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Organizing my Japanese lesson - Kidnapincolour - 2011-04-23
Hi there!
I'm new to RevTK, but have been using Remembering the Kanji since February. Currently up to frame 776! I'm only a high school student but due to a lack of resources at my high school in New Zealand, I have to take Japanese by distant learning. So basically, a part from doing the course work they send to me and I send back, I pretty much have free reign over my Japanese classes.
What I'm looking help for is some help on how to organize my lesson or any suggestions on how to use my Japanese time as efficiently as possible. The coursework for Japanese at my high school year level is very easy(e.g. they spread learning hiragana and katakana over two years). So basically, I want to advance faster, but am unsure on how to fit all the resources available to me over the five lessons a week I have (one hour for each period).
Resources I already have are;
Coursework(which is really mid-beginner level stuff, despite doing it for four years)
Genki I and II + workbooks
ANKI!
Japanese Grammar: A guide for students. (NZ Book, but it's really good).
RTK1
My Japanese level is around JLPT N3, so you can probably tell I'm well on top of the coursework.
Unlike most of you, I prefer to do all kinds of Japanese at the same time rather than just RTK. I'm not looking for study techniques - just tips on organization! And any other resources you may want to hint me to.
ありがとう！
Organizing my Japanese lesson - nohika - 2011-04-23
Just to comment, you're lucky you even have access to take the class in high school.
It's not offered except for running start (college classes you take in high school) here. I've actually found now that I'm into my studies, taking classes weren't really necessary for me (or I hope not, anyways - I'll find out eventually).Do you /have/ to just fit Japanese into one hour a day five days a week? That alone will make it hard for you to progress, especially since Anki has reviews that come up 24/7 (or just /7 since you can have all reviews for the day show up at once). If you could free up more time, that would help a lot. I also recommend timeboxing - you can search it on the forums and read up.
Organizing my Japanese lesson - Kidnapincolour - 2011-04-23
Ha, I wouldn't really call it a class since I'm the only one in it. But it's still timetabled!
Oh, I just meant that I have one hour during school. After school I usually spend around three hours doing Japanese (Anki, RevTK etc...). And then my weekends usually are just filled with Japanese activities - watching doramas, reading literature and so on. I probably should of mentioned that... Sorry!If I had to cram all my Japanese into only one hour throughout five days, I would be quite depressed! Haha!
Thank you for mentioning timeboxing - I shall give it a go.
Cheers!
Organizing my Japanese lesson - nohika - 2011-04-24
Phew! xD I was like...erm...not always easy to squish everything that quickly.
A lot of people here would suggest cramming RTK as fast as you can, potentially doing some grammar (they suggest Tae Kim, but Genki I would be fine) on the side. The thing often with this language, after RTK, it's vocab and grammar holding you back the most. It's best to try and increase them equally, otherwise you run into situations where you can understand everything grammatically, but not the vocab (far easier to fix) or where you can understand all the words, but none of the grammar makes sense (hard to fix).
I'll admit personally that I've never done RTK - I've tried a few times and it's boring and it just doesn't really help me. I prefer learning vocab, which is what most people switch to to learn the readings (ie, Core2k, 2001KO). 2001KO is harder than Core2k - harder grammar, etc.
Best of luck.
Organizing my Japanese lesson - Cranks - 2011-04-25
Organizing a lesson for one's self is always interesting.
Tips:
#Have clear goals in mind.
- several small easily attainable goals.
- 1 or 2 larger ones.
- re-evaluate monthly.
# Set out a clear amount of study time per day.
- focus on one activity at a time.
- maintain a chart or excel file to keep track of time spent and achievements.
# Test yourself.
- If you are working on Kanji recognition, regular test yourself on 100 or so known random Kanji a week (copy your deck, reset it and set to random). (Keep an excel file to plot your success.)
- If speaking, record yourself weekly talking about the same topic and review at the end of the month, focusing on what you did well. (Record your good points.)
- If writing, write an essay over a one month period (no less than 2 pages) using proper Japanese essay formatting (I have no idea) and submit it to your high school teacher. (Keep the essays in a folder and re-read them all once per month, so you can see your progression.)
- If listening, choose a vocabulary genre to work on (the language of plants, food, whatever) and do stuff that has that language in it. After that test on real material, such as podcasts, TV shows, etc. (Have a piece of paper handy and count how many words you recognize - you could also do the same material again the next time, but not too often or it will lose its value as a test.)
Anyway, what you are sort of looking for is organization skills rather than language skills. Obviously, things like GTD (Get Things Done), RPM (Rapid Planning Method), and other personal organization techniques are a good thing to invest your time in when you're not doing Japanese.
Organizing my Japanese lesson - Cranks - 2011-04-25
Lol, my own post reminded me that i should consider doing some organization reading myself.
Organizing my Japanese lesson - stesani - 2011-04-25
Ah, I do RtK with other stuff too. I am reading Tae Kim's Guide to Japanese Grammar at the same time. What I do is every time I finish a lesson from TK's guide, I have a go at RtK until I burn myself out. I repeat the process.
I also use Evernote to write down notes while reading TK's grammar.
Organizing my Japanese lesson - Kidnapincolour - 2011-05-07
Cranks Wrote:Lol, my own post reminded me that i should consider doing some organization reading myself.Haha, I find myself doing the same thing when I tell people what they should. But, thanks for your advice!