21st Century Man

Been a busy, long past couple days, which has unfortunately taken its toll on my motivation to study. I've not fallen behind on my reps (well, unless you take my neglected RTK deck into account, but mumblemumble), but The Process© has been executed a little hurriedly lately - much less writing, for example. I also feel like my brain just hasn't been absorbing the material very well, which is obviously a bit of a problem... but I trust that Anki will take care of that problem in time, so I'm not worrying too much.

I've been considering stopping my vocabulary reps, however. The brute force rote memorization is something my subconscious mind simply dreads, and it's just not very effective... at least, not at this stage. I think I'll keep the deck around, and enter iKnow's lists of words on occasion when I have the time (read: someday), but I believe it's far more important to simply stick to sentences.

In that case, I'll be a little more strict on my sentence ratings. In a previous entry, I discussed how I currently rate cards, which is admittedly quite liberal and arguably a little ineffective. I've given this practice a lot of thought, and in light of my previous difficulties, I think I'll try something like the following instead:

Again if:

• there is one or more words I don't know the meanings of
• there are two or more words I don't know how to pronounce
• if I just generally can't read the thing

Hard if:

• I know the general meaning of a sentence, and the meanings of every word, but cannot recall the pronunciation of one word
• I can recall the sentence's meaning and pronunciation of everything, but only with considerable effort or doubt

Good if:

• I can recall the sentence's meaning and read it aloud (or in my head, whatever) with little effort

Easy if:

• it all comes effortlessly and naturally

Knowing me, I'll be scrapping refining everything again next week, but whatever makes it easier for me to learn the language and enjoy the ride.

Speaking of which, I've been watching and enjoying the heck out of Team Batista no Eiko, but I may be biased as I have a weakness for doctor dramas, and Atsushi Itoh is ridiculously awesome in any role he plays. Shame I have trouble understanding a good chunk of it thanks to all the medical terminology, but this is a good thing! You never know when you'll need to request an emergency large intestinal bypass. Or something.