Volte Tetraglot Senior Member Switzerland Joined 6436 days ago 4474 posts - 6726 votes Speaks: English*, Esperanto, German, Italian Studies: French, Finnish, Mandarin, Japanese
| Message 9 of 197 29 June 2007 at 5:32pm | IP Logged |
sheetz wrote:
To that end, I intend to begin reading Heisig today and using the Reviewing the Kanji website for study.I don't know how many kanji I should attempt to learn per day, but for now I'll make it a goal to get through the entire book by the end of the summer. We'll see if that's reasonable or not, but it's always good to aim high, right? |
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It's reasonable; Heisig did it in about 6 weeks, including coming up with the method, if I recall correctly. Good luck.
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sheetz Senior Member United States Joined 6374 days ago 270 posts - 356 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese, French, Mandarin
| Message 10 of 197 01 July 2007 at 6:59pm | IP Logged |
After a couple of days of using the Heisig method I've come to understand why it's so popular.By following his methods I'm much better able to picture kanji and their distinct elements in my head, whereas before the more complex kanji would be little more than a bunch of random squiggles. I'm fortunate that I have studied Chinese in the past and already know many of the simpler kanji, so learning 50 per day doesn't seem unreasonable at all, at least at this early stage. At this pace I might even be able to finish before beginning the Assimil active phase.
In addition to going systematically through Heisig I'm also skipping ahead to look up any new kanji from that day's Assimil lesson. Even though I'm not able to fully "learn" them until I reach that point in the sequence, I find that I'm still better able to recognize the new kanji by seeing the primitives and reading what mneumonics others at the Reviewing the Kanji website have invented for themselves.
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sheetz Senior Member United States Joined 6374 days ago 270 posts - 356 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese, French, Mandarin
| Message 11 of 197 05 July 2007 at 12:38am | IP Logged |
I'm still keeping up with my goal of 50 kanji per day with Heisig and I'm now now up to 300 total. It doesn't seem so difficult as long as I learn them in small bunches of 10-15 kanji scattered throughout the day. Any more than that in one sitting and my mind will start to drift. Also, of great help is the Reviewing the Kanji website, which is a godsend and makes review sessions as painless as possible.
Edited by sheetz on 05 July 2007 at 12:39am
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sheetz Senior Member United States Joined 6374 days ago 270 posts - 356 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese, French, Mandarin
| Message 12 of 197 09 July 2007 at 10:53am | IP Logged |
I had one day over the weekend where I got lazy and didn't learn any kanji. But I got over that quickly and now I'm back on track and up to 450. I won't even bother trying to make up the kanji for that day because I've found that learning the normal 50/day along with reviewing previously learned kanji is time consuming enough as it is. In fact, I've set a couple of other things aside in order to make sure I get those kanji learned as quickly as possible. So for now I'm doing only Assimil and Heisig, and maybe just listening to a Japanesepod101 lesson per day.
Edited by sheetz on 09 July 2007 at 10:53am
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sheetz Senior Member United States Joined 6374 days ago 270 posts - 356 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese, French, Mandarin
| Message 13 of 197 14 July 2007 at 6:51pm | IP Logged |
Looks like I'm going to have to reduce the number of kanji I learn per day to something more manageable. Now that I've passed the 500 mark I have to come up with my own stories (not that Heisig's were always that great) and that takes more time, even with help from the other kind folks at Reviewing the Kanji. On top of that the number of kanji I have to review on any given day has at times ballooned up to 150, and that can take up quite a good chunk of time, as well. And I won't even mention the fact that the Assimil dialogs are getting tougher, with more and more new kanji being introduced at a steady rate. It's one thing to learn the meanings of them, which isn't too bad, but learning the readings in addition makes it twice as difficult.
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sheetz Senior Member United States Joined 6374 days ago 270 posts - 356 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese, French, Mandarin
| Message 14 of 197 18 July 2007 at 1:12pm | IP Logged |
I seem to have finally settled in with a routine I'm comfortable with, which consists of learning 30 kanji/day along with one lesson each of Assimil and Jpod101, plus whatever else I can fit in. It'll take me a little longer to get through Heisig doing it this way, but it's worth it if I don't have to feel like I'm drinking from the fire hose.
One thing I've noticed with Assimil is that there's quite a bit of built-in review within the daily lessons in that the newer lessons often include some of the material covered earlier. So even if you donn't get something the first time, you still have a chance to pick it up in subsequent lessons.
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sheetz Senior Member United States Joined 6374 days ago 270 posts - 356 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese, French, Mandarin
| Message 15 of 197 22 July 2007 at 4:41pm | IP Logged |
Slow and steady is my motto! Still working my way through Heisig at 30/day and will be up to 900 (out of over 2000) by the end of the day. Also just finished Assimil lesson 30 and have entered over 280 sentences into the SRS.
I've been interested in the much discussed "Listening-Reading" method and have been spending quite a lot of time seeking out Japanese audiobooks with accompanying transcripts and translations, which is not an easy thing given the scarcity of materials and my limited knowledge of the language. I've listed the fruits of my labor on page 7 of Volte's audiobooks thread. I'd like to try this method out, but only after I've worked my way through Assimil and Heisig, as I think right now it's just too easy for me get lost trying to follow the audio due to the complexities of the Japanese writing system. I'd also like to see if I am able to get hold of some audiobooks for more contemporary works since all the ones I've found so far are more classical in nature.
Edited by sheetz on 22 July 2007 at 4:43pm
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GoddessCarlie Newbie Australia goddesscarlie.com Joined 6334 days ago 21 posts - 21 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese
| Message 16 of 197 25 July 2007 at 7:50am | IP Logged |
Hello Sheetz, thanks so much for your journal, it has been interesting and inspiring to read. :) And also thanks for the links to the audio materials :)
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