Pygospa's Study Log

My 2023.5 progression

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2023年の先月

2023年7月

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2023年8月

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2023年11月

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2023年12月

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Legend

  • :x: SRS Review fail: If any SRS review did not get done, this will be the only emoji for that day
  • :orange_book: Genki Vol 1: One new Item
  • :crabigator: WaniKani: All new Radicals or 10 new Kanji or 10+ new Vocab
  • :upside_down_face: KaniWani: All new Lessons
  • :inbox_tray: Anki: 10 new Items (Vocab or Grammar point)
  • :headphones: Listening: Some form of conscious listening activity
  • :books: Reading: Some form of conscious reading activity

I stumbled upon this new learning log, and saw this template, and shamelessly stole it (well I’ve seen these before - even used them - in the reading clubs, but it didn’t occur to me to use it for my learning log as well :smiley: ) and made it my own, by extending it (also with consideration for the future).

My goal is to keep this up to date - if possible even daily - so this is my new “sticky” goto post. On the one hand this is more visual and more easily to grasp than writing paragraphs of text, and on the other hand I can keep my ~weekly log entries a bit shorter and focus on the interesting stuff. As I said, I also made it my own, by reflecting on my goals and what my main focus should be:

In-depth explanation of the Legend

So, you are in fact interested in a more in-depth reasoning for why I chose what I chose? Here you go (this is probably me reading this some weeks in the future, because I forgot my initial thoughts and goals :sweat_smile:); this list is sorted in priority, i.e. not all icons can and will be shown in the

  • :x: : This might be considered the most controversial thing in my log, but for me a day where I do all new items in WaniKani and KaniWani, work on three chapter of Genki, add 50 vocabs to Anki and do reading and listening exercises will still be a failed day if I skip any of my SRS repetitions, and in this case I do not get to brag about any of the other things I did that day. This might seem harsh, but it will be in tune with my yearly goals I did in January (a minimum of 365 days of reviews - which I already broke, but let’s update this to 164 days then [i.e. 11 days in July + 153 remaining days in the year from August to December]), and put an emphasis on the problem I have with consistency. Over the last months/years I came to the realization (far to late in my life) that SRS is not only a pretty decent tool that allows maximum efficiency with learning – not maximum speed, sure. But being able to remember things in the long-run with just a couple of times reviewing them (to get an Item burned on WaniKani you’ll see it 8 times; after 6 times you’re remembering your stuff already for a month) is something that seems insane to me – during school and university I used to be the guy that started learning for the exams a couple of weeks before, spending every waking hour (and a couple of hours that I should have rather been sleeping); in that time I’d probably see all my cards and notes 10-20 times to hammer it into my brain, and in the end retention wasn’t half as good. But for this to work you really need to hit your review times – timing is the most important thing for this to work (at least according to theory, but my limited experience already shows me that this is probably also holding up for me individually in practice as well). And this is true for all SRS systems, not just WaniKani. Whenever I add another SRS system (like Anki), hitting this goal means reviewing all the SRSs – no exceptions. Well – I am not quite sure what to make of KaniWani yet, so I’d probably have that as my very first exception just for now. Why? Firstly, it basically is an addition to WaniKani, rather than its own system, and as such it not only ties in to WaniKanis SRS, but also screws it up a bit, by actually showing you all the items twice – even if it is just in reverse. And I’m not quite sure yet, what to make of this. Secondly, I am already stumbling on problems that I don’t quite like. Having 4x “Girl” and guessing which one it could be is no fun – learning by heart, when KaniWani adds which additional translations in unique combinations to the vocabulary (girl, young lady, lady, woman) is in my eyes stupid and a waste of time, and writing them out on a sheet of paper to having lye around next to me, then recalling all possible girls and then looking up which one the system wants, feels like to much hassle for me. So maybe I’d ditch KaniWani again, maybe for good, maybe just replace it with another solution that works better? It is this uncertainty that makes me not wanting to commit to KaniWani (or another reverse system) to the list of separate SRS that all need to be done to not get an :x:. But as soon as I commit to a system, it’ll be in that SRS list as well. So my main focus is that this icon is never shown - and if nothing else is shown, it’s still a good day, because I at least did my reviews.

  • :orange_book: : The single book represents my main learning textbook, so the source where I get my additional vocabulary, reading and writing exercises, and all the Grammar work, and hopefully (depending on the book, I guess) also listening comprehension. I own a copy of Genki Vol. 1, which will be my first text book; when I switch to Genki Vol. 2 I’ll also switch the book’s color to :green_book:. You might recall that I also own a copy of J-Bridge which I didn’t like as a beginners book and discontinued usage, but I might pick it up, once I’m through with the Genkis. If I do, I’ll switch to :blue_book:; I have no idea what textbook will come after that - I’ve recently stumbled upon Quartet which to some is the best book to follow up with Genki, that seems intriguing (and it looks light pinkish, so probably I’ll be using :closed_book: then)… so you’ll see according to the book color where I am at - but I’d be rotating soon as there aren’t so many book-colors available (a pity :smiley: ). Regardless the cover, however, I expect this to be in the diary as often as possible. Ideally, we’ll see it daily, because this is the main source for me to learn the language in a structured and progressive way.

  • :crabigator: : I’ve read somewhere that 10 Items is a good number of Items to learn at once. This is also the default setting on WaniKani – so they probably think so, too? – and as long as I am only using WaniKani, it is a pace that I am able to keep up with. So having 10 items was my initial goal for WaniKani, regardless of the type of items – and I wanted to reduce it, once I add additional SRS systems, so that it stays at 10 in total. But now I’ve come to question this a bit; learning a Kanji will consist of (1) deconstructing the radicals, (2) combining them in a story to remember including the meaning, (3) attaching to it another story to also learn the readings and (4) learn the Kana writing. That is quite some mental work, and often I realize that when I don’t recall a Kanji, it’s mostly because I didn’t pay too much attention to one of these points [i.e. in (1) I didn’t realize the drop, and then I get presented with a similar Kanji without the drop and mix things up, or in (2) and or (3) I didn’t pay enough time envisioning the story, which is why it’s not getting back to me, or (4) I screw up things like 十日 with とうか instead of とおか]. Especially (4) is a regular problem for me, so limiting myself to 10 items seems reasonable here. But what about with Vocabulary? Sometimes you get presented with 10 words that are pretty hard: 下手, 一人, 二人, etc. are irregular in reading and require you to do the same as with the Kanji. Other times you get something like: 一台, 二台, 三台, … up to 10. Feels like learning one word… well not even, because I already know the readings of the individual Kanjis as well. Limiting myself to 10 items in such cases feels like intentionally holding back, and artificially slowing down the progress. In these cases I’ll want a bit more flexibility. Do I have round about 10 new items that feel hard to remember, due to meaning, reading or both? Then I’ll stick to the 10. But if there’s a lot of “you already know the reading - nice” items in the Vocabulary, I’ll add another bunch – and I’ll repeat this process until I feel I am at around 10 hard ones that really need mental work. And now, last but not least, the Radicals. It was during my re-doing of the Levels 1-3 and especially Level 3 that I realized two things: First, radicals are actually not that hard. They consist of just one thing - seeing the name of the radical in the drawing of it. That’s hardly any mental work. And second, spreading them over days just hurts your progression. In Level 3 I had days with no new lessons because I needed to wait on my Kanji to get unlocked that where waiting for radicals that I got through the system with 100% correctness and where I felt that I was wasting time having to wait on them. I mean sure, this is facilitated by (a) the fact that I am redoing lessons and (b) the fact that in the early lessons you get pretty easy radicals like “hat”, “toe”, “ground”, “treasure”, etc. But I peeked ahead and I think for the first 10 lessons this will stay this easy, and beginning with level 14, there won’t even be 10 radicals anymore. So this rule of doing all radicals at once only needs focus for the first 13 levels anyway and than comes naturally. One important last note: Due to the splitting off SRS reviews into its own icon (or rather lack of icon), the crabigator gets only shown, if there’s a lesson for me to do. Which might not always be the case. I expect the crabigator to join the party as often as possible, but not having a crabigator around might not mean that I was lazy that day, but maybe there was no lesson to do; and even if there was - more important than trying to get in new stuff is being consistent with the reviews, and in the long-run being more consistent in learning the language (i.e. using the workbook) than just learning Kanji - even though using WaniKani is (at least to me) much more fun than working with the book :wink:

  • :upside_down_face: : Nothing much to say about this one that I haven’t said already. I think the recalling vs reproduction argument against WaniKani is a valid one and that WaniKani needs supplementation, if reproduction is as important to you as recalling. It is also quite fun, and it does help with solidifying WaniKani as well. And I do love the effort and work that someone put into KaniWani – but there are downsides, so I am not sure if I want to keep up with this, I am not sure if I want another service instead (but I’ll for sure try them), and if it will become an integral part of my journey. We’ll see. In the end, same applies to the upside down face as to the crabigator: Not seeing the world upside down a day is not bad thing - might be there weren’t any lessons, might be I could just concentrate on reviews - once I’ve committed a reverse-system to my learning routine, it will contribute to the daily by preventing that review-:x:

  • :inbox_tray: : This will represent input to the SRS system, more specifically to the SRS system that isn’t already filled by WaniKani or KaniWani (or alternative); basically that’s just Anki, which I’ll be using for everything else; I’ve adapted the “example sentences over single words” mentality, and with it, I’ll try to both, learn vocabulary (i.e. 私の__はピゴスパです。Is quite obviously referring to the missing word for “name” without learning a 1-to-1 translation of the word and all the while also learning the word in the context of a common sentence in a common usage, making it easier to recall things as they get interconnected with each other), as well as Grammatical ideas (i.e. 私はラーメン__食べます。to learn the object marker -の). And to further help the brain remembering things (giving more context), I’ll also add images, and if I’ve got them: recordings. This makes creating the cards quite time-consuming, so it is totally fine not to do this every day; it might also be that there is a day with no cards needed to be created (though I doubt this, especially in the beginning). And even though it is in the end the main tool to actually make the things from the workbook (and possibly other sources) stick, I think that actually doing the work (mostly exercises and text/listening work) is in the long run a bit more important than creating Anki cards [vocab can also be learned by observing them in the texts, and with WaniKani as well, grammar points are also learned (and revised) with the exercises, etc.]; might be that this will change in the future and swap places with WaniKani, but for now I am most happy with this order - I think I’ll re-evaluate this, once I reach level 10 on WaniKani.

  • :headphones: & :books: : I feel these are both on the same level and absolutely similar in the way I understand this. It is conscious reading or listening - unconscious reading is a bit difficult, but unconscious listening would be putting on a CD that runs in the background, whereas conscious listening would be paying attention, trying to understand words, shadowing the things I hear (for pronunciation, etc.), reading the lyrics while hearing, singing along, mining vocabulary, etc. Same goes for books. Both, reading and listening is probably quite important, and also part of immersion, and they can happen anywhere (reading something online, like news, adverts, blogs, etc. - maybe even here on the forum, or subtitles in Japanese; listening to a podcast, watching a movie, YouTube, music, etc.). Priority should be higher, but especially in the beginning this is not something where I will get most value out of - this is why I’d put it this low - hopefully with reaching level 20 on WaniKani, Genki 1+2 and JLPT N5 + N4, this will shift fundamentally and these two become more important. But for now, I think it is reasonable. And again, this is additional reading - I won’t count reading/listening in Genki (because it’s already covered by Genki) or WaniKani, etc.

By the way, regarding all the new icons - next week or the week after (at latest) I’ll be starting with Genki Vol. 1 (:orange_book:), which will also pull in Anki (:inbox_tray:), so expect them to show up at least in the last row from August, Listening is something that could always appear somewhere, and reading at latest somewhere towards the end of the year - the graded readers are accessible right from the start and where fun to do, but real reading stuff (absolute beginners reading club?) is probably only really doable with at least JLPT5, so probably by the end of year (depending on my speed).

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