Back online, for a few days

I'm back online, just until january 10th. My sentences deck suffered a lot from it, but it might have been for the good. I also could not listen to the day's news and it was boring to hear old stuff, so I had to fallback to good and old anime.

My anki stats are here:

The 2661 seen cards in this deck contain:

• 1748 total unique kanji.
• Jouyou: 1594 of 1945 (82.0%).
• Jinmeiyou: 33 of 287 (11.5%).
• 121 non-jouyou kanji.

Jouyou levels:

• Grade 1: 80  of 80  (100.0%).
• Grade 2: 160 of 160 (100.0%).
• Grade 3: 200 of 200 (100.0%).
• Grade 4: 198 of 200 (99.0%).
• Grade 5: 185 of 185 (100.0%).
• Grade 6: 180 of 181 (99.4%).
• JuniorHS: 591 of 939 (62.9%).

I know I'll have to throw some sentences out. I already threw some, so my kanji count will drop again. 

Christmas offline time

Ehe, christmas is only letting me connect to the internet a few hours a day, not everyday, only with a slow connection. I even feel like I'm turning into a normal person. 

No more news podcasts until january. But I'm not worried (anymore). I have some books to read and offline dictionaries (including one from the DS wich is pretty neat).

I'm also rewatching old favorite anime.

My sentence habits changed and so I was compelled to write them here. I'm doing this, just for a few days: I go to my anki unseen kanji list, select randomly a kanji, and then put it in the dictionary. After that I chose 2-3 words, preferably words that I already knew from listening, very simple words that contain the kanji meaning or words that I really wanned to know.

I did that yesterday and today. The result is that my joyo % jumped a bit wich is quite motivating.

The 2581 seen cards in this deck contain:

• 1687 total unique kanji.
• Jouyou: 1542 of 1945 (79.3%).
• Jinmeiyou: 33 of 287 (11.5%).
• 112 non-jouyou kanji.

Jouyou levels:

• Grade 1: 80  of 80  (100.0%).
• Grade 2: 160 of 160 (100.0%).
• Grade 3: 200 of 200 (100.0%).
• Grade 4: 198 of 200 (99.0%).
• Grade 5: 185 of 185 (100.0%).
• Grade 6: 168 of 181 (92.8%).
• JuniorHS: 551 of 939 (58.7%).

Isn't it great to see all these 100% ?

The News + The crisis

The crisis is affecting my vocabulary. Lately my vocabulary needs are turning to financial/preocupation related words. This is ruining my joyo count rate! These words keep using always the same kanjis time after time!

Joyo count:

The 2494 seen cards in this deck contain:

• 1630 total unique kanji.
• Jouyou: 1496 of 1945 (76.9%).
• Jinmeiyou: 31 of 287 (10.8%).
• 103 non-jouyou kanji.

Jouyou levels:

• Grade 1: 80 of 80 (100.0%).
• Grade 2: 159 of 160 (99.4%).
• Grade 3: 196 of 200 (98.0%).
• Grade 4: 186 of 200 (93.0%).
• Grade 5: 174 of 185 (94.1%).
• Grade 6: 167 of 181 (92.3%).
• JuniorHS: 534 of 939 (56.9%).

I should stop reading finantial news. It is also affecting my resolve.

Btw, tks for the comments. I started this blog so no one would doubt me when I speak about the timeframes. When I started explaining AJATT to my pals, they tought it was one more of these methods that promiss to teach you without effort.

As you realize, AJATT is all about effort.

Reading the News (2)

I'm far from understanding the news by audio sources. I'm doing it 2-3hours/day during weekdays. But it seems I need to listen to it more.

But I'm managing to get close to 100% understanding in from written material. Yes, it takes a while, I need the dictionary for it, but it is working.

And thanks to the news, my joyo count is raising quickly without extra effort again.

Reading and listening to the news is convincing me that the major obstacle of learning languages is vocabulary. It is simply a huge task. Way too many words. Grammar is not simple, but it fits for itself as you start to acquire more and more vocabulary. 

Learning a vocabulary of 10.000 words, 30 words/day, takes a lot of time. And during that time, you'll have plenty of time to practice the other aspects of the language.

Lastly, the joyo count for today:

The 2465 seen cards in this deck contain:

• 1615 total unique kanji.
• Jouyou: 1482 of 1945 (76.2%).
• Jinmeiyou: 31 of 287 (10.8%).
• 102 non-jouyou kanji.

Jouyou levels:

• Grade 1: 80  of 80  (100.0%).
• Grade 2: 159 of 160 (99.4%).
• Grade 3: 196 of 200 (98.0%).
• Grade 4: 186 of 200 (93.0%).
• Grade 5: 172 of 185 (93.0%).
• Grade 6: 165 of 181 (91.2%).
• JuniorHS: 524 of 939 (55.8%).

Why reading the news?

Over the last month I grew overconfident of japanese.

I'm already understanding a lot from anime/manga and that somehow made me think my japanese was already actually good.

The news put me in my place again. I'm just a beginner. I have tons to learn. And I cannot let my pace down in this critical time.

That was the first reason. The second reason is:
It is easier to come from nothing to being bad at something. Somehow languages look like creating a Diablo character (diablo the computer game). Going from lvl 1 to 10 is quick. Going from lvl 80 to 81 is a long way.

In anime, I'm already in 80%. It is hard to fight for every new 1% of understanding. And it is not that much motivating.

In the news, I'm lvl 1.

Starting from the beginning is painful, but everything is new. So everything I see will be contributing for my japanese.
Even if I only understand 10%, I like to think that these 10% are much more useful than the 80% from the anime.

The 80% from anime is pure confort. And confort is a dangerous thing.

I don't know if I made myself clear, but that's what I want to believe.

Btw, Phauna, thanks for the link for the kids news, it will be very useful.

Started reading the news

Yesterday I started hearing the news from yomiuri online podcasts.

Most of it sounds like gibberish. I can notice the sentence patterns, but there is so much unknown vocabulary that generaly I choke right with the first sentence.

I also created a policy of reading at least 1 article/day.

Today's lucky one was

http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/atmoney/news/20081204-OYT1T00051.htm?from=top

I might've understood about 10% of it _after_ going trought it with the dictionary. Yup. It was sad. But watching anime isn't doing much for me anymore. I can already understand most of it.

Anki statistics in my first day of reading the news:

The 2326 seen cards in this deck contain:

• 1515 total unique kanji.
• Jouyou: 1401 of 1945 (72.0%).
• Jinmeiyou: 29 of 287 (10.1%).
• 85 non-jouyou kanji.

Jouyou levels:

• Grade 1: 80  of 80  (100.0%).
• Grade 2: 159 of 160 (99.4%).
• Grade 3: 193 of 200 (96.5%).
• Grade 4: 183 of 200 (91.5%).
• Grade 5: 166 of 185 (89.7%).
• Grade 6: 156 of 181 (86.2%).
• JuniorHS: 464 of 939 (49.4%).