Multany, in regards to textfugu kanji keeping up with the lessons… if you’re behind or completely slacking, the bit of kanji that does actually show up in worksheets etc can be derived from the ‘all’ menu.

You can go back to the actual kanji lessons later, but when you do you’ll already know a few just from picking them up in lessons.

The Kanji portion of fugu is considered stand alone and is used along side the regular lessons, but there isn’t a set ‘you must know all these before proceeding’ mandate. Koichi just throws those in there to pressure you to learn it faster (in a good way).

The Kanji section here is fleshing out quickly btw… better and better every week.

On RTK for a moment… if you’re going through the heisig anki deck and don’t have the actual book, then it probably won’t do much for you.

Go and grab at least the sample PDF which has the first 275 or so, and read through the first few lessons, then set anki to only display up to that number in frames (the cards are labeled with their frame number).

While I agree that anki, or flashcards alone isn’t very helpful… using it with textfugu is VERY helpful. Writing the vocab is also very helpful.

I don’t expect to walk into a japanese conversation and remember 1/10th of what I drill on anki, but drilling the words there, seeing, and hearing them DOES help in memorization at least to the point where when they come up in a lessson… I already know it and it has then been chiseled deeper into my brain (and having some knowledge of a word that comes up in a grammar lesson helps tie things together).

Keep in mind that most people going through textfugu are absolute beginners, and don’t have a lot of foundation just yet… anki helps us learn the vocab for the lessons. Once it is memorized if you don’t do anything else with it and just move on… fail.

One thing I’ve noticed lately after drilling through all this vocab is I’m starting to hear words and phrases in japanese, that used to be a sea of syllables. Words that jump out at me and I automatically know the meaning as soon as I hear them.

If you’re at more of an advanced level, I can see there would be a point that drilling anki would probably become less and less efficient. But starting out, we really don’t have a whole lot to anchor onto other than this.

I see anki/flashcards as simply the tack you’d use to place the word on your brain allowing you to leave it in place while removing your hands. Making mistakes while using the language, context, and understanding are the superglue that lock it into place.

Old, but one of the few Japanese bands I can really get into. The Pillows bring the rock!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m2cdhHgWZRk

This may seem like a silly question, but is this a ‘lifetime’ sign up? I ask because although I’m not really to the point that I could use the site, I was looking forward to it at a later point. If this is a one shot deal I’m in…

(as long as you don’t spam infomercials about how awesome learning japanese is one time deal special offer like japanesepod101 =)

Glad to see you guys collaborating!

Rachel, are you supposed to imagine the people you are eating in their underwear?

Armando, my opinion here… but you’ll probably get alot more milage out of just taking practice tests online to gauge your own progress. Traveling to another country just to take level 5 seems like a waste of money for a test that isn’t going to do a whole lot for you at your age (other than confirm with yourself your own proficiency, which you can do for free at home).