Anyone ever tried Scriptorium after RTK? I thought about doing that after I finished RTK1, with the example sentences from the C6k. It's supposed to slow you down and make you pay attention to details. I don't plan to only do this, but I'm thinking about integrating it in my schedule.
Do you think this is effective?

the guy Wrote:In truth, copying large numbers of pages mechanically is still a better language learning exercise than many other forms of studying

While I see a point in doing production cards in core where you write the word (active behaviour), not sure I see the point in copying whole sentences (passive behaviour). Best case scenario, even if you have a memory that relies heavily on writing, copying is:
- boring for most people
- takes time you could use to do something with a higher return, for example generating sentences (exercices, lang8...), which is probably a better way to internalize the structures of a language. When you think about it copying essentially makes you better at copying. Might not be bad for your penmanship, still it seems less profitable than written production. At any rate I wouldn't do anything that involves writing if writing isn't what you envision in your future with the language.

As for shadowing, the returns are higher too: it's quick, and trains your articulatory organs in more sublte ways than copying might train your hand muscles. I've always shadowed my vocab and sentence decks, and I feel it really helped me pronounce, breathe, and perceive how the language flows overall.

Hmm. I'm living here and speak Japanese daily, so shadowing is not for me. I have more than enough chances to use the language, and I don't think of using Scriptorium to get better at Japanese. My goal is to get better at Kanji, vocab acquisition and writing in general.

It's all about "marketable skills for real life" for me at this current time.

I think the C6k is not bad, and since I may still lack a word here and there, it might be helpful, but probably not so much in "the raw SRS way", I already have my hands full with RTK on ANKI and I'd rather not have hundreds of reps of words I already know. That's why I thought about this technique.

I already write a lot every day, but in Kana, not Kanji. I write Kanji when doing my RTK deck repetitions though. What I hope to do is making the connection between the Kanji and the vocab, while getting my writing to a much better level, because, when I write, it looks ugly as hell

I wonder though if anyone here ever tried this for Japanese or another language with a foreign script. Input would be very much appreciated.

I must confess I'm a lazy guy by nature, and the thought of writing thousands of sentences in Japanese doesn't sound like massive amounts of fun ^^

Ah. I only mentionned shadowing because it is included in the full scriptorium technique (he copies while shadowing).

So you seem to have two distinctive objectives, it should be more efficient to tackle them separetedly:
- when you say "making the connection between the Kanji and the vocab", I'm guessing you mean kana/sound) > kanji, but how is your reading (ie kanji > kana/sound)? I'm asking because in either case you should focus on your kanji knowledge, that means finishing RTK first. Now keep in mind that while RTK is more suited to absolute beginners, people who already know Japanese are known to have issues with English keywords. That's why some go straight to vocab, but there's also the middle ground of doing RTK with Japanese keywords using wrightak's deck:
http://forum.koohii.com/showthread.php?tid=7278

Once your kanji knowledge is assured, doing production card with core, writing the word (kana/sound > kanji) seems the best way to make that connection. There's also close-delete but I'm not very knowledgeable about those.

- the other objective is to better your kanji writing (penmanship). And for this, you will have to write kanji (so kanji knowledge is again a prerequisite). So there's only production and copy here I'm afraid. If you copy, rather than copy core sentences, you might pick up your favorite book, magazine, manga... If you do written production, why not start a diary? Maybe copying at first would be better since you want a lot of kanji. Anyway, it's something you should practice daily, though you already write a lot, starting calligraphy could be a way to break your routine.

Thanks. Yes, I need to develop a strategy for the problem. My listening and speaking are as good as they can get for now and will improve with more vocab.

Maybe writing only the words is indeed enough. I thought of the sentences, because they contain other words, too. No idea what C6K is about to drop on me, but I could probably ignore stuff like あちら、いつも、いずれも - but if the sentence would be 彼女がいつも文句ばっかりだ, I'd have at least 4 Kanji to practice. Well, that was my thought on Scriptorium.

I have no problem at all understanding the sentences when I hear them, and they all got audio. However, if there was no sound, I'd probably get what they are about, since I can identify the grammar via the Kana and know the rough meaning of the Kanji (via Heisig), and some I can read normally. I know some Kanji I didn't learn via Heisig yet (still around 800 to go), and some I can guess. Also, from what I saw when I did a quick check, all the sentences seem to be rather easy, grammar-wise.

I think I can read through a manga, given time, but without Furigana, it would take some time. I'd say I can read maybe 500 Kanji and write all I learned from Heisig - but I could not write one single sentence that made sense and use the Kanji properly yet. I'm still in the "ahh, so that's あつまる! ahh, so they use 'skilled' for たち! hey, i could write 物質 now if i wanted!" and so on phase And many of the Heisig Kanji just go in without causing an "echo" yet. I hope to get then when I read stuff with Hiragana. They have quite a lot of books for 小中 at the local library here.

I wrote a diary when I was learning to write the Kana. Probably hard to believe, but I learned to write them only when I came here and was content with being able to read them until that time The problem is, I'm not a very creative guy and my life isn't filled with cool events every day. And my diary would most probably still consist of the odd Kanji in a sea of Kana.

This is actually interesting - so much to do to gain literacy in reading and writing! That's why I asked here. I think there are people here who were in this situation in the past.