lets face it, this is a community of learning geeks. If you are wasting time checking (and replying -even worse) its not because of the content, but its because your communicating with people on a similar wavelength. Everyone here shares an obsessive interest (learning Japanese) -we get how you feel - wanting to stay on task, but unable. Wanting to complain and discuss with people who understand

it certainly is better than a lot of other ways i waste time

if you read this -this applies to you

I've got Spring Break this week, and so I've been pretty intensive on learning my kanji. I want to get as far as I can before I get back to school and I actually have to be productive.

Although, I figured I'd take a break from kanji and do some homework I have (but of course...I chose the translation for my Lit Class...) and I found a lot of kanji compounds in there that I understood just because I studied them recently.

As for WASTING time...studying RTK could be considered wasting for me -- I've got enough actual homework to do...

of course...here I am posting in this thread....

Burritolingus wrote:

一ne link to 則ule them 皆ll: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/4476

You may have just save my marriage. 

Speaking of firefox add-ons, the Kanjglish add on makes wasting time on english forums semi-productive in terms of learning kanji.

you can always go waste your time in the 日本語中級会話 thread
or finish up your review and failed stacks and add more kanji...
I wont let you put ME on a guilt trip..o no no no!

Since time is relative, "Wasting time" is relative. Your time is different than my time.

Smackle wrote:

You, the reader, are wasting time reading this thread and more time if you reply.

That's a bold statement to make. Maybe it gives me time to reflect on *my* spending of time. It's not you to say what's time worth to another person, only suppose.

I think "wasting time" is a dangerous expression, personally. There's no doubt that you can make more valuable use of any given time. But then you will never be satisfied. The earth is only so big and in a lifetime you will NEVER have the time to meet all the most interesting people, read the most interesting books, eat the best cuisine, see the greatest outdoors, etc.

Above the fear of "wasting time" I would focus on the principle of "doing something 100%". If you're going to work, WORK. If you're going to study Japanese, DO IT 100% !! I f you're going to "waste time" posting on a forum and enjoy reading the topics and the flamewars ;-)  .. then DO IT GOOD!  THen I suppose, whatever you do you're not wasting your time

Last edited by fuaburisu (2009 March 19, 3:29 am)

I must admit I do spend a lot of time reading different threads and keeping up with conversations probably more than I should some days its surprising how much of your time it takes up when you look at how many kanji/sentences etc that you could have entered.

Although it needn't be completely wasted time when doing your Japanese you can still have audio playing or jump between windows.

It also depends how you look at it a lot of people won't see conversing and talking about methods etc a waste as your learning new things talking to like minded people and so on.

Tobberoth wrote:

Heh, just look at my post count. I even POST in all the threads I don't care about

Yeah.. That's something I have wondered before..

I have been here more than a year longer than you have, but you still have a thousand posts more than I do!

fuaburisu wrote:

I just thought of an exercise to make the wasted time slightly more useful. Before every post that you want to read, you must recall the Heisig keyword for that poster's kanji avatar

Nice idea but this thread's poster, Smackle, doesn't have a kanji avatar;

I'm gulty too. I always have to work, but keep reading these stupid things in japanese. ;D

Imagine for a second what this forum would be like if everyone stopped wasting time here.

*watches tumbleweed pass by*

On second thought, don't!