A TRUE STUDY! MINDLESS REPETITION DOESN'T WORK! PROVEN THRU MEMORIZING JAPANESE

[Spatula]

HEAR YE HEAR YE!

I just finished memorizing all of the Japanese Katakana in about 2 hours.  ALL OF IT!
Compare that to taking over 2 months to learn all of the Japanese Hirigana (which is the same number of characters). 

NILS! THIS HAS ALMOST EVERYTHING TO DO WITH PIANO MEMORIZATION SO DON’T DELETE!

BERNHARD AND CC!!!!!! oneoneoneoneoneone  I WANT TO KISS YOU! 

The difference: Mindless repetition vs.  Actual thinking and applying memory tricks like pictures and sounds

First off, I wanted to see if rewriting the same kana over hundreds and hundreds of times would actually make it sink into my head and memorize through repetition.  The result, a miserable failure that resulted in perhaps a 20% yield in memory of what the kana looked like.

Now I thought to myself, think about it, I’m spending about a day per kana and that would mean it would take about 40 – 50 some days just for one alphabet, now that’s slow progress.  I’d fail if I were taking a Japanese course at the university level, which was what I was originally planning to.

I also noticed that my kana skills sped up when I actually started to test myself and test my memory instead of mindlessly repeating the same character WHILE looking at the reference. It obviously didn’t work because my mind wasn’t using its memory power, and just idling away.

Just this night, I was done eating dinner and wanted to work out, but my mom wouldn’t let me run right after dinner. So after doing some chores, I decided to carry on with my Japanese (nihongo) studies.  I was about to start doing the same old crap of writing it out hundreds of times then test.  But this is the most ineffective way, and I’ve already proven it to myself.

So here was the new approach.  Instead of writing it all out mindlessly, I repeated the same kana (alphabet) about maybe 20 times.  Then I immediately moved to the next kana and wrote that out 20 times.  I did this for all the 40 some katakana.  After that,  I decided to write it out on a table format,  and all the vowels across the top and the consonants on a line. 

I started to write.  Obviously the first part of the memorization didn’t go so well.   I only got maybe 5 memorized.  But again I made the same table again and tried again, now looking closely at the ones I didn’t get.  This second time around I got maybe 10 memorized.  I could actually see some improvement.  Eventually I kept doing this until maybe I forgot only 2 or 3 kana.  ALL THIS IN 2 HOURS!!! 

If you’re curious, for those of you who take Japanese, I kept forgetting what “Mo” and “Me” looked like. 

Also, I didn’t just try to memorize the shape of the kana, but I tried to put a picture to it.  There was a handy little book that helped with this and now I will probably not forget these since they are associated with a picture of something, therefore it kinda just clicks.

Imagine if I used this technique to memorize pieces, not just what they sound like, but where the hands go etc.!!!!!!!!!!

This calls for mega oneoneoenoenoenoeneoenoeneon!!!!!!!!!!!11111111111 oneoneoenon!

[Spatula]

Now for the kanji (chinese characters, I never taken chinese school, so I'm at a disadvantage)

https://www.thejapanesepage.com/

For the Hiragana/Katakana

https://members.aol.com/writejapan/katakana/writutor.htm

[sleepingcats]

Spatula,

If you are very serious and want to learn the Kanji, a great reference "bible" would be Andrew Nelson's "The Modern Reader's Japanese-English Character Dictionary".

I grew up speaking Japanese but only reading hiragana & katakana, not kanji. When I decided to take Japanese in high school for an easy "A", it was a challenge to learn the kanji, but my Dad had a copy of this book (1st edition from 1962). It took a while to get the hang of using it correctly because you learn to recognize the radicals, but then it became so much easier. No, I still can't read all kanji - I just ask my Mom to translate - but when I do see some, I recognize the radicals, and I can better have an idea what the entire character may have to do with.

[Spatula]

I'm still working on grade 4 kanji, I only maybe know 60 of them....how sad.. out of 2000

[puma]

I studied Japanese for three years college level - and have yet to learn all of the kanji.  There are just so many ... but the book mentioned above will help.  Flash cards.  Learning the 'radicals.'  And yes, if you try to produce from the mind rather than just staring at the materials, that will also help.  I've found Japanese a rewarding language - very beautiful.   Ganbattekudasai! (good luck)

[dolce cantabile]

yeah...I learnt it for 7 years, took the JLPT level 2 and it has never been so rewarding... even visited Japan 3 times
Learning a new language can give you insight to a new culture....

[steinwaymodeld]

I'm still working on grade 4 kanji, I only maybe know 60 of them....how sad.. out of 2000

There is only 2000 kanji in Japanese?

I think in traditional chinese we have much more than that (something tens of thousands)