Hi there, I'm working my way through RTK 1 and understand that it is a process where you make little progress in the months needed to study it. I thought this would be a trade off I could make, but it's becoming increasingly difficult.

Is there anything you can suggest for me to balance RTK + Anki with other useful things I could be doing to better my proficiency?

I'd suggest reading through Nukemarine's guide for beginners.

http://forum.koohii.com/showthread.php?tid=5110

This is contrary to what practically the whole world believes, but long-term goals are bullshit. As with everything one undertakes in life, the reward of achieving a goal is never worth the effort, if you were miserable along the way. 10,000 hours of focused effort is what they say is required to become accomplished in any area. If you didn't have fun over that time, even if you come to acquire the world, you will have wasted your life.

Don't stress over progress if you are sincerely putting in the hours and enjoying yourself.

bodhisamaya, well said.

If you go through RTK without being able to notice much progress, but you're having fun in some way, then you're bound to be successful. The very reasons that make it fun (the stories you think of, the way you can take a look into the ancient culture of Japan by seeing how radicals combine to convey certain ideas, the way kanji/radicals can sometimes look like pictures), are also the same reasons why the RTK method is arguably the best for retaining kanji. If that fun goes away, how can the RTK method possibly truly be put into effect? I think that if you focus on the fun aspects, you'll automatically get your progress, probably before you can realize it. But the more you expect progress, the more you might forget about just having fun.

I'd put RtK a little bit on the back burner for a little while. I would spend more time doing other study than RtK, because it tends to be less tedious. I'm not sure what level you're at, but if you're doing the whole "RtK before anything" approach, go and learn hiragana, read up on grammar, and keep your kanji studies on the side (but don't stop!). You'll see faster progress if you spend more time on Japanese and less on specifically kanji -- and results are motivating!

I agree with Asriel. I've never gone along with the idea that you shouldn't do anything else until you've completed Heisig. It's not like exposure to something interesting in Japanese is going to contaminate anyone and result in never mastering the language.

I still recommend you maintain a steady approach to learning the kanji otherwise you'll regret it later. The time you spend now will pay off massively in the future. Just get out there and balance what you need to do with what you want to do.

Anything you do at this early stage is going to be beneficial in some way, but you need to build basic vocab and grammar. You need to give time to elementary listening, reading, writing, and speaking.

At the same time you should pursue what is of interest to you. That doesn't mean trying to read a book on philosophy if that's what gets you going. But you could memorise one profound sentence to amaze people with.

Anyway, just remember you're in this for the long haul. Never think it is difficult; it's simply time. You'll get there.

bodhisamaya Wrote:This is contrary to what practically the whole world believes, but long-term goals are bullshit. As with everything one undertakes in life, the reward of achieving a goal is never worth the effort, if you were miserable along the way. 10,000 hours of focused effort is what they say is required to become accomplished in any area. If you didn't have fun over that time, even if you come to acquire the world, you will have wasted your life.

Don't stress over progress if you are sincerely putting in the hours and enjoying yourself.

Goals aren't bullshit... Unless you make the wrong goals.

"Learn 20 words a day"
"Learn 500 words a month"
"Learn the JLPT2 vocab by March"

Those are bullshit goals. They are goals for the sake of goals. They don't -mean- anything, and they fail to motivate you until you are obsessive about completing things. Most people aren't nearly so obsessive.

"Be able to read Kino's Journey in the original Japanese"
"Be able to watch My Boss My Hero without English subtitles"

These are real goals. The lines aren't as hard as the bullshit goals above, but they're something you actually care about. When you reach them, you feel a kind of ecstasy for quite a while afterwards.

My shelves are lined with my goals. Books I want to read, but can't, because they haven't been translated into English! The only way I can enjoy them is to learn enough Japanese. I periodically go through them to find out how close I'm getting.

The last 2 times I pulled down Kino's Journey, I went from 'absolutely not' to 'WOW! I can read almost all of this!' It's exhilarating! And I've got even harder books on the shelf waiting for me as well.

You will never feel a sense of progress if you don't measure your progress against goals that matter. Learning 2000 words doesn't mean anything if you can't or don't USE them.

wccrawford Wrote:"Learn 20 words a day"
"Learn 500 words a month"
"Learn the JLPT2 vocab by March"

Those are bullshit goals.

When I was a child I decided to become a millionaire.
I did succeed.
I was into reading and some sunny day I just was wondering how much time it would take to read a million pages. I started on my journey immediately. It took me a while, but I got where I wanted. I am a mutlimillionaire now.

So, in a word:
When millions talk, bullshit walks.

Demoralized? Khatz is full of silly ideas, many that I don't completely agree with, but like 1/3rd or more of his site is all about motivation. And for good reason, it's the number one most important thing when it comes to doing anything. And it's especially important for learning a language on your own with no one to really tell you what to do.

Anyway, regarding RTK. I can't agree with the people that say you need to do RTK by itself, alone without learning any of the language. Yeah, Heisig did it this way, but everyone learns differently.

I commend anyone who can go through RtK by itself without getting bored. I'm certainly not built like this.

In this post I rant about some of my thoughts here, like how I don't think it's worth doing all of RTK. (And I'll reiterate some of the points here.) Like, how doing RTK Lite I found more useful and time worthy. I do suggest you do as much as you can possibly do. But if it starts to wear you out, think about changing things up a little, or even a lot.

It's also a minimal-effort to learn a new Japanese vocab word along with each new keyword. That way your at least learning some Japanese. And you might be less confused about things later when you see similar keywords.

Most importantly, don't forget to find fun mono-lingual things to do in the language. Find anime or drama that you wouldn't mind watching raw (or better yet, with Japanese subtitles).

wccrawford Wrote:Goals aren't bullshit... Unless you make the wrong goals.

I know it is an idea that doesn't get much consideration in the West, but I do believe it is one that has merit. I never make a goal that will expire beyond 12 hours. When I wake up in the morning I have an idea of what will constitute a productive day. At the end of it, I reflect back on whether or not I used those hours usefully. I don't care about the day before or what I will do next week. That would only paralyze me in regret or encourage contentment due to pride. It is also a fail-safe against procrastination.

Long-term goals also limit the potential for future positive events we can't imagine at the moment. They create a kind of tunnel vision where often fleeting opportunities are delayed, passed by, or never noticed. They also discourage reflection from a day's personal growth that might have otherwise made one recognize what we were chasing after really isn't worth the effort after-all.

Long-term goals usually have three consequences:
#1: You achieve your goal, and after a brief euphoria, you realize that it didn't really bring you the happiness you imagined it would
#2: You achieve your goal, and it actually brings more suffering onto you ( marrying a high school sweetheart comes to mind)
#3: You fail to reach your goal

I love reading biographies because it gives me a chance to learn from those who reached the highest level a person could have in a chosen field. Surprisingly enough, most become much more miserable. Strive to gain satisfaction from the process, not the goal.

eldiablov Wrote:Hi there, I'm working my way through RTK 1 and understand that it is a process where you make little progress in the months needed to study it. I thought this would be a trade off I could make, but it's becoming increasingly difficult.

Is there anything you can suggest for me to balance RTK + Anki with other useful things I could be doing to better my proficiency?

How about you give us some basic info? How often do you study the kanji, how many reviews do you have each day, what is your Japanese level? Etc.

(Betting this thread is about to get derailed...)

I'm up to around 250 kanji with Heisig and am doing around 20 kanji a day when I can and trying to listen as much as possible, which is a lot more fun to me than doing Heisig's method. I'm going to take the kind person's advice who showed me Nukemarine's thread and get started on core2k. I have read through Tae Kim's basic grammar and that's about it really.

Thanks to everyone who posted, you've all been very helpful.

bodhisamaya Wrote:Long-term goals also limit the potential for future positive events we can't imagine at the moment. They create a kind of tunnel vision where often fleeting opportunities are delayed, passed by, or never noticed. They also discourage reflection from a day's personal growth that might have otherwise made one recognize what we were chasing after really isn't worth the effort after-all.

I think the point of the long-term goal is to set all your short-term goals. Meeting the short-term goals will allow you to create more short-term goals under the guidance of the long-term ones. The long-term goal keeps you hungry, while the short-term ones keep you happy.

Quote:Long-term goals usually have three consequences:
#1: You achieve your goal, and after a brief euphoria, you realize that it didn't really bring you the happiness you imagined it would
#2: You achieve your goal, and it actually brings more suffering onto you ( marrying a high school sweetheart comes to mind)
#3: You fail to reach your goal

The flaw in the reasoning of #1 is when you look at the goal as the end-product instead of the journey. In fact, many set unreachable goals for that very reason, because they like to continuously strive toward something.
As for #2, that's not really a flaw of the goal you set. I'm sure there are just as many cases where the opposite has happened.

kainzero Wrote:

bodhisamaya Wrote:Long-term goals also limit the potential for future positive events we can't imagine at the moment. They create a kind of tunnel vision where often fleeting opportunities are delayed, passed by, or never noticed. They also discourage reflection from a day's personal growth that might have otherwise made one recognize what we were chasing after really isn't worth the effort after-all.

I think the point of the long-term goal is to set all your short-term goals. Meeting the short-term goals will allow you to create more short-term goals under the guidance of the long-term ones. The long-term goal keeps you hungry, while the short-term ones keep you happy.

Quote:Long-term goals usually have three consequences:
#1: You achieve your goal, and after a brief euphoria, you realize that it didn't really bring you the happiness you imagined it would
#2: You achieve your goal, and it actually brings more suffering onto you ( marrying a high school sweetheart comes to mind)
#3: You fail to reach your goal

The flaw in the reasoning of #1 is when you look at the goal as the end-product instead of the journey. In fact, many set unreachable goals for that very reason, because they like to continuously strive toward something.
As for #2, that's not really a flaw of the goal you set. I'm sure there are just as many cases where the opposite has happened.

It is for the long-term goal that we do anything. There are three things that are important with have long term goals. First, to have more manageable short term goals. Second, to be willing to adjust ones long term goal. Finally, to realize that any goal isn't in upon itself that is important, but what is experience by the journey. There are always twists, turns, and bumps in life. They are a part of life, and goals are a vision of what we want life to be. We all make progress, but there are few times that we can honestly notice them. It is when we do that we feel we have made progress.

bodhisamaya Wrote:Long-term goals also limit the potential for future positive events we can't imagine at the moment. They create a kind of tunnel vision where often fleeting opportunities are delayed, passed by, or never noticed. [...]

What you're saying reminds me of Leo Babauta of Zen Habits:
• The best goal is no goal
• Achieving, without goals

Great food for thought (as are his articles about minimalism.)

bodhisamaya Wrote:Long-term goals usually have three consequences: ...
#2: You achieve your goal, and it actually brings more suffering onto you ( marrying a high school sweetheart comes to mind)

In this case, what about setting the goal of getting divorced?

But well, if suffering is the problem, it can also come for those who don't set goals — it's not like not having an imaginary future situation to strive for is a magic bullet that prevents or cures it.

gdaxeman Wrote:What you're saying reminds me of Leo Babauta of Zen Habits:
• The best goal is no goal

He puts it in a much easier to digest way than I ever could. I have never read his blog before, but I can verify what he says is true. You become much more productive when you let go of the idea of goals and just do what ever you feel passionate about at the moment.

wccrawford, while I get what you are trying to say about certain goals being "BS" it's often very useful to break up the larger fun goals (like reading a book in Japanese), with small ones like "Learn 20 words per day." If you don't have a clear path in mind to get to the fun goal that motivates you, then you won't get anywhere either. Everyone's different. Some people can't stand having the "20 words/day" type of goal, others need that structure to get them motivated and stay consistent.

I do have a goal for myself to learn at least 10 kanji a day, and the larger goal is to finish RTK. I generally do enjoy learning kanji, so it's not boring to me. It's becoming more of a habit.

I also agree though that some long-term goals end up being disappointing once you reach them. I've found that it's actually cool surprises that make me happy, and of course doing what I enjoy everyday while working towards my goals :-). At the same time, hardly anything is fun 100% of the time, and I think it's important to get over the "unfun" hurdles so the fun can continue. If you stop every time something is difficult and frustrating, you'd never get anywhere either.

bodhisamaya Wrote:Long-term goals usually have three negative consequences:
#1: You achieve your goal, and after a brief euphoria, you realize that it didn't really bring you the happiness you imagined it would
#2: You achieve your goal, and it actually brings more suffering onto you ( marrying a high school sweetheart comes to mind)
#3: You fail to reach your goal

I think it would be more correct like this.

wccrawford Wrote:Goals aren't bullshit... Unless you make the wrong goals.

"Learn 20 words a day"
"Learn 500 words a month"
"Learn the JLPT2 vocab by March"

Those are bullshit goals. They are goals for the sake of goals. They don't -mean- anything, and they fail to motivate you until you are obsessive about completing things. Most people aren't nearly so obsessive.

"Be able to read Kino's Journey in the original Japanese"
"Be able to watch My Boss My Hero without English subtitles"

You're completely missing the point of those 'bullshit goals.'

Cos when you've learnt your JLPT2 vocab and grammar and your xxxx kanji you're gonna be able to read Kino's Journey.

As a long term goal "Be able to read Kino's Journey in the original Japanese" is fair enough but measurable, achievable, short term goals are going to help you get there faster.

jettyke Wrote:

bodhisamaya Wrote:Long-term goals usually have three negative consequences:
#1: You achieve your goal, and after a brief euphoria, you realize that it didn't really bring you the happiness you imagined it would
#2: You achieve your goal, and it actually brings more suffering onto you ( marrying a high school sweetheart comes to mind)
#3: You fail to reach your goal

I think it would be more correct like this.

There are actually more than three, but I didn't want to get into the more philosophical contemplations. Even people who do the impossible and win the lottery or conquer the known world seem to end up less happy than those who strive for productive todays, every day.

Yup

gdaxeman Wrote:What you're saying reminds me of Leo Babauta of Zen Habits:
• The best goal is no goal
• Achieving, without goals

I think there are times for having goals, and times for not having goals. As the author of that website states, he got a lot done by using goals, and my impression is that setting and achieving some key goals led him to be able to go on to not need them.

To get back to Japanese I think the same situation is true, in the beginning it is good to have short term goals (I go by JLPT levels vocab/grammar/kanji), if I didn't do this I'm well aware that I would barely ever study grammar.

As you progress you can start dropping these kind of goals and just read books/manga as you like, watch dramas and movies, write and speak Japanese.

That doesn't change the fact you need to put in the hard graft at the beginning tho. The no goals theory is a lot about doing things because you want to do them, but there are parts of studying Japanese that need to be done that I will never particularly want to do.

"learn 20 words a day" for x days, is actually a really good goal, because it's concrete and achievable, and you'll be able to relate any improvement in level after x days to a concrete action.

The problem with the goal "Be able to read Kino's Journey in the original Japanese" is, it has absolutely no time frame attached and will still leave you searching as for what it is you actually need to be doing to achieve it. There is no concrete action attached to that goal.

Likewise if you're a wannabe writer, the goal "write one page every day" is probably better than the goal of "write a bestselling novel".

If you enjoy writing, then there is really no need for the goal. On those days you don't feel the inspiration and continue writing, what ends up on paper might not be truly what you are capable of. It is difficult to be really creative with a goal in mind. I think that is why sequels to blockbusters are often crap.