漢字 Sprint Days 7-9: Turned into a vegetable

I had the last few days off from work. Seems like a good time to cram in some more characters, right? Well, it didn't happen. I think maybe something clicked in my brain and I finally realized I was done with the semester, so I spent the last couple days vegging out. Bad idea. I learned 59 characters last night (Day 9), but I now have 325 漢字 reviews due in Anki, plus about 200 cards in my vocab deck. I work this afternoon, and most of the rest of the day will be spent getting ready for the in-laws' arrival tomorrow.

I'm going to clear out as many reviews as I can today (with a focus on 漢字 -- vocab can wait) and tomorrow morning, then hopefully I'll be able to learn some tomorrow morning before the family arrives. While they're here...we'll see. I'll probably have some study time but I'm not counting on much. I'll probably just keep up with reviews, and maybe learn a few new kanji.

Once they're gone, I'll be back at it 100%.

漢字 Sprint, 第六日

Today is Day 6 of my 漢字 Sprint.

I learned another 50 漢字 today, bringing my 6 day total up to 250 characters. Not bad for less than a week, eh? If you could learn 300 characters per week (which I intend to do) in this way, you could be done with the basic 3000 characters after just 10 weeks of intensive study. Not bad at all.

I noticed something today that might be helpful to other using the Heisig method. As I've mentioned in other posts in this series, I'll often assign a more concrete image to a vague character (see Obama for 人/亻 in the previous two posts). This is good, because it helps you to be more vivid with your mnemonic stories. However, don't feel like you have to use Obama (or whatever) just because that primitive is in the character. "Person" is just fine, and sometimes better. Case in point:

        Q: captured

        cnn captured obama's pent-in speech.
       

        A: 囚

Really? A person in an enclosure (or pent-in) isn't good enough for captured? No need to make things more complicated than they are. (Note: I sometimes use "enclosure" for 囗 because I learned it that way first)

        Q: captured

        I captured the person in the enclosure.
       

        A: 囚

Much simpler. Make everything as simple as possible, but no simpler, right Einstein?

Anyway, I'm nearly caught up from my two missed days. At a rate of 43 per day (which is what I need to finish this Sprint on time), I should be at 258 characters so far, and I'm at 250. I might try to catch up with the 50/day mark though, so I can have a little leeway. The inlaws are coming in town next week, after all, so there may be a couple days I skip. I don't want to be antisocial when they traveled so far.

And as I mentioned in the comments yesterday, my 漢字 power level is now OVER 1000!!!

Yes, I know. Lame meme reference. It's my one time, I promise.

See you at 2593 漢字!

漢字 Sprint, Day 5

Today is day 5 of my 漢字 Sprint.

Yesterday I mentioned that Days 2 and 3 didn't go so well, so I'm kind of catching up from that. I added 50 漢字 today. That means that so far I've added 200 new 漢字 during the "Sprint," so the catch-up is going well. I'm only 15 behind schedule (I need 43 per day to finish by the end of Christmas break). I may end up adding another 15 today just to finish catching up if I have time.

My retention for the 100 new characters I added yesterday was 97%. Pretty dang good. We'll see how that all plays out over the next few reviews though.

Lots more Obama characters today (I use Obama in my stories to represent 亻). Here's one I thought was funny:

        Q: double
        Obama put a muzzle on his double.
       

        A: 倍

See you at 2593 漢字!

漢字 Sprint, Day 4 + Supercharged 漢字 Mnemonics

So today is Day 4 of my 漢字 Sprint.

Yesterday I wrote that I had done 50 characters on the 10th, none on the 11th, and 75 yesterday. Well, that was before I had actually done the characters, and I was hoping that saying I had done it would motivate me to make sure it got done. I didn't end up doing any.

However, today I learned 100 new characters. It really wasn't too bad. I really doubt I'd be able to keep up that pace, if only due to the volume of reviews I'd have, but for a single day it wasn't an unmanageable load. The One Kanji, One Picture thread really helps tremendously as far as remembering the characters. It almost feels like cheating because it makes it so easy. Here's an example (note: like the thread's author, I use Obama for the 亻 primitive because it's more vivid than "person"):

      Q: transmit

          Obama transmitted rising (smoke) clouds to communicate.
         

      A: 伝

Seems like cheating, right? However, I don't think it is for a few reasons. It still requires me to write the character from memory. But more importantly, I know I'm learning them because I remember them when they pop up in other characters. For instance, 臓 (entrails) is made up of 月 (primitive is called "part of the body") and 蔵 (storehouse). My mnemonic story is "When you die, your entrails get put with the other parts of your body in a storehouse." I have to remember "storehouse," which is a fairly complex character in its own right, in order to mark the card correct.

Anyway, by today (Day 4 of the 漢字 Sprint) I should be at 172 to be on track with a rate of 43 per day like I mentioned in the first post. Since I got off to a rough start, I'm only at 150, but I'm pretty happy with that. I'll continue at 50 per day, so I'll be caught up to where I should be within a few days. I'm going to be posting daily about this until I finish, so if I go a day without posting, harass me because it means I didn't learn any characters.

See you at 2593 漢字!

The 漢字 Sprint

So I've gotten fed up with my constant starting and stopping of Heisig. I'm now on a nice, long Christmas break (Dec. 10 - Jan 19). That's 41 days. Since I'm only working part time, I've got plenty of time to work on finishing up RTK/RTH, so that will be my first and foremost goal for the break. I'll continue working through 《鹿鼎記》 but only after I've finished my 漢字 for the day.

In order to finish RTK1, learn all the traditional equivalents of the kanji (旧字体), and the remainder from RTH, I have 1768 to go. Some of them in RTK will be easy because I've learned them before when I was working through (and failed to finish) RTH. Likewise, some when I get to RTH will be ones I've learned before while working through it (got up to 800 or so). And many of the 旧字体 will be easy, because there isn't much change. Kanji 聴� becomes traditional 聽, kanji 覚 becomes traditional 覺, etc.

1768 characters over 41 days comes out to just over 43 characters per day. To be safe, I'm shooting for 50 per day to make up for days that I may not be able to learn them. That may seem like a lot per day, but it really isn't so bad. I've heard of people learning 100 per day straight through RTK, so they finished in 21 days. I'm sure the Anki reviews must be murder afterwards, but they've finished the book. So 50 per day isn't so bad. Plus, as I've mentioned before, the One Kanji, One Picture thread is worth its bandwidth in gold, so the process will be made that much easier.

I did 50 漢字 on Dec. 10, none yesterday (oops), and 75 today. So I'm still pretty much on track (43 times 3 days is 129).

Other goals for the break include continuing to work through A Brief History of Chinese and Japanese Civilizations and some other reading. Here goes.