Hello to those crazy enough to click on this topic to reading this hellishly long post. I thought it would be a good idea to start a little personal diary about how i started out learning Japanese, how i learn, what i learned so far - stuff like that. Feel free to comment, criticize, give advice ...

The Dawn of Japanese
Last year i had no plan how i would go about studying the language, what material i would use, how much money it would cost me, and how much time it would take. One day in March i rediscovered some old Japanese learning books. I have bought those around 1992 when i first thought of learning Japanese. I also found the two audio cassettes for that self study course. This brought back not only some good and not so good memories but also the wish to finally start to learn.

Baby steps
I set down that same day looking around the internet Googleing for Japanese language learning resources. One of the first hits led me to the MLC website. There i discovered the free Kana lesson material which i downloaded. Some days later i sat down, printed the pages out, and started learning those strange looking symbols.

How-to: On every sheet was a set of 5 ひらがな and next to them were a couple of empty boxes. So i started writing down the characters several times. When i was done with it, i was trying myself on the quizzes below each set of characters.

To test that i was really remembering the characters, i was using a blank sheet of paper, on which i wrote all the previously learned characters down. I did this for all the kana, until i was sure that i was able to write them all from memory. Some days later i was so sure that all the characters would stick, that i could stop to write all characters from memory.

+ I was able to familiarize myself pretty well with the Japanese characters.
+ This helped me in my next stage of learning.

- What i did not know back then was, that there are tools like Anki out, with which i could repeat the characters spaced over time.
- It was not very effective, because weeks later i forgot how to write the characters, but still was able to read them pretty well.

Learning material: MLC ひらがな and かたかな worksheets and a pencil.

My next step
I was browsing the web again, and eventually found a .pdf file containing Genki 1, a workbook and an answer key. This was a lucky coincidence for me! I started reading and working through the first, second and also the third chapter. I did that just to see that this is a book i could learn the language with.

Once i was sure it is i was ordering the whole set consisting of some CDs, Genki 1, Genki 2, and the two Workbooks. I was really excited when the mail arrived.

How-to While i was working on a chapter, i was also writing off the whole stuff contained in each. I was using the native Winword application for this.

1.) Listening to the 会話. After listening to those, i started to write them off with Winword.

2.) Listening and reading along the Vocab section. After listening to them several times, i was creating Vocab list.

3.) Reading through the 文法 section. And, again, writing alongside with Winword.

4.) Creating the Worksheets for the lesson i was working on.

5.) Usually one day after creating the worksheets for a lesson, i began with repeating all the grammar points, listening to the dialogues, and repeating the vocab. Then i started working on the 練習 exercises.

6.) After a set of 3 lessons, i was repeating all those, doing them again, including the exercises.

This might look like it is useless, time consuming, not necessary, and just a huge waste of time. For me, it was not, it was working for me. Because i know when i can write something down, be it 1:1 or in my own words, i am most likely to retain that information. The process of working through the books, doing all the exercises, doing 3 lessons and repeating those after doing another set of 3, took me less than a month.

+ I was able to retain everything learned pretty easily because i was writing along while learning everything contained in the chapters.
+ I was giving up the Furigana, using Kanji and Kana alone in sentences, and also in my documents that were containing vocab, dialogue and grammar. On the worksheets i was also only using Kanji and Kana, and no Furigana at all from early on.
+ This was helping me to get accustomed to the Kanji. Even though i could not do much with them beyond my word app, and the dialogues and so forth.
+ I was starting to discover the method of shadowing. I only later learned that such thing exists. I did read along the dialogues, i was speaking along while learning vocab, and i was saying the words and reading the sentences out aloud, while writing sentences in Japanese from the grammar section of my book.
+ I was keeping sort of a diary, while working through the book, where i wrote down what was easy for me on each given day, where i was good at, where i was failing, and what i could do better.
+ I was keeping a schedule, to see how long it took me to do the exercises, to work through the chapters and so on.
+ I started out to make plans, what i could do, how i could improve my learning and so on.

- I did not like how my worksheets were looking like. I had all the grammar points spread across several documents, all the vocab as well, and no pictures. Winword is good for writing simple stuff, it is not good in formatting documents, and useless when it comes to the task of adding and positioning pictures or tables.

- Around that time i was working through Genki 1 i found out about Anki. I was downloading it, but did not know how to use it. So it was sitting there, waiting to be used some day. This would have been a real time safer for doing vocab repetition but it should not be. *sigh*

Where i was good at: I had no trouble learning the ～て forms, and most of the conjugation exercises were really easy for me, almost all the way down to chapter 11.

Where i was struggling: I had much trouble with my reading because it was slow. And also forming sentences, even though relative simple ones, where a major problem most of the time in my early stages. When there were longer sentences to say, i was not able to say them straight out, while doing in the exercises. I had trouble with some vocab pieces in the later chapters. While it was relatively easy for me to remember words like 意地悪な, i had a hard time with 都合が悪い、緊張する or even 歩いて. I don't know what it was, but those words would not seem to stick. So while doing those chapters i had to often open up the vocab and look there.

In later chapters, 11 and 12 to be exact, i was struggling, because everything from the previous chapters seemed to come together. It was very demanding to form んです sentences, and stuff of that nature. Had i been knowing how to use Anki, or were i aware of the existence of Evernote, this would not had happened.

Learning material[/b] Genki 1, Audio CDs converted to .mp3, Winword.

Some weeks went by
I took a major break after i had finished げんき1. I started in May and was done by the end of that month. June came and almost went by without me learning anything new in terms of Japanese. I was thinking, should i continue, seeing how bad i did with the last two chapters of book 1? Or wouldn't it be better to just repeat them all? Oh and it would be better to start for me to organize all that i had written down a bit better. But with Winword alone i would not be able to lay everything out the way i wanted it to be.

So i went and bought Word 2010, with which i could make a whole of that mess of files, lurking on my harddisk. June went by and July came. In July i started to reorganize everything, i started creating new worksheets, and rewrote everything from the book in a way that fit my needs. All in all i took the whole month redoing most everything, but this time proper, but still with not so much success as i wanted to achieve in chapter 11 and 12.

I also started buying other books, for future use, and as reference. For i thought, when one book is bad at explaining a grammar point, maybe another would do better. What once was a set of 5 books, Genki 1, Genki 2, Genki Answer key grew to a nice little collection.

An Integrated Approach to Intermediate Japanese, Minna no Nihongo 1, 2 the Workbooks, and a set of others belonging to that series, A dictionary of Basic Japanese Grammar, A dictionary of Intermediate Japanese Grammar, A dictionary of Advanced Japanese Grammar, The whole set of Japanese for Busy People, Kodansha Furigana Japanese Dictionary, The Kodansha Kanji Learners dictionary, Kanji in Context, Japanese for Everyone, Ultimate Japanese, Some books like Read Real Japanese and Breaking Into Japanese literature, Modern Japanese (a waste of money because it is poorly printed .... sent it back.) Essential Kanji, Remembering Japanese Characters, Basic Kanji Book, Japanese Grammar (an excellent book for beginners) Basic connections how to make your Japanese flow, Japanese Picture Dictionary and some others. I "wasted" a lot of money into learning material.

Some of you might say - are you CRAZY? Why are you throwing out money for so many books? And my answer to this is:

I know that there are many learning materials out there on the web, many websites i could learn the language with, or even just Flashcards. But i am not the type of person who can click back and forth, back and forth on websites, to learn anything from it. With books i can sit down anywhere, reading, but with websites this is hardly possible. And even though i am able to spend hours on end up front my monitor, i could not learn from the internet, does not work and has not in the past.

While i was not actively learning anything Japanese during the month of June, i was still watching Anime, in Japanese, which i did every free minute i had. I was listening to Japanese music while creating my worksheets for Genki 1, or when i had time to spare, and was browsing the Japanese part of the web. With the help of what little vocab i had at hand up to that point.

Genki 2 or RTK which shall it be?
After i was done with Genki 1 the second time, organizing everything, and repeating all the stuff which took almost all of July, it was time for another decision. August came, and went by, the books were lying on my desk, waiting for me ... but i was not able to decide on whether i continue with Genki 2 or start with RTK. So i did nothing in August but decided that i would at least go back in September to start learning anything at all.

In early September i sat down, trying to do the first chapter of Genki 2, which i did. But i soon saw that this leads me nowhere. And without noticing it, September went by without me learning anything new. I don't know what kept me from learning. I really can not say.

Most of the time i was thinking, maybe it is because i still have not decided, and maybe i would wish to make more out of the information in Genki 1 before being able to go on with Genki 2. And i am not even talking about how i was looking forward to work with An Integrated Approach to Intermediate Japanese! And there was still the question how i would want to approach the Kanji. Because one thing i knew was that i would have to come around learning those characters before soon.

So, after almost another month, in later October, i found this wonderful community. And my decision finally was made in favor of learning the Kanji instead of half assing my way through Genki 2. I just was not ready for that.

Entering the 漢字
I started out my Kanji learning phase with many misconceptions as to how this method would work. But here is the process and how i did it in a nutshell.

How-to:

1.) I would sit down every day, with a sheet of paper, opening up the book and doing a set of 34 frames.

2.) I was writing the Kanji down at least seven times. I gave this up after around frame 70, as suggested to me by a member in this forum.

3.) Later on i was writing them down only once.

4.) After the initial learning process, i took my time to learn the stories. And i eventually was trying to create those mental images Heisig 先生 is talking about. This was not working well early on, and i still thought about how this method works. The feeling that i was doing something wrong, especially when i had a bad day with low scores when i was reviewing the kanji, kept me thinking. But for the most part i was able to remember the kanji and grading very well with at least 85% on young and up to as much as 90 to 91% for other cards.

5.) When the time came and Heisig 先生 told me, go and spread your wings now, it is time to fly on your own, i did so. I started writing my own stories. Bad stories at first, but most often enough to keep the information where it should be, in my brain.

6.) I slowly but gradually grew better in writing stories that were allowing me to actually see those "mental images," and this was my major breakthrough in the kanji learning phase. I now had what i took to write my own stories, and i was constantly growing better in forming "mental images." This was at around frame 800. I had images in my mind previous to that, but i guess most times i was relying more on the words hidden on my flashcards, and not so much on the images. That has changed and not a moment to soon.

7.) Every other day i was reviewing the Kanji, doing those i had failed in my last session first, and the others in a mix of old and new cards.

8.) After finishing off my reviews, which, i must admit were the hardest part of the game, i would start doing another set of 34. Writing my stories, add them to Anki and review them.

9.) On weekends i did nothing but reworking stories, if it had to be, and kept doing my reviews. Only in the last stages i started working throughout the weekends as well.

+ I finally found out about Anki and discovered how to use it! *yay* But i still thought ok, Anki might be good for doing RTK, but i am not sure what i would do with that later on when i finally go back to my textbooks.
+ I started to get used to the look and feel of the Kanji that i found most interesting and fascinating even if i was only able to type them in with my IME.
+ I was able to finish this book in under 3 months, even faster, than i was expecting.
+ I had much time at hand that kept me not only reading on these boards, through those fascinating and inspiring posts from other members, but also that i am capable and wanting to do more with Japanese.
+ What started out as sort of a hobby led to real goals i wanted to achieve. Among those is going to University and actually start studying. But i will only do this if my motivation has not worn out by the end of this year. I always wanted to study, but ... well, life sometimes leads one to take other paths.

- I wish i would have been able to learn all this when i was 15 or 16. And i wish i had all the material i have now. But i am a firm believer in the theory that there is the right time for everything in life. And this time has come last year.

[u]Work material: RTK 1, hundreds of sheets of paper, twenty pencils who fell victim to my constant learning and reviewing process.

2011 back to the books - why don't you start already?
In January i was done with RTK 1, and it was the luckiest day in a long time for me, being able to post in the I finished RTK 1 please congratulate me thread. I decided to take a weeks break before finally, really, really, 本当, going back and starting with げんき2. The book was waiting on my desk again. I thought i would never have the patience to only do my RTK reviews and not to work with げんき 2. I made it, until Saturday at least, which was almost at the end of January.

But instead of starting with the book, i did a quick re-run of all the かな. Now that i finally discovered how to use Anki, how to create flashcards, i thought this would be a good start. Having done nothing on that matter in a long time, i was repeating those characters in a matter of 4 hours in sort of a Heisig RTK style, and adding them to Anki.

The other day i was finally opening up げんき 2 to learn, much the same way as i did with げんき 1. But, in all honesty, i had major problems. I was not able to follow the material ... I was struggling with the native speed of the dialogues, i was not able to do the "simplest" of exercises of that lesson and eventually gave up before long.

One day later
My motivation was low, it was killing me ... there i was, thinking: "What's wrong with me? I have been waiting for so long to get back to the books and i get nothing done, i have trouble to understand anything, the vocab troubles me, how can that be?" So, before long, i came to the conclusion that with Anki at hand it might be good to repeat げんき 1 for a third time. This proofed to be just what i needed to do in order to let go and continue with Genki 2.

This time around it took me nearly 6 days for the 12 lessons, about 3 hours a day, working through the Grammar, Vocab, Dialogues, and the Exercises.

+ Having done nothing in several months, no repetition, i was surprised how well i was remembering everything.[/b]
+ I could speak along those dialogues now with ease. And even the building of sentences, even more complex ones, was working great!
+ Anki was now not only used for RTK but also for Vocab.
+ Learning how to write and remember the 漢字 was paying off big time! I was recognizing every single one, and everything became easy.

- Except chapter 12. Something was missing, but what? I was not sure.

Work material The version of げんき 1 i had written, my own worksheets.

げんき 2 here i come!
Yes, finally, a few days ago i started with げんき 2. But even after having repeated all of げんき 1 with much success, i was still struggling with the stuff in the "new" book. It was like nothing made sense, the vocab was still hard as hell.

My motivation was so low, and i felt bad, thinking what if this time i spent was just wasted? What if i am not capable of getting myself together again, and rediscover that excitement and the fun i felt while doing RTK? Maybe i should start with one of the other books i have bought. But i decided against this, did the first Chapter in げんき 2, failed doing many 練習 questions correct. This was about 6 days ago.

The next day i was starting working on Chapter 2 / 14. It got easier, on some parts, i began to actually understand what was going on and how everything fits together. I saw the light at the end of the tunnel - which was not the train. This gave me some hope.

The day thereafter i was browsing around the web, reading on here, and eventually found out about yet another tool which brought the final and most important change in my learning process so far. Evernote. It is a tool with which one can make notes about virtually everything.

How-to: With Evernote i started extracting the core essence of each grammar point, adding example sentences, and adding a structure to every other card. This was what i wanted to do with Genki 1 all along.

While adding all the grammar points to Evernote from the lessons i did in げんき 2, two in all, i was also starting to add the grammar points from げんき 1. This brought the major breakthrough i was waiting for.

Two days ago i was ending chapter 14 with moderate succes. Today i did Chapter 15, and it was soooooo easy all of a sudden. I guess it holds true what someone on here has written. When you start to fail, and errors start piling, this is a signal for being close to leveling up. And i guess this is what happened to me. And it really feels awesome.

+ I found Evernote a godsend for me!
+ I discovered that going slower while learning is good. Because it was what brought back all the fun i was starting to miss.
+ Finally i saw how everything got together. I started to understand んです constructions and i felt wonderful!

Work material: げんき 2, Workbook, Word 2010,

Where are we now? Were are now in now!
And time for some final words and discoveries i made up along to this point. Some things which many of you already know, but i guess it is worth writing about that as well while i'm at it.

In all the months of learning and also in those i did not, i was playing old Japanese games on my Sony PSP. Even though i could not make heads and tails out of most of anything, it was still something that kept the connection between me and the language. Now i can understand some things, but not many, and this again is rewarding.

I was watching Anime passively while i'm at my Pc. Mostly with English subtitles. And while doing other stuff i was still passively listening. Something everyone should do. It has nothing to do with trying to have something Japanese going. No, it is more so, that once you learn a sentence or a vocab during actual study, there will come this AHA! i know this word from that song, or that Anime. And those words not only stick out of the rest of all the others, but are easier to remember than others.

I also started watching Anime with Japanese subtitles, not doing anything beyond just watching, and trying to follow what's going on. And with that i have been able to discover words and sentence patterns, or grammar points, i already knew. And thus i was able to understand at least some more things.

From now on i will keep my posts in this topic short. I will update it with new stuff on the go, which can be anything, from little success to new discoveries that might help others. We'll see. I will also add some pictures of my RTK victims, links, and anything that might be worth sharing.

Once i am done with Evernote i will share the notes.
I will also share my Genki 1 and 2 decks, even though there are some out already, it might still be worth sharing them as well.

The End

Sorry, didn't read the post due to the length. You put a lot of effort into it, but it will most likely disappear after a few days. You should create a blog and have it linked next to your profile name.

bodhisamaya Wrote:Sorry, didn't read the post due to the length. You put a lot of effort into it, but it will most likely disappear after a few days. You should create a blog and have it linked next to your profile name.

Yes, maybe i should do that. But then again i have written it here on purpose. I know how very long it is. Almost one year is hard to press into just a few words. Or maybe it's just my lack of ability to keep things short. There is still the possibility that someone might read it and find something that helps him or her. And for those that don't have time or patience to read, like you, which i can perfectly well understand, they could just browse through. In the end it is all about trying to give something in return for what this community has given me.

"1992 when i first thought of learning Japanese"

I was BORN in 1992 -- o__0

(I will read it in the morning when I'm jazzed with orange juice. =_= )

This is an interesting story.

You have quite the drive... I can't bring myself to go through Genki even once...

Skimmed through a bit. If you've got a grasp on basic grammar, it's time for more vocab now, perhaps? It's one of the bigger roadblocks; better start chipping away at it. Good luck!

I enjoyed reading your post, thank you for sharing your journey. Reading it makes me eagerly anticipate my own progress as the months go by. It has also reminded me to keep some sort of written log of my own Japanese journey so I could enjoy looking back at it and see what I've accomplished.

Nagareboshi Wrote:

bodhisamaya Wrote:Sorry, didn't read the post due to the length. You put a lot of effort into it, but it will most likely disappear after a few days. You should create a blog and have it linked next to your profile name.

Yes, maybe i should do that. But then again i have written it here on purpose. I know how very long it is. Almost one year is hard to press into just a few words. Or maybe it's just my lack of ability to keep things short. There is still the possibility that someone might read it and find something that helps him or her. And for those that don't have time or patience to read, like you, which i can perfectly well understand, they could just browse through. In the end it is all about trying to give something in return for what this community has given me.

I don't mean to discourage you from creating threads like this. I just wanted to encourage something that will make what you shared more lasting.

Nagareboshi Wrote:Yes, maybe i should do that. But then again i have written it here on purpose. I know how very long it is. Almost one year is hard to press into just a few words. Or maybe it's just my lack of ability to keep things short. There is still the possibility that someone might read it and find something that helps him or her. And for those that don't have time or patience to read, like you, which i can perfectly well understand, they could just browse through. In the end it is all about trying to give something in return for what this community has given me.

For what it's worth, I read all of it.

gyuujuice Wrote:"1992 when i first thought of learning Japanese"

I was BORN in 1992 -- o__0

(I will read it in the morning when I'm jazzed with orange juice. =_= )

Me too. I keep feeling like I'm running out of time for some reason, like there are so many things I want to do and if I don't start now, I'll never have the chance. Judo, Go, Shogi, Yoga, I don't know where to devote myself. Time is so limited, I'm realizing now. Soon I'm going to be 19, which is almost 20 ...

Time is not really limited, actually...

vinniram Wrote:

gyuujuice Wrote:"1992 when i first thought of learning Japanese"

I was BORN in 1992 -- o__0

(I will read it in the morning when I'm jazzed with orange juice. =_= )

Me too. I keep feeling like I'm running out of time for some reason, like there are so many things I want to do and if I don't start now, I'll never have the chance. Judo, Go, Shogi, Yoga, I don't know where to devote myself. Time is so limited, I'm realizing now. Soon I'm going to be 19, which is almost 20 ...

...you make me feel old. xD I'll be 21 in August. Now /that/ is ancient...

I thought this post was supposd to be about kanji coffee... Kind of like a sleep diary, but with kanji + coffee drinking.

Anyway, you guys are young. I'm turning 25 next month.

zachandhobbes glad that you found it interesting and thanks for your kind comment. Sorry for all the typos though. I will edit them out when i find the time.

astendra yes this is something i will have to work on. But, sadly, i don't know yet how to best tackle vocab. I have a book called Ultimate Japanese which is full of vocab and stories among other things. Sadly all this is written in romaji ... not even kana. Except for some of the later parts of the book, and all in all 20 kanji. Oh well ... if you could suggest anything i could do to work on that - please tell me.

bodhisamaya i haven't seen it as discouragement. There is actually another thing to the whole blog vs. posting on here story. When i own a blog i feel the need to fill it with information, news, and what not. On here i don't feel that way. And when i do feel the need to share my sentiments with everyone on here, the topic will resurface, maybe inspiring someone else to keep his / her own little Diary.

Seamboy thank you, glad you enjoyed reading it. And yes, you really should start keeping sort of a diary. Something to keep track of what you have been doing. Keeping track of what you were excelling at is almost as important as to keep track of your errors and mistakes. More on that in one of my next posts in here.

gyuujuice, vinniram, nohika what should I say? I turn 33 in April! In my opinion it is never to late, or you guys being to old, to start with anything you want to try. vinniram you want to learn Go, Karate, Shogi, Yoga? Then why don't you just start with one of those? Whatever your day to day schedule allows you to do. Look at it like learning the Kanji with RTK. Some go fast and do it in a month or two months. Some do something every other day and it takes them a year! But the thing is they started doing it, and eventually they were hanging in there, and were able to finish what they started with. That's what's important with all your hobbies. Don't let anyone stop you.

Lifetime in general is short, but you are young and have plenty of time to try everything out, and no one says you have to stick to just one thing forever.

KMDES sorry that you haven't found what you expected in here. Here's a nice hot cuppa coffee for you. c[_]

You give some good advice, Nagareboshi Thanks for it, I'll definately just try one thing and see how it goes from there.

This post will be about errors, and some other things, as i was announcing in my last post.

Tracking Errors
You don't know that yet, but i am a self learner, so keeping track of errors is a must. When in a classroom setting, a teacher would tell you what was wrong, and maybe even tells you how to do better next time. As a self learner, however, there is an answer key at best. And there are also people around the internet who might be able to correct your errors. But in the end, to know you have been making a mistake alone, does not do anything at all.

Doing most of my exercises on my PC, and correcting my answer sheets, i could just say ok i was not able to solve this problem. This is the correct way according to the answer key, and i leave it at that and continue with the next set of problems. Or even the next lesson.

But instead i pay close attention to everything i did wrong. Using the wrong particle in a sentence, the wrong tense, even if the rest of the sentence might be correct otherwise, considering that it is "just" a minor error, i grade it wrong. When i discover errors i do this.

1.) I copy & paste a wrong sentence or word under or next to my answer.

2.) If it is a particle i had wrong, i underline that part, and mark the sentence in a green color. But the answer in orange.

3.) I then strike out the wrong sentence. I do this to leave no chance to focus on the wrong sentence to look at the difference to the correct one. Because this could lead to keep on committing that error later on as well.

A separate error log, in a different file, helps also to keep track of errors. This, then, let's you see clearly what you must work on, or pay more attention to. So you can improve by doing this as self learner.

See picture at the end of this post.

Speaking / Shadowing
In my first post i was writing about how i had trouble to speak along longer sentences. Now is the time to write about how i was able to overcome this problem.

Short summary: I noticed that i haven't been able to read a sentence out aloud in one go. Also i had trouble speaking along what i had been listening too. Short dialogues were ok, but dialogues with longer sentence were a tongue-twister. With the slow textbook speed of dialogues i had no trouble to follow what has been said. But speaking along was still troublesome.

When i first heard a dialogue in native speed i thought my media player had an error. Or some error occurred during the converting process that i wasn't aware of. It was too fast for me to follow. Also the sentence were considerably longer, and my reading speed was slow.

But I love singing! I sing along to almost everything i listen to - as long as nobody is able to hear me that is.　

I was aware of the fact that there are songs out there like 桜サック from the Anime ラブ・ヒナ, or the Intro and Outro of 子供の時間 which i found on youtube, in which the singers are singing very fast.

1.) My first step was to learn to sing along in that speed which i did just for fun. But i noticed a huge improvement when it came to shadow a dialogue in normal speed. And i started to get better in speaking.

2.) When the dialogues were finally spoken in native speed, i was finally noticing the improvement this "method" of singing before listening to a dialogue and trying to shadow, has brought.

+ A big improvement in speaking
+ Shadowing got easier
+ I got better in the listening comprehension exercises
+ I was also singing along other Japanese songs, in normal or slow speed, which is also helping me when it comes to speaking or reading sentences out loud.

What i plan on doing is to get a new headset to record what i say. I know i hate this, because it sounds so awkward listening to what i was saying. But it will help, not sure about how it will, but i will find out. I like to discover new things while i learn.

Learn how to learn
As a self-learner, and even in a classroom environment, it is good to know what type of learner you are. If, say, you know that you are a visual learner, you can use this knowledge to your advantage. It will help you to determine that books might be best, or watching videos. Or if you are the so called auditory learner, you would be better of with audio material, than with books alone. So, basically your learning type should have an influence on the choice of learning material. Because if you know that, you will be best off to choose something according to that, and save money as well. Language learning, except from the free material out there on the web, is not cheap.

Google for "Learning types" if you got curious.

Motivation
Yes, motivation is necessary sometimes, to start learning. Or keep on learning for some hours. For some it is music they are listening to in the background, or keep the TV running while at home.

The best motivation is when you were able to understand a grammar point. Or having been able to score high on the exercises you've been working on. You name it. While doing RTK, my TV was turned off, no radio, no contact to the outside world during the time i was learning.

My source of motivation while doing RTK was, a webcam, stationed somewhere in Japan. *click me* Every time i was learning new Kanji, i had Firefox and the website open. I don't know why, but this was my personal window to Japan, and i was enjoying looking what's going on there. Sometimes it is enough for me to just let something sit around for some time. This never fails for me because i know i want to get back to learn more and more! If i don't know a word in a sentence -> dictionary, because i have to know what that word means.

Reading
While i have been in an adult education course for some months, i had to take an Advanced Level English course as well during that time. It was part of the curricula there. The person teaching us was giving a valuable hint how to improve reading.

If you don't know a word in a passage of text, don't stop and open up your dictionary, because this would only slow you down. Instead mark the words you don't know, and look them up later on instead, so you can fully concentrate on the reading material.

Being able to learn on a computer, and with the help of 電子辞書, it makes the whole process even more comfortable. For instance i have been reading Jane Eyre from Emily Bronte. While i was reading, and when i found a word i did not know, i was copying it out to a separate text file. Then i was looking those words unknown to me up in the E-E dictionary. Because going monolingual is what everyone is aiming for when learning a language.

Why am I writing about this here? Because this process can be used for any language to improve reading speed in general, even Japanese, which i will yet have to try out. I haven't read so many things yet. And when i did only short passages in the back of my textbook.

Other things
I was also writing about the books i was able to rediscover last year. It was Langenscheidt Japanisch Kurs 1 und 2. A german course because this is my native language. But even now, years later, i would not have been able to learn anything from these books.

While i was at it i also found a book about Japan i had bought around that time. When i was young i was always dreaming about traveling. The travel guide was not only about the cities in Japan, but also covering the history, and local festivities. In the book of the book was a directory of addresses from hotels, shopping centers, movie theaters, 旅館, お寺, 美術館, ...

So one day i decided to call one of those numbers to see how it would be like to hear or maybe even talk to a native Japanese person! I was sneaking to the phone, dialing the number, and biting my nails because i was nervously waiting for someone to answer my call. It must have been weekend and an answering machine was saying something i could not understand. But i found it sooooo cool. And, in retrospect, i am lucky that my parents never found out about it. For the younger ones around here, there were no mobile phones, only stationary ones. So i basically did this while my parents were not at home. ;-)

Pictures
I've been promising some pictures as well and here they are.

My setup for vocab cards in Anki


The field Examples is there for example sentences. But i have decided against it so far. Sentences are kept in my sentence deck.

Grammar points in Evernote


Tracking of Errors

Hey Nagareboshi, it seems you are working rather intensively on your Japanese and have tried so far many methods and ways of learning. It would be a pity if what you write would be lost somewhen in time. Would really appreciate if you could post it onto a blog, too Many followers would be found. Just an idea.. as mentioned above. Seems to be more effective. Also interested in this Everynote thing you screened in one picture. Looks like you have "filtered" all the necessary information you need and put them together. Hope to see you soon in the IRC chat.. to be honest I'm rather busy with driving lessons right now haha.

vinniram Wrote:Me too. I keep feeling like I'm running out of time for some reason, like there are so many things I want to do and if I don't start now, I'll never have the chance. Judo, Go, Shogi, Yoga, I don't know where to devote myself. Time is so limited, I'm realizing now. Soon I'm going to be 19, which is almost 20 ...

Holy crap o_O, exactly the same as me. I'm nearly 19 myself.


Anyway, I really enjoyed reading your posts ^^. Looking at your progress kind of reminds me of my own journey, although you're quite ahead of me.

Just wondering, what is Evernote? I've never heard of it before and if it's considered a Godsend then I would love to hear more about how to use it effectively. Installing it as we speak.

PensukeD Wrote:

vinniram Wrote:Me too. I keep feeling like I'm running out of time for some reason, like there are so many things I want to do and if I don't start now, I'll never have the chance. Judo, Go, Shogi, Yoga, I don't know where to devote myself. Time is so limited, I'm realizing now. Soon I'm going to be 19, which is almost 20 ...

Holy crap o_O, exactly the same as me. I'm nearly 19 myself.


Anyway, I really enjoyed reading your posts ^^. Looking at your progress kind of reminds me of my own journey, although you're quite ahead of me.

Just wondering, what is Evernote? I've never heard of it before and if it's considered a Godsend then I would love to hear more about how to use it effectively. Installing it as we speak.

Whatever information it is you don't want to forget, just c&p it into Evernote, and tag it. From your buying list, to useful information you find anywhere on the web, anything goes. You can export the information, to webpage, or copy certain things you want to review into Anki once you organized the information.

It is a Godsend for me - which greatly helps organizing those grammar points i've been learning. And also helps to add new information from various sources to one of the existing note in a quick and easy way.

You can organize the information however you like. There is no right, wrong, or best way to use it. Organize the information in a way you can handle it, and throw out all those bits that you think you don't really need.

When synchronizing your information, you should be aware of that there is no SSL encryption in the free version, so don't use it for information that should remain secret. Also there is sort of a traffic limit per month. Which would be hard to reach, unless you copy & paste big .pdf files into Evernote.

Tori-kun Wrote:Hey Nagareboshi, it seems you are working rather intensively on your Japanese and have tried so far many methods and ways of learning. It would be a pity if what you write would be lost somewhen in time. Would really appreciate if you could post it onto a blog, too Many followers would be found. Just an idea.. as mentioned above. Seems to be more effective. Also interested in this Everynote thing you screened in one picture. Looks like you have "filtered" all the necessary information you need and put them together. Hope to see you soon in the IRC chat.. to be honest I'm rather busy with driving lessons right now haha.

Hello Tori, Would be nice if you happen to drop by on irc again. You know where to find me. How is your progress lately?

And i guess you are right. I should really open my own blog. Even though the information is in here ... for those who might read it, smaller chunks would be better. So nobody is "forced" to read it all to find something useful.

I try out many different methods some work some don't. And i only keep those i find later on if they happen to complement the others i already usw. M

My next project i plan on doing, to improve the method of learning vocab - to work on 高低アクセント, and to make better use of spoken dialogues. What i plan on doing is to patch together videos with "karaoke" lines. So i can achieve both in one go - i can mark high and low passages, as well as having text on screen - just like in a karaoke video.

I don't even want to know how much time that is going to take ... or how i will do it. Since i have yet to find a software that lets me: record videos, synchronize the text with mp3 files as audio source in the video, and finally create karaoke like lines. If anyone knows software that can do this - please tell me.

Nagareboshi Wrote:And i guess you are right. I should really open my own blog. Even though the information is in here ... for those who might read it, smaller chunks would be better. So nobody is "forced" to read it all to find something useful.

I would really appreciate if you could contribute to my blog and tell the people about your story in more detail, Nagareboshi! (You just need to make an account and I would give you full access.. If you don't like the design, change it, just add your stuff, right? Keeping up this blog could keep our contact alive even better, since I do not have always that much time and want to know where you are concretely, without reading only occassionally entries of you on the forum Before I forget, the blog is held in English, I hope you don't mind?) Currently I'm only planning recommending different sources (media) I come across and show how I struggle/win (over) Japanese sometimes and what seems to be helpful and useful ("Links"). Another point will be collecting the magamo Posts, under her (?) copyright naturally, and putting them into a pdf (with context naturally), such as the ha vs ga story and so forth. Mail me/post your account name in here and you will get instantly access. Hope to read more of you soon, Nagareboshi!!