Remembering the Kanji Volume 1: Complete

I just completed the study of my final card!

But lets hold applauds, I've still got a ton of work ahead of me. Tomorrow begin a serious review session. I need this, desperately. I plan to spend to remainder of February in review mode. Depending on how I am progressing, I may proceed to Volume 2 in March or I may hold off until I feel I am read to begin with the readings.

Also, I will be adding the study resources I have created into a link menu at the top of the page. Any and everyone is free to use it, I only ask that you pass on links back to this blog so that others can find it too.

2042

やった！

I just made my 2042nd flashcard. Two more days to study those and I'm done with Remembering the Kanji: Volume 1

Valeant benefici, Poenas dent malefici!

Third Mass Review

As stated before, this third mass review was suppose to begin on Monday and include frames 1-1500. However, things didn't work out quite that well. Nevertheless, progress has been good. The review began Friday, December 3rd and has included frames 1-1400. Here is my big plan to make this review as inclusive as possible. I'm making a chart. Sounds underwhelming right? No. This chart is huge and when complete will included all 2042 frames. Via iWorks Numbers, this chart includes: Frame Number, Key Word, Kanji, Story, Primitives and Also Looks Like ( or alternative appearances for the kanji). The kanji is currently being pasted from Reviewing the Kanji (http://kanji.koohii.com/) because it would be impossible for me to attempt to type these considering I have yet to learn the sounds. My method may seem circuitous, but its inclusive, which is what is most important. My flashcards are rubber-banded into groups of 100, because that was how they were initially studied. Each day I review 200 and type 100. Here is how it looks:

Day 1: Reviewed 1-100 and 701-800. Typed 1-100.

Day 2: Reviewed 101-200 and 801-900. Typed 101-200.

Day 3: Reviewed 201-300 and 901-1000. Typed 201-300.

Day 4: Reviewed 301-400 and 1001-1100. Typed 301-400.

Day 5: Reviewed 401-500 and 1101-1200. Typed 401-500.

Day 6: Reviewed 501-600 and 1201-1300. Typed 501-600.

Day 7: Reviewed 601-700 and 1301-1400. Typed 601-700.

Day 8: Reviewed 701-800 and 1-100. Typed 701-800.

Day 9: Reviewed 801-900 and 101-200. Typed 801-900.

Day 10: Reviewed 901-1000 and 201-300. Typed 901-1000.

Day 11: Reviewed 1001-1100 and 301-400. Typed 1001-1100.

Day 12: Reviewed 1101-1200 and 401-500. Typed 1101-1200.

Day 13: Reviewed 1201-1300 and 501-600. Typed 1201-1300.

Day 14: Reviewed 1301-1400 and 601-700. Typed 1301-1400

Today, I am at day 6. I do the two reviews in the morning and try my best to finnish typing the first 50 frames by noon and the second 50 before the sun sets. Though out my entire process of the Heisig Method, I've kept a composition notebook with the kanji in the margin, the keyword and the story written on the page. I am now into my second notebook and still going strong. And it is from the notebook that I am taking my stories and not the flash cards because I have always consider the notebook to be the definitive versions of all my stories. However, that is no longer true. In the process of creating this chart, I have been able to improve upon many of my flawed early stories and some of my troubled later stories. This has also means my flashcards are troublesomely incorrect. Something I will need to fix during the third week of my review. I am also planing to return and fix my primitive problem. Initially, I made flash cards and stories for all of the primitives, until I realized it was consuming time and Heisig discouraged it. However, now I am of the opinion that it is best to do so. I will spend a day or more in week three completing the process. And the remained of the week will be spend focusing on those frames I have flagged as troublesome. The ones I frequently get wrong during reviews.

The primitives are also impossible to type, as far as I know. They are primitives, pieces of kanji, and there for do not exactly exist as a part of any Japanese input systems. As a result, I am forced to leave those parts of the chart blank until I Macgyver a way to post them in as images. Nothing is ever easy. At some point, I plan to also return to include stroke numbers, but that may need to wait until the next mass review.

Once completed I will post a PDF version of the chart on the blog. I do warn, that not all my stories are in good taste. I freely admit this. However the important fact is that I remember them. Anyone who wants is welcomed to use them. I've had a ball coming up with these stories, however I realize that not everyone gets a kick out of coming up with 2000 plus stories that are generally incoherent and at times illogical. In case you're curious, here is a screen cap of my chart:

Click to see a bigger version.

Rosetta Stone Complete

I have just completed all 3 levels of Rosetta Stone in Japanese. やった！

Tentatively, for the next two weeks I will be doing a grammar review. I say tentatively, because, It may take long than two weeks. At minimum, I will devote 30 minutes a day to all grammar, all the time. I've got books and web resource that should keep my plenty occupied. Once the grammar review is complete, I will repeat all of the Rosetta Stone core lesson. I will also begin posting the equivalent of a journal entry on this blog everyday. At least twice a week I will also transfer those post over to my Lang-8 account for corrections. The other great thing about Lang-8 is the fact that I can ask question and potentially get answers from native speakers.

Second Mass Review

Tomorrow is the first official day of my second mass review. This review will last for two weeks and will cover all of the first 1000 kanji. My game plan is to use Smart.fm as a crutch. I made it at least half way or more through most of the lesson sets. This is the perfect opportunity to complete them. I am also debating whether or not to type stories on RTK. That could be troublesome because most of those early stories were written by Heisig and therefore don't have the resonation of the later ones, but they are nevertheless important. Its not that its counter productive, spelling information out is incredibly useful in my memorization process. I'm just not looking forward to typing up the first 20 lessons. I can't even imagine. And I also don't want to overwhelm myself. I need to remember to stick with the basics. My flash cards are the most readily available resource I have. Though after two months, flash cards have become somewhat tiresome.

This is nearly the halfway point. And I've been looking forward to this review. I get to go two whole weeks without making new flashcards. Yay ... right? I anticipate that I will complete Rosetta Stone by the end of this month. Once I do, I will spend two weeks doing an intensive grammar study. After that, I will return to and repeat Rosetta Stone with the intention of completing one core lesson plus the speaking lesson every other day. In addition to that, I will spend those days off composing journal entries for both this blog and Lang8. I will employ as much vocabulary and grammar from each of the Rosetta Stone lessons as possible. I would like to create a running vocabulary list from which I can study, but like I said before, I do not wish to overwhelm myself. If I burn out, I'm going to fail at this. But if I don't start writing and typing Japanese everyday, this is not going to work. I do my best to spend at least 30 minutes a day hearing the language, but most of my attention is on reading subtitles not listening. Lang8 offers the opportunity to both have my entries read and corrected by native speakers and also for me to read entries typed by native speakers along side the Japanese. Its a useful site. One I have neglected to employ thus far because I believed my vocabulary was too severely lacking to a regular journal any justice. However, once I complete Rosetta Stone and the grammar review, I feel confident that I'll can make basic and relevant sentence structure.

1000th Kanji Milestone

I just made my 1000th flashcard!

500th Kanji Milestone

I will admit my wrong doing for the whole world to know. I hit a slump on the 26th of August which jumbled up my entire schedule. Luckily, today was the first day in my review week, which meant I had plenty of time to play catch up. On a wonderfully good note, I discover a new study tool called Smart.fm that I will detail in great length in my next post. I am short on time, as I have much reviewing to do. But today marks my 500th kanji milestone. I believe that warrants fireworks.