(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.
Edited: 2016-06-08, 1:48 pm