thanks for the encouragements guys

I thought I'd offer some advice for when we are in the "Look at all those expired cards!  I have to review and go over the failed ones!" situations.

My review stacks are usually between 120~160 cards a day and retention rate depends on the day

Anyway, I break them up into groups of 20 and then go over my failed cards right after I finish 20 cards and then take a small break away from the computer.

This has encouraged me to finish my reviews even if I don't want to.

My problem now is being sooo fatigued by the birth of my daughter, so that I can hardly concentrate on new Kanji or doing reviews sleeping quality isn't great and I regularly have heavy eyes, concentration loss, having the feeling that a headache will kill my day... remembering new Kanji seems to be harder too these days.

Dakoina, it sounds like now might be a time to just try to keep up with reviews so that you can maintain what you've already learned while taking a well-deserved break.  When you are feeling better, you may find it easier to be motivated to do new kanji.  In the meantime, congratulations!

I got up to around 750 or so last summer...then I got busy and let it all slide.  Slide and crash to the ground!  But a month ago I started again from scratch, now I'm at 705 (essentially reviewing the kanji I did before, but it takes time).  Soon I'll be past my previous stopping point, and I'll post here again when I get to 1,000!

New here. Ordered Heisig from Amazon today. Been working from PDF file with Anki and this site. Completed chapter seven through frame 126.

As I am at about 1 year in (10 months or working at it, though), and only at 1325, I'd like to speed it up and get done ASAP. To that end I've decided to limit my reviews to 40 a day, and my studying of fails to 20 a day, and then spend the rest of my time adding new cards. It means my study pile will probably back up, but is it wise to make those secondary with the main goal being to create and input stories for the remaining 700 or so ASAP? I figure review is the long-term goal anyway, perhaps I've spent too much effort/time focused on reviews and fails, at the expense of getting the full corpus into the SRS so I can move forward with other things.

Certainly once all 2000+ stories are in, I can up the reviews/studies at that point to where I can knock the pile down in fairly short order again.

52 - Finally started learning after having the book at my desk for a month but postponed the "painful" start.

Target: May 31st the latest. Wish me luck guys - the Kanji journey has begun...

Meh, check that a kanji a picture thread. It is awesome.

musigny wrote:

kazelee wrote:

musigny -is that a European name?

Kazelee, c'est un nom d'une vigne en France, en Bourgogne en fait. Tu comprends le français ?

Kazelee, it is the name of a vineyard in France, in Burgundy in fact.

BTW, I finished part one and am up to frame 300. The book arrived on the weekend.

Oui, je comprend. Mais, j'ai oublie beacoup de mon francais par-ce que je n'ai pas l'etudie depuis quel-ce ans.

Last edited by kazelee (2009 February 03, 8:39 pm)

theasianpleaser wrote:

kazelee wrote:

musuginy wrote:

Kazelee, c'est un nom d'une vigne en France, en Bourgogne en fait. Tu comprends le français ?

Oui, je comprend. Mais, j'ai oublie beacoup de mon francais par-ce que je n'ai pas l'etudie depuis quel-ce ans.

ce qui?

LOL.

Quelque ans* par chance?

Last edited by kazelee (2009 February 03, 10:02 pm)

Might as well make my first post.  I came here from the TJP forum (where I have a different user name) and have been at this for a few days now, after my failed first attempt using Heisig several months ago.  It failed because I made these big flash cards with the kanji and the keyword BUT ALSO other meanings AND the on and/or kun readings ALONG WITH a few compounds I found.  I was pretty pleased with myself for the five days or so that I was able to keep up that regimen.

And no one here is surprised that said regimen failed.

I just checked my progress chart and I think I'm at #234, or about to start lesson 11.  I guess I'm hoping to get through the book by the end of the (Northern hemisphere) summer.  The point made earlier that if I have even 50% retention rate at that point (not too bad for an old guy like me), that will still be over 1000 kanji.

Since I'm still pretty new at this, I have yet to experience the "pleasure" of The Expired Pile(s), which many of you are writing about.  I have the feeling I will be back to do some whining when they start to appear! 

Other than that, I guess the only other thing worth mentioning is that I love languages, and have decided that if possible I want to be able to have reasonably acceptable conversations in three other languages besides English before I die.  First I need to get my high school German back, which is a language I loved and could get by conversationally at that time (over 20 years ago).  Then I want to learn Japanese.  Then, if there is any room left in my brain, might as well learn Spanish.  Everyone says it's easy, but I am skeptical.

Well, college was 20 years ago.  High school a bit more than that. 

And here I thought that it was largely college students around here.  Nice to see that it's a mix of different age groups.  Not that I wish to disparage college students as I see them all day long (I'm a professor).

I couldn't have hoped for a better kanji to put in my avatar, of the ones I've learned so far, than the one I picked.  If I come across a better one later, so be it. 

Drat, just when I thought I was done for the day, I see that the next lesson is really short, and also includes about five kanji I already recognized anyway.  Guess I'll learn to write them before I go to bed.

Looks like I'm addicted now too.