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+--- Thread: The key to fluency: 10,000 words in one year. (/thread-10466.html)
The key to fluency: 10,000 words in one year. - Stian - 2013-02-02
Thanks for the heads up, but I think the Advanced one is more up my alley, even though I wouldn't claim to be anything beyond an intermediate learner (~N4-ish)
Is the one in Japanese meant for learners?
^Woah, 20 reviews per minute.
Do you use Japanese definitions or do you translate each word into English?
The key to fluency: 10,000 words in one year. - undead_saif - 2013-02-02
From what I understood it comes down to two paths:
1- Go through a vocabulary deck (pre-made or self-made) quickly and then go through materials that use those words slowly (because the words won't be mastered) so that the words become "learned".
2- Actually learn vocabulary at a slower pace while using native material.
Is this correct?
Edit: This is providing no total immersion.
The key to fluency: 10,000 words in one year. - Zgarbas - 2013-02-02
Stian Wrote:Thanks for the heads up, but I think the Advanced one is more up my alley, even though I wouldn't claim to be anything beyond an intermediate learner (~N4-ish)Despite the names Basic and Intermediate, they're actually very thorough and given the really detailed explanations, similar grammatical structures, nuances and sample sentences (and matching anki decks) I'd say start with the Basic one.
Is the one in Japanese meant for learners?
^Woah, 20 reviews per minute.
Do you use Japanese definitions or do you translate each word into English?
IIRC Basic should suffice for N3, Intermediate for N2, and Advanced for N2-N1 (or am I misremembering?)
P.S. Got home and checked the anki stats in my main vocab deck. 8500 words in one year, many of which I already knew or could guess due to them being compounds of already known words (+modified schedule to automatically mature cards which I knew and were easy) = 48000 reviews. Roughly 129/day (I skipped more days than I thought, apparently I did on average 240/day when I studied). Given how recently I've been having a steady lot of words which just won't stick to me (sudden increase in difficulty and lack of compounds) and keep re-failing the same 100 or so words, I imagine doing this many words without knowing them beforehand, thus having to properly SRS them can be pretty annoying.
(actually now that I'm counting my reviews a bit it seems I did do 10k words in the past 15 months... certainly doesn't feel like it. Maybe I shouldn't argue against this then? o.O)
The key to fluency: 10,000 words in one year. - Stian - 2013-02-02
I'm not planning to go through them all from A to Z (or rather, あ to ん ?), and I don't really want to use premade decks because that'll mean loads of deleting. I've gone through the two Genki books so I think I have a decent grasp of the basic grammar, and after that I've spent about 5 months learning from native materials.
I'd rather just use them as a reference if I'm stuck somewhere...
I've never been a fan of standardised learning... :p
I don't want Japanese to feel like a school subject. :p
I've only done 2791 cards since about 20 July last year, which means an average of 14.2 new cards a day. I am adding more cards nowadays, so I think I can aim for 5000 before July 2013, and 8000 at the end of the year. I've probably would have done it faster if I weren't busy with my Engineering studies; I don't want the due cards number to escalate, which is the sole reason I don't add 50 cards a day. :p
EDIT 2: I don't add cards that I can guess the meaning and reading off without issues; I do add cards with obvious meanings if I don't know the reading though... And I almost only use Japanese definitions; exceptions are 地球、気象庁、天文台、フクロウ、etc. (basically when the definitions are more like biology/physics lessons :p)
The key to fluency: 10,000 words in one year. - stehr - 2013-02-02
mezbup, just curious, but did you set your vocabulary cards to study from E-J, or J-E, or both? I remember you released an E-J sentence deck a year or so back, but I was wondering if you had a similar setup for your vocabulary cards. Forgive me if I overlooked it in one of your blog-posts or koohii-posts.
The key to fluency: 10,000 words in one year. - mourei - 2013-02-02
undead_saif Wrote:From what I understood it comes down to two paths:Well, sort of? Most of what I've added is from vocab mining while reading, i.e. using said material. I just don't think that you can "actually learn" vocab simply through exposure via Anki. You need time and exposure to various usage situations in order to really internalize connotations and nuances, no matter how you spin it. I guess you could put a whole bunch of examples and definitions on your flashcards, but that seems like it defeats the purpose.
1- Go through a vocabulary deck (pre-made or self-made) quickly and then go through materials that use those words slowly (because the words won't be mastered) so that the words become "learned".
2- Actually learn vocabulary at a slower pace while using native material.
So I keep it simple; I just do a lot of J-E cards, add an example sentence if needed, and proceed to read/watch the crap out of whatever I find interesting at the time.
Don't really do much Anki nowadays though; it doesn't do a lot for speaking or writing.
The key to fluency: 10,000 words in one year. - bflatnine - 2013-02-02
This resonates with my experience learning Chinese. I moved to Taiwan 18 months ago, with a knowledge of maybe 2000 words (guessing off the top of my head), and now know around 17,000. I've gone from basic survival-level Chinese to the ability to discuss a wide range of topics, read essentially any book I'd want to (including academic books in my field as well as classical literature), and even pick up some translation work in those 18 months. And I chalk it up to having bullheadedly put in 2-3 times more work (much of it on vocabulary learning) than my classmates.
It's not linear for me though. I go through phases of really intense learning of new material, and then it takes a while to "solidify" my ability at that new level, during which time I don't cover much new stuff.
Unfortunately, it isn't always possible. The person above who said he couldn't imagine people who don't have 2-3 hours per day to devote to it...really, man? I will be doing my MA in Chinese starting this fall. That's Chinese the department and Chinese the language, since I'll be doing it in a Chinese department here in Taiwan. My research fields are excavated texts and the phonology of Old and Middle Chinese. To do good phonological research, it helps a lot to speak a southern Chinese language. So naturally, I'm learning Taiwanese (I'm still very much a beginner, and I don't expect to ever be truly proficient because it isn't that important to me). My MA program will require me to pass the JLPT 3, which of course isn't that high a bar to set, but then again I'm already doing my MA in a second language while 90% of the students are native Chinese speakers, so it's a bit different. Obviously all of my papers, as well as my thesis, will have to be written in Chinese (easily 30-50 pages per semester at least), and the vast majority of the reading and research will be in Chinese. On top of that I do freelance work as a translator and proofreader, and I'm married so of course I need to spend time with my wife.
Can you now imagine that I may not have 2-3 hours per day to sit in front of the computer doing Anki reps for Japanese? That isn't to say I won't be putting in as much time as I can, but the brain can only handle so much in one day.
Anyway, I found that after around 10,000 words in Chinese, I hovered at that level for a while, reading and SRSing and just trying to "solidify" it all in my brain. Then I just deleted the whole deck, because at that point I could read books and watch TV and all that, so there was no need to review all of the basic stuff. The native media input acts as the SRS in a way. Now I'm back to SRSing again, but it's because I'm trying to push myself up near 25-30K words and advanced professional proficiency in Chinese by the end of my MA degree, and that's going to take a whole new round of hard work.
The key to fluency: 10,000 words in one year. - mezbup - 2013-02-02
stehr Wrote:mezbup, just curious, but did you set your vocabulary cards to study from E-J, or J-E, or both? I remember you released an E-J sentence deck a year or so back, but I was wondering if you had a similar setup for your vocabulary cards. Forgive me if I overlooked it in one of your blog-posts or koohii-posts.Vocab was always done J-E for recognition. Not point doing it the other way round, it's just too time consuming IMO without providing real benefits. Understanding is the key.
I'll post more in the next few days about my methods in more detail.
The key to fluency: 10,000 words in one year. - TheVinster - 2013-02-02
I do 20 new vocab words a day. I'm always adding way more than that daily of course, but my Anki reviewing is already averaging around 400 and it takes a long time for me to go through it all. I don't think I could commit to 35.
The key to fluency: 10,000 words in one year. - corry - 2013-02-02
Is 10000 words right? How many Japanese words do you need to Anki to understand basic Japanese like TV radio.
The key to fluency: 10,000 words in one year. - Tori-kun - 2013-02-02
@TheVinster: Challenge?
I increased the bar today and see how it will work out. 10 words more per day. がんばれー
The key to fluency: 10,000 words in one year. - uisukii - 2013-02-02
corry Wrote:Is 10000 words right? How many Japanese words do you need to Anki to understand basic Japanese like TV radio.Depends on your understanding of how said words form a pattern and what those different patterns generally mean. For example:
私は魚を食べました。
私を魚が食べました。
私と魚が食べました。
私も魚をたべました。
Even if you understood 私、魚、食べー unless the particle usage was understood, the actual meaning of these simply statements would be lost. Even "basic" is a deceptive term. There are many colloquial and popular references used on radio, depending on the subject, person being interviewed, song being played, etc. The news has a particular restricted speech format in which the newscasters are expected to use, although to understand the topic requires a contemporary awareness of national and local affairs enough to be able to not only understand what is being said but the places and events which are being discussed. Otherwise it would be like listening to a newscast or a TV show in your native language, about a different place where they are discussing people, places and things in which have little to no reference or significant to be able to relate to.
10,000 of the most commonly used terms is a decent starting point, along with a solid understanding of the common speech patterns and related particles. It should allow you to access a large amount of native media. Though there is a wide gap between understanding what you are hearing/reading, and knowing what they are talking about.
The key to fluency: 10,000 words in one year. - Stansfield123 - 2013-02-02
At the end of the article, you seem to call what you did "studying through immersion". However, you also seem to suggest that the first novel you read was after you became "fluent".
So, if it wasn't reading novels, then what kind of immersion was it?
P.S. I think it is fairly widely understood around here that reading (specifically, reading material above your level of understanding, meaning that you'd be reading novels well before fluency) is by far the best kind of immersion.
As an aside, learning English I read my first novel in the first 6 months, and I was reading philosophy (simply because it was the subject I was interested in) during the first year. I also read a James Joyce novel (it was only "The Portrait...", but still) within a year of starting to study the language.
You say that during the study of these 10.000 words you have made significant progress every three months. Well, while I can't speak to Japanese yet, my method of studying both English and French (reading, with a very light study of vocab on the side) have lead to significant progress within the span of single months.
I can't stress the importance of at least trying reading (reading a real book, I mean, not just manga) as your main means of studying a language, once you are able to do it. Just try it, seriously, for a month. If you get a book you like, and give it the same amount of time and energy the OP has given reviewing Anki, it is so much more rewarding and effective.
The key to fluency: 10,000 words in one year. - Stansfield123 - 2013-02-02
I'll just add this disclaimer: OP's post is pretty low on detail. While he seems to be implying that he learned the 10.000 words by drilling them with Anki, it's very much possible that he didn't. It's very much possible that most of that vocab was actually internalized through much more natural means, while doing immersion, and the Anki drills were, in the case of most of that vocab, just a formality. I wish he would have gone into more detail on what the immersion consisted of.
The key to fluency: 10,000 words in one year. - sholum - 2013-02-02
Well, I'm attempting 100 new cards a day using the Core 2k/6k Optimized deck, but that may not last long. Despite all the praise cloze deletion has been getting, I feel that the being able to recognize words is more important in the beginning. I'll keep it going though, just to test it.
By the way, I say I'm doing 100 new cards a day, but it's not really that big a deal with this deck. Besides, I currently have a ton of time I can spend on studying everyday, with only a few hours held up here and there.
I'm not just doing Anki reps though. Like many here, I've found that reading is the best way to learn a language.
I'll definitely report on how this goes. It's a pretty big goal, but there's no point in not trying.
The key to fluency: 10,000 words in one year. - partner55083777 - 2013-02-02
egoplant Wrote:What makes you think my reviews will start piling up? I am still doing 200-300 reviews per day. At the most I would say it might reach 400, which is still not too bad.Because that's how spaced repetition systems generally work. If you're doing X new cards a day, you generally get X times 10-15 reviews a day. So in your case you will probably average out at 400-600 reviews a day.
Although, your retention rate is super high (some would say it's too high... are you grading yourself correctly?), so it might be different in your case.
uisukii Wrote:Depends on your understanding of how said words form a pattern and what those different patterns generally mean. For example:I agree with your post in general, but I don't think this was a good example. In most contexts, if you only pick up the words 私, 魚, and 食べる, you'll generally be okay. You can usually figure out what's going on through context. However, it's much harder if you get something like this:
私は魚を食べました。
私を魚が食べました。
私と魚が食べました。
私も魚をたべました。
Even if you understood 私、魚、食べー unless the particle usage was understood, the actual meaning of these simply statements would be lost.
＿は魚を食べました。
私は＿を食べました。
私は魚を＿＿ました。
Even if you heard one of these sentences in context, you might not get what is actually happening. For instance, if you get the sentence 私は魚を食べました and it was the first time 魚 came into the conversation (but you didn't understand it--to you it sounded like 私は＿を食べました), it will be hard to figure out that they are talking about a fish.
@bflatnine, I remember your posts from a couple years ago. You've made crazy progress since then. I've started studying Chinese too, but the pronunciation and tones are pretty hard! Good luck with your studies.
The key to fluency: 10,000 words in one year. - Haych - 2013-02-03
I'm glad to see this method gaining favor among this forum. It matches up well with my current philosophy that the key to attaining an intermediate level in a language quickly is words words words and more words. And the quickest way to pick em up is by doing a premade deck like core6k at a constant and comfortable rate. I really believe it should be unanimous that the best route for beginners is RTK->tae kim->core6k.
I feel like things have changed since I got here. Seems like back then everyone wanted to market their little pet study methods. It was pretty disorienting. I got caught up in this 'movie method' thing for studying RTK2 and... ugh... just UGH. Don't study RTK2. Just don't. Also, there was this whole groundswell of anti-vocab sentiment-- that an english definition is useless and you can only learn by studying words in context, e.g. sentences. It was pretty ridiculous. And anyways, sentence mining is slow as hell. Anything where you're adding your own cards is.
Anyhow, now I'm working through core6k and its going great (currently at about 3400). I'm hoping to be done in may. I'm doing a production-style card going from english definition to the word. I write my own definitions if I feel the given one is insufficient (which is very often), and I get my "context" by looking up example sentences and often making notes in the definition of where the word might be put to use. I also have a field for giving myself hints (e.g. pointing out words with similar definitions). I feel like that's key if youre doing production, otherwise you'll just get tangled up in all the synonyms. Not going to lie, all this editing takes time (my timeboxes usually end up being like 20 cards/5 minutes while doing all this)... but I think its worth it.
I was going at a rate of 60 new/day.. but that was absurd. I had around 400 reviews / day (with a 75% retention -- bad, I know, but it was mostly the new stuff that I was failing). I can only get through 100 cards in around 45 minutes, so that's 3 hours a day right there. So I stopped adding new cards for now, just so I can flush through some young cards. Once I get back at it, I'm gonna go with 30 new cards / day.
As for post-core6k, I might switch to recognition cards. I always considered it pretty sub-optimal for actually testing your knowledge, but I gotta admit, its probably much faster than production, mostly because it solves the synonym problem. It might work for those semi-rare words that you only really need to recognize, not use.
But to the OP, I presume you used core6k, but what after that? Got any good vocab lists to study from? I considered using the deck called 'core plus' on anki for post-core6k stuff.. also considered just mining vocab by myself. Not quite sure what I'll go with yet..
The key to fluency: 10,000 words in one year. - yudantaiteki - 2013-02-03
Haych Wrote:I really believe it should be unanimous that the best route for beginners is RTK->tae kim->core6k.Not unanimous; tae kim might be free but it's not necessarily the best.
Putting RTK aside, I think there is a broad consensus among pedagogy people and teachers that you should start by laying a foundation with basic grammar, and then learn lots of vocab. I agree with the sentiment that learning lots of vocab before you've internalized the basic grammar is putting the cart before the horse; obviously you need to learn some vocab right at the beginning but it shouldn't be a huge worry at first.
However, I always like to urge caution at focusing too much on numbers of kanji, words, sentences, etc. It helps some people to have a numerical goal but don't forget that there's a lot that's artificial about those numbers. There's a danger in accepting them too much because then you get people who believe that they cannot read a single sentence of a novel without knowing 2000 kanji, or whatever.
The key to fluency: 10,000 words in one year. - Stian - 2013-02-03
Haych Wrote:I really believe it should be unanimous that the best route for beginners is RTK->tae kim->core6k.We're humans; if doing 6000 boring Genki 1 style textbook sentences works for you, then fine, but it doesn't for others. There's no universal path that magically works for everyone.
There is also a concensus on this forum that doing English->Japanese cards is ineffective.
And sentence mining isn't slow; it's even more efficient with subs2srs. (And I get through 25-30 cards per minute when reviewing just because I don't learn anything new from anki.)
The key to fluency: 10,000 words in one year. - nadiatims - 2013-02-03
Agree with the OP.
This has been my experience with japanese and now mandarin.
Btw you can easily learn* a lot more than 35 words a day if you spend an hour or two a day engaging with native media and checking up words with a dictionary or using translations/subtitles/context.
For everyone worrying about absurdly large review loads, i'd simply suggest stop reviewing so much. Modify your anki review settings or stop using anki all together.
Also regarding grammar. I am yet to study any mandarin grammar (maybe i will one day) and yet my comprehension and output ability is steadily improving regardless.
*find out a new word's meaning for the first time.
The key to fluency: 10,000 words in one year. - nadiatims - 2013-02-03
haych Wrote:I really believe it should be unanimous that the best route for beginners is RTK->tae kim->core6k.hardly.
If you note down words as part of your study, you'll learn the kanji just fine with out RTK. Trust me if you write down tens of thousands of words over the course of a few years you're gonna learn them.
Tae kim is okay i guess, but it's pretty limited. It's not like tae kim or any grammar guide for that matter can replace years and years of learning through comprehensible input.
As for core6k, I tried stuff like that when i first started and found it extremely boring and demotivating.
The key to fluency: 10,000 words in one year. - Zgarbas - 2013-02-03
Personally, I can count all words I actually learned in native media on my fingers. I'll encounter them, look them up, and instantly forget them*. Even when I mine them into an anki deck, my retention rate is pretty much the same as with words in premade decks. Same goes for words encountered in sentences; I have some sentences which I keep failing because I don't remember a word which I encountered there for the first time... they just don't stick to me.
I'd much rather spend an hour in anki learning&reviewing hundreds of terms and sentences than spend 20 hours with native material, and anki is more efficient. Learning them in anki, then encountering them in native media to reinforce it is what works best for me.
*unless they're ridiculously common; see all the anime terms that even people with no interest in Japanese automatically learned. Titles or catchphrases also work sometimes. They're usually basic words, and the amount of exposure necessary to actually learn them is pretty time-consuming.
(sooo, each with their own, eh?)
The key to fluency: 10,000 words in one year. - Stian - 2013-02-03
^Doesn't matter how effective something is if it only makes you grudge Anki reviews. A hobby made into a shore is usually a hobby that don't last.
Also, that it works for you means that it works for you, nothing more.
And the words and sentences I understand the most are those for which I still remember the context. I find that spending ~30 minutes in Anki (Japanese(20)+German(5)+Kanji(5)) and then much less than that gathering new cards is a decent commitment, and a minor part of my contact with the languages.
Following a set path doesn't work for me outside academic stuff.
We're different, that's why there are loads of learning methods out there. Benny, the Irish Polyglot has his method that has helped him a lot, even though I don't really like speaking to people in languages I'm uncomfortable with - unless speaking with people is the only wy of actually improving, which is the case with my C1 English. (My speaking is about B2 and my accent is atrocious.)
In short, there is a line between "what works best for you" and "what works best for everyone"
Core only discouraged me... and I am glad I avoided it.
EDIT: Oh... your edit made my post void :p But I agree!
Even Khatz says the same:
http://www.alljapaneseallthetime.com/blog/make-the-process-fit-the-person
The key to fluency: 10,000 words in one year. - Zgarbas - 2013-02-03
Of course, there are many methods which you can try and find out what works best for you. What I dislike is taking a certain stand and sticking to it without noticing that (learn 50 new words in a day because surely you have as much time to dedicate to Japanese as I did, go through core+tae kim because that's the best way, forget about anki because native exposure is where it's at, etc).
However I would recommend tae kim (or any friendly textbook) + core 2k(because really, the words in core2k are kinda mandatory) to any beginner. Maybe core 6k too, and if they find it too boring or hard then so be it. I continue to fail to see any benefit that native material has for someone below a decent (N4?) level other than maybe giving them the false impression that they're learning in "a fun way" (what can be fun in watching a show that you can't understand is beyond me).
(also I don't really trust what Benny the Polyglot says because he contradicts himself a lot...)
The key to fluency: 10,000 words in one year. - Stian - 2013-02-03
I remember when I was a child, playing video games in English and understanding about a percent or two of it. It was still fun, and I saw clearly how much I improved over time. Without the hours upon hours of contact with the English language, I wouldn't have improved so much as I did, and I assume that is true for you as well.
Quote:other than maybe giving them the false impression that they're learning in "a fun way"False impression? Either you're having fun or you don't...