Searched everywhere and didn't get the specific answer I'm after.
How do I approach the deck in terms of "what to do first" and "how to study from it"?
Right now it just throws sentences I barely understand.

You study as many new cards a day as you can. That means somewhere between 5 and 50.

That's pretty much all there is to it. It'll be difficult at first, probably for at least the first 1000 words. Many new kanji will be introduced, each with their own reading(s). But at the end of the day, around 1500-2000 kanji are used for the great majority of the vocab in Japanese language, so you'll become familiar with the kanji, their readings, and in what kind of words specific kanji tend to be used in.

My experience: a lot of struggle for the first 2000 or so words. Since then, my fail rate has gone down considerably, and I "know" most readings for at least a thousand kanji at the moment and can grasp the meaning almost instantly for most words. I'm talking about the Core6k btw.

It's a snowball effect in my experience.

Betelgeuzah Wrote:That's pretty much all there is to it. It'll be difficult at first, probably for at least the first 1000 words.

Was it really that way for you? Personally I found studying vocab from Core2K easier than learning kanji.

blankkor Wrote:Searched everywhere and didn't get the specific answer I'm after.
How do I approach the deck in terms of "what to do first" and "how to study from it"?
Right now it just throws sentences I barely understand.

If your only prior exposure to Japanese is learning kanji (like from RTK), I would recommend that you go through a beginner text book like Genki I & II. I had done so while I was studying RTK. You can also use Tae Kim's Grammar Guide for the same purpose and its free. That way you'll have some basic grammar in your arsenal before going through Core 2000 and it'll make understanding the sentences easier.

ryuudou Wrote:

Betelgeuzah Wrote:That's pretty much all there is to it. It'll be difficult at first, probably for at least the first 1000 words.

Was it really that way for you? Personally I found studying vocab from Core2K easier than learning kanji.

Yes, but my Core2k was probably didn't have optimized learning order since I am using the original Core10k version. Perhaps that changes things.

blankkor Wrote:Searched everywhere and didn't get the specific answer I'm after.
How do I approach the deck in terms of "what to do first" and "how to study from it"?
Right now it just throws sentences I barely understand.

One way I found was helpful for overall understanding of the sentence, and how the vocabulary word fits into the context, was to physically write out the sentence, then re-write it into its constituent parts, in kana, then underneath write a basic translation in English, as a guide. I'll provide an example (pretend this is written out by hand, and stuff):

悪い　ー＞　煙草は体に悪い。

わるい　ー＞　タバコ　は　カラだ　に　ワルイ。

ｂａｄ　　－＞ 　ｔｏｂａｃｃｏ　ｂｏｄｙ／ｈｅａｌｔｈ　ｂａｄ．

As you may be able to see with the translation of the sentence, I opted for the general meaning of the the term within the context, and did not attempt to render it into a proper English sentence.

This is the way which after a bit (a lot) of stumbling around in the dark and trying out different things, I have found helps me gain a better sense of both the vocabulary item and how it can be used in native patterns. Like yourself, I didn't really find any guide or "answer" as "how to study Core/Kore".

I am of the opinion that no matter how useful the suggestion, your own study methods are something which, like a well worn groove in your favourite armchair, have to be tried in many positions before it starts to feel comfortable.

Try reading the vocabulary items or sentences with English translations first. The Printable core 2000 vocabulary list thread has printable PDFs that include furigana.

I made heavy use of the read-and-listen-simultaneously method before moving on to active recall. You can use Audio Lesson Studio to merge the sound files and add pauses.