Ganbarimasu : がんばります

Today I've reached 824 in my Anki deck of kanji. But hang on, how many do I think I'm remembering ... ah, er ... somewhere along the way my retention has been dropping further and further. That started around the 600 kanji point where I could remember around 300, but now that I'm up to 800 you'd think I should remember about 400. Nope, that's not happening. I tested myself this morning and found I could remember about 320 of the 800. So what has happened?

When I was remembering 50% I had the SRS (spaced repetition system) configured to review 100 kanji each day. So I would attempt to remember an extra 25 each morning, but I'd review 100. Problem being, that this was taking almost two hours ... which is a significant amount of study to be doing when you are also trying to learn a language. So, I reduced the amount of kanji that I review each day to a mere 25. I'm still progressing through the acquisition of kanji at a rate of 25 per day, but reducing the amount of reviewed kanji reduced my morning session to approximately an hour. My thinking was that my brain switches off after half an hour since the kanji that I remember tend to be top loaded in the first 15 of the 25 kanji I try and learn each day. Spaced learning methodology would say that I should actually study for 15 mins, then take a 10 min break, then do a review activity, break ... and so on. Well, I still want to stick to my goal of learning 2136 kanji in 3 months ... and because I've come this far ... I'm determined not to give up on that goal.

One interesting thing though. As I'm getting further and further into the kanji, I am seeing the same old radicals (or primatives) coming up again and again. Now some people suggest it's worth learning 200 radicals before you start learning kanji ... and of course, in hindsight I can see how that would have helped ... but then on the plus side ... the further I get, the more radicals I remember ... even if I can't remember the name Heisig gave them ... I remember them by names I made up myself. What I'm thinking is that, OK, at the moment, I'm struggling to remember many of the kanji I'm trying to consume in the morning ... but I'm becoming very familiar with all the radicals. Actually piecing together the little families of kanji into their individual compositions is actually becoming easier the further I go ... so I'm thinking that as I get closer to the end of the Anki card deck, the easier it's going to be to make stories that describe the composition.

Well that's the theory at least.

Other news on the kanji learning front. Well, I wanted to buy a Kanji poster for monitoring my progress. It would also act as a central map for deconstruction of the Japanese language (I'm sure I'll be writing another blog cabout that) ... however, when I worked out the cost of purchasing a kanji poster inclusive of postage ... it came to over £30. For that amount of money I decided I might as well just stick to A4 paper and highlighter pens. However, an inquiry of printing costs led me to produce an A3 kanji poster and have it laminated for the princely sum of £1.70. So at least now I have a kanji poster which I can use with a dry marker to show where the kanji gaps are appearing.