The number that seems to endlessly follow you everywhere you go: reviews due. When it hits zero, you get a rush of dopamine. When it hits 300+, you curse your existence. So you focus on getting to 0. But what you do before then can change your motivation drastically. Looking at your reviews while you review? Whether you use the Jalup app or Anki, there … Continue reading →
The Day: December 27, 2007 One freezing morning during the winter holiday season, I started using Anki. New software merely a year old, I added my first Japanese sentence (which was awkwardly broken from a larger sentence), with multiple definitions, and a dream. Front５万人増は州再建に光明だが、 Back増・ぞう・増えること「昨年に比べ五万円の増」州・しゅう・中国の地方行政区画の一再建・さいけん・失われていた建造物をもう一度建てること。光明・こうみょう・くらやみを照らし出す明るい光。 I was almost 3 years into studying Japanese with moderate levels of success, and I made a gamble on a … Continue reading →
You want results fast. You want Japanese skill now. You want to be watching your favorite anime already. Learning Japanese is a very result-focused process and because of that it’s natural to want to get those results as fast as possible. I couldn’t wait till I was able to use my Japanese for what I wanted. I always wanted to go faster, do more, and … Continue reading →
Learn new cards. Review old cards. Learn new cards. Review old cards. Mix in immersion. Mix in speaking. Mix in shadowing. Mix in fun. Repeat till victory. This is the ideal. This is not what happens. This is okay. There is going to come a time that you are going to want to weaken the flame. Not because you don’t want Japanese bad enough. But … Continue reading →
A buildup of reviews is inevitable. You are going to get caught up in something non-Japanese and your numbers will grow. You forgot to turn on vacation mode. Now you have a vicious number staring you down. You decide to make today a full burst review day. You’ll spend hours on end to reach that beautiful “0 reviews due” you crave. Initial success and glory … Continue reading →
I once saw a Japanese Ted Talk which discussed the clever process of how a manufacturer came up with new ideas to develop toys. He played shiritori, which is a game where you choose a word, then another word that starts with the last letter of the previous word, and continue on endlessly. This creates ultimate randomness. For example (in English): BananaAppleExcitingGorillaAirplane Maybe there would … Continue reading →
Spaced repetition systems (SRS) have become a pretty standard feature with a lot of studying apps these days. It’s pretty simple – you set someone up to review what they learned at just the right timing so that they don’t forget. Forget forgetting. Even for someone who has never heard of SRS, it’s straightforward. Cramming = bad; studying over time = good. This is all … Continue reading →
Flash cards get a bad rap sometimes. Put a word or sentence on the front, the meaning on the back, and you’re done. Repeat this a few hundred or thousand times and you have a deck. Such a simple and bare tool. They’re just flash cards, right? Really…? I thought it was about time I showed behind the scenes what goes into Jalup flash cards, … Continue reading →
