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Survey - Where are you at?

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Thora Member

From: Canada Registered: 2007-02-23 Posts: 1691

bodhisamaya wrote:
I already have myself on the ignore add-on for Firefox as I pretty strongly disagree with most of what I ramble on about here.

@nonpoint - pls see my edited post above. [removed after nonpoint read it]

Last edited by Thora (2009 July 17, 7:47 pm)

Tobberoth Member

From: Sweden Registered: 2008-08-25 Posts: 3364

nonpoint wrote:
Thora wrote:
@nonpoint - pls see my edited post above.
Wall of text posts are not fun to read lol.

I suspect there wont be anymore survey takers (a shame if you ask me), so perhaps it is time to analyze the results (yes, small sample size and all!), what does everyone think, analysis time?

mentat_kgs is one seriously interesting person (to me anyway). "I'd avoid rikai-chan. It is more addictive than cigar." DONE, I'm uninstalling it right nyao. "Adding news sentences is fun." This is interesting, but it is a preference I guess, still I'll give it a try. Sentence sources: "Half from dictionary" means using jisho or alc-like sites?

I'm quite sure mentat_kgs gets his example sentences from 大辞林 and 大辞泉 since the sentences on jisho.org and alc has a tendency to be of pretty low quality. Another good dictionary to get example sentences from is kenkyuusha's 大和英辞典. In all of those dictionaries, the sentences were created in Japanese first, by natives, so all of them are native and natural, though some of them might be somewhat formal.

nonpoint Member

From: KON? Registered: 2009-07-14 Posts: 168

Tobberoth wrote:
I'm quite sure mentat_kgs gets his example sentences from 大辞林 and 大辞泉 since the sentences on jisho.org and alc has a tendency to be of pretty low quality. Another good dictionary to get example sentences from is kenkyuusha's 大和英辞典. In all of those dictionaries, the sentences were created in Japanese first, by natives, so all of them are native and natural, though some of them might be somewhat formal.

Thats interesting I figured they all used the same source, but it makes sense the japanese sites would have the real deal. How sentences like the ones on jisho are available is beyond me.. maa, thats another rant for another thread.

Out of the 27 who conducted the survey 2 mentioned using ko2001 and 7 SmartFM.
What is the difference between dictation and shadowing? 4 people use dictation while 9 shadow. Shadowing means repeating the sentence after the actor, if I am not mistaken. Dictation seems production related, in which case comparing dication vs shadowing isnt really useful

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kazelee Rater Mode

From: ohlrite Registered: 2008-06-18 Posts: 2132 Website

nonpoint wrote:
Shadowing means repeating the sentence after the actor, if I am not mistaken. Dictation seems production related, in which case comparing dication vs shadowing isnt really useful

Depends on what type of dictation you are talking about. Smartfm's dictation is almost like shadowing, i think. But having the sentence read and having to write out the kanji is more production.

avparker Member

From: Tokyo Registered: 2007-05-06 Posts: 168 Website

nonpoint wrote:
What is the difference between dictation and shadowing? 4 people use dictation while 9 shadow. Shadowing means repeating the sentence after the actor, if I am not mistaken. Dictation seems production related, in which case comparing dication vs shadowing isnt really useful

Dictation would be listening and then writing (or typing) it out.
I suppose if you write out the Kanji after listening it could be considered production.

For those doing dictation, do you listen to sentences? And do you write the whole sentence, or just one word? Also, do you try to produce the kanji?

I'd guess that listening to a sentence, then writing the kanji for one word would be a fairly good form of production.

kazelee Rater Mode

From: ohlrite Registered: 2008-06-18 Posts: 2132 Website

I'm not sure what to call what I do. I use the spreadsheets made by nukemarine to display the vocab word in kana as the audio plays. I then write out the kanji to the corresponding vocab word.

@nukemarine

Speaking of which, the core 6000 step 1 had several columns shifted downward. It's easy to fix using a spreadsheet program, though.

thermal Member

From: Melbourne, Australia Registered: 2007-11-30 Posts: 399

avparker wrote:
For those doing dictation, do you listen to sentences? And do you write the whole sentence, or just one word? Also, do you try to produce the kanji?

I write out the whole sentence as long as I can stand it. Or I may write out sentences that have grammar that I am not so familiar with. Yes I listen and then write. If you don't listen then it wouldn't be dictation

Thora Member

From: Canada Registered: 2007-02-23 Posts: 1691

nonpoint wrote:
Thora wrote:
@nonpoint - pls see my edited post above.
Wall of text posts are not fun to read lol.

Thanks for reading my half of the wall of text. Yeah, typing out your deleted half wasn't fun either lol. (It's gone now, btw)

I didn't complete the survey b/c I didn't think my answers would be interesting or useful. You see, this is my second time learning Japanese after a long break. But since you asked, here's another wall of text:

1. I've been going through a large pre-made vocab deck to try to get a sense of where I'm at and broaden my general vocab. My previous vocab was primarily work related.

2. and 5. I'm not putting sentences into SRS.

3. and 4. I want to maintain kanji writing ability (learning them twice was enough!), so I started using iknow in Anki for dictation (target words only). But I couldn't stay interested. Instead, I now use a deck with one or more Japanese prompts for each kanji.

6. For immersion, I listen to Japanese radio shows and watch older Japanese films and some dramas. I used to live in Japan and I miss effortless full immersion.

7. - 9. My weakness now is speaking - I've been lazy about finding opportunities in Canada. I still find very polite Japanese very difficult - even though I had to use it for work. Interestingly, I discovered that speaking is a skill that needs to be maintained separately from reading and listening. It did not simply come back to me once I recovered my reading abilities.

My strengths are probably having some sense of how the language and culture are interconnected and having some past skills that need to ...um....thaw out? I feared at first that I had lost it all. I almost gave up. But over the past 2 years, I've happily discovered that the rate of thaw increases. It's an incredible feeling to have stuff pop into my head that I wasn't aware I even knew. (Completing the Kanji in Context books seems to have been enough to get my reading level back.)

9. 10. 11. I'm still not satisfied with my level. I had set 3 goals for this 2-year period: to restore the language ability I had years ago, to broaden my vocab, and to be able to fully understand and enjoy literature. I almost made the first 2 and failed completely on the last one. And without a tutor or annotated texts, I don't feel confident that I can manage literature. So I avoid it - vicious circle.

12. If I could do anything differently, I would use Japanese keywords for RTK (b/c I already had a foundation in Japanese).

Hopefully this might be encouraging for anyone else returning to Japanese after a long hiatus. Be patient - it's in your head somewhere and just needs to be coaxed out.

Last edited by Thora (2009 July 17, 10:53 pm)

avparker Member

From: Tokyo Registered: 2007-05-06 Posts: 168 Website

thermal wrote:
avparker wrote:
For those doing dictation, do you listen to sentences?
Yes I listen and then write. If you don't listen then it wouldn't be dictation

I meant sentences versus just single words.

I can see single words working if you go from kanji + audio -> english meaning (kanji + audio -> kana would be a bit too easy), but I prefer using sentences for all the reasons that have already been discussed elsewhere. I was just interested to see if some people were still doing single words via dictation.

thermal wrote:
I write out the whole sentence as long as I can stand it. Or I may write out sentences that have grammar that I am not so familiar with.

I tried writing out entire sentences once, I lasted about 5 minutes then gave up!

I've only been doing recognition so far, but I'm thinking I really need to start doing some production (but definitely not english -> japanese). This is because after doing 600 kanji in KO2001, I still find that I can read a lot of compounds but I can't remember which specific kanji the words use.

My plan so far is to take sentences with kanji (and audio if possible), change one word to kana on the question (or perhaps just one single kanji), and write the kanji for the word as my production.

albion Member

From: England Registered: 2008-05-25 Posts: 383 Website

1. How many facts (production and recognition are only 1 fact) do you have in your SRS not including RTK?

Just under 1600 cards (don't use Anki for sentences), although I have some that I've suspended for until I feel like adding them/don't keep forgetting about them.

2. What sentences have you and are you putting into your SRS?

About two thirds from learning material (books, websites) and a third from native media. I kind of alternate between what I add them from, so some weeks I'll add from learning resource and others just add stuff from native media.

3. Do you do production (audio/hiragana to kanji) and/or recognition (kanji to reaning) or something else? Is there an order (eg production and then recognition)?

Mostly recognition, although I was thinking about trying some production soon (to start off just kana to kanji for single words to see how it goes) and I have a couple of pictures in my deck where I try to remember the words (just pronunciation, I was thinking about trying to write the kanji as well now).

4. Do you use any kind of special techniques when you review an item with your SRS? eg. dictation, role playing etc.

I read the sentence out aloud, sometimes a couple of times if I don't feel I've said it fluently.

I put the words I specifically want to learn in bold, to try to focus on what I added that card for in the first place. Sometimes there are other words I don't know, but I just focus on the bold word.

5. How many cards on average do you add to your deck per day? Or if life is getting in the way of this, once things settle down how many do you intend to add per day?

I've had long periods of not adding any (and sometimes not even reviewing), but as a target I want to go for 10 at the least. I'm trying to learn Spanish as well, so I've been planning on having days where I add more for Japanese, then more for Spanish another day.

6. How much exposure (immersion) to Japanese do you get (or intend to get) on average each day or week? In what form?

I don't really count the hours, but usually a couple of hours a day (not counting music).

7. Describe your level including any strengths and weaknesses.

A higher intermediate? I'm not sure what to label it.
Reading is probably my strongest skill. I can read most things and understand what's it's about, but still with unknown words.
I think my listening is getting better now I started to do more of it, watching things without any subtitles. Some times I can watch things and follow it (occasionally getting lost a bit), but other times it feels like I'm not understanding anything. I started doing dictating (at this site magamo has mentioned here before), which hopefully will lead to some kind of improvements.
My writing is okay, but my speaking doesn't really get enough practice. (By writing, I mean my ability to produce writing and no actual handwriting, which isn't pretty in any language.)

8. Are you satisfied with your progress and the techniques you are using?

I think I've reached the point where you stop making big strides and just have smaller, less noticeable ones. It's more vocabulary and more grammar that I need now, I think. But if I can keep consistent and carry on, I think I can keep making the smaller steps.

9. Are you satisfied with your level?

I don't know if I'll every be really satisfied, and I tend to notice what I don't understand more than taking note of what I do.

10. How far do you want to go with Japanese?

To be able to do whatever I can do in English in Japanese. A short while ago I bought the book 時が滲む朝, which was written by a Chinese woman and won the Akutagawa Award. I thought that was inspiring. Ever since then I've started aiming a bit higher, and would like to reach that kind of level (even if I don't write a book).

11. How confident are you of getting there?

If I can keep myself motivated. It's mainly just a matter of filling in gaps in my knowledge now, I think.

12. From when you started RTK, aside from your process evolving bit by bit, are there any major things you would do again differently if you could?

Probably try to stay focused, which would apply to everything really. I'm behind on RTK because I didn't keep up at it even at a small pace each day.

13. How long have you been studying?

I've done things in Japanese for a long time, since learning it was something I always wanted to do. But I think I only seriously studied for the last several years, and only in this last year or so really dedicated (although I still have had gaps off even then).

avparker Member

From: Tokyo Registered: 2007-05-06 Posts: 168 Website

1. How many facts (production and recognition are only 1 fact) do you have in your SRS not including RTK?

2600 sentences.
I'm also trying out a couple of pre-made deck made with subs2srs, I've seen the first 260 cards (out of 2600, but I delete some).

2. What sentences have you and are you putting into your SRS?

1800 from KO2001.
700 from 完全マスター２級文法 (to study for JLPT2).

3. Do you do production (audio/hiragana to kanji) and/or recognition (kanji to reading) or something else? Is there an order (eg production and then recognition)?

Recognition only so far.
Thinking of trying some kana to kanji production soon.

4. Do you use any kind of special techniques when you review an item with your SRS? eg. dictation, role playing etc.

For grammar cards I underlined the grammar point, and will just mark it hard if I don't know a reading (getting stricter now that I know the grammar though).

5. How many cards on average do you add to your deck per day? Or if life is getting in the way of this, once things settle down how many do you intend to add per day?

Varies a lot. I averaged about 8 a day over the past year.

6. How much exposure (immersion) to Japanese do you get (or intend to get) on average each day or week? In what form?

About 1-2 hours a day, more on Saturdays.
Not nearly as much as I'd like.
I live in Japan but work 50hours a week at an english-speaking office, and have an english-speaking girlfriend who doesn't speak any Japanese and doesn't like most japanese anime/drama/movies.

7. Describe your level including any strengths and weaknesses.

Intermediate. Might have just passed JLPT a few weeks ago if I'm lucky.
My listening and understanding is okay, speed isn't an issue but my vocab is just not big enough.
Reading and Kanji is okay-ish (about 1500 through RTK, 600 through KO2001).
Speaking is hard (improved a bit recently, but still can produce only basic sentences).
Can get around okay in Japan, but don't usually feel comfortable talking to people and reading real stuff is still difficult.

8. Are you satisfied with your progress and the techniques you are using?

No, although much better than before.
I spent 4 years learning Japanese, 3 hours a week at a school where the teacher spoke mostly English and taught lots of grammar. Only one of her previous students had ever passed JLPT3 before me (I mistakenly thought that was a big deal). Almost a complete waste of time. When I got to Japan I could barely understand anything, and could barely speak at all.

RTK helped a lot (finished it last may, but stopped reviewing which I really regret). Started again in March.
Started using Anki and KO2001 last June, and I've noticed a bit improvement in my vocabulary.
Also watching (and listening to) more Japanese, which has helped my listening a lot.

9. Are you satisfied with your level?

Not really.
Reading real stuff is still very hard.
Understanding what people say is hard because vocab is always a problem.
I cannot express my ideas or opinions clearly in Japanese.

On the other hand, I've had a couple of instances where after listening/talking to Japanese people for 3+ hours I start thinking completely in Japanese. I even woke up one morning thinking in Japanese. I've also been able to start watching raw japanese shows and understand 80-90% of it.

10. How far do you want to go with Japanese?

To be able to read general Japanese books and newspapers without having to look up more than a few words per page.
To be able to have a conversation where I don't feel like my Japanese ability is getting in the way of expressing my ideas.

11. How confident are you of getting there?

Sometimes I think I'll never get there - this is mostly struggling with motivation.
Other times I realise how far I've already come, and that I just have to stick with it.
I'm sure I'll ever be happy with my level, but I'm also sure I'll keep improving.

12. From when you started RTK, aside from your process evolving bit by bit, are there any major things you would do again differently if you could?

I would definitely NOT stop reviewing RTK after finishing. I stopped for a year, and had to start almost from scratch (first 600 were easy, next 600 reasonable, after that it's difficult).

13. How long have you been studying?

About 6 years.
The first 4 years were a few hours a week, plus watching the occasional anime/drama - very little progress (I knew < 100 kanji).
The last 2 years - learning RTK and KO2001, watching more drama/movies and reading childrens books.

thermal Member

From: Melbourne, Australia Registered: 2007-11-30 Posts: 399

albion,

I am interested where most of your vocab comes from. You show an impressive vocab when you write, but don't have a hell of a lot of cards in your deck.

albion Member

From: England Registered: 2008-05-25 Posts: 383 Website

Even when I wasn't studying actively I still did immersion, although I didn't put a name to it and do it just for that. It was just because things I were interested in were in Japanese, so I just did them in Japanese whenever I could.

I've also translated things (though not professionally or anything) occasionally for about 4-5 years, which usually involved looking up a lot of stuff in the beginning. It probably would have been more effective if I had a SRS, since there are times when I've seen things again and know that I've seen them before, but forgotten the meaning because there was too long since I last saw it.

nonpoint Member

From: KON? Registered: 2009-07-14 Posts: 168

Thora wrote:
Thanks for reading my half of the wall of text.

lol

Thora wrote:
I didn't complete the survey b/c I didn't think my answers would be interesting or useful.

Surveys are not about interesting answers, all types of people should take the survey. Also, you will be able to come back to this thread and look at the progress you've made.

albion, adding new questions are we? Hehe, it'll actually help, thanks. I'll edit mine to reflect the "new version" of the survey.

Last edited by nonpoint (2009 July 18, 5:48 am)

thermal Member

From: Melbourne, Australia Registered: 2007-11-30 Posts: 399

Yeah, that's a good question. I have updated the first and my post to include question 13.

13. How long have you been studying? Can you give a rough breakdown of how you spent that time?

Tobberoth Member

From: Sweden Registered: 2008-08-25 Posts: 3364

I'll answer 13 separately then:

How long I've been studying... depends on how one counts I guess. I spent some time 2006 (yeah, 3 years ago or so) learning hiragana and some kanji and basic Japanese. I didn't really consider it studying and I didn't learn that much. It was just something I spent some time on now and again. In January 2007 I moved to Japan for a year, studying at a Japanese language institute, passed JLPT2 the same December. When I came back, I more or less stopped my studies completely because I didn't know of a good way to retain. I kept speaking Japanese to my girlfriend obviously, but that's more or less it. No exposure, no SRS, no nothing. Then, 6 months later or so, I found this site and since then, I've went through RtK since I found it to be a good way to retain kanji knowledge and I've started to add sentences to anki and expose myself to tons of Japanese. I would say I've studied Japanese more or less seriously for almost 2 years.

thermal Member

From: Melbourne, Australia Registered: 2007-11-30 Posts: 399

IceCream, have you done RTK1? I'm just quite impressed by how fast you are going.

yukamina Member

From: Canada Registered: 2006-01-09 Posts: 761

Okay, I'll give this survey a shot. I'm not going to answer every question, though.

1. How many facts (production and recognition are only 1 fact) do you have in your SRS not including RTK?

670 sentences, 1300 vocab. This doesn't give any indication of my level, though, because I did most of my studying outside of the SRS system. Also, I've deleted thousands of vocab cards to keep from burning out.

2. What sentences have you and are you putting into your SRS?

A lot of sentences from Yahoo!辞書. Some sentences from study resources and some from websites and fiction.

3. Do you do production (audio/hiragana to kanji) and/or recognition (kanji to reaning) or something else? Is there an order (eg production and then recognition)?

I do recognition. I read the sentence, and if I understand it and know the readings of all the words, I pass it.

4. Do you use any kind of special techniques when you review an item with your SRS? eg. dictation, role playing etc.

Special tequnique? Not really. My cards are kind of specialized in the sense that I cut corners on the answer side to save time and effort. Basically, I just put the bare necessities, which sometimes means no answer at all.

5. How many cards on average do you add to your deck per day? If life is getting in the way of this, once things settle down how many do you intend to add per day?

I add cards infrequently. You can tell by the fact that I have so few. Right now I'm not really adding Japanese cards so that I can focus on adding Korean cards(I have about 1070 of these).

6. How much exposure (immersion) to Japanese do you get (or intend to get) on average each day or week? In what form?

It's not consistent. I usually watch a few episodes of anime. Sometimes I read 1-2 hours a day, sometimes I don't read anything. Sometimes I listen to drama CDs or audiobooks. Obviously I'm not immersed, I just do what I feel like when I feel like it.

7. Describe your level including any strengths and weaknesses.

I'm not really sure about my level. I think I'm upper intermediate, I think I could pass JLPT2 easily. But I can't find any JLPT practice test with answers, so I don't really know(maybe I could pass JLPT1, heh)
I can read light novels for enjoyment. I can understand anime when it's not crazy sci-fi or full of other specialized words. My speech and writing skills are probably way behind because I don't work on them.

8. Are you satisfied with your progress and the techniques you are using?

Hmmm... I'm satisfied with my method(which is not the sentence method, or AJATT). I know I could make a lot more progress if I spent more time reading and studying. I have a lot of other things to work on, though, and I don't want to force myself.

9. Are you satisfied with your level?

Not quite satisfied, but I'm happy. My goal is to mostly to read novels, and I'm already able to do that. I still have a lot to learn, though. I can't read any novel.

10. How far do you want to go with Japanese?

Like I said I want to be able to read novels. I want good listening skills. Basically, when I encounter Japanese, I want to understand it no problem. I'm not aiming for native fluency, and I not practicing production skills(aside from thinking to myself in Japanese).

11. How confident are you of getting there?

Pretty confident. It just depends on me putting in the time and effort. I'm not planning on quitting, so I'll get there sooner or later.

13. How long have you been studying? Can you give a rough breakdown of how you spent that time?

Are ya ready for this? ...about 8 years. I started studying in junior high off and on, for about 2 years. Then in high school I took classes, but it was just 3 years of re-studying what I had already self-studied. It cemented the basics and worked on my speaking skills at least. After high school I floundered for a while, studying a bit off and on.
Then I finally "got into gear", drilled the joyo kanji in a kanji learning game, and started picking up where I left off. I drilled and SRSed vocab, took lots of notes, worked on reading, until I decided I could do most of the learning from native material.

chochajin Member

From: Japan Registered: 2008-07-13 Posts: 520 Website

Okay, maybe it's time to take part as well （；^ω^）

1. How many facts (production and recognition are only 1 fact) do you have in your SRS not including RTK?
KO 2001 book 1 + 2 deck: 2427
Grammar sentences deck: 1006
General sentences (monolingual) deck: 144 (<- just started a week ago)

2. What sentences have you and are you putting into your SRS?
Well, KO 2001 I don't have to explain, I guess.
As for grammar, I leave some blanks for the points I'm trying to study, so it's a little bit production as well and I also try to explain WHY I used what I've used.
Q: Usually the Japanese sentence with one or more blanks.
T: Translation
A: The correct answer + rule's explanation

For the monolingual sentence deck:
Q: Japanese sentence (highlighting the parts I want to study)
R: Reading
A: Japanese definitions
For this deck I use 2 sources at the moment:
例文で学ぶ漢字と言葉　and a novel called きみにしか聞こえない

3. Do you do production (audio/hiragana to kanji) and/or recognition (kanji to reaning) or something else? Is there an order (eg production and then recognition)?
Apart from the tiny bit of grammar production I don't have any production cards in my decks (or at least they're suspended for now). I want to concentrate on recognition at the moment, although I really want to do production at some point as well! My output ability is almost non-existent! (;o;'')

4. Do you use any kind of special techniques when you review an item with your SRS? eg. dictation, role playing etc.
No, nothing. Yeah, I'm boring.

5. How many cards on average do you add to your deck per day? Or if life is getting in the way of this, once things settle down how many do you intend to add per day?
The grammar deck is finished for now, so I'm only studying / reviewing at the moment.
The sentence deck ... it depends, I'd say something between 5-10 sentences per day.

6. How much exposure (immersion) to Japanese do you get (or intend to get) on average each day or week? In what form?
As I live in Japan the immersion is quite high of course. I've been listening to Japanese music and watched Japanese animation and jdrama for 11 years now (almost every day), that hasn't changed much, just that I spent most of my time at work now. There it's an English-Japanese environment (which isn't too bad as neither is my mother tongue anyway ...)
So, I hear Japanese every day as the people around me speak Japanese. I still watch and listen to Japanese media every day (maybe about 2 hours per day on average, more on my days off) and I read something Japanese everyday (maybe for about 30min.), that doesn't include my study time where I try to use as much Japanese only as possible.

7. Describe your level including any strengths and weaknesses.
Actually I have no clue. I just took a 2kyuu mock test a few days ago and was surprised that I passed it with 76%. I've never studied for the test and I thought I'd still have to study another 6 months before I would be able to take the test.
My weaknesses are very clearly grammar and output in general (writing or rather typing I should say are better than speaking which sucks still big time ....)
Listening, vocab, kanji and reading are better and getting better every day

8. Are you satisfied with your progress and the techniques you are using?
No, I'm not. I started studying in 2002, but it was always on and off, so I never really progressed. Now, almost 7 years later it seems like a joke that I'm only around 2kyuu level, but I didn't study on a daily basis since last year June, so I guess ... that's okay.
I still can't do so many things I want to do, so I'm not satisfied at all and get frustrated very easily (sometimes to the point that I want to give up).

I'm always unsure about the techniques I'm using as well, but that's why I often ask for help in this forum
I think it doesn't help thinking too much about techniques anyway, we'll just lose precious time (,_,)>

I guess I'm not really unhappy about my progress, I have to admit that I can do a lot of things that I couldn't 1,5 years ago. RTK and KO 2001 really helped me with my reading speed and my general comprehension ability. Using lang-8 also gave me some confidence with my output, so I'm focusing more on that now as well.

9. Are you satisfied with your level?
As I'm very impatient, I have to admit that I'm not happy about my current level and I can't imagine that I ever will be

10. How far do you want to go with Japanese?
Well, I want to be able to do the things I want to do, ne?
Like reading magazines, novels etc. without getting frustrated after a few minutes because I don't understand enough.
I want to be able to follow jdramas with difficult vocab (like Voice) without subs.
And I want to be able to communicate naturally in Japanese not only when it's about daily life, but also more difficult problems etc.

11. How confident are you of getting there?
Haha~ ..... there are days when I think that that day'll never come.
I think some of my wishes just really might never come true, but I try and don't think too much about it!

12. From when you started RTK, aside from your process evolving bit by bit, are there any major things you would do again differently if you could?
Since I started RTK my studies went quite smoothly ... I might reconsider what I'm currently doing in the future, but right now I don't know yet ^^;
I didn't regret doing RTK, studying on-yomi with something similar to the movie method and after that doing KO 2001, that was quite a good idea actually.

13. How long have you been studying? Can you give a rough breakdown of how you spent that time? (new question)
Like I wrote before I started in 2002 with a language course at my university (once a week, so no big progress and it was also always on and off). I have been listening to and watching Japanese media since about 1998 on almost a daily basis, but that doesn't count as studying, I guess?
I began to study on a daily basis when I moved to Japan in March 2008.
June/July 2008-Sept 2008: RTK 1
October 2008-February 2008: on-yomi study with the RTK 1 kanji
November 2008-April 2009: iknow/smart.fm sentences on the website
December 2008: took a 3kyuu mock test and passed with almost 90%
May 2009 - June 2009: KO 2001
July/August 2009: nothing new, just reviews
September 2009: basic grammar (dictionary of basic japanese grammar) and started the "sentence method - monolingual" + took a 2kyuu mock test and passed with 76%

brianobush Member

From: Portland Registered: 2008-06-28 Posts: 241 Website

Love this thead, thought I would contribute my facts (primarily for posterity's sake).

1. How many facts (production and recognition are only 1 fact) do you have in your SRS not including RTK?

1296 facts.

2. What sentences have you and are you putting into your SRS?

My sentences mostly sourced of みんなの日本語 (vol 1), some core 2k and a few random sources. I have started KO2001 recently.

3. Do you do production (audio/hiragana to kanji) and/or recognition (kanji to reaning) or something else? Is there an order (eg production and then recognition)?

I do recognition only. I would like to start doing audio recognition (not dictation) but I have yet to plan out how to grade such an effort.

4. Do you use any kind of special techniques when you review an item with your SRS? eg. dictation, role playing etc.

Nothing special.

5. How many cards on average do you add to your deck per day? If life is getting in the way of this, once things settle down how many do you intend to add per day?

I add 10-15 cards per day from KO2001, but on some days when the added sentences are so hard I only add a few more. Once or twice a week, I also add 10-20 sentences from みんなの日本語 (vol 1) and am up to lesson 23 (almost finished with volume 1).

6. How much exposure (immersion) to Japanese do you get (or intend to get) on average each day or week? In what form?

My wife speaks Japanese to our children and to me. I don't get much other listening time in, but like to listen to j-music. I am currently watching samurai champloo sometimes before bed.

7. Describe your level including any strengths and weaknesses.

Don't really know, basic? Or low-level intermediate.
My strengths are (1) pronunciation, (2) knowledge of culture. As for weaknesses: (1) speaking is hard for me, (2) do not do Kanji production other than RTK.

8. Are you satisfied with your progress and the techniques you are using?

Yes. I am using the sentence method (core2k, KO2001) with structured lessons from みんなの日本語. I recently started studying on my android phone with anki mini in addition to my regular sessions. This has allowed me to increase my sentences that I am adding. Fills in my dead time and feels like a mini-immersion device.

9. Are you satisfied with your level?

Not really satisfied, but I see the progress and am very pleased with my accomplishments. Japanese still seems hard and distant, but the pieces are coming together.

10. How far do you want to go with Japanese?

I want to be fluent and sound natural (current expressions, slang). My goals are to work in Japan in a few years and my wife wants to return to Japan when we are older (retire?).

11. How confident are you of getting there?

Very confident. Time is all I need. I have dropped basically all other hobbies to focus on Japanese for the next several years.

13. How long have you been studying? Can you give a rough breakdown of how you spent that time?

Get this... I started in 1996 studying hiragana. Studied from a friend whom was a Japanese language instructor. Also took a Japanese 102 evening course at Harvard. Then I turned around and did little for over 10 years. Kanji was a mental wall that prevented me from moving forward. My wife is Japanese and I have longed to know the language better. The problem is that her English is so good, that there wasn't a point.

This spring (2009) a friend introduced me to RTK and we went through it together. This was a life changer. July - I started sentence mining and restarted みんなの日本語. Now I am trying to keep up with my daughter's Japanese (she is in 2nd grade at Japanese school).

Last edited by brianobush (2009 November 10, 10:21 pm)

mezbup Member

From: sausage lip Registered: 2008-09-18 Posts: 1681 Website

1. How many facts (production and recognition are only 1 fact) do you have in your SRS not including RTK?

Depends. I've just worked through KO so that was about 3100 facts and I'm finishing up a KM2kyuu study deck of about 600?

2. What sentences have you and are you putting into your SRS?

None atm. I've been far too busy with my JLPT2 prep study but very soon i'll be mining dorama shows and putting stuff I need to SRS for Kanken into a deck.

3. Do you do production (audio/hiragana to kanji) and/or recognition (kanji to reaning) or something else? Is there an order (eg production and then recognition)?

All comprehension atm but I do production through KanKen DS3. I intend on doing production with Dorama decks.

4. Do you use any kind of special techniques when you review an item with your SRS? eg. dictation, role playing etc.

Grinding, procrastination, questions of why me?

5. How many cards on average do you add to your deck per day? If life is getting in the way of this, once things settle down how many do you intend to add per day?

I like to do about 100. I can keep up reviews at this pace and also learn a tonne.

6. How much exposure (immersion) to Japanese do you get (or intend to get) on average each day or week? In what form?

Lots of music but sometimes thats all apart from obviously my KO reviews and my KM study + kanken. Going to be watching lots and LOTS of shows over the next two weeks

7. Describe your level including any strengths and weaknesses.

My understanding has reached an OK level. I guess I feel like I've got a great base to really start learning without too much slowing me down. Speaking still sucks but I've got a plan to ramp that up over december/january. Kanji skills improve weekly as I'm slowly leveling up in KanKen (currently can pass 8 but working on 7).

8. Are you satisfied with your progress and the techniques you are using?

I'm finally satisfied with the techniques I'm using. The progress has been nothing short of epic so far but I'm hardly satisfied.

9. Are you satisfied with your level?

When I can out-talk the 3rd year uni students and at least pass kanken 4kyuu i'll be satisfied with my level but not thrilled.

10. How far do you want to go with Japanese?

All the way Speaking fluently with a decent accent, reading at good speed, aiming to pass kanken 2kyuu

11. How confident are you of getting there?

I'm bankin on it.

13. How long have you been studying? Can you give a rough breakdown of how you spent that time?

1 year and a bit. Started just before november last year and studied very casually through learner material at first then picked up RTK and worked through that sporadically. Finished it a while back now, went straight on to mining natural sources, was way too slow for my liking. Worked through tae kim. Signed up for JLPT2kyuu with 4 months to prepare, hit KO2001 pretty hard and knocked it out in 2.5 months, Currently pwning KM2kyuu and will spend the next few weeks doing practice tests, example problems for grammar and watching shows shows shows.

dbh2ppa Member

From: Costa Rica Registered: 2009-05-05 Posts: 120

1. How many facts (production and recognition are only 1 fact) do you have in your SRS not including RTK?
575

2. What sentences have you and are you putting into your SRS?
i usually add sentences from anime/manga/music/film/books/websited, and example sentences from dictionaries with the same words.

3. Do you do production (audio/hiragana to kanji) and/or recognition (kanji to reaning) or something else? Is there an order (eg production and then recognition)?
usually, only recognition

5. How many cards on average do you add to your deck per day? Or if life is getting in the way of this, once things settle down how many do you intend to add per day?
adding cards isn't important to me. if i want to remember a word/grammar point particularly i'll add sentences with that word/grammar point, so i don't add regularly.

6. How much exposure (immersion) to Japanese do you get (or intend to get) on average each day or week? In what form?
about 6 to 8 hours a day. a bit more on weekends. a bit less when new anime is scarce.

7. Describe your level including any strengths and weaknesses.
i can watch anime and enjoy it, understanding most of what is happening (unless it's too complicated or has very technical vocab.) I can read simple manga. Once I know what's supposed to be happening i can read simple stories, with the aid of a dictionary. weakness: it' very difficult for me to un-conjugate a verb to look it up.

8. Are you satisfied with your progress and the techniques you are using?
i'm very satisfied with my progress, and what could be better than a technique that requires nearly no effort?

9. Are you satisfied with your level?
no! i'll be satisfied when i speak better japanese than the average educated japanese person.

10. How far do you want to go with Japanese?
native-level or higher.

11. How confident are you of getting there?
very much so (though i will have to move to japan at some point)

12. From when you started RTK, aside from your process evolving bit by bit, are there any major things you would do again differently if you could?
i would have started to "not care about progress" earlier. i remember at first i was all stressed about learning the grammar, and adding cards, and understanding every single line in anime, which was painful and did nothing for me. just going with the flow, enjoying what i can understand, is more than enough, the rest may (or may not) come in time.

13. How long have you been studying? Can you give a rough breakdown of how you spent that time? (new question)
i know i started at some point this year, but can't be sure exactly when. definitely more than six months. how did i spend that time? more than i care to admit was spent stressing over the stupidest things, looking up unimportant things in order to understand unnecessary phrases, trying to find "just one more" sentence to srs. after i realized that wasn't working, just watching anime, reading manga and short stories, listening to music and podcasts, and improving every day ^^.

Last edited by dbh2ppa (2009 November 11, 12:39 am)

Nukemarine Member

From: 神奈川 Registered: 2007-07-15 Posts: 2347

It's been six months so I think I'll post an update to track progress (or lack there of). Items marked "++" are answers from six months ago.

**Started RevTK June 2007, which I mark as the time I started to really learn Japanese.**

1. How many facts (production and recognition are only 1 fact) do you have in your SRS?

++2600 Kanji (700 Movie Method onyomi), 2070 Vocabulary Cards, 750 Grammar Cards, about 300 Sentence method cards.

3200 vocabulary cards, 850 grammar cards and 1300 subs2srs cards

2. What sentences have you and are you putting into your SRS?

++Grammar sentences from Tae Kim, Vocabulary sentences from iKnow. The sentence method sentences will come from J-dramas via subs2srs++

Now just J-Drama subs2srs cards, and activating vocabulary cards from Tanuki and Core sources.

3. Do you do production (audio/hiragana to kanji) and/or recognition (kanji to meaning) or something else? Is there an order (eg production and then recognition)?

++On vocabulary and kanji cards I do production (or dictation) and recognition. On grammar and sentence method cards, I do recognition.++

Same

4. Do you use any kind of special techniques when you review an item with your SRS? eg. dictation, role playing etc.

++Kanji I write out the kanji or go for basic meaning (not solely keyword) in addition to onyomi if I added movie method. Grammar and Sentence Method I type out the sentence to slow me down and make sure I know all parts, and practice typing in an IME. Vocabulary cards I write out the word being tested. I try to think of reason's I'd say the sentence if I can.++

I don't type out subs2srs cards anymore. On vocabulary and kanji cards, I answer in my head and only write out incorrect answers.

5. How many cards on average do you add to you deck per day? Or if life is getting in the way of this, once things settle down how many do you intend to add per day?

++I review/study a set time per day. I review what is due first, then add cards with remaining time. Too variable to give a good number.++

Been trying for 3 hours a day. So I'm adding more cards on average.

6. How much exposure (immersion) to Japanese do get (or intend to get) on average each day or week? In what form?

++Constantly playing ripped audio. Trying to read manga, websites, Harry Potter for now. Need to watch more dramas, but it's difficult with my current living conditions.++

I rip four episodes per drama to and randomly play on my iPod (about 80 episodes total). I also read a lot of dramanote scripts now in a similar fashion (sheets mixed up for random page each time). Impossible to say active listening, though passively it's at about 120 hours/week if not more.

7. Describe your level including any strengths and weaknesses.

++My reading and writing seems reasonable. My speaking and listening ability is atrocious, leading me to want to do sentence method. The success that the native Japanese have written about here recently using it with English is even more encouraging here.++

Speaking/listening have seen huge increases thanks to subs2srs/iPod listening. Reading is getting faster. I still don't write too much, but it's becoming better.

8. Are you satisfied with your progress and the techniques you are using?

++No, I waste too much time on English websites. Barring that, I think the techniques used are working.++

Considering limitations based on my location, I think I'm progressing as well as can be expected. I still waste too much time on English websites.

9. Are you satisfied with your level?

++No.++

I think this'll stay no, but I can see a point that I stop actively trying to improve.

10. How far do you want to go with Japanese?

++Be able to understand movies/dramas without Japanese subtitles, be able to read 200 pages an hour for manga and 20 pages an hour for Japanese novels with good comprehension. With that, I think I'll be able to speak and write better.++

Same.

11. How confident are you of getting there?

++Not very. But time will tell.++

Confident now, but it'll still take time.

12. From when you started adding items to your SRS, aside from your process evolving bit by bit, are there any major things you would do again differently if you could?

++Hard to say, many things that help now did not exist last year, much less 2 years ago when I started. If the material existed and someone could guide me (instead of figuring it out along the way), it'd be: RTK Lite, Basic grammar and vocabulary, RTK, intermediate grammar, sentence method. In addition, I'd gather a lot of English movies and watch them in Japanese. I'd also do my cards similar to how it is now. ++

I think I'd try to get started with subs2srs sooner, such as 300 hours into studying instead of two years later like I did. So now it'll be RTK Lite, Core 2k/6k (organized a bit differently) and Tae Kim Basic and Intermediate followed by subs2srs.

nest0r Member

Registered: 2007-10-19 Posts: 5236 Website

I currently suck, expect to suck for a while, would change everything if I could do it all over again, but eventually expect to suck much less than I do now. I don't get enough practice in each day, wasting time BSing my way through pseudoscientific arguments based on flights of fancy, but expect I will also get better at BSing in the future as well.

Also: subs2srs.

pm215 Member

From: UK Registered: 2008-01-26 Posts: 1354

nest0r wrote:
wasting time BSing my way through pseudoscientific arguments based on flights of fancy

...is that an admission that you're trolling in the other thread o_O?

#1 reason I still suck at Japanese: I'm too lazy to consistently do any of these things with Anki and subs2srs or anything else... Maybe next year :-)