Language Journal: April 26th 2019
Hmm, what to say?
I've been in a slightly experimental mood lately again. I bought a book on Amazon last night called: ちょっと食べたパイ君. It is basically a kids story (less than 40 pages, with not a ton of text) about a pie who wakes up with a piece of him having been eaten. It is comical and depressing. Ultimately (SPOILER ALERT) Pie-kun had eaten himself in his sleep. After being jailed (for some inexplicable reason) for this, he becomes OK with his new existence and moves on.
If you can't tell, I finished my last Box of Manga box with time to spare. So I started looking for other resources.
New Box of Manga arrived today. One duplicate and 3 new ones. The new ones all look good. Got the next volume of Silver Spoon, and the first two volumes of something called パステル家族 which looks like a humorous slice of life.
Anki accuracy is hovering in the 90% region with around 300 cards in an hour each day. I deleted my Stardew Valley deck. I decided to stick with my Core Japanese decks and the ones with words/sentences I had mined on my own.
Stardew Valley was a fun little experiment. But, in the end, the deck I had was built by someone else and it does what it promises to do perfectly. Each card contains one screen of text. There are some cards with no text at all, some with a word or two. Some with multiple sentences where I know every single word and others that are short novels where every second word is complete mystery. In short, it was horribly inefficient at the stage I'm at, and it isn't like my goal with this was to be able to play farming games.
So, with that out of the way, I've freed up some more of my time.
Today I tried something a little different. I wrote down, including Kanji, every single word I messed up in my Core decks. And then I practiced the Kanji. Tomorrow, I'll see if I can remember the Kanji and the meanings of the words.
Writing isn't my prime objective. But, writing helps reinforce the memory. And I'm only writing the ones I'm struggling with. I didn't do it with new cards either. It is really there as a twofold mechanism. Firstly, the "threat" of dealing with the Kanji will hopefully help me focus and make fewer stupid mistakes, and secondly, when I can't pull the right answer out, writing down and focusing on the words should help cement it into my memory.
Examples:
需要 This is SUCH a common word in my decks. And yet I still screw it up every 2nd or third time I see it. And when I DO get it right, I often pronounce the first Kanji with an extra う.
消防士 is another brutal one. I always pronounce that last Kanji as しゃ instead of し. Why? Because 消防車 is pronounced that and learned it first. And I SHOULDN'T make that mistake. I KNOW that 車 makes has しゃ as a reading. As in 電車、自動車、車両 and so on.
老若男女 is one that I probably only have on one card in my decks. But, it has been in circulation for probably over a year now. It isn't the target word on the card, so I let it slip in the past. But I have NEVER pronounced this one right. Granted, except the first Kanji, I don't think those are common readings at all for the others. 老人 is another place where I've seen the first one with the same reading.
As you can see above, I'm mainly focusing on words which I SHOULD know. I need to keep things maintainable. Ones which have been mature cards in the past already. If I try to throw every single card which stumps me, I'll probably destroy my motivation again.
I don't think I'm going to go to brutally on myself if I can't reproduce the Kanji tomorrow. But, if I still can't get the meanings, then I'll probably force myself through them again.
Beyond that, I'm not sticking strictly to my earlier plans in any traceable way. But, I suspect I'm more or less meeting my goals. I'm watching a lot more Japanese YouTube, I'm practicing my Japanese with my family. I'm reading my Manga in a timely fashion, etc...
Anyway, time now to fire off an email to the fine folks at Box Of Manga. They keep on sending me duplicates. They are very good about sending new books to make up for it. I generally don't like to complain, but every second shipment seems to contain one or more duplicate, and it is getting increasingly more difficult to accept the losses given the cost of the subscription. I don't feel the cost is crazy high, but I also don't feel it is super affordable. Put another way, I think it is more than worth what I'm getting. But, I'm not sure that even if I could go to the store and buy Japanese Manga at these prices that I would buy this many volumes monthly.
End.
I've been in a slightly experimental mood lately again. I bought a book on Amazon last night called: ちょっと食べたパイ君. It is basically a kids story (less than 40 pages, with not a ton of text) about a pie who wakes up with a piece of him having been eaten. It is comical and depressing. Ultimately (SPOILER ALERT) Pie-kun had eaten himself in his sleep. After being jailed (for some inexplicable reason) for this, he becomes OK with his new existence and moves on.
If you can't tell, I finished my last Box of Manga box with time to spare. So I started looking for other resources.
New Box of Manga arrived today. One duplicate and 3 new ones. The new ones all look good. Got the next volume of Silver Spoon, and the first two volumes of something called パステル家族 which looks like a humorous slice of life.
Anki accuracy is hovering in the 90% region with around 300 cards in an hour each day. I deleted my Stardew Valley deck. I decided to stick with my Core Japanese decks and the ones with words/sentences I had mined on my own.
Stardew Valley was a fun little experiment. But, in the end, the deck I had was built by someone else and it does what it promises to do perfectly. Each card contains one screen of text. There are some cards with no text at all, some with a word or two. Some with multiple sentences where I know every single word and others that are short novels where every second word is complete mystery. In short, it was horribly inefficient at the stage I'm at, and it isn't like my goal with this was to be able to play farming games.
So, with that out of the way, I've freed up some more of my time.
Today I tried something a little different. I wrote down, including Kanji, every single word I messed up in my Core decks. And then I practiced the Kanji. Tomorrow, I'll see if I can remember the Kanji and the meanings of the words.
Writing isn't my prime objective. But, writing helps reinforce the memory. And I'm only writing the ones I'm struggling with. I didn't do it with new cards either. It is really there as a twofold mechanism. Firstly, the "threat" of dealing with the Kanji will hopefully help me focus and make fewer stupid mistakes, and secondly, when I can't pull the right answer out, writing down and focusing on the words should help cement it into my memory.
Examples:
需要 This is SUCH a common word in my decks. And yet I still screw it up every 2nd or third time I see it. And when I DO get it right, I often pronounce the first Kanji with an extra う.
消防士 is another brutal one. I always pronounce that last Kanji as しゃ instead of し. Why? Because 消防車 is pronounced that and learned it first. And I SHOULDN'T make that mistake. I KNOW that 車 makes has しゃ as a reading. As in 電車、自動車、車両 and so on.
老若男女 is one that I probably only have on one card in my decks. But, it has been in circulation for probably over a year now. It isn't the target word on the card, so I let it slip in the past. But I have NEVER pronounced this one right. Granted, except the first Kanji, I don't think those are common readings at all for the others. 老人 is another place where I've seen the first one with the same reading.
As you can see above, I'm mainly focusing on words which I SHOULD know. I need to keep things maintainable. Ones which have been mature cards in the past already. If I try to throw every single card which stumps me, I'll probably destroy my motivation again.
I don't think I'm going to go to brutally on myself if I can't reproduce the Kanji tomorrow. But, if I still can't get the meanings, then I'll probably force myself through them again.
Beyond that, I'm not sticking strictly to my earlier plans in any traceable way. But, I suspect I'm more or less meeting my goals. I'm watching a lot more Japanese YouTube, I'm practicing my Japanese with my family. I'm reading my Manga in a timely fashion, etc...
Anyway, time now to fire off an email to the fine folks at Box Of Manga. They keep on sending me duplicates. They are very good about sending new books to make up for it. I generally don't like to complain, but every second shipment seems to contain one or more duplicate, and it is getting increasingly more difficult to accept the losses given the cost of the subscription. I don't feel the cost is crazy high, but I also don't feel it is super affordable. Put another way, I think it is more than worth what I'm getting. But, I'm not sure that even if I could go to the store and buy Japanese Manga at these prices that I would buy this many volumes monthly.
End.
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