Conquering Kanji!

Although this is not related to programming but I have to do this. My target now is to memorize all 2000++ kanji's in 4 weeks!

I have already passed level 2 four years ago and planning to take level 1 in July.

Here is my method. I'll be using Heisig and Stackz software for PocketPC. Everyday I'm planning to memorize at least 100 Kanji's. I will spend about 3 hours a day (Train, lunch time, and when I'm not programming...) This is WAR! No more Mercy!

After 2 weeks...

Ok now I have managed to gone through all the 2,050 kanji's in Heisig's book. One tip I can give you is not to spend so much time on a single Kanji. The maximum time to create associations or in other words to memorize is about 2mins. (I made sure that my pocketpc screen will turn black after 2 mins). Why??? Well spending so much time on a particular Kanji won' t really help you a lot. The main thing is repetition. Do your associations fast and go on to the next Kanji and repeat until you are tired of looking at that particular Kanji.

The thing with studying Japanese is you have to do it fast and be really aggressive about it. I know a lot of people who's living over 10 years in Japan and yet they are not fluent in Japanese. So don't think that you can be fluent by just asking a few questions, can read a couple of Kanji's or can communicate with your peers at work. Remember this! if they know you are a foreigner they will not use natural Japanese on you... Somehow they will use easy to understand Japanese because they know you are not a native. That for me sucks! You know I'm right! right???

If you want to be good in Japanese you got to sleep, eat nothing but Japanese. Study, study, study and apply it on every opportunity! That's the key! So why am I not doing that before? Because I thought I'll be good in Japanese because I'm in Japan. I bet you are too that's why you are reading this.

Ok now I'm psyched up! I'll bet level 1 is just a walk in the park. :)