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Core6k was deadly boring, at least for me, but adding some extra time to get through it seems reasonable, if you can stand it. I'd probably keep up with most of the other parts of my study, personally. Just doing reviews on any other Anki decks should be fine, though. Over the long term, I don't think it much matters which path you take.

I would be concerned about keeping up with reviews after your break. If you add a lot of cards in the period, you'll then have your hands more than full with reviews for some time after. It'll still get you ahead, but maybe not by as much as you think.

If you could at all 'sprint' through it in 3.5 weeks or so and then drop down to 'normal' add-levels you could take the brunt of the review increase and have something manageable when you're done.

Or you could just keep doing normal Anki things and do extra of other things. If I had a 5 week break I'd drop a couple hundred dollars on a massive kinokuniya order and bury myself in manga and light novels.

I vote 'hare'. Variety is important, and you'll get through Core 6k in due time.
If you have all that free time coming up, why not add one thing that wasn't in your study regimen at all that can be temporary if it falls to the wayside when life comes back at you?

personally I don't really understand the rush to speed through language acquisition. the cost/benefit equation seems totally out of whack...

benefits:
-if successful, you could be better at L2 a year or 2 earlier. i.e. this only gets you
there a little bit sooner... as opposed to doing something for you otherwise unattainable.

costs:
-what could be a pleasant lifestyle becomes difficult
-workload greatly increases possibility of burnout
-if there is a hiccup in reviews (as will certainly happen over a 18-24 month period) you
have huge buildup, again increasing possibility of burnout
-associating negative feelings with L2, lessening overall interest and increasing likelihood
of burnout
-adding huge amounts of data leads to a increased fail rate... i.e. language
acquisition is significantly slower per unit of data one is trying to memorize.

I thought the objective was to get good at a language, not to race everyone to get good at it (whatever that means for you individually).

If you're working hard this is going to take around 3 years, without being crazy and meaning you cant have work/friends/sleep. Honestly I don't understand why so many people are so impatient to do something that they would risk a huge likelihood of failure in order to speed it up a little. If it's important enough to work on that hard, shouldn't you slow down a little to make sure you can do it on the long term program it requires?

Language acquisition is not a sprint, it's a marathon... your head just doesn't change its machinery that quickly simply because you're all hot n bothered.

In my experience doing like 100 new words a day so that you'll end up with 700 a week total is a lot. The reviews will get out of control and, if it was me, I would grow tired of it. I like to do 33 new words a day so that adds up to about 1000 a month. The reviews for me are around 275-325 a day which are manageable. I have about 1000 words left to do in Core 10000 at this point. To use up the additional free time on your hands, you can do some grammar work. I would suggest Genki I, II, Tobira, Kanzen Master level 2, Kanzen Master level 1 in that order. I've finished the grammar work so I've started reading light novels in its place. Anyway, that's my suggested route and of course there are a million others you can find on this board.

[RawToast]

Quote:'ve been moving through the Core6K at about 300 / month for the past few months and am somewhere around 3500... I'm thinking about going on a sprint through the remainder of Core6K - say something like 500 - 700 per week.

That's going from ~10 new cards a day to ~100?!

If you want to rush, you could simply double up to 600 / month and see how it goes.

reviews top out at around 20x what your daily add is.

lets do the math here. adding 20 cards/day will eventually (3 months in-ish) yield about 400 reviews/day.

adding 35 cards/day will eventually yield about 700 reviews/day. (assuming your brain is keeping a good retention and your fail rate isn't rising, in which case you would have even more reviews)

this is not my math, this is anki's algorythm. others on this forum can verify it too.

going over 20 cards/day seems reckless in my opinion.
gf dumps you/ final exams in school/ pulling an all-nighter for work/ etc... any life-related bump in the road leaves you with 1400 reviews the next morning.

Can you guarantee no life-problems over the next 2 years?

where's the fire? seems like awfully risky behaviour if you value your language project enough to be working that hard at it...

or else the people doing 30+/day haven't been doing it for that long that reviews would build that high...
or they're getting burnt out and not adding for periods.

What kind of statistics is that based on? I have never had more than 130 due cards a day, and I've been adding on average 15-20 cards a day, and I've been anki'ing for 8-9 months...

anki isn't a natural phenomenon, you don't need statistics. it uses a mathematical formula to generate due counts.

the 20x shorthand was something that I recall the senior people on this forum, using anki over years and years, had mentioned several times. couldn't be bothered to search the forum for examples but having used anki for over 3 years myself it rang true.

in addition, adding 15/day for 8 months seems very unlikely to yield max 130 reviews/day in my experience.

dtcamero Wrote:in addition, adding 15/day for 8 months seems very unlikely to yield max 130 reviews/day in my experience.

But that's the case; it might be affected by the fact that I set the interval modifier to 200% two months ago (to separate easy/hard cards even faster) but even before that, I only had 100-ish due cards a day.

Are you sure your interval modifier isn't set to 25 percent or something like that?

Hyperborea Wrote:So, assuming I want to spend the extra time I will have in a few weeks for a five week period...

ya sure five week push sounds grand. My rant was more directed towards the numerous threads by guys who think they are the first ones ever with the idea of learning a language quickly, and use this forum as their personal blog site. for example there's one going now called 'about to blitz through rtk' or whatever...
they do rtk in 2 weeks, core6 at 100/day etc. and then disappear without the accompanying bookend blog entry for closure so nobody learns anything.

Stian Wrote:it might be affected by the fact that I set the interval modifier to 200% two months ago

indeed it might...

But that was two months ago. I didn't have 300 due cards every day back then either. Explain that.

Stian Wrote:But that was two months ago. I didn't have 300 due cards every day back then either. Explain that.

...magic? The stars aligned? Maybe your experience is an statistic outlier. Have you got an exceptional memory, or generally don't fail many cards?

It could be many things, I suppose.

dtcamero Wrote:My rant was more directed towards the numerous threads by guys who think they are the first ones ever with the idea of learning a language quickly, and use this forum as their personal blog site. for example there's one going now called 'about to blitz through rtk' or whatever...

As opposed to...? This is a relatively small forum with far less traffic than many larger forums. This sort of stuff happens on a lot of forums; being smaller only makes it seem more prominent. I don't know why it's something you feel the need to rant about. Honestly, it is stuff like that which people come across while searching through the archives and they usually provide some sort of insight or information which is useful in respect to a greater component of an issue. I'm sure I'm not the only one who searches through several older threads in order to find different bits of opinion and information.

There is a fair bit to learn from other people's experiences. If people didn't open up and treat forums a little like a blog there would be far less input to gain different opinions and insights upon different subjects for. If you aren't able to learn something from these different attempts, and posted experiences, then maybe you might have to use a different approach in respect to the epistemological value which manifests itself as a by product of the clashing social aspects of internet forums.


But all that aside, if you don't appreciate certain threads, you don't have to read them. Taking offense enough to, as you put it "rant" about it, seems more like a personal thing. Almost as though, with a sliver or irony, you don't like how some users tend to use the site as it doesn't fit in with your ideal usage. Stones and glass houses?


@Hyperborea

This might sound left of field, but if you've got some free time, well, are there any lingering projects you're be unable to or ignored due to the daily build up of everything? It might be a good time to fix up something around the house, or finish a few books you've been meaning to finish, etc. I mean, if you are feeling productive there are probably things you could do which might make your home/daily environment feel more comfortable. It isn't directly related to Japanese, but I've always felt more positive about things after, for example, doing a minor "Spring Clean" of the house/living area, or organizing things, sorting out paper work, etc.

The other suggestions in relation to your studies are pretty good in my opinion, so I can't really offer anything in respect to that.

My retention rate is around 85-90%...and that's hardly exceptional.

I just can't believe that 15 cards/day = 300 due cards/day after three months.

Someone simulated this and posted the results on this forum. Thread Graph

Maybe you guys should work on your standard, non-SRS memory skills? In any case I'll leave it to you guys to figure out who is right and who is wrong ...

Well I was exaggerating with the use of the word rant... I'm not getting emotional here but think there is real negative influence that those kind of threads have in general.

the main problem is that attention and positive reinforcement goes towards these people who are basically attention whores acting like they are better than everyone else. this guy is a good example:

egoplant Wrote:I guess I just don't want to do the absolute minimum and reach the minimum base level of fluency in 3 years like you. If I did 10,000 words in only a single year, I would consider that to be a failure, but I guess everyone moves at their own pace.

http://forum.koohii.com/showthread.php?tid=3362&page=47

Then their reviews predictably explode and they disappear, ashamed to update everyone that they've crashed. The problem is that people that don't know any better think these guys are great/go on to fantastic success and reward that kind of behaviour.

there are of course a rare number of cases where very smart people like Mezbup actually learn this way... but even he goes on to suggest others should follow in the same way (in a thinly veiled attempt at fishing for compliments).
(link=http://forum.koohii.com/showthread.php?pid=184345#pid184345)

Moreover I fail to understand what kind of people are even capable of this study method being proposed... not Hyperborea's surge, but rather a sustained add of 35ish/day. Do these people not have jobs or school? If not then great for them, their 1% status is being affirmed...
yet if they do nothing but study japanese... what on earth are they going to talk about? This was my issue with language majors in college... if you make that language your only priority, you won't have anything interesting to say. If your only accomplishment in life is learning a language to fantastic fluency, it seems rather self-defeating, like a 30-year old college professor who specialized in teaching but has no experience from which to expound.

Hyperborea you are not the target case but the wording sounded pretty similar to some of these guys' threads, which prompted my comment. Your machinery has certainly changed by this point.
And thanks tokyostyle for doing the legwork there. It's a shame he didn't carry that experiment on further so we would have a more concrete result, but it does look like reviews level off in the 13-18x area... at least to my eyes.

Quote:the main problem is that attention and positive reinforcement goes towards these people who are basically attention whores acting like they are better than everyone else.<snip>

Is it really that hard to ignore the "egocentric" elements and take in information which be useful, from their experiences? Is being able to take the negative from the positive really that difficult? From my experience, seems that learning while living as an adult is essentially rooted in this process. Sorry, I an unable to relate to the attitude expressed in your concerns.

Quote:Moreover I fail to understand what kind of people are even capable of this study method being proposed... not Hyperborea's surge, but rather a sustained add of 35ish/day. Do these people not have jobs or school? If not then great for them, their 1% status is being affirmed...
yet if they do nothing but study japanese... <snip>

The epistemological and experiential value and worldview of others isn't something you are able to minimize under the umbrella of your own. There have been millions upon millions of people throughout existence of which entire generations have consisted of farming, hunting, gathering, etc. and their experiences of the world were limited by their technology and mobility. Yet even so, from earlier, pre-modern humanity gave birth to the myth and worldview many of today's cultures still deeply hold as part of their identity and understanding of the world. With contemporary technology a human is able to see and understand more of the world and our historical role within in, than entire civilizations combined.

Quote:If your only accomplishment in life is learning a language to fantastic fluency, it seems rather self-defeating, like a 30-year old college professor who specialized in teaching but has no experience from which to expound.

Why, I ask, would you extrapolate the opinions of others, in such a manner? It is almost offensive that not only would one devalue the existence of another due to not understanding their means in which they desire to exist, but to also assume and extrapolate an admitted lack of understanding in an absolute manner? Why?

What is stopping said individuals in this hypothetical context from engaging with their interests beyond the realm of your understanding? Couldn't an individual in your assumed understanding use the exact same reasoning to devalue your existence, as it may not fit in with their ideals and worldview?

nope, sorry. I can say beyond doubt that egoplant guy's episteme in particular is 100% worthless.
and of course I can ignore things I dont like but choose not to because as I said I think those sorts of writings have a negative effect on this forum and the study habits of new members.

episteme is a particularly unnatural word choice, by the way...unless you are talking about the writings of Michel Foucault or trying to sound academic. 'way of seeing things' or 'individual perspective' is probably more appropriate.

Hm, I suppose I'm some kind of a hare.

My native language is Russian, I know English good enough to read books or sites, to watch films and to write. Sadly my spoken English is worse due to the lack of experience.
Also a know German a bit. So I have some experience in learning languages.

I began learning Japanese in October 2012. I wanted to study it as fast as possible to be able to reed classical literature, ranobe and manga; to watch anime, to play visual novels and so on.

I work 9 hours every workday, so I don't have too much free time.
So drilling hiragana and katakana took me 3-4 weeks (as I hadn't known about Heisig).
Then I found information about Heisig's method for learning kanji and this site. So I began studying kanji.
I began adding around 50 new kanji every day.... and in the end I failed and realized I can't remember most of them.
So I left only the kanji I knew really good and began studying all the other kanji again.
I decided to learn only RtK 1 kanji and learn RtK 3 ones only after encountering them somewhere.
Around the February I had ~ 2200 kanji added on this site. The layout is the following for today:
two reviews - 5
three reviews - 38
four reviews -262
five reviews - 1085
six reviews - 930

Also somewhere in December-January I studied Tae Kim's Guide

I can spend on studying Japanese 2-4 hours on workdays and more on weekend.
So I decided I should build my vocabulary first before using native materials.

In December I started Core 2k/6k Nukemarine's Deck.
First several hundred words were rather easy, but then learning new words became more and more difficult. And since January I simultaneously began using iKnow.
At first I added somewhere 30 new words/day, but the more words I knew the easier it became to learn new ones.

So now I started all of the 6k words. In Anki mature rate is rather low (38%), but I'll have 3 week annual leave in May and hope to drastically increase the mature rate within these days.

As for now - I started to read easy news and manga in Japanese.


So to sum up: I think that "hares" without enough motivation and tenacity will fail. If hares have both motivation and tenacity then there is a possibility of success.
Though I can't call my progress in studying Japanese successful yet.

dtcamero Wrote:nope, sorry. I can say beyond doubt that egoplant guy's episteme in particular is 100% worthless.
and of course I can ignore things I dont like but choose not to because as I said I think those sorts of writings have a negative effect on this forum and the study habits of new members.

episteme is a particularly unnatural word choice, by the way...unless you are talking about the writings of Michel Foucault or trying to sound academic. 'way of seeing things' or 'individual perspective' is probably more appropriate.

Epistemology, not episteme. James Frederick Ferrier, not Plato. 'way of seeing things' or 'individual perspective' does not indicate an evaluative process which addresses how knowledge is given value and definition in respect to the overall conceptual framework of an individual and their relationship with the world.