Tuesday, February 3, 2009

Less Anki, more reading?

Sick and busy doesn't exactly make for the most productive 日本語 learning. I'm making the most of things, though - lots of passive listening, keeping up on my SRS reviews and reading whenever I have the time.

Did I mention that it feels absolutely awesome being able to read and understand the vast majority of a manga? Sure, よつばと!doesn't exactly use the most complicated language, but that hardly matters - it's real Japanese, and dagnabbit, I'm reading it.
Unfortunately, it'll be a while until I can read through something more complex and manly like Berserk, but I'll get there in due time. 
Manga with furigana seems like the way to go for the time being, but aside from Yotsuba&!, I'm having difficulty finding manga I'm interested in. Any suggestions would be great, I'm not too picky (see: the contrast between an energetic, curious 5 year old girl and grim, crushing humanism and gore).

Inputting new Anki material has really taken a backseat to reading and listening, I must confess. However, I don't see this as a bad thing at all. The SRS is an invaluable tool for memory, certainly, but simply reading and listening to truckloads of material has been and always will be the most effective way to acquire a language. The handful of phrases I've inputted have been directly from Yotsuba&, and rather than type a "translation" or paste definitions, I'm simply typing up a brief, contextual explanation of the situation in which the sentence arises. Works beautifully so far.

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