Thanks guys! I’ll see which one works for me! :D

It dramatically varies from day to day. I have a spreadsheet that I use track my studies in. I don’t track time, but instead track tasks. If I’ve done a reasonable “minimal” amount or more I put an X in that column for that day. This serves to help me know what I’ve been focusing on, slacking on, and to keep me honest with myself. It also helps me when I think “How should I study next?”

That said, some day I barely get in the minimal amount of studying I like to get in on any single day. Some days I study six hours not including passive listening. If I include passive listening then it’s more. However, that’s an extreme outlier. You can’t maintain that pace, but if you can get a day like that in every once in awhile, then awesome!

My average day is probably 45 minutes to 90 minutes. That does not include passive listening. Some days I don’t passive listen at all. Other days I’ll do it for 2-3 hours.

The long term goal is to keep making progress, and not burn yourself out. If you get 30 minutes a day every day you probably won’t burn out. You won’t master Japanese in a year, but you’ll still be doing it in a year. Only you will know what pace will burn you out. Hint: You’ll find out the hard way. ;) If that happens, take a few days to put in a minimum amount only. If you need a few more than that don’t feel bad, just keep doing that minimum amount.

Also, how I define minimum amount changes based on what I’m focusing on, or trying to cover. It always includes doing all of my Anki for the day. However, it usually has a few other tasks as well, like posting to lang-8, tutoring homeword (outside of Textfugu), etc.

Also, after all of that is said, don’t compare  yourself to others. You’re going to learn in your own way, and your own pace. I have a full time job, and other responsibilities. If I was still in school I could easily study another hour or more a day, and I’d be further along. Another guy might be a language natural, or a have super high tolerance for not burning out. Who knows what factors help or hurt the other people. In a way who cares? It’s the factors that impact you that matter. Figure those out, and work with them, or around them.

That’s my thoughts at least.

What about kanji is challenging for you? Perhaps myself or someone else had a similar experience, and can offer insight.

I follow. Yes, that can be tricky at first. I think it’s mostly about how you think about the content on these pages.

When you look at the kanji page think of the kanji as a character, and nothing more. (Sort of like A, B, or C.) Now when you think of the words at the bottom you think of them as just that words. They have characters, but instead of A, B, or C they have kanji. The nice part about kanji is it’s usually a clue to the meaning of the word.

That’s how I think of them at least. Once I started thinking of them in that way the better I started doing with them. I’d also sometimes use mnemonics when the words had too similar meanings for my comfort level. Also, I know all of that goes without saying, but I found the act of saying that to myself, and then studying with that in mind had a positive effect. It’s obvious, but the brain wants you act with that in mind the whole time. The act of thinking “This is what I’m doing” has a positive effect I’ve found.

For example I think:

“The on’yomi 入　sounds like　にゅう.”

“The word 入る is はいる because Ru says “hi” when he enters the room.”

“The word 入れる sounds like いれる.”

Another guy I know who is much much better at Japanese than I am doesn’t even bother with kanji. His whole strategy is to just learn the words. It’s similar to saying “instead of learning all of the sounds “A” can make in English just learn each word, and you’ll learn how “A” sounds in each context. (It’s not the exact same as that, but it’s close.)

This is a pro/con thing again. The trick will be experimenting with various tricks until you find the one that works best for you. I found that it took a bit of time before I had my system down, and every once in awhile I still tweak it.

You probably noticed the first two or three seasons of Textfugu Koichi really focuses on teaching you how to learn. There’s a reason behind that. To learn Japanese best you’ll have to dedicate a certain amount of time to always improving your process. Don’t spend too much time doing it, and don’t spend too little.

Did that help give you a direction or a sense of what to do next?

• This reply was modified 11 years, 2 months ago by  hey.

Thanks for the detailed reply, hey. That’s cleared up some of the confusion (At least I hope so). Sticking with the same example I used before, these below:

入る = As soon as I see the Kanji at the start I know the word “Enter” comes into my mind but the Hiragana character at the end is an immediate clue that it has a different meaning. (So I’m okay with this one, in fact your mnemonic made it easy to remember )

入れる = Same thing with this one, Kanji at the start followed by 2 Hiragana characters afterwards. The Kanji triggers the word “Enter” but the Hiragana hints at the fact that it’s meaning is different, so I’m okay with this as well).

But what about “にゅう”, when exactly does this come into the mix? The page states that it’s the “Reading”, so does “にゅう” also mean “Enter”? Or am I losing my marbles here?

Sorry if I’m beating a dead horse here but if I don’t fully grasp something it’s going to gnaw away at me.

@Kanjiman – Thanks for the links. I know that when I was trying to find the best way to process all of this information I wasn’t getting what I needed from them. However, the key to making it click may lie in there for someone else. That’s why I went to great detail about my thought process when approaching them.

@Wasif Asif – As for にゅう, Kanjiman is right it’s the on’yomi reading, so when I see it I do think that, but I also tell myself, when I think about on’yomi that’s its “default sound”, or the “character sound.” That is to say when I see the letter “A” in English sitting by itself I assume it sounds like “ah”, but I know that there are a lot more sounds it can make based on context. For example in the word “A” it sounds more like “aeh”. ;) So try to think of two simple English words that have the letter “A”, “Car” and “Cat” for example. 入 is the Japanese equivalent of that. You only know that correct, and different, sound for each because you learned the words. 入る, and 入り口 are just words that have the same character, and that character sounds different in each. Which means on’yomi readings are sound the kanji makes on its own. Sometimes they will make that sound when they are part of a whole word, but just as often they will not. The same is true for letters in English. That’s why learning the words that have the kanji is just as important as learning the kanji by themselves.

My system tries to account for this by having me consciously say “This is on’yomi, it sounds like that”, “This word with 入, means this, and sounds like that.” It adds a bit more thinking to the process, but that’s why it works. The more you think about it, the more your brain will retain. Eventually you’ll just know the word, and you won’t need to say all of that. Sometimes, you’ll forget the word after not needing the mnemonic for months on end, and you’ll need to use the trick again to refresh yourself. It’s OK, that’s what the trick is for.

Another thing you can do the first time you get a batch of new kanji, and vocab that use kanji is review them two times in a row, then later in the day review them one last time. It can be a little painful, but by the second day your recall will be a lot higher.

@kanjiman – I like that idea. I think Koichi does a great job of coming up with good tools and tricks for helping to make Japanese easier, but he doesn’t cover everything that might be problematic. (How can he?) Still, this could help him update Textfugu with more tips, and suggestions, and help newer people fill in gaps.

@Wasif Asif – I want to restate that I think it is key to think of kanji as letters, that have meanings, but are not words themselves. That’s the big difference between kanji and romanized letters. Kanji have meanings, romanized letters do not.

Also, another trick I’ve been trying lately (I’m still testing it) is to approach the Textfugu kanji page in the following way:

* Open up all of the tabs.
* Read only the on’yomi information.
* Download the related kanji deck, and review several times.
* Stay up to date on Anki (Always stay up to date on Anki.)
* A few days later go back, and read the rest of the kanji page information that includes the words.
* Download the kanji vocab decks, and review.

I find breaking the kanji up into two distinct groups over the course of several days helps a lot. I’m only thinking about kanji, and on’yomi for the first few days. I don’t even look at what words the kanji can make during that time. Later, when I’ve had time to absorb the kanji’s meaning a bit I look at the words, and use my new kanji knowledge to help trigger meanings.