1. How many facts (production and recognition are only 1 fact) do you have in your SRS not including RTK?
3700 as of now.
2. What sentences have you and are you putting into your SRS?
I am adding sentences from the short stories I am reading where there is an unknown word/kanji reading or sentence structure.
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 am basically only doing recognition on my decks, apart from my Heisig deck where I draw kanji from keyword.
4. Do you use any kind of special techniques when you review an item with your SRS? eg. dictation, role playing etc.
Not really.
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?
Around 15-20 each day as I am currently doing KO2001. (30 new sentences per day) When that deck has "matured" (in 2 months) I will go for more.
6. How much exposure (immersion) to Japanese do you get (or intend to get) on average each day or week? In what form?
I listen to a lot of Japanese music in my idle time. I am considering buying an iPad or a similar device so I can spend my idle time on more things. (While commuting etc)
7. Describe your level including any strengths and weaknesses.
I am at a level where I can read short stories (not intended strictly for adults) without much problem. My listening is OK as long as I know the words that are being used. Unfortunately my vocabulary is really low, and I have to say it is my weakest point.
Until a couple of weeks ago I had only been reading "learning material", but I thought I would try a couple of fairy tales (http://how-to-learn-any-language.com/for...PN=1&TPN=1) and I was pretty surprised that I could understand almost everything pretty easily as long as I had RikaiKun helping me with unknown vocab. This led me to no longer being "afraid" of jumping into native material, and I am basically learning by reading and listening to that kind of content now.
8. Are you satisfied with your progress and the techniques you are using?
I am pretty satisfied, but I know I could do a lot better if I didn't spend half my time procrastinating. I am very happy with my techniques, most of which I discovered on this site.
9. Are you satisfied with your level?
As I said above I am fairly satisfied with how far I have come but I know I could do a lot better if I were more disciplined.
10. How far do you want to go with Japanese?
I want to reach advanced fluency. As in understanding everything I hear and read, and being able to express myself to the extent where I am easily being understood by natives, on any subject.
11. How confident are you of getting there?
If I can stay this motivated I will get there in time.
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 wish I discovered Heisig from day 1. I put off kanji study for a few months when I started, just learning vocabulary "in hiragana". I would have been better off studying kanji "on the side" at that time.
13. How long have you been studying? Can you give a rough breakdown of how you spent that time? (new question)
I started in February last year, but due to illness (clinical depression which rendered me more or less paralyzed from December to the middle of April) I would say I have been actively studying for a little less than a year.
From February to May last year I did Genki I and II, then I did Heisig from May to September while going back to my learner's texts and mapping old vocabulary I knew onto their Kanji. From September till December I was basically reading sporadic learner's material on the web, picking up a lot of random kanji readings in the process.
Right now I am 30% into KO2001, and such a systematic way of learning kanji readings is really helpful, but I am also learning random readings from SRSing sentences I encounter in the stories I read. (Edit: I remember starting on KO2001 at some point last year but I gave it up for some reason. My memory is kind of foggy there.)
3700 as of now.
2. What sentences have you and are you putting into your SRS?
I am adding sentences from the short stories I am reading where there is an unknown word/kanji reading or sentence structure.
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 am basically only doing recognition on my decks, apart from my Heisig deck where I draw kanji from keyword.
4. Do you use any kind of special techniques when you review an item with your SRS? eg. dictation, role playing etc.
Not really.
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?
Around 15-20 each day as I am currently doing KO2001. (30 new sentences per day) When that deck has "matured" (in 2 months) I will go for more.
6. How much exposure (immersion) to Japanese do you get (or intend to get) on average each day or week? In what form?
I listen to a lot of Japanese music in my idle time. I am considering buying an iPad or a similar device so I can spend my idle time on more things. (While commuting etc)
7. Describe your level including any strengths and weaknesses.
I am at a level where I can read short stories (not intended strictly for adults) without much problem. My listening is OK as long as I know the words that are being used. Unfortunately my vocabulary is really low, and I have to say it is my weakest point.
Until a couple of weeks ago I had only been reading "learning material", but I thought I would try a couple of fairy tales (http://how-to-learn-any-language.com/for...PN=1&TPN=1) and I was pretty surprised that I could understand almost everything pretty easily as long as I had RikaiKun helping me with unknown vocab. This led me to no longer being "afraid" of jumping into native material, and I am basically learning by reading and listening to that kind of content now.
8. Are you satisfied with your progress and the techniques you are using?
I am pretty satisfied, but I know I could do a lot better if I didn't spend half my time procrastinating. I am very happy with my techniques, most of which I discovered on this site.
9. Are you satisfied with your level?
As I said above I am fairly satisfied with how far I have come but I know I could do a lot better if I were more disciplined.
10. How far do you want to go with Japanese?
I want to reach advanced fluency. As in understanding everything I hear and read, and being able to express myself to the extent where I am easily being understood by natives, on any subject.
11. How confident are you of getting there?
If I can stay this motivated I will get there in time.
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 wish I discovered Heisig from day 1. I put off kanji study for a few months when I started, just learning vocabulary "in hiragana". I would have been better off studying kanji "on the side" at that time.
13. How long have you been studying? Can you give a rough breakdown of how you spent that time? (new question)
I started in February last year, but due to illness (clinical depression which rendered me more or less paralyzed from December to the middle of April) I would say I have been actively studying for a little less than a year.
From February to May last year I did Genki I and II, then I did Heisig from May to September while going back to my learner's texts and mapping old vocabulary I knew onto their Kanji. From September till December I was basically reading sporadic learner's material on the web, picking up a lot of random kanji readings in the process.
Right now I am 30% into KO2001, and such a systematic way of learning kanji readings is really helpful, but I am also learning random readings from SRSing sentences I encounter in the stories I read. (Edit: I remember starting on KO2001 at some point last year but I gave it up for some reason. My memory is kind of foggy there.)
Edited: 2010-05-14, 5:03 pm

