Tag Archives: memory

Ever noticed how you remember something better when you write it down? On the flip side, did you ever notice that not writing something down is pretty much like asking to forget it? I can’t stress how much learning Japanese requires this. Right from the start, you need to be writing down what you learn as you learn it, or consider it gone. A great way to force yourself into this starts at the Kanji phase. Heisig even recommends in his book (RTK) that you write out the Kanji, but I’d like to take that one step further. Writing it once will help, for sure. It’s certainly better than never writing it at all. However, what I started doing is writing the kanji every time I do my reps. This is a major part of engraving something in your memory. […]

Truthfully, the answer is this; you’re going fast enough when you actually retain the information you are studying. I know we’re all (including myself) tempted to rush things sometimes. This is especially true when you’re not seeing any immediate progress (or at least, you’re not perceiving it as such). But, when it comes down to it, what is immediate progress? Or progress for that matter? Immediate progress is one of the hardest things to see sometimes – especially when working on something for as long of a time span as picking up a new language takes. Immediate progress is the progress you make in a short amount of time. This amount of time is somewhat arbitrary – say a day, or a week. In the span of 2,000 kanji, 25 a day might not seem like much. And by itself, […]