I want to be able to read. Not just text books, or children's book. Novels, magazines, advertisements, menus, etc. Without using a dictionary. Without using rikaichan. Without squinting at blasted furigana. And I'm tired of not being able to. Sure, I'm much closer now than ever before, but it's still a long haul. I've had all I can stand, and I can't stand no more.

Jan 10 is my 2 year anniversary of studying Japanese, so this is my New Year's resolution. I hereby refuse to waste any more time trying to read until I have all the skills. Sure, I'll still read my text and do my flashcards, but no more attempts at books and newspapers 'till I'm ready.

In order to be able to read the way I want to, I think this is what one needs (not necessarily in this order):
1.kana (fluent)
2.kanji (3000 characters)
3.grammar (master all the basics)
4.vocabulary (10,000 words)
And a whole lot of practice after these skills are obtained. Sure, there will still be some stuff that I won't know, but I think this is enough to figure everything else out by context.

So, assuming there are others with the same goal, where are you at, and how do you plan to reach your goal?

Here's where I stand:
1.kana (fluent)
2.kanji (2200 characters) I'll continue to add characters as I learn new vocabulary. Every time I get 100 new characters, I'll learn them using Heisig's method. It's easy now since I know most of the primitives, and I'll have a sample word.
3.grammar (20/27 of the way finished) I'm using Japanese for Everyone. The book covers all the basic grammar in a "no-holds-barred" way that's tough, but prepares one well for the real world. I just finished Chapter 20 of 27. I study JFE in three stages. First I go through the chapter in a normal manner, learning all the grammar points and vocabulary. Then I type up and drill the material for several days, and dump it into Supermemo. Finally I make audio cd's and play them during my daily commute. Possibly because I'm a self-studier not in Japan, this is the only way I can get the grammar to really stick.
4.vocabulary (4,000 words) When I finish my grammar, I'm going to do something I've said I'd never do. I'm going to learn vocabulary from a list. I'll systematically go through the JLPT lists. I figured out a way to learn vocabulary at a high speed (for me). 10 new words in the morning, and 10 new words in the evening. With the proper review cycle, and supermemo, of course. I tried this recently, and was overjoyed that it works; the most I was able to maintain before was 10 words per day.

I spent about 4 hrs per day last year. By the time I finish my grammar, around April, I'll be on vocabulary only, and probably down to 2 hrs per day. I've decided to spread it out like that, because meanwhile I'm learning Mandarin. One of my best friends is getting married in China in August, so I need to have a certain level of comfort in the spoken language by then. So my dream of learning Japanese really fast is over; now my dream is to learn it really well.

Literacy is my goal as well. My vocab is okay. At least I think so. I have Sanseido's Daily Concise Japanese English dictionary. It's small enough to fit in my pocket. I open it to random pages and read the two facing pages, whenever I have a chance. I mark with a colored pencil the words that I already know. There's hardly any pages without several words marked, and when I get to some blank pages, without fail, I'll be able to find some. I visit "kanji-a-day.com", just looking for vocab mostly. I do LOOK at the on- and kun-yomi for the day's kanji, but I don't TRY to remember them. I visit http://www.thejapanesepage.com/howtowow/index.php for entertaining words or phrases. I'm not TRYING to learn them, just savoring them. I visit http://japanese.about.com/blpod_jan.htm and review about 7 days worth of phrases. They have the phrase written by hand too, so I look at that. Then there's here for the real work of reviewing the kanji, so I'll remember the writing. I read some scriptures in Japanese (totally dependent on the furigana---frustrating). I've got a couple of other books in both Japanese and English and read them both (as best I can) in parallel.

I've gotten over the frustrating snails pace of learning to read. It's just going to take as long as it takes, but I sure feel the frustration and all about being a baby at this stuff.

Hello,
From a totally different perspective of a brand new learner and to recognise your efforts so far here is where I stand:
Started learning Japanese this week!
1. Kana - going through the Heisig book, hope to finish by Sunday
2. Plan to learn kanji using the Heisig method and start this Sunday, hope to finish vol 1 by the end of April
3.Grammar
4.Vocabulary about 60.

My main goal is to finish the main book I am using now; An Introduction to Modern Japanese by the end of the year.
I use lots of audio especially Plimseur, have a language exchange partner locally, arranged to speak to a few Japanese people over Skype.
I am very keen on using the stuff you guys are talking about for revision.
Coming back to learning a new language after a long break, I am quite impressed by the tools avaialble now and how most of you are serious in your approach.
In any case it would be fun to see for myself how I'm progressing, so I can give you an update at some point.
Regards,
Derek

Hey Derek,

I see you use Plimseur.... I was considering trying it because my speaking ability is terrible. I want something that lets me practice saying until it just spews out of my mouth without pondering the grammar first. What do you think about it so far? Is it worth the price?

Bec

Hello Bec,
Good question.
I think the answer depends very much on how advanced you are in your studies and comfortable with the way you speak generally.
As you know I am brand new to Japanese and as such have to concentrate quite a bit on the content (structure) as well as the form itself.
For my level I find the recordings to be of very high quality and the drills incorporated into the lessons help me to get the hang of the pronunciation.
That said, I have not done a lot of practice as yet and you have to keep in mind, that the average lesson is about 25 minutes long, for me a very thorough workout.
I use another course (In your car Japanese) which has a very different structure.
It comes in at least 3 parts, each containing 3 cds and each lesson is about 3-4 minutes long.
I find it very helpful as it lets me do lots of stuff in tiny pieces and is full of repetition drills, which sort of make you remember stuff , if you know what I mean. Also by playing around with the balance control you can cut out the English part, which could be useful
Another plus side: it's a LOT cheaper. I think you could still benefit if you get the higher level set.
I am a pronunciation nut and was hoping to get some material introducing the phonetics of Japanese, but the books seem to be out of print and the cd set which could prove useful is not available here.
I could also suggest you could try to record yourself after an audio prompt ( e.g. try to answer a question rapid fire fashion).
I hope this helps.
Regards,
Derek

edit: not being a bot copy/pastes text from earlier in the thread to seem legit and necroing 4 year old threads would be a start

Haha, bot totally fooled Asriel. But not me. Never me.

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