Four Months a.k.a. 123 Days of Japanese and 65 Days of Kanji

Well, here I am on January 21, 2016 - my 123rd day of learning Japanese. It also happens to be four months from the day I started learning on September 21, 2015. 

I'm very excited to say that I have completed the initial learning process of knowing at least one or more English meanings associated with all the joyo/common use kanji. Since I have been using apps that included all of the 2,136 joyo kanji along with a few other common kanji, it is safe to say that I am able to recognize all of the common use kanji now without too much difficulty. I'm still practicing!

I actually finished this past Monday the 20th, but I've taken these extra few days to study extra to make sure I really "know" them. Of course the more recent kanji I've learned aren't as solid in my mind as the ones I have been practicing for longer. I know that as I continue to review and move forward with my vocabulary now that I can more easily incorporate the kanji into my vocabulary learning process I will know them better and more fully as time moves on.

Something worth noting is that the better the "story" you can come up with for each kanji to help you remember, it doesn't matter as much how much time you spend memorizing and practicing if your story is memorable enough. I have had many kanji where the meaning and story in my mind were clear enough that it only took that first time or so to really get the particular character in my mind and not forget it. The characters that stand for things and words that I don't even use in English are the hardest for sure. Also when encountering groups of kanji where they seem very similar at first, it takes some time and memorizing to keep them each straight.

Along with reviewing and studying all of the kanji these past few weeks, I've continued to review my vocabulary here and there to keep in my mind the words I've learned so far. I haven't really expanded my vocabulary more than by a just a few words the past few weeks, but I've spent time understanding and noting the kanji that is part of the words I've learned over these past four months. So I guess you could say that I've been in a way re-learning all the words I've studied already and am now more fully incorporating the kanji so that I can recognize and know the words in more than just hiragana alone.

On my last post I talked about how I prefer Memrise for learning vocabulary. While that is still mostly true, as I've worked here and there on making some courses I can see that it might not be the right long term choice as far as making my own custom stuff. Yesterday I decided to work on some new AnkiApp decks again and I've worked out some of my issues with their system. Sometimes it just takes time to understand a system and find how to make it work for your needs. So at this point in time I'm going to start using AnkiApp some more.

The next stage of my learning will be very focused back on what I had been doing prior to studying the kanji heavily. Although before studying the kanji I had been doing a pretty good balance of different learning techniques, I am even more solid in realizing how I need to progress from here. Thanks to NihongoShark.com's Hacking Japanese Supercourse, I know how to keep myself more accountable in my studying habits and keep motivated even more than before. If you're learning Japanese I really recommend taking a look at NihongoShark.com and Niko's methods. They work. The fact that I went from thinking that it would take me years to recognize the kanji or that I might never learn them and yet now in less than 65 days I am now able to recognize them all really says something. Japanese doesn't seem as daunting now and each new word I learn doesn't seem so scary. Learning new words has actually been easier now that the kanji are all familiar to me.

I plan to use a combination of JapanesePod101 and Rosetta for listening and other practice, and Memrise and AnkiApp for my flashcard and memorization practice. I plan to use my Genki and other books more to get myself speaking Japanese out loud more frequently than I do currently. I go in spurts of time where I'm really good at speaking more, and then I go back to not being so good. I know I struggled with that back in college when learning Spanish. It can be hard when you don't have someone around all the time to practice with. I just need to talk out loud to myself more and not worry about feeling weird sometimes.

I can't wait to see where I am on my next progress update! Thanks for reading!

じゃまたね。