So it’s been a couple of days since I’ve started James Heisig’s First Kanji Book, Remember the Kanji: A Complete Guide on How Not to Forget the Meaning and Writing of Japanese Characters. The report is that I haven’t given up… Somehow between the actual chance at remembering them and the fact I should/need to learn them has driven me to keep up with my study.

However, truth be told– the reason I’m continuing is that I’m actually seeing *real* progress… Or, at the very least, what I think (or hope) to be progress. As far as where I’m at– I’ve just completed PART One… 276 characters from 1 to Tranquilize.

To assist me in this challenging endeavor I have my co-worker Brian who is constantly on my tail (1-2 lessons behind me). Him and I work to “review the kanji” on our lunch breaks, as well as, keep each other motivated to continue on to all 2,042. To help Brian and I is a number of technologies (Computer & Text) to keep us fresh and up to date..

Anki: Anki (Pronounced “onk-key”) is a SRS flashcard type program that catalogs cards which you deem to Easy in the back of the deck… and hard-to-remember cards in front.. It’s designed basically to help anyone remember anything effeciently.

Kanji Koohii Reviewing the Kanji: (affectionately called K-squared by Brian and me) is a great resource for those specifically following along with the Heisig book… It has an extensive online library of sentences to use, it’s own SRS (like Anki), and a forum of folks like me trying to ‘remember the kanji.’

My Ipod Touch: Essentially my ipod touch has become a mobile Anki station, K2, and kanji review-on-the-go. I have ‘anki-mini’ setup on it, study arcade, and a link to k2 in my safari bookmarks…

My Tablet PC: Used to run Anki + the nifty touch screen to practice kanji in Anki… What can I say.. Tablet PC’s rock..

Notebooks & Index Cards: You’ve probably seen the cards stacked up in the pictures in both the last post and this one… No joke– Index cards really can’t be replaced with all the tech the in the world for two reasons: Physically writing (with a pencil) words, kanji, and sentences literally inscribe this stuff into your mind– Second, having an actually tangible card to look at, shuffle, review with just is awesome/helpful.. Plus if your tech breaks, gets deleted, burned, whatever– cards act as the ‘ultimate’ backup source. I was debating if I do cards for lessons 13-19 (Part 2) only because we’re talking an additional 231 index cards on top of my current 276+ cards for a whopping 507 cards!! Well my answer is yes… but for Part 2 I won’t write a story on the card.. instead I’ll write it in my notebook I’m calling “the RTK Story book”.

Ok well that’s it.. more to come later…

Two weeks till I hear from the Japanese Exchange & Teaching Program.
~J out

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