Hi there once again everyone! As some of you recommended, I've decided to give Core a "try" and I'm back with a couple of question related.

I managed to finish RTK on Jan 1 (!) and started to do Core right away. The thing is, I like to focus on things to get them out of the way asap. As some of you may remember, I finished Genki 2 last month so I already knew some words or at least heard them, but I didn't know the kanji for many of them. These words typically present no issue, save a few exceptions.

However, Core 2k has a *whole bunch* of words I never saw in Genki. Not only that, there are a few words in Genki that aren't even in Core 10k. The other day, I decided to SRS pretty much all Genki 1 vocab I could find in the deck, including the words I didn't know. During the last 8 days, I managed to add 1938 words (recognition only)... but I've been asking myself a couple of things.

(1) This much practice has definitely helped me when it comes to readings. I even went out of my way and decided to SRS a handful of words with readings that proved difficult at first.

However, I can always see the kanji, which helps me recall both the meaning of the word and the pronunciation. That means many of the new verbs and words I've seen are just fuzzy... I can remember the reading sometimes, but I'm probably unable to recall the rest of these new verbs clearly.

Would that be an issue for someone who mostly wants to watch anime and read visual novels comfortably asap for the time being? I don't really know how well most people do once they finish Core... I don't know if they're generally able to remember these things, which seems a little difficult to me without exposure to the language itself. It would be great to hear what you guys think about this.

I wonder if reading visual novels will be easier than watching anime if I keep doing this. I mean, readings and knowing the meaning of kanji is certainly a skill you can develop, but there isn't enough time to process stuff like that in oral speech. Unless you pause the video constantly and maybe watch it with Japanese subtitles... but I feel unless you're pretty good overall, that could make it very difficult to follow what's going on.

(2) I've noticed that sometimes I'm able to remember a word temporarily, but I know I'll forget it by the time the next review comes. I find myself kind of staring at the kanji but not recalling the reading nor what it means. Is there a more advisable way to handle these words so that they actually stick... like, maybe writing them down and looking at them a couple of times during the day or something (that would probably slow down my reviews though, which sucks? I don't know.

(3) I've been solely focusing on Core lately. Like, almost all day long. I'm not how much I should do with Core before I go to Tobira though. Right now, I'm thinking about doing the first 2-3k words or maybe even the whole 6k deck depending on what you guys think about what I mentioned in (1). In addition, I think it may be a good idea to preemptively add all vocabulary in Tobira. Thoughts?

(4) Bonus question (not related to Core) - I haven't been able to internalized some of the grammar taught in Genki 2 - i.e. I may have to do some thinking when I see some of them and perhaps might have to go back to the explanation to make sure I understand what I'm reading.

Would going over these grammar points again with a DOBJG or Tae Kim be a good idea? I'm not sure about doing that because I don't know if that'll actually help me internalize it much better than just moving on to Tobira. I'm also thinking about doing Tae Kim's deck as it might be helpful, but I'm a little skeptical of that. By the way, I'm not sure if this important with Tae Kim's deck, but I suck at Anki and failed to switch the cards it to Cloze format (FML).

[Zgarbas]

General answer: as fast as you can without burning out. If you feel that at the end of the day it was overwhelming, then do fewer words. Remember that SRSing means that the real burden will start a few weeks from now, so don't overdo it from the get-go.
1) you're a beginner. Any progress in any field is still progress that you need at this point. You can worry about individual skills a bit later. However, it is useful to add sentences or listening exercises to aid for actual reading skills and listening comprehension... but you don't have to do everything at once.
2) writing down really helps, but it also adds a lot of time to your reviews. Personally, I found the time investment not worth it at the time, but kind of wish I'd spent more time on writing in hindsight. It depends on what you want to do with Japanese, really. And don't worry if you don't remember a word tomorrow, that's what SRS is for: repeated exposure until it gets drilled into your head.
3) I find that getting vocab out of the way helps with learning grammar, especially since the core decks also feature sentences and you get some of the grammar in your head. It's a matter of preference, really... I spent about 3 months doing only core drills before studying grammar and sentences, and it worked for me. Keep in mind that SRS is just fancy vocabulary drills, so it has diminishing returns; if you do a bit of more activities it keeps you more entertained in the long-run and you get to practice a wider variety of skills... but again, you're just starting out, so you have plenty of time to experiment.
4) it's natural to not internalise grammar instantaneously, you get the hang of it with practice and exposure. However, I always recommend DoBJG, and it has an anki deck so you can practice the sentencces as well. No real use to go through tae kim since Genki already covers all the material there; keep going forward, not endlessly revising the same material.

This is a personal preference, but I find cloze decks terribly tedious and I think what you end up doing is memorising the sample sentences, rather than actually practising Japanese... but that's just me.

I'm not sure I follow when you say you "recommend DoBJG". When I mentioned DoBJG and Tae Kim, I meant it as a means to review the stuff I've seen in Genki briefly. But most people don't go through everything in there systematically as they do with a textbook... do you mean I should use it as a reference as I move along, perhaps as a means to further my understanding of new grammar topics I stumble upon in the future?

By the way, thanks a lot for the reply. I'm putting so much time into Japanese lately, so I really appreciate it.

(2016-01-09, 1:02 am)FlameseeK Wrote: I'm not sure I follow when you say you "recommend DoBJG". When I mentioned DoBJG and Tae Kim, I meant it as a means to review the stuff I've seen in Genki briefly. But most people don't go through everything in there systematically as they do with a textbook...  do  you mean I should use it as a reference as I move along, perhaps as a means to further my understanding of new grammar topics I stumble upon in the future?

By the way, thanks a lot for the reply. I'm putting so much time into Japanese lately, so I really appreciate it.

I only ever used DoBJG as a reference, but some people do read it cover-to-cover and add the DoBJG anki deck to their reviews.

As for the learning kanji without the sound problem... that's why i always add a kana version of the card first, and then add the kanji version to my reviews later. It's not exactly the same as testing on listening, but i can't be bothered to add sound clips to all my cards and it makes sure at some level that i know the pronunciation of the word. Or an approximation of it... kana spelling is not quite the same as knowing the pronunciation as it doesn't explicitly show devoiced vowels or pitch accent, probably a few other subtle things too.

"I decided to SRS pretty much all Genki 1 vocab I could find in the deck, including the words I didn't know. During the last 8 days, I managed to add 1938 words (recognition only)... but I've been asking myself a couple of things."

I thought both Genki 1 and 2 had a combined total of about 1700 to 1800 words? Either I am wrong or I am not understanding you.


As for words not sticking. I am the same way with new RTK stuff. Read the entry, write it out 5 times while digesting the elements then 3 repeats on the learning phase of Anki and then next say fail anywhere from 20% to half of the new ones, and restart them at 3 learning steps, fail about 10 percent of the original amount on the third day, but it eventually sticks. My mature count keeps going up.

As mentioned above, let Anki do it's job. All hail Anki.

[Zgarbas]

I actually read the dictionaries of grammar cover-to-cover and did the entire sentence collection on anki ^^'

(2016-01-09, 1:18 am)SomeCallMeChris Wrote: As for the learning kanji without the sound problem... that's why i always add a kana version of the card first, and then add the kanji version to my reviews later. It's not exactly the same as testing on listening, but i can't be bothered to add sound clips to all my cards and it makes sure at some level that i know the pronunciation of the word. Or an approximation of it... kana spelling is not quite the same as knowing the pronunciation as it doesn't explicitly show devoiced vowels or pitch accent, probably a few other subtle things too.

I don't have the kana version of Core 10k, but I don't like that idea much. That being said, every single card in the deck has an audio file for the word and sentence, so I think that might actually be helpful. I would be able to devote my attention fully to the pronunciation and meaning of a new word that way. The problem is that reviewing 500 recognition cards is managle, but my reviews will effectively double if I add listening right now... so I might have to wait. Or maybe I'll add them slowly, but it's still a lot of stuff even if I don't add any more recognition cards.
 

(2016-01-09, 6:37 am)Zgarbas Wrote: I actually read the dictionaries of grammar cover-to-cover and did the entire sentence collection on anki ^^'

I wouldn't mind doing that. I can see that giving me a headstart, just like planting a seed. Wouldn't that overlap a lot with the content in Tobira though? Although now that I think about it, It may not be a bad thing in that I would be getting some actual exposure.
 
By the way, when you mentioned the DoBJG deck, did you mean this one?
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/sf3skjl...ed%20media

[Zgarbas]

It will overlap, but textbooks are meant to guide you through things systematically, whereas Dobjg just throws everything in heavy detail and at once. Different styles. Also, it never hurts to re-read basic grammar guidelines (everything in N3- textbooks is basic grammar)

There was a sentence deck featuring all the sentences in the entire series (basic/intermediate/advanced), but I can't seem to find it anymore D:

There is a spreadsheet of the entire series in the same link FlameseeK posted previous to your post. I just downloaded it and it has ADoBIAJG sentences in it.

(2016-01-09, 11:42 am)FlameseeK Wrote: By the way, when you mentioned the DoBJG deck, did you mean this one?
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/sf3skjl...ed%20media