Language Journal - August 8th - Japanese
Not really a typical post for me. Not trying to make a point or anything. Just wanted to think about my progress and try and leave a line in the sand to compare against.
I have about 23% of the cards left in my Anki decks unseen. I haven't added much to my daily strategy in a while. Largely because of work and planning for the move. I'm mentally drained and I don't think I can stay motivated if I try and add more to my plate in a day right now. But, I am doing nightly reviews on the cards I missed in the past few days (3 days on Kanji, and past 5 days on the Core 2000 stuff). It averages out to about 750 cards a day for everything.
I don't think the number of cards is necessarily too much. The Kanji isn't sticking the greatest. But I haven't added my own stories to the cards in quite a while. Hence the reason I'm only doing the past 3 days right now for forgotten cards. It adds up, and most nights, those 3 days add 150+ cards.
I definitely feel like I'm still progressing though. Right now the steps are a little more spaced, but also more well defined in that when I notice I've improved, I notice something tangible. It is pretty exciting.
While I haven't added anything to my daily regimen, I have downloaded Hello Talk and browse through and help others and read Japanese natives and see if I'm able to translate. I'm doing better at it than I expected. Also, on the Core 2000 cards I kind of alternate with some nights where I primarily listen and only try and read after to strengthen both listening and reading. They use the Kanji where applicable, so it really is 2 totally different skills. On the other nights I'll read along, though I will often try to remind myself to pay attention to the pronunciation even when I'm reading.
I've been debating adding something like the "Toby in Tokyo" material from Nihongo shark to the mix. But, again, with the draining nature of work and everything else going on right now, I think I'll hold off on that until after the move, or maybe until after Christmas. When I hit the end of my current stack of cards (at this pace, another month and a half) I still have options to stick with Anki, from adding more decks to manually entering stuff daily lessons from Nihongo shark to adding my own stuff based on what I'm interested in.
I know, where I'm at right now, that this is mostly just growing my vocabulary and not doing much for my grammar, and there might be more efficient strategies. But, it never hurts to add vocab now. I'll probably add it later. And figuring out what to add to the mix takes time and experimentation.
Really, I'm just trying to make sure I stay in the place I am now, where I'm motivated and doing it every single day. I don't want to kill my progress by making myself hate this. Granted... I'm not really sure I could at this point. I mean, it has actually opened my eyes to notion of learning even more languages and about even more cultures. I'm even interested in French. Something I had long thought that years of substandard education had driven out of me.
If I were to try and estimate where I am, I would say:
I have about 23% of the cards left in my Anki decks unseen. I haven't added much to my daily strategy in a while. Largely because of work and planning for the move. I'm mentally drained and I don't think I can stay motivated if I try and add more to my plate in a day right now. But, I am doing nightly reviews on the cards I missed in the past few days (3 days on Kanji, and past 5 days on the Core 2000 stuff). It averages out to about 750 cards a day for everything.
I don't think the number of cards is necessarily too much. The Kanji isn't sticking the greatest. But I haven't added my own stories to the cards in quite a while. Hence the reason I'm only doing the past 3 days right now for forgotten cards. It adds up, and most nights, those 3 days add 150+ cards.
I definitely feel like I'm still progressing though. Right now the steps are a little more spaced, but also more well defined in that when I notice I've improved, I notice something tangible. It is pretty exciting.
While I haven't added anything to my daily regimen, I have downloaded Hello Talk and browse through and help others and read Japanese natives and see if I'm able to translate. I'm doing better at it than I expected. Also, on the Core 2000 cards I kind of alternate with some nights where I primarily listen and only try and read after to strengthen both listening and reading. They use the Kanji where applicable, so it really is 2 totally different skills. On the other nights I'll read along, though I will often try to remind myself to pay attention to the pronunciation even when I'm reading.
I've been debating adding something like the "Toby in Tokyo" material from Nihongo shark to the mix. But, again, with the draining nature of work and everything else going on right now, I think I'll hold off on that until after the move, or maybe until after Christmas. When I hit the end of my current stack of cards (at this pace, another month and a half) I still have options to stick with Anki, from adding more decks to manually entering stuff daily lessons from Nihongo shark to adding my own stuff based on what I'm interested in.
I know, where I'm at right now, that this is mostly just growing my vocabulary and not doing much for my grammar, and there might be more efficient strategies. But, it never hurts to add vocab now. I'll probably add it later. And figuring out what to add to the mix takes time and experimentation.
Really, I'm just trying to make sure I stay in the place I am now, where I'm motivated and doing it every single day. I don't want to kill my progress by making myself hate this. Granted... I'm not really sure I could at this point. I mean, it has actually opened my eyes to notion of learning even more languages and about even more cultures. I'm even interested in French. Something I had long thought that years of substandard education had driven out of me.
If I were to try and estimate where I am, I would say:
- Hiragana -> 99%
- Every now and then I'll get ahead of myself and read something wrong
- Katakana -> 85%
- Now that I'm not actively practicing and Hiragana shows up more often, there are a few I goof on fairly regularly
- Kanji -> 15%
- Might be a bit of optimism. Anki puts me at about 24% mature and another 30% learning, but I think the truth is that there are some in that 24% I've forgotten and some in that 30% I know better that the supposed mature cards. But I'm also not practicing the On and Kun readings as I go at this stage.
- Grammar -> 25%
- REALLY hard to say on this one. On the proper sentence structure and grammar, I'm probably a lot higher than this. But, on grammar as it is used daily, I feel like I'm probably much lower. And since it seems like the more common grammar is more diverse, this could be over stated.
- Vocabulary -> 15%
- On this one, I'm probably undershooting by quite a bit to make up for any other over estimates. Obviously, this isn't 15% of the total Japanese vocab. It is just a fuzzy estimate regarding how far along I want to get. My "real world" goal is to be fluent enough to visit Japan and not be stuck in crowded tourist destinations. My "nice to attain" goal would be a level of fluency where I could watch Japanese news or shows and be able to follow along with little or no assistance.
I think, the above estimates are largely related to the "nice to have" goal. I think I'm closer to 50-75% of the way to my tourism goal. Though, it is REALLY hard to gauge and that is a bit frustrating.
Anyway, maybe I'll try and pop in every month or every other month and add one of these.
Comments
Post a Comment