Japanese Progress for July 2010
Cardcount: 3581
Repcount: 19473
Coverage (non-new cards): 99.8%
Retention: 92.3%
Current Japanese ability assessment:
My ability to understand Japanese has improved a ton. I’ve been working a lot on listening lately and I’ve really noticed the benefit. However, my output of the language is still badly lacking in skill. I’ve made a new experimental anki deck to see if I can improve my output. The basic idea of the deck is to put just a picture on the front that reminds me of a sentence or dialog that includes a specific grammar point. This way I have to pull the sentence entirely from memory instead of just reading it passively. I’m hoping this will allow me to better call upon these grammar points when outputting the language in natural situations.
For Japanese learners wanting to improve their output skills quickly, spend a lot of time working on the “tara” form. Practice using it on all verbs until it becomes second nature. There are so many uses for the “tara” form and it will add some much needed complexity to your sentences.
I’m also finding that learning some sentences without full kanji is helpful for learning. Sometimes I know a word with the kanji, but if i see it somewhere written just in kana, i have no idea what it means. Because of this, I’ll try to mix in some random kanaized sentences to hit words from all different angles in order to best remember them no matter which form I happen to encounter them.
This month I’ve noticed I’ve finally gotten over a hump. I can now watch basic television shows without subtitles and read simple texts such as manga without much difficultly. I can’t understand something like a psychological drama in Japanese yet, but it’s something definitely to strive for.
My upcoming goals will be to continue working on building a massive vocabulary to aid in comprehension of Japanese media. Also, listening comprehension of the words I’m learning will also be a priority.
My ability to understand Japanese has
improved a ton. I’ve been working a lot
on listening lately and I’ve really
noticed the benefit. However, my output
of the language is still badly lacking
in skill. I’ve made a new experimental
anki deck to see if I can improve my
output. If I notice improvement because
of the deck, I’ll write up a tutorial
on what I’m doing for practicing
output.
For japanese learners wanting to
improve their output skills quickly,
spend a lot of time working on the
“tara” form. Practice using it on all
verbs until it becomes second nature.
There are so many uses for the “tara”
form and it will add some much needed
complexity to your sentences.
I’m also finding that learning some
sentences without full kanji is helpful
for learning. Sometimes I know a word
with the kanji, but if i see it
somewhere written just in kana, i have
no idea what it means. Because of this,
I’ll try to mix in some random kanaized
sentences to hit words from all
different angles in order to best
remember them no matter what form I
encounter them.
This month I’ve noticed I’ve finally
gotten over a hump. I can now watch
basic television shows without
subtitles and read simple texts such as
manga. I of course don’t know all the
words but I understand much more than I
don’t and I get most of the details of
the stories. I can’t understand
something like a psychological drama in
Japanese yet, but it’s something
definitely to strive for.
My upcoming goals will be to continue
working on building a massive
vocabulary to aid in comprehension of
Japanese media. Also, listening
comprehension of the words I’m learning
will also be a priorty.
School is starting in August so I
