overture2112 wrote:

I've considered doing this but I don't seem to know enough readings, so learning new words can be a strugle the first few times I see a new reading (which is often).  Mind if I ask how many words you know (very roughly) and how many tries it takes before something sticks (again, just a rough average)?

I know about 3000 words, but I only really got serious about vocab learning about 3 months, in which time I've about doubled my vocabulary.  The number of times to stick depends on a lot of stuff, but is usually around 2-3 times or so.  I've had 2 words that have taken me about 10 fails before I got it right.  When that happens there is usually something going on, like a similar word in meaning or structure that I learned recently.

(Wow, there is a section in the core 2000 where there are about 6 or 7 words that mean "construction" in various forms and I had the most horrible time with them.  I really should have just suspended most of them and learned them one at at time, but I didn't, ha.)

As far as readings go, what I do is introduce all listening and production cards, and then as I go through, if a word contains only kanji that I already know I mark it, and unsuspend them.  I do not worry about whether it is a reading that I know, because when learning kanji I only learn the most common readings, and plan on learning the less common readings on a word by word basis.  I don't really know if that is effective or not, but its what I came up with.

Last edited by blazerqb11 (2011 January 29, 9:37 pm)

For me I split it into different tasks. do my vocab deck first, all the way if I feel up to it and if  not, just take a break and come back. I've been managing to add 100 per day(30 production deck,10 sentence cards and 60 vocab cards). Thanks to timeboxing, I do it all under 1 hr and 30mins.  If I'm fast, under 1hr

500 reps to get through tomorrow, after slacking off the last few days... looks like I won't be attending my 8am biol lecture, or I will but I will just do anki instead of listening

what are reps? *hides* rather new in anki and add only new cards on weekends (at least 100).

451 reps (new cards) x 7 days.
100-200 on other decks x 7
50 subs2srs music x 7
50 N2-N5 JLPT cards x 7.

That's this week's workload. It takes about 1 hour for the 451 reps, 30 minutes for the grammar, subs2srs 15-30 minutes, and the other decks take about -15 minutes. Total time about 2 hours for 850 reps tops.

Slightly off-topic: Having native speaker audio for your cards makes things insanely fast. I can read kana in my sleep, but usually I look from kana to kanji (as I have both on the front of my card); this takes time! Having audio I can just look to the Kanji. (Right now I have 200 with audio in my 451 and the rest have broken audio links, so don't work. The difference is noticeable to say the least!!!)

BTW, why not ask you Lang-8 contributors to read your list out for you (my friend from sharedtalk.com helps me out)? Probably 90% won't, but 10% of 100-200 friends is no problem. (It's probably best to get someone to email you via the site and then send a link to you later, rather than get 10 different people.) You can exchange some other service like proofreading diaries in great detail and sending a report or reading things for them or checking their pronunciation in English or just exchange an hour or so of extra English talk time, the options are endless. (You should always payback two times as much, as this encourages them to help you again, right!)

The key of total PWNAGE and success:


1) Use the most effective method possible

2) Use this method as fast as possible.

3) Make it so that you use this method as frequently as possible.


Now how you do it is up to you...

Last edited by jettyke (2011 April 10, 12:47 pm)

jettyke wrote:

The key of total PWNAGE and success:


1) Use the most effective method possible

2) Use this method as fast as possible.

3) Make it so that you use this method as frequently as possible.


Now how you do it is up to you...

Good tips.

Watch: "Performance spikes, then crashes"
http://www.brainrules.net/stress?scene=

This says that the brain performs at it's best between mild and moderate stress.
If there is no stress or severe stress, the brain performs worse.

In this sense the timer could actually be a very good thing, because it causes a mild stress (You're challenged to learn faster). It could be especially good with things that you don't like to do and are slow at doing.

I've been lazy with reading Biology student's book, so I've set the timer to beep every minute. This has caused me to at least be more alert and not doze off so frequently( which happens ALL THE TIME ). I'm trying to go through half of a page in a minute. Hope that it works out.

Haha Arnaldo, that's exactly what I did.  I'll have to second this - works like a charm and much more comfortable.  The cord on the controller is pretty lengthy, so I can do reps standing up (I usually walk around a bit to keep the blood going), or far away from the PC screen.  I find I do them faster as well.

My RTK deck is pretty snail's pace, so I might try some things here like the timer, although I'm not sure I like the idea of the jump in failure rate it's going to produce...

My subs2srs deck is superfast though. Having the audio in the question is pretty much easy-mode, but I'm picking up words far faster than I was with individual word decks or cloze-deletion decks.

I tend to do anki in 5 minute chunks throughout the mroning. I combine my reps like this:

5 min -- revtk kanji
5 min -- anki rep (own made deck, mine 25 new cards every day. A genki chapter tends to produce 50 cards. Soon done with Genki though...
5 min -- break
repeat

thurd wrote:

* Install Windows 7
* "Snap" a Japanese movie/anime/drama to left part of your desktop
* "Snap" Anki to right part of your desktop
* Use keyboard shortcuts to operate Anki
* Enjoy your show+immersion while doing reps in a good pace

Not the fastest way to do reps but I find it fun & it doesn't wear me out like other attempts.

Oh, how do you do that, that sounds handy? Windows 7 is my operating system, but I don't actually understand it very well...

I timebox, basically. Ten minutes reps, go check if there's been any replies to threads on the forums I use (taking no more than 5 minutes), another ten minutes reps, go watch an episode of an anime, repeat. I also listen to (Japanese) music while doing my reps, couldn't concentrate without it. The buzzer thing would drive me nuts, I'm impressed by those getting good use out of it. : ) Guess different things work for different people.

Last edited by Ampharos64 (2012 August 23, 8:34 pm)

There is a very good alternative to Audible Timer plugin, called Auto Answer. Instead of giving a sound, it automatically presses the answer button after the ammount of time you set. Sounds while trying to remember the answer can be quite distracting, so I found this plugin very useful.