Update: I’ve read two more chapters of AIJ this week, and I hope to do another tonight. If I can keep up, I’ll be done with it this week, which I’m looking forward to.
Observation: when I’m not feeling well, I do worse on my reviews. For example, the day last week that I didn’t sleep, I got 62% correct, rather than my average of ~75%. Today, when I am ill and feeling it, I have got 62% correct. The exactness of the match is surely a coincidence, but it’s undeniable that I do better when I feel better. Days like this might be good candidates for taking a break from new kanji–I don’t think that vocabulary and sentences are difficult enough to need to give up, but the kanji seem rather more annoying than usual today, so I should perhaps have skipped doing new ones. Perhaps next time I feel unwell, I’ll remember this.
Other things: I’ve watched the first two episodes of Let’s Learn Japanese. The second episode just continued teaching based on the video from the first, and included a repeat of it (more like two repeats, since it showed lots of clips, too). This was a little dull, as the video wasn’t particularly engaging to begin with, and the level of Japanese being taught is less than what I already know. Still, listening practice is good, and I imagine that I’ll learn some things here and there as the series progresses.
I’m not sure how my correct percentage is looking for this week altogether, and I won’t bother checking until the end, but if it is dropping too badly, I may back down to eight or nine new kanji each day. I’ll probably go at this pace for two weeks total before making such a decision, though. Doing fewer kanji would have the benefit of allowing me to do more vocabulary: as it is, I have only 12-14 cards each day left after adding the kanji, which is only barely enough to do one vocab per new kanji (which I’m actually not managing, right now). Ideally, I think I should do at least two vocab per kanji each day–enough to exercise at least one kun and at least one on reading. Of course, this isn’t considering sentences either–each sentence takes two cards, so there’s precious little room left to do those, too. Well, scheduling decisions can be made later, once I have the facts of the situation.
On a completely unrelated note: I made some chocolate pecan sandies, which are quite good, though not a little bitter–I may have used a little too much cocoa. Still, very tasty.
