Learning to Read and Write Kanji Row 19

As with other posts in this series, this is the results of a test I took today, July 5th, 2021.

kanji test row 19

歩 速 急 降 心 頼 自 道 米 先 不 配 天 成 便 利 市 券 横 料 多 安 乗 軽 平 貸 個 忙 重

I got one wrong on this row, 乗 missing the first stroke. Anyone can recognize this kanji, so I don't consider it against my score. I forgot 横 from row 16. This demonstrates that I am actually losing the difficult kanji from each row that doesn't get repeated by my random system. That's bad news, so I need a fix in the form of a test that only tests hard kanji -- random kanji are not good enough. I got the same reminder on July 3rd when I did a big test (20 completely random kanji, equivalent to two normal tests but no row-specific kanji) and got 7 wrong (65%). At least my methods produce consistent answers. Anyway, I drew 道 wrong and wrote the wrong reading (みち would have been correct). I think of 通り meaning road because it means traffic, pass through, avenue, and commute. I drew 科 instead of 料 but got the right reading. This is because I'm confused between these two kanji. Hopefully that will resolve. So which of these are readable? Only 乗, which means I got 90%, not great but not bad. Looking over it again, I got the reading of 米 wrong, but that shouldn't harm my ability to read much. I'll remember to memorize the reading.

I nearly passed the test yesterday. I was hoping that last week's revelation would provide a new more effective way of learning kanji. I didn't use it much this week, so I still don't know whether it's better than random tests.

Today I think I'll finish watching Trigun for probably the 8th time. This is the first time I've watched it in high quality or with commercials. Commercials (bad ones) definitely harm the experience, but it was still possible to watch. It's pretty easy to justify buying Trigun having watched it 8 times now. It feels like something I'll have to save up for or something like that. If we consider it as education (watching without subs would be an interesting experience for sure) the budget is definitely there, but another series might be a better choice considering I've already watched Trigun 8 times. Trigun is long enough (26 episodes) that it's difficult to remember all the small plot points (hence the replay value) and so it's possible to learn some on each rewatch. This one was particularly valuable. I wish I had a list of words and phrases I grabbed, but I didn't take the time to write them all down. There were too many.

Having successfully completed this series, I suppose I have to pick a different one. I was watching 呪術開栓 (Jujutsu Kaisen) and 化物語 (Bakemonogatari) (both on vrv) looking for a good anime to watch. My plan was to watch Irresponsible Captain Tylor and Trigun. I have a substantial part of Irresponsible Captain Tylor on DVD, so that will be much easier to watch or even binge than Trigun or the other two (no commercials).

Other things: I've been playing NES Tetris again. I'm not improving, so I think I need to improve my game rather than keep on trying to learn at 15 and 18 speeds. That will have to wait on other things going on in my life. Indeed I planned a vacation for today through Thursday after my car was diagnosed and improved by a mechanic. Because I don't have a Discover Pass, that plan is either going to be delayed until tomorrow or another day. I have quite a lot of other things to do here in front of the computer, so I'm not sure this is a great time for that. That said the next few days are good for stargazing, so it's really a question of when should I go if not this week?

I finished Undeniable by Bill Nye. Watch out for a book review soon.

There are not a whole lot of rows left from MIT OCW Japanese classes. The last row is 26 I believe. At 1 week per row, that gives us 7 more weeks. Since I did row 5 on May 15, that's a bit more than 7 weeks ago, so we're over half way. The reason I feel like this is almost done is because row 21 is the end of Japanese 4. Row 22-26 are Japanese 5 and they are long rows split in two in the original html.

I'm still using JapanesePod101.com lessons, some days more than others. It's not that difficult to download and listen to these podcasts, the problem is attention. In order to actually learn the content I need attention and that's something I'm not quite ready to give up. Each lesson is approx 15 minutes, the ones I can understand are slow, so it's difficult to deal with. It's really designed for people who want slow growth and I've always been focused on fast learning -- until now. Memorizing ~15 kanji per week is quite slow in comparison to methods you find on Youtube or other sites. 90% retention (or less in some cases) is also not an awesome result. The question is why I have intentionally slowed myself instead of using a technique I've heard about is a question of drawing. I realize that drawing kanji is an unnecessary skill. We have computers that can do all that for us now. We can carry them around and we can even have a computer recognize kanji from a photo. If I went for recognition and meaning only, I'd get a pretty good result for my intended purpose (reading manga, understanding conversation, and playing visual novels). At what cost? Well, if I wanted to learn to write, I'd be doing so from almost scratch. The brain does not store how to draw kanji when it learns to recognize kanji. This way I feel like I'm getting both at the same time. This question of getting kanji wrong (90% and such) is on ability to draw the kanji and remember the reading from the English. Recognition I have closer to 95% success rate.

You may have noticed the kanji 平成 in the list. This is not even a little bit coincidental. This class was made during the 平成 era which ended just 2 years ago (8 January 1989 - 30 April 2019). The current era is 令和. So a similar class would study 令和. But 和 is from row 3, so we'd only need to learn 令. Look how similar it is to 今.

Until next time!

I'll hopefully post all tests as I pass them. Wish me luck.

Previous episodes:
Learning to Read and Write Kanji
Learning to Read and Write Kanji Row 5
Learning to Read and Write Kanji Row 6
Learning to Read and Write Kanji Row 7
Learning to Read and Write Kanji Row 8
Learning to Read and Write Kanji Row 9
Learning to Read and Write Kanji Row 10
Learning to Read and Write Kanji Row 11
Learning to Read and Write Kanji Row 12
Learning to Read and Write Kanji Row 13
Learning to Read and Write Kanji Row 14
Learning to Read and Write Kanji Row 15
Learning to Read and Write Kanji Row 16
Learning to Read and Write Kanji Row 17
Learning to Read and Write Kanji Row 18

Javantea out.

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