1. How many facts (production and recognition are only 1 fact) do you have in your SRS not including RTK?

About 1800 seen facts.

2. What sentences have you and are you putting into your SRS?

TaeKim, Japanese Sentence Patterns for Effective Communication (both of those about 1,000 sentences), and now KO2001.

3. Do you do production (audio/hiragana to kanji) and/or recognition (kanji to reaning) or something else? Is there an order (eg production and then recognition)?

Recognition only at the moment.

4. Do you use any kind of special techniques when you review an item with your SRS? eg. dictation, role playing etc.

I try to link word new vocabulary words to places I know when I'm in the mood.

5. How many cards on average do you add to your deck per day? If life is getting in the way of this, once things settle down how many do you intend to add per day?

Anki stats for my current deck says I've added 16 cards per day on average over the past 3.8 months.

6. How much exposure (immersion) to Japanese do get (or intend to get) on average each day or week? In what form?

Average around 6-8hrs of listening during the week. I wear headphones all day while at work. I'm mainly looping my Shadowing CD at the moment.

7. Describe your level including any strengths and weaknesses.

I'm honestly not sure where I stand at the moment. I feel like I'm beyond the beginner stage in just about every area but still not good enough to really have anything to show for it. I read somewhere that this stage is called the "void". I'm past the beginner stage where every day I feel like I'm learning something ground breaking, but still not good enough to really understand anything in it's entirety.

8. Are you satisfied with your progress and the techniques you are using?

Yes. I mean I always want more but when I honestly stop and think for a second it is pretty amazing how far I've come in such a short period of time.

9. Are you satisfied with your level?

No.

10. How far do you want to go with Japanese?

I don't have any end goals when it comes to learning. One can always improve.

11. How confident are you of getting there?

I'm confident I can always keep improving.


12. From when you started RTK, aside from your process evolving bit by bit, are there any major things you would do differently again if you could?

I wouldn't have stopped reviewing RTK1 3 months after completing it. I feel like a freaking idiot now.

Posting so I can come back in 6 months and see how much I've learned :-)

1. How many facts (production and recognition are only 1 fact) do you have in your SRS not including RTK?

Not including the 2042 RtK1 Kanji in my deck I have:

300 Tae Kim Grammar cards (halfway through Essentials)
500 KO2001 sentences

Total: 800 sentences

2. What sentences have you and are you putting into your SRS?
Working through KO2001 book 1 and Tae Kim. Will move on to mining native media after finishing these.

I have a month holiday, so I predict I will have finished all of KO2001 and all of Tae Kim sometime in the next month and a half and move on to native stuff. I may decide to just do KO2001 book 1 and just finish to the end of Tae Kim Essentials though. We'll see

3. Do you do production (audio/hiragana to kanji) and/or recognition (kanji to reaning) or something else? Is there an order (eg production and then recognition)?

Recognition only; I'm too busy preparing for Uni exams to fit in any production at the moment.

4. Do you use any kind of special techniques when you review an item with your SRS? eg. dictation, role playing etc.

I shadow all my KO2001 sentences (I bought the new audio-book version). I think its really helpful for my pronunciation.

5. How many cards on average do you add to your deck per day? If life is getting in the way of this, once things settle down how many do you intend to add per day?

I try to add 10 kanji from KO2001 per day (so ~30 sentences).

6. How much exposure (immersion) to Japanese do get (or intend to get) on average each day or week? In what form?

Japanese TV plays in the background constantly throughout the day so:
9am-8pm=11 hours passive immersion while I study for exams
8-9pm=1 hour actively watching a Jdrama or anime (pokemon atm! )
10:00-10:30= Half hour reading Japanese Harry Potter along with the Japanese audiobook.

So around 12 and a half hours exposure per day, every day. I'm quite happy with that. I don't have anything playing while I sleep though.

7. Describe your level including any strengths and weaknesses.

Absolute beginner. I've been at this 2.3 months now (according to Anki). 1 month of that was RtK1. The other month has been half-intensity due to being in the leadup to exams, lots of assignments etc. So I really suck at the moment. My vocabulary is around ~500 words encountered in RtK plus a few I may have picked up from my immersion and Uni course.


8. Are you satisfied with your progress and the techniques you are using?
I'm satisfied with my techniques, and with my coming holiday I'll be able to get everything in order and get my teeth into mining some native stuff. So yes, I'm satisfied with my progress but I've still got a long way to go.


9. Are you satisfied with your level?

No, never.


10. How far do you want to go with Japanese?

As far as the rest of my life will take me.


11. How confident are you of getting there?

Absolutely confident.

12. From when you started RTK, aside from your process evolving bit by bit, are there any major things you would do differently again if you could?

If I started again I would have done 100 kanji/day for RtK the entire way through. I wasted 2 weeks bumbling away at 10-20/day. Not that there's anything wrong with this pace- I just wish I had known from the beginning that I had the ability to do it so much faster. Other than that I'm still too new to the whole process to have any other regrets.

1. How many facts (production and recognition are only 1 fact) do you have in your SRS not including RTK?
My sentence deck has 3872 facts.

2. What sentences have you and are you putting into your SRS?
At first I took sentences from everywhere. Lately 98% of my sentences are from books and manga.

3. Do you do production (audio/hiragana to kanji) and/or recognition (kanji to reaning) or something else? Is there an order (eg production and then recognition)?
I do recognition for all my cards, and production for some. No order.

4. Do you use any kind of special techniques when you review an item with your SRS? eg. dictation, role playing etc.
For recognition cards I sometimes just say the sentence out loud. For production I write the most "important" words down (the ones I'm likely to forget). But I have many card formats, including dictation, shadowing, image recognition, etc.

5. How many cards on average do you add to your deck per day? Or if life is getting in the way of this, once things settle down how many do you intend to add per day?
Anki says I'm adding 7.4 a day, but I don't do it every day. I'm fine with the way I'm doing it, and I don't plan on increasing the rate any time soon.

6. How much exposure (immersion) to Japanese do you get (or intend to get) on average each day or week? In what form?
Counting only waking time (I can't listen to stuff during my sleep) I'd say I do an average of 2-3 hours of active exposure (listening/reading/watching) and another 3-4 hours of passive exposure (stuff in the background). This is something that I hope to improve (study is getting in my way)

7. Describe your level including any strengths and weaknesses.
I'm at a level where everything is fun and happy. I wish I had enough money to fully support my desire for media... but my speaking ability is still very weak. Gotta do a lot more output *wink*.

8. Are you satisfied with your progress and the techniques you are using?
I am very satisfied with my progress. The techniques have worked well so far but I'm always looking for ways to experiment and improve them.

9. Are you satisfied with your level?
I'd say that yes, I'm happy about my level but I won't be satisfied until [see next point]

10. How far do you want to go with Japanese?
I want to speak and write in a way that makes natives think I was raised in Japan, and understand everything 100%

11. How confident are you of getting there?
I's only a matter of time (it might be long but I don't mind)

12. From when you started RTK, aside from your process evolving bit by bit, are there any major things you would do again differently if you could?
I would go through RTK much much faster, without ever pausing and without worrying too much about my retention rate. The rest is fine.

mentat_kgs Wrote:> but now I'm at 30% of my second one (十二国記), after 1 week.

I was thinking of buying that. How good is it?

1. How many facts (production and recognition are only 1 fact) do you have in your SRS not including RTK?

1306 (and double that if you count production and recognition cards seperately).

2. What sentences have you and are you putting into your SRS?

Right now I'm picking up any leftover JLPT3 vocab words and am slowly starting to make my way through Kanzen Master 2Kyuu.

3. Do you do production (audio/hiragana to kanji) and/or recognition (kanji to reaning) or something else? Is there an order (eg production and then recognition)?

I create new cards for both production and recognition, going kanji - kana for each.

4. Do you use any kind of special techniques when you review an item with your SRS? eg. dictation, role playing etc.

Nope.

5. How many cards on average do you add to your deck per day? If life is getting in the way of this, once things settle down how many do you intend to add per day?

This can change drastically; I always try to add at least one and don't usually go beyond 50. As a very rough average though, I would say between 20 and 30 new cards per day.

6. How much exposure (immersion) to Japanese do get (or intend to get) on average each day or week? In what form?

I listen to several Yomiuru Podcasts whilst doing my SRS reviews (which take up a painful amount of time at the moment) and try to watch some of a Japanese TV Drama each day. I struggle with this because I'm a musician and spend a lot of time listening to music and find it hard to balance the two.

7. Describe your level including any strengths and weaknesses.

I'm pretty bad. I could pass JLPT3 with flying colours but am still many miles away from JLPT2. My listening comprehension is dreadful but I'm not so bad at reading; provided I know readings/compounds, obviously!

8. Are you satisfied with your progress and the techniques you are using?

The method I'm using is working, albeit slowly. I find I have a hard time memorising words unless I have several similar cards added to the SRS containing it. For example, I would usually take two sentences featuring the vocab word I'm learning (see below) and create both production - recognition cards. It's a slow process, but it is successfull.

その会議室は現在使用中です。
機械は多量の電気を使用する。

9. Are you satisfied with your level?

No.

10. How far do you want to go with Japanese?

I'd like to be fluent enough to hold meaningful conversation with natives and to work as a translator if I wished.

11. How confident are you of getting there?

I try not to think about the end result or I may get disheartened about how far I still have yet to go, so I just take it one day at a time.

Wow! So cool to read these! Super Heavy weights, Middleweights, Junior welters and featherweights like myself and Harhol ([kana]おめでとう[/kana] Harhol by the way!) all throwin' down!

Mentat_kgs added "How long have you been studying?"---I'm just curious if anyone would be willing to share this too, as it adds some nice perspective to the list.

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Thermal wrote (sorry quote code not working)
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TaylorSan,

"I'm still not entirely clear what makes for production vs. recognition. If you read it (recognition) and know it's meaning, you still are producing it too (by remembering the pronunciation)." ( from original TaylorSan post)

Sorry, I made a typo in the question, now fixed. It should be kanji to reading. It is implied that if you forget the meaning for production to recognition you fail the card.

Yes, it is not a perfect description. The idea is of the 2 ways you can do a card, which involves the most production. Producing the kanji from the hiragana/audio involves aruguably more production than going from kanji to reading.
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Yeah thanks for clarifying. I got the basic premise of it, but I guess I sometimes half wondered how people get such massive #'s of cards added in a day. I could see how I could maybe do it if I didn't have to produce the pronunciation of the words, and just understood the meaning of the sentence. I personally have to pound a word in over and over to be able to remember how to say it, and often make up a mnemonic, but get the meaning MUCH quicker. So in light of this I wondered about "recognition only" (stupid thought-I know).

In regards to this, I am curious about how people do so damn many! I have added as many as 20 KO (smart.fm version) sentences in one day. Most had 2+ new words, so say 45 facts. The results of that was I felt like I was overloaded and it got confusing to try and produce the pronunciations. The meanings were easy, as the kanji are so distinct, but the sounds can be tricky, with the some what smallish syllabary. I hammered it out just fine, but it seemed less efficient then if I had done smaller batches (and it hurt my brain).

I'm not obsessed with comparing myself with others, we all learn at a different speed. I know I'm not the sharpest knife in the drawer, but I don't think I'm slow either (haha, maybe my ego's fooling me on this one, ego's are good at that!). But it makes me wonder, am I doing something wrong, and what can I do to improve it/make it faster? I also wonder about an exponential learning curve, and how that plays in (ie Javik7 adding 100+/day....[kana]すごい[/kana]!). I really think that over time getting the pronunciation element to stick gets easier. I am already experiencing this....some of those first Pimsleur words took a TON of hammering(wata....watash...wa....what?....oh watashiWA ....ok. Wata...wata...what?....haha like another lifetime ago!), but the avg new word now seems to stick much quicker (but still needs a lot of hammering). If anyone can offer insight about this, and how their SRS fact volume/capacities improved over time, I would be very grateful.

I want to steadily be increasing my per day adds over time, but only when it feels efficient (quality over quantity). It's also why I'm shifting to a more context relevant deck. I think with this, and a better study ethic in general, I can quickly be adding more than 10/day.

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rich_f wrote
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Also, it's a lot easier to go monolingual than people think-- just stop looking at the English translations. Boom! There ya go. Monolingual.
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I have never put an English translation sentence in my deck. But I do cut and paste the J-E def (which fairly soon after, I don't even look at). And when I "recognize" the meaning of the card, I just try to think about the meaning of the words/sentence as a whole (though my mind probably is using some English). I try to feel the meaning and not translate it or analyze the grammar, as best I can (yet one more reason I'm leaning toward context mined stuff).

But getting my def. J-J......another thread [kana]ね[/kana], but I think for my Newbie ass it could be more of a brain hemorrhage than help.

1. How many facts (production and recognition are only 1 fact) do you have in your SRS not including RTK?

3855 facts, about 10 or so are names of people on television I forgot all the time which got really annoying (e.g. Akashiya Sanma).

2. What sentences have you and are you putting into your SRS?

When something interesting shows up in a book, on the news, in a movie, game, song etc. I add it.

3. Do you do production (audio/hiragana to kanji) and/or recognition (kanji to reaning) or something else? Is there an order (eg production and then recognition)?

98% Recognition only. I do not like production cards personally

4. Do you use any kind of special techniques when you review an item with your SRS? eg. dictation, role playing etc.

No

5. How many cards on average do you add to your deck per day? Or if life is getting in the way of this, once things settle down how many do you intend to add per day?

Anything from 5 to 40. Usually 15-20

6. How much exposure (immersion) to Japanese do get (or intend to get) on average each day or week? In what form?

I read a Japanese book on the train (gah, 1Q84 is sold out everywhere), listen to Japanese music most of the time (whoever recommended Soul Scream on this forum, thanks!), watch lots of movies and sometimes I read Mangas.
Oh, also class.

7. Describe your level including any strengths and weaknesses.

My weakness is that I do not understand much, if I do not concentrate, although I do when listening to German or English. It kind of gets better with reading, but when it comes to listening, I need to concentrate. With Manga, novels, movies and TV I understand about 90% if it's intersting enough to pay attention to. But then again, I did not try to watch Primer or similar movies in Japanese yet and I horribly failed the last time I tried to enjoy a Natsume Souseki novel.
Oh, another weakness.. I have a really hard time to understand Japanese song lyrics without looking them up. Same with English.

8. Are you satisfied with your progress and the techniques you are using?

Yes, compared to what I've learned in 8 months of using a SRS those 2 years of learning Japanese in university are a joke.

9. Are you satisfied with your level?

No, and I probably never will be.

10. How far do you want to go with Japanese?

I would like to have a better reading competency than the average Japanese person.

11. How confident are you of getting there?

It is all just a matter of time, so pretty confident.

12. From when you started RTK, aside from your process evolving bit by bit, are there any major things you would do again differently if you could?

Start RTK 3 earlier. The Joyo list turned out to be garbage.

This won't look embarrassing at all...

1. How many facts (production and recognition are only 1 fact) do you have in your SRS not including RTK?

180 total, Tae Kim Basic sentences. I have been trying to wait until I finish a sentence in iKnow before adding it, I am at 56% through Step 1 with none completed.

2. What sentences have you and are you putting into your SRS?

Going to put in Tae Kim examples for each grammar point. As of right now I'm planning to add iKnow sentences that I like, also considering taking some sentences from KO since they have audio now.

3. Do you do production (audio/hiragana to kanji) and/or recognition (kanji to reaning) or something else? Is there an order (eg production and then recognition)?

Recognition only for now.

4. Do you use any kind of special techniques when you review an item with your SRS? eg. dictation, role playing etc.

Shadow every sentence a couple times.

5. How many cards on average do you add to your deck per day? If life is getting in the way of this, once things settle down how many do you intend to add per day?

0 this week, after KO comes in the mail that should go up, also considering using subs2srs to get some sentences. Life is eternally getting in the way, but my hope is to get a good 30/day avg.

6. How much exposure (immersion) to Japanese do get (or intend to get) on average each day or week? In what form?

I try to listen to Japanese music whenever possible in the car and at work. In the evenings I watch a couple episodes of Pokemon. I wish I could fall asleep while listening to audio, but it just doesn't seem to work for me.

7. Describe your level including any strengths and weaknesses.

Beginner, I've taken two classes at college and tried to use Rosetta Stone and Pimsluer but they didn't work well. I would consider serious starting of Japanese study as this April. I feel a lot better about my approach this time, but I really wish I could find any Japanese material I could really understand sentences from. I seem to have a real problem understanding the grammar in most everything I find.

8. Are you satisfied with your progress and the techniques you are using?

So far I like the techniques I'm using, but I wish I had a good way to be able to understand the gist of sentences without a full comprehension of grammar. Progress I'll have more comment on in a few more months, but for now I am happy with my progress in kanji recognition.

9. Are you satisfied with your level?

No

10. How far do you want to go with Japanese?

I want to be able to read anything Japanese, and have native level fluency. I would like my vocabulary and known kanji to exceed that of an average Japanese person.

11. How confident are you of getting there?

Very confident, I am just unsure how long it will take.

12. From when you started RTK, aside from your process evolving bit by bit, are there any major things you would do differently again if you could?

I wouldn't take a trip to Italy 4 days after finishing 100/day. Other than that I am happy with the sentences I stole from other users on this site and edited to suit me better. I found that sentences don't have to be that good to remember them. I remember some kanji well because the story is so bad it sticks out in my head.

I edited my reply to discuss how long I've been stumbling along.

Also, there are more than just 2 ways to look at cards. There's also cloze deletion, or "fill in the blank" if you want to call it a more simple term. Anki now supports it, too. It's pretty handy for forcing you to remember which particle to use, or which form of a verb to use, or that sort of thing. Anything you want to fill in a blank with, really.

Actually, it's not too hard to learn how to read a J->J definition. You just have to learn the J dictionary-speak. Once you learn that, then the definitions get easier to read. You'll still need to look up some extra words, but that's the point of it. You get bonus vocab. (Of course, I don't bother with all of this... but this is what people keep telling me... I have a J->J dictionary, though, and it's not that bad. Start with words you know already.)

Thanks rich_f.....I never thought to look up words I already know. That's an excellent idea. I'll learn the dictionary-speak and then perhaps use a hybrid J-J, J-E approach to start.

Khatzumoto pimped this dictionary by Benesse, and I have a copy as well. I give it a thumbs up, too.:
チャレンジ小学国語辞典第四版
ISBN-13: 978-4828804774
This is the new edition. I have the older edition. It's a grade school dictionary, J->J. A good place to start, runs about 2200 yen. I love mine. Very handy. Benesse makes good stuff, generally.

AmberUK Wrote:Hiya

I have read quite a bit on the AJATT web site (though to be honest I find/found it hard work).

I have tried moving across to sentences but it just didn't work. I would spend ages looking them up and to find sentences that you only don't know 1 point is hard. Most I found I didn't know some grammar AND some words. So i ended looking up on that etc etc. Though that was last year before I started on casual which might change things now.

I couldn't work out how to drop the English.

I am just trying atm to sort out the Heisig problem. Maybe the movie method will help. The problem is it seems fine in the shorter term - upto a month or so, plus while the SRS keeps them grouped enough that you know they all contain a certain primitive.

Is the problem really my SRS enough to have to redo all that work AND sort out the other problems I have????

It is hard work. But not compared to the traditional way. Compared to normal classes at your average university, AJATT is tons of effect for practically no effort.

i + 1 is a guideline. I have tons of sentences in Anki where there are 3 unknown words. It's more or less irrelevant, as long as you know what the sentence as a whole means and what each word brings to the sentence. If you're at such a level where almost NO sentence makes sense to you, buy a good simple textbook such as Genki or Minna no nihongo. It might not be the cool stuff you want, but at least it will be simple, natural and useful.

Dropping the English isn't work. It's just a choice. Either you use a translation or an english dictionary such as edict, or you don't. It's up to you. If you can do it, it's good, but it's not a must if you prefer using English. It's all about learning as many words as possible as fast as possible. Using J-J gives you a better understanding, but J-E might be faster.

You don't have to redo anything. What you've done, you've done. That doesn't mean you have to keep doing everything the same way. Try new ideas, see where it leads you. You have all the time in the world, if Heisig isn't working, give the movie method a month and see what happens. If it isn't working either, try kanji chain. You aren't wasting your time since the kanji you learn while doing the movie method will still be there if you move over to kanji chain. Just keep going. If you're bored, try something new. The vital point is to keep going, not to do anything the "right" way.

I guess I might ask here, as its related to where I'm at in my Japanese. Anyway:

I've started reading/mining the Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya because I wanted some more interesting and natural native input rather than just KO2001.

Even after looking up new words (which is almost all of them ) I still don't really know what the sentence means. So what I've been doing is adding an example sentence (with that word) from the dictionary that I do understand. After that I move on to the next sentence and repeat.

I'm kind of looking for input from someone further along than me. Is this an okay way to be doing things? Are there better ways I could be tackling the transition to native material? Do you try and understand the whole sentence before moving on? Any tips for making the process more efficient etc? I know a few of you jumped straight from RtK to native stuff, so any advice that your experience has provided would be very welcome :-)

You want to try and find stuff that is reletively easy. Are you reading the manga or the light novel?

It sounds like it is too hard for you OR you are trying to get too much understanding from it. Generally this is the criteria for choosing what to use in order of importance.

1. Can you enjoy it?
2. Can you follow the story without too much effort, like having to use your dictionary a lot?
3. Are there i + 1 sentences that you can understand?

Note that number 1 is the most important. You don't need to look up every word. This will kill any fun as most of what you do will be looking up words. Focus on having fun first even if part of this fun is learning. I tend to only look up a word when it appears for the second time. I also have some material that I will never look up words I don't know and some that I always will.

I think manga is a good starting point as you have pictures so you don't need to understand much of the Japanese to follow and enjoy the story. Perhaps something aimed at kids would be better for you I don't know. I can't make recommendations since I did all of KO and then moved on to adult stuff. I do love ２０世紀少年 - 20th centuary boys, but might be a little hard.

You can find (illegal) sites that have untranslated Japanese manga. You could go through them to try and find something that is suitable.

Personally I would focus on anime, drama and movies. Capture the audio and put it into your SRS. It's great because the actor's voice and the emotion in it strongly takes you back to the context it was said in. It is also easy to follow with the video.

You don't want to just add any random word you don't understand. Your general goal is to learn the words in order of how common they are, so if a word you don't know often comes up, then grab the sentence and put it in your SRS. Or maybe its a word you want to use. Pick out diamonds out of the garbage and otherwise generally just have fun. You don't need to understand or add everything now.

One last thing, I wouldn't add example sentences from your dictionary. The great thing IMO in getting setences from native material is that they have a context and each time your review it you feel this and the link between the context and the sentence and its words and grammar gets stronger. Example sentences from dictionaries don't have this, so it kind of defeats the purpose.

Thanks for the advice! The problem is for most things I am interested in, finding an i+1 sentence is relatively hard. Whereas using a dictionary I can usually always find an i+1 sentence for a particular word that I want to know. If I use a dictionary then I'll learn words faster, and be better able to understand the natural stuff I'm reading. On the other hand, the native sentences I have mined are much more interesting and easier to remember.

I started Haruhi (the light novel btw) for a few reasons:
1) I'm interested in it.
2) I wanted to try out mining something where I looked up everything I wasn't familiar with. I know it will be much harder, but I wanted to see what sort of benefit would come with this different method.

Btw, this is what I'm reading right now/how I'm mining.

Read Real Japanese Short Stories- this is just right about my level so far, which is good. Lots of things are i+1.

Death Note Manga- I enjoy reading this, and get the gist of whats happening because of the pictures (plus I've watched the anime about 10 times. I'm not kidding.). Quite a few things are i+1, but many are not.

Full Metal Alchemist Manga- This one is harder for me, because I haven't watched the anime as much and am not so familiar with the story.

Harry Potter (in Japanese)- I'm reading this without mining it, and really enjoying it. I don't need to look things up at all, because I'm already so familiar with the story. But almost nothing here is i+1. Even though I understand whats happening, the sentences as individual units are too complex for me.

With Haruhi in the mix my reading material nicely ranges from 'just my level' [reading real japanese] to 'difficult' [Haruhi].

Awesome, I think you have some great materials and you are clearly enjoying it. I think it is great you have different approaches for the different stuff you are going through. Variety is great for language learning.

I personally find novels really hard, since they have so many descriptive words that don't come up very often in other Japanese. I have been enjoying 海辺のカフカ a lot though.

thermal Wrote:I think it is great you have different approaches for the different stuff you are going through. Variety is great for language learning.

Yeah sorry I should have mentioned at the start that Haruhi was just a part of the approach I was taking.

Its *way* more difficult than manga, that's for sure! But I'll keep at it, because I think its important to have at least one thing that is constantly stretching your abilities.

I think you should just try your methods. If they're too boring you'll eventually simplify them until you reach the right balance. That's what happened to me, anyway.
The only important thing is that you don't give up. How you do it is not so important and you'll sort it out eventually.

On a side note, the first sentences of that novel were painful for me too. I'd say don't worry too much about understanding perfectly every sentence, unless you sense that it's fundamental to the story.

1. How many facts (production and recognition are only 1 fact) do you have in your SRS not including RTK?
I have about 2000 sentences from enjoyable sources.

2. What sentences have you and are you putting into your SRS?
Whatever sounds good/cool/funny from my favorite drama/anime/movies.

3. Do you do production (audio/hiragana to kanji) and/or recognition (kanji to reaning) or something else? Is there an order (eg production and then recognition)?
I do recognition. When a recognition cards "First Reviewed" stat gets over 6 months ago, I generate a production card for it.
Recognition: Kanji + Image --> Audio + Reading + J-J Definition
Production: Image + Audio + (Reading) --> Kanji + J-J Definition

4. Do you use any kind of special techniques when you review an item with your SRS? eg. dictation, role playing etc.
I read aloud, trying to sound just like the actor. Shadowing I guess.

5. How many cards on average do you add to your deck per day? If life is getting in the way of this, once things settle down how many do you intend to add per day?
18,4/day,since deck creation according to anki. I want to do 40 per day(I'm at this pace right now).

6. How much exposure (immersion) to Japanese do you get (or intend to get) on average each day or week? In what form?
(Waking hours) minus (about 2 hours) = (my exposure per day in hours)

7. Describe your level including any strengths and weaknesses.
Weakness: Can't read well, more good recognition cards will fix this.
Weakness: Not big enough vocabulary, more fun sentences will fix this.
I can read the GTO manga with about 3-4 unknown words per page.


8. Are you satisfied with your progress and the techniques you are using?
I am. I'm using my own super special techniques.

9. Are you satisfied with your level?
Sure, I started 7 months ago. The way I've set things up I'm probably fluent in less than 9 months.

10. How far do you want to go with Japanese?
Dunno.

11. How confident are you of getting there?
The way I've set things up I'm probably fluent in less than 9 months.

12. From when you started RTK, aside from your process evolving bit by bit, are there any major things you would do differently again if you could?
Starting RTK and sentence-picking native material sooner. Really, doing ANYTHING is better than doing nothing.

13. How long have you been studying?
SRSing for 7 months now, this is what I call my "serious japanese study period". Before that I was watching drama and stuff, but my study materials were boring textbook pdfs (I doubt I retained anything I read in those things, I get bored easily)

nonpoint Wrote:Does trying to understand the whole sentence and its context count as a technique? I know most people here don't care about context. I do.

Since when?! I thought people here were crazy about only learning stuff in context, hence the popularity of the sentence method(and how everyone avoids RTK2 like the plague). Although I do wonder why some people are so obsessed with generating frequency lists and what they plan to do with them.

edit: typo

nonpoint Wrote:

yukamina Wrote:

nonpoint Wrote:Does trying to understand the whole sentence and its context count as a technique? I know most people here don't care about context. I do.

Since when?! I thought people here were crazy about only learning stuff in context, hence the popularity of the sentence method(and how everyone avoids RTK2 like the plague). Although I do wonder why some people are so obsessed with generating frequency lists and why they plan to do with them.

There is no context with KO2001, SmartFM nor using jisho/alc to find sentences that contain something you want to learn.

I think the general opinion is that a sentence has a little more context than just a word, but I agree, nothing quite replaces the context that you get when you actually see the word used out in the wild, like for example when you are text-chatting with someone in Japanese.

nonpoint Wrote:(Waking hours) minus (about 2 hours) = (my exposure per day in hours) [...]
I started 6 months ago. The way I've set things up I'm probably fluent in less than 9 months.[...]
I'd like to see more people answering these questions, that way I will know who to ignore.

Indeed. ;-)

[corrected quote: added "(Waking hours) minus "]

nonpoint Wrote:

Thora Wrote:

nonpoint Wrote:(about 2 hours) = (my exposure per day in hours) [...]
I started 6 months ago. The way I've set things up I'm probably fluent in less than 9 months.[...]
I'd like to see more people answering these questions, that way I will know who to ignore.

Indeed. ;-)

Its: (Waking hours) minus (about 2 hours) = (my exposure per day in hours)
Misquote...

Thora, you should answer the questions in this thread so I know if I should ignore you. Also, I would like further posts to ONLY be ones that answer the survey. If you want to me more Thora you can use the email button, I'd be delighted to hear from you.

You probably should be grateful this typing error was pointed out. Otherwise, everyone reading this thread would have viewed you as another poster making ridiculous claims. She has an email button you might want to use to thank her

My misunderstanding, apologies. But even substituting "24/7" wouldn't change anything...

nonpoint Wrote:Thora, you should answer the questions in this thread so I know if I should ignore you.

You should definitely ignore me. (You might also consider having a bit of a sense of humour about yourself.) ;-)

nonpoint Wrote:Also, I would like further posts to ONLY be ones that answer the survey.

I believe Yukamina and Danieldesu were responding directly to your questions.

For the past few months I have been building vocabulary with Smart.fm and listening to Japanese news online. I am not using a self-created SRS like Anki so most of the questions I would have no answer for. I am fluent when it comes to Instant Messaging in Japanese because the conversations always follow the same script and I have all the automatic responses memorized. Other than that, my Japanese is fairly mediocre. I already have myself on the ignore add-on for Firefox as I pretty strongly disagree with most of what I ramble on about here.