(2016-06-08, 3:15 am)CureDolly Wrote:

(2015-12-13, 3:03 am)SomeCallMeChris Wrote: Well, I think it's quite worthwhile to do Core 3k regardless of the rest of your study plan. That first 3k words is going to show up -constantly- know matter what kind of material you read.

This is true, but by the same token, you will learn that first 3k words by extensive reading pretty quickly too, so it is really a question of which method you prefer.

I didn't use core decks and got all my vocabulary (beyond the absolute beginner few hundred words) from extensive reading/J-subbed anime.

I did and do use Anki to help cement vocabulary (though I don't Anki everything). I know people who can do it without. It really depends what you find works best for you.

I would prefer not to use SRS and pick up vocabulary purely organically, but I have found that using Anki as a secondary vocab-crutch in conjunction with extensive input is still most efficient for me at present.

You might be interested in this piece on "massive input vs anki" where I talk about the balance between input and SRS and how I have managed to somewhat shift the balance.

I have never tried to learn specific vocabulary in advance of reading/anime etc. Part of the reason for this is that if I put it in Anki as I encounter it, I begin by associating it with live experience and context rather than learning it cold as a list-word. And the early Anki reps then reinforce that first encounter rather than being abstractions.

By the way you can use Rikaisama's real-time import function to turn Rikai look-ups into Anki cards with one keypress. You can also use it for J-J definitions if you decide to do that at any point.

"All I did was make English a part of my life and use it as much as I could." Absolutely this IS the key. Whether it is a good idea to use SRS or other artificial means depends on your learning style. Use them if they help. Ditch them if you find they are taking up more time than they are worth. Make sure they are always your servant, never your master! They should never be more than adjuncts to massive input.

But the key is making Japanese a part of your life.

(2016-06-08, 2:02 am)FlameseeK Wrote: What I'm trying to say is, if I spend 1h reading a visual novel and decide to srs the words I don't know afterwards, I'll probably spend another full hour just going through the text, checking the meaning of each new word, and making the flashcard. Not only that, I'll soon enough be flooded with reviews, which will take time away from reading. It seems like I'll end up spending more time making cards and reviewing new words than actually reading and getting used to these words in different contexts.

I think using an SRS will overall save you time.  I've never been able to make good cards from visual novels or novels however.  When I read them it's mostly just for extensive reading and not for making cards because of that.  

I do recommend primarily focusing on vocab acquisition at your stage though.  I personally find that games, manga, and anime make the best cards.  So I'd say focus on making cards out of those and just reading your visual novels without it being study time.  Making cards that work for you is probably the most important part so if you can make cards from a visual novel, go ahead and do that instead.

Eventually the vocab building will pay off and you'll be able to spend much more time reading and enjoying native material than you do studying.

Have you actually tried reading any VNs yet? Depending on where you are, 1-2 hours of reading might not actually get you all that far.

Anyway, SRS is the way to go. You won't remember the vast vast majority of the new words you encounter without it, and your vocabulary is probably small enough that you can't just not care about that, because those words will keep showing up but not with enough frequency for you to actually recall them (or you'll see them five times in a short span and then not see it again for six months).

Do try and find some automated process for doing it though. There are a lot of tools out there for processing things into Anki cards.

(2016-06-08, 8:20 am)Aikynaro Wrote: Have you actually tried reading any VNs yet? Depending on where you are, 1-2 hours of reading might not actually get you all that far.

Anyway, SRS is the way to go. You won't remember the vast vast majority of the new words you encounter without it, and your vocabulary is probably small enough that you can't just not care about that, because those words will keep showing up but not with enough frequency for you to actually recall them (or you'll see them five times in a short span and then not see it again for six months).

Do try and find some automated process for doing it though. There are a lot of tools out there for processing things into Anki cards.

This. In the early stages, you can't get massive input, because you don't know enough of the language. The amount of material for beginners is healthy, but not extensive. As your ability to actually read the vast majority of native Japanese increases, and you find you have more material than you could ever digest in a lifetime, then you can begin de-emphasizing SRS, and make reading your primary activity.

If you want to couple SRS and reading, and can find suitable materials online, I recommend using Rikaisama for saving out unknown words into a flat file for import into Anki.

As gaiaslastlaugh-san says, massive input won't be all that massive at first simply because without basic core vocabulary reading is a very slow process.

The problem with core decks is that they don't give you the vocabulary you need for what you are reading at the time, so I think it is better to acquire vocabulary as you go. The truly "core" words you will learn whatever you do.

In an article on how to build a core vocabulary organically, I wrote: "But the truth I believe is that there is no such thing as a core 10,000. The language’s true core isn’t that big, but its peripheral-core or penumbra-core is much bigger, and is dependent on exactly what area you are in."

I think this is true to a lesser (but still considerable) extent even with the smaller "cores", certainly if your aim is to read right away the best thing is to concentrate on the words you need right now, and let your core grow that way.

Unless you have an exceptionally good word-memory, SRS is probably vital to help you over the early stage of acquiring enough vocabulary to read beyond a snail's pace. Whether you drop it after that depends on your own learning style.

Rikaisama's real-time import function really helps anki-card making to be little more trouble than just looking up the words. It is a one-keypress affair once you have it set up.

(2016-06-08, 2:02 am)FlameseeK Wrote: So, I know it's been a while since I made this thread and I've been srsing tons of vocabulary. I've been through the first 4k words in Core, a bunch of words scatter in the rest of the deck, and I have a deck with 1k words as well. But I feel this may be a good time to reconsider this approach in certain cases, so I thought I'd bump this thread and see others think. (I've been studying for hours on end every day, so these decisions do make a big difference in my case)

The main reason I'm making this post is because I'm about to finish Tobira, so I'll be getting into a whole lot more native material as soon as I get it out of the way. I can't help but wonder whether making flashcards will actually be a time-efficient approach. This depends on the case though, so allow me to explain my thoughts.

I've been thinking about rewatching some anime with subtitles in Japanese. It seems to me that if I can read the script and srs new words in advance, this would probably be a good way to improve since I'll have to look new words up anyway. I guess it could be tricky to make cards without knowing the exact meaning used in the anime though, unless I also try to understand it in context before making the card. But the most important point is, I'll have to look new words up at one point, right? And if I forget them, I'll have to look them up yet again. So this would probably help me save time in the long run.

However, when it comes to visual novels, I'm still on the fence. There seem to be tools out there that allow you to pretty much "rikai" your way through them. I don't know exactly what tool it is, but it seemed similar to rikai last time I saw it. I'm pretty sure there'll be countless words I've never seen before when I get started. But unlike anime, I'll almost always be able to double check the meaning and pronunciation of these words that I'm not familiar with fairly quickly. So it seems like a suitable opportunity to maximize exposure to these words and get used to their meaning by reading more.

What I'm trying to say is, if I spend 1h reading a visual novel and decide to srs the words I don't know afterwards, I'll probably spend another full hour just going through the text, checking the meaning of each new word, and making the flashcard. Not only that, I'll soon enough be flooded with reviews, which will take time away from reading. It seems like I'll end up spending more time making cards and reviewing new words than actually reading and getting used to these words in different contexts.

If it's a game or something that I have to alt-tab and look things up in a dictionary all the time, I feel srsing words would help me save time in the long run. But when it comes to visual novels, where you don't have to do that, is it really worth to read a single visual novel + srs most of the new vocabulary instead of reading 2 visual novels? I know how efficient srsing can be for vocabulary, but what I'm wondering is whether it's a truly time-efficient approach for someone who'll be reading lengthy visual novels with a tool that allows you to save time and instantly check the meaning/reading of a word. By the way, I'll be doing that on a daily basis... 1-2h+ as long as I have enough time, perhaps even more. (I think the only thing that could prevent me from having enough time for that is probably Anki anyway.)

I did some googling and found this reddit topic on a guide to reading visual novels. They show 2 different methods: Visual Novel Reader and ITH + Translator Aggregator. The Visual Novel Reader method seems more efficient though based on what I know from the latter method. Both programs can be used to extract text from the game so it makes it easier for making Anki cards. Here is an article about using ITH + Translator Aggregator method so you have a better idea of the diffence between the 2 methods.

If you want to make visual Anki cards, you can take a screenshot and just do a form of clozed delete by blocking out the word you want to learn.

Hope this helps.

[EDIT] I posted an example of one of my anki decks with images for shirokuma in this thread. It's not clozed style but I'm sure you can do something similar with VN screenshots as an alternative to clozed.

(2016-06-08, 10:05 am)CureDolly Wrote: The problem with core decks is that they don't give you the vocabulary you need for what you are reading at the time, so I think it is better to acquire vocabulary as you go. The truly "core" words you will learn whatever you do.

...

Rikaisama's real-time import function really helps anki-card making to be little more trouble than just looking up the words. It is a one-keypress affair once you have it set up.

Agreed. Again, that's harder to do at first when your language skills are limited, but you can still find good material that you can mine vocab from. I started off mining from NHK News Easy, 童話, learner texts, and whatever else I could find that wasn't completely beyond my abilities. I attacked it in read-study-read cycles: read first and mine vocab, study the vocab, and read again to reinforce the vocab I was learning.

LingQ was valuable for this for me in the beginning. It has a fair amount of beginner and intermediate texts, which can be hard to find in electronic format. Since LingQ also keeps track of what you're reading in your library, you can go back and re-read an article a few weeks down the road to keep the words you're learning fresh in your brain. The site even supports a flashcard system that lets you drill the vocab just for a specific article you're working on.

I haven't tried using rikai to make cards with a single key-press yet. I can see how that could help me save a lot of time, so thanks for letting me know! I feel there'll probably be a little too much information (more definitions than I want) and I'll have to create another deck for this purpose as well, but we'll see. Despite the fact that my schedule isn't busy at all lately, it's very easy too spend too much time making and reviewing flashcards, so I'll give it a try.

That being said, can you do that with visual novels? Because I haven't heard of anything like that. If we're talking about a game or visual novel where text hooking isn't an option and I have to alt-tab and look things up in a dictionary all the time, then yeah I'm definitely making flashcards because every single look up takes significant time.

However, there are a few visual novels out there that are fairly beginner-friendly. If we're talking about a tool that allows me to instantly check the reading and meaning of what I haven't internalized yet, then I won't be wasting time with time-consuming look ups anyway. That means I most likely won't be reading at a snail's pace, even if it's still a relatively slow endeavor. So maybe I should still srs a few words, but focus on the more challenging stuff instead? Like words with unfamiliar kanji readings, words that seem more difficult to remember in general, and words that might be useful to know later (e.g. when watching anime) but I don't seem to encounter very often?

Another reason I've been thinking about focusing more on reading and listening is that I've noticed Anki helps me with readings and meaning (to a lesser extent) when I have enough time to process everything... but when it comes to listening, it doesn't seem to help me THAT much. There's definitely a difference between decoding kanji readings/meaning without sound and processing words as soon as you hear them. I'm definitely getting better at recognizing words that I've already studied them, but I still need to stop and think about the meaning. It's like "Oh, I think I've already seen this word in my reviews... what does it mean again? Hmmm...". But sometimes I miss words I've already studied, as if I'd never seen them before.

Maybe this is because I've made a lot of progress in a very short span of time (i.e. less than a year), but I feel it's very easy for Anki to take away more time from reading and listening than it should. I can easily spend 6+ hours every day on Japanese, but when 1h+ of that goes into reviews and half of the remaining time goes into making flashcards... you get my point, right?

(2016-06-08, 1:41 pm)RawrPk Wrote: If you want to make visual Anki cards, you can take a screenshot and just do a form of clozed delete by blocking out the word you want to learn.

Hope this helps.

This is a really good form of production card but I don't think it would work well with visual novels.  The images are mostly static so you'll have a lot of images that look mostly or even exactly the same.  These images will get associated in your brain and you'll associate all of the words that use them, it will turn into a hindrance instead.  This method works well for anything with unique images though.

As to the original topic.  I think that if you want to save time then the best thing is to stick with the core deck a bit longer, at least until like 6k.  Not every word is something you'll run into all the time but most are so it's still a good use of time.  Keep adding to your other deck when you can manage it.

I don't think any rikai can work with visual novels but maybe Kanjitomo can? It is an OCR popup dictionary. If it doesn't work directly in the game, you can take a screenshot and use kanjitomo on the photo file.

(2016-06-08, 4:27 pm)cracky Wrote: This is a really good form of production card but I don't think it would work well with visual novels.  The images are mostly static so you'll have a lot of images that look mostly or even exactly the same.  These images will get associated in your brain and you'll associate all of the words that use them, it will turn into a hindrance instead.  This method works well for anything with unique images though.

As to the original topic.  I think that if you want to save time then the best thing is to stick with the core deck a bit longer, at least until like 6k.  Not every word is something you'll run into all the time but most are so it's still a good use of time.  Keep adding to your other deck when you can manage it.

I see. I don't read visual novels so I had no clue a lot of the visuals were static.

In terms of extensive reading, I find that I try my best to do it in the purest sense: that I read without using a dictionary. Do I know every word I read? No. But I usually reread so I can do my lookups then.

I don't know if there is a backtrack feature in visual novels so it is probably best to extract the dialog somehow with a reader program or if you can't, OCR like Capture2Text or various screenshots.

(2016-06-08, 3:58 pm)FlameseeK Wrote: I feel it's very easy for Anki to take away more time from reading and listening than it should. I can easily spend 6+ hours every day on Japanese, but when 1h+ of that goes into reviews and half of the remaining time goes into making flashcards... you get my point, right?

All of us who see Anki as an adjunct to massive input, rather than the core study technique, have this same problem.

How much time should we allow Anki to take away from the Real Thing (i.e. reading and otherwise ingesting Japanese - as well as speaking and writing it if we are doing output too).

Essentially each of us finds our own balance over time. Obviously is always a trade-off. At one extreme are the people who do core decks and RTK for many, many months before even touching any real Japanese. At the other extreme are those who never touch Anki at all and learn purely by immersion and massive input.

Clearly my inclination is more toward the latter approach, but I make pragmatic use of Anki to stop too much vocabulary from disappearing.

But yes, I get your point and I think the answer is that it is an individual thing and you will work out your own trade-off point between input and Anki as you go along (that point will also probably change over time. Essentially, reliance on Anki can be diminished as you progress).

Incidentally I find Anki can be a lot more helpful with listening and getting used to the sound of words if you add audio. (It has the added advantage of having a terse J-J definition "ring in your ears" when you encounter the word to be defined - but you don't need to worry about that aspect until you are ready for at least some J-J). I am planning to write an article on this soonish as it is a whole subject in itself.

Of course this makes setting up cards more time-consuming - though I find it makes reviewing quicker for me. I mostly don't even look at the backs of cards any more. So there's another trade-off to consider at some point.

(2016-06-08, 4:30 pm)RawrPk Wrote: I don't think any rikai can work with visual novels but maybe Kanjitomo can? It is an OCR popup dictionary. If it doesn't work directly in the game, you can take a screenshot and use kanjitomo on the photo file.

(2016-06-08, 4:27 pm)cracky Wrote: This is a really good form of production card but I don't think it would work well with visual novels.  The images are mostly static so you'll have a lot of images that look mostly or even exactly the same.  These images will get associated in your brain and you'll associate all of the words that use them, it will turn into a hindrance instead.  This method works well for anything with unique images though.

As to the original topic.  I think that if you want to save time then the best thing is to stick with the core deck a bit longer, at least until like 6k.  Not every word is something you'll run into all the time but most are so it's still a good use of time.  Keep adding to your other deck when you can manage it.

I see. I don't read visual novels so I had no clue a lot of the visuals were static.

In terms of extensive reading, I find that I try my best to do it in the purest sense: that I read without using a dictionary. Do I know every word I read? No. But I usually reread so I can do my lookups then.

I don't know if there is a backtrack feature in visual novels so it is probably best to extract the dialog somehow with a reader program or if you can't, OCR like Capture2Text or various screenshots.

With VNs, I use ITH to extract the text (it works on most engines; every one I've needed, at least) and copy it to a txt file for later reference (I was originally going to run them through the Text Analysis Tool, but never did). I've found ITH to be the easiest tool for looking up words in VNs. It's constantly capturing text, so if you need to look something up immediately, you just Alt-Tab out of the game and look it up.

Most VNs have backlogs now; be careful if you're using ITH to capture your text, though, because looking at the backlog will flood it with all the lines that were immediately loaded into it.
Speaking of the backlogs, most of them allow you to replay the voiced lines, if they exist. It's really helpful for if you missed something and have already skipped to the next screen.

Personally, I found OCRs to be more trouble than they're worth; the only times I ever wanted to use one, it couldn't figure out the kanji at all...


RE: original topic
I found Core and extensive reading to both be valuable tools. I used Core (first 2k, then 6k, and finally 10k) as a way of limiting the amount of work I had to do in Anki. The only cards I did by hand were from a grammar drill book, and it took me way too long to input the hundred or so sentences...

Anyway, I saved tons of time by just using the Core decks. While I was doing that, I just kept trying to read things until, eventually, it wasn't painfully difficult to do so. Started with manga that had furigana (actually, I technically started with older Pokemon games, and a couple other games, but I barely understood anything, so...), moved to VNs next, and moved to web novels recently; before long, I should be comfortable enough to read novels regularly.
When I joined this site, the most popular advice was the kind that suggested studying for a while before diving into native material; this worked fine for me, because I really didn't want to spend an hour reading one paragraph. Like I said though, I didn't completely avoid native materials, I just used them to judge my progress until I could actually make some better use out of them.

I really don't think it's a case of choosing one or the other, I think one should start Core first (it saves tons of time making cards, which allows more progress and less burnout), but reading should come as soon as one feels comfortable enough to do it.
And of course, it's really only extensive reading if you don't look up words, so it's pretty much a necessity that you know some vocabulary before you start it, even if it's just graded readers and Easy News.

[By the way, I started typing this a couple of hours ago, went and did something else, and just finished it; hopefully it's not too redundant now ]

EDIT: Oh, and I can't forget to mention the save function on Rikaisama! I've already gathered a good 200+ words and phrases with it! I was actually expecting it to be a lot more, but apparently, the things I've already picked up through reading and the words in Core are quite sufficient for the things I'm reading now.

It's great to see the replies coming! This definitely helps me with tricky decisions like this.

Since I'm always writing walls of text, it may be easy to miss it, so let me make this clear - I made this thread about 6 months ago, so the OP is outdated. This thread has been BUMPED to avoid making a new one on the same topic. I'm not sure if this was a sound decision, so my apologies if this has confused anyone!

As of now, I've already seen the first 4k words in Core + a handful of other words in the 6k/10k deck. I also have a personal deck with 1k words. Out of the remaining word in 6k, I'm pretty sure I won't need to add more than 1000-1100 words. I've also done RTK, so I won't have to pick up a whole bunch of new kanji along the way.

Ah, I missed that part... I knew you were further than starting Core (because of your posts on the JLPT threads), but I didn't pay attention to who the OP was from, just the more recent posts.

Well, as far as VNs go, pretty much as long as it's on PC, it can be hooked. The reason I stress ITH, is because it's far more effective and simpler to use than its predecessor AGTH (which requires running the game while associating it with AGTH and specifying the necessary hooks; which requires a lot of fiddling unless someone else has already done that for you).

I'm still working on listening, myself. A lot of people recommend subs2srs, but I haven't really used it myself (been meaning to; made a couple of decks, but I don't do Anki in a sound friendly environment). For me, all of my listening skills comes from VNs and just listening to other stuff. The voice actors for VNs read the script as it is. Voice acting is a bit different from normal Japanese, but it's close enough to the same thing to help.
In the end, my only advice for listening is 'listen more'.

And yeah, focus on the challenging stuff. My rule of thumb is: if I can read it and understand it, it doesn't need to be SRS'd. Especially if it's a word you'll probably see a lot (some authors just like certain words).

I've noticed that I forget certain words that I've studied too; the only advice I have is to look it up when something like that nags you. It took me forever to remember what 含む meant, for instance, but I eventually got it through reading (thankfully, it's a fairly common word).
I forgot who I heard this from (on this site), but Anki is a tool that increases your familiarity with words, making it easier to remember them, but you won't really learn a lot of them until you use them (by reading, for instance).

If you have too many definitions on one card when you use Rikaisama's save feature (or similar), just wait until it bothers you to delete it. I find it much easier to only edit cards that bother me, like if there's a wall of definitions and only one of them really applies to the sentence.
For the most part, though, it's not terribly cluttered.

I think I answered some more of your more recent questions/topics this time.

(2016-06-09, 12:04 am)sholum Wrote: Well, as far as VNs go, pretty much as long as it's on PC, it can be hooked. The reason I stress ITH, is because it's far more effective and simpler to use than its predecessor AGTH.

Why not use VNR? It's extremely trivial to use, supports far more games than ITH and is still be actively developed and updated.

Flameseek Wrote:Another reason I've been thinking about focusing more on reading and listening is that I've noticed Anki helps me with readings and meaning (to a lesser extent) when I have enough time to process everything... but when it comes to listening, it doesn't seem to help me THAT much.

Well, I think that would be your card's fault, not the fault of Anki. If you want to improve listening alongside your vocabulary, subs2srs is really the way to go. Plus it's automated, so (given you have timed subtitles), it's trivial to make cards. It's all native material that should be intrinsically interesting to you.

Honestly, I think you should forget about VNs for ... 3-6 months? Run a bunch of anime adaptations of visual novels through subs2srs. You'll learn a bunch of spoken vocabulary that will show up in both that specific story and thematically similar VNs. Your listening will improve as an added bonus.

I think someone made a vn2srs thing, but it didn't look particularly robust. But if you can just dump text into cards you should be able to gloss it with whatever that Anki plugin is and have all the definitions automatically there for you - should be no big deal to copy/paste from a text hooker. If a text hooker doesn't work for that game, just choose another.

(2016-06-09, 12:04 am)sholum Wrote: I forgot who I heard this from (on this site), but Anki is a tool that increases your familiarity with words, making it easier to remember them, but you won't really learn a lot of them until you use them (by reading, for instance).

This is very important. Anki does increase one's familiarity with words. But when they get pushed out to one or two years because you "know" them, if you don't encounter them at any time during the interval you are as likely as not to have forgotten them when they finally come back.

But then if you haven't used them actively or passively in two years, why does it even matter to know them? There's always a dictionary for the clearly very rare occasion when you need them.

Anki and "learning" is not an end in itself. At least it isn't for me.

Also the fact that you won't really learn them until you use them goes deeper than the mere mechanical fact of whether you remember their definitions or not.

Just knowing the dictionary definition or an example sentence or two is not "knowing a word" in any real sense. It is only by having it as part of one's real-life vocabulary (active or passive) that one actually knows it in the way that one knows a word in one's own language - i.e. feels its weight and nuance and knows it as a living part of a living and experienced language.

(2016-06-09, 3:05 am)tokyostyle Wrote:

(2016-06-09, 12:04 am)sholum Wrote: Well, as far as VNs go, pretty much as long as it's on PC, it can be hooked. The reason I stress ITH, is because it's far more effective and simpler to use than its predecessor AGTH.

Why not use VNR? It's extremely trivial to use, supports far more games than ITH and is still be actively developed and updated.

Looking it up; ITH was the new shit when I started playing VNs (most of the threads about text hooking still called for AGTH, at least), so I guess I'm behind the times.

*looking up*

Seems a bit less useful than ITH, to me. The wiki confused me by saying it read text through OCR (checked a video, still thread hooking; I guess it has an OCR option for individual words or if it's an image?), but it seems like it'd get in the way more than anything else.
I'll try it later, but I think it'll come down to personal taste.

(2016-06-09, 11:19 am)risu_ Wrote:

I do both and it's magical...



In all seriousness. The core 6k deck has helped me with my extensive reading of manga. Though I don't know everything I read, the words I have encountered in core that I stumble upon in manga is reinforced quite well. There have been times where a particular word can't stick mentally during Anki reviews but suddenly once I see it in the wild, I get it. For example, I was recently having trouble with the word 暖かい--I couldn't for the life of me remember anything about this word and kept failing it. It finally clicked for me when I watched a few episodes of Sailor Moon and I kept hearing Sailor Moon say it whenever she held Tuxedo Mask's hand. With manga reading of Shirokuma Cafe, I now know 竹 is bamboo and 笹 is bamboo grass/leaves as these are the only things Panda likes to eat.

(2016-06-09, 12:48 pm)CureDolly Wrote:

(2016-06-09, 12:04 am)sholum Wrote: I forgot who I heard this from (on this site), but Anki is a tool that increases your familiarity with words, making it easier to remember them, but you won't really learn a lot of them until you use them (by reading, for instance).

This is very important. Anki does increase one's familiarity with words. But when they get pushed out to one or two years because you "know" them, if you don't encounter them at any time during the interval you are as likely as not to have forgotten them when they finally come back.

But then if you haven't used them actively or passively in two years, why does it even matter to know them? There's always a dictionary for the clearly very rare occasion when you need them.

Anki and "learning" is not an end in itself. At least it isn't for me.

Also the fact that you won't really learn them until you use them goes deeper than the mere mechanical fact of whether you remember their definitions or not.

Just knowing the dictionary definition or an example sentence or two is not "knowing a word" in any real sense. It is only by having it as part of one's real-life vocabulary (active or passive) that one actually knows it in the way that one knows a word in one's own language - i.e. feels its weight and nuance and knows it as a living part of a living and experienced language.

This is pretty much Rules #1 and 2 in the 20 rules of formulating knowledge article by Supermemo.

Quote:

1. Do not learn if you do not understand
   
2. Learn before you memorize - build the picture of the whole before you dismember it into simple items in SuperMemo. If the whole shows holes, review it again!
   

I'm confused by rikaisama's anki card feature. I wish someone'd make a youtube tutorial, because anki alone can be quite confusing at times. Anyway, should I set up a new deck in anki with all fields I want and whatnot BEFORE I attempt to configure rikaisama's import feature? The official guide says nothing about that.

(2016-06-09, 3:42 pm)RawrPk Wrote: This is pretty much Rules #1 and 2 in the 20 rules of formulating knowledge article by Supermemo.

Quote:

1. Do not learn if you do not understand
   
2. Learn before you memorize - build the picture of the whole before you dismember it into simple items in SuperMemo. If the whole shows holes, review it again!
   

Well... #1-2 seem more apropos to something like a physics student memorizing equations before they understand them conceptually. IMO vocabulary words are almost always understandable if you have a dictionary definition. Of course, the dictionary definition is hollow and not the full picture, but the only way to get the weight, color, flavor and smell of a word is to encounter it in many different contexts over time. But once you've "learned" a word in that sense, there is no need to "memorize" it.

I guess what I meant with rules 1 and 2 is that only SRS exposure to vocabulary is often not enough but seeing the word in the wild/ example sentences.

(2016-06-09, 4:12 pm)FlameseeK Wrote: I'm confused by rikaisama's anki card feature. I wish someone'd make a youtube tutorial, because anki alone can be quite confusing at times. Anyway, should I set up a new deck in anki with all fields I want and whatnot BEFORE I attempt to configure rikaisama's import feature? The official guide says nothing about that.

Yes. And prior to trying the import feature, make a dummy card with nonsense info. Your deck needs at least 1 card in it first hence why you need to make the dummy card. This can be done with an established deck too I believe. Again just make a dummy card and have the deck selected when you start importing.

FML. This is why I don't like making new decks. I took me long enough to figure out how to make my own deck, but this feature might be even more confusing. I don't have trouble with computer stuff in general, but Anki is just so annoying with all the counter-intuitive programing (e.g. instead of having a color background button, you have to input the code and look up the proper color name or number... -.-). That should be an advanced feature, not a requirement.

(2016-06-09, 2:26 pm)sholum Wrote: Seems a bit less useful than ITH, to me. The wiki confused me by saying it read text through OCR (checked a video, still thread hooking; I guess it has an OCR option for individual words or if it's an image?), but it seems like it'd get in the way more than anything else.
I'll try it later, but I think it'll come down to personal taste.

VNR uses ITH for the text hooking. It's mostly just a lot of other shit piled on top.

EDIT: Also the super memo article linked before has a lot of good information for using Anki. I wish I paid more attention to it when I first started making my own cards instead of later down the line.