Well as somebody that has been using a lot of your stuff it is nice to see you around.

@Nukemarine: Glad to see you back. I know what you mean about speaking. I got back from Japan in late December, and since then, my speaking has gone downhill. (It's not nearly as bad as it was before I went to Japan, but it's not as good as it was when I left.) Now I'm making a conscious effort to find people to talk to, both locally and on the net, just to make sure I can still speak at a decent level.

Generally it's bad for me to take any kind of rest from studying. It's the whole 1 step forward and 2 steps back syndrome, followed by a rush to get back to wherever it was I was at before I slacked off. I just need to build studying into my daily routine, like making breakfast or something like that. I'm already listening to Dig while I cook, so that's something. I just need to pull out the Anki deck again. I've ignored it for the last 2 weeks. :\

You guys put way too much into this anki thing.

bertoni wrote:

I have been through this, and just did the reviews without resetting the deck.  I think that's more efficient.  My guess is that you still remember a fair amount.

This is a good idea for vocab and grammar, but starting kanji from scratch isn't a bad idea. Heiseg's ordering is genius, and you'll probably notice that your memory of kanji later in the Heiseg ordering will suddenly return once you review the kanji that come up early in Heiseg's order. If you skip around, your memory won't have full access to the primitives and compounds upon which the later kanji are built.

I second the light-novel recommendation.
I also recommend trying some 多読. If you're already a decent reader it isn't hard to find something appropriate to your level. It will stretch your vocab and kanji recognition and if you're doing it right you don't need a dictionary. You can always mark really interesting words for later.

I've gone through the pause and restart cycle a number of times. I've never found it too detrimental, but reviewing things you already know sort of kills you're motivation when you're starting up again. During my last lull I managed to keep reading a little each week. Even at that low rate what I learned/remembered seemed to balance out what I was forgetting.

Anyway, as always it will be interesting seeing what you develop!

Nuke I'm in the same boat. I peaked a little over a year ago after passing N2 and living in Japan (again) from Jan-May 2011. Then I moved to Singapore and back to the US.

I've tried to keep it up by playing PS3 games and speaking with my wife, but spousal discussions don't tend to stray into the realm of the unknown. We did make friends with a Japanese couple in our apartment building, and I had coffee in only Japanese for a couple hours last week. It was like flexing muscles I hadn't used in a while. All of my skills (reading, writing, listening, speaking) have gotten worse, but I'm not lost in conversations- I just tend to forget a lot of words I used to know. I understand almost all the spoken grammar, but I often times struggle to use anything more complicated than basic/intermediate grammar.

I've been trying to figure out what to do- hopefully my wife and I can make more Japanese friends, because I'm definitely not sharp enough to get back to reading books. I'll continue to play my PS3 games as well (Tales of Vesperia currently), mostly for the passive input.

I also haven't stayed at all active on these forums- my last login was a month and a half ago

Last edited by captal (2012 May 08, 11:29 am)