I was, due to laziness. Now I do try and add at least a little everyday (even if it's only 1!)
Of course, I forgot to do that last night due to drinking. Blah.

No, I add new cards every day. Every time a new box is opened, your review pile becomes a lot bigger, so waiting won't really help you lower your reviews, it's a very very temporary measure. The best way of keeping daily reviews low is to get done quickly.

In the days were I have VERY little time, I add 10 new cards. Other days, I add 20. At the moment, I have 80 reviews a day, I hope to get done before that hits 100.

The kanji you have already learned form your base. You continue on from there. Sure, its frustrating to not add new kanji for a while and to feel you are making no progress. It's also disheartening to get too far ahead of yourself, trip, fall and end up relearning hundreds of kanji all over again.
Your first priority is reviewing kanji and clearing your failed pile. If you still have time and energy after that, add new ones.

I agree too with the "the faster the better" motto. It was my motto. I just couldn't follow it that well. ^_^

phauna wrote:

Of course I started French last week so I'm adding about 50 a day to that deck too.  I was wondering if polyglots have totally mixed decks, some cards Arabic, some Spanish, etc?

Now that you mention it, I've been studying Spanish since August. I have about 2000 cards in that deck.

Do you think it would be a good idea just to start adding Japanese sentences to the same deck once I'm done with RTK1?

"If you are not moving forward, you are moving backward."

In keeping with "Don't break the chain," I try to move forward every day, because skipping one day makes it easier to skip the next.

playadom wrote:

Only if you're against the current of the river. You might actually be with the current if you're reading Japanese or listening to Japanese all the time.

It is like a river, and the current of that river is moving away from a goal it takes consistent applied effort to achieve. The direction of the current doesn't change. You can't float along with it to your goal. The current is why people say, "Use it or lose it."

The longer you work only to maintain your position, the harder and harder it will be to start making progress again because you have no momentum, and the easier and easier it will be to get distracted, discouraged, frustrated, stop paying attention, lose ground, or start after some other goal instead. This human tendency is just one aspect of the current.

So yes, it's true that diligently paddling forward in other areas like reading and listening will eventually bring you to fluency without RTK, but somehow I doubt that someone who doesn't have time for RTK has time to do it the harder way...

Terhorst wrote:

playadom wrote:

Only if you're against the current of the river. You might actually be with the current if you're reading Japanese or listening to Japanese all the time.

It is like a river, and the current of that river is moving away from a goal it takes consistent applied effort to achieve. The direction of the current doesn't change. You can't float along with it to your goal. The current is why people say, "Use it or lose it."

The longer you work only to maintain your position, the harder and harder it will be to start making progress again because you have no momentum, and the easier and easier it will be to get distracted, discouraged, frustrated, stop paying attention, lose ground, or start after some other goal instead. This human tendency is just one aspect of the current.

So yes, it's true that diligently paddling forward in other areas like reading and listening will eventually bring you to fluency without RTK, but somehow I doubt that someone who doesn't have time for RTK has time to do it the harder way...

So then if RTK gets you there faster, is it really a paddle? Seems more like a motor to me...

Although in all seriousness, I agree with this philosophy.

phauna wrote:

The main problem is that rtk is boring and far removed from real Japanese study, so it's really hard to get motivation.  Once you're finished, though, and see the result and start learning actual Japanese, then you will have all the motivation in the world.

So then it's like putting your canoe on a truck and driving uphill alongside a hard section of river, until you get to the big ocean of Japanese...

Wow, the forum doesn't let you do much with regards to special characters..

Last edited by playadom (2008 November 14, 7:47 pm)

If you've been reviewing these same cards for a month on this website, they shouldn't show up much anymore.  Once they're in the last two boxes, it seems like you could just start adding a few a day at a comfortable level without worrying about the reviews.

i was in your boat, i hit ~600 kanji before uni started, for 3-4 months i have not touched reviewing.

I come back and see that i have 599 cards in review. Atm im at 300 with about 60 failed kanji.

I think my 'break' was a good thing. Made me realise how shit house some of my stories really were, and with a slightly deeper insight in kanji readings and such, im really beginning to see how relevant some keywords are, and how useless some are. That alone makes me happy.