The point of this site is to stop trying to learn and have fun BEING a Japanese baby. “Calm down and Hurry up” as it were.
People forgot the fun. People forgot to just sit and watch, read and listen to the things they enjoy. For instance, I’m really interested in law and so I read that stuff like yesterday’s pizza. Yep, that fast. But reading it might ONLY be fun for me. And because I enjoy it more of it sticks more easily anyway. And then when the sentences come up in the SRS, I know exactly where they come from and why I picked them. And the SRS isn’t a chore, coz I’m reading sentences about topics I enjoy. It’s fun – but only for so long – eventually I close Anki and go back to the next Death Note/law report. And fluency should begin (or should I say, IS very slowly) flowing out of that.

Quick metaphor: Driving three hours in the car as a kid was boring right? Even now, probably…But it goes so much faster with I-spy, radio, PSP, DS, sing-a-longs, portable DVD players and other things you have fun doing. Only difference with AJATT is that the fun stuff actually helps you get there; the SRS just helps maintain the pace, whatever pace you prefer.

Enough of the self-righteous “I use my SRS for 30 hours a day and have 10000 sentences I am holier than thou who only does it for 30 minutes and has 2000” Everyone works differently. Science now estimates that there are over 6 BILLION kinds of intelligence. That’s right – one for every single person. One person’s Rip Slyme is another person’s Arashi. One person’s Pokemon is another person’s Cowboy Bebop. The roads and the tools (including the SRS) are not important. It’s the goal.

“so many thousands of hours which it would not only be financially impossible for any adult to achieve, but totally impractical for the meager progress made in proportion of hours interacting required.”
You’re you and I’m me. I never said I had anything against an SRS. I’ve (seriously) not had enough audio input (a maximum of 3 hours a day, I could never be Khatzumoto-sensei). I skipped a whole month. But I understand much more than I ever did through regular SRSing.

“Your “perception” that you will not forget that sentence in a year is totally absolutely unreliable.”
and
“You may feel you can remember a piece of info for the rest of your life no problem at this moment because it comes to the mind with so much ease — but let me tell you after a full YEAR of using the words 誘う and 着く on a daily basis in Japan, and then abandoning the language for 3 years, I managed to forget them utterly.”

I believe we can do better than use the language once in 3 years. If not, why’re we even learning it in the first place? I might as well put my name in my SRS in case I become a drug addict and get life imprisonment.

I forgive myself for forgetting. Simply put, I want to function as a Japanese person who can read, write and speak in Japanese. If I don’t know the word and it hasn’t come up all my life then I don’t need to know it. If I do, it’ll catch my attention again. If Japanese is SO unimportant that I won’t be using it more than once in 3 years….I’ll forgive myself for self-torture in the first place.

Many people seemed to have misunderstood my comment as an attack on SRSing and repetition itself. Sorry if I made it seem that way. It’s just as Alyks says –
“When you have total immersion, sentence mining really becomes the type of thing to happen naturally.”

I wouldn’t have even started learning Japanese if it wasn’t for having fun (by reading manga). Khatzumoto inspired me to actually get on my butt and start doing it. But I became an SRS addict instead of being completely immersed. I won’t make that mistake again. I don’t want to learn isolated sentences and keep them in my memory till the day that I die so I may use the language in my afterlife. I don’t want to make a colloquial expressions deck in Anki, I want to read manga. I don’t want to TTS every page I see to throw into my SRS, I just want to listen to music. I don’t want to analyze, nitpick and learn Japanese, I want to BE Japanese.

I’m not going to be posting anymore on this, I think I’ve made my self clear on this issue. We can spend hours boiling our heads over spaced repetition, sincerity and discipline. Or we can just turn on that TV or read that book or play that game.

When you have total immersion, sentence mining really becomes the type of thing to happen naturally. Sentences in an SRS is just a tool. It’s an effective and efficient way to study and retain knowledge as an alternative to vocab/grammar flashcards. Repetition is a necessary evil no matter what path you take. Even total and complete immersion with natives gives intense repetition. SRS is just an effective way to satisfy that need and sentences are the optimal format. The real learning is in the constant Japanese practice you get.

With that said, I also agree with what Nukemarine. One thing he points out is that until you get to a certain point, mass-mined community sentence projects (UBJG, JFE, Handbook of Japanese Verbs) are all perfect for the beginner and necessary to get their feet wet. At that point you don’t know enough grammar to truly benefit from full blown Japanese sources like manga or anime.

Fun is way down the list, IMHO.

About the cost of fun, I live in Japan so the TV is available. At second hand stores you can buy a DVD for 750 yen which is really cheap, manga and books are also a bargain, and of course I also acquire material through other means. Buy some stuff, acquire some stuff, karma will be appeased.

I think the most useful part of SRSing is the kanji reading acquisition. Over time, the SRS seems to put your mind in a state where you can guess which reading 場 might have in a given word. It becomes easier to automatically pick the reading 「じょう」over 「ば」and vice versa. And you don’t even have to be conscious of whether it’s an onyomi or kunyomi, really.
It’s saving me time since these “guesses” are enabling me to keep away from a dictionary more and more. An example would be the word 微妙。By knowing the readings of each kanji, I found it was the word びみょう,
which I’m quite familiar with hearing-wise. The SRS is, in this sort of way, preparation for the mind. I think the people who are hesitant to try an SRS are the ones who think you’re supposed to completely rely on it for learning, when what it really does is allow the mind to apply knowledge elsewhere.

Don’t you realize that a deck of pokemons basically works like an SRS? As you encounter the same 386 cards over and over they will start to stick to your mind.
So that’s a very strange argument.

If you haven’t figured it out, we’re each going to have our own reason and take our own way to doing this. I’m not Khatzumoto, so I’m not going to watch Gokusen over and over again nor will I look fetching in a speedo. I’m Charles, and I get a thrill out of learning new things, so for me every new sentence that adds something is a little thrill. Khatzumoto liked Evangelion (did I get that right), so that’s his thrill to improve Japanese. I love to sing Japanese songs at public Karaoke bars, and I’m using that enjoyment to get better at it (practice with printouts, overlisten to the songs, put the verses in an SRS). For someone else that would be idiotic, and they’d be right.

Yeah, I put off studying to go out drinking and Karaoke and hopefully pick up a lady. But at least I did it in Japan and tried to use Japanese when I could. Know what, that flies in the face of advice (given here and at antimoon) to not to try to speak Japanese till you’re ready. Bollocks to that too. If you (as an individual) actually get a thrill of using even the currently rusty Japanese, then go for it. Have some dessert prior to that main course.

So yeah, keep it fun. Don’t degrade how others approach it if it is working for them. Caution them if you think they’re heading in the wrong direction (putting the process as the only purpose being a good sign). Just realize that what may not work for you is the driving force behind another. Yeah, even those guys you think are wasting their time at a Japanese class.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have 70 sentences built up in my SRS and a five hour night watch filled with nothing but free time to get it done.

And for not using SRS? Your “perception” that you will not forget that sentence in a year is totally absolutely unreliable. Dr. Wozniak has shown that memory DURABILITY and memory fluency (can’t remember his exact term) are quite unrelated. Durability can only be proven over time. You may feel you can remember a piece of info for the rest of your life no problem at this moment because it comes to the mind with so much ease — but let me tell you after a full YEAR of using the words 誘う and 着く on a daily basis in Japan, and then abandoning the language for 3 years, I managed to forget them utterly. (Of course there were 1,000 LESS COMMON WORDS I didn’t forget in that time, but that’s exactly my point, almost any item is susceptible to being lost if you aren’t repeating it. Your example is one which you repeat if you use the language at all, regardless if you put it in your SRS or not.)

“I don’t suppose people doing PhDs consider fun to be a major element in the learning process. I can’t see med students chucking their books and saying to themselves, “You know, I just don’t feel this pharmaceutical effects on physiognomy gig, I think I’ll go watch House MD.”
I second nacest on this one. If researching on your subject is SO bad that you practically want to get away from it to watch House, why’re you even doing it in the first place?!?

@Justin –
I understand 60-70% of most anime (non-shounen) and atleast 40% of comedy shows. Oh yeah, throw Kansaiben into the mix. I have not used an SRS for over 4 months. And I have most certainly not watched 1000 episodes (70ish at best).

Please take note of the fact that hundreds of Japanese children have a basic command of the language after 2 years using the most inefficent, unscientific and ‘dumbest’ method there is. Yet they somehow manage to breeze through Pokemon (intended for ages 3 and up), remember the names of 400+ Pokemon, their strengths, their weaknesses, their attacks, their natures, their abilities, etc. (without using a SRS) which I’m VERY sure MOST SRSholics can’t do, even though its all kana. I’m not trying to criticize the SRS here. Just thinking out loud, why does learning Japanese have to be some SRS cult. Do or be treated as a pansy.

And to all you SRS addicts and lovers, I have a question (I think nacest brought this up a while back):

One of your beginner sentences:
此れは本です
So you’re saying if you don’t review this sentence by next year (or next to next) you’re going to *gasp* forget it? That’s just sad. Really sad. My brain must be made of Spicebush Swallowtail poop.

(Please note that I’m not criticizing SRSing in general. It’s just a question that popped up in my mind. I don’t like how some people convert Khatzumoto’s “All Fun All The Time” to “All BDSM All The Time” with a SRS 跳び箱. I mean sure, it’s great if it works for you but what’s with all the “Ha! You suck! You don’t use THE BEST, THE most l337 learning system on Earth which Einstein and all the little Japanese midgets sucked for not using!” )