About 180 reviewed and more than 100  failed. Yeah. today it was bad. But I will still manage to clear the failed pile and add a few fresh ones!

I'm very happy with myself tought. I'm out of sleep today. That's because yesterday night I watched my first full lenght japanese movie without subtitles. I have no acurate data of my understanding but definetly it was above 80%. Hurray!

Keep on posting, I find the 'even though my retention rates are lower than I had expected I'm still going to continue and own those Heisig kanji within the next month' mentality quite motivating .

I dont know my correct data for today, as the browser closed during the review.
But I was reviewing about ~120 cards and in the end there was 58 cards failed: 52%

Just a point about Pimsleur.  Yes, it's easy, but it's meant for pure beginners who don't even know how to say "hello" in their target language.  Even with 90 lessons of Japanese, that's still just a beginner course.  I think it's worth doing, but it's not for anyone who's intermediate or above.  If you've already completed a beginner course like Japanese for Busy People or Minna no Nihongo or something like that, you're probably too advanced for Pimsleur, although you could certainly use it for review.

It's good though because it's based on spaced repetition.  You're supposed to listen to one lesson a day.  If your recall during the lesson is too slow or not very good, you repeat the lesson the next day.  Move on when you're ready.  It's also good because it requires you to produce spoken language on a regular basis, and there are few programs that do that well.  Pimsleur is basically a listening and speaking SRS.

Ty Bortrun and Hashiriya.

I'm aware Pimsleur is just a review for me. But it is helping me a lot. I'm somewhat a begginer. My japanese is full of holes. Pimsleur is covering some of them.

There is also another problem of Pimsleur. It is very "artificial". Its conversations are mechanical and boring.

For 30 minutes a day that I would waste them another way (hey, it rhimes!) it is great.
But I wonder if even I did not had these 30 minutes to spare I would still use it.

Ty again for your concearn. And, can you recommend any other course?

Bortrun wrote:

Just a point about Pimsleur.  Yes, it's easy, but it's meant for pure beginners who don't even know how to say "hello" in their target language.  Even with 90 lessons of Japanese, that's still just a beginner course.  I think it's worth doing, but it's not for anyone who's intermediate or above.  If you've already completed a beginner course like Japanese for Busy People or Minna no Nihongo or something like that, you're probably too advanced for Pimsleur, although you could certainly use it for review.

It's good though because it's based on spaced repetition.  You're supposed to listen to one lesson a day.  If your recall during the lesson is too slow or not very good, you repeat the lesson the next day.  Move on when you're ready.  It's also good because it requires you to produce spoken language on a regular basis, and there are few programs that do that well.  Pimsleur is basically a listening and speaking SRS.

I agree with what you are saying.

In my opinion Pimsleur is not bad as a supplement for beginners, ie someone using the first genki book, or the first Japanese for Busy People Book. But people considering it should keep in mind that it is relatively basic. Even Level 3 of Pimsleur is still at the beginner level. I think the good thing about pimsleur is the spaced repetition. The bad thing is the lack of grammar explanation. Now I'm not saying go overboard on grammar, but a basic understanding of japanese grammar is much better than trying to figure it out from pimsleur. Pimsleur is an OK supplement for beginners, but as a complete method for learning japanese it is a failure.

Also it is ludicrously overpriced. For the cost of Pimsleur I could buy a whole stack of high quality textbooks.

At the risk of annoying some people on this site, I will say that I don't think trying to learn the meaning of all the kanji first is necessarily the best method of learning japanese. I think the best approach is to target all aspects of the language simultaneously. [I still think RTK is an excellent strategy, just use regular textbooks too].

Doramas are entertaining, but I don't think a good way of learning when you are at beginner or intermediate level. It is better to progress in a more systematic manner.

I think the "best" method of learning is what works for the individual, MeNoSavvy. I agreed with you for the first 6 months of my studies. I did Pimsleur, Japanese for Busy People, and RTK simultaneously.

I stopped about a month ago because I quickly got to the point in which I felt the need to be able to read a real Japanese sentence. I've been concentrating on RTK ever since late April and if I don't lose my momentum, I'll be done with the book and able to concentrate on new things in July.

I just got to thinking, what's the point of using my Grammar Books when they'll be introducing kanji soon, in direct competition with the RTK method that I'm using? And how am I gonna study for JLPT in December, with all these words using kanji, if I don't know how to write or recognize the kanji? Dividing the work and doing 3 methods at once was fun, but the pace was slow and after doing it for long enough, I really felt like I needed to start doing *something* to get my kanji up to speed. So, I revised my methods and I'm very happy with the results. I still have my vocab and grammar in an SRS, but I've stopped trying to learn new stuff till 7/1.

We all have different goals, mine is JLPT 4 for now, because if I pay for a test and have to travel to get there, I won't slack off. I don't think there's a best or worst strategy, we just all have different goals, and different methods of studying to get us there.

74 of 112: 66%
Ow yeah babe. I'm comming back!

68 of 104 kanji.
65%

58 of 106 kanji.
55%
Maybe I'm added too much kanji again to get to the 1000. ehehe.

how many are you adding per day, Mentat?

~450 in ~20 days. I guess it makes about 20/day.