Core decks vs extensive reading

(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.