Travis Vroman

Does time-boxing work? Like many things, there’s no clear-cut “yes” or “no” answer here. It all depends on how you apply it. It may work for some, while not for others. It works for me. First, let’s back up a few steps. What is Time-boxing? The term “time-boxing” basically is the practice of allocating a “box” of time to something, and sticking to that without fail. The idea is to stick to this as if it’s the law, and there would be serious penalties if broken (sometimes this is actually the case!). Who needs it, and why? Anyone with time management issues can possibly make use of time-boxing. It’s not just about that though. It also has to do with managing what you do with that time, and accepting the fact that sacrificing things sometimes is ultimately the answer. To […]

Well, almost. I’m actually at 299, but that’s just details. That makes me about 1/7th of the way there! At around 400 it’ll be 1/5th. to me, this seems huge, although I’m really far off from being able to read much of anything yet. This also doesn’t take into account compound kanji, but I’m okay with that. That is another step down the road. I may be slowing down a bit because I’ve come to realize something that I’ve been missing so far. Most of what I read has been telling me to memorize from keyword to kanji, not the other way around. I’m not so sure I agree with this only because when I look at Japanese text, I recognize the symbols, but will be damned if I can remember what they mean. So, I’m going to take a […]

おはようございます！ As some have probably already found, there is a kana table provided here on the site. However, the format just wasn’t as user-friendly as I would have liked, so I’ve changed some things. I revamped and split the table into two tables: one for Hirigana and the other for Katakana. These are printer friendly for convenience. The reason I created these was simple – most of the tables out there that I found sucked. Either they were an image (which means you can’t copy the characters) or they were poorly formatted and looked terrible or worse – they were hard to follow. These include the so-called “extended” characters, not just the regular 46 “pure sounds”. There’s a link to the table at the top and left of this site. Also, here.

Yes, I know it sounds completely cliche’, but there’s a lot of truth to that expression. I missed a day of reviewing anything Japanese this weekend (bad, I know) and it affected me far more than I ever thought possible – especially since I’ve only been at it a few weeks. It’s kindof like playing an instrument. For instance, I used to play the drums a few years back. I stopped because of time constraints with college. I was so busy trying to finish school projects, build and tweak my portfolio and search for a job in the industry that the drums did little more than collect dust. As a result, I lost most of what I had gained – I can no longer play for 3 hours straight (fast tempo rock type stuff) without batting an eye. Now I’m […]

Not to say that I’m far enough along to be set in my ways yet, but what I’m doing thus far seems to be effective. Basically I have been doing a lesson in RTK every day, with the exception of lessons that are over about 3 kanji. I start off by writing the kanji in my sketchbook, along with it’s keyword meaning. I then take on board the author’s ‘story’ behind each kanji, and use that to come up with my own. Once I’ve done this, I head over to Reviewing the Kanji  and enter all of that into a card there. Then, I review the cards, and come back to any I’ve failed a few hours later (not right away). Update: I now use Anki with the Lazy Kanji Mod for my reviews. When I go back to failed […]

I just hit my 94th Kanji today – that’s almost 百 (a hundred)! I know, it’s not that many, considering there’s about 2,100 common use kanji out there. But hey, it’s a start. Funny thing also, when I look at pages in Japanese, I’m beginning to recognize some of them. Not enough to make sense of it all yet, but I can make out a few. Even with those things in mind, my Japanese still sucks. And in the words of Katsumoto (from AJATT), I’m trying to suck a bit less every day at it. I’ve also been listening to last.fm for a bit now, and have stumbled onto some bands that I really enjoy listening to (or at least the songs I’ve heard so far). They are: Girugamesh Deathgaze D’espairs Ray High and Mighty Color exist†trace Of course, these […]

Updated 7/12/2011. Immersion. From everything I’ve seen/read/heard, immersion is quintessential to learning not just Japanese, but anything, really. If you think about it, it’s how you learned English in the first place – assuming, of course, that it’s your first language. Or, perhaps it isn’t; in which case you would still need to learn via immersion if you really want to get good at it. Let’s back up a few paces and glance at what immersion is from afar. Immersion is basically surrounding yourself with what (language, in this case) you are trying to learn. Full immersion is completely cutting all ties (within reason, of course) to your primary language and converting/changing all those things around you to be in the language you are striving to learn. This includes a lot more than you might consider at first. Obviously one […]

Updated: 4.14.13 Since this page was very similar to the content already present on the Links page, I’ve decided to combine the two pages into one uniform list so everything is kept up to date. Check out the Links page here. See Also: Table of Contents Overview of the Method  

I began studying Japanese in April of 2011. Looking back, I’ve been wanting to visit Japan for a long time (years). I’m not one hundred percent where this came from, but I do have a couple ideas. Let’s start with the fact that the Japanese make some of the best video games ever created (Final Fantasy VII, anyone?). I’ve also always been a huge fan of manga. Now, I know what this sounds like, and before you proceed with that line of thought: Those are not the primary reasons behind this. I’m not some fan-boy writing articles about 可愛い (かわいい/kawaii/cute) anime women. In fact, to be brutally honest, I’ve never understood that mentality. Not to hate on anyone that does (as I have many friends who I’d consider お宅), but what’s the point? Anyway, let’s move on. Actually, the main […]

Welcome. First and foremost, welcome to travisvroman.com. Dedication I’d like to dedicate this site to my fiancee, who has, up to this point (and for the foreseeable future) put up with enormous amounts of my crap – I mean, who loves me dearly. She’s probably the only person in the world who can deal with my crap on a regular basis and *not* want to kick me in the nuts balls reproductive appendages. I’d also like to dedicate this site to me, since it’s going to take a metric crapton of work to build, maintain and update it. Who the hell am I, and why is this site here? I am Torabisu. Currently (at the time of writing), I live in Florida in the U.S. This is me (and my better half): This site (as the name suggests) is mainly […]