Hi, my Spanish lessons in school are finally over this year, so now I have moved over to the language I really wanted to learn - Japanese
I've been studying on my own since September, I'm not sure what progress rate I'm having exactly but it's OK as I have no time limit. I won't be taking any trips to Japan for at least 5+ years so it doesn't matter all that much I guess.
What I'm focusing on is a grammar book (Genki), a picture dictionary (with 1500 daily things) and Remembering the Kanji by James W. Heisig. Now what I wanted to ask is what you think of my learning balance. At first I was thinking not to learn kanjis, as it seemed time consuming and not usefull for speaking japanese. But as I tried Heisigs book + the repetition program Anki, I realized it won't be that hard after all, and shifted my attention mostly over to kanjis (I know 700 already). I know some critisize the book as not teaching them "properly", but I've found that I can actually write these kanjis (not neccesarily pretty
) from the remembering techniques, and after a while you start to remember them normally (as in not from sick stories) so I'd say there's no problem.
So in the end, although I know many kanjis, I don't know what so many of them actually means in spoken Japanese yet. but what I'm thinking is, it's probably just as fine as first learning Japanese words, then their kanjis; it should just be the other way around. As for the picture dictionary I know maybe 200-300 words from it, though I probably have spent just 10 hours on it. Grammar is something I've read a little, probably as much as the picture dictionary, and I know some basic stuff and some less basic stuff halfway. I'm thinking not to focus so much on the grammar directly; as I listen alot to spoken japanese in animees, it should develop by time. Also my prononciation seems OK beause of this. And when I know the 2000 kanjis, I'll have more time to focus on the other stuff.
So as you can see, I myself is confident in how this is going, so what I'm asking is, if anyone have any doubts about it? Is there something important I'm forgetting?
I've been studying on my own since September, I'm not sure what progress rate I'm having exactly but it's OK as I have no time limit. I won't be taking any trips to Japan for at least 5+ years so it doesn't matter all that much I guess.
What I'm focusing on is a grammar book (Genki), a picture dictionary (with 1500 daily things) and Remembering the Kanji by James W. Heisig. Now what I wanted to ask is what you think of my learning balance. At first I was thinking not to learn kanjis, as it seemed time consuming and not usefull for speaking japanese. But as I tried Heisigs book + the repetition program Anki, I realized it won't be that hard after all, and shifted my attention mostly over to kanjis (I know 700 already). I know some critisize the book as not teaching them "properly", but I've found that I can actually write these kanjis (not neccesarily pretty
) from the remembering techniques, and after a while you start to remember them normally (as in not from sick stories) so I'd say there's no problem.So in the end, although I know many kanjis, I don't know what so many of them actually means in spoken Japanese yet. but what I'm thinking is, it's probably just as fine as first learning Japanese words, then their kanjis; it should just be the other way around. As for the picture dictionary I know maybe 200-300 words from it, though I probably have spent just 10 hours on it. Grammar is something I've read a little, probably as much as the picture dictionary, and I know some basic stuff and some less basic stuff halfway. I'm thinking not to focus so much on the grammar directly; as I listen alot to spoken japanese in animees, it should develop by time. Also my prononciation seems OK beause of this. And when I know the 2000 kanjis, I'll have more time to focus on the other stuff.
So as you can see, I myself is confident in how this is going, so what I'm asking is, if anyone have any doubts about it? Is there something important I'm forgetting?
