Thinking of coming back

Japanese Language
#1

こんにちは皆さん、久しぶり。
Hey everyone, it’s been a while.

So I was a devout follower of the crabigator, until I took a break. And now nearly a year later I feel like I’ve forgotten a fair bit, so I’m thinking of coming back to things here. I was originally lv50, but with me forgetting some things, I’m thinking of asking to be dropped down to lv10-15. That might be too low, but it could serve as a nice refresher.

So I was wondering, what else should I do on my path to fluency?

So far I know of:
-wanikani
-genki
-read more often
-watch anime both with and without subtitles

That’s all I can think of.

#2

You can do that yourself now, just go into the danger zone of your account settings

1 Like
#4

Thanks, that’s good to know, was it added in the site redesign?

I haven’t been here since the redesign, so did they change the way you quote people?

#5

Hmm, no, that was slightly after. What was redesigned was only the forums, in early March. There are a couple of ways to quote someone now.

  1. highlight some text and click the button image
  2. reply to someone and press the quite button image
  3. use the greater than symbol (>) to start make a blockquote
  4. use [quote] text [/quote] with optional tags such as topic id, post id, and so on.
#6

Thanks for that.

#7

You should consider using @rfindley’s Self-study script to see determine where you should draw the line with regard to your reset. It’s essentially a quiz that you can do for each respective level. Once you reach a point where you feel things are okay, you can reset to that point. That way you’re not shooting yourself in the foot by resetting too far back.

What are you learning goals? Reading, writing, speaking, listening? I think your trajectory would differ based on what area(s) you’re trying to attain fluency in.

3 Likes
#8

Thanks, I’ll check it out. My primary focus is reading, and secondary would be listening.

1 Like
#9

Well in that case, I think you’re on the right path.

Reading more is definitely going to improve your reading skills. In addition, services like NHK Easy, even regular NHK News, or Satori Reader which have text transcript along with a recording of a person reading the text helps a lot. I’m not specifically recommending those sites, but giving an example of the kind of things that would reinforce your learning goals.

I would also tack on language exchange services like HelloTalk where you just limit your interaction to sending messages; many times the learners want to meet a person just to chat with without the exchange part. In such case, you would benefit from the type of vocabulary that comes out of those conversation. Not to mention you’re being exposed to the way different people phrase the similar things (greetings, concepts, etc).

Lastly another thing you could do that would benefit your listening skills is shadowing. Admittedly, shadowing is meant for training one’s speech, but the additional benefit is training one’s ability to parse a speaker’s words so that you can pick out exactly what they said rather than the gist. I believe shadowing has improved my listening skills more than my speaking due to the repetition and intensive listening that’s required.

1 Like
#10

I don’t think you’ll need to reset further than your burned items. Even if you can’t remember them straight up, they should come back quickly

#11

I recently came back after a half-year break, with a bucket of reviews waiting for me (although, at level 23, it was undoubtedly much less than yours must be!). I had definitely forgotten a bunch of stuff, but instead of resetting back down, I just ploughed through those reviews over the course of a week or two, not taking on any lessons that might unlock in the process.

I also used another @rfindley script, [Userscript] Burn Manager (Review / Resurrect / Retire), to unburn things that the Self-Study process (using the script @LucasDesu linked to above) showed that I’d forgotten.

The end result was a metric ton of items moved out from burned, enlightened and master back down to guru or apprentice. I still didn’t do any lessons, trying to get my apprentice and guru item counts down to a more reasonable level. I also know that eventually I’m going to get a huge pile of things to review at once for enlightened and burned respectively.

But I am really glad I did it this way for three reasons:

  1. I only remembered about 40% of the stuff in the review pile, but the stuff I did remember was from all over the place. I’d forgotten some level 2-3 stuff, but remembered some level 18-19 stuff. This way, my review pile quickly became a focused set of stuff that I specifically needed to look at again, rather than the general WK ordering that doesn’t really match what I needed, which was to relearn, rather than learn for the first time.

  2. Most of the things that I’d forgotten, I only really needed a one-time reminder, and they were back. Future reviews for those items were solid again quite quickly, and the review pile became even more focused to the stuff I had forgotten more completely.

  3. Once I had my reviews under control, and I had levelled stuff back up, I could immediately start learning new things and moving forward, instead of being stuck back in reset world.

I know it’s a whole other level of crazy to do this at level 50, rather than 23; and after a year instead of half. But I’d recommend trying it - you might be surprised at how much you’ve retained from different levels. Spend a month or two on those reviews and you might get back on track faster than if you reset back.

3 Likes
#12

That does sound a lot better than starting over from lv10. So I use the self study script to find what I’ve forgotten and then unburn it? Did you do that for radicals, kanji, and vocab? Or just kanji? Thanks.

#13

Yup, that’s exactly it. I did it for radicals, kanji and vocab in that order - I was concerned that if I studied e.g. vocab first, then I’d get a reminder of all the kanji contained within, and won’t get an honest assessment of if I remembered that specific kanji or not. It really is a case of just being honest with yourself as to what you think you genuinely do remember, and what you don’t. Whilst WK isn’t a vocab learning tool, I think the vocab is just as important, so I went through and reassessed those as well.

I say go for it! It’ll take you almost a year to get back to lvl 50 if you reset to 10, and you definitely wouldn’t need a year to do your current reviews, self assess, and level items back up to par. Good luck with it! And don’t forget to take screenshots of your undoubtedly massive pile of apprentice items, to remind you not to fall off the WK wagon again :wink:

#14

I agree, try and test yourself before downgrading. I have massive breaks with Japanese all the time, and I suprise how much I remember based off gut feeling everytime. This is comming from someone that crams allot of words at uni. (≧∇≦)b

#15

Alright, I finally got started on this. I tested myself on the kanji for the first 5 lvs, and have plenty I can review. I am so not looking forward to doing this with vocab, that will take 3-4x longer than kanji.

I’m thinking of doing things like this, lv1-10 radicals, then kanji, then vocab. Then move on to lvs 11-20, and repeat until I reach the end. I wonder how long that will take lol.

And I guess I shouldn’t ignore my current reviews either, otherwise those will quickly pile up.

#16

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