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+--- Thread: RTK + Pimsleur + Doramas (/thread-1438.html)
RTK + Pimsleur + Doramas - mentat_kgs - 2008-05-18
Today, sunday: 45 of 87. 52% remembered.
I failed most kanjis from last week, but allmost remembered them. I'm glad I had no trouble with older kanjis.
RTK + Pimsleur + Doramas - mentat_kgs - 2008-05-19
About 180 reviewed and more than 100 failed. Yeah. today it was bad. But I will still manage to clear the failed pile and add a few fresh ones!
I'm very happy with myself tought. I'm out of sleep today. That's because yesterday night I watched my first full lenght japanese movie without subtitles. I have no acurate data of my understanding but definetly it was above 80%. Hurray!
RTK + Pimsleur + Doramas - mentat_kgs - 2008-05-20
Thursday. 51 of 123. 41%. Maybe I added too many during the weekend. Ehehe.
BTW, I'm on frame 800, with 72 on the failed pile. Gonna clear them now!
RTK + Pimsleur + Doramas - roderik - 2008-05-20
Keep on posting, I find the 'even though my retention rates are lower than I had expected I'm still going to continue and own those Heisig kanji within the next month' mentality quite motivating
.
RTK + Pimsleur + Doramas - mentat_kgs - 2008-05-20
Yo roderick. I started this thread to keep a record of my efforts. But if it helps motivating you it is much better =D
About the extremely low retention rates of today and yesterday, I personaly blame on the flu (I'm kinda sleepy and not feeling great). Anyway I'll keep working hard to clear the failed pile, reviewing the stories and making them more vivid.
RTK + Pimsleur + Doramas - mentat_kgs - 2008-05-21
I dont know my correct data for today, as the browser closed during the review.
But I was reviewing about ~120 cards and in the end there was 58 cards failed: 52%
RTK + Pimsleur + Doramas - mentat_kgs - 2008-05-22
46 of 146: 32%
But I feel It will get better in the next days.
RTK + Pimsleur + Doramas - Bortrun - 2008-05-22
Just a point about Pimsleur. Yes, it's easy, but it's meant for pure beginners who don't even know how to say "hello" in their target language. Even with 90 lessons of Japanese, that's still just a beginner course. I think it's worth doing, but it's not for anyone who's intermediate or above. If you've already completed a beginner course like Japanese for Busy People or Minna no Nihongo or something like that, you're probably too advanced for Pimsleur, although you could certainly use it for review.
It's good though because it's based on spaced repetition. You're supposed to listen to one lesson a day. If your recall during the lesson is too slow or not very good, you repeat the lesson the next day. Move on when you're ready. It's also good because it requires you to produce spoken language on a regular basis, and there are few programs that do that well. Pimsleur is basically a listening and speaking SRS.
RTK + Pimsleur + Doramas - Hashiriya - 2008-05-22
pimsleur is for n00bs IMO... i wouldn't bother with it.....
RTK + Pimsleur + Doramas - mentat_kgs - 2008-05-23
Ty Bortrun and Hashiriya.
I'm aware Pimsleur is just a review for me. But it is helping me a lot. I'm somewhat a begginer. My japanese is full of holes. Pimsleur is covering some of them.
There is also another problem of Pimsleur. It is very "artificial". Its conversations are mechanical and boring.
For 30 minutes a day that I would waste them another way (hey, it rhimes!) it is great.
But I wonder if even I did not had these 30 minutes to spare I would still use it.
Ty again for your concearn. And, can you recommend any other course?
RTK + Pimsleur + Doramas - mentat_kgs - 2008-05-23
47 of 123: 38%
Hey hey. Better than yesterday.
I'm starting to recover from the flu. I have only a mild fever today.
RTK + Pimsleur + Doramas - MeNoSavvy - 2008-05-24
Bortrun Wrote:Just a point about Pimsleur. Yes, it's easy, but it's meant for pure beginners who don't even know how to say "hello" in their target language. Even with 90 lessons of Japanese, that's still just a beginner course. I think it's worth doing, but it's not for anyone who's intermediate or above. If you've already completed a beginner course like Japanese for Busy People or Minna no Nihongo or something like that, you're probably too advanced for Pimsleur, although you could certainly use it for review.I agree with what you are saying.
It's good though because it's based on spaced repetition. You're supposed to listen to one lesson a day. If your recall during the lesson is too slow or not very good, you repeat the lesson the next day. Move on when you're ready. It's also good because it requires you to produce spoken language on a regular basis, and there are few programs that do that well. Pimsleur is basically a listening and speaking SRS.
In my opinion Pimsleur is not bad as a supplement for beginners, ie someone using the first genki book, or the first Japanese for Busy People Book. But people considering it should keep in mind that it is relatively basic. Even Level 3 of Pimsleur is still at the beginner level. I think the good thing about pimsleur is the spaced repetition. The bad thing is the lack of grammar explanation. Now I'm not saying go overboard on grammar, but a basic understanding of japanese grammar is much better than trying to figure it out from pimsleur. Pimsleur is an OK supplement for beginners, but as a complete method for learning japanese it is a failure.
Also it is ludicrously overpriced. For the cost of Pimsleur I could buy a whole stack of high quality textbooks.
At the risk of annoying some people on this site, I will say that I don't think trying to learn the meaning of all the kanji first is necessarily the best method of learning japanese. I think the best approach is to target all aspects of the language simultaneously. [I still think RTK is an excellent strategy, just use regular textbooks too].
Doramas are entertaining, but I don't think a good way of learning when you are at beginner or intermediate level. It is better to progress in a more systematic manner.
RTK + Pimsleur + Doramas - mentat_kgs - 2008-05-24
Today, 63 of 113: 56%
Ow yeah babe, I'm comming back.
Hey Savy. Maybe pimsleur works for me because I studied a lot of grammar long time ago. But it is kinda not that useful. I'm at the level I can allmost understand the doramas (tought lacking a loooot of vocabulary), so doramas go well with me. And they are not as boring as pimsleur.
What most people lack to see in pimsleur is that it is rock solid. And I like this.
Too bad I already have pimsleur, ehe. But my pals paid much more on useless time consumming classes.
What you pointed out about attacking all aspects of the language simultaneously, I agree. It is the weak point of RTK + SRS. But you cant read much text or you will be cheating on your reviews - that's where audio is handy.
Btw, japanesepod101 is very nice too.
I'm anxious to finish RTK and to start my sentence mining.
RTK + Pimsleur + Doramas - Shibo - 2008-05-24
I think the "best" method of learning is what works for the individual, MeNoSavvy. I agreed with you for the first 6 months of my studies. I did Pimsleur, Japanese for Busy People, and RTK simultaneously.
I stopped about a month ago because I quickly got to the point in which I felt the need to be able to read a real Japanese sentence. I've been concentrating on RTK ever since late April and if I don't lose my momentum, I'll be done with the book and able to concentrate on new things in July.
I just got to thinking, what's the point of using my Grammar Books when they'll be introducing kanji soon, in direct competition with the RTK method that I'm using? And how am I gonna study for JLPT in December, with all these words using kanji, if I don't know how to write or recognize the kanji? Dividing the work and doing 3 methods at once was fun, but the pace was slow and after doing it for long enough, I really felt like I needed to start doing *something* to get my kanji up to speed. So, I revised my methods and I'm very happy with the results. I still have my vocab and grammar in an SRS, but I've stopped trying to learn new stuff till 7/1.
We all have different goals, mine is JLPT 4 for now, because if I pay for a test and have to travel to get there, I won't slack off. I don't think there's a best or worst strategy, we just all have different goals, and different methods of studying to get us there.
RTK + Pimsleur + Doramas - mentat_kgs - 2008-05-25
84 of 140: 60%
Ok, I'm not there yet, but of course there was some improvement. hehe.
I started from yesterday doing tests on the failed and new cards. I was just clicking on learned until now. I'm using mnemosyne for the tests. I hope it will raise my retention rate.
But I still feel I have to make my stories better.
For instance: 攻 was failed 8 times! And it is so simple!
RTK + Pimsleur + Doramas - mentat_kgs - 2008-05-26
74 of 112: 66%
Ow yeah babe. I'm comming back!
RTK + Pimsleur + Doramas - mentat_kgs - 2008-05-27
70 of 124: 56%
Oops.
RTK + Pimsleur + Doramas - mentat_kgs - 2008-05-28
68 of 104 kanji.
65%
RTK + Pimsleur + Doramas - mentat_kgs - 2008-05-28
1000 kanji and counting. ROAR!!
RTK + Pimsleur + Doramas - mentat_kgs - 2008-05-29
58 of 106 kanji.
55%
Maybe I'm added too much kanji again to get to the 1000. ehehe.
RTK + Pimsleur + Doramas - mentat_kgs - 2008-05-30
57 of 95 kanji.
60%
Hey I came up with something useful for my motivation.
2 consecutives reviews of 60% are equivalent to one review with 90%. Isnt that about right?
So even if my reviews are bad, they are consistent. And I dont need to slow down! (I'm not sure about this last part)
RTK + Pimsleur + Doramas - Shibo - 2008-05-30
how many are you adding per day, Mentat?
RTK + Pimsleur + Doramas - mentat_kgs - 2008-05-30
Usually? 30. But sometimes I add 100. Sometimes none.
RTK + Pimsleur + Doramas - mentat_kgs - 2008-05-30
~450 in ~20 days. I guess it makes about 20/day.
RTK + Pimsleur + Doramas - Shibo - 2008-05-31
Gotcha. I do 20 a day myself, no more, no less. I was hoping you weren't adding too many new ones per day, and were spending some time reviewing and revising whatever stories might not be working. Congrats on 1K btw. \o/
Looks like your percentages are going up, which is good. But you might want to consider slowing down if your retention rate doesn't rise a bit. Everyone else reading, feel free to offer opinions. I certainly don't want to discourage you from moving ahead, Mentat, and you probably know your proper pace better than me. But I wonder if your retention rates might not rise if you work for a few days on whatever stories might be giving you trouble. I only say this because in the 5+ months that I've been using the site, I've only had 5 or so reviews at under 80% retention, and those have been due to an obvious lack of sleep or some other issue. 50's and 60's on a regular basis would scare the hell out of me. I just don't want to see you get to 1400 and get totally boggled or discouraged by all of the similar keywords etc as your volume of kanji continues to increase. Make sure you have some great stories as you move forward!
Again, I wish you nothing but the best and hope my advice is taken in the positive manner in which it's intended. I just worry when I see those percentages.