Language Diary: October 2
Well, I'm done my first pass at the Jouyou Kanji now. My other decks are also dwindling. I'm down from 500+ cards a day between review and new to about 350. I only have 1 grouping of decks with new cards in it still. It has a little more than a months' worth left. So, I'm getting there in terms of what I planned for myself with Anki for my current stage of learning.
By no means have I got 100% of either the Kanji, or any of those decks committed to long term memory, but each day I probably get 80%+ of my cards in the first pass.
With the recent move, I still haven't really done anything more than just my daily flashcards. So, not ideal. But I feel like I'm slowly absorbing more and more. I'm actually not looking to add too much, if anything, to Anki for a while. What I like about completing the deck is then being able to do add a random sampling of cards to my daily tests. I'm still trying to keep my daily target of 500-750 cards a day and doing random cards instead of just forgotten ones means potentially seeing a card not scheduled for a while which I may have either already forgotten or am potentially on the verge of forgetting.
Another plus with random cards is it forces me to learn similar cards. When dealing with the ones I made mistakes on, there are some cards which I often mistake for each other. But, since they often end up being separated by at least a few days, if not more, I'm often able to get it right when retesting myself simply because I remember which of the two I struggled with most recently, and not because I was actually able to identify it reliably. By pulling up cards randomly, having messed up on it recently is no guarantee it is the one I'm looking at. It also means it is possible to get one or more similar cards in the same session. Since I'm not just tackling cards I recently made mistakes on I'm forced to learn to identify them properly.
I still plan on doing another Kanji deck at some point to focus on readings and vocabulary. Ultimately, vocabulary is what is going to make it stick and what is going to be most beneficial to acquiring more vocabulary (I think).
Basically, on some level, this is how Japanese people themselves learn the language. By learning not just the meaning, but also the readings and then seeing those in words they become better able to assimilate what they see and hear. At least, once again, I hope.
This isn't true in English, but then the letters and their sounds have no particular impact on the meaning of the words. In Japanese this isn't the case. The Kanji do, generally, impart their meaning into the words formed from them. And once you know how to read them, you can assimilate more sources of writing and learn more words that way.
And that is my plan for the next little bit. For the next month or so I'll probably stick with the decks I have and focus on practicing random cards from my completed decks to fill out my daily quota. After that, I'll probably trim out some of my decks and focus on Kanji and audio cards with full sentences and then try and add in some daily reading of Japanese as I get comfortable with the Kanji readings.
By no means have I got 100% of either the Kanji, or any of those decks committed to long term memory, but each day I probably get 80%+ of my cards in the first pass.
With the recent move, I still haven't really done anything more than just my daily flashcards. So, not ideal. But I feel like I'm slowly absorbing more and more. I'm actually not looking to add too much, if anything, to Anki for a while. What I like about completing the deck is then being able to do add a random sampling of cards to my daily tests. I'm still trying to keep my daily target of 500-750 cards a day and doing random cards instead of just forgotten ones means potentially seeing a card not scheduled for a while which I may have either already forgotten or am potentially on the verge of forgetting.
Another plus with random cards is it forces me to learn similar cards. When dealing with the ones I made mistakes on, there are some cards which I often mistake for each other. But, since they often end up being separated by at least a few days, if not more, I'm often able to get it right when retesting myself simply because I remember which of the two I struggled with most recently, and not because I was actually able to identify it reliably. By pulling up cards randomly, having messed up on it recently is no guarantee it is the one I'm looking at. It also means it is possible to get one or more similar cards in the same session. Since I'm not just tackling cards I recently made mistakes on I'm forced to learn to identify them properly.
I still plan on doing another Kanji deck at some point to focus on readings and vocabulary. Ultimately, vocabulary is what is going to make it stick and what is going to be most beneficial to acquiring more vocabulary (I think).
Basically, on some level, this is how Japanese people themselves learn the language. By learning not just the meaning, but also the readings and then seeing those in words they become better able to assimilate what they see and hear. At least, once again, I hope.
This isn't true in English, but then the letters and their sounds have no particular impact on the meaning of the words. In Japanese this isn't the case. The Kanji do, generally, impart their meaning into the words formed from them. And once you know how to read them, you can assimilate more sources of writing and learn more words that way.
And that is my plan for the next little bit. For the next month or so I'll probably stick with the decks I have and focus on practicing random cards from my completed decks to fill out my daily quota. After that, I'll probably trim out some of my decks and focus on Kanji and audio cards with full sentences and then try and add in some daily reading of Japanese as I get comfortable with the Kanji readings.
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