@mtb812 – That’s a good reason to learn kanji. I have to admit my understanding level continues to rise the more kanji I learn. That’s why I think it’s important to learn reading it sooner rather than later. I’ve heard some say it’s more important to learn the words with the kanji first, and the kanji will just naturally follow. That makes sense, but I suspect that’s just another valid style for different learner types. I’m not certain which is best for me. It’s a shame someone doesn’t have a test to tell you which style will likely work better for you. ;)

@Carlos – Good question on the stroke order. I found, before I learned stroke order, that it would take me wayyyyyy too long to look a kanji up using radicals or any other method. However, Windows has something called IME Pad that lets you draw a kanji, and it’ll guess at the one you want. I believe most, if not all, electronic dictionaries have the same thing. My Android phone has an app called Kanji Recognizer which is an incredible tool for practicing, learning, and looking up kanji by stroke order. Any one of these tools is an incredible time saver. However, their accuracy on guessing the kanji you want goes down dramatically if you don’t do the stroke order correctly. IME Pad is the most forgiving, by far, that I’ve seen, but that’s partly because it’ll display a lot more guesses at once. You might ask why there aren’t kanji OCR apps, and the answer is that there are. However, they all seem to be terrible. I’ve yet to see one that even comes close to guessing very simple kanji. With so many messy things about the real world, lighting, fonts, angle of the shot, kanji OCR has a long long ways to go. Also, it would only be an option for a device with a decent camera. Plus, from a learning point of view spending 30 seconds to look up a kanji helps build a memory. Writing the stroke order in the process helps build a memory. Taking a photo, and looking at an answer really doesn’t. It’s kind of like Rikaichan. It’s a great tool, but most things I look up using it never stick in my memory, so I try to keep that to a minimum.

Oh I must confess, I didn’t take this into account when I made my previous post. I am a visual learner. Perhaps similar looking kanji doesn’t give me the same trouble that it gives others. That said, I will sometimes mess up similar kanji, but that’s only if I’m reading in a hurry.

I have a much harder time with words that sound similar in Japanese.

Welcome to the both of you. Be sure to post lots of questions. Part of Textfugu’s strength is the community. Just about everyone here has been where you’re going. We’ve all got some experience, advice, or resource that may save you time and effort.

@mtb812 – congrats on completing-ish the season! ;)

“but does why really matter?”

That’s a good question. I can’t speak for anyone else, but for me it really does matter. There are plenty of examples of how when I’m struggling with a topic getting to why something works allows me to flourish in that topic. For example, when I was back in college I aced theoretical math classes like they were nothing, but when it came time for something simple like calculus I had a really hard time. That is until I talked the teacher into showing me the proofs after class. Once I saw what was really going on behind the scenes I could think back to the proofs, and I aced calculus as well. I’ve also observed other people cannot do well with that same experience, but for me every time I know why something works I can always go back to that, and I do a lot better.

Hmm yes, every time I look at Tae Kim’s site I get lost. Perhaps I’m not a very good student of grammar.

I have recently gotten a native Japanese girl to help tutor me, so that should help fill in some blanks. Although, in my experience, natives don’t know why things work, so they can’t answer that most important of questions for me.

hey wrote:

It has been a long time coming, but I finally finished Season 5, and just started Season 6! Yay!

Congrats! I just finished myself, as you can probably see. ;)

It was a tougher season to say the least. I suspect I will redo it once I’ve finished Textfugu.

I accidentally got into the habit of not taking notes because early on it was pretty easy, and I knew some of it from previous studying. Currently, I’m taking the notes on a notepad because I find it helps me spend more time thinking about it.