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+--- Thread: The Encouragement Thread (/thread-1666.html)
The Encouragement Thread - howtwosavealif3 - 2011-06-20
3:43
The Encouragement Thread - Lazerbeat - 2011-06-21
Just passed my first 100!
The Encouragement Thread - Revenant - 2011-06-21
Congratz on that first one hundred. Keep going steady, but never give in to temptation and drop a day. If you break your daily habit, you're likely to stop for prolonged periods of time and when you come back - and you WILL come back after weeks or even months, you'll regret it.
5 new Kanji every day is great! 10 won't take much effort and if you're willing to spend roughly an hour a day, 25 is no tough task either.
It's not hard. Never. Even if some Kanji seem too complex, abstract and the keywords won't stick... just pass it, it will simply work out itself with time.
I had it that I beat myself up because I couldn't remember 3 Kanji no matter what, ignoring the other xxx positive reviews I had. In the end, what is 3 out of 100? 3%?
I just passed them on and kept adding new Kanji, steady steady... and will soon be finished, yay!
The Encouragement Thread - sooyoung - 2011-06-21
It's been almost 3 weeks since I started, and I've just reached 600!
I really never thought I could make it this far with kanji. I remember last summer I tried learning with rote memorization, and it took about a month and a half just to reach 300. I couldn't even write half of them either.
I've been reviewing everyday, though there have been two days when I skipped adding cards. I started with doing 35 a day, but I've bumped it up to 80, since I have a lot of time now that it's summer. :3 At this rate I should be finished in around another 3-4 weeks! I'm thinking about RTK3 already, haha~
I hope I can keep up this 89% retention rate and not burn out any time soon...
Best of luck to everyone!
The Encouragement Thread - Revenant - 2011-06-21
Just don't burn yourself out with 80 new ones, especially in sections where many new constellations are introduced - tends to screw you up, but even then it just takes 3-4 rounds of reviews.
Reduce the load of new cards before you burn out or even feel it's a drag, or else you might run into a standstill.
The Encouragement Thread - Kysen - 2011-06-22
80 a day will end up with brutal review sessions further down the road. I've started noticing days where I'll get spikes of high reviews (at 1250 currently).
About the earlier comment about not missing days, It's not that bad as long as you keep up the reviews. Funnily enough this is the only thing I've ever stuck to for this long (started in Feb) and I feel really guilty if I don't add cards every day. It seems to have become routine now.
The Encouragement Thread - hornlo - 2011-06-22
I completely stopped last November [2010], with a little over 1000 kanji, maybe half way through RTK1. The only activity I continued with any dedication was keeping up with the forum, although I would occasionally look through some of my books to pretend I was still studying something, or play around with methods rather than content, if that makes sense. I was too short of personal time to actually spend learning anything.
The first week of May this year I zapped all my cards in RevTK and started over. I'd intended to only add 10 or so per day so that I could take it easy on re-learning and reviewing. However, I soon started adding back cards an entire lesson at a time. I'd read through the hardcopy lesson in RTK, add it to RevTK, then study the new cards once to pick up the stories I'd saved from before (sometimes revising them).
The gratifying aspect of this was how easy the first several hundred kanji were. I'd essentially have 100% reviews every time (the later few lessons were in the 90's, because by then (the first time around) I'd only been half-ass working on them. Even with a 6-month gap, the kanji came right back, so, at least to me, that validates the RTK method.
I'm about to pass 1200, but that includes several dozen that are new to me, scattered at random throughout the rest of RTK1 and RTK3. The new ones I picked up from JtMW and the Handbook of Japanese Verbs, because I decided to seriously study the language and not just learn kanji this time around. Yes, I'd skimmed those and other sources before, but only get a feel for things, not serious study (again, more into the mechanics *of* studying rather than actual *learning*).
What's also interesting is that even though I've passed my old stopping point, into all-new territory, I still find the process feeling "easier" than the first time around, and have less concern about being "right" -- that is, I read through the lesson, add it to RevTK, and quickly add stories. Then I let the review process take care of the learning rather than trying to be 100% from the beginning; less pressure, more fun.
So, here's what I want to highlight, for those needing encouragement:
* it's ok, if you stopped for a while, to reset RevTK -- you'll pick things back up right away, and it may give you a burst of momentum you'd otherwise miss by trying to eat away a big stack of reviews
* after a few dozen or few hundred kanji, start studying language, at least a tiny bit -- they reinforce each other
* you should try to review every day, but it's ok to skip a day or two adding new cards to keep your reviews in check; feeling too obligated reduces the enjoyment of free-running learning
BTW, I say this as a casual learner. This may not apply if you have a hard deadline or other driving need/desire to learn fast.
The Encouragement Thread - Revenant - 2011-06-23
http://www.alljapaneseallthetime.com/blog/tortoises-and-hares
This.
The Encouragement Thread - Awry_sauce - 2011-07-10
I started last August, and did a little more than 400 kanji in approx 2 weeks. Then, I stopped because of school work (eheh, pathetic ). I thought I'd be able to juggle the reviews & all though, but I didn't. I wish I could owe that to the fact that I had no clue about Anki (its true, i didn't really do much reading on the forums), but yeah my lazy a**, my loss...
Oh well, just finished 508 & this time I'm gonna keep at it! Thanks for the advice hornlo and Revenant ..and everyone on here really!
The Encouragement Thread - Innocenced - 2011-07-10
I started sometime in January, I believe. I posted on this thread at about 500 kanji, I think. Now I am a little over 1000.
For a few months I didn't study or review 'cause at the end of the day I was just like.. ugh. ._. But now I have a lot more time. And luckily, I didn't really forget much - possibly because I play japanese video games?
Anyway ~ keep at it. ;D It's pretty surprising how far you can get in just a week without getting burned out.
The Encouragement Thread - fifo_thekid - 2011-07-20
I've started today and I hope that I can have a 95% retention after 6-8 months
I already know about 230 kanjis, and I attempted 2 N5 home tests with 90%+ grade
The Encouragement Thread - Tori-kun - 2011-07-20
http://forum.koohii.com/showthread.php?pid=143152#pid143152 T_____T
The Encouragement Thread - Tykkylumi - 2011-07-25
I stopped RTK to focus on my exam retakes, and I finished those about a month ago and I've still not picked RTK back up... the reviews seem daunting now... I've restarted RTK three times now and feel like I'm getting nowhere. I'm not going to restart this time, but ughhh. I'm finding it so hard to get motivated. I just want to get to the good stuff.
I'm in the midst of trying to move out as well, and I'm tired all the time... does not help.
The Encouragement Thread - Akeiko - 2011-07-25
Tykkylumi Wrote:I stopped RTK to focus on my exam retakes, and I finished those about a month ago and I've still not picked RTK back up... the reviews seem daunting now... I've restarted RTK three times now and feel like I'm getting nowhere. I'm not going to restart this time, but ughhh. I'm finding it so hard to get motivated. I just want to get to the good stuff.Hang in there Tykkylumi-san! I have stopped RTK for more than 3 months and as you know already, the reviews were too high to take
I'm in the midst of trying to move out as well, and I'm tired all the time... does not help.
! So I started in the almost beginning. I went through the reviews full-speed and if I can't remember the kanji in 5 seconds i said "no" and it turned out I did have to start at the almost beginning. BUT WHO CARES? Nobody's gonna judge you except for yourself (if you really like self-inflicted emotional abuse) but why do that? AND HERE'S THE GOOD NEWS... when I went back to re-study the almost beginning stuff, things clicked like 'oh-yeah!' and it feels good but I'm hiking my way up again 20 characters a day (I used to do 30-50 a day...very ambitious!) so it was not too bad if I'm feeling yuck. Take heart for soon enough you WILL get to the good parts. Gambatte ne! 
The Encouragement Thread - fifo_thekid - 2011-07-25
For me, I'm trying to associate the new kanjis I learn using RtK with the vocabulary I'm studying in Minna No Nihongo so that I would NEVER forget them
Akeiko Wrote:Tykkylumi Wrote:I stopped RTK to focus on my exam retakes, and I finished those about a month ago and I've still not picked RTK back up... the reviews seem daunting now... I've restarted RTK three times now and feel like I'm getting nowhere. I'm not going to restart this time, but ughhh. I'm finding it so hard to get motivated. I just want to get to the good stuff.Hang in there Tykkylumi-san! I have stopped RTK for more than 3 months and as you know already, the reviews were too high to take
I'm in the midst of trying to move out as well, and I'm tired all the time... does not help.
The Encouragement Thread - Tykkylumi - 2011-07-26
Akeiko Wrote:Thank you, that did actually really help. I've just gotta keep going and not give up. I'm going over a deck with all the primitives in at the moment, just to jog my memory. Hopefully that'll help!Tykkylumi Wrote:I stopped RTK to focus on my exam retakes, and I finished those about a month ago and I've still not picked RTK back up... the reviews seem daunting now... I've restarted RTK three times now and feel like I'm getting nowhere. I'm not going to restart this time, but ughhh. I'm finding it so hard to get motivated. I just want to get to the good stuff.Hang in there Tykkylumi-san! I have stopped RTK for more than 3 months and as you know already, the reviews were too high to take
I'm in the midst of trying to move out as well, and I'm tired all the time... does not help.
Edit: Actually doing quite well this morning now... 462 cards to review, going to try and get it down to at least 400, but at this rate I think I might be able to do more today!
The Encouragement Thread - xquio - 2011-08-02
Whooo, I'm starting again. I actually completed RTK over a year ago, then promptly stopped reviewing and stopped studying Japanese altogether. In the interim, I studied French to an upper-intermediate level and learned a lot about language learning and my...cognitive "quirks" in the process. I'm over the moony-eyed homgajatt nooby stage, more mature, and 18 days away from being the legal drinking age - I think I'm ready to tackle Japanese again. And also keep up my French...
I started Sunday, and I'm on frame 125 right now. I'm doing 50 a day. I'm actually amazed that I can remember most of them. Strangely, I was able to recall 胆 the best, despite the fact that it was the biggest bitch for me to remember when I studied it the first time around.
I'm doing Assimil along with RTK. I think the biggest mistake I made the first time around was focusing solely on RTK, because after all that effort I was still totally unable to read or understand anything in Japanese. I used Assimil for the first time with French, and I'm totally, totally, totally in love with the method. If it can bring me anywhere near the level New French with Ease brought me, I'll be really pleased.
The Encouragement Thread - mcaruso - 2011-08-02
Good luck xquio! The fact that you know you can learn a language (French in your case) can be a real confidence boost.
Quote:I'm doing Assimil along with RTK. I think the biggest mistake I made the first time around was focusing solely on RTK, because after all that effort I was still totally unable to read or understand anything in Japanese. I used Assimil for the first time with French, and I'm totally, totally, totally in love with the method. If it can bring me anywhere near the level New French with Ease brought me, I'll be really pleased.I know what you mean. For me, I like to study one thing at a time, which is RTK in this case, but I'm also reading about grammar in the meantime to keep things interesting. You don't have to study it actively yet (sentences, flashcards, etc.), but browsing though a grammer guide like Tae Kim's and absorbing the general concepts can still feel very satisfying.
The Encouragement Thread - Sebastian - 2011-08-13
I don't know whether this video has been posted again or not, but thought would be appropriate to share it here.
Little child gives motivational speech after riding a bike for the first time
The Encouragement Thread - jishera - 2011-08-13
@mcaruso, I totally agree with you! I started trying to do RTK and JFE (Japanese for Everyone textbook), and that ended up being a bit too much for me as a beginner. It was certainly possible, but my willpower wasn't quite up to the task. Now I'm just focusing on RTK and I do Michel Thomas in the car, so I'm still learning some basic grammar and getting better at speaking. It works quite well and I'm enjoying it. Now once I finish RTK and move onto JFE, parts of it will be familiar. I like focusing on one thing at a time actively, and doing another thing passively for now.
Personally, I'm not bothered by the fact that I know very little Japanese. Doing mostly kanji suits me just fine. I have a very long-term view on learning Japanese, I know other people are more impatient and can't stand doing just kanji. Guess it depends on your language learning plan and your personality.
As I get more experience I'll get better, I've already noticed my willpower improving for other things in my life too
. Language learning seems to be improving my life in general just because I'm getting myself organized.
The Encouragement Thread - fifo_thekid - 2011-08-14
Judging from what I read, it looks like I'm the only one using RtK1 roughly 30% of the day, while still having another 70% for grammar, vocabulary, listening and conversation; without failing making huge progress in RtK
うれしいいいい
The Encouragement Thread - Aspiring - 2012-09-09
Here's a random tip, even though I'm probably repeating someone else.
It's nothing new, although I'm pretty sure few people actually do this.
I add images to vocab cards that I have difficulty with.
Some sites I use are Google, demochi, pixiv, tumblr, etc.
When you spend 30 seconds browsing through natural Japanese media you slow down a little. It's like a little break from the stressful repetition.
Searching up a word allows you to see the word in context.
The human brain is a marvel of associative processing, and finding the word in context increases the amount of neural connections associated with that word.
EDIT: Doing this is encouraging because it makes repetitions easier.
The Encouragement Thread - warrigal - 2012-09-15
Cranking it back up!
I stalled at about 800 for two months but kept up with reviews - and am back on track now and should hit the half-way mark tomorrow.
My tip: I work through by thinking about the kanji and adding the stories, but don't necessarily add cards the day they're ticked off, because like others here I've found that a burst of inspiration can create a bottleneck of reviews down the track. On weekends, then, I might work through up to 50-60 in a day, but don't put them all through the card management process the same day, insteading adding 20-25 and then catching up with the rest during the week when work and family life leave less time to process new imagery (I might come up with 5-10 new stories M-F, but add more, using stories from the backlog, and generally get to the end of the working week having added all the stories generated since the previous Friday to the review piles). This seems to have several benefits: it creates a sense of always being "in front" despite the actual numbers of new kanji studied on a given day, it concentrates the most difficult part (generating stories - or choosing from those who've gone before!) on weekends when I'm feeling fresh, and it keeps the review process steady and manageable (and if it ever feels as if it is backing up, I just slow down with the new cards until it feels comfortable again).
Many thanks to those who posted encouragement and hints when I got well and truly jammed around lesson 23. As previous posters have said, don't get hung up on tricky stretches and failed cards. I leave the latter in the stack for weeks, sometimes, but eventually they gel and move on. The process teaches you a lot about how your memory works, and you will find that your understanding of what it takes to make a story stick improves as you go on.
I may well pause again before I get to the end. That's ok. I'll just keep up with the reviews, and pick it up again when life settles down.
The Encouragement Thread - RawToast - 2012-09-24
Aspiring Wrote:Here's a random tip, even though I'm probably repeating someone else.That's a bit like how the Rosetta Stone software works.
It's nothing new, although I'm pretty sure few people actually do this.
I add images to vocab cards that I have difficulty with.
Some sites I use are Google, demochi, pixiv, tumblr, etc.
When you spend 30 seconds browsing through natural Japanese media you slow down a little. It's like a little break from the stressful repetition.
The Encouragement Thread - captainporridge - 2012-10-22
I've been doing RTK for six days now (except technically I skipped two days completely due to illness) and have now finished 120 and am on a little break to write here. The first few days I was reading a lot about other people's study methods and how many people's motivation died and stuff like that. I changed my methods a bit as I went along, and so far today, the most recent day after i changed them a bit more, I've done a lot more than the other days. This is what works for me:
1. do the reviews here first before studying new kanji, every day. when i see the keyword, i make sure i can write the kanji using my finger+palm before i flip to see the answer. if i get one wrong, go and make up a story for it/take a story from others, and take a little break (typically to make tea / learn some new kanji) before i try to review the ones i got wrong.
2. Go to study from the book. Read the keyword, then the kanji, then the story in the book. Practice writing the kanji on my palm/space on my laptop next to my trackpad/etc. with my finger once. Do this for five kanji, then go back and do the same thing for those five again. Skip practising primitives by themselves as they get taught in the lessons, as they are already being practised within the kanji following them. Then add these five kanji to this site and try to review them, like in step one. If a lesson ends and there are less than five to do, I do those few in one group instead of adding ones from the next lesson (as one of the things I read was that it's best to do things in lesson groups). And for piece of mind, I make everything a square number, so ex. Lesson 5 starts on kanji 19, i'd make that group be kanji 19-25 just so it can end on 25 for easier counting and stuff.
(I do it in steps of five because if i do it in ten/twenty i feel like i must have forgotten them even if i haven't, and also the switching in-between book study and online review is too great and makes reviewing feel like a "break", so i end up distracting myself by going on websites and stuff after i do the online review)
If I feel like I don't want to learn any more kanji, then instead I do lesson reviews on this site (on the progress page) or handwriting practice of the kanji I've already learned in a math square notebook.
Also it's good motivation to find something actually in Japanese and pick out how many kanji you recognize - even just after the first lesson, the cover of a manga had 日 on it for example, so I was pretty excited. And the next lesson after I noticed 子 somewhere, we were taught it. Even if you think "I can't understand the Japanese" at least you can look at it and go "I know the stroke order and one meaning!!". I am also tracking my progress in my computer calendar as motivation and for personal interest in seeing if ex. on Tuesdays I always study less.