Well as I mentioned a few posts back that I’m going to gradually get back into studying Japanese, I’ve been trying to work out the best way to go about it whether I should start from scratch with Heisig or continue on from where I left off.

Now I read the post over on alljapaneseallthetime.com where Katz suggests starting from scratch just as if you where first starting to learning Japanese now I though hmm maybe that’s a good idea as obviously there’s going to be a lot of Kanji that I’ve forgotten with such a long brake, but the more I think about it the less I like the idea fair enough we should all know the Kanji if we want to become fluent, but to be honest I really don’t want to sit there for months again studying something that I’ve done before and that I know is somewhere is my memory. To me it would be a waste of time and I’d only get bored and give up.

Now I’ve been reading Japanese text again and watching the odd Anime I’ve noticed that as soon as I remember what a Kanji is or when I look the meaning up again it just jumps back into memory like it was only yesterday I’d learned it, like it was never forgotten in the first place. I just needed to tell my mind that I need the information again and it sticks pretty much instantly. Like they always say once you’ve learned something once it becomes much easier to relearn and remember.

So to be honest I’m not worried I’ve no plans to relearn Heisig as I know the knowledge is already there and I’ll benefit and advance much faster by learning what I want to learn. The only way to truly learn something is to enjoy it and find your own method not that I’m saying Heisig was a bad idea for anybody just starting to learn Japanese its probably the best way to start, but don’t worry about having to do it all again if you have a brake you will find it will soon pop back into memory without any real effort.

As long as you keep in mind that learning a language is easy all it takes is a little time and effort then you’ve nothing to worry about.

So my basic study plan at the moment as I’m going to have to fit this around a tight schedule with my other duties/hobbies is to have a quick scan through a few of my Japanese grammar books to relearn the bits I’ve forgotten (especially recommend Japanese In Manga Land for grammar) and then to start my sentence mining again now I have a better idea how to sentence mine it should be more fruitful. To supplement the study I’ll starting watching some anime again oh and I’ve gotta re watch the GTO live action series easily my favourite Japanese live action so far feel free to recommend others!

I leave you with a funny robot