Comments on: Is It Supposed To Be This Much Fun?: A Beginner’s Success Story

By: Es2Kay

Es2Kay — Sun, 13 Mar 2011 01:31:20 +0000

“I never read one definition for any particle I just got used to how they were used and now I don’t need an explanation.”
I’ve learned english like that. But I was afraid that with nihongo it won’t work.
tnx for nice post!

By: Mr. N/A

Mr. N/A — Fri, 14 Jan 2011 06:46:15 +0000

This….
Is the most inspiring story I’ve ever heard. I’m not as determined as her… yet.
I gotta work a lot easier.

By: foozlesprite

foozlesprite — Sun, 02 Jan 2011 04:37:16 +0000

I started the kanji study not too long ago as well, using both Heisig and kanjidamage. Since they teach by radical rather than frequency I know some fairly obscure kanji already. I was flipping through my old copy of Kanji and Kana looking for something the other day and saw an kanji numbered in the thousands that I recognized. It gave me a warm fuzzy feeling inside! I’ve also started recognizing and figuring out kanji from anime. It’s very inspiring, so I can definitely relate 🙂

By: Daniel

Daniel — Mon, 27 Dec 2010 10:42:02 +0000

I suggest just churning out around 1000+ pre-mined sentence reps, you should be able to download pre-mined stuff on Anki. It’ll be more grudging to do them but just do a couple every time you have to wait for somえthing and they will add up to alot. After that you should have a good enough understanding of Japanese to find your favorite sentences. In the begｇining you could use Denshi Jisho/Rikaichan for immediate lookup for most words, although there are some things you can’t find. Also by getting used to reading Japanese everything will all start to make sense. I never read one definition for any particle I just got used to how they were used and now I don’t need an explanation.
頑張ってね！

By: Tyler (Brokenvai)

Tyler (Brokenvai) — Sun, 26 Dec 2010 17:30:59 +0000

Copy the sentences you want to. Use the explanations if you need them. Often when you’ve gone through the repetitions enough of a card, you can start deleting some stuff you don’t need. The particles book, by the way, is excellent.

By: Shirobon

Shirobon — Sat, 25 Dec 2010 18:48:09 +0000

With the particle book, should I skip all the explanations and just copy the sentences?

By: Jeff

Jeff — Fri, 24 Dec 2010 10:41:19 +0000

I remember Khatz mentioning somewhere that he used a Japanese particle handbook in the beginning (link is in the sidebar). There are also plenty of J-E online dictionaries out there, such as dic.yahoo.co.jp/. I did the same thing (both the particle dictionary and online J-E dictionaries) when I was just starting out, and it worked really well for me.

By: Tyler

Tyler — Fri, 24 Dec 2010 03:17:41 +0000

Khatz used a J-E dictionary with example sentences and their meanings. Invest in a dictionary?

By: Shirobon

Shirobon — Fri, 24 Dec 2010 00:24:44 +0000

I’m almost complete with RTK1, I only have 80 Kanji left to go, and I’ve been doing 20 a day recently, so only 4 more days until I finish the book. 😀

I’m starting sentences soon (obviously), I’ve read all of the 10k sentences posts in the blogs, but i’m still a little lost 🙁

I understand what khatz talks about, using real japanese sentences found from wherever. Though he said his first 500-1000 were J-E sentences. Where am I supposed to find the meanings of the sentences I mine? I’ve been mining random sentences from japanese games, manga, and songs for the past month, so I already would have plenty, ready to go.

I would just like to know where am I supposed get readings for the Kanji, the meaning of the sentences and where to find out what each thing is in the sentence.

thanks 🙂

By: Ken

Ken — Thu, 23 Dec 2010 21:33:52 +0000

I don’t recall the whole kanji phase feeling like “fun”, exactly, though I just discovered you can get Final Fantasy (I and II, so far) in Japanese for the iPhone, and I am feeling a bit guilty about playing this right now…

By: Raphael

Raphael — Wed, 22 Dec 2010 19:16:50 +0000

I’m also in the sentence phase and for me the only boring part is using the SRS…
Unfortunately we have to do it if we want to remember what we learn…

By: Jeff

Jeff — Tue, 21 Dec 2010 16:49:58 +0000

Ahw, I remember having that guilty feeling when I was doing kanji. But then I started sentences… and it became even more fun!

By: Drack

Drack — Tue, 21 Dec 2010 15:16:13 +0000

I know, right?

When you’re studying right, it doesn’t even feel like studying. When you’re REALLY studying right, it just feels like watching anime, listening to podcasts, playing videogames, reading manga, or whatever you’re doing, and it just HAPPENS to be in Japanese. In other words, you don’t feel any pressure or (ultimately) even the fact that it’s in a foreign language, you just enjoy it.

This is IMO such a great way to study because you do not run out of motivation. Make you escape activities happen in Japanese, and when you escape from work or other stress, you’re effectively studying, but you *really are* blowing off steam and relaxing in the meantime. Win-win to the max. There is no urge to stop… You WANT to continue!