not too onerous.
What I *really* want to do is have enough grammar under my belt that I can start to
read independently (as I think that'll really help my language acquisition) and that's
clearly going to take a while. That said, I'm noticeably better than I was just a few
months, so I am progressing somewhat.
At ~20h/week, I'm not worried about burnout: I know it's a long road and I'm in it for
the long haul.
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kraemder Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5187 days ago 1497 posts - 1648 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish, Japanese
| Message 27 of 256 18 June 2012 at 8:34am | IP Logged |
I agree with the grammar bit. If not knowing the kanji isn't bothering you too much then make
grammar the priority. Its huge. I noticed leaps in my understanding when I was moving forward with
grammar. You can use computer tools to give you furigana but if you don't understand the grammar
then your computer can't help you.
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dampingwire Bilingual Triglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4668 days ago 1185 posts - 1513 votes Speaks: English*, Italian*, French Studies: Japanese
| Message 28 of 256 19 June 2012 at 12:00am | IP Logged |
Nearly forgot my weekly update.
Just over 21h this week.
Kanji now stand at 611. Memrise ticking over. I think I'm going to switch the Kanji
back on there and see what happens.
I've been through JPOD101 Newbie Season 2 and I'm now listening to Beginner Season 1.
This will take a little while as, even at 10-15m each, 170 episodes does add up to
quite a chunk of listening.
I've managed to work through most of Tae Kim now, although I'll be going over it again
at some point.
I've put some time into trying to fix the Katakana in my head this time around (they
don't get much usage so they keep slipping out). The memrise katakana course has been
quite helpful for this. Hopefully this time they'll stick a little better ...
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dampingwire Bilingual Triglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4668 days ago 1185 posts - 1513 votes Speaks: English*, Italian*, French Studies: Japanese
| Message 29 of 256 25 June 2012 at 11:44pm | IP Logged |
24h this week.
Kanji @ 825; nearly finished Tae Kim; memrise all watered.
I'm up to lesson 100 of JPOD101 Beginner S1. I think I'm going to have to SRS the vocab
and sentences (luckily everything seems to come with an example sentence) to derive the
full benefit from this material.
Katakana seem to be staying in my head this time round.
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dampingwire Bilingual Triglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4668 days ago 1185 posts - 1513 votes Speaks: English*, Italian*, French Studies: Japanese
| Message 30 of 256 02 July 2012 at 9:13pm | IP Logged |
21h this week - about 3hr of that in a traffic jam :-(
Up to about lesson #140 of JPOD101.
Starting to work through Minna no Nihongo.
Kanji still @825 as I've been concentrating in other areas. Two days of neglect (caused
by force majeure (honest) left me with a review of ~250 on Thursday. Luckily that blip
seems to be tailing off (~85 to get through today).
I need to prioritise Memrise this week, get everything watered and get going on Kore
6000. Polishing off the last few bits of Tae Kim would be good too.
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dampingwire Bilingual Triglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4668 days ago 1185 posts - 1513 votes Speaks: English*, Italian*, French Studies: Japanese
| Message 31 of 256 16 July 2012 at 11:16pm | IP Logged |
I forgot to update the previous week: 23h.
This past week was a bit busy: 18h44m.
I'm aiming to get through Minna No Nihongo by the end of the year and it looks like
I'll need kanji. So I've decided to press ahead with RTK. I'll obviously keep Minna No
Nihongo going too but I'm going to let Memrise mostly slip now.
Kanji were at 1000 at the end of the week and are now at 1100. 100 per day may prove to
be too much but I'm finding that the quickest way to make them stick seems to be to run
through studying once and then reviewing 2 or 3 times until I have them all correct at
least once. the following day's review then doesn't seem to be too bad. I doubt that
I'll really manage 500/week, but if I do, then I'll have all 3000 learned within a
month.
I'm keeping the audio going: currently working through JapanesePOD Newbie Season 4.
I've also started to go through Newbie Season 1 in detail: I'm checking that I have all
of the files, choosing sentences for SRS and then marking the lesson as complete. I'm
fine with the grammar that I'm coming across in the newbie seasons (although there are
a few new bits and pieces here and there) and some of the less esoteric vocabulary is
sticking too. I expect that I'll move on to listening to the Beginner series next and
come back to listen to the Newbie stuff once I've been through all of it in detail (for
SRS). I've no idea how long either of those projects will take though :-)
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dampingwire Bilingual Triglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4668 days ago 1185 posts - 1513 votes Speaks: English*, Italian*, French Studies: Japanese
| Message 32 of 256 23 July 2012 at 11:46pm | IP Logged |
I as going to say that this too was a busy week but somehow I managed to fit in 32h30m
of Japanese. Looking back it seems that I managed to do 4h on each day of the weekend,
so that's probably what boosted my studying time.
I managed to get the kanji up to 1450, so very nearly the target of 1500. That's at the
expense of memrise, which I've not touched at all. The reviews have not been too bad:
~150/day. I'm trying to get up 30m earlier so I can finish those off in the morning
before I go to work, leaving the evening free to work through new kanji.
The audio is progressing: I've now listened to all five seasons of the JPOD101 newbie
series. I'm now working through the survival phrases: it's mostly fairly
straightforward stuff but it is consolidating what I already know and there is the odd
nugget of new information.
I've decided to aim for the JLPT N5 this December. I know that it's not much of a
milestone but it *is* some kind of marker for how much I have learned (at least for
some aspects of Japanese). That's part of the reason I want to blast through the kanji:
then when I go abck to memrise I can turn the kanji on and hopefully consolidate the
vocabulary not just orally but in written form too.
I've not looked at Minna No Nihongo this week.
So lots more kanji next week plus as much audio as i can fit in.
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