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Jalup Group Challenge 2: J-E Sentence Samurai (Final Update) — 25 Comments

  1. – Level: 30ish

    – I’ve completed the beginner 1000 and will be using my own J-E deck that I will be making as I go along (hope this is okay)

    – The last couple of months I’ve been struggling getting back into doing Japanese consistently, I’m hoping this will give me a little extra motivation.

    – I plan to slowly work back up to the pace I used to study at, this way I can get used to it again. I also plan to make programs to help find example sentences for cards. I’ve already made one that has helped a lot, but the other two I have in mind will be much harder to make.

    • If you have already completed RTK + Beginner 1000 and have good enough grammar foundation, IMO you go to the other challenge (J-J one).
      But hey, it doesn’t matter either way.

  2. 1. I’m probably close to Level 10.
    2. This is my first try at J-E. I just got back to my RTK flashcards (THANKS for the deck) and have 87 more cards to add from RTK1. Then I will check out the JALUP J-E trial cards.I downloaded another user’s Genki Annihilator on the Anki shared decks (sorry, I forgot your username), but couldn’t figure out how to order them and hope I can get the JALUP Beginner deck in an order progression from easiest to hardest. If not, I’ll use my own textbook Japanese for Everyone, which covers the Genki 1&2 series.
    3. Joining this in hopes that I’ll get some in real-time help rather than scouring old comments on old posts to map together problems and solutions.
    4. I plan to add a minimum of 11 cards per day to reach the full deck by November 30th.

    • Jalup decks are not mere collections of sentences. They are much more like a textbook. They come ordered, with each card building on previous ones, explaining one new thing at a time. They are totally awesome and by far the best bang for your buck that I am aware of.

    • I’ll second what Paul said. I’d definitely encourage you to give the Beginner set a try. It worked wonders for me and many others. And if for any reason it fails to meet your needs within the first month, Adam has a totally painless refund policy.

      Anyway, good luck on your challenge! =)

      • I checked out the beginner sample and like that it’s simple and pre-ordered to add cards for studying. Would you recommend the Battle Equipment package? I’ve been intrigued and just wonder if anyone’s bought it or if everyone just buys one pack of cards at a time until they have a solid foundation to start making the cards on their own.

        • Highly recommended. I bought it (back when it included Expert Series). Aside from the JalUp cards, it has many extras (motivation, Branch Annihilator , One Deck..etc.). But don’t expect it to be too easy.. ;)
          The J-J transition phase is supposedly at 4000 J-J cards. After that you should be able to add your own cards without branches getting out of control.

        • I bought it as well a while back. Even if you only want the core Jalup decks, it is the best value for your money. That being said, there are some really nice extras like the One Deck in there.

    • End of Sept update.

      Lost momentum after losing a week of progress on my deck. Also, got a little busy with classes. Going to catch up this weekend and push forward. At 500 cards. Was able to power through the first 400 or so because I’ve done 8 chapters in JFE previously. Slowing down though. Going to start reading JFE chapters as I add cards so I get an in depth explanation of new grammar concepts. Other than that, was going well. Have also added cards for Kanji to keyword. Also using RTK cards and Kanji Assist cards.

      See you in a month! (Goal 750 cards by Oct 31st.)

  3. – Level 10-15?

    I finished Genki I and around 1/4 ~ 1/2 of Genki II, but stopped actively studying for several years, so my proficiency is all over the place. I’m also around 544 kanji into KanjiDamage with an end date for my deck around October 31 (I’m doing a Read/Write deck, so it’s around 3500 cards).

    Although I stopped studying, I went to a Japanese-Canadian Buddhist Temple, so I had some passive immersion, and would sometimes communicate in Japanese (when volunteering, asking the older ladies if we should have a coffee break in Japanese was an excellent way to have an immediate coffee break :’DD;;;), and along with passive listening of Japanese music, I was able to maintain a baseline of Japanese ability. So right now I can play Tales of Vesperia in Japanese, and watch 35歳の高校生 in Japanese with subtitles, but there’s a LOT slipping through the cracks. This is part of why it’s difficult to concisely say what level I’m at, haha.

    – This is my first time doing a Japanese sentence pack. I bought the JALUP Beginner 1000 bundle a couple days ago, so I’ll be using that.

    – I’m joining the challenge because I want to create a good foundation for further learning, and I think that’s best done by returning to the basics. However, I threw out Genki I & II when I moved across country (and it was A RELIEF and finally allowed me to start learning again, lol. I was very burnt out on those books), and it’s somewhat hard to motivate myself to return to the bare basics.

    – I blasted through the first 100 sentences in JALUP Beginner in two days, so I’m not sure if I need until November to finish… but I imagine I’ll be challenged more towards the end. As for a game plan, I think I’ll try and do my sentence deck before work, since I can do kanji at work (no sound!) and after work it’s much more fun to relax with Vesperia or ドラマ.

    Sorry for the super long comment! I’ve been lurking around JALUP for a while since I restarted studying Japanese around the beginning of August, and I was happy for a chance to voice a bit of where I’m at right now. :’) I’m not a beginner, but I don’t really feel intermediate, either!

    • Yay another gamer on the site! =)

      Vesperia PS3 was one of the first games I played. It’s a pretty stiff challenge at that level, but it’s awesome that you’re working your way through it. You’ll learn lots of useful stuff in the process.

      As for the JALUP Beginner, it’ll start to get fun once you get through the absolute beginner stuff that you already know. The puzzle-solving element is really entertaining, IMO. Good luck!

      • Have you played any 閃の奇跡 games? I really enjoy those, you need a higher level to follow the story but I’m sure you would be there Matt. If you’re above the 40’s then the voice acting plus text makes a beautiful combo. Also if you’d like sometime we should email about good Japanese games we’ve played.

        • You bet! I’m working through the first one on the Vita right now. Currently early in 第4章, and I already bought the sequel. Really enjoying it so far – especially the combat system.

          I loved the heck out of 空の軌跡 and wanting to play Second Chapter is one of the things that motivated me to start learning – though that one I have for PS3, so I won’t be able to start it until I finish アルノサージュ. One game at a time!

          メールでのゲーム相談は楽しそう!アダムさん、メールアド交換をしてもらえませんか? (^^)

      • Yay! :D

        I’ve really lucked out with Vesperia, because I found a really awesome 実況プレイ of it that I run in the background as I play, and there’s also the translation project (http://hyouta.com/vesperia/) that has side-by-side text & translation of pretty much the entire game. I try not to look at the English, but the Japanese is selectable and really good for pairing with rikaisama or putting into anki.

        The fact that Vesperia has almost full voice acting helps a lot, as my listening comprehension is a bit better than my reading.

        Re: JALUP Beginner: that’s the hope! I’m looking forward to it. :D

        Thanks for the kind words!!

  4. Level: 13-15
    Experience: I have already completed Jalup Beginner stages 1-3 and has only stage 4 to go before reaching the 1000 sentences.
    Motivation: I am close to reaching the 1000 J-E sentences and after the Kanji Riders challenge I’m really up for a new challenge, since it went so well :D
    Strategy: I am starting a new job September 1st which will probably take up a lot of energy in the first month. I am planning on going at a pace of 5 new cards every day with room for missing some days the first month. At that rate I should be able to finish stage 4 at the end of October. For the rest of the challenge I am thinking of doing a J-E-J bridging phase with the first stage of Jalup Intermediate. At the very least finishing stage 4 of Beginner within the time frame of this challenge should be a fairly easy task.

    皆さん、頑張って!

    • A little late to the first update here. The last few days have been a bit of a mess since my grandfather died this Monday. I missed just one day of new cards due to this, but kept up with the reviews so no worries for my studies.

      As expected it has been a busy month, but I have kept the motivation high and the pace of 5 new sentences a day has worked great for me.

      I have 110 new sentences left at the time of writing this meaning I have reached 890 J-E sentences total. That feels like a large amount and I’m very happy with my progress.

      As for issues, I have discovered that being tired really impairs my ability to learn new sentences. So I try to get through the new sentences of the day as early as possible. I mark them for the 10-minute review and then leave them be until I go to bed where I mark them easy if I still get the meaning. Having understood the meaning once while not tired and then reviewing in the evening make me get the meaning of most sentences again 4 days later.

    • As expected here is an early finishing update from me \o/ must say I loved the two last cards!

      As of 23rd of October I have finished my second Jalup Group Challenge and it feels great!

      A few days ago I browsed around the new Jalup forum and found a thread in the Japanese with some English allowed forum. I read the 3 posts in the thread from the top down and felt like I understood it all. That was amazing and shows how far the Jalup Beginner deck has taken me. I had to look up a few readings, but otherwise I just blazed through it all.

      I’m very much looking forward to getting on with Jalup Intermediate :)

  5. Level: 20
    I previously got to the J-J stage but then life got in the way and I fell into a slump with my Japanese studies. About 3 months ago I just decided to delete all my decks and start over. (Too many reviews piled up + too much time passed and it made me want to avoid doing anki).
    Since I am finishing up RTK right at September 1 (only 72 cards left in my deck!) I thought I would join in with this challenge! I’m excited to once again reach the J-J stage and beyond!
    I’ve started keeping Kanji I’m studying in a little journal that I take to work and I am planning to do the same with new/troubling sentences. This way I can get some extra reviews when I get a little free time.

  6. Level: 5

    Previous experience: I have tried going through the JALUP Beginner and lost momentum and eventually fell off the wagon probably due to reaching the point of not understanding the higher level flash cards

    Reason for joining this challenge: I want to complete the JALUP Beginner deck and then moving up to intermediate and so forth. I am trying to use this opportunity to get back on track and finish what I started

    Strategy: Creating a daily habit of learning cards and revision, the approach would be slowly to pick up the pace again until I can comfortably do 20 new cards a day and hopefully finish by the deadline

  7. HELP!

    I study anki on my phone through the web. When I opened anki on my computer, I accidentally hit “upload to web” instead of “download from web” now my deck reverted to what it was maybe 7 days ago. I did all this work since then 350 or 400 of my beginner deck plus all my RTK and the Kanji assist. I can’t go through all these cards again. I only had 125 cards left to study today and now it says I have 655. Plus that’s only 75 of the first cards from the Beginner pack plus the 80 some cards I added from the Kanji assist pack. So in actuality I have over 1000 cards in cue. This is super discouraging, especially because I am in classes and have a ton of homework to do throughout the week scheduled around my studying.

    MAIN QUESTION!: ANYONE KNOW HOW TO REVERT THE UPLOAD?!?

    • What should happen is that next time you open your phone, you’ll get a warning about your phone’s version being in conflict with what’s on the server, and be given the option to re-upload what’s on your phone to overwrite your computer’s upload.

      Failing that, your phone should also have local backups that you can restore from. If you’re using Anki Droid, the manual explains the process here-
      https://ankidroid.org/docs/manual.html#backups

      Good luck!

      • I don’t have the app on my phone. I just go to the internet and open the webversion of the account through Safari. So since I hit upload to web and it updated the web version. Is there a local backup on the computer version? Or is there anyway to revert the upload?

        • That I’m afraid I don’t know. Normally if you’re using separate devices, you have a local backup on each device, but since you’re not actually using the app there won’t be a local copy on your phone.

          Ankiweb doesn’t seem to have a restore from backup option, so in that case I’d recommend posting on Anki’s support site and seeing if they have records from which to restore your older version. https://anki.tenderapp.com/home

          Another option might be to simply blast through the cards and get back to where you were. Just go through and mash Good/Easy as appropriate if the card is familiar, and stop once you reach unfamiliar territory. With a rapid approach like that, you could probably undo most of the mess in about half an hour, and normalize the rest over the course of the following week as your cards begin to stagger naturally once more.

          • Thanks for the attempt anyway. I’m going to take your advice and just hit all my kanji as hard (I do that anyway when I get them right) and let it normalize over the next few weeks. I rescheduled the sentences for the next 3-7 days and the kanji assist for the next 4-5. Bummer though. But, I don’t want to get off track.

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