Too much free time !!!

(2016-06-16, 10:34 pm)FlameseeK Wrote:

(2016-06-16, 9:12 pm)yogert909 Wrote: I actually think you are doing just fine if you are enjoying reading and watching.  Provided you are understanding most of what you are reading and watching, that's the gold standard there.  I firmly believe the best way to practice a skill is to practice the actual thing most of the time - at least in beginner/intermediate levels.  When you get more advanced, unknown words will come around less frequently, so studying the words and grammar you don't know would probably be a better use of your time.   I'm kind of wishing I didn't spend as much time on core and rtk as I did.  Had I just waded into native material the way you are, I am pretty sure I would be much further along than I am now.

Would you really? Because RTK and Core are great tools.

RTK allows you to pick up words a lot more quickly once you get past beginner level. Core is just fairly handy in general as it allows you to work on very common/basic vocabulary and kanji readings at a quicker pace (not to mention some new words become trivial to learn if you've seen the readings before). Otherwise, you'd be trying to figure out the shape of kanji and making flashcards all day long, since you'd be looking up almost everything that comes up anyway.

On the other hand, getting into native material too early can be very demotivating. In fact, I've given up on reading Planetarian in Japanese before the anime adaptation comes out, simply because ITH and VNR didn't work. Looking up every single new word would be a pain because it's not as easy as I initially thought, not to mention incredibly time consuming.

Yesterday, I started reading 星織ユメミライ and it's so much more efficient and enjoyable. Definitely a better call. Maybe I'll read Planetarian in English and check it out once again a little later. Although given how hard it'd to read it, I'll probably start reading 穢翼のユースティア as soon as I'm done with the route I want to play in 星織ユメミライ.

Absolutely.  If I had made my own decks targeted towards the vocabulary and kanji that I expected to encounter in the next few weeks, I absolutely believe I would be much better off than I am now after years of studying core and RTK.   The problem with core and rtk is that there are a lot of words and kanji that didn't encounter for a long time or haven't encountered and probably won't encounter for months or maybe years.  On the other hand, there are kanji and vocabulary that I encounter all the time that didn't appear in core or rtk.

What I'm doing right now is pre-learning vocabulary for materials that I plan on reading or listening to in the next few days or weeks.  This is effectively similar to studying core and rtk, with the added benefit that I will encounter every word and kanji very soon in a context larger than a single sentence, further cementing the meaning in my head.  There are all kinds of other more subtle benefits as well such as the motivation I get from completely understanding entire conversations and knowing that I absolutely know every word in an article I am reading.  Knowing that I know every word encourages me to search my mind much harder for the meaning because I am certain the it's not a word I've never seen.  It's also simply more enjoyable doing it this way.

I've done a bit of analysis on core and rtk and even after finishing 6k words, in most any article or story, there are still large amounts(30-70%) of words and kanji that you will have to look up.  Then there are words and kanji that appear in core and/or rtk that, depending on what you are reading, you won't encounter for perhaps years.  Instead of learning thousands of words that you may eventually use someday, why not simply study the words and kanji you intend on using immediately?

(2016-06-16, 10:34 pm)FlameseeK Wrote: On the other hand, getting into native material too early can be very demotivating. In fact, I've given up on reading Planetarian in Japanese before the anime adaptation comes out, simply because ITH and VNR didn't work. Looking up every single new word would be a pain because it's not as easy as I initially thought, not to mention incredibly time consuming.

Just to be clear, I'm not looking up words as I'm reading. I am running text through a glosser and filtering the words that aren't already in my deck. Once I've done a few reps of each word, I'll read the article or listen or whatever. For longer works, I would break it into small chunks so that I'm not pre-learning too far ahead.