I think the main thing that makes it hard to start back up is imputing Kanji to my SRS… Are there any tips anyone has for making that fun again? Ive just passed the 100 mark but Ive only put in 79 kanji, because it just seems boring. I know I should put them in so I can reveiw them, but I cant seem to focus… I get destracted and start looking up anime or anything else. So if anyone could give me tips I would be more than happy.

I read the first 20 or so introductionary pages to Heisigs sample e-book yesterday night, I wasn’t very involved and kind of did it one eye on the text and the other on my phone. and today when I woke up I continued browsing this website for more information and help before I made the commitment to immerse myself.

In the first lesson of his book, there was a couple of base kanjis, 三 and 日 being 2 of them. And when I saw 三日坊主 I instantly recognized the first 2 characters as “three” and “day”, and my world just stopped right there and I had this weird sensation, like when you stare at an optical illusion for a while before finally figuring it out. The moment when the pictures snap in place and everything aligns in your head. It was the ending of “The Sixth Sense” and Bruce Willis is my Three-Day Monk. It wasn’t very big, but the moment it happened I knew that I had to give this system a shot, to pursue that sensation and attempt to repeat it.

So I thank you.

btw, I think it’s spelled Sisyphus and not Ciciphus

There is a HUGE difference between quitting and taking a break!
It’s not good to not take a break. I learned from my own experience. Studying japanese is good. I’ve been doing it for 2.5 years. IF YOU DON’T TAKE A BREAK FROM IT YOU WILL BURN OUT! Taking a break for 2 weeks every 5 months or so allows me to come back to japanese with brutal studying. It’s weird but I feel refreshed after doing so and I seem to retain information better. I guess you can use the analogy of an athlete who sprains his ankle then takes time off to heal and do physical therapy then comes back stronger than ever.

To the people who are learning japanese:
What are your reasons for studying Japanese?
Is it work related?
Or maybe you have interest in it?

This is for those who have interest in japanese, not for those who have to take it for mandatory reasons.

If you REALLY are interested in japanese then I don’t see how it can become boring to you as far as studying goes. I believe there is no perfect method. Just take what works for you from experience and drop the ones that don’t help you improve.

For instance I took the SRS method that I read about in this website and incorporated it into my studies. I also learn new verbs by writing sentences out from japanese songs.

If studying japanese becomes boring for you then you have a flase sense of interest.
My interest in learning japanese should not even be called an interest, it’s a passion.

But I guess I can see how it may become boring. So the only advice I can give for those that find it boring is to switch your routine up and to actually start thinking for yourselves. If you’ve been studying for 1 year and you have not seen alot of improvement then think to yourself about what you’re doing wrong and what you can do to fix it. Don’t stick to one method of studying.
The main thing to do is to always learn something new everyday wether it be vocab, verbs, a new kanji, or new grammar.

So now I would simply like to thank khatzumoto for this great website and the new ideas that I got from it. The SRS method works for me.

That really made me laugh.
I just want to say that I think your website/blog/book is really inspiring and well written and I can’t wait to get to work. I’m also on the market for an mp3 player that’s not an ipod.

You’re absolutely right, there is the danger of speaking like the opposite ***. One way around that is to make sure you only imitate the speech patterns of characters of the same gender as you. When distinctly opposite-*** speech comes up, be consciously aware that it’s not something you should imitate, and then you should be fine.

Also, I said “girl manga”, but what I really should have said is “love manga” or something. The line can be blurry, but…girl manga is just plain gross and girly (and seems to me to lack boy dialogue), whereas “love manga” is more soap operatic in a “The O.C.” kind of way. Whatever the classification, manga without the three ‘S’ words; no swords (i.e. no period manga), no sports (incuding martial arts) and no spaceships (including robot spaceships) and with a decent gender balance in dialogue, can make for enjoyable learning of everyday speech.

When I sit back and think about it, perhaps we’re being too prescriptive. Since we’ll need to understand the opposite gender anyway, then even though it may have the effect of skewing your speech patterns one way or another, reading even girly girl manga isn’t the worst thing in the world; speaking from experience as someone who used to sound a bit weird (I used to have only two voices: “polite phone operator” and “yakuza”) it does wear off; you tune your speech and find balance, and in the process, you’ll learn all kinds of cool ways of speaking Japanese.

As always, I think that input and comprehension of input matter most, and output will eventually take care of itself with little effort; we need only pile on the input. So don’t let fear of being “soiled”, or even the humorous memory of your boyish-sounding female friend, lead you to limit yourself in terms of reading materials; ultimately, nothing’s going to “mess you up”, nothing’s going to hurt your Japanese except lack of comprehension; in learning a language, more knowledge is never a disadvantage; ignorance always is. You sacrifice a lot to study Japanese; you deserve fun and freedom of choice in return. So if you enjoy something and it’s in Japanese, then fundamentally it is good for you.

It doesn’t really matter what you read, only that you do read.
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Thanks for your comment! A lot of people can benefit from your advice there.
Your opinions, personal stories and insights are always welcome .

Khatz

You say to read girl’s manga, but just a word of warning. I know someone who studied Japanese at university and has spent some time being paid to translate manga into English. Because of this her reading is great, but speaking is poor. Now she’s in Japan so getting lots of speaking practice, but keeps saying very male phrases as that’s what she’s been reading all the time.

I’d be worried about sounding feminine if I read girl’s manga…

And another thing! You once very astutely named this method the “文章方法”. How right you are. One great way to bridge the gap between your input and output is through manga.

But not just any manga. You need family-comedy manga like あたしンち and クレヨンしんちゃん, and any 少女漫画 (しょう・じょ・まん・が, girl-oriented manga) like 「春よ、来い」（はる　よ、こい）. In other words, you need manga containing real-daily-life dialogue. Unfortunately, this rules out most 少年漫画(しょう・ねん・まん・が, boy-oriented manga), and military/sci-fi manga like 新世紀エヴァンゲリオン (しん・せい・き・エヴァンゲリオン、Neon Genesis Evangelion), because they have a HUGE proportion of lines like “正体不明の物体、海面に姿を現しました！” and “只今から本作戦の指導権を碇司令官に移った。” which is totally cool, except that it simply won’t make it’s way into everyday speech. I know. I tried. Of course, Evangelion has normal dialogue, too. But, if you’re anything like me, the geek in you is too strong and the draw of kanji words like “正体不明” too powerful to resist. You need to bring balance to the Force; you need to go for something that’s ALL normal dialogue.

Hey James,

Yeah, at any given time, there was (IS) always this lag between what you can read/hear/understand (input), and what you can output. But, you can and will bridge the gap. One partial solution is to ramp up the input–watch, read and listen to EVEN MORE of the things you want to say. A problem I had was that I was trying to say the latest, coolest most complex words and sentences I had learned. But that’s really no good. Of course, you’re going to say more complex things as you go on, but in my experience, a lot of it just comes naturally. Like, when you’ve finally seen a commercial so many times that you know the words, or when you’ve seen a movie so many times that you know the dialogue; because of your extensive exposure, it will almost just come out. Having said that, I definitely suggest you force nature’s hand slightly, by exposing yourself heavily to the kind of words you want to know. Get dozens of sentences of the same word. Watch and re-watch shows. I had to watch a TON of nature documentaries (sometimes the same one over and over and over again) before I was able to casually roll off words like “順風満帆（じゅん・ぷう・まん・ぱん, smooth sailing）, “脊椎動物” （せき・つい・どうぶ・つ, vertebrate）” and “節足動物” （せっ・そく・どう・ぶつ, arthropod） in a conversation. I had to watch a similar amount of news before I was able to parody journalese (“逮捕されたのは・・・”).

>Whenever I speak I always try and thik of the sentence but the word just never seem to >come out right .
So, to repeat, input precedes output. A LOT of input precedes output. It will come out correctly and virtually effortlessly, but only once it’s gone in “deep” enough. (See Stephen Krashen for details here: http://www.sdkrashen.com/ and here: http://www.sk.com.br/sk-krash.html and of course here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Krashen)

Another thing you can do is actually learn more of the simple, native-Japanese (as in, non-Chinese-derived) words, especially action verbs (引く、引っ張る、貼る、くっつく) and physical relation words (傍（そば）、横（よこ）, because these are powerful in allowing you to explain your way through even the most complex of concepts. Also, they get a lot of mileage–just as the words “get” and “set” in English get heavily used, a word like 掛ける（かける） or 合う(あう） will take you far; I used to be upset that one word could be so loaded with different meanings, but I imagine that the reason why such meaning-heavy words came to exist in the first place is because native speakers forget words, too, so they just turn certain words into workhorses.

Remember to keep it simple and straightforward; don’t do what I did and always try to pull off clever turns of phrase–sure,they sound cool, but using them is popping language wheelies where just cycling will more than do. Think of a child (say, age 6 to 10) who is a native speaker of Japanese or any language–they probably don’t have that big of an active vocab, they may understand a lot, but they speak plainly and correctly…you might try aiming for that simplicity.

That, at least, has been my way of dealing with it…I know it’s not the fastest or sexiest of solutions, but it works in the end. If anyone comes up with something better, let me know! And don’t worry, just keep learning things and one day soon, they’ll be ready for primetime.
>My understanding of written/spoken Japanese has increased hugely
That’s something to be very proud of. You’re on the right track.
The methods on the site owe a huge debt to AntiMoon. See what they said about this, here: http://www.antimoon.com/how/input-intro.htm