DON'T
Try to aim for a huge goal.
Burn out.


DO
Have fun and challenge yourself. Manage energy by doing both.

Aim for constant, slow improvement.

Don't think that just because you're reviewing your Anki decks and watching Japanese dramas or playing games in Japanese that you're learning more. For the first 2+ years of my Japanese studying I did just that and can confidently say I didn't learn much. Over these past 4 or 5 months of regularly reading actual books that I've learned much in this short time than I ever did in those 2+ years.

I'm not saying you can't learn new things through such content; however, don't think you'll become fluent in Japanese in passing. If you use a resource like a drama be sure that you're studying the scripts and actively participating in the learning process. I hope that makes sense and isn't misunderstood.

One thing which wouldn't be advisable is to get sucked into Japanese learning forums and blogs for the social aspect, as it can very easily become something which instead of spending too much time reading about Japanese, instead of studying; you may end up spending too much time reading about reading about Japanese, and end up two entire paradigm shifts behind were the productive and enjoyable aspect of Japanese takes place: learning, comprehension and progression.

One thing which I would advise, based on whatever anecdotal experience I could offer, is to try not to look at goals as big linear routes, but try to get heavily involved in very small, even daily goals, which not only feel rewarding but allow you to think "I've done this, now how I can I use it and what do I want to do next". A thousand small goals is far more physiologically rewarding a large singular goal, which can easily become overbearing and detached from your original ideals.

Also, it would also be not advised to look towards others for a sense of value in your studies (or anything, for that matter) and yourself as a reflection of progression, because unless you're fortunate and know people who honestly care about you, most people aren't going to appreciate the hundreds of hours of effort put into learning another language. Allow one-sided response, such as comprehending more of target language media, be like that person telling you at the end of a hard day: "I think what you're doing is a good thing, and you should continue it. Here is something you didn't understand last month, but will enjoy more now.　頑張ってね無名氏じゃなくてあなたは要人ですよ！"

RawrPk Wrote:I also know the keyword chosen can be 1 kanji reading but I am aware of multiple readings and wouldn't know which to choose as the keyword.

Here is a 6th edition kanji I got info on via Kotoba!

Quote:Kanji: 唄

ON reading: バイ
Kun reading: うた, うた.う

Meaning: songs with samisen
Grade: 8
Stroke count: 10
JLPT: N1

I don't know which of the 3 readings I would choose /confused

I'm not sure if I'm understanding your post correctly, but if you are trying to learn readings for each Kanji without even seeing the vocabulary they are used in ........ then with all due respect, you are doing it wrong. Out of everything I've read in this thread, THIS mistake would be one of the worst ones.

For what its worth I'm around N1 level now and am fairly literate, but I've never even see that character before ... =/

[Zgarbas]

I have, in song lyrics. You'll also encounter it often when looking up Shamisen&folk songs, obviously. I've only ever seen it with the うた reading.

I also have some kanjis for which I learned the common readings rather than words containing them(mainly because they're not commonly encountered). It has its uses. I also drill reading-only these days since I noticed I make some mistakes with readings... However, I agree that learning all of them this way would be time-consuming, tiring and pretty boring.

Edit: Just thought of a mistake... Don't think that just because someone else hasn't encountered a term, or because you personally think you'll never encounter a kanji/term, it is not worth learning. I assumed that of the alternative kanjis for numbers (壱、弐、参、etc) but I've ended up encountering them in both anime and books, for example. Similarly, I've encountered words normally written in kana in kanjis and was completely lost... It all depends on what you want to do with the language, and what kind of media you end up exposed to.　Though I don't regret not learning 如何にも、其処、etc. the first time I learned the words, I am learning them now. Similarly, I've also encountered many kanjis which find their way on "don't bother learning these kanjis cause you'll never encounter them" lists. And I'm really not that erudite.

Yeah, I also know the kanji 唄 well, only because I used to play the sanshin and it comes up a lot in those songs.

Of course, everyone knows this tune.

(Plus, it's in Okinawa-ben, so there's some interesting kanji readings for you all)

I wish I spent more time practicing reading.

I passed JLPT1 two years ago, reached the point where my vocabulary is sort of native-level and can read pretty much anything, but my reading speed is horrendous. Like 2-5x slower than native speed, depending on medium and who you compare to. As a result, even reading stuff I'm interested in becomes a chore and I end up putting books after an hour (~15 pages) or so, so I don't really improve. For stuff like understanding lecture notes this isn't a problem since reading comprehension isn't the bottleneck factor but for everything else it's frustrating.

From now on I'm setting myself the task of reading 100 pages of LNs (or ~60 pages of heavier novels) a day (or however much I can fit into the day, whichever is lesser) until I can do it in under an hour. Tired of being so far behind natives in this area.

Don't think that you don't have enough time to learn Japanese, with little (yes, little) dedication you can see the holes through your day which can be easily filled with learning Japanese instead of petty things.

Don't think that you are not good enough to speak/write Japanese, even as a beginner you can produce some decent sentences, and this will give you a great morale boost even if the sentences are of the simplest ones. You actually see how your studying is adding to your skill.

EDIT: Wrote "moral boost" before LOL!

Hmm, I think I ought to redeem myself from my self-incrimination in the post above.

Just making the attempt to switch from not reading word by word but instead glance at whole parts of sentences at a time has doubled my speed. Now I can enjoy myself. >_>

It will be a repeat of what some others have said I'm sure but:

1. Toss out anything that isn't comprehensible input. I spent tons of time listening to full blown adult level material for years before moving to Tokyo and it did almost nothing for my listening abilities. Something being far too simple is VASTLY superior to it being far too difficult.

2. "Slow" and steady wins the day with the SRS. Decrease your amount of SRS time and focus on the quality of the reviews vs the quantity as this keeps it fun which in the long run actually increases the true quantity you will retain. The road to getting really good at Japanese is a long one but so many of us want to "rush it" via cramming tons of material into our SRS system. More often than not this will eventually end up with you either dreading your SRS reviews, falling dramatically behind if you happen to get busy after going on a crazy spree of adding 100 new words per day.

Or in other words the process of trying to cram lots of material into my SRS at different stages actually ended up with me actually learning less material overall than if I had just kept a nice low pace that kept my SRS reviews short, fun and engaging.

I know some want to rush it but think of it like this: If you add just 10 new vocab words per day to your SRS in two years you will have covered 7,300 vocab words which is more than 95% of people who study Japanese for two years will have. And the funny thing? It is also more words than most people who add 30-40 new vocab words per day as well. Why? Because almost everyone how has tried to stick with that many cards per day ends up failing thus spending tons of time trying to catch up on reviews or worse yet actually cheating themselves on the answers just to get through their dreaded pile of cards for the day.

Use SRS as tool....not as your entire focal point of study.

3. Use the time you would be spending trying to cram 30-40 new cards a day into your SRS deck and keeping up with reviews to read, read and read some more. Again sticking to comprehensible material.

4. After a few months of getting used to the sounds I would attempt to spend at least 10 minutes a day reciting out loud perfect Japanese sentences. Not sentences I make up. I would literally just use any of the great sentence sources often cited by this forum. 10 minutes is any easy 60-70 sentence recitations maybe just repeating the same few sentences on a related topic or grammar point over again 4-5 times.

But you know once you you reach a certain level you can add 30-40 words a day and its not hard to remember at all just because you already know so much and you're so used to Japanese . That's from my experience. I don't add 30 to 40 everyday just bc of time restraints but its completely feasible with my level of Japanese. It's not really cramming bc I got those 30-40 words from whatever material I'm enjoying and it's just really easy to remember bc of all the Japanese I do know. Also there's different types of anki card layouts like mcd that are helpful. I guess I wouldn't recommend adding 30-40 everyday when you're at the level maybe once in a while bc thr reviews will build up. And maybe time spent on reading or watching stuff might be better in the long run

fun is the most important thing in your studies. If you aren't having fun, no matter how iron-willed you are, you are going to wake up one day and just stop it. For listening, sometimes it is just more beneficial to record yourself reading a vocabulary list and listening to it all day rather than listening to something you can't understand.

howtwosavealif3 Wrote:But you know once you you reach a certain level you can add 30-40 words a day and its not hard to remember at all just because you already know so much and you're so used to Japanese . That's from my experience. I don't add 30 to 40 everyday just bc of time restraints but its completely feasible with my level of Japanese. It's not really cramming bc I got those 30-40 words from whatever material I'm enjoying and it's just really easy to remember bc of all the Japanese I do know. Also there's different types of anki card layouts like mcd that are helpful. I guess I wouldn't recommend adding 30-40 everyday when you're at the level maybe once in a while bc thr reviews will build up. And maybe time spent on reading or watching stuff might be better in the long run

The bold part is the reality I'm talking about for most people. Sure once you get up to a more advanced level 30-40 new words in a single day isn't an impossible feat from a pure memory perspective but if you truly try to add 30-40 per day EVERY single day the amount of time you will be devoting to just SRS after a few weeks will be huge. If you have massive amounts of free time and just truly love SRS'ing more than anything else then go for it but I believe the reality for the vast majority of us is that 30-40 per day every day is just going to lead to a huge amount of burn out and makes it VERY easy for something to happen that causes you to fall behind. Busy day at work + engagements afterwards + maybe you aren't in top Japanese studying mood that day and now you are looking at nearly 600-800 reviews the following day which just causes a chain reaction.

The results? You end up spending lots of time not adding new cards and trying to get back on track thus dropping your average down to what you should have been doing in the first place.

BTW I'm not saying that 10 per day is the number you should aim for. I'm just showing that even at a very low number you still wind up with a large Japanese vocabulary in a relatively short period of time compared to the vast majority of learners and in a manner that is far more conductive to keeping things fun and allowing you to time to focus on other areas of Japanese.

activeaero Wrote:Busy day at work + engagements afterwards + maybe you aren't in top Japanese studying mood that day and now you are looking at nearly 600-800 reviews the following day which just causes a chain reaction.

One thing that's always bugged me is how people stop SRSing after getting a big backlog.

The big backlog doesn't really mean anything other than you can go for a couple days (maybe even weeks) without adding new cards.

Just keep up with your reviews everyday and eventually your backlog will reduce to 0. It may take weeks or even months, but it will happen as long as you're not adding new cards. It's not necessarily a bad thing to have a big backlog. (Well, technically you are studying cards at a suboptimal time, but it doesn't make a huge difference in the long run.)

Yeah, I never really got that either. But I guess that's why Damien added the daily cap thing.

activeaero Wrote:Sure once you get up to a more advanced level 30-40 new words in a single day isn't an impossible feat from a pure memory perspective but if you truly try to add 30-40 per day EVERY single day the amount of time you will be devoting to just SRS after a few weeks will be huge. If you have massive amounts of free time and just truly love SRS'ing more than anything else then go for it but I believe the reality for the vast majority of us is that 30-40 per day every day is just going to lead to a huge amount of burn out and makes it VERY easy for something to happen that causes you to fall behind.

mezbup mentions* that when you add 35 new words a day for a year, the 'steady state' for reps is around 300-350 reviews. imo it's not too difficult to accomplish, especially if you own an iphone or an android.
* http://supernewsoftware.com/reviews.php

Anyway, the issue here isn't the amount of words you learn or how much you love srsing. The real problem when learning new words is not having enough contact with the language.

With more immersion, (specifically reading), Japanese is learned more effectively.

Aspiring Wrote:mezbup mentions* that when you add 35 new words a day for a year, the 'steady state' for reps is around 300-350 reviews. imo it's not too difficult to accomplish, especially if you own an iphone or an android.

300-350 reviews? That's hours, every day, even at 30 seconds apiece. That's fine for crunching through RTK, not so good for every day of your life.

I do about 85 reviews a day on average. Almost all of my cards are vocab word in a context sentence, so I could see doubling that if I did simple word cards, maybe. Personally, I'm not willing to consistently spend more than 40 minutes a day on reviews.

After the necessaries of sleeping, hygiene, commuting, eating and working there's only a few hours left. Spending half of that time on reviewing seems insane to me. Of course, if you don't actually do anything at work and just have to -be- there, then add however many words you like, but for those of us expected to actually be working when we're at work... not so much.

Personally, I agree with the notion that slow and steady wins the race. 10 words a day is plenty to have in Anki. You will pick up other vocab just from context whether you mean to or not anyway, if you're spending your freed up hours enjoying Japanese media.

SomeCallMeChris Wrote:

Aspiring Wrote:mezbup mentions* that when you add 35 new words a day for a year, the 'steady state' for reps is around 300-350 reviews. imo it's not too difficult to accomplish, especially if you own an iphone or an android.

300-350 reviews? That's hours, every day, even at 30 seconds apiece. That's fine for crunching through RTK, not so good for every day of your life.

I do about 85 reviews a day on average. Almost all of my cards are vocab word in a context sentence, so I could see doubling that if I did simple word cards, maybe. Personally, I'm not willing to consistently spend more than 40 minutes a day on reviews.

Huh? Why are you reviewing so slowly?

If its RTK and you are writing out each character for each review, then it makes sense it should take a while to get through. But for vocab? I only have one deck that is filled with both sentences and single vocab words, and I can go through 100 reviews in about 10 minutes. 350 reviews a day has always been around my "standard" amount because I'd manage to review that many just by reviewing on my phone during my otherwise useless time (sat on a train or whatever).

@SomeCallmeChris
Well, I'm in high school, and I finish all of my reps in first period so I can't really compare myself to anyone here...

But I feel that if words are learned in comprehensible context, they're really easy to learn and review. Using Core or any premade decks may foster different results.


Just to stay on topic...
don't: underestimate the power of reading

SomeCallMeChris Wrote:

Aspiring Wrote:mezbup mentions* that when you add 35 new words a day for a year, the 'steady state' for reps is around 300-350 reviews. imo it's not too difficult to accomplish, especially if you own an iphone or an android.

300-350 reviews? That's hours, every day, even at 30 seconds apiece.

Even while I was writing out kanji for RtK reviews, and/or while writing out vocabulary for such related reviews, 30 seconds would be very slow. It shouldn't take anywhere 30 seconds to write out even kanji with high stroke count. That is to say if one were to be consistently reviewing between 300-350 vocabulary cards a day and by the end of a period of months, their average time per answer did not decrease to an eventual absolute point, said individual would be using a method dynamically incompatible with reading/recalling and writing Japanese.

All that aside, 35 new words a day for a year is over 12.5K words. After that point it would probably be a struggle to find 35 new words a day, consistently. At the hypothetical time of 30 seconds a card, 350 reviews makes just under three hours. Breaking it up throughout the day:

30min - getting up half an hour earlier in the morning and doing reviews before work/school/etc.

60min - after getting home from daily commitments

60min - after eating/bathing/etc. before bed.

That leaves 30 minutes to find throughout the day. With a phone/tablet/portable computer device, 30 minutes or even an hour could be picked at throughout the day during work breaks, etc.

It might seem like a lot, daily, yet it doesn't really take all that long to form attachment to routine. Would you agree that most people watch between 30minutes and an hour of TV a day? Or that many people spend between 30minutes to an hour on the internet, checking emails and other misc. routine activities which essentially boil down to checking things for the sake of things and generally frittering away time?

Even the extreme situation of 3 hours is manageable broken up into chunks. Something which Anki facilitates as a bare essential.

I absolutely agree. I have 30 minutes to 1.5 hours of time in the evening that I spend on the internet, frittering away time. Which I can spend consuming Japanese media, or Anki-reviewing, or on Japanese learning websites. I cannot, however, spend 1.5 hours on each of those things... only on all of those things combined. I also cannot neglect my work for over an hour a day. More power to you that have such slacker jobs, or who haven't yet been disciplined for slacking on the job, but that's not reality in -my- world. I have roughly 4 hours a day in which to handle laundry, dishes, housekeeping, Japanese study, social life, contacting parents and relatives, etc. More on my day off, of course, when I have one which happens once a week, usually. More power to those of you that have two days off a week and never have to put in work on the weekends or after hours.

If you're a student, then by all means, add 30 words a day. You don't know how easy you have it as a student until school ends and you're in the real world.

If I took that 30/60/60 that was mentioned, and spent it reviewing, that would roughly describe all my time for leisure activities. I do enjoy studying Japanese... but not enough to study it to the exclusion of actually consuming Japanese language media or otherwise enjoying my time.

SomeCallMeChris Wrote:I also cannot neglect my work for over an hour a day. More power to you that have such slacker jobs, or who haven't yet been disciplined for slacking on the job, but that's not reality in -my- world. You don't know how easy you have it as a student until school
ends and you're in the real world.

It is illegal for an employer to not provide break time for employees working over a certain amount of time. No one was suggesting to do reviews during actual work time. I haven't been a student for a very long time and have spent a number of years working full time, 50 hour weeks. Living in the "real world" I know how easy it is to make excuses as to why there isn't enough time to do thing X, due to having to do Y, Z, Alpha, Bravo, Charlie.

Most of it boils down to time management, planning and making the decision to do many other things instead of what many of us would rather spend our time doing. It isn't a negative thing, though. There is nothing wrong with not doing something or doing something else. There is however no need to try to justify the choice by making out that there simply isn't the time available, and talking down to others as though they wouldn't understand. It's a cop out.

Quote:If I took that 30/60/60 that was mentioned, and spent it reviewing, that would roughly describe all my time for leisure activities.

Quote:I do enjoy studying Japanese... but not enough to study it to the exclusion of actually consuming Japanese language media or otherwise enjoying my time.

For roughly a year. In exchange for a vocabulary increase which would dramatically increase your accessibility of Japanese language media. No one is forcing you to make such a choice, but don't act like such a choice isn't realistic or impossible.

By the way, those school kids attending school, cram school, after school clubs,summer school, studying at home, etc. probably spend more time in study/work than many people who work full time, not to mention the daily pressure to perform.

I don't know about other nations, but in the USA you are required to be given the -option- of having 1/2 hour of unpaid break time for any shift exceeding 6 hours. Assuming you actually take that option, and actually eat during that break, then from punch-out you might take a few minutes to arrive at and settle at your break place, 10-15 minutes to eat, 10-15 minutes to study, a few minutes to return to the clock and punch in again. Anything more than that, and you should count yourself lucky.

8 hrs sleep, 8 hrs work, .5 hour unpaid break, .5 hour in, .5 hour out commuting is 17.5 hours. 2.5 hours cooking, hygiene, housekeeping, medical, friends and family, that's 20 hours a day. In your remaining 4 hours, how much will you devote to SRS?

I haven't allowed time, mind you, for a significant-other or a particular hobby other than studying Japanese, or working more than 40 hours which is pretty much required if you are at all career minded, so now '3-4 hours' is a pretty extreme answer in my mind.

If you're career minded and not working the minimum, or you're hourly wage instead of salaried, then you can probably assume you're working 50-60 hours and cut that 'free time' in half. Now 3-4 hours of study per day is insane compared to 2-3 hours of 'free time'.

Of course, if you -are- salaried, you can make some of that up on your day off and/or weekend, if you have one.

Note that in the extreme case, 1/2 hour unpaid break could mean that you get 1/2 hour unpaid break and 23.5 hour workday, 6 days a week. (It is technically illegal to require a 7 day workweek, so you do get a day to recover.) I don't know of any real case of such unrealistically stressful work, but labor laws don't do crap to prevent it.

1/2 hour, unpaid break, once per day (if the day exceeds 6 hours). Period. That's the 'law'. Food, break space, etc., do not need to be provided on site. Add travel time to the nearest fast food joint and you may barely have time to wolf down a burger. If you get the more-or-less standard 2x 15 minute paid breaks and 1/2 hour unpaid lunch break in an 8 hour shift, feel lucky, because that's -not- law, it's just common. Only the 1/2 hour unpaid break is law.

Mind you, I'm perfectly willing to leave my pair of jobs for something better if you think I'm insane and simply being screwed over. Make me an offer. I'm primarily a cook, with excellent skills in English, reasonable skills in web design and computer programming, and considerable culinary skill, not to mention reasonable skills in Japanese and somewhat poor skills with German and Spanish. Ideally, I'd like to run a western-style Bistro in Kyoto if you care to fund it, but Tokyo would be perfectly acceptable.

SomeCallMeChris Wrote:Mind you, I'm perfectly willing to leave my pair of jobs for something better if you think I'm insane and simply being screwed over. Make me an offer. I'm primarily a cook, with excellent skills in English, reasonable skills in web design and computer programming, and considerable culinary skill, not to mention reasonable skills in Japanese and somewhat poor skills with German and Spanish. Ideally, I'd like to run a western-style Bistro in Kyoto if you care to fund it, but Tokyo would be perfectly acceptable.

Why don't you get a job as a programmer? You can get paid pretty well as a programmer in the US (at least a lot better than Japan). It's entirely feasible to work for 3 years in the US, save up a lot of money, and then take a year vacation in some cheap country (China?).

partner55083777 Wrote:Why don't you get a job as a programmer?

Because I can't stand the inside of cubicles any longer, that's why I moved to the kitchens. I don't really intend to return to computing again, but if I do, it's got to be... I don't know, something less purely sedentary. Also I don't speak any Chinese, but I do speak Japanese, so I'd rather visit Japan.

Anyway, that was just me unintentionally tangenting off into snarkiness. What I really meant to be pointing out was that in my various jobs both computer and culinary, I've been expected to be -working- when I'm at work and to take only a 1/2 hour lunch break. It's not normal to be able to take over an hour a day in breaks, in my experience. In the normal course of life, in my experience, there's only few hours of free time in a day.

I feel that 350 reviews a day is going to take up too much time -- at least I would never be able to keep up with that -- but I also believe in context sentences and typed input checked answers, so, whatever. If other people can do 350 reviews on their lunch break, then that's fine.

I don't really want to get into quibbling about those kinds of numbers, the point I was trying to make is that I think it's best to not spend more than a small fraction of your time doing Anki reps. You need some time for other kinds of study, of course. But, actually using the language - whether you're consuming some form of media or communicating with people should be the majority of your time. After all, using the language is the whole point of learning it, and simply reading is one of the best ways to improve your language skills.