Category Archives: Status reports

readmod mid-way update

Posted by Lan'dorien on

August is half over and therefore so is the ReadMOD.  Herewith a brief report:

In short, I’m at 92 pages, almost all of which have come from my graded readers.  I’ve nearly finished the level 3 set, with one book remaining.  That will provide another 10 or 12 pages.  However, I don’t think I’ll continue to the level 4 set just yet, since the later books of level 3 are really, really stretching my grammar comprehension – in several cases stretching it right past the breaking point.  And I really don’t like not understanding more than 10% at the very most.

So in that case I will have to broaden my sources.  I do have a big stack of manga, so that will get considerable attention.  Unfortunately only two series have furigana though and my kanji reading is still very weak.  よつばと is currently meandering through the postal service towards me – 急げ!  Also, I’m planning to spend a good amount of time on jpopasia reading lyrics.  I like this idea a lot because songs are repetitive, and you’re hearing the text sung as you go along, so it should be pretty effective for learning kanji readings.  Also, lyrics are usually grammatically pretty simple.

The question then is – is this more effective than ordered study?  And the answer is – 1. I don’t really know 2. it depends 3. probably 4. let’s continue another two weeks and answer it then 😉

looks a little dusty, i should scribble something here

Posted by Lan'dorien on

Not to worry, I haven’t vanished quite yet, just haven’t had a great deal to blog about lately nor much time to write.  Right now I should be snoozing but I’ll divert a minute for a quick status update.

Lately I have been focusing mainly on going through the core2000 decks on smart.fm.  I haven’t finished any yet, because that doesn’t actually seem possible – how long do those things stay at 99% anyway?! – but I’m nearly done step 4 (out of 10) and started step 5.  200 words and sentences per deck.  I wanted to start my own sentence deck long ago already, but I figure I’ll finish this as quickly as I can and then get going on building a sentence deck and a great deal more extensive reading.  The sentences one gets whilst going through the core decks are not bad anyway and if one pays attention to them and tries to understand them fully (not hard so far) it’s pretty much as good.  I think.

Speaking of reading I’ve been sporadically reading the graded readers a bit and finished the first set and and working on the first book of the second set.  The first set was really easy and the second set is a nice step up.  Next month is the reading contest so I’ll be working much more on that, both readers and my stack of manga which is getting almost impressive when it’s all piled up at once – probably about thirty volumes by now.

Kanji is still ongoing of course and after importing my deck from the RTK website to Anki my daily reviews have on average gone down a little.  Usually between 60 and 80 now.  But I also made a deck to review for recognition, so that makes for another 60ish reviews a day – that’s quick though, can be done in ten or fifteen minutes usually.  The writing reviews usually take 15 or 20 minutes so on average so I’m done with kanji in half or three-quarter hour.  As far as readings, I did take a membership on readthekanji.com but haven’t really had time to use it yet since core2k takes up most of my study time in the evenings.  So I depend on learning readings in context for now.

Also I’m slowly progressing through the Tae Kim grammar deck, adding just five cards a day, so that is usually ten or fifteen minutes worth.  I guess I’m about 20% done with that.

As far as listening, passive and otherwise, I just started the lower intermediate level podcasts from japanesepod101 which are nice because they have a whole lot less English than the beginner levels.  They’re somewhat of a challenge though, so listening to them at work isn’t proving to be terribly helpful.  Not sure what I’ll do about that.

So that’s that for now – I’m really focused on progressing through the core decks as far as I possibly can in the next week and a half before the reading contest starts, because once that begins then reading will get top priority.  It’ll certainly be interesting to see what progress I can make that way.

finding my feet

Posted by Lan'dorien on

After doing nothing but hoovering up new kanji for months, it felt a little strange and confusing once I didn’t need to anymore.

I tend to get a little lost without a fairly strict routine so it was important to get my new habits formed early.  Anyway I still have RTK kanji reviews tapering off, and they will be for quite a while, so there was some continuity there.  Also the usual anime and japanesepod101 hasn’t changed.  I’m not sure if I want to carry on with japanesepod101 past the “beginner” lessons.  I suspect repeated comprehensible input of natural Japanese, in podcasts and other audio, will prove more efficient.  So I need to set up iTunes to grab a bunch of podcasts, get some more fluffy sugary j-pop (heh), rip the audio from my graded reader CDs, and perhaps get some stories from that classics at bedtime site.

The first thing I started was the core2000 on smart.fm.  I’ve nearly finished step 1, 3/4 done step 2.  Those were mainly review.  Step 3 is more difficult and at the moment I’m only 30% into it.  Apparently step 4 is easier again.  It’s hard to say when I can expect to finish these ten steps, but I’m guessing by end of summer probably.  With a 2000 word vocabulary I should easily be able to read a lot of manga, simple magazines, light novels, and the like.  So from there I can mine my own sentences.  I’ll probably start before then, but for the time being the sentences in core2000 are satisfactory.  It’s quite a good feeling though, comparing how I can go through it now compared with before doing RTK.  Before the kanji were an obstacle, but now they are a help.

Also, I bought AnkiSRS for my iPhone and put the Tae Kim grammar deck on there.  This isn’t high priority but I spend probably ten or maybe fifteen minutes a day on that.

Today’s RTK reviews were 83 in number, and those will continue to go down.  Those are easily dispatched during break time at work.  Doesn’t even use up nearly all of it.  So I can do smart.fm during part of lunch hour.  Kanji recognition is still a bit of a problem though, so I want to put a reverse RTK deck in Anki and go through it that way.

I’ve started to read the graded readers a little, and need to increase the time doing that.  I breezed through the first reader without having to look up a thing, which was almost a little disappointing.  Also bought some simple manga (Lucky Star, Minami-ke, and Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei (which is maybe not all that simple)) but found it very difficult, because there’s quite a bit of slang, exclamations, words trailing off or cut short, etc., and it’s often hard to sort out which the actual words are.  Kanji are helpful in such cases.

Also I played with the Read the Kanji site.  I really like this and intend to buy a membership.  It’s cheap enough.

I keep intending to rewatch some anime with subtitles off, but I have so much new stuff I want to watch.  Just finished Hand Maid May yesterday, which was a great deal better than I expected (granted I wasn’t expecting much), and today started Kino no Tabi which is really different and quite interesting.

So there it is.  Status reports after RTK are going to be a little fuzzier, apart from smart.fm goal percentages.  That’s quite all right though.  How many people know how many English words they know?  I sure don’t.  It’s just a matter of continuing to get used to the language day by day.

2042/2042

Posted by Lan'dorien on

The end of the beginning.

Next, I need to add the special bonus track jouyou kanji that were just approved.  That, however, will be a bit lower priority.  (I’ll also be using a simple SRS with the “lazy kanji” method for those.  RTK, I feel, has outlived its usefulness after 2000 characters.  More on that later though.)  First order of business is to go through the core2000 on smart.fm as quickly as possible, and to go through Tae Kim’s grammar deck.  Concurrently, I’ll be tackling the graded readers.  I’m going to rip the audio CDs and have them playing as part of my mix at work.  Which will also consist of normal Japanese podcasts, and also japanesepod101.com podcasts – I think.  Those might be superfluous in fairly short order.

Even for a kanjiphile like myself it’ll be a relief to dial back on the kanji for a while – but more especially a relief that I can actually study the language!

I have a bit of a write-up on my thoughts about the RTK planned, but need to collect and arrange said thoughts first.

RTK report – land ho!

Posted by Lan'dorien on

1805/2042.

I would like to finish on Sunday; this will require adding an average of 40 cards a day.  Not particularly difficult, although some of the last kanji are rather … interesting.