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Hey guys. Haven’t really been on here much in the past… however long it’s been, so just wondering how you’re all getting on with your studies. Any big milestones, or are you still just chugging away at it? IIRC, Sheepy went away to live in the mountains or something; anyone know how he’s getting on or if he’s returned to studying Japanese? How about winterpromise too – is she still around? I see they’re both still listed as moderators, though not sure if it’s just not been updated… by which I mean “of course it’s not been updated, this is TextFugu amirite?! LOL”
As for me, I’ve kinda… stagnated, I guess. It’s been like this for quite a while. I’m still slowly working through Core 6000 (25 more words and I’ll be halfway there :D), but that’s about all I’m doing. I just don’t have the enthusiasm I did when I first started. Definitely not giving up, just not getting much done at the moment. Keep meaning to get through the first Kanzen Master book, but it never happens. Even though I’m doing flash cards every day, it’s got to a point where it’s more like “learning the answers to flash cards” than “learning vocabulary”. I know I should be reading lots and writing on Lang-8 to solidify all this stuff I’ve learned before and actually give it context, but I just can’t be bothered, which *is* partly laziness but mostly just apathy.
I regularly watch language-learning videos, mostly by Moses McCormick (laoshu505000) and Steve Kauffman (lingosteve) (and a few other polyglots here and there) and they can be really interesting and inspiring, but not enough to get me raring to go. I had planned at the beginning of last year to try muddling my way through the first Harry Potter (parallel reading), but it’s just so daunting I never really started. I’ve stopped listening to the only three Japanese music groups I really liked (Perfume, MEG and Capsule, who funnily enough all happen to be produced by the same guy, Yasutaka Nakata) – I still like them, but listening tends to bring back bad memories that I’ll not get into. I don’t watch any Japanese TV shows, or read manga, and the thought of practising conversation with natives (as championed by both Moses and Benny the Irish Polyglot) scares me, partly due to bad, embarrassing experiences with an exchange student last year >.< Hell, when I first started, I didn’t really have a main goal or ambition for studying Japanese, it was more a case of “Why not? Sounds all right” haha.
As hopeless and emo as all that sounds, I don’t want to give up, and I’m sure I’ll get back into the swing of things at some point, I just don’t know when or how. So anyway, what’s keeping you lot all going after all this time? Why are you still enthusiastic about learning Japanese? Besides missing and Mark’s AK47 devotion, of course ;)
I should also mention that I’m still going to classes run by my Uni’s Japanese Society, but that’s less than an hour once a week. Better than nothing, I suppose.
EDIT: Didn’t realise I’d written that much till I posted it :P Quite a common thing, I think.
There are also sisters
Hey Michael – I’m glad to see you’re still around, even if you are feeling stagnated. I think it’s great that even though your motivation is lacking, you’re still plugging away. Have you tried to find a reason to learn Japanese other than “it’s there?”
I’m still around, but I don’t post much. I try to read as many threads as I can (mostly for moderation purposes) without taking away from my study/life time. There really is very little moderation needed on these boards because they aren’t that active outside of the intro threads. Most people are very well behaved. ;)
As for me personally… my studies really sucked last year. I lost a LOT of motivation after struggling with and being bested by RTK. I think it’s a great program but I pushed too hard and buried myself in reviews. I tried desperately to catch up and in the process lost my motivation to study. Anki for an hour a day is NOT fun and I hate having reviews overdue. So I kept pushing to catch up, losing motivation, falling behind, trying to catch up, etc. etc. etc. Vicious cycle. I finally gave up on catching up, suspended EVERYTHING that was overdue, and kept up mostly with what was not. Then my FIL was diagnosed with cancer, I was away from home for two months with very little internet, and there went my reviews again. Coming back to several thousand Anki reviews is not motivating… especially when you’re moving across country two weeks after getting home.
I started studying again in December (bad timing with the holidays) but only studied a couple hours total the entire month. I made a New Years plan of studying at least half an hour a day and have succeeded so far. That’s where I am. About the same place skill wise as last year. 2012 was a wash. Couple that with floundering around because Textfugu ran out of lessons and it’s way too easy to waste time listening to Jpod101 lessons that are only review and you have someone who has been studying off and on for three years and still considers herself a beginner. ;) Wow it’s painful to be brutally honest…
I’m finally pushing myself to learn something new. I’m starting a new beginner series in Jpod101 tomorrow that is right at my level instead of constantly reviewing old material. Grammar should be getting harder very quickly and I need the challenge. I’m tired of being a beginner. I’m limiting my Anki reviews to 15 minutes a day so that I can concentrate on new material. Hopefully the reviews won’t back up again but if they do, they can just sit there. Right. My perfectionist self is still working through that concept…
How’s that for a long reply to a long post? ;)
Oh, and I’ve tried logging on to the Teamspeak server a couple times but have bad timing. No one was on any of the times. Hopefully I’ll catch people on one of these days.
“of course it’s not been updated, this is TextFugu amirite?! LOL”
Indeed ;P
Nothing big the past half year. I have been working on getting my reviews to below 100 a day since they were around 500 daily around the time I took the jlpt. After getting the reviews down I attempted starting core 6k, but the words in it are so useless, so I started adding words which I don’t understand from TV-shows, G+ etc to a monolingual deck which has paid off greatly. Other than that just the usual stuff, review and following akb ;)
@Cassandra: The only person that really warrants any moderation is Bbvoncrumb ;)
“Hopefully the reviews won’t back up again but if they do, they can just sit there. Right. My perfectionist self is still working through that concept…”
Haha, I know what you mean – reviews on Koohii started piling up a while ago; it was hard, but I finally decided to stop doing them outright. It was a real struggle to watch as all those cards lay there not getting reviewed, but I’m much better off now not doing them. There are 1551 reviews due there, but no way am I doing them XD Only the “7+ reviews” box has any cards left that aren’t due. My profile says I did 35697 reviews total, so it had a good run ;) It was also hard stopping some of my old Anki decks, but it’s so much better now that I’ve just got the one (Core 6k).
Hey, I’d still class myself as “beginner” as well! I mean, my reading skill and kanji are maybe a little more than that, but overall I’d say I’m about A1/A2 on the Common European Framework (which is meant for European languages, but the descriptions of different levels can reasonably apply to Japanese too).
Good luck with your future plans, I know you can do it ;) Hearing how someone else hasn’t had a great time of it and is turning around is actually quite motivating, so thanks :D
@Mark: My reviews are around 100/day now, but I’m actually looking to bump that up to about 200/day (or more like “add enough new words to get to that stage”). I’ve started listening to old radio shows done by Ricky Gervais, and I find I can easily do all my reviews in the time it takes to listen to one episode :D Probably not as good as listening to Japanese radio, but reviews can be boring, so it helps me get through them haha. Also helps regulate how much study time I get through each day.
I imagine you already know a lot of the important stuff from Core 6k already, so yeah, you’re probably better off keeping doing what you’re doing. Nice that you’re using a monolingual deck, should be very helpful. Do you just take a definition straight from a dictionary, or have you got like example sentences too?
By the way, there was a time where I stopped and reviews started accumulating way too quickly. The thing is though, it was a personal made deck so I could afford to completely delete it even though it had over 1000 cards and start from scratch again. I would suggest doing that but I don’t know how you guys with premade decks feel about that
I just copy and past the definition, and find a good example sentences. Then add the word. Usually looks something like this
I think I would rather keep the decks I have now, since the reviews are like 0-10 a day. I need the reviews even though they are few ;)
I just copy and past the definition, and find a good example sentences. Then add the word. Usually looks something like this
I think I would rather keep the decks I have now, since the reviews are like 0-10 a day. I need the reviews even though they are few ;)
I have no clue where the picture went lol
@missingno15: Why would it being a personal deck make deleting all the cards easier? Wouldn’t it be *harder*, since you spent all that time and effort making it? haha
I know when it gets to the stage of having 1000 cards due it’s just not feasible to continue, but doesn’t that mean you lose all the progress? What do you mean by starting from scratch – do you add all the same cards back, or just start adding new cards?
Hopefully I won’t get to that stage, as I don’t really wanna delete the whole deck XD
Starting from scratch means what it means. It means I deleted my deck, and added new ones.
It’s not a waste of time at all if you are confident in knowing more than half the deck already. Rather, its more of a waste of time of relearning what you know already, and what you should already know. It was the one that I was making in 2010 till like early 2011.
In that case I can sort of get why you would delete it. I just reviewed my core 2k par 1 deck, which had the cards 多分、米、左、道、一杯 due today. I won’t see any of them in 1.5-2.5 years since I have reviewed them so many times now… Deleting the deck wouldn’t really hurt since I see those words all the time so I guess you are right in what you are saying ;)
I wouldn’t delete my newer decks though.
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This reply was modified 11 years, 4 months ago by
マーク・ウェーバー.
Nothing big, over halfway through Core 6000. Just taking it easy as I have 4 years of Japanese at university ahead, so I’m not that bothered about studying hardcore while I have other commitments. Was already accepted to Leeds University this year which means I’ll be living in Japan from 2014 to 2015. Excited to watch 2014′s 笑っていはいけないSP live in Japan with my Kansai friends.
@Yggbert: Do you really need to go to uni to do Japanese? If you’re already more than halfway through Core6k and have been doing Japanese a while now, you’re probably too good for 1st year at least (and most likely some of 2nd) :D I know it’s a bit late for advice now but, from speaking to a friend doing a MA in Japanese here at Edinburgh, you’re going to be insanely bored (because it’ll all be so easy for you) XD And can you not do an exchange to Japan in the 3rd year of a more… “employable” degree? :P They don’t offer that here, but some unis must, surely?
Not *trying* to be a downer, it’s just that I read TextFugu’s recent article on the subject…
I TOTALLY agree.. get a degree that will get you a job. You can get other certifications and qualifications (JLPT. BJT, Kanken etc..) to prove your Japanese ability.
Get a degree in a different field (if it’s not too late to change…) -
This reply was modified 11 years, 4 months ago by
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