How to get off Anki

Japanese
#30

To me, whatever benefit you’re getting from Anki is not worth spending 6h a day on it. Even one hour is excessive.

I like Kanji/Hanzi. I use Skritter to practice writing (when I feel like it, usually not everyday). I was going to take Chinese calligraphy classes in the nearest Confucius Institute, but 2020 happened.

Back when I started a lot of people on the internet said THE way to start learning Japanese was to do Heisig. I did the whole volume 1 in 3 months (had a lot of free time). If I were to start again I wouldn’t do it this way. You don’t really need to know thousands of kanji upfront.

Anyway, my intention is not to say how you should study but to give another perspective. You started the thread asking for help so you already feel your anki use is getting excessive. 6h of anki a day would be absolutely soul-crushing to me. I can’t even take 1h these days, because I know there are far more interesting and fun things to do with this time and yeah, maybe it will be less efficient than using anki for longer but I’m not on a race or contest, I don’t need to be 110% efficient. Fun >>>> efficiency.

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#31

Please don’t feel obligated to clarify that. It is forum. It is meant to have different opinion and discuss them. It would be silly of me to get offended.

If you think I did, then I clearly made some fatal error in expressing myself. :sweat_smile:

Edit:
Actually after thought I decided to change my plan a bit more. Maybe learning that much kanji was shield to avoid immersion? Learning kanji is easy and mentally not challenging. So I decided I will stop adding kanji I don’t meet in immersion just to try meet some stupid target.

Pointing my attention to this few times in row has proven to be useful. Thank you :hugs:

You said this at exactly right time since youtube reminded me about this video:

xD Fortune maybe is looking after me :smiling_face_with_three_hearts:

Later I will consider next step. It will not reformer the whole system at once.

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#32

If it’s of any help, here’s my experience: when I first discovered Anki about a decade ago, I made a huge kanji deck: Heisig keywords and readings for all the kyoiku kanji and almost all the joyo kanji. I also made a Japanese words deck that was about a tenth as big. I overestimated my ability to recognize kanji by visual memory so they never stuck. I burnt myself out and went years without using Anki, then I tried that same deck about a year ago and I couldn’t get a single card right.

Once I started using WaniKani earlier this year, I deleted all my existing Anki decks. It was hard to say goodbye to all that work, but I’ve had much bigger gains in the past year than that deck ever gave me. In addition to WaniKani (and Bunpro, of course), I have new kanji and Japanese words decks. Now I’m much more purposeful about making sure that each new note is only a little bit more than I already know.

The example I always think of is Ludwig Zamenhof having to create Esperanto twice, but the second time was much better. Redoing things from the ground up is annoying, but the second time is always so much better that it’s worth the effort.

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#33

My man!

If you speak Esperanto then I am sorry: I spoke it for about 3 month only and I don’t speak it anymore. I forgot all of it ;/ Maybe one day I will relearn it.

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#34

I’d agree with that.

There’s a book that I’ve been reading that I’d recommend to any language learner, let alone any Bunpro user: Make it Stick: The Science of Successful Learning by Peter C Brown, Mark A. McDaniel, and Henry L. Roediger III. It explores the neuroscience behind which study techniques actually work and which make us think they work. One of the book’s theses—at least as I interpreted it—is that learning is supposed to hurt. Spaced repetition can be boring and frustrating, but because it forces recall more than more passive study techniques (like rereading & highlighting), the long-term gains are much higher.

So I have to remind myself that the fact that Anki irritates me is exactly why I need to keep using it!

That was about what I did too! I did the Esperanto course on Duolingo before I realized that I would just never use that language in my life! That story always stuck with me, though, especially after I lose hours of grinding in an RPG!

#35

Esperanto on duolingo is best prove duolingo is good for nothing. They made simple language into hard one.

I actually am still “using” Esperanto. It was mostly a tool to teach my brain how to learn foreign language. It made learning English possible for my: i am not talented at languages at all.

Here is list of research on that subject.

If Japanese if first foreign languages for anybody I would advise to take 3-6 weeks and learn esperanto first.

#36

Though you don’t necessarily “learn” a language. According to some researchers on language acquisition (the well-known example is Stephen Krashen), language acquisition is different from language learning. Acquisition works unconsciously, learning/studying is done consciously but it’s not acquisition.

This video is an explanation about these points: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J_EQDtpYSNM

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#37

I totally agree on that one. I am strong on immersion side. :hugs:

I don’t understand people trying to turn learning Japanese into academic endeavor.

#38

I remember an interview with Dr. Krashen where he was talking about the Affective Filter hypothesis and he says that he believes that a bit of suffering might be necessary to learn other subjects like mathematics, but that language is different.

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#39

I am not sure about that. I suffered learning my native language. Speech problem made it very hard for me to learn how to read. I was often mistaken by other kids for being German up to about age of 10.

So I would tend to disagree with that hypothesis.

And lets not forgot Japanese people “suffer” learning Kanji as well.

I would guess it was just rhetorical device.

#40

Yeah, Duolingo’s model is deceptively Eurocentric. I wish there existed something similar that incorporated context and was less, “How would I say this in that language” and more, “How would a native speaker communicate that idea”.

That’s an interesting video that I wish I’d seen sooner. It sounds like what he’s saying is the best tactic for aural comprehension, which is usually the hardest thing about language acquisition. My own goals mostly involve translating written Japanese, so I’ll probably take his advice but continue to practice with Bunpro and WaniKani and Anki.

What I’ve been doing for listening practice personally is watching a video every day that’s trending in Japan. I’ve also been listening to NHK News, and I think I’ve learned more from YouTube. So I think he’s onto something.

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#41

Well… not really. I tried out Russian and Spanish there just to have a look. They clearly are centred around idea to make you believe you will learn without effort at all to make you coming back and watch adds.

EDIT:
I am sorry to bring it up but this video is full of straw-man arguments and simple fallacies. Duoling tries this methodology and fails drastically.

One very simple neurological fact: you use different part of the brain speaking mother tongue and foreign language. You need more just than input to learn in effective way - you need provided your brain with information about language to help the process. Thats why analysing what you read help a lot. In fact: that how you learn to read you native tongue as well. Good teachers help you to break down how sentence works to it make it easier to read it.

Do you know why in Ancient Roma reading was consider very high lvl skill? Spoiler: they tried to teach in that way exactly. They did even bother explaining how letter works and just were asking to “read” after the teach until your brain will understand it. I took ages.

I agree with general sentiment but is based on falsehood. Unless you are naturally gifted person you will not learn by immersion alone. Millions of foreigner living abroad and doing just that are prove to this claim. There is a lot of them that never master language of country they move to. I for sure didn’t since I didn’t put any effort to it.

Please don’t take it personally. It is just an opinion on what I know and hope to understand. It is likely to be wrong :hugs:

#42

Japanese children are already fluent in the language when they learn Kanji. They’re not learning Japanese, they’re learning to read/write.

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#43

And here we will disagree so I would not bother. I need to read for immersion. I love books. I will not learn by not reading books. No way in hell xD

And just to be clear: I am not japanese child :stuck_out_tongue:

#44

If you write a sentence in my native language that is grammatically wrong, I’ll be able to spot immediately that it is wrong, but in most cases I won’t be able to point to you exactly why it is wrong, which grammar rule was broken. I believe this is true for most native speakers of a language.

I also never studied English grammar (learned completely by immersion), so if my sentences are not complete garbage it is because by reading a lot (having a lot of input) I have an intuitive sense of how to structure sentences.

#45

What I think and has been true in my experience is that you can learn everything from immersion, but using SRS flashcards (Anki) and grammar study can help the process go faster, if you don’t overdo the “studying” part. Whether it’s a word on a flashcard or a grammar rule, I feel that I learn them much better if I’ve already seen them used in a “real language” context.

Anyway there’s a kinda new site devoted to immersion learning, if you guys want to take a look at ideas around this: Refold

#46

I am not sure if you want to use your English as a proof that this method is so amazing. If I would be you I would rather not. :hugs:

There is nothing really wrong with your English, no worries. It is just below level I hope to get my Japanese to :blush:

And that’s my point. I want to make it faster. So I have put some effort up front. I am not willing to wait more than 9 month to be able to read books in Japanese instead of in English.

Granted: after I will need massive support of dictionary but I am so used to this, that I don’t mind it much. Technology allows as to make text way above your level into possible to understand and I am not going to ignore that to be “immersion purist”. If it works, it works. And I know it does :crazy_face:

I would also add that most speaker of any language have rather poor language skills. And they do nothing but immersion their whole life. In fact there is quite a massive correlation between time spent in school on studying and somebodies ability to speak and write properly in their language. That’s why between natives we are able to have a say about somebodies education background after just a few words of conversation most of the time. We add structure even to our natives languages so this argument does not work even here.

And yes: you use anki or method of your choice to help yourself master vocab of your language. My wife spends a lot of time doing just that since she need to know vocab like: “Retroperitoneal” in and out. You were taking note in school, didn’t you?

So using the way how natives learn to prove this point is fallacy even here.

To close this: people make huge misjudgment saying kids learn language quicker than adults. It is clearly not the case. This guy should know this: he claims he could learn in 2 years. Let’s make it into 5. Show my 5 years old speaking fluently their mother language to the point of being able to communicate high level concepts in clear and precise manner. There is may be 100 such a kids at max, and they are probably under supervision of mental experts since that would be very worrying sign. Savant syndrome is a serious issue.

#47

Right, I never claimed that my English is perfect, and I’m quite aware of my limitations. But the method does work to get you past this (sometimes elusive) threshold of “fluency” where you can communicate freely. If I cared enough I could perfect my English to a near-native level. (By the way, you haven’t heard me talking, I have a pretty noticeable accent).

I have friends and acquaintances my age that have spent years (and a good deal of money) in formal coursework that can’t even do that. They can’t write, can’t take part in a conversation. They know a lot about English grammar though, a lot more than me :grinning:

But I feel you are getting defensive about this, so I will refrain from commenting further with my broken English :grinning:

#48

still better than mine. You are clearly gifted person. I will not claim that about myself. :hugs:

#49

I agree with you fully you can’t learn language without using it. But there is for sure more to it if you are not naturally gifted. All people I consider to have better English than natives are able to give very easy to follow explanation why this part grammar works that way not another. And it is sometimes at odds with truly proper explanations.

I think most important thing is ability to makes language make sense for you. You help yourself with grammar explanations but you don’t stop there. You make theories and try to test if they make sense. It is very science like process at a heart.

I would call it linguistic Popperism if I can give it a name myself xD

I will have to assume you know Karl Popper since I can’t find easy and short explanation. But in short: that’s the guy that created modern science by coining principle of falsifiability, and his wider ideas helped a lot in understanding how people learn and get to know each others. Generally in simple words: make theory and try to break it. Then repeat with better theory.

Don’t ask me why I felt a need to make it clear. No clue xD

Edit:
It is so against my nature that my brain did even bother to notice it 0_o

By no means I did mean that, and I am as far from being offended as you can get. I enjoy this debate.

If I did offend you then I am sorry. I even delete my first response altogether to make sure this will not happen. If you still find this offensive please rest assured that it was not an intend. I did my best to not take away any credibility from you. You opinions are just as valid as mine. I just happened to like mine better xD

As a prove for that look what happen before: I have make serious change to my method after your comments. Clearly I would not have do that if would have tendency to get overly personal about this kind of discussions :hugs:

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If you could give 'Just starting Japanese' you one piece of advice, what would it be