its been a minute since my last post and if you know anything about my personal life you know its because i was in three different parts of the world in the span of like two weeks. it has been incredibly hectic but its work so it’s not something within my control. i just have to bear with it for now!
and as such, i have been away from my hobbies and dedicating most of my time to work. it is, nonetheless, temporary so i can push myself to stick with it for now. it does leave me wondering though about what i want to do for the rest of my life, and this part of my job i can honestly do without…
well, anyways, im not here to complain about my work rather i would like to talk about one of my goals that i wish to dedicate my time to after this week is over and my usual life routine is back to normal (or what im currently used to at least!)
if you’re wondering what the nonsense title means, or if you can actually read it and also think its nonsense because it is, i wanted to talk about something related to kanji or the borrowed chinese characters used in the japanese writing system.
if you are a part of the japanese learning community, you probably have heard of srs tools that help with retention. in case you’re not familiar with them, there is this method of memorization called spaced repetition; a learning technique not unique to japanese language learning that uses things like flashcards where you decrease how often you see cards based on how good you can recall them. the spaced part of the name refers to the fact that you space out the study sessions so that it stays in your long term memory. i believe this study method is popular with med students.
one notable tool is anki, and its like the default option that is fully customizable. i, for one, was never good with using these tools. however they seem to be the best option to memorize the chinese characters and vocabulary. another tool that is specifically just for this use case is one called wanikani. i have used that tool for some time, but i do have some critique about it that makes me not enjoy using it and ultimately drop it.
first of all, you cannot delete any flashcards. this sucks when you are not a new learner and have to dedicate the first few weeks to simple characters like 一, 二, 三, and vocab like 母 and 父. i also dislike being forced to learn standalone readings. to me, it makes no sense to learn it without context. the only benefit i get is to be able to “guess” what the reading might be later, but that does not matter when you learn the vocab anyways (don’t get me started on 生!!). finally, i never understood the point of radicals. sure, they make for a great mnemonic stories or whatever but for me personally i have never used them or feel like i benefit from them except when the radical is literally the kanji itself.
i want to explore other alternatives and find what works best for me, but the japanese language community in all honesty is really not the most friendly and i was always afraid to speak my mind. regardless, i decided to pick up my kanji habits again and work on polishing them. i enjoyed writing and it did help me with retention and remembering specific strokes (shoutout 地下鉄). but i think my choice of vocab or which kanji to learn isn’t the best, i think that’s something i can improve. i also want to use spaced repetition because it really does help. however, i want to figure out a better way that works for me.
there are other aspects of my japanese learning that could be improved, but for now im taking it one step at a time and hopefully if i see good results i can report back! im curious to know if any of you are learning a language or have tried learning one in the past, and what techniques helped you in studying. let me know in the comments!
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