Ok I'm not sure why this is happening to me at this point in time but I'm getting lazy on srs reps and don't really feel like doing it. Strange coming from a guy who used to srs a lot but eventually did smaller and smaller amounts as the months kept going by. I've recently merged my two decks into one. So I only have a sentence+production deck and a vocabulary deck, these combined takes me an average of 45mins to 1hr max(usual a little longer, depending if I add a lot or not). But this is seriously starting to brother me, since I've always been doing my reps but just in these recent few weeks, I'm getting lazy on my reps.

I was thinking of possible reasons but can't really think of anything (I have a lot of time on my hands and life is good, I recently got a new laptop last month, got a new job). But just for some reason I've been just avoiding my srs reps. I have no problem immersing,playing games,reading,watching jp videos,etc. Maybe it's because I've been at this for 2 years and it's still to feel unnecessary? (Even though I still need to keep learning and progressing more).

Any suggestions? Thanks in advance everybody!

If you ever see a card that's too long/too boring/you don't want to read, just delete it. Just because you want to learn the vocabulary/grammar/whatever from the card, doesn't mean you should or have to go through the ad nauseam of seeing those facts so often.

The best thing I like about independent studying with Japanese is that you can always tweak and improve your performance as you see fit. If Anki is becoming too tedious for you, find ways to keep yourself interested. Personally that's the number one rule I give myself in studying Japanese--I can do whatever I want, just as long as it's fun and in Japanese

tnall Wrote:If you ever see a card that's too long/too boring/you don't want to read, just delete it. Just because you want to learn the vocabulary/grammar/whatever from the card, doesn't mean you should or have to go through the ad nauseam of seeing those facts so often.

The best thing I like about independent studying with Japanese is that you can always tweak and improve your performance as you see fit. If Anki is becoming too tedious for you, find ways to keep yourself interested. Personally that's the number one rule I give myself in studying Japanese--I can do whatever I want, just as long as it's fun and in Japanese

Breaking down cards is definitely a good thing, I started getting back into that habit with my sentence deck. My vocabulary deck doesn't have large cards but I think the key to use that deck effectively is to use it fast/efficiently/correctly. Most people say that deck is done fast/effortlessly.

My sentence deck, I usual break down a sentence(if split by comma,period,etc). into smaller sentences, since it's easier to review/get done.

So I think here is, doing the srs reps quickly/effectively/correctly.

A good tip I've been hearing is: set limits to how much srs reps you do/limit the time(thanks to anki, this is good).

Ｉ　ｒｅｍｅｍｂｅｒ　ｙｏｕ　ｓａｙｉｎｇ　ａｔ　ｏｎｅ　ｐｏｉｎｔ　ｔｈａｔ　ｙｏｕ　ｈａｄ　ｄｅｌｅｔｅｄ　ｙｏｕｒ　ｏｌｄ　ｄｅｃｋｓ　ａｎｄ　ｗｅｒｅ　ａｄｄｉｎｇ　ｅｖｅｒｙｔｈｉｎｇ　ｙｏｕ　ｃａｍｅ　ａｃｒｏｓｓ　ｔｏ　ｙｏｕｒ　ｎｅｗ　ｄｅｃｋｓ．　Ｍａｙｂｅ　Ｉ’ｍ　ｗｒｏｎｇ　ｂｕｔ　ｓｉｎｃｅ　ｙｏｕｒ　Ｊａｐａｎｅｓｅ　ｉｓ　ｐｒｅｔｔｙ　ａｄｖａｎｃｅｄ　Ｉ’ｍ　ｇｕｅｓｓｉｎｇ　ｙｏｕ　ｓｐｅｎｄ　ａ　ｌｏｔ　ｏｆ　ｔｉｍｅ　ＳＲＳｉｎｇ　ｃｏｍｍｏｎ　ｗｏｒｄｓ　ｔｈａｔ　ｙｏｕ　ａｌｒｅａｄｙ　ｋｎｏｗ　ａｎｄ　ｓｅｅ　ａｌｌ　ｔｈｅ　ｔｉｍｅ　ｏｕｔｓｉｄｅ　ｏｆ　ａｎｋｉ　ａｎｙｗａｙ．Ｗｈａｔ　ｍｏｔｉｖａｔｅｓ　ｍｅ　ｍｏｓｔ　ｉｓ　ｆｅｅｌｉｎｇ　ｌｉｋｅ　Ｉ’ｍ　ｍａｋｉｎｇ　ｐｒｏｇｒｅｓｓ．　Ｉ　ｂｅｔ　ｗｈｅｎ　ｙｏｕ　ｗｅｒｅ　ＳＲＳｉｎｇ　ｆｏｒ　ｈｏｕｒｓ　ｅｖｅｒｙｄａｙ　ｔｈａｔ　ｗａｓ　ｔｈａｔ　ｗａｓ　ａｌｓｏ　ａ　ｌａｒｇｅ　ｐａｒｔ　ｏｆ　ｗｈａｔ　ｋｅｐｔ　ｙｏｕ　ｇｏｉｎｇ，　ｂｕｔ　ｒｅｐｅａｔｉｎｇ　ｍａｔｅｒｉａｌ　ｓｏ　ｆａｒ　ｂｅｌｏｗ　ｙｏｕｒ　ｌｅｖｅｌ　ｉｓ　ｎｏｔ　ｇｏｉｎｇ　ｔｏ　ｇｉｖｅ　ｙｏｕ　ｔｈａｔ　（ａｎｄ　ｉｓ　ｐｒｏｂａｂｌｙ　ａ　ｗａｓｔｅ　ｏｆ　ｔｉｍｅ　ａｎｙｗａｙ）．

Ｉｆ　Ｉ　ｗｅｒｅ　ｙｏｕ　Ｉ’ｄ　ｏｎｌｙ　ＳＲＳ　ｒａｒｅｒ　ｗｏｒｄｓ　ｔｈａｔ　ｙｏｕ　ｗｏｕｌｄｎ’ｔ　ｏｔｈｅｒｗｉｓｅ　ｍｅｅｔ　ｏｆｔｅｎ　ｅｎｏｕｇｈ　ｔｏ　ｒｅｍｅｍｂｅｒ，　ｏｒ　ｍａｙｂｅ　ｅｖｅｎ　ｄｒｏｐ　ｔｈｅ　ＳＲＳ　ａｌｔｏｇｅｔｈｅｒ．

i stopped doing sentences after about 1,000 cards because as a game I found it rather boring. i switched to subs2srs decks, and that is still pretty great, but it's basically sentences plus audio. the fact that the audio comes from your favorite media helps keep it interesting though.
my new fun game is MCD cards, for which tokyostyle made an awesome plug-in for easy mass-generation. that's great for really digging into text. while not as much fun as subs2srs cards, in an MCD you're only looking for 1 very small piece of information... and at this point I think shorter cards are better. antimoon seems to concur on this point. it's also a nice way to break into reading serious j-text.
so in short i think you need to give yourself a new game / type of card in order to keep it interesting...

Splatted Wrote:Ｉ　ｒｅｍｅｍｂｅｒ　ｙｏｕ　ｓａｙｉｎｇ　ａｔ　ｏｎｅ　ｐｏｉｎｔ　ｔｈａｔ　ｙｏｕ　ｈａｄ　ｄｅｌｅｔｅｄ　ｙｏｕｒ　ｏｌｄ　ｄｅｃｋｓ　ａｎｄ　ｗｅｒｅ　ａｄｄｉｎｇ　ｅｖｅｒｙｔｈｉｎｇ　ｙｏｕ　ｃａｍｅ　ａｃｒｏｓｓ　ｔｏ　ｙｏｕｒ　ｎｅｗ　ｄｅｃｋｓ．　Ｍａｙｂｅ　Ｉ’ｍ　ｗｒｏｎｇ　ｂｕｔ　ｓｉｎｃｅ　ｙｏｕｒ　Ｊａｐａｎｅｓｅ　ｉｓ　ｐｒｅｔｔｙ　ａｄｖａｎｃｅｄ　Ｉ’ｍ　ｇｕｅｓｓｉｎｇ　ｙｏｕ　ｓｐｅｎｄ　ａ　ｌｏｔ　ｏｆ　ｔｉｍｅ　ＳＲＳｉｎｇ　ｃｏｍｍｏｎ　ｗｏｒｄｓ　ｔｈａｔ　ｙｏｕ　ａｌｒｅａｄｙ　ｋｎｏｗ　ａｎｄ　ｓｅｅ　ａｌｌ　ｔｈｅ　ｔｉｍｅ　ｏｕｔｓｉｄｅ　ｏｆ　ａｎｋｉ　ａｎｙｗａｙ．Ｗｈａｔ　ｍｏｔｉｖａｔｅｓ　ｍｅ　ｍｏｓｔ　ｉｓ　ｆｅｅｌｉｎｇ　ｌｉｋｅ　Ｉ’ｍ　ｍａｋｉｎｇ　ｐｒｏｇｒｅｓｓ．　Ｉ　ｂｅｔ　ｗｈｅｎ　ｙｏｕ　ｗｅｒｅ　ＳＲＳｉｎｇ　ｆｏｒ　ｈｏｕｒｓ　ｅｖｅｒｙｄａｙ　ｔｈａｔ　ｗａｓ　ｔｈａｔ　ｗａｓ　ａｌｓｏ　ａ　ｌａｒｇｅ　ｐａｒｔ　ｏｆ　ｗｈａｔ　ｋｅｐｔ　ｙｏｕ　ｇｏｉｎｇ，　ｂｕｔ　ｒｅｐｅａｔｉｎｇ　ｍａｔｅｒｉａｌ　ｓｏ　ｆａｒ　ｂｅｌｏｗ　ｙｏｕｒ　ｌｅｖｅｌ　ｉｓ　ｎｏｔ　ｇｏｉｎｇ　ｔｏ　ｇｉｖｅ　ｙｏｕ　ｔｈａｔ　（ａｎｄ　ｉｓ　ｐｒｏｂａｂｌｙ　ａ　ｗａｓｔｅ　ｏｆ　ｔｉｍｅ　ａｎｙｗａｙ）．

Ｉｆ　Ｉ　ｗｅｒｅ　ｙｏｕ　Ｉ’ｄ　ｏｎｌｙ　ＳＲＳ　ｒａｒｅｒ　ｗｏｒｄｓ　ｔｈａｔ　ｙｏｕ　ｗｏｕｌｄｎ’ｔ　ｏｔｈｅｒｗｉｓｅ　ｍｅｅｔ　ｏｆｔｅｎ　ｅｎｏｕｇｈ　ｔｏ　ｒｅｍｅｍｂｅｒ，　ｏｒ　ｍａｙｂｅ　ｅｖｅｎ　ｄｒｏｐ　ｔｈｅ　ＳＲＳ　ａｌｔｏｇｅｔｈｅｒ．

yea I did delete my old decks(I have them backed up, because they did contain some useful things I collected over the 1.5 years). I'm noticing more and more is, the amount I srs has gone down a lot. I remmeber in the beginning phases I was all about srsing and at this point in time it's 1/4 of what I used to do (used to do like 3000-4000 reps, which is insane when I think about it now). Now it's gone down to 300-600. Which is doable but I think my problem is, I need to find more fun ways of learning via the srs

dtcamero Wrote:i stopped doing sentences after about 1,000 cards because as a game I found it rather boring. i switched to subs2srs decks, and that is still pretty great, but it's basically sentences plus audio. the fact that the audio comes from your favorite media helps keep it interesting though.
my new fun game is MCD cards, for which tokyostyle made an awesome plug-in for easy mass-generation. that's great for really digging into text. while not as much fun as subs2srs cards, in an MCD you're only looking for 1 very small piece of information... and at this point I think shorter cards are better. antimoon seems to concur on this point. it's also a nice way to break into reading serious j-text.
so in short i think you need to give yourself a new game / type of card in order to keep it interesting...

I was thinking of doing that actually but I'll try to see if I like the Mass Context Cards but one thing I notice is, it's all about testing it and see for yourself how effective it is. But one good thing about this is, I can easily create a different model and see where it takes me(adding 10 new MCD type cards)

I'm not loosing interest on learning Japanese but I think for my level one thing is clear: I have to keep finding new things to get me hooked on (Still hooked on bleach,naruto haha) but what me hooked on the srs was, over time I started being able to read/understand Japanese without problems). I guess I have to re-kindle my love affair with Japanese+the srs anki

Not to start up another anti-anki thing, but have you considered migrating to paper? I think you're finding anki boring for the same reasons I did, you're constantly forced to see the same cards over and over and push each item through the the arbitrary intervals decided by anki. It feels like just going through the motions. Deleting cards is tedious. If you stick with anki, try massively increasing the intervals so cards are moved effectively out of the system much faster (spaced to infinity). Don't force yourself to sit down and do reps for an hour a day. That's a recipe for boredom. Just open it up throughout the day, do 5 minutes here, 5 minutes there, if it doesn't add up to even half an hour, that's OK. Spend the extra time finding and consuming interesting content.

nadiatims Wrote:Not to start up another anti-anki thing, but have you considered migrating to paper? I think you're finding anki boring for the same reasons I did, you're constantly forced to see the same cards over and over and push each item through the the arbitrary intervals decided by anki. It feels like just going through the motions. Deleting cards is tedious. If you stick with anki, try massively increasing the intervals so cards are moved effectively out of the system much faster (spaced to infinity). Don't force yourself to sit down and do reps for an hour a day. That's a recipe for boredom. Just open it up throughout the day, do 5 minutes here, 5 minutes there, if it doesn't add up to even half an hour, that's OK. Spend the extra time finding and consuming interesting content.

Yea that's what I'm starting to do now, break it down to little pieces throughout the day, I notice I'm more keen on doing srs reps during the morning, then at night (get lazy at night). As for migrating to paper, what do you mean exactly? Start writing the cards out? I do write a few cards that are in my production deck.

What I mean, is abandoning anki all together and just using a notebook to note down new words/phrases or chunks of grammar as you encounter them. You don't need anki to schedule your review for you, you don't have to follow anki's spacing algorithm, you don't have to spend time deleting cards.
What I do is, I note down words, pronunciation (when necessary) and meaning in a three column list down the left most side of an open double page and write the date above the list. When a list is full, I start another one on the next double page and again date it. I ignore each list for at least 2-3 weeks (hence dating the lists is important). Then I check lists to see which items I can correctly recall. I use the remaining space of each double page to re-list only those items which I failed to recall, writing only the words as here is no need to rewrite the pronunciation and or meaning. Then I write the date above the new list. Then after 2-3 weeks rinse and repeat. Usually 3-4 iterations of the list is enough to recall most items (ie only a couple of items remain). Maybe it sounds complicated, but it's really not, and it's much faster than anki because you're not reviewing each item to death. It's also less mechanical and trains your writing ability. It's not just sitting there and clicking.

If your only problem with Anki is the frequency with which it asks you to review items, it's easy enough to increase the default timing for a given deck to 5x more time, or just be a lot more liberal with button 4. (Whether or not you write or type your answers or simply think of them is, of course, up to the anki user as well.)

Reviewing in the morning and being 'lazy' in the evening is rather normal - at least, I've read that people naturally tend to be more inclined to routine, repetitive, and automatic sorts of tasks earlier in the day - which is most 'nose to the grindstone' kinds of work - and towards creative tasks and exploration later in the day (or more accurately, in their waking cycle, regardless of whether they get up at dawn or just before sunset!)

Anyway, this is why it's easier to work on your novel (or read someone else's novel) late at night, and why it's easier to do the dishes or SRS reps early in the day.

nadiatims Wrote:What I mean, is abandoning anki all together and just using a notebook to note down new words/phrases or chunks of grammar as you encounter them. You don't need anki to schedule your review for you, you don't have to follow anki's spacing algorithm, you don't have to spend time deleting cards.
What I do is, I note down words, pronunciation (when necessary) and meaning in a three column list down the left most side of an open double page and write the date above the list. When a list is full, I start another one on the next double page and again date it. I ignore each list for at least 2-3 weeks (hence dating the lists is important). Then I check lists to see which items I can correctly recall. I use the remaining space of each double page to re-list only those items which I failed to recall, writing only the words as here is no need to rewrite the pronunciation and or meaning. Then I write the date above the new list. Then after 2-3 weeks rinse and repeat. Usually 3-4 iterations of the list is enough to recall most items (ie only a couple of items remain). Maybe it sounds complicated, but it's really not, and it's much faster than anki because you're not reviewing each item to death. It's also less mechanical and trains your writing ability. It's not just sitting there and clicking.

That is a good idea and will do wonders for writing but I think the srs could help with that, much more than writing by hand. Then again, people have been doing this for decades before the srs and the Internet. So it's definitely doable and effective. What I noticed about doing production style/cloze deletion cards is, context is key. Adding small sentence/cloze deletion for the vocab your testing will do wonders for writing, if done right. I think my problem is, I've sticked with the same thing over and over again, I need to fresh things up and experiment more. Same with my sentence deck,vocabulary deck and production deck(merged this with sentence deck recently)

SomeCallMeChris Wrote:If your only problem with Anki is the frequency with which it asks you to review items, it's easy enough to increase the default timing for a given deck to 5x more time, or just be a lot more liberal with button 4. (Whether or not you write or type your answers or simply think of them is, of course, up to the anki user as well.)

Reviewing in the morning and being 'lazy' in the evening is rather normal - at least, I've read that people naturally tend to be more inclined to routine, repetitive, and automatic sorts of tasks earlier in the day - which is most 'nose to the grindstone' kinds of work - and towards creative tasks and exploration later in the day (or more accurately, in their waking cycle, regardless of whether they get up at dawn or just before sunset!)

Anyway, this is why it's easier to work on your novel (or read someone else's novel) late at night, and why it's easier to do the dishes or SRS reps early in the day.

One thing I'm noticing is, the way I like to srs is: make if fun, make it short and do it in small chunks(5-10mins) and I should be fine(and do it during the beginning of the day, before I do anything else).

I also should note that I agree with nadiatims about sitting in front of a computer doing reps being boring. I actually review for at least 2 hrs a day, but do it on my iphone using ankimobile. great media support, and with the retina display text looks amazing (and you can zoom in/out with pinch). it's strange but it actually feels a lot more fun just doing it in a different format like that... I don't really have any explaination for why that is. kanji and vocab are especially more fun that way. but mainly the benefit is that every stupid wasted block of time in my day is filled with reps (train to/from work, downtime at work, breaks). Usually I'm done with my reps by 4pm or so and get to read on the train home. then I have another hour to add cards at night. works for me

I think there are many things you can do. The most straightforward thing you can do may be, as SomeCallMeChris says, simply to increase the interval for each review by using Anki's function or give a more generous score to each card. The logic behind this is that because you're learning Japanese outside SRS, you're naturally reviewing words and phrases outside the repetition system, leading to too many reviews inside Anki.

SRS itself doesn't take into account how often you re-experience things outside the system. Since your reading speed and listening efficiency are constantly improving, if you grade cards by the same standards as when you couldn't read as fast or catch spoken words very well, you're being too pessimistic; you're re-experiencing them more often in real life than before. Ultimately, if you get really good at Japanese, it's possible that you are just fine doing as few reviews as a monolingual speaker. First language acquisition and foreign language learning are two different things, of course. But I think it's almost trivial that as your skills improve, you should reduce reviews and increase intervals to an extent for SRS to stay near optimal.

Another thing you might want to do is try learning methods you haven't. You can quit SRS entirely or just rely less on it. This is not simply a change of pace or a measure to avoid boredom. The idea is that what you haven't done will likely give you what you haven't gained, complementing your language skills. For example, if you haven't used grammar books much before, reading up on grammar might make you look at the language from a different viewpoint. If you haven't tried shadowing, it might bring you what you needed to step up to the next level. There are various learning methods and techniques many people have reported worked for them. If SRS is getting less effective or harder to keep up, there's nothing wrong with taking a short break. If anything, it might be about time for you to graduate.

Tweaking your cards to suit your current needs is another option if the current way of making cards doesn't seem to be working. You can even throw every card away. It's not like you'll never see them again in real life, and if you won't, you probably don't want to learn them anyway.

Anyway, relax and take it easy. Japanese won't run away from you. It's always there, right in front of you, waiting for you.

maybe try changing your location, I do most of my anki at work, on the train or in cafes. I really dislike doing it at home.

I had the same problem as you, but it got worse and worse to the point where I stopped using anki altogether. I think the reason was just as magamo described, I was getting all the review I needed just from using the language.

quincy Wrote:I had the same problem as you, but it got worse and worse to the point where I stopped using anki altogether. I think the reason was just as magamo described, I was getting all the review I needed just from using the language.

Yea, I'm noticing more that the srs isn't really needed for everything. I notice a lot of the same things in native-material and see the same thing in my srs decks. So I should definitely decrease my use of the srs but spicing it up is probably key here

magamo Wrote:I think there are many things you can do. The most straightforward thing you can do may be, as SomeCallMeChris says, simply to increase the interval for each review by using Anki's function or give a more generous score to each card. The logic behind this is that because you're learning Japanese outside SRS, you're naturally reviewing words and phrases outside the repetition system, leading to too many reviews inside Anki.

SRS itself doesn't take into account how often you re-experience things outside the system. Since your reading speed and listening efficiency are constantly improving, if you grade cards by the same standards as when you couldn't read as fast or catch spoken words very well, you're being too pessimistic; you're re-experiencing them more often in real life than before. Ultimately, if you get really good at Japanese, it's possible that you are just fine doing as few reviews as a monolingual speaker. First language acquisition and foreign language learning are two different things, of course. But I think it's almost trivial that as your skills improve, you should reduce reviews and increase intervals to an extent for SRS to stay near optimal.

Another thing you might want to do is try learning methods you haven't. You can quit SRS entirely or just rely less on it. This is not simply a change of pace or a measure to avoid boredom. The idea is that what you haven't done will likely give you what you haven't gained, complementing your language skills. For example, if you haven't used grammar books much before, reading up on grammar might make you look at the language from a different viewpoint. If you haven't tried shadowing, it might bring you what you needed to step up to the next level. There are various learning methods and techniques many people have reported worked for them. If SRS is getting less effective or harder to keep up, there's nothing wrong with taking a short break. If anything, it might be about time for you to graduate.

Tweaking your cards to suit your current needs is another option if the current way of making cards doesn't seem to be working. You can even throw every card away. It's not like you'll never see them again in real life, and if you won't, you probably don't want to learn them anyway.

Anyway, relax and take it easy. Japanese won't run away from you. It's always there, right in front of you, waiting for you.

I definitely do know I need to learn more grammar/review it. Shadowing is something I want to get into more, I find the key to speaking(for my level) is I just need get vocal(Say things out loud) and get used to speaking japanese in general. Reading and listening are not my problems anymore, it just leaves getting better at speaking,grammar and writing. My gut tells me if I lean my srs reps towards that area, I should get the most of my learning and also spice things up.

As for the anki intervals, that makes sense and I used to actually be really tough on my reps but I've eased on them and let the srs worry about them for me.

Yea I have been using the srs for 2 years now but lately I've been getting lazy on it, maybe that's my mind way of telling me (change it around and learn something new for a change!). I expect in another 2-3 years I'll be have reached my goals for japanese but before that happens, I definitely need to spice things up and expand on how I learn. I still feel the srs is necessary but adding a small amount is key (ironic because sometimes I feel I should be doing more).

I think something is trying to tell you to start learning Chinese.

ta, might I ask why you feel a need to get used to speaking? If you have Japanese friends surely you can just talk with them and your level will improve. If you don't have people to speak with, why try to improve your speaking ability anyway? As long as your comprehension is quite high you should be able to learn to speak relatively quickly should the need arise. I don't think it's really possible to have a conversation with your srs no matter how you set up your cards. If you've lost interest in studying, maybe you should take a break. You're not going to suddenly forget everything you've learned. Or try to find some good media to enjoy just for the sake of enjoyment.

Maybe there is some way to improve reviewing cards. So far the common method is to add cards, review them many times for months to come, and after some months the same cards pop-up again. Some counter this by changing the settings, so that once you push easy, the cards show up again in a few months.

I noticed the following with my Genki I, II, AIAIJ, Kanji in Context decks. When I stopped and reduced the number of decks before starting KO.2001, and merging all the vocab decks together, I stopped doing daily reviews for some weeks. When I loaded up a deck that I haven't been reviewing for a long time, I still remembered most of it very well. Even words that I could hardly remember were "there" all of a sudden. And I am not talking about words I could have seen somewhere on the net.

So why not try the following. Review the cards in your deck until you reached 1000 or 2000 reps which should hardly take much time. Then let the deck rest for some months and review the deck once more. If you still know most of the words, or whatever it is that you are reviewing, retire the entire deck. There will be words that you don't remember, as is normal, so fail them. Collect those few cards, move them to an active deck, and spread them out again.

You will spend less time on single decks, but this comes with a price tag, you have to have more than one deck for it to work. If its an ongoing project, you will inevitably run into the same cards over and over and over again, unless you start deleting them. But this might work as well. Give it a try, doesn't hurt, since you should be at the level where you are less dependend on the SRS anymore.

DevvaR Wrote:I think something is trying to tell you to start learning Chinese.

haha, well I actually wanted to start but it might confuse me at first if I began but people say doing a little everyday wouldn't hurt in the long run, just as a small project while you do the larger project(japanese).

nadiatims Wrote:ta, might I ask why you feel a need to get used to speaking? If you have Japanese friends surely you can just talk with them and your level will improve. If you don't have people to speak with, why try to improve your speaking ability anyway? As long as your comprehension is quite high you should be able to learn to speak relatively quickly should the need arise. I don't think it's really possible to have a conversation with your srs no matter how you set up your cards. If you've lost interest in studying, maybe you should take a break. You're not going to suddenly forget everything you've learned. Or try to find some good media to enjoy just for the sake of enjoyment.

At the moment I don't have any actively to speak with, I knew 2 japanese people but they went back to japan. Plus they are busy, so the amount of time to practice speaking has gone down. But then again. I do have access to the internet, so making new jp friends isn't a problem. But I'm planning to get active language exchange partners (haha some people say don't do this and just try to make jp friends, it will go well in the long-run they say)

I want to get more vocal (get more active in speaking and improve) lately. I know now reading,listening isn't the problem but speaking is starting to take front side now. Maybe it's because it's been 2 years and it isn't that good even, but then again, comprehension has made speaking really easy to improve on. Once I get my speaking to a high level, I can easily call myself fluent in Japanese (excluding writing).

Well I do have enjoyable material that I listen to/watch, so it's not enjoyment. But making it's time I reexamine my srs cards in depth and see where I can improve on it. I think it's time to just spice things up with that (as for the production cards, I understand where your coming from on that one but one thing I like about the srs, you can experiment and see if it helps in the long-term but I believe comprehension is key for speaking)