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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| g-bod Diglot Senior Member United KingdomRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5973 days ago 1485 posts - 2002 votes  Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: French, German | Message 9 of 46 11 January 2012 at 11:10pm | IP Logged | ||
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Yeah work plus school is a killer when it comes to language study. Sometimes life just gets in the way. I found it helped to have a little something to keep my hand in for just 5-10 minutes a day, even if it was just listening to a short podcast or something. It means you never have to feel like you're giving up, even if progress slows down for a bit.
I think the toughest challenge for an English speaker when it comes to Japanese is the sheer amount of vocabulary that needs to be learned. I'm not sure I can suggest any particularly efficient ways of learning vocabulary as I still feel lexically challenged myself. I usually just plug words into Anki. I often find now that the kanji can help as a hook to remember a word, but earlier in my studies this wasn't as useful. To a certain extent, I think you need to trust that if you read, listen and talk to people enough, the important words will start to stick anyway. And if I were you, I would consider dropping Heisig. If it's not working for you there are probably better ways of spending your time. I never did Heisig because I just knew that I wouldn't stick through the whole programme. I've managed to learn how to read without it anyway. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| fortheo Senior Member United States Joined 5027 days ago 187 posts - 222 votes Studies: French | Message 10 of 46 12 January 2012 at 2:37am | IP Logged | ||
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I am actually very seriously considering dropping heisig. I will continue to review the 700 or so i have done, but from now on the kanji I learn will be in context. Each lesson in Japanese from zero introduces new vocab along with kanji. For now, I will learn these kanji as I go. If that doesn't work out, I still have my 500 essential kanji books which I have been eager to dig into.
I think what I will do is aim for two lessons from japanese from zero each week.Learn the kanji from the lesson using heisig method. Then put the vocab into anki, with sound files and pictures (if possible) with both the kanji and kana below. I found this rosetta stone like method helps my vocab learning So for a while my daily routine may look like this Pimsleur, or any audio lessons I can get my hand on Lesson of Japanese from zero Review previously studied kanji from RTK The audio lessons usually consist of pimsleur, but I also throw in michel thomas adanced lessons, japanese podcasts, rocket japanese, and basically any Japanese audio i can get my hands on. I just listen to these for hours during work ( thats the only good thing about work ) if i find i miss heisig, I can always go back to it. I think this will be good :) off to study! Edited by fortheo on 12 January 2012 at 3:01am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Sunja Diglot Senior Member Germany Joined 6076 days ago 2020 posts - 2295 votes 1 sounds Speaks: English*, German Studies: French, Mandarin | Message 11 of 46 12 January 2012 at 2:09pm | IP Logged | ||
It makes a great reference. I have to work with a kanji a long time before I remember it and so I still use Heisig. I like breaking it apart and then trying to make sense of the individual parts. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Brun Ugle Diglot Senior Member Norway brunugle.wordpress.c Joined 6611 days ago 1292 posts - 1766 votes Speaks: English*, NorwegianC1 Studies: Japanese, Esperanto, Spanish, Finnish | Message 12 of 46 12 January 2012 at 3:22pm | IP Logged | ||
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It's too bad you didn't like Heisig. I found it very useful. Of course the order of learning the characters can be a bit weird in that many useful characters came toward the end, but I never let that stop me from reading. I found with those characters that were very common, I learned them before I came to them in Heisig. In any case, I read things online with the help of rikaichan while still plodding along with Heisig's method. The problem with using rikaichan is that it is too easy to look up words. You have to make the habit of really looking at each word to see if you know it, before checking.
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| fortheo Senior Member United States Joined 5027 days ago 187 posts - 222 votes Studies: French | Message 13 of 46 13 January 2012 at 4:27am | IP Logged | ||
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It's not that I don't like Heisig, I like his method of learning kanji. I was just having a hard time staying motivated with it. However after trying the alternative last night, I have more appreciation for Heisig. With RTK I could learn kanji's meanings maybe 5 times as fast. So, idk.....I might be back to Heisig haha. Think I will just have to make it through it.
My original problem was that I didn't want to start trying to read a lot before I finished Heisig, because I knew that I would encounter several kanji that I had not seen yet. This would have discouraged and frustrated me a lot. I convinced myself that I wouldn't be able to do it before even trying. So I put off reading Kanji for as long as possible so that I could finish RTK. Anyways after going through my Japanese from Zero text a lot more , and encountering tons of kanji, I have new appreciation and motivation to finish RTK. Ah, hopefully that was all just a minor speed bump haha. on the plus side, I got another few hours of listening/speaking practice in today while I worked :) Edited by fortheo on 14 January 2012 at 5:38am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| kraemder Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5175 days ago 1497 posts - 1648 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish, Japanese | Message 14 of 46 13 January 2012 at 5:05pm | IP Logged | ||
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I just read this page so I'll go back and read the 1st one but I did the same thing with Heisig. Well sorta. I
was probably a little bored doing it and was thinking of using my old Kanji book that does kanji the Japanese way... showing them in a similar order the Japanese learn them etc. About 2 minutes later I quickly realized this wasn't nearly as good for me. I wasn't thinking of quitting heisig but was just bored. But his method really is the fastest way to learn the kanji. If you're using a flashcard deck like anki or one that works with quizlet/flashcard exchange I'd strongly suggest getting someone else's heisig deck that includes their stories. It makes it a bit more interesting seeing what story the other guy came up with for the primitives. And it's easier and faster if you like his story then you don't have to take the time to make your own. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Brun Ugle Diglot Senior Member Norway brunugle.wordpress.c Joined 6611 days ago 1292 posts - 1766 votes Speaks: English*, NorwegianC1 Studies: Japanese, Esperanto, Spanish, Finnish | Message 15 of 46 13 January 2012 at 6:46pm | IP Logged | ||
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Actually, I did give up on Heisig a few times myself, but I've always gone back to it. There doesn't seem to be any way to learn the kanji more quickly or more easily. But it is easy to get Heisig burnout. I restarted Heisig this past summer after a long time away from Japanese, but even though I'd gone through it before and was only relearning the kanji, I still ended up getting burnt out for a while. I stopped learning new ones for a few weeks then, but I kept up my reviews. Sometimes a little break from learning new ones can fix the old ones more firmly in your mind.
1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Woodsei Bilingual Diglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member United States justpaste.it/Woodsei Joined 4788 days ago 614 posts - 782 votes Speaks: English*, Arabic (Egyptian)* Studies: Russian, Japanese, Hungarian | Message 16 of 46 24 January 2012 at 2:01pm | IP Logged | ||
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Don't worry about taking a break from Heisig, fortheo. When I feel too overwhelmed, I
just stop for a day or two and review what I know. It solidifies what I know without the sensation of drowning in a sea of unknwown kanji, and gives you the motivation to go through. When I started Heisig, I felt that making up stories is too time-consuming, and just rote memorization through lots of repetition would do the trick. I was too impatient as I wanted to dive straight into Japanese. I did try to stop and and study kanji through Japanese study, but it was taking longer than I had anticipated. Moreover, the sentences/words I knew the kanji to were easier to comprehend and know than if I didn't know kanji. I was able to focus more on the grammatical structure rather than figuring out what word was what kanji. That told me to go back to Heisig. It's long, and it does get to you, but his method is really beneficial down the road, and will save you lots of pain in the end. Another thing I do is when I watch a drama that I enjoy, I'd look up the kanji in the title, or of words actors say a lot in the drama. I'd download for instance a subtitle track from D-addicts and randomly search for the words I hear, and I try to know the kanji for them through Heisig. I don't do this all the time, in fact, rarely. But it does give me some motivation to go back to Heisig when I feel like I've had it. I'd know just a few kanji and then hit Heisig again. And when I do come across the kanji in Heisig, I'd already know it, so it's sort of a time-saver in desperate situations. Uh-oh, that was a pretty long rant. My two cents is stick with Heisig, although if that doesn't work for you, do something else. Language study isn't a chore, it's supposed to be fun. And kraemder is spot on with getting a shared deck with stories. It saves loads of time creating decks from scratch, and you can always edit the parts you want to edit. And the stories there are to provide momentum, and ideas. That's why I use Reviewing The Kanji site. It helps loads. Good luck with everything you do. I think you're making good progress with Japanese, being a student, and working. Hats off! 1 person has voted this message useful |
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