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I’ve had a problem. For a long while now, I’ve felt too much like Sisyphus and grown increasingly frustrated with my progress into Japanese. Especially the last two or three months. I am a disabled, divorced dad, who gets his kids every Thursday night and every other weekend. The disability already makes using the SRS challenging enough. I have “bad days,” where doing my reps is simply impossible, and I take longer working through reps than my peers do, especially when writing is any part of the task at hand. My kids are the single most important thing in my life, more important than my religion and more important than this language project. So I maintain a great deal of my immersion while I’m with them, but I will not waste any of that time sitting in front of a computer doing flash cards. Sometimes I can get a few reps done after they’ve gone to bed, but not always, and never all of them. Mostly, because of the previously mentioned disability, I try to get rested up while they are sleeping so I can have some energy and attention to give to them the next day.

Usually takes about a half-a-day to a day to recover from these weekend visits. Then, three or four days to dig out from under the pile of backed up reps that accumulated over the weekend. Another three or four days to really fall into my groove. And just about the time I feel I’m really rocking again, making progress, two weeks have gone by and the cycle begins again.

I’ve long believed there should be a way to “pause” the SRS, so no “time” passes for the cards during periods when you cannot get to it. For instance, if you know your going on vacation, you could pause it, deck sits frozen, unpause it when you get back and pick up where you left off. Also, there should be a “rewind” feature for those who lose motivation or forget for a few days or weeks, then try to come back to their decks only to have hundred or even thousands of cards due. It’s so demoralizing to face those huge stacks, I recently spoke with someone who said they’ve deleted dozens of decks for this very reason. I know that it created a lot of mental paralysis for me each returning Monday. But, I’m no developer, or programmer, so until I learn those skills, I can’t really address this problem software side.

I was stumped, and just kept trudging forward, three steps forward, two back, doing my best. But, in the past few weeks some ideas came together for me. From the synthesis of these ideas, I’ve come up with a language acquisition method so easy, so effortless, it makes Lazy Kanji look like some kind of brutal labor camp.

1. Very recently, there was news that Khatz had deleted his entire sentence deck in favor of a new method of his own. I’m not privy to the details of this new method. He is, at least currently, (quite fairly, I’ll add) reserving those for members of his premium service, AJATT +Plus. I have no income, and am currently not a subscriber, but I would be if I could afford to be. What I do know about this method is that it draws on large chunks of text to provide context and relies heavily on cloze deletion and redundancy. This reminded me of another technique I’ve long been fascinated with:

2. Incremental Reading. IR, in short, is feeding lots and lots of reading material into an SRS, and using the SRS’s scheduling features to push material you aren’t ready to read yet out into the future while bringing those items you want to see sooner, closer. It can be a lot more complicated than that, but that’s the most important parts. You can read more about IR here: http://www.supermemo.com/help/read.htm .

3. A few days ago, someone from the #ajatt channel on irc.rizon.net , linked to a youtube channel run by a gentleman known as Fluent Czech. He has lots of interesting and novel ideas for learning languages, many of them approaches very, very different from the AJATT style methods most people I know use, but definitely not the typical, terrible, traditional methods that have failed so many of us in the past. Then, Sunday night I came across this video:

4. Which leads to Ilya Frank’s Reading Method… This method involves reading text in your target language with LITERAL, word-for-word translations inserted directly into the text. You read a paragraph of whatever you are reading WITH the translations, then immediately read that same paragraph without them, and keep moving forward. Here’s a small example of what that looks like:

[ ばあさまは、ももを拾(ひろ)って家(いえ)に帰(かえ)りました。Baasama wa, momo wo hirotte (the old woman, having picked up the peach; hirou) ie ni kaerimashita (returned home; kaeru). 夕方(ゆうがた)になって、じいさまが山(やま)からもどってきました。Yuugata ni natte ([when] the evening came: “when it became the evening”), jiisama ga yama kara modotte kimashita (the old man returned home from the mountains; modoru).

ばあさまは、ももを拾って家に帰りました。夕方になって、じいさまが山からもどってきました。] — Momotarou, Ilya Franks.

I immediately disliked a few things about Frank’s set-up. Firstly, the romaji HAD to go. Second, FluentCzech had the brilliant realization that the literal English meanings should go IN FRONT of the target language. This way your thinking from meaning into the structure and vocabulary of your target language, and not backwards trying to pull your target language into your native tongue. However, even setting this up in a way I’d consider backwards, Franks method has met with lots of success in Russia where he has published HUNDREDS of books formatted this way, three or four a month, and read by thousands of language learners.

5. Finally, I’d been thinking about narrow reading. Narrow reading is reading only books by a specific author or within a certain, small topic or genre so that you experience a lot of repetition of vocabulary and grammar until you’ve mastered that stuff and can move on to a new author or area of interest. This is supposed to make your reading more effective and also build confidence because as you get familiar with the author/topic your reading becomes much easier and faster. What could be more narrow, though, than reading the SAME material, at spaced intervals perfect for keeping the vocabulary and grammar your encountering in working memory?

So, for a few days now, I’ve been making what I’m calling Literal Translation Looped Reading cards. Some from original material (websites, wiki, etc), and also working through all the material Franks has made available to English learners of Japanese on his site. Removing the romaji and re-arranging the translations takes a little editing, but its still very easy and there’s quite a bit here to begin with, saving me much trouble. So, here’s what a typical card looks like:

Front:

(«on a certain day»)ある日(ひ)、(Momotarou came to/appeared before the old man and the old woman),桃太郎(ももたろう)はじいさまとばあさまの前(まえ)へきて、　(sat in a polite position: «neatly/properly»)きちんとすわって　(folded both hands)両手(りょうて)をつき、

「 (thanks to you)おかげさまで、　(I’ve grown up so big)こんなに大(おお)きくなりましたから、 (to the island of the demons)おにが島(しま)へ　(I am going to get rid of/wipe out/vanquish the demons)おに退治(たいじ)にいってまいります。　(please)どうか　(the best: «number one» in Japan kibidango /millet dumplings/)日本一(にっぽんいち)のきびだんごを　(make; つくる — cook, do + くださる — do something for somebody)作(つく)ってください。」　([he] said)といいました。

(the old man and the old woman were surprised)じいさまとばあさまは、びっくりして　(would try to stop [him]; tomeru)とめました　(but)が、(Momotarou would not listen to them at all: «no matter what they said»)桃太郎(ももたろう)はどうしてもききません。

(the old man and the old woman against their will/had no choice but)じいさまとばあさまはしかたなく、(lots of the best millet dumplings in Japan: «large quantity» made)日本一(にっぽんいち)のきびだんごを、たくさんこしらえて、　(made him carry /the dumplings/ on his belt)こしに下(さ)げさせ、　(made him tie a new band/towel /around his head/)新(あたら)しいはちまきをさせ、　(made him put on new /traditional Japanese skirt-like/ trousers “hakama”)新(あたら)しいはかまをはかせ、　(made him wear [a sword at <<his>> side])刀(かたな)をささせ、『([that had] “The Best/Strongest in Japan Momotarou”)日本一(にっぽんいち)の桃太郎(ももたろう)』(written [on it])と書(か)いた (made him take a flag; もつ — have)はたを持(も)たせて、(sent him on his way; おくる + だす /auxiliary verb denoting the beginning of an action/)送(おく)りだしました。

Back:

ある 日[ひ]、 桃太郎[ももたろう]はじいさまとばあさまの 前[まえ]へきて、きちんとすわって 両手[りょうて]をつき、

「おかげさまで、こんなに 大[おお]きくなりましたから、おにが 島[しま]へおに 退治[たいじ]にいってまいります。

どうか 日本一[にっぽんいち]のきびだんごを 作[つく]ってください。」といいました。

じいさまとばあさまは、びっくりしてとめましたが、 桃太郎[ももたろう]はどうしてもききません。

じいさまとばあさまはしかたなく、 日本一[にっぽんいち]きびだんごを、たくさんこしらえて、こしに 下[さ]げさせ、 新[あたら]しいはちまきをさせ、 新[あたら]しいはかまをはかせ、 刀[かたな]をささせ、『 日本一[にっぽんいち]の 桃太郎[ももたろう]』と 書[か]いたはたを 持[も]たせて、 送[おく]りだしました。

So, the task, read through the front, then, read through the back. If you could read it without the literal translations in the text and still understand the “gist” of things, then pass the card.  If you were a bit shaky while going through the passage the second time, fail it. If the card was completely maddening and you didnt understand at all then hit “very easy” and push it way out into the future. Keep doing that until you are finally good enough to read it.

Anyways, that is it in a nutshell. These are SRS cards with almost no test to them. No stress involved, and a big pile of them backed up simply means you have some reading to do. It has taken so much pressure off my studies and made me excited about learning all over again. As I advance, I’ll probably begin leaving out translations for vocab. I already know, but it was recomended to begin with EVERYTHING translated because it is very helpful in internalizing the structure of your target language.  I don’t have any real empirical data of MY OWN yet (although Franks seems to from his studies with Russian learners), but I do know this. Some Japanese idioms which have baffled me for ages suddenly made perfect sense after encountering them with this method.  Any ideas, comments, questions or suggestions, please let me know. Does anyone have any experience using Ilya Franks method in its original form?

Ouch, almost forgot something VERY important. Read through everything in order, but read the English bits silently and the Japanese bits outloud.  Your mind extracts the meaning from the English this way, but what it latches on to is the Japanese. Very important part.

＊＊`A poster named Wayne made some improvements to the deck, and has re-released it under the Anki Shared Decks as “Lazy Kanji Mod V2″. I heartily recommend everyone download this version, as it is 1) more easily customizable, and 2) he’s made some brilliant modifications of his own that you ought to give a try and 3) he’s added a ton of useful information to each of the cards, like links to stroke order references. I’ll also mention you can download the Stroke Order Font and with just a few tweaks have stroke order right on the card. However, if your uncomfortable doing that, or if your working from a mobile device making it difficult to install new fonts, his solution is an excellent one. Anyways, this is the deck that “I’m” using now, so you should too.

Due to a variety of factors involving chronic pain/fatigue and an inability to get medications I need, I found my kanji studies grinding to a halt around #700 in RTK. When my meds ran out, I just could not get motivated to keep going. All that typing up stories, writing kanji, and trying to remember keywords that meant the same thing despite having completely unrelated kanji was just too exhausting, and made my hands and wrists ache. Then Khatzumoto-sempai came up with something that sounded like just the thing for me, Lazy Kanji, which turns the process of memorizing kanji into something more like repeatedly dialing a telephone number until it’s memorized. With renewed hope, I made an initial attempt at some Lazy Kanji cards.

However, what I quickly discovered was that it became too easy to forget about breaking the kanji up into its component parts and I was relying on rote memorization and visual memory. In other words, it was too slow, and even more painful than writing Heisig-novels. A little bit of thought fixed the problem though. A simple modification to the front of the cards could, with little effort, bring back all the benefits of Heisig’s mnemonics without nearly as much work.
So, here’s what the cards look like:

Front
党
The TEENAGER went to a _______ in the LITTLE HOUSE.
Back:
party

The task looks like this. First, write the kanji. Attempt to write it just from glancing at the sentence, if necessary, however, it’s alright to look at the kanji. That’s why its there on the front. Then, look at the kanji and say the keyword out loud. The keyword can be any synonym that carries that meaning. So party, gala, shindig, bonnaroo (joking) would all be correct.

Grading: If I get the keyword and I can write the kanji just from the sentence, I mark it very easy. If I have to glance at the kanji I mark it easy or hard, depending on my feeling about it. Missing the keyword entirely gets it marked wrong.

Adding the fill-in-the-blank sentence does two main things. First, it serves as a reminder to break the kanji up into its components, which is the strongest part of the Heisig method in my opinion. Second, it works as a bit of “context”, providing a mental hook which is easy to grasp on to and gives the brain something familiar to grasp at while learning something that initially looks like random squiggles to it. But, because of the combination of SRS and blending writing and recognition, it is no longer necessary to use complex or wordy stories to memorize with. A simple sentence that links all the primitives together and to the keyword in some sort of logical structure is all that is necessary.

My deck, which contains all the kanji from RTK1, is a shared deck on Anki, and can be found by searching “Lazy Kanji + Mod”. Some of the “stories” are idiosyncratic to my strange tastes and sense of humor, but most of them are generic enough to be useful to anyone. Having worked through all the kanji making the cards, and hundreds of them in late stages of review, I can definitely say that Lazy Kanji is efficient and far more enjoyable than the more traditional method. While your grasp on the kanji will NOT be as strong initially as someone who worked through the book the normal way, over time it will balance out. That’s the power of the SRS combined with motor memory and adult logic.