I'm up to 214 in less than two weeks. Not too bad I think ?

Last edited by salvw (2008 December 03, 8:31 am)

TerryS wrote:

askayscha wrote:

So far I can probably confidently write and identify the meanings of 200 kanji.
I am not proud of myself, yet.
I miss out too many days due to exam pressure GCSE's... I am not dedicating my time to KANJI! I feel crap seeing all you guys succeed and stick your head in there and do it while I sit here and do....nothing.

My plan at the beginning was to do 30 a day, and be finished in 52 days, not working out at the moment, I either can't find the time, or I am just not bothered to do them. I know I have to do them, and that those reps have to be done. But after a tough day at work, school, exams, I can't bring myself to sit down and do it. I try to compensate by keeping my audio input as japanese as possible.

Someone tell me what a failure I am and I will study harder!

(time of the months, boys. red carpet.)

No, you are not a failure, but I have some advice (being a student myself):

1) You will not be able to do any kanji at all some days. It sucks, but you are not lazy, so just suck it up.

2) Do even a few kanji or just come here and do review when you can. It will help you retain and you will feel better.

3) A day you have time off, do 25 kanji once in a while if you can.

4) Don't worry about days you can't do any. It will happen, but you will still learn your kanji. Don't compare yourself to others.

thanks Terry.
I am trying to catch up, I'm on the mid 300's now.
THANKS AGAIN! :D

well, i havent added any kanji in what feels like forever...probably over a month.  same with reviews...i was realllly behind...but just now i finally caught up.  now i'm working on failed pile/adding new cards...again.  that probably doesn't seem like much "progress" but i'm pretty proud that im getting back on track.

You are doing great Flocon. It seems you are doing much better than I did. How is your fail rate? How many are you adding/day?

My pass rate was allmost never above 80%, generaly around the ~60%, and, in the end, it turned out ok.

The trick is ignore what takes your motivation away and focus on the good things. Never  let your pace down.

Flocon, i recommend my own technique: Always clear your failed pile before you go to bed. NEVER let it build up. As long as your stories are decent you don't have to rework them, just visualize them clearer.

I just started today. Well, a few hours ago. [It's okay, I don't believe in sleep! And I had a... few... shots of espresso.] [Heehee, it's 4 am!] [Oh fork, it's 4 am. ]

I am *just a bit* motivated; my parents are thinking of a trip to Japan for Spring Break [about 3.5 months from now]. I've always been into Japanese, and had a flirtation with it two years ago. I kept my materials from then, and I've kept it in the back of my head, too. So when they brought up the idea, I immediately went 'Oh, crepe! YOU GUYS DON'T KNOW JAPANESE!', and decided to start learning again. Went to how-to-learn-any-language, from there to AJATT, and from there to here. Checked out the book's samples, ordered it, got started.

I just charged through the first 94 kanji in this manner: Write down all the kanji from a section on notecards; the front has the keyword and a CONDENSED/EDITED story on it [HUNDRED: ONE + WHITE; SUN'S SPAN is from HORIZON to HORIZON; freudian SWORD and MOUTH; etc], and the back has the kanji and the stroke order. Then I put them in again in Anki. I go over the flashcards from kword-> kanji, writing down the kanji and checking to be sure I'm correct; then I do the same with Anki. For 100 kanji, this took about 3 or 4 hours, but with oodles of slacking. Need to stop that.

Even in the flashcard go-round, I seem to be accurate [on one occasion, I miss-wrote Sword as Blade, and thus added an extra mark; I put parts in the wrong position on occasion, but not often; etc]; on the Anki go-round, I've only missed 2 out of the hundred so far every other I can either recall the entire mnemonic, [even without looking at the hint] and start writing within a second, or within a few seconds I've got it figured out. I suppose I'll be continuing at this clip; after all, school gets out on break this week, so I'll have plenty of time. I might even speed up for a bit, since I will have -no-obligations, and I suspect my rate will drop when I have to make stories. My goal, at least, is to be over halfway by the New Year, and preferably FINISHED, or nearly-so. So about 110 a day from now on. Well, a little more, since I can't go past 274 on Monday [my physical copy will arrive Tuesday afternoon]

It happens that I have a couple of children's books [in kana, with a little tiny bit of kanji], magazines [some fashion, cosmode, gothic & lolita], origami manuals [!?!], and manga [Legend of Zelda, Doraemon], and a number of textbooks/aids, so I suppose the day I finish, I'm going to begin sentence-mining.

The only thing I've got to worry about, I guess, would be burn-out. Though I've found the first 100 or so kanji enjoyable, and kinda fun [I giggled like an idiot about the Shellfish], and I'm a little sad to have to cut myself off [but I need to keep a steady pace], I suppose burn-out is a distinct possibility.  I think I can ward it off by also doing a little bit of reading/looking-at some of the stuff I have, [especially that LoZ manga, I recall it being above my abilities two years ago, but I think the kanji work will remedy that] and realizing that I'm DEFINITELY making progress.

I suppose this was mostly to get my thoughts sorted out. I think it's reasonable... Heh.

You've just jumped a difficult hurdle. KUDOOS

cloudstrife543 wrote:

Broke through number 1000 today! /patontheback

Keep up the good work almost there!! the rest will be easy

I just started playing FFXII in Japanese, and it's definitely getting me motivated to start working on the kanji hardcore again (I've been slacking ), since I have a lot of free time until January when college starts back up for me.

1300 today... but wow motivation is dropping and I don't feel like working hours on Heisig everyday

So close etpan. Best of luck to you.

take a week off. it feels great. do reviews everyday, but make sure you do not stress over not adding any new cards. after the week is up you'll want to add many cards...this is a great feeling. but afterwards, reward yourself with single days off, once a week. Looking back on the process, I still cannot believe I did reviews everyday for 6 months. Only three times did I go more than a few days without doing reviews. That is actually crazy to think about. But i went many, many, many days where I didn't add anything. It took just shy of 6 months for me to complete, but I am also a Ph.D. student, and have a lot of other things going on. I recommend keeping your life diverse.