2042 down, baby.
Ahh, it feels great to be done with RTK1, but at the same time, I feel the weight of several hundred kanji in Anki just begging to be reviewed; certainly not a bad thing, as this will ensure that my momentum doesn't slow down, or at least that's the plan.
On a side note, my horrific Japanese handwriting is slowly, but surely improving! No longer does it look like something a 1st grader would scribble down, but now more akin to... oh, perhaps that of a 4th grader. Nothing to be proud of yet, but practice makes perfect, and anyone who says that writing regularly isn't an important part of learning Japanese isn't someone whom I'd care to take advice from.
I'm in no rush to begin the "sentence phase" of my studies, but I'm happy to say that I'm really looking forward to it, albeit with a little bit of intimidation in the back of my head. First things first, though - getting a good, solid grasp on the kanji I've already "learned".
The real journey has only just begun.
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3 comments:
Congrats. I finished Heisig earlier this year too. It really does make a difference when you know what all the kanji mean (although I forgot a lot of them. Don't forget to keep doing your reps!)
Are you working on your listening at all? I recommend watching Japanese dramas (without subtitles). A good place to find them is here: http://www.d-addicts.com/forum/torrents.php
Recent ones I recommend are Maou and Bloody Monday.
You may not understand anything at first (or maybe you will. I don't know your level), but every hour you put in will pay off in the end.
Yeah, the "forgetting to do my reps" thing has really come back to haunt me... on more than one occasion. I've managed to work up another nasty backlog which has only slowed down progress - ugh. Luckily, I'm retaining most of these suckers really well, but there are still a good chunk that I just need to practice.
As for listening, I've definitely been making an effect. I often use KeyHole TV to stream Japanese television, which is probably my favorite listening method (when the shows aren't driving me insane anyway). I'm also big into the Japanese underground music scene, so that's been helpful as well.
Drama-wise, I've seen both Densha Otoko and Nodame Cantabile and loved them both to DEATH (albeit with subs). I'm starving for new stuff, and what I've seen of Bloody Monday has been really interesting (managed to catch it live a few times, accidentally) so I'll probably check it out next. Thanks for the recommendations!
I understand very little spoken dialogue yet, but as my Japanese vocabulary increases, it just all falls into place... which I'm sure is a phenomenon you're familiar with (like 結婚 which I learned some weeks ago, and now hear constantly, haha)
One thing I sometimes do when I get a big backlog of Anki cards, is I'll break it up into really small groups. I'll make it my goal to just do 20. Then I'll go do something else (eat a snack, watch TV, go outside, whatever) for a little while and come back and do another 20. Rinse and repeat. Keeping the target number low gets rid of that "oh jesus this is going to take forever" mental block. As long as you keep coming back to Anki throughout the day, you can clear stacks of 500+ without really feeling that burnout.
I haven't seen Densha Otoko or Nodame Cantabile, but I'll check them out on your recommendation. Bloody Monday is basically just a Japanese version of 24. It's over the top, but fun and highly addictive. Maou is darker, but I liked it a lot. Things do fall into place. Like Khatzumoto says, just keep listening and you'll gradually suck less and less. If you haven't watched it already, I recommend this series of videos: http://www.alljapaneseallthetime.com/blog/khatzumoto-on-video-but-in-english
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