As
one of the first steps in the road to learning Japanese, completing
Heisig's book
is a major milestone achievement. Unfortunately, when we finally
reach these kinds of achievements there is a sense of loss and a
feeling of being
lost lurking behind the excitement. This post will hopefully remind
you of how far you've come and give you somewhere new to go.
The
first thing to keep in mind is that you aren't done reviewing.
While the book may be finished, you still have a lot of information
to work on retaining. The best thing to do at this point is set a
daily review number for kanji – 100, 50, whatever – and make sure
that you review them each day. Continue using your learning tools
to keep up. Rejoice in the fact that now your reviews will begin to
taper down until you eventually only spend five minutes on kanji each
a day.
The
next thing to remember is that you are now cleared to focus entirely
on building your vocabulary.
With the kanji
and kana
under your belt, you are now an unstoppable Japanese-learning
machine. Start browsing around
for some manga series you want to read, or some new music,
youtube/niconico videos, whatever. Start doing the things you've been
wanting to do in Japanese and begin adding sentences to Anki.
You're now able to recognize and understand all of the kanji, so make
use of your skills to build your knowledge.
Finally,
remember what you have achieved. Upon completing the book you might
feel confused and maybe even feel like you've wasted your time. Don't
do this.
You've taken the most difficult part of learning Japanese and
mastered it. The kanji are now yours. You can write them, recognize
them, and soon you'll be able to understand them completely. Using
Remembering the Kanji is like making an investment for the future,
and now that you've finished the book it's time to collect. Go out
and reap the benefits that your kanji knowledge will bring.
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This is exactly the information I was looking for. Actually following through with the steps isn't the difficult part, so much as figuring out what those steps actually are.
ReplyDeleteGreat article. I must admit I was rather lost after finally completing RTK, as well as a huge feeling of accomplishment of course.
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