What would you do in 150 days?!

So End of March I've been done with RTK1 for a week. Haven't started RTK3 as I still have plenty of reviews from RTK1. I'm not entirely sure I will continue into RTK3 at least maybe not until next September when I'm in Japan and have more immediate use for them. The reason is simple I want to dedicate more time to learning vocabularity with the Kanji I already know. I plan to move through KO2001 ANDD core2k6k.

KO2001: 21 cpd x 150 days = 3150
Core6k  : 30 cpd x 150 days = 4500
俺の文：Any amount.
Unsuspend Kanji from RTK3 I have encountered in my sentences.
Add Kanji I encountered outside of RTK.

Total : 7650 cards completely by the first day of school. I plan to take out 3 hours a day besides how long reviews take to do this but not sure how long that will actually take. 3 hours I won't be doing sentences constantly it would be more like 7 cards from KO 10 from Core and w/e from my sentences and the rest of the time I'll be relaxing listening to music or watching TV. The reviews alone will probably take a total of 1-2 hours throughout the day but I don't have to do them all at once. 2 sets in the morning at 15 minutes. 1 set between classes. a couple sets after classes etc.

I will not do Tae Kim guides and here's why. The Anki deck sucks or I just don't get it. It's basic sentences but some of the sentences are for female and then others are for male and then Anki deck has no distinction to make it clear. The english they use to describe it is weird and confusing and requires you to learn how to talk funny to use the deck. I just don't like it after trying it out for a few days and it was the main thing holding me back from getting further. I wanted to blow through it as it was basic and then continue with KO. but what ended up happening is me doing my Kanji reviews and then getting the fuck off my computer because I hate tae kim so bad. So no KO no Tae Kim no Core just Kanji. That isn't going to get me further. So i deleted the deck today and got through 35 core cards and 21 KO cards just like that. Felt great deleting Tae Kim off my computer. Best decision I've made imo. I've taken classes so that basic grammar isn't really needed for me. I know how to form causative passive sentences. I speak mostly casual forms. Moving on.

Secret Goal:

Blow the placement test for my school out the water so they don't know where to put me in classes. They have classes designed to teach you all the JOYO kanji with readings. If I'm past basic conversations and i know a decent amount of JOYO kanji readings then I'll probably end up in their literature class which would be cool to me.

Immediate goals :

Listen to 3000 hours of Japanese.
Get through 8000 cards in Anki
Delete 4000 cards in the end
okay maybe not we'll see
Keep moving forward.

Learning readings like it's my job.

So I started sentences I'm working through KO2001. So far I'm only about 15 sentences deep. Depressing eh? Well I'm not just doing KO2001 my free time I have started transcribing Song lyrics with the help of http://www.utamap.com/indexkasi.html and my Kotoba dictionary for iPhone. I write down the Kanji and the readings in a notebook but i don't write down the English translation so far. Mostly looking at the kanji and reading I can remember the meaning but don't pay much attention to the English translation so far. I'm also trying to blow through Tae Kim's guide with Anki. Some of the words are weird and are definitely not clear with what they want you to input to the point where it gets me pretty upset at times. I've been through classes in Japanese so most of Tae Kim isn't new information to me but the way it's presented is definitely worth a look and interesting. One example is the Na-adj polite form - きれいじゃないです。 I've never see this form before I was taught きれいじゃありません。 But according to Tae Kim the former is more common in everyday speech while 「ありません」 is reserved for writing. Good to know it exists and if anything more useful than anything taught in class because that is such a fundamental form. I'd like to finish Tae Kim guide before moving on seriously with KO2001 and native sentences.

Some new words that I got from native sources so far are:

ノリノリで恋したい。ー In high spirits, hoping to fall in love.
希望ーhope; aspiration
季節ーseason ( learned Kanji; I knew the word already there's more of these I won't list)
天使ーangel
堕天使ー fallen angel
真実ーtruth
無邪気ーinnocence; simple-minded
翼-wings
闇の中で- In the darkness

I swear I'm not goth it was just two songs and I forgot the others off the top of my head. ごめん！

When I seriously get into native material for a while I'll start to release the sentences I'm using to learn Japanese. I plan to keep track of the source of the sentences and tag my Anki decks with it. So a tag may say AllAboutParticles or www.example.co.jp So that the source is known and you guys can check it out yourselves. In the future I see most the sentences coming from Lyrics, Random Online Sites, All About Particles, maybe some textbooks, I couple L2 books I have lying around that I have never read but really want to.


Keeping up with Reviews enjoying my break from Kanji but I'll have to get back into the grind soon enough I come across way too many kanji in RTK3 everyday for it not to be worth it.


じゃあね。



。

終わりV。（RTK１）

Phew! and you thought I wasn't going to make it. 2042 cards down 965 to go to finish RTK3. RTK3 commences probably this weekend of early next week but I'm giving myself a Hard start date of April 1st. First off lets show the graphs.

Deck Statistics

Deck created: 3.6 years ago
Total number of cards: 3007
Total number of facts: 3007

Card Maturity
Mature cards: 974 (32.4%)
Young cards: 1068 (35.5%)
Unseen cards: 965 (32.1%)
Average interval: 23.5 days

Correct Answers
Mature cards: 89.7% (235 of 262)
Young cards: 84.0% (7298 of 8684)
First-seen cards: 62.0% (1267 of 2042)

Recent Work

In last week	2639 reps/7 days
In last month	7045 reps/30 days
In last 3 months	10988 reps/58 days
In last 6 months	10988 reps/58 days
In last year	10988 reps/58 days
Deck life	10988 reps/59 days

Average Daily Reviews

Deck life	203.4 cards/day
In next week	119.4 cards/day
In next month	57.5 cards/day
In last week	377.0 cards/day
In last month	234.8 cards/day
In last 3 months	119.4 cards/day
In last 6 months	60.4 cards/day
In last year	30.1 cards/day

Average Added

Deck life	2.3/day, 67.8/mon
In last week	0 (0.0/day)
In last month	0 (0.0/day)
In last 3 months	0 (0.0/day)
In last 6 months	0 (0.0/day)
In last year	0 (0.0/day)

Average New Seen

In last week	426 (60.9/day)
In last month	1265 (42.2/day)
In last 3 months	2042 (22.2/day)
In last 6 months	2042 (11.2/day)
In last year	2042 (5.6/day)

Card Ease
Lowest factor: 2.21
Average factor: 2.54
Highest factor: 2.80

Right now with that out the way. I'm so happy to have come this far I'm really not one for completing things so this was pretty nice change and a huge load off my back. I always was thinking about RTK but now after finishing Sign of the Snake I feel instantly relieved. Like any more Kanji i do in RTK3 and on is purely for me and not to fulfill some kind of minimum. I do plan to finish up the JOYO kanji as required Kanji to know but in time. I will look forward to starting Sentences from either Kore or KO2001.

What worked for me:

Keeping the Keyword at the front of the story.
Slightly changing keywords into the tense I used in the story. ( discreet -> discreet(ly) )
Adding a reference definition for English words.
Shorter stories that trigger an image or feeling in my mind.
Reviewing the Kanji website over at kanji.koohii.com
Motivation from people on the forum finishing ahead of me.
Motivation from myself to be better than you.
The belief that Kanji is easy.
The belief that this will all pay off someday.
A notebook and pen. always pen no pencil. makes mistakes clear and doesn't wear away easily.
Spiderman / Spiderpig
MISTER TEE
Bruce Lee


I truely felt during this entire time that my future in Japanese depending on me getting through this book so failure was never an option. I hope I can help people that need it by continuing to move forward and letting anyone interested know about RTK and Reviewing the Kanji forums as they have changed my foreseeable future greatly. Thank you all and please kick my ass if I start to slack in my studies for no reason.

Countdown to the End ( of RTK1 ) : ?? days to go.

I went climbing again today Soo I did my reviews and I did 14 new cards. but no did not do 51 cards. It's just I don't have time with school and hobbies but I'll work hard and get these out the way this week definetly Just gotta sit and make up stories.



102 to go

Plan for tomorrow: No plans just results.

Countdown to the End (of RTK1): 4 days to go.

Sucks I missed a day this close to the end (of RTK1) but you know it happens. I did my reviews just no added cards so I guess it could have been worst. Today I did 2 lessons (47 cards). I have 4 lessons to go and 4 days to the finish. We'll see if I can squeeze in more reviews if I feel up for it but I kind of doubt it. Tomorrow's lesson is 51 cards. Right now I'm sitting at 222 reviews for tomorrow down from 290!! According to Anki I should level off around 75 reviews in a week from now but by then I would have started RTK3 so I don't know how that will affect it...yet. Oh and I past 10k reps after reviewing today that's crazy to think about because I probably only wrote Kanji about 2k-4k times in the other year and a half I've been "learning" japanese. I think I would only count the day I started RTK as my the time I've truely been learning Japanese, but to everybody else yes I've been studying for 1.5 years (Started September 2009)

Plan for tomorrow: Lesson 53 (51 cards )

116 to go.

+1 day for my failure

残念ですよ！復習を終わった。でも、新しい漢字を終わらなかった。終わらなくて、ごめん。

Pushed back a day Sorry Goal I have failed you.

Countdown to the End ( of RTK1): 5 days to go

Got through and ended at Midnight instead of like 3 am lol not too bad I guess. But tomorrow is 290 reviews!!! 嫌だね！I'm also going rockclimbing tomorrow but what I'm thinking is I'll bring my laptop with me and do Reps in the car on the way up there since it's at least an hour away.  I could always do the reps on 3g while at the rocks themselves...hmm maybe. I'll hold off on adding cards until I get home since I probably won't have internet. But the goal is to finish a large chunk on the way up Have a great day rockclimbing and then finish off everything else when I get home.

Plan for tomorrow: Reps in chunks whenever possible. 55 new cards.

163 to go. It's a good week to finish RTK1.

Countdown to the End ( of RTK1): 6 days to go.

Phew that was a mental barrier at it's worst. I literally could not bring myself to even start Anki but I got an e-mail from a comment on my last post. "Keep going." I laughed when I saw it and was like yep he's right I just gotta do it. So i Seperated my review into 3 parts of around 80 cards and it wasn't too bad. I finished all 71 cards and went to check how many I planned to do tomorrow. I was so happy to see the number 五十二 written next to 3/19. Literally made me smile cuz 70+ is too much to sustain over time. Tomorrow is 270+ reviews but I know those will drop off in about a week as I'm adding less cards each day. Excited but not getting ahead of myself and taking it one day at a time.

Plan for tomorrow: 52 cards


215 to go.

Countdown to the End (of RTK1): 7 days to go

Seriously unmotivated by  200+ reviews tmrw is 260+71 new cards I think I might die.

Tomorrow's plan: 71 cards

286 to go.

Countdown to the end (of RTK1): 8 days to go

I finished today it wasn't easy and I didn't start until about 8:00 PM. It was easy I just mean I was being lazy. Looking forward to end of this so I can start working through a sentence deck I'm leaning towards doing KO2001 on top of my "In the Wild" Sentence deck. So if I add 10 sentences to my deck and do say 20 or 30 from KO2001 I will get to about 4000-5000 sentences before I start my Study Abroad in September. About 1500 being from the Wild. So I don't really know how effective it will be but I'll try it out if I don't like KO2001 for whatever reason I'll try core or just go to sentences I pick up.


３６１未完 to go

Tomorrow's Plan : End of Lesson 45 (75 cards ) Wish me luck!

For anyone curious about how my reviews are stacking up from this Push to the end of RTK1. Up from about 125 cards a day @ 25 cards a day. Cumulative due shows that if I stopped doing reviews about 775 will accumulate in 7 days. Shows how much you have to keep up the reviews.

Countdown to the end (of RTK1 ): 9 days to go.

 427 to go.

I like to think this push has helped me actually do one thing better. I can sort out stories faster and decide which ones would work and which ones won't. Also I try out the story and it if it's good it's good I keep going with it so less time thinking of stories.

I know this is marked Wednesday but it Tuesday for me until I go to sleep.

Tomorrow the plan is two more lessons ( 66 cards )

::::TIP:::: 100% keep the keyword within the first 5 words of the story and 98% of the time as the first Significant word aka no Primitives before it. ( most of my MISTER TEE stories start with MISTER TEE )  I have had to go back and switch so many stories around. Sometimes it's just as easy as switching your wording for the sentence English IS incredibly versatile if you use it correct. If you use it correct, English is incredibly versatile. Incredibly versatile, English is, if you use it correctly.


じゃあね。

Finish the last quarter of RTK in 10 days or less.

3/15 - Up to 1615  End of Lesson 41 (77 cards)
3/16 - Up to 1681  End of Lesson 43 (66 cards)
3/17 - Up to 1756  End of Lesson 45 (75 cards)
3/18 - Up to 1827  End of Lesson 48 (71 cards)
3/19 - Up to 1879  End of Lesson 50 (52 cards)
3/20 - Up to 1934  Lesson 53 card 8 (55 cards)
3/21 - Up to 1977  End of Lesson 53 (43 cards) [ Back in School ]
3/22 - Up to 2005  End of Lesson 54 (28 cards)
3/23 - Up to 2025  End of Lesson 55 (20 cards)
3/24 - Up to 2042  End of Lesson 56 (17 cards)
3/25 - REVIEW
...
3/28 - Start RTK3

There is is my ten day Schedule to finishing RTK1 in 10 days. I'm actually shooting for 9 days combining the last two days. That would make my start date January 23rd and end date March 23rd. Which is 60 days total even though it would be more like 53 days studied and 7 missed days but whatever I like even numbers so its 60 days, aka 2 months, aka 8 weeks, aka a moderate but necessary speed.

Progress:１４２６完成ー１５８１未完 Started my Spring Break PUSH

Pushing Pushing hard!!! Well .. maybe if this proves to be unsustainable even with the extra time I won't be pushing very long. Today I did 71 cards and yesterday I did 55+ cards. I'm trying to hold a minimum of 55 cards per day. The way that I'm doing it is looking up stories for the first 25 stories like I always have and then reviewing in Anki with the new cards spaced throughout my review. After that I add 10 new cards an Hour with stories. and after that 5 an hour if I feel like it or I really want to finish off the lesson.

So intermediate goals even to complete my daily goal is what I have set up.

I think what I want to do is do RTK 1 then the Supplement to finish off JOYO and then RTK3 just so i get those JOYO out the way and be able to say yeah I can write all the JOYO kanji. But we'll see I change my mind so fast.

My immediate goal is hitting that 3/4 mark of the first book ( 1/2 of my goal!!!) ughh.. 1/2 of my goal this is a long trek indeed but I just gotta keep moving and to be honest it only feels long because as humans we are really sensitive to acceleration. The best part of a flight is take off and landing even though while in the air you're almost hitting the speed of sound. So this Push forward we will really help me get that RUSH i've been needing but haven't had the free time to take part in.

Deceleration is unmotivating so even after I finish with RTK1 I need to continue to push myself forward with the sentences I have waiting for me to just learn how to read. I want to start posting about sentences and what works for me. I want to post which sentences I add to my deck from "the wild."

If I do that:
1. I will have a copy of my sentences right here on this blog and
2. I can contribute to any other people trying to acquire this language



All sentences will be from:
Native sources ( TV/ BOOKS / MOVIES/ MUSIC )
or Native Speakers ( probably girls...sorry.  but, most Japanese girls i know don't sound too girly)

Anyways I'm just happy that I'm finally closing in on the end of book 1 so I can adjust my sights farther down the shooting range.



そして、じゃあね。

First stand still day.

Had a stand still day yesterday. Did all my reviews but no new cards. And really I back tracked a little because the cards I got wrong go back to 1 day intevals... I was super tired when i did them it was 1 am and I was just studying for engineering classes for like 10 hours. I'm still studying now with not as much sleep as I should have. I'm gonna grab some Green tea and get back to studying hopefully today isn't a standstill day but we'll see how tired I am after my exam.

Peace.

１２３６完成ー１７７１未完

 Gotta Keep it moving!!! I'm studying for my midterms but have to keep it moving with these Kanji. I'm awarding reading non-japanese textbooks with more new Kanji cards. So today I did 25+27 new cards and after finishing reading another 35 pages (1 chapter from my 工学の経野の教科書：Engineering Economics Textbook ) I will add another 12 Kanji cards for grand total of １２４８完成ー１７５９未完。

With Spring Break coming up I'm mentally preparring myself for an increase in Kanji Input with a goal of doing about 50 a day starting Friday the 11th - Sunday 20th (500 cards; 250 above normal input)

Counting the next 100 cards I'll be doing in the next 4 days that would put me at about 1850 by the end of Spring Break. I want to avoid burning out so Over the course of the days during spring break I would probably do 25 new cards + reviews for the first hour. and then 5 new cards per hour for five hours. So 6 hours a day sitting around doing things in Japanese and practicing my Kanji still gives me about 10 hours to go out and drink or rockclimb as I'm hoping the weather is pretty nice.



Current Projected Finish: March 28th, 2011


Sounds like a good plan to mee..


じゃあね。





。

半道 HALFWAY!!

CAPITALS MAKES THIS POST MORE EXCITING DON'T YOU THINK!!!!

So uh yeah I'm pretty awesome for getting half way aren't I? Don't you want to be me right now?! Wait what you mean I got to finish the other half?! GREAT!!!

Can't wait to finish the next half of this book I'm slowly making my creep towards the end of this book with a smile on my face. Not many finish and I hear over and over of horror stories from people who quit at the 2041 Kanji just to forget everything. So I will continue on until this and RTK3 are both done and out the way. Pulling sentences and mastering this language in preparation for study abroad next year. If I finish by my ideal date of April 1st I will have 4 months of sentence picking before the first date of my Japanese class.

Everyone wants to be fluent: YES!

But I'm not even really concerned with that and would just be happy when it comes I want to make my life easier everyday by doing my best everyday. I've learned some random readings just from classes and coming across Kanji. While most of my classmates skip by it with Hiragana I take a second to write it if I know it already and register a reading in my mind. I learned 荷物　 and 鯨 today! It's great because I can feel the readings for them.

I'm looking forward to my studies after RTK but enjoying the ride until i get there.

TIP: Move fast don't lollygag on the Kanji. YOU KNOW THE STORY YOU KNOW HOW TO WRITE JUST JOT DOWN WHAT YOU FEEL!!


しかし、じゃあね。






。