PROGRESS POST 1:
WANIKANI
CURRENT WANIKANI LEVEL: 8
IN ONE MONTH I HOPE TO BE LEVEL: 10
GOALS
LAST MONTH’S GOAL REPORT: n/a
THIS MONTH’S GOAL: finish genki 1 (currently half way with chapter 8)
RESOURCES
CURRENT JAPANESE RESOURCES: Genki 1 + sweet anki deck to go along with it, Wanikani, Jpod 101
FAVE: Wanikani
LEAST FAVE: Jpod 101 (ton of cool content, but really, really, reaeaaallly cringy to listen to, it hurts, I just can’t, only tried beginner series tho)
TRY NEW RESOURCE: HelloTalk or complement Genki with some Tae Kim, one of the two, probably the latter.
JAPANESE ABILITY: somewhere in the early beginner spectrum
CURRENT JAPANESE WEAKNESS: reading speed/comprehension
HOW I WILL IMPROVE ABOVE:
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HELPING OTHERS
TIP/ADVICE FOR LEARNING JAPANESE
I work as a house painter. Often, when we are putting on a color that contrasts with the color underneath, we have to put on two coats: one quick rough coat that has to cover everything, even if it’s on thin and stuff is showing through, just keep moving, and then one nice smooth, second coat that covers all of the dark/light spots that are showing through from the first coat. This is much faster than going carefully for one coat, and looks better than an attempt only for speed.
You probably can already connect the dots here, but I find it similar to learning Japanese, or anything really. Lets apply this to genki: if I go through once, super carefully, and make sure I understand every single little footnote perfectly the first time, it’s going to take at least a million years to do that, don’t do that. But at the same time, if I go at mach 10, even going through more than twice, things won’t stick. The ideal approach is to go through at a nice, steady, consistent pace, and just cover everything the first time through, even if it’s shaky, the idea is just to cover it and keep moving. And on the second time through, you got a nice base to work with, just lightly go over everything, but make sure to put a thick glob of that thinking paint on the weak points. And whaam bam, thank ya ma’am, you got a good lookin’ gutter done fairly quickly, now you gotta do the rest of the house…