I've done the opposite: pretending not to speak English when I was in Mexico & the US.

In that case it was just a tactic to get LA bums and Mexican merchants to stop talking to me though.

ruiner Wrote:Who drives in Japan? That's what minorities are for.

Sometimes, even though you technically live in Kyoto city, you're over two mountains from the city proper with no JR station. I'm one of the two people who are minorities in this town and proud of it!

Managed to cram some 1600+ dictionary entries and 90% of the grammar points covered by UBJG in 3-4 days in preparation for a test which I probably passed (will know for sure next week).
Now please excuse me while I go get some sleep and forget all this stuff during the next 6 hours.

Tzadeck Wrote:

ruiner Wrote:Who drives in Japan? That's what minorities are for.

Sometimes, even though you technically live in Kyoto city, you're over two mountains from the city proper with no JR station. I'm one of the two people who are minorities in this town and proud of it!

Hire a homeless rickshaw puller.

On one hand it's a mile stone on the other hand it's quite annoying... I finally own more Japanese books, mangas and DVDs than I I can possibly fit in my shelves. Time to pay IKEA a visit.

Finally I have a real milestone to post in this thread. And it's a double milestone!

I started using Anki daily to add vocabulary and sentences exactly 6 months ago. And I also finally reached 4000 cards/facts today (I added a little more today to make that happen.) Using the Chasen parser and a python script I counted 5114 unique Japanese words in my deck.

However I'm a bit disappointed that it took forever to go from 3000 to 4000: almost 3 months while I used to do more than a 1000 new cards a month at the beginning.

I still feel like I'm understanding nothing most of the time, but I can't deny I'm making some progress. Now I hope I'll be able to reach at least 8000 cards in 6 months.

And now if I can manage to finish the 40 pages left in the kids novel I'm reading, that would be a triple milestone

Jarvik7 Wrote:I've done the opposite: pretending not to speak English when I was in Mexico & the US.

In that case it was just a tactic to get LA bums and Mexican merchants to stop talking to me though.

YAY! Sounds like a great idea, I'm so gonna try it when I learn some Japanese, can imagine peoples faces

I'm officially a university student!!! Asian studies, here I go!! I'm so happy!

Just did 100 KO2001 sentences in one go, and I´ll try my best to keep at this pace till the end. See you in 3 and a half weeks!

Z..

I just learned why Anki is called that.

I watched 10 promises to my dog with japanese subs on and realised just how far both my listen comprehension and reading comprehension have come in the last month alone. Really motivating to see progress this way

I just reached frame 500. Due to external factors in my life and other priorities, I'll have a damned hard time to keep on adding 10 kanji a day. It may sound so few for most of you, but that's just the way it is on my side...
I'll do my best to reach frame 800 before X-mas. To really progress, it sounds like you have to dedicate your whole life, or at least to put Japanese at priority level ONE to finish RTK1 and reviewing enough not to forget what you learnt. I've given myself one full year from August 09 to see where it goes and iif I can keep up with the rhythm of learning Japanese.

Feeling like I've learned more from dissecting a 20 minute show w/ subs2srs than everything up till now. However, I also feel like it's only doable because I did everything up till now.... but it makes me wish I could go back and combine it all from the onset.

I just realized I haven't used a dictionary yet with the first 40 pages of ポケットモンスター☆SPECIAL. I started just to see what would happen if I tried without a dictionary, and (cool!) I got sucked in.

I'm relying on the 振り仮名 pretty heavily for readings and don't recognize a lot of words, but I feel like I have a pretty good idea of what's going on.

(By the way, it's really true. 漢字 are easier to understand than 仮名.)

Now, to dissect and SRS!

Today, I picked up my copy of 星新一's 安ぜのカード from the shelf and read the first story on the bus. I had previously read the book around 2 years ago and I remember that I could only get a very cloudy image of what was going on (or even worse in case of some stories). However, this time everything's changed! There were some words I didn't know, but I could understand the plot without problems. I found a bunch of diseases' names that would seem scary until not long ago - this time I used the keywords and I was able to make a good guess.

Just finished KO2001 book 1!
Now - on to book 2!

I felt like trying a 2kyuu JLPT mock test for the first time today.
I thought I wouldn't be ready, but wanted to challenge it nevertheless.

My results:
Kanji / Vocabulary: 91%
Listening: 78%
Grammar/Reading: 58%
Total: 76,25%

That's way better than I thought!!!

The kanji / vocab part was very easy!
Listening was quite okay as well.
I needed 15 more minutes for the reading part than allowed.
I completely failed the grammar part. Basically I had to guess almost all of the answers as I've never really studied grammar at all. I just started studying basic-intermediate grammar a week ago, but it seems that was enough to pass.

Anybody knows if you fail the test if any of the sections is below 60% (like in my case)?
I've never taken the real thing so far btw.!

As some people might ask anyway: What I've done so far:
RTK 1
on-yomi for all those RTK 1 kanji using something similar to the movie method
KO 2001 book 1 + book 2
A dictionary of basic Japanese grammar (currently going through that)
例文で学ぶ漢字と言葉2級 (just started that one, only using sentences with compounds I don't know yet)
Sentences (actually started a few days ago using sentences from a novel I'm currently reading)
Listening (to Japanese music, anime, jdrama etc. since 1998)
Reading (something Japanese every day)

+ living in Japan for over 1,5 years now.

(○゜ε^○)v ィェィ♪

On to more studies ε=ε=ε=ε=ε=ε=┌(;￣◇￣)┘

Zorlee Wrote:Just finished KO2001 book 1!
Now - on to book 2!

That's less than 10 days for one book >_<

How many reviews do you have a day? Are you writing out the sentences as you review by hand? I get tired just adding 30 sentences a day from it!

60% mature on the RTK1+3 deck in anki. Overall 80% on practice JLPT 2kyuu. And I just finished the entire Death Note series in Japanese.

3 days ago I finished "Basic Grammar" section in Tae Kim's guide

was using KanKen DS3 because thanks to KO I can read enough of the menus to actually be able to use it and I came across 文字認識速度.

2 big achievements here; I could read it AND I could figure out that it meant "character recognition speed".

I was seriously proud of that last part.

kerosan41 Wrote:

Zorlee Wrote:Just finished KO2001 book 1!
Now - on to book 2!

That's less than 10 days for one book >_<

How many reviews do you have a day? Are you writing out the sentences as you review by hand? I get tired just adding 30 sentences a day from it!

Hehe! I didn´t finish the whole book in 10 days. I used quite some time to get up to frame 140-ish, but I came up with a technique that worked very well for me, and I´ve been doing 100 sentences a day since the 14th of September.
I do recognition only, and I get around 500 reviews a day (including 100 reviews of new cards), give or take. Will be finished with book 2 next Thursday, if everything goes according to me schedule.
I´m working on this 6-8 hours a day though, so you need to have time to pull it off.
It´s not for everyone, but I´m really enjoying the quick progress. =)

Want to expand on this method that works for you?

Sure thing. It´s nothing special really, and some people might not like it, but like I said - it works for me.
First of all - the first 150 frames in KO2001 is painful no matter what method you try, you have to get used to remembering sentences and readings, in stead of characters, so it was really hard for me. I spent like 2-3 hours on 10 (!) sentences.
But what I do now, after trial and error, is:

- Review 40 cards, then add 15 - repeat. This is the basis of my add/review pattern. Works pretty well, I did 30/15 in the beginning, but now when I have 400+ reviews, 40/15 is better for me. I´m just following Black Macros´ idea here, and it´s working well.

- I use mnemonics 90% of time. I don´t write down stories or anything, here´s an example of what I usually do with a sentence:

あの運送会社はピアノの運送が専門だ。

When I studied this sentence, the new part for me was "運送" (うんそう)
I did a quick act for myself in my head, acting a Japanese dude getting his piano delivered, saying: "un!! sooo!! un!!! So so so!!!" (As in YES, there, put it there, UN! SO!)
It might be stupid, it might be weird, but for me it works like a charm. And it takes me 10 seconds to make a small thing like that. A tip is to make a mini-story/act based on the sentence, in this case a Japanese dude getting a piano delivered by the company that this sentence is all about.
These stories fade away after a couple of correct reviews, and sometimes I forget them and make them up as I go, it´s all good, and it will all stick if you keep up your reviews.
The good thing about KO2001 is that you get the vocab in many different sentences, so you review newly learned vocab in many sentences, not just one.

- Another thing I do, that people might not like in here, is to review my cards right away after adding 15 cards. I mark the cards as "hard". That way I review them again in the evening (I study first thing in the morning). I don´t know, this was just a little thing I did, because I REALLY struggled remembering cards after 2-3 hours, unlike RTK where the stories kept things in place. Now I get a quick review, then review the card later in the evening. It might cause more reviews and whatnot, but you know what? I don´t care, it works well for me at the moment, so I´m happy.
I guess you can achieve the same results with a thorough manual review after you have studied the cards, but I just find this method easier.

So there you have it. Add a whole lot of spare-time, a good chair and some milk every now and then, and KO2001 is more than do-able.

But this is just my take on it! =)
Try, fail, and find your way through it!

Z...

Zorlee Wrote:Sure thing. It´s nothing special really, and some people might not like it, but like I said - it works for me.
First of all - the first 150 frames in KO2001 is painful no matter what method you try, you have to get used to remembering sentences and readings, in stead of characters, so it was really hard for me. I spent like 2-3 hours on 10 (!) sentences.
But what I do now, after trial and error, is:

- Review 40 cards, then add 15 - repeat. This is the basis of my add/review pattern. Works pretty well, I did 30/15 in the beginning, but now when I have 400+ reviews, 40/15 is better for me. I´m just following Black Macros´ idea here, and it´s working well.

- I use mnemonics 90% of time. I don´t write down stories or anything, here´s an example of what I usually do with a sentence:

あの運送会社はピアノの運送が専門だ。

When I studied this sentence, the new part for me was "運送" (うんそう)
I did a quick act for myself in my head, acting a Japanese dude getting his piano delivered, saying: "un!! sooo!! un!!! So so so!!!" (As in YES, there, put it there, UN! SO!)
It might be stupid, it might be weird, but for me it works like a charm. And it takes me 10 seconds to make a small thing like that. A tip is to make a mini-story/act based on the sentence, in this case a Japanese dude getting a piano delivered by the company that this sentence is all about.
These stories fade away after a couple of correct reviews, and sometimes I forget them and make them up as I go, it´s all good, and it will all stick if you keep up your reviews.
The good thing about KO2001 is that you get the vocab in many different sentences, so you review newly learned vocab in many sentences, not just one.

- Another thing I do, that people might not like in here, is to review my cards right away after adding 15 cards. I mark the cards as "hard". That way I review them again in the evening (I study first thing in the morning). I don´t know, this was just a little thing I did, because I REALLY struggled remembering cards after 2-3 hours, unlike RTK where the stories kept things in place. Now I get a quick review, then review the card later in the evening. It might cause more reviews and whatnot, but you know what? I don´t care, it works well for me at the moment, so I´m happy.
I guess you can achieve the same results with a thorough manual review after you have studied the cards, but I just find this method easier.

So there you have it. Add a whole lot of spare-time, a good chair and some milk every now and then, and KO2001 is more than do-able.

But this is just my take on it! =)
Try, fail, and find your way through it!

Z...

I agree here on reviewing them right after learning them and then marking them hard. I usually mark them hard the first 3 reviews I get and find that by the time it gets to the 2 week point I've got them down and they don't present any trouble as mature cards.
I started marking them as a number 2 first off and tbh although the reviews were less it did much less for my comprehension and reading ability.

Just hit 60% of the deck myself!