When i went back to university I found it too much trouble keeping up with Kanji, as well as university work at the same time, and have been off Japanese for about 2 months, I had learned Hiragana completely, and about 450 Kanji.

Since I've started watching anime, and listening to j-pop again, I've had the urge to get back on with my Japanese. Any tips to pick up my Kanji, and get back into a routine again?

Are you using RTK, or another method? I guess the best advice regardless of method is just plug away, and make it a daily habit.

For me these past four months, daily exposure to kanji via KanjiBox/Anki was what jump-started my progress. I learned enough kanji until I could start reading native material at least haltingly, and continued building my kanji and vocab out from there.

Using RTK, unfortunately I tend to get distracted by games etc, so it was fine when i had copious amounts of free time, I may just uninstall various distractions from my computer in the hope that I can focus better.

Any ideas on what I can do to avoid burnout this time around?

I can relate with burning out, given I'm now on my third serious attempt. It can be discouraging with just how many bridges have to be crossed just to have an elementary understanding (for those who wish to speak as well as read/write the language). That said, given time and effort there will be feelings of great accomplishment that make the toil worthwhile. One example I can think of for myself is reaching the half point in RtK, more or less where I'm at now, and having my mind opened to a world of kanji that before seemed an inaccessible alien world. I burnt out and stopped for months, coming back to realize I could remaster writing the 1100+ Kanji in under a week, proving the myriad of symbols truly made their way into my long term memory. It's exciting to know the work of studying isn't just a superfluous activity, but will (hopefully) remain with the person for a lifetime.

But enough motivational jargon from me. xD People extol the effectiveness of SRS. In other words, get Anki. It's a pain in the butt at first, but once you have decks personalized the way you want it and get a groove going with reviews the brilliance of it comes out. I used to make and use physical flashcards, but eventually the sheer volume of terms and vocabulary will make such impractical. Begin with RtK (I was a fool in delaying doing this for a whole year, and I can only see why it was foolish after getting far enough into it to see how much it helps). Check out Core 2000 or Genki I for preliminary vocabulary learning needs. Grammar wise there are many physical and Internet sources (Tae Kim being one option). Beyond this--as a fellow learning who needs advice as much as anyone--I will only suggest not to do too much at once. Really focus in on accomplishing one big goal at a time with perhaps some smaller learning projects on the side. Meanwhile, immersion through audio, even if far above one's level, can never be a bad thing. I keep Japanese radio or something related going most of the time.

I'll clam up now. Good to speak with fellow learners. Best of luck to us all.

Thanks for the advice, it helps to know someone else has gone through the same troubles as I have with regards to burning out .

I know exactly what you need. Get a book and stay away from the computer. I find the computer being a severe distraction for myself. If I move away from the computer and work on the RTK book at a desk in another room, I really make a lot of progress.

Reviewing with the desktop version of Anki is necessary in many cases, but an app would allow you to keep your distance away from the computer.

stg44 Wrote:When i went back to university I found it too much trouble keeping up with Kanji, as well as university work at the same time, and have been off Japanese for about 2 months, I had learned Hiragana completely, and about 450 Kanji.

Since I've started watching anime, and listening to j-pop again, I've had the urge to get back on with my Japanese. Any tips to pick up my Kanji, and get back into a routine again?

I had learned close to 700 and quit studying them for a year. I remembered about 2/3 of them without prior review, and after one refreshment remembered about 98-99% of them. not that hard. don't start over, just open your deck on here and go for it, it'll be easier than you think. i'm not that intelligent either.

Norman Wrote:I know exactly what you need. Get a book and stay away from the computer. I find the computer being a severe distraction for myself. If I move away from the computer and work on the RTK book at a desk in another room, I really make a lot of progress.

Reviewing with the desktop version of Anki is necessary in many cases, but an app would allow you to keep your distance away from the computer.

yea, I take my tablet and go out to a cafe to get my studying done. I can't work at home very well, ESPECIALLY in front of a PC. lately the weather here in Kyoto is AWESOME and i've been going outside and studying every day, I love it.

Make it fun.

You can have the most rigorously proven scientific solution to learning Japanese, but if you don't think it's fun or interesting, it doesn't matter one bit.

If you're using Anki, then try to add funny/interesting cards to it every now and then. If it's all boring stuff (to you), then your chance of burnout increases.

Also, don't sweat too much over the "best" way to learn. The best method is the one you stick with. That's all that matters.

What helped me was making rules: if something like a book, music, movie or game is in Japanese, I can play/read/watch it all I want (within reason, of course). English stuff gets severely limited, or I just don't buy it.

rich_f Wrote:What helped me was making rules: if something like a book, music, movie or game is in Japanese, I can play/read/watch it all I want (within reason, of course). English stuff gets severely limited, or I just don't buy it.

Seconded. I switched entertainment and casual reading over to almost exclusively Japanese sources back in June. It was painful at first, but it slowly got better. And I've improved quickly as a result.

Try interleaving some grammar study and vocab with RTK so that you can improve your comprehension of real-world Japanese. It may mean finishing RTK more slowly, but it'll increase your general enjoyment of the language.

Thanks a lot guys I didn't expect so many replies, ill try some of the things suggested and maybe they will work out for me

Stop adding new stuff and continue with anki reviews

I've taken nearly six months off since moving to a new state and all my study has been about forty minutes every morning consolidating my knowledge.

Its like brushing your teeth

Maybe you can look into changing your method with learning Japanese. For instance you could do RTK Lite or Lazy Kanji Mod, or just move to learning vocab with Core2k. If none of those work, mix it up again. Just trying something new might keep things fresh.

RTK Lite? and I might try doing some Core2k vocab thanks

stg44 Wrote:RTK Lite? and I might try doing some Core2k vocab thanks

I second RtK Lite. After a first failed attempt at RtK, quite a while later I came back and finished RtK Lite, and I now feel comfortable taking a nice long break from adding new cards unless I feel like adding specific kanji one at a time. I feel like this approach works very well for me, and am around 1600 cards and satisfied without finishing RtK until I have time.

stg44 Wrote:RTK Lite? and I might try doing some Core2k vocab thanks

There are several topics that talk about it, basically it's a reduced set of the more common kanji, that still builds upon itself RTK style. It takes less time to do, you learn all the primitives and you can build off of it later still as you learn vocab. Japanese Level Up also has it's own set kanji that it thinks should be removed. So yeah, do a search and look into it.

Daichi Wrote:

stg44 Wrote:RTK Lite? and I might try doing some Core2k vocab thanks

There are several topics that talk about it, basically it's a reduced set of the more common kanji, that still builds upon itself RTK style. It takes less time to do, you learn all the primitives and you can build off of it later still as you learn vocab. Japanese Level Up also has it's own set kanji that it thinks should be removed. So yeah, do a search and look into it.

Thanks for the link, "useless" Kanji in that post sums up to 181, the problem is that he included useless Kanji that are also used as primitives for other Kanji, like 尺, 斤, and 斗. So I think sticking with RTK lite is better.