YukiToday I did another TextFugu lesson and crossed over into Season 5!
The things Koichi was saying in there about setting up your computer for typing in Japanese and signing up for Lang-8 and Rhinospike caused me to begin thinking about how badly I needed to create a method that I myself could use to learn Japanese while having time for other things. I realized I had been trying to do spurts of things…or sprints, rather, and this actually accounts for the phases I would go through.
I would sprint for a few days doing Japanese, tire myself out, and switch to a sprint of something different, perhaps drawing, perhaps writing…anything different. It’s not like I wasn’t trying to stay focused or pace myself… But it just wasn’t working very well, or at least it was only working in short bursts. I didn’t actually pace myself as I thought I was doing. o_o
My question was first something like “How do I get all of this organized?” because organization is a key factor in lots of things, including language learning. However, I chose not to ask this question. Instead, I turned it into a statement of will: “I need to develop a method and refine it until it works for me every time I use it…a plan that I stick to.”
First off, I wanted to tackle JapanesePod101.com. It is a great resource for audio provided by friendly hosts, and has many useful features besides, including lesson notes, transcripts, flashcards, quizzes, and personal word banks. But I haven’t really had a good method for using the information from a podcast once I’ve listened to it, making all those extra features not so useful…until now!
Objectives:
1) Use vocabulary and kanji from the lessons in Anki decks
2) Finish making the grammar flashcards (they’re traditional flashcards)
3) Use some of the sentences provided as examples in Anki decks
Method:
1) Listen to podcast lesson [while viewing the PDF].
2) Go to lesson page and click “Vocabulary List with Audio”.
3) Add words I’d like to review to My Word Bank.
4) Check the kanji list.
5) If there are kanji I don’t know, add them to My Kanji Bank.
6) Check the “Expansion with Audio” and the lesson notes PDF for key sentences and add them to Evernote.
7) Add vocabulary words to an original vocab deck on Anki.
8) Add kanji to an original kanji deck.
9) Add sentences to an original sentences deck.
10) Study every day.
*Optional: Do the lesson’s writing and review questions.
Now I have a clear, step-by-step process for using the things I learn in the podcasts! Oh, and just a footnote: If you want to use this method for yourself, you’ll need a premium subscription on JapanesePod101.com, because free and basic subscriptions won’t give you all of the resources…
Next, my Anki decks need to be organized, but…more on that later. I’ll do this in parts so it’s not tl;dr!