If you start doing this, try posting them on your wall. What I do is take groups of vocabulary words and make sentences out of them as this site with SRS suggests. After you are pretty confident with a vocabulary word you could cross it off or take it off your wall.

Get a white board or make a funky collage. Anything to keep your motivation up!

It’s not like the Kanji poster actually represents vocabulary words…

You could just make a goal: Like, 2000 new words and then just mark in a square on a poster everytime you find a new word. But yeah, I don’t think that’d be so effective.

Sorry :/

…you’re doing extremely well then XD

I’m trying to imagine an English version of the kanji picture, and the image is coming out rather interesting… hmm. The Japanese kanji poster is easy to make in that the language has a fixed set of popularly used kanji that form many different words… but English just has an alphabet that forms words. It’s quite hard to picture a method that would work, as listing words from the dictionary or something like that is completely out of the question. I’m really at a loss when it comes to something like that… sorry!

I’m learning English and I wanted to know if any of you guys had an idea of how I could adapt the highlighting-the-kanjis method to English.
I’m in dire need of new vocab, and my motivation levels aren’t that high these days.
However, I didn’t quite get how to make the poster, so if anyone could explain that to me in a few lines, it’d be great 🙂

They dont give refunds, do they? *suck* Oh well, I have learned. Thanks again, Khatz!!

As for the JLPT, if you want to pass it, put whatever you need to into your SRS to do so. It’s a waste of time in the long run, but a lot of things are; everyone has their own goals, and they’re allowed to slow you down if you enjoy them.

This new knowledge of the Japanese meanings and readings will begin to replace those hundreds of useless stories in your head from Heisig. They just sort of naturally fall away, though most likely you’ll always resort to them for some problem Kanji that just won’t stick no matter what you do. Everyone has theirs, I think… like I said, I think this process is a bit scary as it actually feels like you’re forgetting things (but that stuff’s useless – as long as you can recognize and write the Kanji you want, don’t worry).

From the end of RTK onwards, there’s really no good way to quantify the knowledge you have.

I find it useful to review my reading comprehension with White Rabbit Press’s Kanji cards… they include several readings, as well as compounds. I just flip through them (when I’m somewhere I can’t be SRS’ing) and rattle off as many readings as I can. Then I look over the card – if I miss an important, I make a note of it somewhere, which is usually enough to make it stick.

I don’t read manga, really, so can’t comment on that – but I think it’s like reading an English comic and one of the guys saying “Whatcha talkin’ ’bout?” As English speakers, we can navigate that and fill in the gaps quite easily. Someone learning the language would be a little confused, I would think. “What’s the significance of this? Why do they need to make it shorter? Why can’t I find ‘Whatcha’ in my dictionary?!?” First you have to understand the basic sentence, then the dialogue-ified (err, yeah…) form.

That said, I think Manga stories are pretty straightforward usually which helps.

I’d say, don’t worry about how long it’ll take. If it’s your goal to read manga, just work at it until you can. I think having a “It takes 1 year” timeframe will probably make you a little lazy, and then disappointed when that 1 year mark rolls around and you’re not as you’d hope.

“Your biggest fear WILL be the rescue of you.”

My personal recommendation is using Japan-Guide’s personal ads. There is a place to post for language exchange, and, for the most part, it’s free. (It depends on who you try contacting. Some people will charge for language exchange in the form of tutoring (which you don’t need)). That site is here: japan-guide.com

In my experience in getting Japanese pen-pals, I’ve been successful with two people. I made friends with an older woman, around 30, and a friend that’s still in high school, 16. My point is, that there are people of all ages that want to do language exchange. They both have helped me a great deal.

I’m in a similar situation: even the prospect of social situations (of any kind) can make me extremely anxious. In DIRECT contrast to that is the simple fact that I love studying Japanese so much that I’m willing to do or try anything to improve upon my own skills and learn more about the language and Japanese culture. That’s the rub with learning a language…if you want to get better, you have to get out there and talk to (Japanese) people.

For someone like me the very idea is terrifying, but I sincerely WANT to do it, so that’s what I’m doing. I found a conversation partner and, even though I suck at speaking, I am getting used to making mistakes and trying to learn from them. As a result I’ve been getting better with the whole social thing in general. It’s great for me, since I love people even though I’m bad at talking to them. “Your biggest fear with be the rescue of you”, to quote Incubus (gasp a non-Japanese band!!).

So, for you, I’d say just go for it. I know, I know, it sounds impossible, but the trick is not to think about it! If you love learning Japanese, then it won’t matter if things somehow go awry with your first penpal – you’ll just get up and try again with another. A good place to start might be Lang-8, where you can practice writing some small things and get feedback. Just send friend invites to whoever shows up to correct your writing and maybe write an entry about looking for a penpal…see what happens from there. There are some really cool people on Lang-8. 🙂

“Pushing a wheelbarrow is easy. Thinking about it is the hard part.” (Gosh I like my quotes today.) 頑張ってくださいね♪

Does anyone have any tips on how someone like me could meet a Japanese penpal? (Email penpal, of course.)