Guys,

Confession: I have lived in Japan 10 years and I am illiterate. I have been lurking these forums for 2 years. I got to about 300 kanji with RTK1 and quit a few months ago. While I was doing RTK, I could see a lot of benefits. I'd see a sign while I was walking to the station, and I'd know what the kanji on it meant. Not only that, I knew how to write it. I quit because it was getting hard. I am doing something about it, starting today.

Plan of action: Starting today, Sep 12, I will study 35 Kanji from 6 a.m. every day. I will use leechblock to prevent myself from checking mail, etc. during my designated study time. I will not study more than 35 if I feel like I am on a roll. I will not study less than 35 and try to make up for it the next day. I will get to 2042 on November 9.

Here I go!


Format: #reviews (#missed) / #studied to

Sep 12 - 0 reviews / studied to 35 - I studied maybe 2 or 3 minutes and went through the deck. (This is my second time doing this). I'm imagining the story for each kanji as I see the keyword, then writing each one down before flipping the card. I'm not skipping any steps this time.
Sep 13 - 0/70 - Studied 15 minutes. Mixed up measure and measuring box. Was pleasantly surprised to find that all my stories were there from my previous attempt, even though I had removed all the cards from the deck and started over.
Sep 14 - 0/105 - Missed cavity. Already seeing benefits. Yesterday I saw a sign for ping-pong (卓球） and took my son to the neighborhood children's (児童) center. I can write the first kanji in each compound.
Sep 15 - 15/140 - 100% today. 15 expired cards. I decided not to use the "easy" button. Picturing ice as a 5-sided crystal helped me differentiate it from eternity.
Sep 16 - 33/175 - 100%. 33 expired cards. Taking the time to find the stories that I can easily associate with the keyword helps. For example, the image of the grey poupon commercial with "but of course" worked well for me. I noticed some criticism of the keyword for 里 but I will just follow Heisig.
Sep 17 - 50/210 - Missed esteem. 50 expired cards. Still in familiar territory. Lots of interruptions but plowed through and got done at 8:05.
Sep 18 - 45/245 - Missed reed. 45 expired cards. Missed 2, level and paragraph. It's getting tough now, fewer "gimmes", and taking longer to decide on stories. Also, there are some stories that I am not sure will stick. My routine now: review expired cards, choose stories for the next 35 and take the time to imagine each one, then review the new cards.
Sep 19 - 42/280 - Missed plug and pagoda. 42 expired cards. 100%. I have the day off, and I could do more, but I'm sticking to the plan.
Sep 20 - 25/315 - Missed forehead, forgot the mouth primitive. Only 25 expired cards. 100%. Slept in today, woke up at 7:15 and didn't finish till 9:00. Lots of interruptions, but I still managed to be productive.
Sep 21 - 57(1)/350 - 100%. 57 expired cards, missed quantity. I saw 冠 on a guy's T-shirt on TV yesterday, which was cool and very unexpected.
Sep 22- 55(1)/385. 100%. 55 expired cards, missed one stroke in dilute. I'm exhausted. So many new primitives. Found the greasemonkey script to copy stories, and it saves a lot of time.
Sep 23 - 52(1)/420. Missed attire, so I went back and strengthened the story. 52 expired cards. Missed abbreviation, put rice field and each in the wrong order. Strengthened that story. Today was easier than yesterday, fewer primitives to deal with.
Sep 24 - 73(3)/455. Missed "all", story didn't stick, so I changed it. 73 expired. Missed dispose, warrior, chastise.
Sep 25 - 79(4)/490. Pretty bad day, but went through the stories again. 79 expired. Missed 4.
Sep 26 - 87(3)/525. Missed brocade, demolition, evidence. I am going to use Darth Vader for the needle-eye primitive in demolition.
Sep 27 - 74(4)/560. Missed black, plane, surpass, warrior. I'm getting interference with surpass and transcend. I need a stronger image for the warrior with a quiver. Sep 28 - 50/595. Missed hemp, grind, the following. Having trouble remembering these stories.
Sep 29 - 73(7)/630. Missed destroy, pursue, fat, ground, cultivate, VIP, source. Lots of interference - soil/ground fat/obese/plump. Missed recess for the new cards. Using Data instead of state of mind really helped.
Sep 30 - 73(7)/665. I decided it's pointless to note the mistakes I made with new cards, since I'm going over them till I get them right, and it won't make a difference with my reviews later. I got a late start today, but still got done around 7 p.m. Using Col. Sanders for the finger primitive is helping.
Oct 1 - 71(9)/700. Started late again today. Col. Sanders was a life saver.
Oct 2 - 71(12)/735. Missing more reviews, but I got back on track today, and did these first thing in the morning. Using Dirty Harry instead of anti-.
Oct 3 - 73(24)/770. Probably my worst day. I need to go back over some primitives that I am getting confused.
Oct 4 - 93(26)/805. Today was easier, but I'm still missing more reviews.
Oct 5 - 83(25)/840. Going with Homer Simpson instead of husband.
Oct 6 - 94(20)/875. Using The Flash instead of column.
Oct 7 - 123(46)/910.
Oct 8 - 122(45)/945.

35 is not too much?
In my experience that may require you 3 hours/day.

Maybe starting with 35 is OK and as you get till 400 or so relax a little bit or you may get overwhelmed

trusmis Wrote:35 is not too much?
In my experience that may require you 3 hours/day.

Maybe starting with 35 is OK and as you get till 400 or so relax a little bit or you may get overwhelmed

I really don't think 35 is too much. Just based on anecdotal evidence of what I've heard people say on this forum, most people probably do between 20 and 40 kanji a day. Speaking personally, I studied 100 kanji/day which took me around 3-4 hours a day. so I doubt it will take him that much time.

So yeah, @kmoeini, sounds like you've got things all sorted and have a good plan, so good luck!

35 is doable. It depends on how much free time you have and how much energy is left from other activities such as work. 3 hours a day seems likely to be necessary near the end.

But why do it at 6am? There is a time from studying kanji and there is a time for sleeping!!

blackmacros Wrote:

trusmis Wrote:35 is not too much?
In my experience that may require you 3 hours/day.

Maybe starting with 35 is OK and as you get till 400 or so relax a little bit or you may get overwhelmed

I really don't think 35 is too much. Just based on anecdotal evidence of what I've heard people say on this forum, most people probably do between 20 and 40 kanji a day. Speaking personally, I studied 100 kanji/day which took me around 3-4 hours a day. so I doubt it will take him that much time.

So yeah, @kmoeini, sounds like you've got things all sorted and have a good plan, so good luck!

I agree with all of this, so go for it. Good luck!

Best of luck to you..... I'm a little curious about something, though. How have you lived in Japan for 10 years without the ability to read the language?

Nice plan. I definitely agree on your idea of doing the work at 6 A.M. If I may compare you to me based on this premise, you like to get things done early. Later in the day you just lose your concentration and can't make a commitment anymore? That's what happens to me, anyway, and while I don't get up at 6 A.M., I do complete my work in the morning whenever possible.

Depending on your schedule, whether it's busy or not, I would say study an even 50. I myself am working on a chapter a day. Regardless it's good to have a schedule of study in place (at least in my opinion).

@trusmis: Thanks for your reply. If it takes 3 hours / day, I will have to get cracking earlier. My wife and 2-year-old son generally wake up around 8, giving me 2 hours of uninterrupted time per day to study with the current plan.

@blackmacros: Thanks for the encouragement. It's nice to hear from people who have made it all the way through.

@Codexus: Thanks. Work takes most of my time during the week. I like to spend time with my family when I can, so studying early in the morning is pretty much my only option.

@WeTsTick: Thanks.

@shadysaint: Thanks for the encouragement. Sad, isn't it? I don't really have an answer.

@Vinchenzo: Thanks. I'm definitely a morning person. I think the reason I failed last time was:

a) I had no set finish date.
b) I had no set time to study.
c) I had no plan to overcome distractions.

You can do it for sure. A good plan, just keep in mind reviews will increase as you go, thus taking longer. But 35 is a nice pace, and at that rate you will probably do well with the reviews. I think going super fast may end up being less efficient for some people, as the primitives start to train wreck a bit in your mind (I'm really just speaking from personal experience, everyone is different of course.)　I also recommend making up your own primitives as you go (if and when the Hiesig ones are not to good.)

I finished RTK in 4 months doing sometimes 20 a day and sometimes 70-100+, but in the third month basically added only a 150 for the month (burn out). After being away for the summer, I lost my RTK ability's to some degree, and had to start over. But I learned a lot the first go, and 35-65 is my pace this time. It's actually really fun this time around, because the pace is relaxed, and deep down already know the kanji and have stories written down (reviews have been around 97-100% yay!).

がんばって！

@kmoeini

What was the trigger that made you want to bite the bullet and begin again?

Go for it! In the last week I started doing 40 a day, and if I was concentrated I could make 10 in 10 minutes (depending on the primitive). Before that I used to make 25-30.

@TaylorSan - Thanks. I remember seeing some alternative primitives like Data in the shared stories. Is there a thread with a collection of them?

@LaLoche - I think it was a podcast by Steve Pavlina. He was talking about breaking old habits and forming new ones. My son is another big reason. As he gets older, I'm going to have to interact with his teachers, friends, etc. in Japan. Though I can speak Japanese at a conversational level, being illiterate is no way to live, especially when you plan to live somewhere long-term. Also, there is definitely a limit to how far you can go in a language without being able to read.

@CarolinaCG - Thanks for the encouragement. You guys are great.

You can definitely do it.
What I have done is a chart, well, it is just a calendar where I have marked the number.
In your case tomorrow will be 35, next day 70, 105, etc.
Then at the end of every day if I reach the mark or more I write in big blue the number I have reached.
If I didn't, I mark in big red the number.

If 7 days in a row I have red, I consider I can not catch up. disminish the speed. For instance to 30/day so I can keep realistic in my learning targets.
If 7 days I am in blue by a margin, I speed up.

If you can stay in blue, 35 is a wonderful number, but dont be ashamed to slow the pace if necessary (but I will say that NEVER go below 20/day). Long term retention is your goal.
Also, don't feel bad at failing in the reviews. After a couple of fails, you will see how you remember that kanji forever after re-learning it 3 times.

I'm not sure about a thread, but I seriously recommend doing your own, because you can choose people and things that have a strong significance to your life, thus making a stronger memory/association mnemonic thread. I discovered this about two thirds of the way through, and it ROCKS! I only wish I had started doing it sooner. And I didn't do it for every one, sometimes Hiesig's are serviceable. I would also look over the chapter and glance over the key words, sometimes to pick out a loose theme that might inspire a key word that would fit for multiple ones.

Truly works wonders!

shadysaint Wrote:How have you lived in Japan for 10 years without the ability to read the language?

That is the normal state of most (western) foreigners in Japan. A good deal of long-term ex-pats can't even speak basic Japanese!

@trusmis - Thanks, I printed out a calendar, and did something similar. I've got it all planned out to November 9.

@TaylorSan - Ok, that's a great tip, thanks.

@Jarvik7 - So true.

Jarvik7 Wrote:shadysaint wrote:

How have you lived in Japan for 10 years without the ability to read the language?

That is the normal state of most (western) foreigners in Japan. A good deal of long-term ex-pats can't even speak basic Japanese!

That's interesting. Are you talking about independently wealthy individuals who choose to live there and require no income? Or are there an abundance of jobs that require no interactions with natives? Or perhaps the government just gives all foreigners a place to live and food to eat? (If it's the latter I'll buy my plane ticket tomorrow. It's getting really hard to be a bum in America.)

Most western expats are here either to teach English, or were transferred by their company in the west. In both cases their jobs usually require no Japanese ability. IT jobs open to foreigners also frequently have no Japanese requirements.

They could always pick up Japanese in their personal lives, but same expats tend to just surround themselves with other foreigners and get by in life with gesturing/pointing and hoping someone at the store/restaurant speaks some English.

It's already hard for me to be able to learn Japanese seriously every day with my 8 hours a day job and no social life. I can imagine that somebody working in Japan on a Japanese-style schedule in an English bubble with maybe a few obligations outside work could be left with basically no time for Japanese at all. And even with some people speaking the language at work, if you don't have time for proper study, progress is going to be slow.

I'm not saying that's everybody's situation but if those people don't learn Japanese there might be a reason besides laziness.

It's not really laziness. It's mostly just apathy. The ex-pats of which I speak are sometimes here 15-30 years and still speak nothing. Foreigners in an English speaking office are not going to be doing nonstop zangyou, so they have plenty of free time to learn Japanese if they wanted to. 8 hours is not a gruelling shift, it's only 1/3 of a day. Take another third for sleep and that leaves you 8 hours to do with as you please. 8 hours is way more than I study per day and I'm a freelancer.

It's the exact same thing as the numerous Chinese and Indians I saw in Canada who were living there permanently and spoke no English (albeit there is a bit of an age difference).

Many people just don't care about learning a language, as long as they can get by with what they already know.

Jarvik7 Wrote:8 hours is not a gruelling shift, it's only 1/3 of a day. Take another third for sleep and that leaves you 8 hours to do with as you please.

I wish that was true. Add commute (nearly 2 hours in my case), at least 2 hours spent on various things like getting ready for work, buying groceries, eating. Additionally, a lot of people also like to (or have to) take an hour of lunch break (I don't, but you have to be really asocial like me to refuse to eat with your colleagues every day). In the end, I'm lucky to have 3-4 hours a day left of free time.

I don't really know what kind of schedule most expats do in Japan, but if it's more than 8 then being in Japan in not an advantage for learning the language.

I get my best studying done on the train... Buying groceries and everything else one does in daily life should be learning experiences. Those are the kinds of things that makes it an advantage to be in Japan.

If I'm eating by myself I usually am infront of a TV (in Japanese) or reading (in Japanese); if it's with other people, they are Japanese. No one is too busy to study unless they work 20 hour days and have to sleep at the office under their desk. You just need to make good use of down time (eating, riding train, standing in line, etc).

Even still, 3-4 hours per day (still probably more than I study per day) is way more than enough to learn to speak basic Japanese over the course of a few decades.

The ex-pats have no excuse for not knowing Japanese other than "I'm not trying to".

From my experience, even in Japan you need to apply some AJATT principles to alter your environment. Yeah, recently, I realize just having Japanese around you won't solve your problems, but it's damn good to have around as you improve what you learn.

Two hour commute, on a train, sitting down? Get a small laptop and do reviews. I did that a lot during my two weeks recently in Japan.

Only 3 hours of "free time", review at work during lunch, on the train. For "free time" block off what time you will use. Beauty of the SRS is that these small blocks of study/review time are "saved".

Then there's the week-end. Catch up and add more stuff during that larger amount of free time.

It really does boil down to investing your hours. To keep up the financial theme: The hours you use to study/review is your capital. This is limited to so much per day. The SRS keeps your capital from depreciating (forgetting), so think of it as paying a financial manager out of your capital. The Japanese environment sets up the compound interest (getting better or reinforcing Japanese ability without directly studying).

Nukemarine, I totally agree. You're talking about taking advantage of those "hidden moments". Everyone has the same 24 hours in a day, it's all about how you use them.

This discussion reminds me of something I read on zompist (found his site in a link on AJATT).

http://www.zompist.com/whylang.html


"A complicating factor in almost any discussion of these issues is that the people discussing them-- and that includes myself and probably most readers of this page-- are likely to enjoy languages, and may have learned a few essentially for fun.

For such people, the brutal facts about most people's language learning-- i.e., that they don't do it-- may be hard to believe or sympathize with. We learned French, and enjoyed it! Look at all those Larousses on the shelf! We had so much fun talking to that schoolteacher in Versailles, buying French rap at FNAC, reading Daniel Pennac, answering that Tech Support call from Montréal ... can't people see that learning languages is both fun and useful?"

Well I disagree with the idea of trying to fill every little moment with something. First always trying to do multiple things generates way too much stress. I need those moments of downtime for my brain to recuperate.

Also I don't see that as being truly efficient. Sure it looks like you get to do things for free but it's just an illusion you're still using that time. I could spend 10 minutes during lunch break reviewing or I could just get home 10 minutes earlier. Also how well you can concentrate is of the utmost importance when learning. Are you saving time by reviewing your SRS on a crowded bus and making lots of mistakes you wouldn't have made if you just waited until you got home? I don't think so.

In my opinion, the best way to use one's time is to use it in a environment where you can be fully concentrated (as in no people around).