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Jalup Group Challenge 13: Change 1 Major Japanese Study Habit — 9 Comments

  1. The study habit that I want to change is to increase my passive immersion. I complete my anki (soon to be NEXT) reviews nearly every day, and usually manage to get in a good bit of active immersion (watching anime or dramas). But I often do my reviews and unrelated work in silence.

    I want to make a broad statement that my goal is to just increase passive immersion, but not that isn’t tangible enough. So I’ll say that a good goal for me is just to be passively immersing while I do my sentence and kanji reviews.

    • Oops! Forgot some details.

      I’m probably around level 25-30.

      As far as resources are concerned, I have not yet made the change to NEXT and I will continue using anki for now. For the immersion I will use the shows that I have recorded (and will record). Mostly anime and drama. I will listen either on my computer or phone depending on where I am.

      Game Plan? “Just do it.” The moment I realize I’m not immersing, grab those headphones and tune in.

    • So January is coming to a close and I somewhat reluctantly have to admit that I did not accomplish this challenge. I didn’t fail per se either, though. For the first half of the month I passed with flying colors, listening to the recorded dialog of dramas that I had watched in the background. It did however significantly increase my review time. As the month progressed, my life circumstances became more demanding and I found that the extra level of difficulty that passive immersion provided might be the make-or-break factor in whether or not I finished my anki reps for that day, so I ended up dropping the passive immersion.

      The good thing about this challenge is that it is broad enough that I can keep trying to improve as the rest of this year goes on. I am currently in the transition from university to my first job in the field, and things are very nebulous right now. I think once I get more structure I will be more successful in this goal of adding more passive immersion.

  2. I really want to change my level and improve my Japanese!
    I fell like an eternal stop learner hehe.

    1. level 11 since a year ago, when I did and passed N5.
    2. Anki, JALUP Next, RTK, Habitica App
    3. My strategy is to keep doing my studies daily, focusing on small tasks to reach a major goal. I want to be able to reach a higher level and be able to do N3 by the end of this year.

  3. The habit I ought to change is to fully concentrate on my reviews and new cards instead of switching back and forth between different activies.

    So I’m planning to tackle a prior defined amount of cards, and complete those in a row without getting distracted. I guess I’ll aim for 20-50 per wave.
    Doing that a few times a day should suffice to get rid of the reviews efficiently and effective.

    Oh and I’m around level 7, I guess.. Maybe I’ll also set on my plans for the months to check my level using the tests :D

  4. Whilst doing anki reviews, I want to think about the sentence or RTK kanji cards a bit more deeply. I’ve been in the habit of “I want you gone as quick as possible” with more of a view for the short term than the long term. I feel like I’m getting reviews done quickly but that I’m not retaining the info as well as I could be. (meaning lots of “again’s”).

    For sentences: bringing up a memory or creating a mini (one line) drama in my head I think goes a long way.

    For kanji: taking the extra bit of time to bring back to mind my original story on cards that are still hazy.

    Long-term > short-term.

    • Well, I’ve at this point come to the conclusion that it’s better for me to spend less time on each card, and if that means they come more often, that’s okay!

      I’m getting reviews done a lot faster. Kanji reviews are getting a lot easier since I’m finally making good ground in J-J land and actually see some of the kanji in use.

  5. I want to start reading my Anki reviews out loud again as since I stopped, I haven’t felt like my speaking ability has developed as well as my other skills. This is something I used to do, but due some changes in circumstances (new job with a much longer commute, and a new baby) I found myself with less time to do it.

    I currently do all my Anki reviews on the bus and train, usually in the morning, so I want to wake up a little earlier than usual (about 30 minutes should be enough) and do some Anki out loud before setting off for work. I don’t imagine I’ll be able to complete them all in this time, but if I can do 40 or so, that’s enough. This should leave me more time to read/immerse on the train instead of silently doing reps.

    1. 60+ (it’s been a while since I did the level test)
    2. Alarm clock, Anki
    3. To summarise the above: wake up 30 minutes early, read around 40 Anki reviews out loud

    • Getting up even 30 minutes earlier was a greater struggle than I anticipated! I didn’t always have enough time to do 40 reviews out loud each day in the morning, and on the days that I skipped the morning session, I made up for it with an evening blast of Anki. I also didn’t manage to read 40 cards aloud most weekdays, but I compensated by doing all (or very nearly all) my reviews out loud on the weekends.

      So overall, and while I didn’t strictly keep to the target I set, I feel as though I completed the challenge. In hindsight, if I were to change anything about the goals I made, it’d be to set a lower daily reviews target, or even no fixed target at all, or maybe set a minimum length of time to review out loud and keep things flexible (which is kind of what I did anyway).

      I think I’ll be continuing this habit for as long as possible. The intended results began to show after about the second week of the challenge, with noticeably more fluidity to my speaking, a better general command of Japanese, and more confidence overall. I encourage anyone to try this out if they don’t do it already. I can’t believed I ever stopped reviewing out loud myself!

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