Done! Training 59 (! ! started at 328!) apprentice turtles ~ A review log

Over the last week I got my apprentice turtles down from 220 to a respectable 93, included the 15 lessons I JUST did

You can do it!!

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300+ Apprentice durtles. Yikes! O_O That’s indeed a tough situation.

If you have the energy to cram them, do so. I addressed my leeches recently and they were around 160ish, so not a small number, but half of what you have. I used the Self-Study Quiz to beat their meanings and readings into my head. That script is nice since you can decide exactly which items to cram on there. And it forces you to redo the ones you fail…until you get them right.

I think for your situation a bit of patience is key. Don’t demand the impossible from yourself. Take it in bits and pieces, and take a break in-between to rest your brain. But, also be firm and cram the items to push them up to guru (just remember to break up the review sessions so you don’t get another avalanche of guru items later on!).

In any case, I wish you luck with your studies! You can do this! 頑張って! :slight_smile:

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Another little mnemonic to help: the forest has more (sounds similar to もり) trees in it than the woods/small forest.

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Congratulations, one week is impressive! Hopefully it’s easier to keep them under control now.

@ekg - Will look at the Self Study Quiz, thanks!

:scream: (Yeah … I once got all motivated and blasted through a big pile in a weekend and then they all came back again on Tuesday)

More trees! Perfect! Thank you!


Day 2: No sign of the Guru squad today, I hope they’re not ganging up on me tomorrow.

Accuracy: 65% (20 reviews: 13+,7-)
Did two rounds of 10 and got 80%, then 50%. :facepalm: Resetting the app to do 20 at once so I don’t know my score until the end, maybe that’ll prevent distractions.

Troublemakers:
度&角 → degree and angle are almost but not quite synonyms. Just sloppy memory and lack of practic.
交ぜる(to mix)&交わる(to intersect) → kept thinking mazes, need a mnemonic with either まぜ or just ぜ.

Good luck to everyone else!

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Day 3:
Accuracy: 67% (14+,7-)
Troublemakers:
相 (mutual) & 組 (group)
働 (work) & 動 (move)
絵 (painting) & 紙 (paper)
終 (end) & 後 (behind) … those don’t even look alike what the heck?


Had very few higher-level reviews so I did a second batch in the evening.

Accuracy: 85% (17+,3-)
Troublemakers: two current level ones (鏡&養) and I forgot the う on 業。Not bad!
Remaining Apprentices: 142 / 29 / 97 / 16 - hit the first milestone!

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Nice, you’re getting there. :slight_smile:

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Day 4: Got through IV, working on III now.
Accuracy: 70% (14+,6-)
Troublemakers: Mostly meaning problems.
正&止 → correct has a hat.
話&言 … again.
速 is fast, not speed.
始めに is in the beginning, not firstly.
But I got 林 right! :tada:
Turtle Class: 142 / 33 / 85 [you are here] / 21

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Any progress?

Thanks for checking in! <3 Still chugging along here, just forgot to post yesterday’s log.


Day 5 (Sept 18)
Accuracy: 75% (15+,5-)
Troublemakers:
近&辺 → axe=kin, sword=hen
料&科 → rice=fee, tree=science.
And some silly things like forgetting that old people (老人) drink gin.
Turtle class: 142 / 36 / 73 [you are here] / 29

Started a second round but got interrupted so there’s 5 more unaccounted for. I’m sure they’re behaving themselves.


Day 6
Gurus on the horizon, better do this quick!
Accuracy: 45% (9+,11-)
…okay maybe not THAT quick.
Troublemakers:
院 (institute)- mixing up the different “b is for building” kanji here
回転 (rotation) - that rotate/revolve/turn set always gets me. Going to write out all of those in a row and compare them.
I think the rest was just forgetting pronunciations or brainfarts
Turtle class: 142 / 47 / 54 [you are still here] / 31

Time to get off the computer and go 植物を植える!

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Yeah, it’s been a while. We had a family emergency that threw Japanese studying out of my head. (I mean…yes I could’ve knocked out few reviews on my phone here and there while waiting for a call, etc, but I was focused on other things and it just didn’t cross my mind.)

Anyway, things are improving right now so trying to chip away at this a bit more. Cleared out the higher-level reviews at least.

Turtle class: 142 / 47 / 82 / 25 [you are here]

Family emergencies do that to a person! I hope everything was solved in a satisfactory manner. これからもがんばってください

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ありがとうございます。Thanks for the kind words, certainly not solved yet but thankfully improving.
がんばりましょう!


Day ??
Accuracy: 68% (27+,13-)
Troublemakers:
正 - correct is when you stop without losing your hat.
Moving (動) only counts as work (働) if the leader is watching you do it.
Turtle Class: 279 → 142 / 54 / 69 [you are here] / 16


Did some more poking through the afternoon but didn’t have the energy to properly track sessions.
Overall accuracy: 63%
Turtle Class: 283 → 142 / 65 / 45 [you are here] / 33

EDIT: Putting the numbers under a cut since they’re just accuracy and item counts which probably aren’t interesting to anyone else.

Sept 30-Oct 3

Sept 30:
Accuracy: 85% (28+, 5-)
Mostly Apprentice IV items.

Accuracy: * 64% (16+, 9-)
Mostly Apprentice III items


Oct 1:
Been kinda poking at these throughout the day.
Accuracy: 62% (56+, 34-)
Turtle Classes: 265 = 161 / 37 [you are here] / 34 / 35


Oct 2:
Accuracy: 73% (48+, 18-)
Turtle Classes: 253 = 163 / 43 [you are here]/ 8 / 41

Accuracy: 54% (19+, 16-)
Turtle Classes: 253 = 179 [you are here] / 8 / 27 / 41


Oct 3:
Accuracy: : 77% (23+,7-)
Turtle Classes: 241= 180 [you are here] / 2 / 33 / 28

Apprentice I time - working on lazy turtles and the troublemaking turtles now! D:
(Also my review pile actually dropped below 200)

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I didn’t vanish, I promise!
wk_oct_2020
See, still working on this! (…depending on how you define working.)

Anyway, I’ve got phone reminders now so hopefully that’ll help.

Oct 30th:
Apprentice Turtle Status: 282 = 164 / 9 / 79 / 32 [you are here]
Review pile: 209

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Nov 1:
Apprentices: 275 = 164 / 33 / 44 / 36
Review Pile: keeping it at 200 or so.

Went out to do early voting, it was surprisingly non-crowded!

Dumping in two weeks of boring numbers for posterity. (And so I have some motivation if I backslide into this madness again.)

Click here for turtle grades

Nov 2: 270 = 164 / 40 / 16 [you are here] / 52
Nov 3: 266 = 163 / 40 / 20 / 45
Nov 8: 245 = 175 [you are here] / 7 / 37 / 28
Nov 11: 229 = 177 / 1 [you are here!] / 16 / 37
Nov 12: 214 = 178 / 0 [whoa, zero?] / 15 / 23
Nov 13: 217 = 178 / 0 / 15 / 26
(Looks like I didn’t do much on that day.)
Nov 14: 230 = 177 / 1 / 15 / 39
(Got hit with a bunch of higher tier reviews, so those new ones are guru turtles failing their exams.)
Nov 15: 214 = 176 / 4 / 4 / 32
Nov 16: 215 = 177 / 1 / 10 / 29
Nov 17: 215 = 170 / 7 / 15 / 25
Nov 18: 199 = 172 / 5 / 12 / 12

This deserves its own post.
Yesterday I finally broke below 200!
wk_2020_11_19

This deserves a celebratory dance!

Okay that might not be the right dance. But onward!

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Another stats dump for archival reasons:

clicky

nov 20:
197 = 156 / 5 / 22 / 16

nov 22:
198 = 156 / 3 / 14 / 27

nov 23:
App: 196 = 136 / 20 / 7 / 35
G: 158 = 48 / 113

nov 24:
183 = 139 / 3 / 22 / 21

nov 25:
184 = 130 / 9 / 24 / 23

nov 27:
175 = 109 / 11 / 22 / 35

nov 28:
165 = 109 [you are here] / 4 / 18 / 36

nov 29: (skipped)

nov 30:
163 = 110 / 0 / 19 / 36

dec 2:
158 = 106 / 9 / 9 / 36

So let’s end this adventure here.

To the surprise of probably nobody, I’m pausing my WK for at least 1-2 months to regroup. It’s been a year. I won’t go into it.

I don’t normally do new year’s resolutions but this year I have one (1): To focus on making one change at a time rather than trying to reset everything at once. Make solid habits and make sure they’re not going to topple over. Not just with Japanese but other things like getting enough sleep and balancing work, caregiving, my own physical and mental health, etc.

I’m not giving up on Japanese but I’m changing focus. One of the issues with this WK catch was not just that I wasn’t doing enough reviews to get ahead of the big rolling boulder, but also that running away from the boulder took all my focus so I wasn’t doing any other Japanese studying either. So for now I’ll slowly work on grammar, comprehension, etc and stay off the turtle treadmill until I have a more solid routine.

I suppose this thread didn’t really need such a long conclusion, but it’s kinda also laying out my thoughts for myself (and I guess on the off chance that someone else who’s struggling might read this maybe it’ll help to see a hopeful wrapup rather than a crash/burn/fadeout?)

じゃあまた、みんなさん。

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Took another 2 months (I came back in June) but mission accomplished:
apprentice aug 5 2021

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