Ok so, after getting a basic, i mean basic grasp of Japanese, I became bored with the whole SRSing thing. I think I served my time so for the last few weeks, I've been just watching Japanese stuff, and, surprisingly I think I'm beginning to "get the hang of it" so to say. Clearly I still have NO idea whats going on but it feels so natural to listen to and I can watch for hours without boredom; always a good thing I guess.

* I read the "natural resources* thread, so I hope there isn't TOO much overlap as I'm more interested in seeing if there are any people who literally "gave up study" ... anyone???

I haven't looked sat down and physically tried to remember anything, I've been reading through some stories on some websites listed on here, and I understand basic things.

I know I should "do whatever feels right for me" but I'm curious as to if anyone has just let themselves become naturally accustomed to the language.

Any related threads or websites???
(bar AJATT, obviously)

Cheers

Just have fun man, there were plenty of people learning Japanese before SRSs. I'm going through Kanji Odyssey with Anki right now, but I really don't see myself mining a million sentences later on.

It can be good scaffolding but really a large amount of varied, and natural input will help push you along.

a good balance of each would be better...

Congratulations- it really helped me to go in the "not-study" mindset as well. The only thing I really try to force myself to do even when I don't want to is 100ish cards in Anki each day- which is really only about 30 minutes. I only do that because I want to get through the KO deck because I've seen how much progress I've made so far using it.

Outside that I do all the things I like to do in English, in Japanese. If I tell myself it is study, I won't do it, but if I do it because I want to, it works out much better.

As a sidenote- I found this works out well with conversation too- I was thinking "man, I should really be speaking more Japanese with X person." Just go with the flow- language is for communication, and sometimes speaking in English is just more comfortable or more fun. Stop forcing yourself, because when you force something, it ends up broken.

I'm definitely starting to slide more to this side of the scale with my study. Great big decks like KO and Tae Kim are great starter points but seriously I enjoy just reading news articles for a challenge and playing KanKen DS3 for fun and games in Japanese and stuff and I think I'm really only going to SRS and stuff I feel I have to for KanKen after I've done all my JLPT2 prep work study.

Copious amounts of reading is review enough for anyone.

Sometimes I wonder if it makes sense to just use SRS for grammar rules and to read a lot (without worrying about SRSing sentences for vocab).

If you look at the JLPT 1 & 2 Kanzen Master textbooks, they contain a little less than 280 grammar patterns (of course some patterns have multiple uses) in total.

When you consider that Heisig is 3007 cards (including RTK3), 280 is tiny in comparison. And I'm sure many of those grammar patterns are either old-fashioned or only used in writing.

NOTE: Fnn-news.com is awesome for news stories, since they have exact subs. Here is an example: (http://www.fnn-news.com/news/headlines/a...65716.html)

I still study, but nothing like people do when they SRS things. I read a lot, and watch TV... And I'm still progressing, if not quite as fast as when I was studying intently.

Now, that's not to say that I don't do some study-ish thing... I have a phone app with vocab flashcards, and KanKen DS3... But they don't feel like I'm studying.

With life being busy (work, kids, etc), I find studying with an SRS tool like anki forces me to allocate specific time blocks for studying and keeps my knowledge fresh. Now, I have ankimini running on my phone, so I can study sentences on the go. If I didn't use SRS I most likely would not be at the same point I am now with SRS. Just my two cents.