Japanese Update 3/30/2014
I think I'm starting to get into a groove (fingers crossed!) with studying Japanese using Anki, the electronic flashcard software/app. I was reading a bit on the Koohi forums about RTK, and I was inspired by the "100 kanji a day" thread-- while a bit crazy, I've at least tried to increase the # of new cards I learn per day. There is a big increase in the # of reviews as new cards per day increases, but I figure if it gets too much I can always turn off new cards until I plow through the review mountain.
So far I have a study time of 20-25 min per day, which isn't all too much. If I study on the subway on the way to work I can knock it out quickly. Currrently I'm sick so while laying on the couch I've realized I could either watch TV or study more kanji. Fortunately I've gone with more kanji this weekend.
I've decided to focus primarily on finishing RTK 1 (2042 common kanji) as quickly as possible because I've realized that it's really just the foundation of learning Japanese-- although I will be able to recognize kanji I need to learn vocab and grammar after RTK in order to learn applicable Japanese. I guess I'm changing from my "slow and steady" widespread method of kanji and vocab. My thought now is that I'll be able to learn vocab more efficiently once I have the kanji down; instead of focusing only on the hiragana word and ignoring the kanji. It's kind of like having to learn the alphabet before learning English-- I could learn words phonetically in hiragana/katakana, but then I'd have to go back and add in the kanji. It seems better to try to do all at once for vocab. Anyway, we'll see.
I've been studying kanji "seriously" for about 10 days so far and I've learned 139 kanji or 14/day, not too bad! The RTK deck I'm using has tags for core2k kanji (1999 kanji) and is separated into 3 parts (555, 555, and 889 cards). If I do 20 a day I can finish the rest in about 3 months, which would be preferable to finishing in 6 months. It may be hard to find a balance between keeping a fast pace and then getting overwhelmed by reviews, or worse, burning out and stopping altogether. But here we go.
がんばって！
So far I have a study time of 20-25 min per day, which isn't all too much. If I study on the subway on the way to work I can knock it out quickly. Currrently I'm sick so while laying on the couch I've realized I could either watch TV or study more kanji. Fortunately I've gone with more kanji this weekend.
I've decided to focus primarily on finishing RTK 1 (2042 common kanji) as quickly as possible because I've realized that it's really just the foundation of learning Japanese-- although I will be able to recognize kanji I need to learn vocab and grammar after RTK in order to learn applicable Japanese. I guess I'm changing from my "slow and steady" widespread method of kanji and vocab. My thought now is that I'll be able to learn vocab more efficiently once I have the kanji down; instead of focusing only on the hiragana word and ignoring the kanji. It's kind of like having to learn the alphabet before learning English-- I could learn words phonetically in hiragana/katakana, but then I'd have to go back and add in the kanji. It seems better to try to do all at once for vocab. Anyway, we'll see.
I've been studying kanji "seriously" for about 10 days so far and I've learned 139 kanji or 14/day, not too bad! The RTK deck I'm using has tags for core2k kanji (1999 kanji) and is separated into 3 parts (555, 555, and 889 cards). If I do 20 a day I can finish the rest in about 3 months, which would be preferable to finishing in 6 months. It may be hard to find a balance between keeping a fast pace and then getting overwhelmed by reviews, or worse, burning out and stopping altogether. But here we go.
がんばって！
