Comments on: Practice: Don’t Beat Yourself Up

By: How to get better in one easy step. Show the Samurai Up! | Samurai Mind Online

Wed, 29 Aug 2012 12:33:49 +0000

[…] being a jerk to yourself. You did your best given what you knew at the time. Now do your best now. —from a Silverspoon […]

By: Kimchi

Kimchi — Tue, 31 Jul 2012 21:31:35 +0000

I always listen to music first thing in the morning. So to the point that if given a chioce I’d choose the music.
SO you know. . .for those tired morning ppls whose eyes don’t function in the morning(me), a little japanese pep pop with breakfast works too I think.

By: DAIBOUKEN

DAIBOUKEN — Fri, 30 Mar 2012 03:32:33 +0000

[…] [Practice, Don't Beat Yourself Up] All Japanese All The Time Share this:TwitterFacebookLike this:LikeBe the first to like this post. […]

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Sat, 21 Jan 2012 05:44:37 +0000

The problem I constantly seem to find myself running into is how exactly do I go about practicing Japanese? I’ve tried finding reading material, but it usually ends up being either so easy as to be utterly useless (incredibly rudimentary, simplistic Japanese that I don’t think is actually used) or incredibly difficult and indecipherable (anything above that, most of the time). I then think that the problem is that I don’t know enough words, but when i go to learn words, I think that I’m merely learning the answers instead of actually learning the words, which then proves itself true when I try to read a Japanese sentence and can’t recognize a large number of the words. I’ve also tried writing sentences, but I can never think of anything to say. I end up looking blankly at the white space with absolutely no idea of what to write before I end up doing something else altogether. Is there any way to fix any of this? I don’t think I’ve been able to find an answer anywhere else.

By: All Japanese All The Time Dot Com: How to learn Japanese. On your own, having fun and to fluency. » Beyond Binging and Purging: Why You Maybe Sometimes Shouldn’t Try Overcorrecting When You Screw Up

Tue, 19 Jan 2010 00:44:56 +0000

[…] Be nice to yourself. When you fall. Just get up and keep walking. Make small corrections if necessary, but emotionally, let it be like nothing the heck happened. Like you meant to do it. It’s not like you killed someone (right?…right? wait, what? oh my…OK…No it’s NOT okay!). Take the energy you were going to use for feeling guilty, and put it into moving forward. Share and Enjoy: […]

By: Philip

Philip — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 22:35:30 +0000

kyoushou-

I’m on lesson 25 or so and I feel ya. Retention is pretty average but I noticed recently that some random kanji are slipping through the cracks. I wouldn’t aim for 100% personally though. I just started using Kanji Koohi in conjunction with Surusu and I feel it’s giving me an extra boost in memorizing the kanji (even though I probably beat myself up more now, because RTK only gives you keywords and I find that I can’t remember the story, and therefore the kanji, unless it’s given to me).

ANYWAY: Keep going! Every bit of input counts, and eventually they’ll click. Some of the kanji I thought were the most difficult have become surprisingly easy (probably because I failed them so many times…) I figure I’ll have time to pick up all the scraps later.

Also one more thing: one lesson a day might get a little difficult to maintain as Heisig really starts to speed up when he drops the stories in Part 3 (lesson 23 is well over 100 kanji). I aim for 50 a day, but I usually hit 25 – 30.

Good luck!

By: A

Wed, 26 Aug 2009 05:18:28 +0000

Maybe I’m not as qualified to answer this as Khatz but I have finished RTH, and he is on vacation right now and not likely to answer 😉

Yes! Keep going!
To try for 100% each lesson will most likely lead to burn out, drilling them over and over again, the few that you miss will come to you over time by the nature of a SRS.

I also remember reading somewhere on the site, Khatz said he never tries for 100% retention or something like that.

By: kyoushou

kyoushou — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 04:28:10 +0000

Hi Khatzumoto, im doing the AJATT style + Heisig’s Learning Kanji,
i’ve just started 2 months ago,because i’ve found your site,you really have a good point that classes suck,anyway and i’m on Lesson 16 now,
i’m happy with my progress and i want to have a one Lesson per day Kanji

but a Lesson takes me 1-2 days to fully grasp the assigned Kanji,
im a fresh graduate working full-time 8 hrs a day which my time is at work,
i recover my lost times by learning Kanji while travelling

is it a good idea to proceed to next Lesson even i didn’t remembered 100% of the last Kanji Lesson?
can you give me an advice/ideas/examples to be much more faster?

By: pantsfacemcgee

pantsfacemcgee — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 16:52:07 +0000

I’ve found timeboxing to be useful for another reason. If suddenly I have a lot of free time, or I make time, and study super hardcore and stay focused for hours, then it actually works against me because then I have less motivation to do it anything at all the next day. I get burned out, and if instead I limit myself then each day I can come fresh and wanting more.

By: Catherine

Catherine — Sat, 10 Jan 2009 12:26:19 +0000

Thank you for this post. I have it bookmarked at the top of my bar to read often.

By: Alyks

Alyks — Sat, 15 Nov 2008 06:35:33 +0000

Man, I really need to stop beating myself up. Today was a bit of a bad day for me (emotionally, physically, whatever), and because of this I didn’t get into my “hardcore Japanese learning mode” and get my normal 30 sentences done that I like to do. But you know what? I still learned five new sentences. I still enjoyed one of my favorite Japanese shows.

Still, man, it’s hard not to beat yourself up. ‘Cause it’s like, “why do you still suck at listening, huh?”, “Why aren’t you reading more?”, “Why are you being lazy about looking up words?”.

It’s just so hard to focus on the fact that I’m already light years ahead of the advanced Japanese class students. That I am, in fact, able to read Japanese with my trusty 大辞林. That with an exact subbed movie (Quiet room ni youkoso, excellent movie. I believe it’s floating around the less reputable sites now) I could follow along and understand a lot.

Yeah, it’s hard. =)

By: David

David — Sun, 21 Sep 2008 01:27:19 +0000

That time boxing thing is interesting. I’ve tried doing that with some things, but, I always end up going over. Which, with Japanese, that’s never a bad thing. I’ve wanted to try time boxing each Kanji. For instance, there are times when I *over think* a story so much that it takes me off into some mysterious land of distractions. Which only results in wasted time. I do worry sometimes about “Kanji burn out” because I’m pushing myself to get through so many, though.

I have to avoid getting frustrated when I get stuck trying to come up with a good image to fix in my head, too.