First light novel completed: 涼宮ハルヒの憂鬱

Yo, I completed my first light novel: 涼宮ハルヒの憂鬱

I started it 西暦2009年1月16日, so it been ~130 days. It has ~300 pages so it has taken me 2.3 pages per day.

I kinda expected more from myself. I could have done it much faster.

I was that slow during the beginning chapters, during my vacations, then I got slower. Then I stopped. Then I started to read it again and all I know is that only this week I read more than 50 pages (the end is quite exciting) until I finished it.

My reading pace totally change while reading the book. In the beginning it was a mental exercise. It took a while, but it finally turned into leisure. I noticed that observing my sleeping pattern. At first, when I read during the night, I'd lose my sleep. This also occurs quite often when I do programming or play a mental game like go at night: I totally lose my sleep if I perform a task for which I need concentration to complete.

But lately It has not been affecting my sleep anymore. Actually it helped me sleep, like when I read English or Portuguese before going to bed.

^_^


Ah, and the Joyo Stats of this week have a new twist. I've submitted a patch to anki to put the stats for the New Joyo list. Here is how it looks like:

Kanji statistics
The 3805 seen cards in this deck contain:
2257 total unique kanji.
Jouyou: 1935 of 1945 (99.5%).
Jinmeiyou: 47 of 248 (19.0%).
New Joyo: 95 of 191 (49.7%).
180 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: 199 of 200 (99.5%).
Grade 5: 185 of 185 (100.0%).
Grade 6: 180 of 181 (99.4%).
JuniorHS: 931 of 939 (99.1%).

Bilingual Sentences Source: Hideo Kojima

http://www.kjp.konami.jp/gs/hideoblog/

That's it!
小島秀夫 (こじま　ひでお）, the creator of Metal Gear and Zone of Enders, is learning English. And he has a blog! And he seems to be doing good!

Writing the compounds + anki stats

As a rule, I have trouble to write compounds.

This week, I tried to copy the senteces by hand during the reviews, and some I could, some I didn't.
I'd say I can write from memory only 30% of whan I can read.
But I don't think it would take much effort to learn how to write the rest.

I purposely ignored this until now and I plan to ignore it a little bit longer.
I have plans to go to Japan next year. If these plans get confirmed, I'll start copying every sentence during my reviews by hand.

If not, I'll continue with recognition only and I'll pray than production will come on its on. It is already comming, I just don't know how much I'll have to wait.

So, if you are in a hurry to write by hand, recognition only might not be for you.

Finally, the anki stats:

The 3526 seen cards in this deck contain:
2108 total unique kanji.
Jouyou: 1845 of 1945 (94.9%).
Jinmeiyou: 51 of 287 (17.8%).
212 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: 199 of 200 (99.5%).
Grade 5: 185 of 185 (100.0%).
Grade 6: 180 of 181 (99.4%).
JuniorHS: 841 of 939 (89.6%).

How (fast) to remember compounds

I have great news for those who have already finished RTK. Remembering compounds is piece of cake.

Some will give you trouble but most of them stick after the first few reviews, for life. Much, much easier than RTK.

But as it is so easy, I did not developed a method. I go through them randomly, as I encounter them. If I fail remembering them twice, I make a place mnemonic (like in the movie method) and go on. Simple as that.

I have no data to show how fast I remember them, but I remember that there were times that I added comfortably 100+ sentences/day. I never could do it with RTK, so do your math.

But I still have something to point out.

First, you need to find room for the readings in your brain, just like the primitives in RTK.

When you first encounter a new reading, it will bog you down. It'll take some time to get used and after some time, it will be part of you and it will help you go forward.

I think this readings are connected with how much you listen to them. Kanjis with reading しょう、かん、けん readings are numerous. You listen to it all the time. You will build a kanji framework for them quickly.

If you looked from a "grammar" perspective, they would be the hardest. Most readings share kanji that look a lot alike to each other, but these are very very irregular.

But that is not what happened to me.
They are the easiest to remember.

Grammars do exist!

I might have not made my position publicly clear about grammar study in language learning, but I will now.

I'm against it. I think it is, in most cases, a waste of time.

Grammars are very valuable. Study of grammar brings a deeper understanding of the language. It is just that knowing it has very little effect on your comprehension and your output. That's it.

If you already know the language well, learning grammar will boost your ability to reflect over sentences. It will give you ability to discuss the language with other people.

It will probably make your reading or listening skills better, but its effects are minor comparing to simpler things like reading for your own enjoyment.

But if you enjoy learning grammar, thought, you'll be killing 2 birds with 1 stone. If you fall in this category, for all means check this link:
http://www.geocities.jp/niwasaburoo/

Massive unintentional grammar practice

Today my thoughts were drifting, and then something came up in my mind.
Maybe I'm doing a lot of grammar specific practice.

How? By "unconjugating".

I see conjugated verbs everywhere and I have to "unconjugate" them to check the dictionary.

So maybe, I'm a bit of an hypocrite (you know, being a forget grammar evangelist).
But maybe that's what reading and listening a lot forces you to do.

Practice grammar is probably needed after all, but you do it without noticing.

Cramming trought the Joyo

I know I advocate natural language learning, and that searching for specific words is not optimal. But I was growing nervous that my Joyo % was not raising anymore and started to cover it systematically.

This is probably not the best way to learn Japanese, but I really love statistics and the kanji count that was not raising anymore was bothering me. So I'm cheating. I'm going throughout the anki unseen kanji, picking some words and adding sentences for them. Even if these sentences are not so great.

After I'm done with the Joyo, I'll continue doing sentences the right way.

The 3444 seen cards in this deck contain:
2060 total unique kanji.
Jouyou: 1817 of 1945 (93.4%).
Jinmeiyou: 48 of 287 (16.7%).
195 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: 199 of 200 (99.5%).
Grade 5: 185 of 185 (100.0%).
Grade 6: 180 of 181 (99.4%).
JuniorHS: 813 of 939 (86.6%).