Sunday, November 7, 2010

Long overdue update

So there have been some developments since my last post.

First, I'm now up to 535 items studied and 242 of them mastered for anyone following me on smart.fm! (and I've also done ~200 kanji in Heisig's RTK...but more on that below!)

Although this is pretty good progress, it’s hard to say if it is good enough to meet my goal by my initial deadline. I only say that because I have noticed a slow down of my pace on these new items and expect it to get even slower in the future. One reason being that the difficulty was a major step up in part 3 compared to parts 1 and 2. I guess this is why there are 33,334 users on level 1 and only 4,660 users on level 3. (and only 982 seemed to have made it to the end of the core 2000). Another reason being that I’ve started doing Heisig as well which cuts into my time.

Much more interesting news is the new discoveries/realizations I've made after reading the feedback given to me and through my struggles with these newer, harder words. I have some lengthy comments to make on the feedback but I’ll save those for my next post to keep this one shorter.

The feedback helped me realize that I my previous critiques were made with insufficient knowledge of what the AJATT method (and some others discussed) were about. In hindsight now I have come to realize that my critique was about the Heisig method, not AJATT. My opinions were directed at the concept of only learning single kanji and had nothing to do with the immersion aspect that AJATT preaches about. So feel free to go back to my previous post and replace AJATT with Heisig.

With that stated I will say that I think the AJATT method (basically increasing your Japanese input through heavy immersion) is a good idea, but it should still be done intelligently. The immersion should be at a level where you can pick out some items from of the media. If too much of it is beyond comprehension and goes over your head, the method becomes inefficient. The common argument is that kids learn their first language through immersion. However they watch kid shows where they don’t understand most of what’s going on, but they do get some. I don’t think kids would learn a language through immersion if they just watched documentaries. The immersion needs to be at/near the right level for you.

Another thing I will say is that my method and Heisig method should be reversed on my hill diagram from before. I will explain why below:

At the same time as I was starting to look into the other methods I began step 3 on smart.fm and experienced a lot of problems. One of the reasons for this was that I was didn’t consciously realize that a lot of the words in the previous lessons I had already either seen or heard so I only had to learn the other parts that I didn’t know. Having that little foot in the door took a great load off my mind and is what let me fly through the first two steps. When all of a sudden I had not seen any single kanji in a multiple kanji word and had no idea how to pronounce any part of it, each item became much harder for the mind to digest, like eating a hamburger in one bite. (hence why my method is the uphill battle).

I found I was forgetting these kanji more often than the previous lessons and that's when I realized my way just wouldn’t work. It would be so much easier to learn one kanji at a time, increasing difficulty instead of starting with ones that I can’t even make out the details at size 12 font (ie: 建設 construction, 機能 function, 状態 state/appearance)

So I
read the preface/introduction of Heisig and a few other books from a website full of resources and RTK made a lot of sense! It even talked about the Japanese school system teaching in order of usefulness and how it is actually a bad technique for memorization. At this point I realized I really need to define WHY I’m learning the language. WHAT I want to use it for. HOW LONG I plan to study the language. Etc. It also helped me realize there is a difference in what is the best method to LEARN kanji and the best method to NOT FORGET kanji. Heisig also made a very good point about the difference of visual memory and imaginative memory which I will discuss more in my next post.

Although now I think the Heisig method is the SMARTEST way to learn the language, a lot of the words are obscure and will likely not get used often. Hence it is a longer but easier/smarter process to focus only on kanji meanings then switch gears later to application and pronunciation. (this is why it should have the gentle curvy path).

I would only do Heisig now if my goal was only to “one day learn the language” but I realize that a big part of my goal/desire is to be able to make friends and function in Japan as close to my arrival date as possible. And that starts in 2 months! Committing to Heisig, although the smarter way to go, will not give me the skills I need in time to use them so I’ve decided to do a hybrid system now. I alternate multiple times throughout the day on which method I study. So I feel better about my studies and have already noticed some benefits, but it is slowing me down so we'll see if I can still make that goal of 1000 items by Jan. Wish me luck!

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