Let me preface this to say that I think using an SRS is one of the most efficient tools around for acquiring a language. If you’re new to Japanese or whatever foreign language you’re learning and you’re enjoying your progress with SRS, keep using it. It’s helped get me to the point I’m at now. I’ve used it almost every day for over 2 years and I’m finally ready to let it go. Below is basically what I’ve been doing for the past few weeks and I’ve noticed good vocabulary acquisition and stress-free learning since I don’t have that looming SRS number over my shoulder.

I’m also not claiming this to be a novel way of learning a language. It’s just input and some note taking but it’s how I’ve been doing it lately and I want to have a record of it.

Immersion

This is obvious to people in the community but some still don’t use it. Do something, anything, in Japanese. Lately, in addition to just reading random stuff I find online, I’ve been watching a ton of niconico douga videos.

One type of video that I’ve had a lot of success with is 実況プレイ vids. These are videos of people playing video games and with them narrating and joking around while playing. Just search for 実況　and the video game you want to see or check out this link for a niconico community which has a lot of play lists to various games they’ve done or are currently doing videos for. You need a nico account to watch videos there so just google how to make one if you can’t read Japanese well enough to figure it out yet.

Obviously, use whatever type of video, music, books, etc that you are interested in.

Combine listening, reading, writing, and a  little bit of speaking

• You’re listening to the narrators
• You’re reading the game text and comments
• You’re writing in your notebook
• You can shadow what the narrators are saying

The memory notebook

An oldschool, but still effective method of learning, is making a notebook in order to reflect on what you’ve learned. One of the main reasons I’m enjoying using this method of memorization is that related material tends to be clumped in meaningful ways.

There are so many jokes that you see in comments, things that the people talking say that you want to remember,inside jokes, etc that are so much fun to have a record of. Although I don’t really want to add them to my SRS anymore, I still want too keep a record of my favorite parts of my journey of learning the Japanese language. That’s  why I’ve started compiling this notebook of stuff even though all the stuff I’ve written since 2009 would probably fill up 10 notebooks… I haven’t really kept good records of all that.

A lot of the stuff I’d written before was repetition of kanji when I was in the Heisig phase of learning. Those notebooks also had doodles and notes from other subjects in them and I’ve thrown some of them away as I thought it was pointless to keep such scattered notes. However, now I’m starting to save my notes because I’m in the phase of going through basic fluency and beyond and I want to have a record of this.

How to create meaningful notes for learning Japanese

Use your notebook to group things in meaningful ways. The picture to the right is a sample page I wrote up from memory to demonstrate different styles of note taking. The colored boxes are around the different styles.
Red = Words containing other words. Here I used as an example, 水溜り　and 溜まる　Puddle and the verb for collect or accumulate. So puddle is literally “water accumulation.” Having these two right next to each other helps reenforce that connection in my mind so I learn both words much quicker.

Blue = Similar looking kanji. I like to compare similar looking kanji right next to each other as well. This helps me recognize how obvious the differences really are that you might not notice when just quickly reading over a paragraph.

Green = Synonyms or words with an almost identical meaning. This is a quick way to get monolingual meanings down in your notes. We want to make it as easy as possible.

Orange = Short monolingual definitions. Here we have the word オウム　which means parrot. For the definition I simply wrote 鳥の一種　which means “A type of bird.”  Since I created the notes, that’s all I need to recall the meaning.

Yellow = Interesting quotes or sentences you find. This one is from a recent Gaki no Tsukai special. It basically says “If your life has 10 hearts (like video game hearts or health) how many hearts would be left?”

The unboxed ones are just random words or really short snippets in the case of 傷んだ碁盤

Furigana modification: The notebook picture shows the furigana written directly below the kanji. The other day I decided to write the kana version of the words at the bottom of the page sort of like a word bank. This way you can test yourself reading the kanji without having the kana directly in your vision. If you forget, the answer is still conveniently found on the bottom of the page.

金魚のフン
きんぎょ　の　フン　＝　 This refers to the annoying hangers-on to a beautiful or important person. Literally “gold fish excrement” hanging on… 爆笑

競争は激しいけど,
きょうしょう　は　はげしい　けど。。。　＝　”The competition is fierce but….”

漢字は中国から来ました
かんじ　は　ちゅうごく　から　きました　＝　”Kanji came from China”

大人になったら板前になりたい
おとな　に　なったら、　いたまえ　に　なりたい　＝　”When I grow up, I want to become a chef”

カレーが飛び切りうまい
カレー　が　とびきり　うまい　＝　”Curry is extremely delicious”

一 本の歯を失うと、
いっぽん　の　は　を　うしなう　と。。。　＝　”After I lost a tooth…”

肉と魚と、どちらが好き？
にく　と　さかな　と、　どちら　が　すき？　＝　”Meat or fish…which do you like?”
The meat in this case would refer to something like pork, beef, etc… fish is given its own category.

育てたスイカを収穫しました
そだてた　スイカ　を　しゅうかく　しました = “The raised/reared watermelon was harvested.” I think I found this one in a Japanese gardening blog or something.

帰宅した。疲れた
きたく　した。　つかれた = “I returned home. I’ve become tired.”

鯨がくしゃみをした
くじら　が　くしゃみ　を　した = “The whale sneezed.” I found this one is a picture book. I think it’s strange that I’ve never seen the Japanese word for “sneeze” until now.

雪が舞っている朝
ゆき　が　まって　いる　あさ　＝　”The morning where the snow is fluttering about.” This one is kind of neat as it’s another use of 舞う [まう」　which mean’s “dance.” You can picture the snow dancing down to earth from the clouds.

全然眠れやしない
ぜんぜん　ねむれ　やしない = “I can’t sleep at all.”
**Grammar Point** Adding やしない　to the masu form of a verb makes that verb emphatically negative. The dictionary says this is a colloquial usage.

眼鏡を外す
めがね　を　はずす　＝　”to take off one’s glasses.”

ウサギが葉っぱを食べている
ウサギ　が　はっぱ　を　たべて　いる　”the rabbit is eating a leaf.” This one was an interesting find for me because I’ve only see leaf written as ”葉”before this.

鍵がなかったので。。。
かぎ　が　なかった　ので。。。　＝　”Because I didn’t have my key…”

野菜をたくさん食べることが大切です
やさい　を　たくさん　たべる　こと　が　たいせつ　です。　＝　”Eating a lot of vegetables is important.”

絵空事ばかりだ
えそらごと　ばかり　だ　＝　”It’s just a pipe-dream.” I like this one because it’s a good demonstration of how cool the kanji can be. The kanji 絵 means “picture.” 空　means “sky.” 事　means “thing.” So put it together and it would literally be “The picture-in-the-sky-thing.” Kind of like how we say “pie in the sky.”

体重が１０キロ減った
たいじゅう　が　じゅう　キロ　へった　＝　”(My) body weight decreased by 10 kilos.” or simply “I lost 10 kilos.”

何故そこまで姉に拘るのか？
なぜ　そこまで　あね　に　こだわる　の　か　＝　”Why are you obsessed over my older sister to that extent?”

私はへこたれない
わたし　は　へこたれない　＝　”I won’t lose heart.”

オキアミ油はコレステロール値を下げますか？
オキアミ　ゆ　は　コレステロール　ち　を　さげます　か？＝　”Does Krill oil lower cholesterol levels?”

昔の日本食が健康に良い
むかし　の　にほんしょく　が　けんこう　に　よい　＝　”In the old days, Japanese food was good for your health.”

飲みながら話し合った
のみ　ながら　はなしあった　＝　”While drinking, we talked together.”

エビでタイを釣る
エビ　で　タイ　を　つる　＝　This is an idiom meaning “To risk a little to gain a lot.” Literally, it means “to catch a sea bream with a shrimp/prawn.”

生きてるままのエビを食べた
いきてる　まま　の　エビ　を　たべた　＝　”(someone) Ate a shrimp/prawn while it was alive.”

科学の進歩は素晴らしい
かがく　の　しんぽ　は　すばらしい　＝　”The progress of science is magnificent.”

立派な医者になった
りっぱな　いしゃ　に　なった　＝　”(someone) became a splendid doctor”

浴びるように酒を飲む
あびる　ように　さけ　を　のむ　＝ “to drink like a fish” if you were to translate by idiom. A direct translation would be something like “to drink like your bathing in it.”

あなたの名字は何ですか
あなた　の　みょうじ　は　なん　です　か　＝　”What is you surname?” For some reason I’ve been learning Japanese for about a year now and this was the first time I’ve seen the word “myouji.” I guessed from the kanji that it would be like, “What are the characters that compose your name?”….wrong! 笑

蝶のように舞、蜂のように刺す！
ちょう　の　よう　に　まい、　はち　の　よう　に　さす！　＝　”Dance like a butterfly, sting like a bee!” This was a fun one for me to learn, and as such, it stuck into my memory almost instantly. Leave a comment if you know of any fun phrases/sayings like this.

日本語で表示する
にほんご　で　ひょうじ　する　＝　”Display in Japanese. ” This one is pretty useful for the internet. You’ll often see this on pages where they have Japanese language as an option. When you see it, just click and you’ll be viewing the site in Japanese language.

喧騒から逃れる旅
けんそう　から　のがれる　たび　＝　 “A trip to escape from the hustle and bustle-ish noise”

瞬間の判断を誤った
しゅんかん　の　はんだん　を　あやまった　”With my split-second decision, I made a mistake.”

迂闊だった！
うかつ　だった！　”I was careless!”

So this has been about a year of serious Japanese study and I’ve come to the 20 percent mark of my goal. It doesn’t seem like a lot but I also did Heisig to get familiar with the Kanji, so all of that time wasn’t just spent on sentences.