Yeah Kanji is totally important. The more I learn the more I think they should teach it sooner, and sooner.

The thing about lang-8, whether you’re a native English speaker, or a native Japanese speaker is people tend to make unneeded corrections. For example I’ve seen Japanese people say something like:

“Because I was hungry I made dinner.” and then someone will correct it to be “I made dinner because I was hungry.” because that’s how the English speaker would have phrased the sentence. They don’t bother to explain this either. So some poor Japanese guy goes around thinking he can’t start a sentence with because. That one is pretty obviously silly, but I’ve seen it. Usually it’s a bit more subtle, which makes for an even worse problem.

I always make a point to justify my corrections, so the Japanese person understands what is a suggestion, and what is a true correction. I’ve found by doing this that the Japanese people who tend to correct my work will return the favor in kind. This dramatically increases the value of the corrections I get.

Another thing I do is if someone makes a bone headed correction, I’ll let the Japanese person know that their suggestion is valid, but the original sentence was also fine. This also increases the chance of a Japanese person letting me know the same kind of thing in future.

My final tip is to not get fancy. Early on I would try sentences that I felt weren’t fancy, but I’d still get serious corrections on them. When I looked back at them I realized that even a small change outside of what I was explicitly taught dramatically increased the chances of getting a correction. Sometimes it’s good to push the boundaries of your understanding, but doing it too much will turn all of the corrections into noise. You’ll get more out of it if you can have a post that only has one or two corrections, compared to a post with ten.

They say it gets easier. I’ve seen small signs of that, but only small signs.

Remember it’s a marathon, and not a race. I’ve studied fairly consistently for a long time, and for about 3 weeks I only did my Anki. I’ve started covering new material again, but I needed that 3 weeks of only Anki to not burn out. I should be good for another 6 months.

Did you have a chance to try what I suggested? Did it make sense?

Please let me know either way. I’d like to keep helping you, if you’re stuck, and if you’re not then I’d just be happy to know that too. :)

Feels like you accidentally forgot to tell me about a step you’ve taken in there. It’s OK, that’s easy to do.

It does sound like you’ve installed Anki correctly.

It also sounds like your not importing the decks correctly. I’m guessing you’re skipping a step in the process.

Double check that you didn’t forgot to tell me about a step you’ve taken in the process. When you first run Anki it has no way of knowing what decks you want to import until you’ve asked it to import the decks. As you’ve described it, you’ve made it sound like Anki automatically searched your hard drive for the Textfugu decks, and it can’t do that, so that’s how I know you’ve forgotten to tell me about one more steps you’ve taken.

Also, please share the exact error message word for word.

I’m guessing you’ve got a really simple problem that’s easy to fix, but you have to be my eyes and ears here.

Thanks!

Congrats Xalphenos.

If I may interject with my advice again. (Again.)

Do you have a smart phone? If so you can stay on top of your studying much more easily by getting the Anki app. I was stuck away from my computer all day Friday. However, with my phone, and a series of Japanese focused apps I was able to stay productive. It wasn’t as good as having the freedom to move around, and use my PC or other materials, but I didn’t lose a day of studying.

Wasif Asif – Don’t panic. It’s OK.

If my advice doesn’t work for you, then don’t use it. At some level you’re going to have to make sense of it in a way that works for you. I described it the way that works for me. I was hoping it was universal, but it’s OK if it’s not. You’ll find a way.

I’m suspecting you’ve just accidentally over thought it. If you give yourself some time away from it, then I’m sure it’ll seem not so bad when you come back to it.

The more you work with it the more your mind will make sense of it.

You can’t lose!

Also remember, they say that the average Japanese high school student needs to know roughly 2,000 kanji before he graduates. If they take 12 years of school, like in the US, then that’s roughly 167 kanji a year they learn. They are submersed in kanji, and they don’t take on more than that. I’m not saying you can’t learn more than 167 in a year, you most likely can, but if you don’t you have a very good reason.

It’ll leak out, but you just keep putting it back in, and you know someday it’ll stick. It gets easier.

Most importantly, relax. :)

Another thing to consider is what kind of learner are you? I’m a very visual learner. As a result I tend to remember Japanese words by the symbols more often than the sounds. Pay attention to your success, and failures. Learn how you learn. It’ll take time, but the investment is worth it.

@Kanjiman – Thanks for the links. I know that when I was trying to find the best way to process all of this information I wasn’t getting what I needed from them. However, the key to making it click may lie in there for someone else. That’s why I went to great detail about my thought process when approaching them.

@Wasif Asif – As for にゅう, Kanjiman is right it’s the on’yomi reading, so when I see it I do think that, but I also tell myself, when I think about on’yomi that’s its “default sound”, or the “character sound.” That is to say when I see the letter “A” in English sitting by itself I assume it sounds like “ah”, but I know that there are a lot more sounds it can make based on context. For example in the word “A” it sounds more like “aeh”. ;) So try to think of two simple English words that have the letter “A”, “Car” and “Cat” for example. 入 is the Japanese equivalent of that. You only know that correct, and different, sound for each because you learned the words. 入る, and 入り口 are just words that have the same character, and that character sounds different in each. Which means on’yomi readings are sound the kanji makes on its own. Sometimes they will make that sound when they are part of a whole word, but just as often they will not. The same is true for letters in English. That’s why learning the words that have the kanji is just as important as learning the kanji by themselves.

My system tries to account for this by having me consciously say “This is on’yomi, it sounds like that”, “This word with 入, means this, and sounds like that.” It adds a bit more thinking to the process, but that’s why it works. The more you think about it, the more your brain will retain. Eventually you’ll just know the word, and you won’t need to say all of that. Sometimes, you’ll forget the word after not needing the mnemonic for months on end, and you’ll need to use the trick again to refresh yourself. It’s OK, that’s what the trick is for.

Another thing you can do the first time you get a batch of new kanji, and vocab that use kanji is review them two times in a row, then later in the day review them one last time. It can be a little painful, but by the second day your recall will be a lot higher.