I've been on a "study break" for about a month.
Not because I wanted to, but because I was too busy (winter vacation, travelling, planning, work etc.).

It's not the first time, I go on "study breaks" during all vacations (as I work in Japan I only have 3 weeks of vacation per year anyway), but it has never been sooo difficult to go back studying.

Why?
One reason are all the reviews that piled up during the time.
Let me quickly explain: I have 6 different decks in Anki right now.

- RTK 1 (+ on-yomi):
I finished this one a long time ago (end of 2008) and have been reviewing ever since then. The reviews won't get less it seems, although I come across so many cards that I click away and shouldn't see soon again (12 month+). I still feel it's necessary to review this one, though, as I tend to forget some details about some of the kanji.
(to review right now: 1500)

- KO 2001 book 1 and 2 sentence deck:
I finished that last September and still review it from time to time. I'm not sure if it's still all so important.
(to review right now: 560)

- Sentence deck:
A random sentence deck where I enter sentences I come across while reading novels and stuff (+ 例文で学ぶ漢字と言葉 book sentences) - this is still somewhat important, but maybe I should leave it a alone for now.
(to review right now: 460)

- Grammar deck:
Entered sentences from "A Dictionary of Basic Japanese Grammar" with explanations (want to add the "intermediate" and "advanced" book eventually) - I'm not sure what to do with that one ....
I have the feeling that I easily forget the grammar points anyway .... maybe I should use a different approach for grammar.
(to review right now: 580)

- Kanji in context Book 1 (book 2 will be added later):
This is what I was working on and what I want to concentrate on mostly for now until I finish book 1 and 2 and then move on to someting else. I think I've done the first 30 lessons in book 1 so far.
(to review right now: 179 / new cards: 278)

- KO 2001 production deck:
This deck I only use from time to time to practice writing and production. Obviously it's the reverse version of the other KO deck. While only seeing the kana sentence, I have to reproduce the whole sentence in Kanji (where appropriate) and write it out as well.
(to review: 40)



Before my study break I already felt kind of frustrated, because I didn't feel like I'm progressing very much nor learning enough new stuff because reviewing kept me from doing so. I'm too afraid of stopping my reviews or deleting stuff (like Katz (sp?) suggests).

And one more thing: My first year in Japan (2008) I had one more working day per week, but managed to study WAY MORE than I do now. Maybe I was way more motivated, maybe it was more fun back then .... but lately I have the feeling I waste my time randomly and at the end of a day I think: Huh? What did I do the whole freaking day? This doesn't only concern my Japanese studies, but my whole life lately. I have no idea what the hell I'm wasting time with. Randomly on the internet, I guess?
Any time management tips or anything else you could recommend in my situation? It's getting really frustrating lately *sigh*

Maybe I should just ignore any reviews and set a specific time (e.g. 2 days at the end of month) where I only do reviews?!


Thanks so much for reading all my crap and I hope to find some good recommendations.
よろしくお願いします。
(off for work now (^-^)/....)

Do time boxing. Do 20 minutes or so on a specific deck and tell yourself that this will be the only time I do this, you'll get through 2x more doing it this way. Maybe get up an hour early, and do 3 20 minute reviews. So before your day even starts, you've already reviewed 3 decks.

chochajin Wrote:And one more thing: My first year in Japan (2008) I had one more working day per week, but managed to study WAY MORE than I do now. Maybe I was way more motivated, maybe it was more fun back then .... but lately I have the feeling I waste my time randomly and at the end of a day I think: Huh? What did I do the whole freaking day? This doesn't only concern my Japanese studies, but my whole life lately. I have no idea what the hell I'm wasting time with. Randomly on the internet, I guess?
Any time management tips or anything else you could recommend in my situation? It's getting rea

This is an interesting point. Ever since I've started working, I only have about 2 or 3 hours free a day. I've actually gotten more done per day than I did when I was at uni! I'm a lot more efficient with my time. But come Christmas break, I sat on my ass all week and didn't study anything!

So, less time = more studying =D

Dude, you live in Japan. Why are you sitting in your apartment pouring over flashcards when you could be talking with native speakers and reading native material?

2001KO and KIC books are for vocabulary. Is there really a need to have two decks for vocabulary? I say ditch book 1 of KIC as it's pretty the same as 2001KO books. Also, how are you reviewing these decks? One way to speed things up is don't write anything down unless you get a word wrong, then only write that word down. If they're just reading/recognition, these decks should go fast anyway.

RTK +onyomi: The +onyomi is probably good, but aren't you training that with your Vocabulary deck anyway? Are you writing down the kanji each time? A way to speed things up is don't worry too much about onyomi (your call), and imaging the kanji in your head then only write down kanji you miss. On second thought, test keep testing the Onyomi if you've already learned them.

Production deck: Is it necessary to write out the entire sentence? Probably can ditch this deck as it's recreating what you get from the other KO decks.

Grammar deck: How are you reviewing the grammar here? There's pure recognition with the grammar portion being tested bolded (similar to a Tae Kim deck I put on Anki). There's cloze deleted with english guidance in parenthesis. There's cloze deletion where you have to know the verb form, so it's a mix of recognition and production (I've decided to go this route recently even with verbs in vocabulary).

Example:
Q: 電車が遅[...]せいで、遅刻した。
～せいだ　・　～せいで　～　・　せいか

A: 電車が遅れたせいで、遅刻した。
[動・い形・な形・名] の名詞修飾型 +
ために〈それが原因で悪い結果になったことを表す。〉

Reason I like the above is it's fast and tests comprehension, but I still slow down enough to figure out if I know what to add to the noun, verb or adjective.

Sentence deck: actually this sounds like the deck you need to keep building. As such, it's your most personal deck that's hard to tell you how to use it. All the other decks are there to test portions of the sentences (Kanji, vocabulary, grammar) but these are about speaking and understanding legitimate Japanese. Building this deck is what helped tell me where my weaknesses were, and the importance of this deck.

These I treat as recognition only. Reason being, I should be adding tons of stuff to this that may even be "simple" if I look at it in parts. Each individual word and each grammar point I know, but they're used in a combination that's new to me. This is not something to downplay.

You're way more advanced than I am in my studies so I might be out of line here but I'd say start deleting. Here's why:

1. RTK 1 (+ on-yomi) - This deck probably should stay, you have so much reviews to do and it means something.

2. KO 2001 book 1 and 2 sentence deck - Dump it and start reading real things, at your level its strange to have so much SRS dependency.

3. Sentence deck - Trim everything you view as pointless, boring or too hard. Be harsh. This makes reviews more fun, quicker and efficient. This should be your main and only sentence deck.

4. Grammar deck - I hate grammar and I think everyone does. Why you punish yourself with this is beyond me. Delete whole deck without hesitation and if you find a grammar structure that you have problems with read about it in a book once or twice, but don't cram.

5. Kanji in context Book 1 (book 2 will be added later) - You certainly are a man on a mission. If you find something good about it merge it with main deck, rest goes out the window.

6. KO 2001 production deck - You're living in Japan a dream for about 3/4 people on this forum and you make a production deck??

Overall I think you've strayed far from "the path". You've surrounded yourself with many obstacles that make your learning unbearable and inefficient. Delete is your way to freedom.

Back from work and in a feverish delirium right now, so I hope I'm not writing too much crap right now C= (-。- ) フゥー

First of all, thanks to everybody for the really REALLY useful comments.

The comment about me losing my "path" is true. That's exactly how I felt and still feel and I HATE it, it's frustrating and I hope with your help and tips I can get back on track somehow.
The problem is I'm a perfectionist. Deleting decks I worked so hard for ... I'm not sure if I can do that. Delete single cards, maybe that works better, but I wonder if I'll be able to delete more than just a few.

As for "Dude, you live in Japan, so don't sit in front of your SRS!":
I've been studying solely in 2008 in order to reach a level where I actually CAN communicate well in Japanese. I mostly only used English at work (I work as an English teacher although I'm German). Nowadays, though, I barely speak English outside of the classroom and solely use Japanese when speaking to my coworkers and outside of work I only use Japanese as well. I've gained confidence in my output, although it's not yet perfect, but living here and actually using Japanese on a daily basis helped a lot.
But that's only ONE thing I want to learn: communication / oral output / listening comprehension.

As for "forget your SRS and start reading REAL material":
I've been doing that from the start. At first manga only, now I'm reading novels, although it's sometimes really hard and frustrating. Although I often understand the single words I can't make sense of the sentence as a whole (and that happens quite often - which is why I decided to add the grammar deck in the end and cram it).
I do get the basics, I've heard them so often (every day) in the last two years, that most of the time I can use them correctly as well. But there are so many similar grammar terms and if you don't cram it, how will you ever get a hang of the correct usage (me thinks). But what I did didn't really work. (No recognition, because usually I already know the grammar when seeing it, but can't reproduce it when trying to write or speak).

Here's an example of my grammar deck (the whole deck is like that):
Ex.1:
Q: 兄は私___五時間も運転させました。
T: English/German translation if necessary.
A: 兄は私に五時間も運転させました。 (plus some explanation for that grammar point just in case I forgot why "ni" is used here and why something else can't be used etc.)

Ex.2:
Q: 友達は漢字が難しい_______聞きました。(asked if difficult)
A: 友達は漢字が難しいかと聞きました。(no explanation here)


As for "why are you doing KiC when you've already done KO"????
First of all, let me tell you that I don't do the whole book. I read through each chapter and only use the sentences that contain words or kanji compounds that I didn't know yet. I'm not repeating anything I already now! Same goes for "例文で学ぶ漢字と言葉" - it's essentially the same as the other two (just in Japanese only and only uses JLPT Lvl2 kanji).

My "Sentence" deck:
Maybe I should stop using "例文で学ぶ漢字と言葉" in there and merge that with the KiC deck instead so that my sentence deck will really only contain sentences that *I* found while reading "real native" material. Right now it only contains sentences of one novel. So far I'm not really satisfied with it, though. Most sentences that I picked were too difficult, I guess. It's not like I pick EACH AND EVERY sentence that I don't understand or that contains a word I don't know yet, I AM selective, but maybe I'm still picking up the wrong stuff? *sigh*
Also, apart from KO, all other sentence decks don't contain English (or almost none) anymore - they're J-J-style!

My "production" deck:
Somebody wrote: "You're in Japan, so wth do you need a production deck?"
Don't get me wrong, this is for WRITING practice and for remembering the kanji compounds a word is made of. Even my Japanese students tend to forget which kanji is used in 冷蔵庫 etc. That's why one has to practice! Also, I want to improve my handwriting. I'm female and so I really wanna have a neat handwriting, but mine looks like one of my male jr high students. But of course this is just a "sub-goal" and not my main focus. That's why I only practice from time to time. I also sometimes write letters to my Japanese friends etc.

Listening:
Always have been (even during my study breaks) listening to Japanese media on a daily basis. Started in 1998 and probably since 2001 it's on a daily basis. I think my listening skills are very good, yet I still can't watch all jdramas without subs and UNDERSTAND them completely. (For drama fans so that you get an idea of what I mean: I was able to watch and perfectly understand "My Girl", but "Tokyo DOGS" gave me quite a hard time).


My goals:
Actually I'm not sure anymore. I guess to "just" become as good as possible. I still can't understand novels well enough, it still takes too long when I try to read stuff in Japanese (I hate that esp. when I'm in a museum where they only have Japanese descriptions - it takes FOREVER!!). I want to be able to watch movies etc. and understand them (almost) completely etc. etc.
I want to try (for the first time) and take the JLPT (2kyuu) this year. This is not really a goal of mine, but I figured it's about time to finally try. I passed a practice test a few month ago.
I probably should have some "inbetween-goals" but I have no clue (right now) what those could be. Any ideas?

My progress:
Maybe it's a little bit confusing with all those decks to understand what I did when, so let me try and show you:
RTK 1 - on-yomi - KO 2001 (book 1 + 2) - Grammar - Sentence deck - KiC
While I wasn't yet finished with the grammar deck, I started the sentence deck and shortly after that I started the KiC deck as well - which was probably just too much at once. I also used iKnow/smart.fm for quite a while, but always on the website only, never in anki.

Thanks for everything so far. You're comments are really helpful and I hope that I can get out of my frustration and back on the right "path" with your help


I think with what I wrote above I answered almost all of your questions, but to answer some more:

@Nukemarine: I like to write out the whole sentence as I consider this as good writing practice.
As for on-yomi. Before doing ANYTHING else I studied the on-yomi of all RTK1 kanji right after finishing RTK1. That helped me a lot later on and I was able to go through KO quite fast. What I'm practicing now is being able to figure out the correct reading of components and read faster in general.
My KO and KiC decks are just recognition/reading. It's fast, but reviews are still piling up so fast and with all the other decks I never seem to finish REVIEWING -__-


@Nii87: I think that's really true! Back then I didn't really have the time to study, but I wanted to study so badly, so somehow I was able to steal 1-3 hours a day and it was very effective. It doesn't seem to work anymore now, though.

Hehe, maybe I wrote to much in my last entry? Sorry about that.

I wanted to add that my RTK1+on-yomi deck is recognition AND production, so there are over 4000 cards in this deck.

thurd Wrote:4. Grammar deck - I hate grammar and I think everyone does. Why you punish yourself with this is beyond me. Delete whole deck without hesitation and if you find a grammar structure that you have problems with read about it in a book once or twice, but don't cram.

I agree with Thurd on this point. Although I'm fully aware that everyone has different styles of learning and such, I think Thurd makes a good point.

I'm about as beginner as you can get (1 month out of RtK, and maybe 20 sentences into KO2001), so take my post with a grain of salt. When it came to grammar, I was so excited to jump into Tae Kim and start actually learning something. But after reading through it, doing the exercises, stopping after 2 days, then coming back a week later to try again, I just gave up on it. Why?

I got bored. Simple as that. In the end I read through the Basic grammar section, and only skimmed through the essential grammar. I realized I wasn't "getting" anything. It's the same reason I absolutely hate grammar classes in English. Giving me lists of rules, then the exceptions does nothing but confuse me. Then some crappy example sentences to do which just doesn't make anything stick for me.

So, after jumping back and forth between Tae Kim, Core2000, and KO2001 for 2 weeks trying to find the right place to start, I ended up just starting KO2001 again and promised myself I would just START somewhere already. Sure, I don't understand some of the specific reasons why this particle may be used, or that conjugation is used. But so what. Most of the time, I can understand the gist of the sentence, I just can't *produce* it from memory (the grammar portions I mean). What I've been doing is if I am clueless or frustrated with a grammar issue, I just open up Tae Kim and go read through my particular problem real quick. It might not be great that I'm not grasping the grammar perfectly or even well, but trying to work through grammar guides and books just wasn't for me and I wasn't learning anything at all. At least working through KO2001, I'm learning vocab, getting a feel for how sentences are constructed, and starting to SEE patterns emerge. And for me, I think that's how grammar will come to me. Constant exposure and starting to see patterns emerge.

And I got way off topic... I guess the last bit of advice I can give ya is: You said you're familiar with Khatz and AJATT I think, and he says it best. If your decks and reviews are more of a chore to do than anything and keep getting so backed up, then you aren't having fun with it. And if you aren't having fun with something, it's time to tweak it or get rid of it. I think you should delete some decks or delete alot of useless cards and consolidate what's left of it. I mean, right now I only have 2 decks: KO2001 sentences, vocab production (for writing), and my reviews here on RtK. I couldn't imagine trying to keep up with 6 @_@

Hmm nowadays i just started doing more sentenecs, more vocab, even more immersion. I feel i can handle the pace now that i'm used to it. I have like 5 decks at the moment, probably will be 6 soon. I try to finish everything within 2 hours and just do immersion for the rest of the day. I just listen and do my school work all at the same time!

How can you possibly have 1500 to review in an RtK1 deck finished over a year ago? I finished my RtK1 deck in the end of 2008 as well and I get about 15 reviews a day, sometimes less. I'm guessing adding on'yomi wasn't a great idea.

You really shouldn't have that many decks. Organize the decks after what kind of cards they contain (kanji - grammar - vocab) instead of what source they are from. The more decks you have, the bigger the risk that one will be procrastinated.

@Offshore: Thanks for sharing your progress, it always helps reading what kind of experience others make

It's not only that you aren't able to have fun anymore, but it also prevents you from learning NEW STUFF which is the greater problem. I agree with what you said, thanks for your comment

@ta12121: How much time do you spend for reviews per day?

@Tobberoth: Actually I think it's because I did my last review in one day, moving all the cards to a specific day in the future ... so they pretty much showed up again at the same time now .... ALL OF THEM! Furthermore, I don't get more than 15 reviews a day usually either, but as I've been not doing anything for over a month now, it's no wonder that stuff is piling up. (；´Д｀)


@Everybody: I managed to get down my biggest deck (RTK1 + on-yomi) to 390 cards in almost no time. Reviews go fast and most of the cards I catapulted far far into the future. Only 1,5 hrs of review left.
I think I'll ignore the rest of my decks for now and concentrate on the KiC one as I really want to finish it in order to build my vocab.
I want to try 2kyuu this year and I know (from practice tests - that I was able to pass) that my grammar knowledge is almost zero. I think it's about time to buy the Kanzen grammar books and study (I know there's also a spreadsheet out here, so I'd love to use this). Does that really help to get through the 2kyuu grammar in the test, though?
Also, I have to practice for the reading part -> time management.

General question: How much time would you or do you spend for review each day? How much would you spend if you only have about 1-2hrs of study time per day (like me)?

Also, a question to all the people using subs2rs: How exactly are you using it for your studies? I tried it with a premade deck of one of my fav dramas, but it was sooooooo boring, so I deleted it right away. (ノ_-')
Are you only keeping certain sentences? Most sentences were too easy or just boring for me, so that's why I decided not to use it for now, but maybe I just have to discover how to use it effectively.


Thanks again (*´▽｀)/ありがとう❤

Here's a screenshot of my current Anki decks (well the Core is not in use at all).

Why don't you try suspending your decks in future? In fact, if you have a portable device you can sync with, you can suspend the deck as soon as you sync it, so you'll be able to catch up a lot faster. My Heisig deck built up to about 700, and I can only handle about 50 reviews per day for that, so I synced and suspended for a couple of weeks, and now I'm up to date.

If you don't have a portable device, then maybe this is a sign that you should get one. I rarely fall massively behind, since I can review pretty much anywhere. I have trouble reviewing at my computer for some reason, so it was a very different story before I got my iPod.

I do have an Ipod touch, but no time to use it at work (lately).
I usually never suspend cards so I'm not really familiar with that option of Anki. What's the difference between just ignoring decks (like I'm doing now with some of them) and suspending cards? Might be a stupid question, but I just have no clue I guess.

So you use your decive, study, sync and after that suspend the whole deck? When do you unsuspend it again. Or do you just unsuspend certain cards every day?

chochajin Wrote:Here's a screenshot of my current Anki decks (well the Core is not in use at all).

Drop like five of those decks. Do the two most important at most (suspend the other ones you're not doing, but probably you'll never actually need to do them). Read some manga. Start a journal on Lang-8 (and do at least one entry a week). Talk to people on Skype. Go out of your comfort zone.

SRS teaches the skills it teaches very well, but there are a whole lot more skills to a language. Don't say you'll learn them later, start now.


That's my advice.

Cull the cards and decks that are weighing you down, try to consolidate your cards into as few decks as you can to make things easier on yourself.

Then work out how many reviews you can feasibly do per day. Use that number to calculate how long it will take to get through all of your built up reviews. Set a goal to finish by that date (give yourself a few days breathing room), write it down somewhere, and make sure you are making steady progress towards it every day.

2 weeks ago I had 4700 reviews overdue; due to exams, holidays in Bali, laziness, and the decision to rewatch all of new Dr Who (in English), which completely shattered my immersion environment for 4 months.

At first I just felt stressed and anxious about the huge mountain of reviews. Segmenting that huge number into a (manageable) daily workload reduced the stress, let me tackle the task piecemeal, and make a start on slowly but inevitably clawing back to 0 reviews.

blackmacros Wrote:and the decision to rewatch all of new Dr Who (in English),

'Blink' was the best episode! Moffat shall rule 2010+. Those creatures exist in real life as well, and can inhabit cats...

And mannequins:

chochajin Wrote:I do have an Ipod touch, but no time to use it at work (lately).
I usually never suspend cards so I'm not really familiar with that option of Anki. What's the difference between just ignoring decks (like I'm doing now with some of them) and suspending cards? Might be a stupid question, but I just have no clue I guess.

So you use your decive, study, sync and after that suspend the whole deck? When do you unsuspend it again. Or do you just unsuspend certain cards every day?

Sync first, then suspend. It just stops additional reviews building up while you're working your way through the backlog. Just remember to unsuspend before you sync again and resuspend afterwards.

Tzadeck's advice is worth listening to. SRS is extremely effective, and I think everybody should make it the backbone of their studying, but you shouldn't let it consume all of your time. You should give a decent amount of attention to gaining exposure and actually using the language. That could mean re-evaluating your current study targets if you don't have time (maybe do 5-10 less new cards per day, for example).

I think if you find some fun things to do like speaking on Skype, your general attitude will become more positive, and you'll find that extra bit of motivation to squeeze out some more reviews in the spare minutes you can find. That's another reason I like my iPod, because I can just pick it up and go if I get the impulse.

For me nowadays what i do is that, if my reviews are high i won't add much cards. Only around 30 new ones. Then if my reviews are low i';ll add up to 50-100 maximum.

nest0r Wrote:

blackmacros Wrote:and the decision to rewatch all of new Dr Who (in English),

'Blink' was the best episode! Moffat shall rule 2010+. Those creatures exist in real life as well, and can inhabit cats...

And mannequins:

Showing my new room mate Blink was what started it actually; it's my favourite episode too, and the one I use to convince people of how great Doctor Who is. After that I ended up re watching every episode in preparation for the new season. It seriously destroyed my immersion environment. I took a few weeks break during exam time; Doctor Who extended that into 4 months

/sigh if only I had Japanese dubbed copies...

Tzadeck Wrote:Drop like five of those decks. Do the two most important at most (suspend the other ones you're not doing, but probably you'll never actually need to do them). Read some manga. Start a journal on Lang-8 (and do at least one entry a week). Talk to people on Skype. Go out of your comfort zone.

What exactly do you mean when you say "drop"? "Leave them alone for now/Ignore for now" or "delete them or never ever touch them again"?

I've been reading manga for quite a few years now, as well as doujinshi and some novels. The latter is still difficult and frustrating sometimes.
I've been using Lang-8 for years now, although I don't have enough time to update once a week. I wish I could.

I don't use Skype to talk to people in Japanese. I LIVE in Japan, so I have enough chances and lately I use them a lot - it's getting better and better

Anyway, thanks a LOT for your advice

blackmacros Wrote:Cull the cards and decks that are weighing you down, try to consolidate your cards into as few decks as you can to make things easier on yourself.

But if I merge decks I will still ahve the same number of reviews, it won't change a thing?!

Quote:Then work out how many reviews you can feasibly do per day. Use that number to calculate how long it will take to get through all of your built up reviews. Set a goal to finish by that date (give yourself a few days breathing room), write it down somewhere, and make sure you are making steady progress towards it every day.

That sounds like a really good advice, thank you! I really need some good time plan and time management as I have a full-time job and really not much time to study anyway.

Quote:At first I just felt stressed and anxious about the huge mountain of reviews.

I'm not really anxious, but I'm frustrated, because having to do all those reviews also means that I won't be able to learn a lot of new stuff in the meantime. And due to that my motivation also drops.

Javizy Wrote:Sync first, then suspend. It just stops additional reviews building up while you're working your way through the backlog. Just remember to unsuspend before you sync again and resuspend afterwards.

I see. Thanks for the explanation

Quote:That could mean re-evaluating your current study targets if you don't have time (maybe do 5-10 less new cards per day, for example).

Well, I actually wanna give 2kyuu a try this July. I'm very comfortable with the kanji and vocab (passed that section in 1kyuu mock tests), but I sooo need to work on my grammar!! I finally bought the Kanzen Master 2kyuu Grammar book and also got a hold of the spreadsheet (thanks to everybody's hard work) - but I have no clue how to use that sheet effectively. Also, that'll mean I have another new deck in Anki *sigh* ....

How about having 3 decks?

Grammar Deck
RTK Deck
Sentence Deck (merge the Kic/KO2001/Sentence decks into 1 deck).

For sentences, it shouldn't matter where they came from (book/TV/etc).
So just lump them into 1 deck. If you want, you can add notes to each
card that say where the sentence is from.

As for the comment, about it still being the same number of reviews.
My opinion is that it doesn't matter. Just do your reviews everyday and
don't worry about the number of reviews in the pile. All that matters
is that you are learning and getting better every day.

Quality over Quantity (i.e. racing to finish the exact number of cards in your piles).

Although, if you're already reading manga and novels at a reasonable pace,
maybe you should drop KO2001/Kic altogether. Find some native mature
better suited to helping you with the more difficult vocabulary.

For example, there are monthly magazines with short stories and novels.

chochajin Wrote:

Tzadeck Wrote:Drop like five of those decks. Do the two most important at most (suspend the other ones you're not doing, but probably you'll never actually need to do them). Read some manga. Start a journal on Lang-8 (and do at least one entry a week). Talk to people on Skype. Go out of your comfort zone.

What exactly do you mean when you say "drop"? "Leave them alone for now/Ignore for now" or "delete them or never ever touch them again"?

I've been reading manga for quite a few years now, as well as doujinshi and some novels. The latter is still difficult and frustrating sometimes.
I've been using Lang-8 for years now, although I don't have enough time to update once a week. I wish I could.

I don't use Skype to talk to people in Japanese. I LIVE in Japan, so I have enough chances and lately I use them a lot - it's getting better and better

Anyway, thanks a LOT for your advice

Ah, sorry, I didn't know your situation. Part of it is that I feel like doing what you're doing would be wasting too much time reviewing, while you could be spending more time doing other things which would be more helpful in improving other skills in the language.

With the decks, I mean that it might be better to work on a couple of them at at time, and then once you're finished with one project and the reviews have gotten reasonable, you can start another one. So, once you finish, say, KO, then you would move on to the next project that you want to SRS. This could be one of the projects that you're already working on, but you could suspend it until you're ready to start it.

If you live in Japan it can be nice to have a tutor also. There are numerous websites for finding private tutors. Also, the more friends or language partners you have the better (friends are much preferred, of course). I've met a few people off of http://www.sharedtalk.com, so that can be a useful resource.

chamcham Wrote:How about having 3 decks?
Grammar Deck
RTK Deck
Sentence Deck (merge the Kic/KO2001/Sentence decks into 1 deck).

I think that sounds good.
I don't wanna touch my "old" grammar deck for now, though, because it didn't really help me that much and it just takes away too much time from me. Instead, I want to concentrate on the Kanzen Master grammar for 2kyuu, although I have yet to figure out what kind of deck style would be most effective for that. (i.e.: just reading an example sentence with the grammar term and then trying to recall what it means and why it's used in there vs. using gaps and stuff ...)

I went through KO2001 in lightspeed back then, most of the sentences were easy (grammarwise), but it was good for my reading ability and it built my vocab as well. I think I can ignore that deck for now. I wanna concentrate on KiC for now, because I still think I can profit from it.
I'm thinking about merging the Sentence and KO2001 deck and ignore it for now, until I'm through with KiC, then I'll merge that with the "Sentence" deck and go back to reviews. Is that not a good idea?
Although I'm not exactly sure how to merge decks in Anki as I've never done it. Will there be problems if the deck style is slightly different?

chamcham Wrote:As for the comment, about it still being the same number of reviews.
My opinion is that it doesn't matter. Just do your reviews everyday and
don't worry about the number of reviews in the pile. All that matters
is that you are learning and getting better every day.

But that's exactly the point. I feel that I'm only doing reviews every day without learning anything new. I have to come up with a better time management plan. (i.e. only do a certain small number of reviews every day and then concentrate on new stuff)

chamcham Wrote:Although, if you're already reading manga and novels at a reasonable pace,
maybe you should drop KO2001/Kic altogether. Find some native mature
better suited to helping you with the more difficult vocabulary.

I still think I should finish KiC and the Kanzen grammar before concentrating on native material only

chamcham Wrote:For example, there are monthly magazines with short stories and novels.

That sounds interesting, could you elaborate?

Thanks so much for your comment. That was really helpful

Tzadeck Wrote:Ah, sorry, I didn't know your situation. Part of it is that I feel like doing what you're doing would be wasting too much time reviewing, while you could be spending more time doing other things which would be more helpful in improving other skills in the language.

That's exactly how I feel actually! And that's exactly my problem! Too many reviews = not enough time to learn new things.

Quote:With the decks, I mean that it might be better to work on a couple of them at at time, and then once you're finished with one project and the reviews have gotten reasonable, you can start another one. So, once you finish, say, KO, then you would move on to the next project that you want to SRS. This could be one of the projects that you're already working on, but you could suspend it until you're ready to start it.

Actually that's exactly what I did, but keeping all the "finished" projects made it into a big mess in the end. I couldn't really work on my new projects because the reviews of my old projects kept getting more and more *sigh*
So for now, I think I should ignore/suspend some of the decks and work on 1-2 decks that I think will be most effective for me (that probably will be: KiC deck and Kanzen Master 2kyuu grammar deck).

Quote:If you live in Japan it can be nice to have a tutor also. There are numerous websites for finding private tutors. Also, the more friends or language partners you have the better (friends are much preferred, of course). I've met a few people off of http://www.sharedtalk.com, so that can be a useful resource.

Thanks a lot! I wanted to get a tutor for quite a while now