Oh, and books will always be more portable than iPhones. You never have to charge them and they’re a lot cheaper too 😉

1) You can’t always lug a book around. But you can always lug your iPhone around.

2) Today I was watching Back to the Future with my friends, and interpersed that with some reviews. Try reading when Back to the Future is on. This helps you to stay consisten to the principle of always exposing yourself to the language and maintaining momentum for active, more intensive study.

3) My brain is not always primed to read a book. It takes concentration to read a book and look up words in the dictionary. With SRS, it is just a simple of game of saying the sentence, and then intuiting its meaning. Well it’s simple, but it is still a deep practise of “getting physically used to the language”. That is, it is through this simple, not only do I work out my mouth muscles to get used to smoothly saying things in Japanese (and Hebrew, which I am learning alongside Japanese–I am fluent (not native level thoughー-and I would say I am in the first rung of fluency. I still find it difficult to understand some animes like Hellsing Ultimate (which uses a lot of 専門用語 from the military) in Japanese so I figure what the heck, I’ll learn another language while my momentum in studying Japanese is unstoppable at the moment), recognizing Japanese with my eyes, and even hearing it (albeit imperfectly–I do not have near native fluency in Japanese yet!) and practising recognition of the sounds of my target language as I sound out sentences after sentences.

I do this with my reading sessions (that is I sound out sentences as I read), but it is definitely a different kind of monster, as reading requires a lot of concentration. It does not have that same kind of simplicity that SRS reviews have that allow for deep practise of getting used to languages physically (this is an idea I built off Khatz’s idea of getting used to languages).

4) The importance of dead time: a lot of my studying Japanese/Hebrew gets done during the “dead times”. That is, when I am sitting on the train, when I get the runs and have to sit on the toilet, when I am waiting in the line at H and M to buy something, when I am walking to work. You cannot always crack open and a book and walk and concentrate and look up things in your dictionary. Anki and iPhone absolutely changes the game. You just pop up your iPhone, rock out anki, and rock out 20-30 reviews and time box for 5 minutes (I actually rocked out 10 minutes while I was in the can today..had the runs. It was prolly the past I ate). The principle is to get used to your target language physically, and you want this to be as simple, winnable, and frequent if you are striving for longevity and efficiency in your studies.

5) SRS is simply a net, and sentences/expressions/words are just fishes that you dont want to lose. There are some words and expressions that you will never come across again. For example, you will be hard pressed to find an expression like 付和雷同（following blindly). But with a couple of reviews (with visual–by visual I mean cards that have pictures to associate the expression with an indelible image–aids and dialogical aids to help contextualize the expression and to also give a rough feeling of how to use the expression in the appropriate situation), that expression will stick forever. 付和雷同 is now in my head. Another expression that I can memorize now is this: 元選手は走っている車のドアを開けて道路の上に転がり出る。Too many goodies in this sentence. If I didnt lock this into my brain, I would have said something undescriptive/awkward like 元選手は車のドアをあけて道に落ちた。But since cloze deleting every word in that goodie sentence above, I don’t need to make awkward sentences. I seriously lock that in my brain. Another good one is: 従来であればなくなっていたはずの患者さんは蘇生するようになった。No way will you be able to remember that kind of sentence …because you will never see that again, even if you read a million kajillion books. There are grammatical tricks in that sentence that textbooks or reading normal Japanese sentences will never teach you. This can only be done through the SRS…and the more you do this kind of practise, the more you get familiar with even more complex grammar that you find in Japanese books.

In the end, we do not have the luxury to do everything in your target language. Face it, you have to work in English, you have to talk to your friends in English, you have to study in English. Japanese native speakers did literally EVERYTHING in Japanese. Talking to their parents, reading manga, watching cartoons, talking to their friends, doing social studies in Japanese, doing Karate in Japanese, using Japanese at work, etc. So naturally an expression like 付和雷同　or Kenichiro Mogi can make a sentence like 元選手は走っている車のドアを開けて道路の上に転がり出る. Sheer exposure and practise for the mouth, ears, eyes and the rest of the body (gestures). They naturally remember words and expressions through their environment (which is more superior to ours for language learning). You need to admit that you do not have that luxury even if you listen to Japanese music, have your OS in Japanese, ahve your facebook in japanese, have yoru iphone to Japanese, watch anime everyday, read Japanese books everyday, and even write a Japanese blog. Its not even half of what they have. SRS mixed with immersion and the momentum that is generated by immersion is the only way to get close to their level.

This brings me to a thought I had. I’ve committed a certain act of sacrilege by not using Saint Heisig’s Ultimate Method of Kanji, instead learning in a more … ah, inefficient order. I turned out just fine, of course, and enjoyed it quite a bit. But the point is that I think Anglo-American culture in particular is so focused on visible efficiency that inefficient processes are derided, even when they lead to long-term results. For example, employees who spend some of their time on the job talking instead of working are on average more productive then those who just work, but just talking is discouraged. Probably because of that Protestant sadomasochism…er…work ethic.

The point is, ladies and gentlemen, that inefficiency, for lack of a better word, is good. Inefficiency is right. Inefficiency works. Inefficiency clarifies, cuts through, and captures the essence of the evolutionary spirit.

Now that I’m upper intermediate level, finding and adding enough sentences to make significant progress takes too long, and it’s also like a chore.

I’ve been vaguely thinking about it already. Now I’m certain that I’m going to switch my focus to reading manga and stuff like that.

I can read Japanese well enough now to enjoy comics and the occasional book so Anki now is a hindrance for me. I spent too much time on SRS reps and not enough on making and reviewing cards.

One the other hand I’m learning Korean and Latin as “dabbling” languages. Anki is still useful for me to learn the basics. At some point I probably “graduate” from SRS university someday. 😉