Kanji in Anki: 1909 / 2042 (+7 non-RTK1)
Man, it’s been a while. Again. But, oh well, that’s okay.
Anyway, I’m getting really dang close.
It’s getting exciting. At the rate I’m going, I should be done on Thursday. That means sentences on Friday. That means that this is SO AWESOME.
I’m thinking that once I hit sentences, I’ll aim to update this blog once a month. Sounds like a decent idea. Not too much commitment to update, but still updating regularly. Whoo!
Kanji in Anki: 1135 / 2042
maaaan, feels GOOD to be back.
More kanji studying today. Finally got around to learning some kanji I’d seen a LOT but never knew the identity of, like 斤 and all of its bretheren. Great to have them in the rotation.
But that’s not the point. The POINT, my friend, is Kanji-lish. Kanji-lish is a Firefox extension (because if you’re not running Firefox already then you SHOULD BE). What it does is replace any English words on a page that match a Heisig kanji keyword with the corresponding kanji. So instead of seeing “I can clap with one hand”, you’d see “吾 可 拍 with ー 手”. Sometimes you can just guess based off of context, but a lot of times you’re FORCED to remember what the keyword is, and it’s great kanji reinforcement. The only problem is that it causes slight page load slowdown (sometimes significant if it’s a large page), but that’s easily overlooked.
‘Cause, you know, while one would RATHER stay all-Japanese, sometimes you just have to view an English-language page, and this helps to work Japanese even into an English site.
Surround yourself in the Japanese. Do not resist.
edit: Okay, DO resist when you’re trying to edit coding for your WordPress sidebar and not realize that if you hit “save” then you’re going to be saving all of those words as kanji and the whole thing explodes and then you have to Rikaichan it all to try to figure out what the words used to be for those kanji you haven’t learned yet.
Kanji in Anki: 1035 / 2042
So where have I been?
Well, back in early February, I got sick. Thus, I got a bit behind in my reviews. Upon coming back and seeing that horrendously high number, I became instantly demoralized and didn’t review at all, allowing the backlog to get even LARGER. So after a month of not reviewing, I eventually had nearly every kanji in my deck backlogged for review (almost — those select mature cards are still a month or two out). Fortunately, despite the lack of reviewing, I kept up the immersion environment, and the lack of understanding a lot of what was going on annoyed me enough that today I whipped open Anki and blitzed through the whole thing.
And HOLY COW it feels great to get that backlog out of the way.
So now I can add some new kanji. I think I might add 5 or so tonight, just because I CAN. Take THAT, Anki!
Kanji in Anki: 1024 / 2042
I’ve finally made it to the halfway point… I wanted to actually STOP at the halfway point (1021), but my brain failed me and kept telling me that the halfway point was 1024 so I just kept studying before realizing what had happened. OH WELL. I’m here, and that’s what matters.
So I hear it only gets harder from here on out. BAH, I say. I’ll just have to slam straight through it. No slacking off. No wussing out. Gotta run in head-on and tackle this beast. Never gonna get to sentences to figure out WHAT the heck Yotsuba and her dad keep talking about unless I do this mess.
So let it be known! 1024 down, 1018 to go. Man, what a motivation boost.
Kanji in Anki: 900 / 2042
Man, I only got in FIVE kanji on the 1st. Wake up, church, meeting after that, dinner, I was TIRED, very little got done. BUT, I learned the remaining 95 today, including a few that had been bugging me as to what the heck they were, like 行. I only see it ALL THE DANG TIME. Nice to know what it is, finally. “Going”.
The SRS is continuing to show its wonders. Kanji that had been giving me issues before are suddenly popping up after a week or two of me forgetting about their existance and upon seeing the keyword I still immediately recall the kanji. If you’re like me and was constantly forgetting stories and considering dropping them or something, do what I did: put the stories in the answer section of your flashcards. So I have:
Ahhh… I love you, SRS.
I have a new favorite past-time, too: dealing with the “why would you switch over everything to Japanese if you don’t even understand it this method is STUPID” people. I like tearing down every argument of theirs. Most of them still hold that I’m foolish for doing it despite the fact that they have nothing more to argue with. Whatever, as long as I get that feeling of satisfaction from winning that battle. 
Kanji in Anki: 800 / 2042
Not much to report, really. Moving at a decent pace — equal to 50 a day, but I’ve had a slightly busy week on some days, so on those days I do a few, and then finish off that set of 100 the next day (like I made it to 661 one day, so the next day I rounded it off to 700). Learned some COOL kanji today, though. Like 互 and 峠. They just look cool and they’re fun to write. Makes them even easier to remember that way.
I’m noticing the SRS beginning to work more and more… I guess just sticking with that method is paying off. Definitely rad.
Oh, I ordered some manga a couple of weeks ago and it came in the other day. Said manga would be volumes 6, 7, and 8 of よつばと! (Yotsubato!) Being that I’m only in the kanji phase and that my Japanese vocabulary is limited to about 500 basic words (and that’s a VERY high estimate), I’m only understanding maybe 3% of the manga, but that’s far better than I’m faring thus far with my Dragon Quest II Game Book, which is to say kanji everywhere! Very little furigana! And much more advanced text! Bah. I’ll just stick with Japanese Wikipedia articles on stuff I like for my “I can’t understand most of this but I can read the kana and maybe recognize some kanji!!” reading.
Yotsubato! is really good, though, and I highly suggest picking it up. Even if you don’t know a lick of Japanese, there’s typically enough action going on in the panels for it to still be at the very least amusing (unless you don’t like ADHD 5-year-olds?).
Kanji in Anki: 600 / 2042
So, like, I’m learning all this kanji, right? And I’ve, like, replaced the majority of my media and outside-happenings and such with Japanese equivalents, right? So then I’m reading all of this material and seeing more and more kanji that I can look at and say “WHOA WHOA WHOA, I know what that is! I can give you a vague idea of what’s being discussed!” And it further reinforces the kanji in question and only serves to motivate me to site down and learn MORE.
I’ve managed to switch most of what I do over to Japanese.
And I’ve also started eating with chopsticks just ’cause I need to practice more with them. I ate with them before, but only for Japanese food — not for EVERYTHING. Now it’s for EVERYTHING.
Obviously, not everything can be converted. I’m not dropping friends or family, obviously (that’s just silly!), so I still hang out with them whenever the opportunity arises (but with Japanese audio playing, obviously). Likewise, things that would only hinder me to “maybe get an idea of??” I won’t convert until I’m far better at Japanese (looking up college stuff, my Bible… y’know, important life stuff I need now, not later). But just about everything else has been converted, yup yup.
I’ve noticed a radical increase in my listening comprehension, too. I can’t necessarily listen to a few sentences and repeat them back to you perfectly or anything, but I can very easily pick out words I know and it’s getting easier to easily distinguish every syllable and not wonder, “wait, was that a ふ or an う? They’re speaking too quickly…” So very exciting.
Kanji in Anki: 450 / 2042
So, uh, what happened to me??
Well, I went up to 420, but I was doing something stupid (I don’t even remember what I was doing — I think I was sick at that time or something) and didn’t retain them at all. So I had to go back over the 60 or so I’d messed up and re-learn them entirely. But it’s okay! I have them all now. It’s good.
I’m using a new strategy with timeboxing. Using a timer, I go 2 minutes on, 2 minutes off. So I set it for two minutes, study, write out stories into Notepad to copy into Anki later, write the kanji themselves down on paper. Timer beeps, set it for another two minutes and just do something else. Play guitar, read (Japanese material ;P), whatever. Just something else. Timer beeps, back onto kanji. 50 kanji in two and a half hours is pretty good by my book, so I think I’ll stick with this method. This way, I don’t get bored nor sleepy (if I start to get sleepy, exercising during the two minute breaks pumps me back up!).
Once I’m done with my 50 for the day, I just go do stuff, like watch anime, browse the ‘net, draw, whatever. Then, right before I go to bed, I pull up Anki and load in all of the kanji for that day. Then head off to bed. I’ve heard that the stuff you learn right before going to sleep will be the main thing your brain focuses on and processes as you sleep. So hey, makes sense to focus on those 50 kanji I learned today, right? Better retention when I wake up in the morning and the first thing I do is review the previous night’s kanji (and whatever else is expired).
I also managed to snag a Japanese calendar, and am finding it particularly motivating to write down the kanji I know at the end of the day. And it’s a desk calendar, so it just sits right in front of my vision the whole time, making me look at it and say, “Dang it, I need to learn more kanji! This number is absurdly low! D:<” I’ve also marked the day that I plan to finish these 2042 kanji on (2月26日), so that’s a nice little “bahh i can’t fall back or i won’t hit my target!!” motivator.
All in all, my kanji retention is getting better, and I’m excited to make (or perhaps exceed??) my kanji-finish goal so I can finally get to sentences.
edit: Right, forgot to mention that I’m forgetting about RtK 3 right now. I’ll just do RtK 1’s 2042 kanji then do sentences. Because I really freaking want to do sentences.
Kanji in Anki: 358 / 3007 (+28)
Progressing… far more slowly than I wish to. I know I can do better than this — perhaps I shouldn’t get caught up in debates on the internet right as I plan on jumping into kanji studies…
Even so, what little I did study today was INSANE. The stuff in the 300’s is so useful. A lot of these kanji I’ve seen a billion times before but never knew what they meant (like 言 and 学) — never knew, that is, UNTIL NOW. It makes life so much easier knowing these essential kanji. It’s also helping me to remember them, ’cause I’ve already seen them enough to know how to write them; it was just a simple matter of associating them with a keyword.
So hopefully tomorrow I can get a super-jump on my kanji. I’d ideally like to finish by the end of February, and I know that if I try really, REALLY hard I could finish it easily by then. So here it goes… !!
So I’ve decided to move over all of my kanji stuff over to Anki from Reviewing the Kanji. Unfortunately, I couldn’t get the Anki plugin to work so I had to move them all (and review them all) manually. Whooo. Good thing I decided to do this at 300 kanji and not at 2000 or something. D:
Still, though, I did this because Anki is sweet. It’s got all kinds of awesome features (not to mention the online synchronizable database so I can access it from ANY PC or portable web-surfing device) and it’s overall just a really great program. I likes it. A lot. Very customizable. And it introduced me to my new love: Timeboxing.
Now, I’d heard of timeboxing before. The concept is simple: simply set a timer for yourself when doing something. This will trick you into working. I mean think about it, if you realize that you’ve got 15 minutes to review, there’s less dawdling about because “you can just go check this site real quick and do the reviews later” — no. You’re on a TIMER, bud, and you best be finishing that mess now. I had never actually used timeboxing before Anki and WOW, it’s AMAZING. It’s probably why I got those 300 kanji done quickly today. Absolutely a billion times more amazing than I’d ever expected. I should start timeboxing more things.
I’m thinking about making my own kanji poster because the existing one is both prohibitively expensive and incomplete — I wanna go the full 3007 (by Heisig order). But it’d be nice to have a little “progress meter”, if you will. But how to go about doing it…?