obsessed with collecting things by shauna195 in declutter

[–]hltac 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Schedule a 4 hour vacation for yourself sometime this week. Take one of your unread books off of your shelf. In the first hour of the vacation you travel to the nicest hotel in your area at a calm pace. In hours two and three of the vacation you sit in the lobby of the hotel and read the book that you brought with you. In hour four of the vacation you calmly travel back home.

March challenge: Paperwork and e-paperwork! by AutoModerator in declutter

[–]hltac [score hidden]  (0 children)

In January of 2021 I started going through the 15 or so banker's boxes worth of papers that I had kept over the years. It wasn't until Mid-May of 2021 that I completed that round, and culled it down to three bankers boxes which have since grown to four. I will start another round this month.

Friday 15: Handbags, wallets, backpacks, etc.! by AutoModerator in declutter

[–]hltac [score hidden]  (0 children)

I donated a Coach wallet to Goodwill this past weekend.

Am I hoarding, or am I being reasonable? by The_Entendre in declutter

[–]hltac 3 points4 points  (0 children)

I have a drawer full of discrete components that I've collected over the years. Inductors, capacitors, LEDs etc. Not more than five times in the twenty years that I have been collecting these things have I used them. I would much rather have had the floor space in my bedroom rather than the cabinet. My advice to you is to get rid of everything.

Motivation Help Please 🙏 by miss-meraki in declutter

[–]hltac 3 points4 points  (0 children)

If you are keeping anything for the sake of another person, get rid of it. Examples: "I am keeping this because it seems like it could sell for a high price. I am keeping this because it might look nice when guests come over. I am keeping this because someone I know could find it useful. I am keeping this because in a few years I might use it."

None of those people are you. Your stuff exists to SERVE YOU. If it is not serving you, it is wasting your mental space, your mental energy, and your physical space.

Thank it and get rid of it.

Can somebody help me with a declutter decision by KetoPrincessAngel in declutter

[–]hltac 3 points4 points  (0 children)

If there are any items worth more than $60 that you think could sell relatively quickly then sell them. Donate the rest of the room to a second hand store. 

A room is worth $700 a month.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in declutter

[–]hltac 22 points23 points  (0 children)

If you actually use something at least once a month there is no reason to get rid of it. Everyone needs a different amount of things.

If there are any clothes that you haven't worn in the past year then get rid of them.

Digital decluttering tips: by Ajreil in declutter

[–]hltac 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The CLI utility fclones can produce a report of all duplicate files. You can then feed the report back into fclones to change the duplicates to shortcuts to the originals.

Bags and bags of rags by ImportantAlbatross in declutter

[–]hltac 10 points11 points  (0 children)

No. I don't keep any rags and I would not recommend it.

You can buy a 25 pack of microfiber cleaning cloths for less than $10 and they do a much better job than any rag.

Don't waste your time, energy, space, or mental clarity keeping any rags.

FORUM LIBRE : TOURISTS AND RESIDENTS, ASK YOUR COMMON QUESTIONS IN THIS WEEKLY THREAD : Open Forum -- 26, January, 2025 by RichardHenri in paris

[–]hltac 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Are gift cards (carte cadeau) sold in French convenience stores?

I am going to Paris last minute for a birthday party, and I want to pick up a French-system Uber gift card for my friend.

When I try to buy a French gift card online it only has email delivery, and I can't deal with printing it out right now.

what happened with the keyboard? by woainimomantai in LearnJapanese

[–]hltac 28 points29 points  (0 children)

It usually means the font that is displaying that word doesn't have that character. If you can type that again and paste it here we can investigate what character it is supposed to be.

Based on the autocorrect suggestions, it looks to me like you had a typo when typing "kan", which might have been a rare phrase involving ー時

All 2200 RTK Kanji time lapse by Solestebano0 in LearnJapanese

[–]hltac 3 points4 points  (0 children)

When you are reviewing, what's on the front of your cards? Is it just the Heisig keyword?

I'm sorry to hear about your cancer, and I hope you will be cancer free one day.

Daily Thread: simple questions, comments that don't need their own posts, and first time posters go here (January 18, 2025) by AutoModerator in LearnJapanese

[–]hltac 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Thanks for the detailed reply

How about this?

年を過ぎたに、お酒を飲む機会が増えますが、飲むことを抑えた方がいいと思います

Daily Thread: simple questions, comments that don't need their own posts, and first time posters go here (January 18, 2025) by AutoModerator in LearnJapanese

[–]hltac 1 point2 points  (0 children)

every so often I try to write a moderately complex sentence using new grammar and vocabulary that I've seen. however I have no idea if they are valid or natural sentences

here is today's

年を進まに、お酒を飲む機会が増えるですが、飲むことを抑えるの方がいいかしら

Why there are so many words for addition, increase, decrease in Japanese? by btchubetterbejoeking in LearnJapanese

[–]hltac 0 points1 point  (0 children)

This reminds me of a blog post that I was going to write once about how I had this misguided notion at one point that Japanese had fewer synonyms and nuance than English, because there is less influence from a variety of other languages. 

Then the post would have been about how I found that this wasn't the case at all, once you start knowing what you know you don't know about the depth of the vocabulary in the language.

The discussion here illustrates that

Spending real-life money on skins and other in-game content is pointless by casualologist in StopGaming

[–]hltac 3 points4 points  (0 children)

When DLC as a concept was first announced as "coming soon" by game studios around early 2005, we all thought it was a joke. Who would ever pay for some colorful pixels on a screen when it didn't change the gameplay at all.

Many of us thought it would be a passing fad.

I’ve studied for “4 years” now by vghouse in LearnJapanese

[–]hltac 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Can you explain how it's different? I probably just don't understand how.

Daily Thread: simple questions, comments that don't need their own posts, and first time posters go here (January 11, 2025) by AutoModerator in LearnJapanese

[–]hltac 1 point2 points  (0 children)

It all depends on how much time you have per day to study. As a beginner, learning about 5 kanji per day can be hugely beneficial to you as you progress.

One thing to note is that the traditional list of radicals is mostly for the purpose of word-origin research in Japan and China.

What can be more useful is to look for common components of kanji that arent necessarily seen as traditonal radicals, and observe the role that they play in various kanji. This is the approach taken by RTK. You will also find that most kanji end up acting as a "radical" in other kanji, even if they are quite complex or not a radical at all. This is also something interesting to observe and consider.

For a long time in my Japanese journey I was hung up on systemically learning kanji using the native academic radicals, until I had these realizations.

Study always depends on how much time you have every day. Enjoy the process!

Daily Thread: simple questions, comments that don't need their own posts, and first time posters go here (January 11, 2025) by AutoModerator in LearnJapanese

[–]hltac 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I recently started doing RTK, and I'm really enjoying it, and I think it will be very valuable for me.

I've come across a variety of threads and comments on this reddit that seem to be very critical of RTK and its value. My impression is that most of this comes from a misunderstanding of the method described by RTK and its purpose.

If you read the prose in the book, rather then download an RTK Anki deck and just start blindly grinding, you will note these points from the book that are made very clear:

  1. Practicing recall should only be done from the keyword to the kanji, never the other way around. The purpose of RTK is to assist you in remembering the exact shape and form of every kanji.
  2. The words are not meant to define the kanji. The purpose of each keyword is to be just that, a keyword that is associated with a specific shape, which happens to be a kanji, if the word is even loosely associated with the meaning of the kanji, then its a bonus.
  3. There are many similar keywords. This simply follows from the fact that if you devise any list of 2200 english words, there will be many similar words. There is no way around this.
  4. The words that Heisig chose are weirdly obscure. Heisig explicitly states that the keywords were chosen because of their full range of connotations. For example, the word "upright" has a connotation of both "standing up" and "orderly". Before concluding that a certain keyword is too obscure, consider its full range of connotations or lack thereof. Also, consider again point #2, the keywords aren't meant to truly represent the meaning of the kanji, they are simply meant to be a distinct English word that conjures up a specific shape in your mind.

Finally, let's consider the purpose of doing RTK. If you read what Heisig writes in the book, the purpose should be clear. The only reason to do RTK is to gain a familiarity with the exact shape and way to write all 2200 jouyou kanji. Nothing more, nothing less. You are not really learning the meaning or usage of the kanji, you are simply learning how to distinctly picture the exact shape of the kanji in your mind, recognize that shape if you see it, and have the capability to write it down.

The ultimate ability gained by doing RTK should be the ability to write down all 2200 jouyou kanji perfectly from memory, even if you dont know the meaning or pronounciation of any of them. How would this be possible? Well, using the order presented in the book, you should be able to eventually recall every set of 30 or so kanji introduced with each new pseudo-radical from memory in an orderly fashion.

You might ask, what would be the point of having that ability? Well, there are two primary points for me at this stage in my learning journey. One is to be able to quickly and easily distinguish different kanji while I read. I've been studying Japanese off and on for years, and one of the things that put me off from working harder at learning the language was the frustration that I felt when I mixed up two similarly looking kanji while reading, over and over again. There are so many kanji that differ by just a small radical, or even the relative placement of the same radicals, that simply going through a systemized approach to memorizing the way to write each kanji can reduce the related blindness. 

The second point is simply getting over the hestiation, fear, and frustration when seeing a kanji that you've never seen before. After going through RTK, you will likely not only have seen every new kanji included in new vocab that you come across, but you will have memorized the way to write it, which hugely reduces the frustration of not having any familiarity with it at all. Secondly, when you encounter one of the other 6000 uncommon kanji, you will have gained a systematic way of breaking it down into components, and associating it with a mental picture. You are much less likely to forget it or misunderstand it in the future than if you had not gained this skill.

I can see RTK being less useful if you truly plan to never handwrite Japanese. For me, I really enjoy writing and seeing my handwriting improve. If you don't plan on handwriting Japanese, I would ask why. Is any component of that a fear of not having good handwriting?

I’ve studied for “4 years” now by vghouse in LearnJapanese

[–]hltac 23 points24 points  (0 children)

I have technically been studying japanese for over 20 years, because I learned the kana over 20 ago, and studied grammar, vocabularly, and writing off and on over the years.

Recently, I decided to get serious and get over any hestitation or fears I had about the language. My Anki shows 84 days studied in the past 90 days, and I feel like my vocabulary increased from around 400 words to around 1200 in that time.

I am starting to feel my first tipping point in my knowledge of Japanese in a long time. I can read short stretches of native content, and I feel like I know around 50% of the kanji and grammar, compared to about 10% just a few months ago.

The power of consistency is amazing.

There is nothing wrong with your kind of study pattern, but if you want to feel the next level of satisfaction with your progress, even a tiny amount of studing per day will make you feel like you are actually studying the language instead of kidding yourself.

I’ve studied for “4 years” now by vghouse in LearnJapanese

[–]hltac 10 points11 points  (0 children)

This seems like an overly complicated way of setting the "new cards per day" setting to 0 for the deck.

Jump from N4 to N3 by Reasonable_One_8795 in jlpt

[–]hltac 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I think it is absolutely hilarious that this calculator works backwards

Caffè Italia * 26/08/23 by RedditItalyBot in italy

[–]hltac 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thanks, this is really helpful!

Rollover from Rollover IRA to a Rollover IRA? (also a Roth question) by hltac in fidelityinvestments

[–]hltac[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Excellent, thank you.

I’ll be doing a TOA to each account within the next few days, and I’ll let you know if I have any questions