I meant to put in here a while ago that I finished season 2. I’m a little bit into season 3 – just got through the を and に particles. Yay me! I’ve also got Remember The Kanji Vol 1 on its way (it may actually arrive today!) which I will be pillaging over the next few months. I know, I know; I won’t be learning the readings. But I feel like it’s too much to ask of my brain to learn the kanji, the meaning, the on and kun readings, and when to use what. It may take longer this way but I’ll feel a lot more confident about using them.

^Tobias^; I know how you feel! Season 2 felt like it took forever!! I’ve been taking the whole thing really slow (as in, I’ve been at it over a month now). Basically any time there’s a Japanese character, I write a bunch of stuff down. It really smashes the knowledge into your brain but holy sweet hellfire it takes a long time. And I go through a lot of pens. I’ve got this notebook that’s about half full of writing.

I have been a bit stuck the last few weeks and I have not made a lot of progress here on the Textfugu lessons. It’s starting to get tough now (with conjugation stuff especially). It’s harder to study nowadays than it used to be. I don’t know if it’s because I’m in some form of unmotivated state or if I’m trying too hard and exhausting myself. For the most part I only go through Anki daily these days.

I took a look at my statistics that Anki has generated and told me the following:

Days Studied: 100% (193 / 193)
Total: 47600 reviews
Average for days studied (amount): 246.6 reviews / day
Average for days studied (time): 33.2 minutes / day

Are these kind of stats overboard? Or are they average? I’m usually pretty tired once I’ve gotten through my Anki decks, making me feel unmotivated to study more for that day (which probably is the reason why I make less progress on Textfugu).

At what season are you? Do you only import the decks from TF or do you import additional decks (or make your own cards)?
I think 246.6 sounds like a lot.
I have studied for a little more than a year now and I have 210 on a bad day.

I would also feel burnt out in my brain after going through so much anki each day.

I’m about to read the last chapter of Season 5. Only cards I’ve made are sentences that I take directly from the different chapters, since the normal sentences deck only lasts to about season 2 or something. However, these cards gets pushed back in queue pretty quickly (most of them are already 1+ month).

I haven’t been on here in a while. Been quite busy. Working overtime (EW!) because deadlines. In between doing things to stay alive, I’ve been trying to keep up with Anki and RTK.

So today I’ve finally made some time for TF and finished season 3. Also two days ago I got to 100 kanji, and there are only a couple out of those that I have any trouble remembering. Despite the fact that things are going a bit slow right now, I do feel pretty good about the progress I’ve been making for the amount of time I’ve actually been able to put into it. I was even issued good luck from Chris Broad (of the Abroad in Japan channel on youtube), so that’s pretty rad.

I also have my brother living with me for a little while, which kinda cramps my studying habits a bit. Oh well, nothing to do but keep going, right? Allons-y!

Season completion post for トビアス

• Season 1: Completed!

Learning dakuten and the last few hiragana was the hardest here. Started learning katakana for a week because I was travelling and only had a hiragana/katakana sheet with me.
Anki has not been used.

• Season 2: In progress

Radicals! First 3 were so simple, I can’t think of ever forgetting them again. Anki is something I must get more into.

• Season 3: Not begun
• Season 4: Not begun
• Season 5: Not begun
• Season 6: Not begun
• Season 7: Not begun
• Season 8: Not begun

• This reply was modified 9 years, 9 months ago by  Tobias Andersen.
• This reply was modified 9 years, 9 months ago by  Tobias Andersen.
• This reply was modified 9 years, 9 months ago by  Tobias Andersen.

I literally just finished season 2! (ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ*:・ﾟ✧

Which means I finished two seasons in… 3 days. Is that bad? I know that sounds like I’ve been rushing it or something, but honestly it doesn’t feel that way! I’ve been learning Japanese at school (by myself on an internet course, kind of like this one, but no where near as helpful) a couple of times a week so it’s not like I’m a complete beginner, though I would still call myself a beginner. (I didn’t really know any of the grammar points or a lot of vocab.)

Anyway, I learnt hiragana quite a long time ago and was quite confident in that area, so in season 1, I didn’t do all the learning hiragana exercises, though I did read everything. So that’s why it took me less time than how long it would usually take me to do it. So I did season 1 in a bit more than 5 hours and then 1/3 of season 2 that night. Then I did the second third on the second day and finished the second season on the third day. I know that might sound like I’m pushing myself, but I don’t even know I’m doing it! Once I start something and I really enjoy it, I literally can’t stop. And so I forget everything else I was supposed to do. Is that good or bad? It’s like I can’t burn out or get tired or something… Which might be a good thing, when I think about it that way. I don’t feel like I’m cramming, I just feel like I’m doing a fun activity for a little while.

But even so, I also read all the comments in this forum and I sort of noticed that a lot of people were doing about around an hour+ each day, so you can remember all the new information that you learnt rather than cramming it all in. Like do a bit each day and that way all the new information slowly settles in your mind, like a little baby getting nicely tucked into her cozy bed rather than trying to stuff all the information at once like throwing the baby aggressively into it’s cot from the other side of the house while screaming “I’M THE WAR LOOOOOOOORD!!!!!!!!”

Anyway my holidays are ending in a couple of days, so I definitely won’t have that much time to constantly over work myself or try to remember too much at once. I’ll probably just do an hour a day or something… (Hopefully I don’t jinx myself when I say that and do nothing at all! D:) Over all I have a sorta good memory, (weirdly enough, my entire family does) but I don’t think that I can remember EVERYTHING if I work myself TOO hard… :;(∩´﹏`∩);:

Anyway the point of this is am I working myself too hard? Or since I don’t feel burnt out at all, is it good that I’ve done this much Japanese? To be honest though, I’ve been doing nothing but Japanese (when I think about my last three days, then I realise that’s all I’ve been doing! Other than karate and some exercise this morning, I’ve just been doing TF or other Japanese websites or revision) and since I’m doing that, does that mean I will learn more? Or maybe tomorrow I’ll wake up and I’ll forget everything… I hope not!

Sorry for the long post! (´；д；`)

@Jonas
Thanks for the advice! Okay I feel a lot better then. So I should just be happy with my motivation while it lasts! :D I was a bit worried that if I take in vocabulary and kanji and other things a bit too fast then I might forget them quicker than if I took it a bit slower, but if I just keep practising every day, that shouldn’t happen! (*^▽^*)

On another note, today was probably the first time where I got a bit ‘stuck’, or whatever you call it on Text Fugu. (￣□￣;) Last night I went to sleep thinking that I probably wasn’t nearly as confident with my kanji as I would like to be. :;(∩´﹏`∩);:

I had no trouble at all remembering what the kanji meant, just remembering the on’yomi and kun’yomi readings and knowing when to use them in what situation in vocabulary. That really stumped me. (；☉_☉)

So I looked up many threads from the (many) people who had the same trouble and after a while, thanks to the helpful comments and many links I was able to work out when they are used and how they have many exceptions too, which made me feel quite a lot better! Though I still had trouble remembering which reading was which, so I did the next step. I just went over the kanji readings on the kanji page on Text Fugu as well as when which one is used in which vocabulary and then by the end of the day my confusement with kanji reading vanished! ☆*･゜ﾟ･*\(^O^)/*･゜ﾟ･*☆ (Well, so far anyway… I’m sure I will keep getting trouble probably in the future, but I’ll just keep being positive, yeah? :D ) So I wrote that in my review for the second season of what I was proud of. :)

I was happy with myself that when I woke up with morning I felt kind of worried (okay, a LOT worried) about my problem with kanji reading and vocab. (after getting almost all of them wrong when doing the anki revision, I knew I had a BIG problem… (;° ロ°) ) and then by the end of the day I got basically all of them right just by reading a couple of comments by the so helpful members of this community and some other stuff too. So I would just like to say thank you guys! (/∇＼*)｡o○♡

I guess my lesson is to not give up and just keep trying, because the moment when something just ‘clicks’ might be just around the corner! (☆^ー^☆)

Hey Monique!

Glad to see you’re doing so well!

For remembering words, I rely pretty heavily on (perhaps too much) what I believe is called the link method – thinking of an image or phrase that sounds like that word. It’s actually really similar to remembering kanji. But sometimes you have to manipulate words in weird ways, and I don’t write any of it down. I’m going to try to write out an example for you, but because of the way I have to mess with words it may not come out right.

おくります = to send

We know that ます basically just says “yo I’m a verb don’t worry about me” so that doesn’t matter. All you need is the おくり part. So I think “to send through thee, O Great Courier” which sort of comes out as “To send through thee, お great くりer”. After 3 or 4 rounds in Anki I no longer need the little sentence. But if I ever forget it, or need to share it, it’s pretty easy to work backwards.

Some are hard than others, and some are just downright impossible. I (somewhat ironically) have a ton of trouble remembering わすれます (to forget) because I have never been able to think of something for it. And although I had to verify that I was correct, I am impressed that I got it right lol.

And of course, anything with Japanese in it is good. TV, music, radio, etc. I’ve been slowly going and getting lyrics for all of my Japanese music so that I can sing along. Having the music along with it and knowing the translation helps a ton.

Keep up the good work! And don’t worry if you start to slow down when school gets going!