How I study Kanji

I've posted how I'm studying Kanji over at the Kanji forum.
If you're a Kanji Master or a Kanji Beginner, why don't you join us over at the forum?
I look forward to hearing how you learn Kanji.

Food and language learning

On page 47, Steve writes:

A Westerner visiting or living in Japan who will only eat "meat and potatoes" and does not enjoy sushi will usually not be successful in learning Japanese.

I had never heard of Steve when this book was published in November 2005. In fact, Steve does not know me. I have only tried a tuna sushi. I liked the soy sauce, but otherwise there was no flavor which I could enjoy or dislike. I don't care for fish. It does not matter whether it is cooked or not. I just don't find it delicious and I have no interest in fish at all. Does that make me a poor language learner?

There are lots of foods I don't eat. Should I just give up on language learning then? I don't drink or smoke. How will I ever be able to socialize with Japanese people?!!

Well, he did say, 'usually.' I guess I will have to be unusual. Anyway, I think I have been unusual my whole life.

J.TEST results

Today, I got the results of my EF Level J.TEST. I took this to compare with the score I got on this level 3 years earlier. This is the low level of the two J.TEST categories. I see that every question is worth exactly 5 points. I missed 4 questions on the listening portion and 3 questions on the reading portion. The highest achievable score on the EF Level is 500 points. I won't be taking this level again. In 2004, the E Level certificate required a score of 350 points. Now you need 400 points to pass the E Level. The F Level still requires 300 points.

EF Level Scores

• 02/2007 465 points
• 02/2004 400 points

Thousand Character Classic

Here is it is! My idea, implemented 1500 years ago. It is called the Thousand Character Classic now. It is a Chinese text written with 4 characters per phrase. Each character is used once and makes a total of 1,000 characters. This is just what I want, except I want one for Japanese, using modern characters and a total of about 2,000.

With something like this, you could practice 8 or 9 lines a day and go through all of it each month, keeping your writing abilities fresh. That wouldn't take up very much time. 9 x 4 = 36. So for 2,000 characters, just 72 a day keeps the Kanji doctor away. That would surely be less than half an hour. I would need a recording of it and then each day I would listen to it and write out the portion for the day.

Here is the Chinese Wikipedia page called 千字文 containing the 1,000 character text. And here is the Japanese page on the subject of 千字文. And here I found the text with a Japanese translation of each line in hiragana 千字文全文.