This topic contains 4 replies, has 3 voices, and was last updated by 
-
Posts
-
Hey there textfugu,
New member here but I’ve studied Japanese formally in school for 3 years and am majoring in Japanese cultural studies.
After taking classes under two different Japanese language professors and then taking a year off I can say that I’ve nearly forgotten everything that I learned. Getting into textfugu and wanikani a lot is coming back to me easily but I thought I’d give some tips to anyone who might be interested.
Take 5 minutes to learn something new each day. Just continuously seeing / speaking or using the language will help reinforce the language overall. Long breaks will cause all that good knowledge to float away.
The traditional way that language professors teach you doesn’t work. - Textfugu and tofugu is right. I wrote kanji 10, 20 even 50x each on my professors word that it would help to retain the kanji. (Mind you I was also learning from the beginning how to write the kanji as well.) I can honestly say that while I can still recognize kanji I would not be able to write any off the top of my head. If you really want to, write it 10 x but I wouldn’t bother with doing any more than that.
Try to listen to something Japanese each day. Anime with subtitles is a great way to get that out of the way or listen to a Japanese song (that you can hear the lyrics to).
USE WHAT YOU HAVE LEARNED. You know how to say apple in Japanese? Oh! Hey look,りんご！これはりんごです。
Even if it’s in your head, just replace English words with the Japanese words you know. Get those little buggers stuck in there and confuse your friends at the same time. (Or annoy them.)
Take notes in school by hand? Write your dates in Japanese. Replace bullet points with Japanese numbers.
Looking at the clock? Can you say what time it is? (Even if you don’t know the full conjugation I bet you can still say the numbers.)
Daydreaming? Maybe せんぱい will notice you.
In terms of personal studying I do a mix of the new things textfugu and wanikani are teaching me and the traditional ways of studying I was taught in school. Learning about Japanese culture is also a great way to keep your interest in your studies and may even help you find something you want to be able to say in Japanese.
DON’T GET DISCOURAGED! I will agree with a lot of you, wanikani is slow business but it really really REALLY HELPS!
Keep up the good work fellow Japanese language students!
It’s definitely true that you lose it, but I think equally true that if you learn it, it will come back. I was fortunate enough to have French lessons from a young age through my first year of college. After finishing the requirement for my University, I quit French for the next four years until I decided to study French history in graduate school. It was difficult at first, but it came back.
Well yeah definitely coming back to something you’ve already learned can make it a lot easier to remember something.
But you shouldn’t go long periods of time without studying when you are learning something new.
“I wrote kanji 10, 20 even 50x each on my professors word that it would help to retain the kanji.”
They only do it that way because that’s how it is taught in Japanese schools. They feel that because they did it that way when they were young that it’s the correct method. They seemingly don’t realise that A: adults learn differently than children, and B: they spent more than a decade of their lives doing it that way, which is mind-numbingly slow out in the real world (that is, outside of school).
Here’s a (short) video YouTube polyglot Moses McCormick (laoshu50500) did recently on the topic:
Yeah I would write out the kanji hundreds of times and still not be able to remember it and I would get really frustrated.
You must be logged in to reply to this topic.