If I review kanji on anki everyday it takes me 1 hour. I only have about one hour a day to practice Japanese, and when I am only learning kanji then I'm not really practicing anything else...so I want to ask, how do you organize your study time?
Zarxrax
Member
From: North Carolina
Registered: 2008-03-24
Posts: 949
Try to find ways to fit it in.
I used to always set a couple of hours aside before I went to bed each night, to dedicate to a few things like anki reviews, writing emails to japanese penpals, and watching japanese media.
I currently work 12 hour shifts several days a week, and when I started that, it really messed with my ability to set time aside each day. But I managed to work things out. I find that I can get my anki reviews done during my breaks at work on ankidroid, and since I have a half hour drive to and from work, that's an hour that I can use to practice shadowing. Then if I'm tired after work, I'll just sleep, or if I'm not so tired, I'll watch an episode of something.
psychopatate
Member
From: Syria
Registered: 2012-09-04
Posts: 60
It's crazy ! I don't ^^' (didn't)
I thought my time was organized until I realized, in a moment of frustration, that I had accomplished only half of what I had set for myself during a period of 3 months ! So it went crazy : I'd study 50 kanjis a day, for 4 days, so I'd have 200 new kanjis to do in Anki, PLUS the reviews ! So my spirits go down and I sit and barely study half of these.... and leave the reviews AND stop studying for 2 days ^^'
But I caught up with myself, brought the number of characters learned per day to 30, so I don't get disgusted by Kanji, (takes about an hour, used to take 1:30), and 30 minutes to study them in Anki and review some 25 cards 
It's going well now, my deadline to finish RTK is March 1st.
Some tips :
There are ALWAYS some wasted 1/4 hours here and there (trust me 
!). Pick'em up ! They're REALLY useful !
One thing to add : I too studied for an hour only, and thought I can't study more than that ('cause I'd have to sleep at 1am and wake up at 6:15am for school -which I do now-). But I, somehow, now have an extra half an hour/a full hour ! I think that *somehow* is because I'm trying to read less in Forum 
Last edited by psychopatate (2013 February 13, 3:14 pm)
Daichi
Member
From: Washington
Registered: 2009-02-04
Posts: 450
Aspiring wrote:
I personally use AnkiMobile and review whenever possible.
This or AnkiDroid helps a lot. As you can do it throughout the day whenever you standing idle. If you don't have an iOS or Android device, I would seriously invest in one.
maxenethebean wrote:
If I review kanji on anki everyday it takes me 1 hour. I only have about one hour a day to practice Japanese, and when I am only learning kanji then I'm not really practicing anything else...so I want to ask, how do you organize your study time?
If you only have 1 hour, look for ways to optimize what your doing. I don't know how many reviews your doing or how far into RtK you are, but you probably could be doing more reps per minute or speed up your learning time. Even if you don't speed up, cutting your RTK time down a slight bit isn't going to hurt, you could split your time with some audio lessons like Assimil, pimsleur, Jpod101. Or find time to do that earlier in the day.
I dunno, I just like variety. I can't spend too long doing the same thing. 1 Hour per day isn't very much time to be honest. If you can squeeze in an extra few minutes throughout the day, those minutes will add up to something meaningful.
Thanks for all the tips! I'm studying in Germany now, so I am worried about learning too much Japanese and sacrificing my German. Obviously Japanese needs more time, as it is a more difficult language to learn, but I have the opportunity now to learn German and I want to take advantage of that without sacrificing Japanese. Does anyone have a similar experience and any suggestions?
I'm trying to organize my time better by studying Genki some days, kanji other, and doing Pimsleur and Assimil when I can and of course listening/watching shows. When I don't review anki for a day or two, however, I am faced with over 100 reviews for kanji and vocabulary . . . I'm only at about N5 level and I feel like I'm not getting better! It's really frustrating, but hopefully the cause is that I'm not organizing my time well. Doesn't help that there are no Japanese courses or speakers in this town!
Thanks for all the suggestions!
Last edited by maxenethebean (2013 February 14, 5:18 pm)
TheVinster
Member
From: Illinois
Registered: 2009-07-15
Posts: 985
I use Ankidroid on the train when I have school, or in the morning at home when I don't. Don't currently have a part-time job, just a full-time student, so I have lots of extra time. So on days without school I read a set amount of my Japanese book on my Kindle app (5% a day). After that I just leave it to whatever I want to watch or what articles I want to read. I feel it's more manageable and less stressful to just set a goal of Anki reviews plus one extra thing (such as reading a specific book) rather than try to control the entire day and jump around the entire time.
nadiatims
Member
Registered: 2008-01-10
Posts: 1676
As you improve at the language, it should require less and less time to maintain or even increase your level, because as you improve you kind of unlock more intense forms of study.
If you've already gone through rtk (or whatever you're using to study kanji) then instead of just reviewing them, move on something else like basic reading material or textbooks. This way you can maintain and reinforce the kanji while learning something else. Always try to be moving forward. A person who is already fluent can easily maintain their level just by doing pleasurable activities like reading and watching movies.
To use an exercise analogy. Assume you can do 20 standard push-ups and this takes you 5 minutes. This is an exercise which is easy. You could continue this daily and try to slowly increase the number you are able to do, one week 20, next week 21, 22...50. Gradually it requires more and more time and you might find you plateau at some number. A better thing to do, would be to slowly start attempting more difficult push-ups, even if you can't do as many. By the time you're able to do a one arm push-up, just doing one of those will maintain the strength required to do 50 of the standard ones, but it will be much less time-consuming and much less exhausting.
Last edited by nadiatims (2013 February 15, 7:49 am)
