For a while now I have been trying to learn the Core 6k, however I have a big issue with procrastination. I see various resources saying to stick with studying, you should make it fun. I don't find learning the Core 6k *painful*, however it isn't something I would call necessarily entertaining.

So what I'm asking is, what things did you use to make learning the Core 6k fun? What kind of things can you see someone doing to make the activity of learning the Core 6k more entertaining?

Thanks.

Unfortunately Core 6k is rather dry so instead of trying to turn that into something fun you might just want to rescale the amount of new cards you do so you can also spend time doing things that would be fun and you can still learn from (i.e. reading light novels, manga, watching dramas, whatever).

Unless you have a chunk of time where you are willing to have no life and put yourself through hell for 2-3~ months to complete it, which from recent personal experience I can tell you is not fun at all.

I just started Core6k last week and just reviewed my 100th card. Good luck to you!

Good question. I think if you are using Anki, you could add the plug-in "Anki-Emperor" to spice things up in general. There are a few threads about it on the forum.

Flamerokz Wrote:Unfortunately Core 6k is rather dry

Agreed. I ended up eventually abandoning my core6k deck (felt like a constant forced march) and switched to 100% subs2srs, which actually is reasonably "fun" if you limit yourself to shows you really enjoyed. If you still want to study off the core 6k word list but with using native material, you can have a plugin tag all the easy subs2srs sentences with vocab from core6k.

Maybe you should ask yourself first if the learning process itself really has to be that fun? Think of how fun it will be in the end once you have learned all 6000 words, it's an investment for the future.

And even if it's boring, it's still such a convenient way to build your vocabulary. Someone else did half the work for you, and all you have to do is what Anki tells you every day. Personally I love it so far.

I find that I'm learning more words, enjoyable, as it allows me to understand more of the Japanese media I'm watching, reading, listening on a daily basis, to be more comprehensible, which makes the overall process more enjoyable. It's is a self feeding process.

Maye you should ask yourself if you really want to learn Japanese. If you want something enough, you'll find a way to make it more enjoyable.

Look at sex: even when people are told NOT to do it, they manage to find multiple positions and partners to enjoy themselves with doing it. Use your imagination a little. If Core is that boring then find something else. Learning a language means you pretty much have to go back and learn to crawl all over again, so why not face it like a kid does: a plain backyard with a single oak tree might be boring for an adult, but a kid will find hours upon hours of games and narratives to play out.


There is nothing stopping you from making even the most "boring" study, fun. Score yourself; do time trials; read the sentences aloud in a Jamaican-Okinawan accent- allow yourself to indulge in it in some way or another.

Or, as AlgoRhythmic pointed out: just get them done and enjoy what it provides. Either way, if you cannot generate your own sense of enjoyment, no one is going to be able to do it for you. If for whatever reason you cannot find anything enjoyable about studying vocab through Core, delete the deck. Find a different means. There are so many options available which are probably going to be more enjoyable than the old-school methods of pen and paper flash cards. Unless that is your thing, and maybe it's worth trying something different altogether.

You could cover your house with post-it notes, everything from a note on a can of soup called スープ, to a post-it on your arm at night with 腕枕- people have successfully been able to learn vocabulary in a huge variety of ways which have worked for them.

I'm ~5k into Core6k, and I can really see the results as I've gotten into more native materials. For me, Core6k is a thing whose results are fun, but whose process isn't. So what I do is try to distract myself instead.

1. Timeboxing: For my recognition reviews, I watch 5 minutes of an exciting show, review for 5 minutes, and repeat until done. I also try to best my past review numbers - it's usually 70 to 100 reviews per 5 minutes. I test myself on the word in the sentence, not the sentence itself.
2. Coffee: I bribe myself with coffee. It makes me jittery, which makes me review faster.
3. Music: I play high BPM music when I review.
4. Outside environment: I always try doing my production reviews outside (in cafes, libraries, bookshops, etc), because the surroundings make me feel like I should be working. Also, cafes sell coffee. :o

I tried playing dramas in the background while reviewing, but that just makes me go slower. Maybe it'll work for others though?

I'm adding pictures to (the back of) my vocab cards, makes them look a lot more interesting and helps you form the association. Does take longer that way, though.

Reviewing right after a good night of sleep, or right after a nap makes reviews less tedious.

1 reddit link per review. Doing multiple reviews does not count for more reddit links.

Then stop doing core. That's what ajatt says. I personally never knew Abt the existence of core till I got to advanced japanese at which it's useless. All the words in that deck is common so I would suggest doing stuff in Japanese ie what other ppl said like stuff with j subs, song lyrics, anything u want to read with rikaichan or rikaisama. I personally think its such a waste of time learning via core bc the words are jus so common. I had fun learning the common daily conversation japanese via talk variety shows. U dont have to use fancy grammar or fancy words to make laughter happen. Check out YouTube. I'm pretty sure I learned all the words in core via having fun in Japanese faster than if I used core... Bc I would've probably just stopped bc it's so boring and dry like everyone said

I don't think you have to do it or not do it, you can go with something in between. Personally, I'm just using it as a frequency list to help find which words are common, while adding sentences I find in native sources at the same time (so I won't necessarily bother adding the sentence or a vocab card from core if I'm already confident with the word and there's nothing else I want in the sentence).

Thanks for all of the replies, after reading anritsi's post I think one of my main problems might be my mindset. Saying doing the Core 6k isn't entertaining probably doesn't help me enjoy it anymore than I currently am. I see a few posters have made up various ways that help themselves, and I clearly need to put some more positive thinking into ways that can help me.

As someone who's currently 1k into the Core 6k when would be a good time to start viewing native material? I know some say now is the best time, but I would like some extra opinions on this.

Mecha Wrote:As someone who's currently 1k into the Core 6k when would be a good time to start viewing native material? I know some say now is the best time, but I would like some extra opinions on this.

There is no "best time", aside the time you want to. If you want to jump in now, then do it. If you want to wait longer, then do that. You've got to ask yourself: "how much comprehension do I need to be able to enjoy this?"

If you are fine with understanding a little, then start reading earlier; if you are fine with understanding a little more, then start reading later. There is no reason you cannot enjoy native media while studying other things. Hell, if you wanted to, you could be studying from something like Core, reading graded readers, reading manga, reading novels, reading Japanese forums, etc. It really depends on what you personally find stimulating. I enjoy reading よつばと, because I love the series, and each time I re-read a chapter/volume, I pick out something else I may not have understood before, and understand it slightly better. The only reason I keep going back to these comics is because I enjoy them.

If you don't enjoy something you probably aren't going to get the most out of it, regardless of your comprehension level, as a lot of acquisition has to do with attitude. Which is often why the kids with larger vocabularies are the kids whom read outside of school texts, because they enjoy reading. Enjoyment means more time involved, more time involved means more exposure, more exposure means more acquisition and internalization of patterns and phraseology.

Mindset really is king.

Hyperborea Wrote:

uisukii Wrote:Look at sex: even when people are told NOT to do it, they manage to find multiple positions and partners to enjoy themselves with doing it. Use your imagination a little.

Hmmm, how to combine sex and Core 6K???? That would sure make Core 6K more fun.

Partner holds up a flash-card and you get spanked if the card is failed? *thinks* but that might lead to a dependance on failing cards... sorry, erhm, back to the subject afoot.

I think core becomes more "fun" as you go through it. It just gets so easy you don't mind doing it after 4000. The last 2000 took the least amount of time for me.

In my (vast, sorry to say) experience, procrastination is the direct effect of not having manageable goals.

But , with Japanese, I've been doing really well since about November of last year. It's been a nice experience, hopefully I can use what I learned for other things as well. (I believe that by JaLUp standards, I've been power leveling, for most of this time - I slowed down lately, but on purpose - I find that it's no longer necessary to power level, I'm happy with a slower progress because I can already enjoy a lot of things in Japanese).

How have I been able to do so well? I set a reasonable daily goal for myself (right now, I'm only doing SRS-ing 4 hours a day, and that includes adding new cards, and sometimes I even cheat and include time spent reading), and then do the reviews right as I wake up (I do timeboxes, but 25-30 minute timeboxes with only short breaks in between them). This way, I spend most of the day happily going about my business, instead of thinking about having to do reviews. More importantly, I also set a reasonable goal as far as the chunk of work I'm planning on getting done, over time. For most people, "I'm gonna finish Core6k" is not such a reasonable goal. If you haven't toiled away at the same task for 200+ days, all by yourself before, then setting such a massive goal now, with this, is just setting yourself up for failure.

If you aren't progressing with Core6k at a fast rate, you really, really should consider changing your goals. Instead of Core6k, set it as a goal to do 500 or 1000 Core cards (frankly, 500 sounds like the best idea, for now), and then move on to something else (grammar sentences, maybe later decide to do another 500 core sentences, if you want). With 500 cards, you can set up a deadline that's close enough to give you the motivation you need. With 6000, you can't.

I'm not doing Core6k (nor am I using subs2srs) anymore , I'm making my own cards. I only did about 1000 Core cards, and another 700 Tae Kim sentences. Both of those I went through quickly, because they were manageable portions (smaller portions than RtK, which I had already completed in six weeks, so I knew I could do these faster that that). And, since I knew I was only doing 1000, it allowed me to be selective over WHICH 1000 I did. I was suspending new cards left and right, because I had plenty to choose from. That helped too.

As for what to do next, (production) cards you create yourself are far more enjoyable than pre-made decks. Right now, that's what I'm doing. I pick the words from reading materials, and then look up example sentences on Yahoo, but I don't have anything against subs2srs, you can try that too. I don't have a fixed goal as to how many cards I plan on doing, instead I'm going day-to-day, on this 3-4 hour schedule. But I do have a goal, to gradually reduce the amount of SRS-ing as I progress with being able to read. In two months, I won't still be doing 4 hours of SRSing a day. The fact that this schedule is limited in time keeps me motivated. Without it (if for instance I was planning to do this for 6 months or more, to the effect of thousands of cards), I seriously doubt I could actually be doing 4 hours/day even for the first week. I know myself, and I know that I need small goals or I'm lost.

It's better to do 4 hours/day for a single month, than not do anything but act like you're trying to, for 6 months or a year. And, contrary to popular belief, working from dusk till dawn is in fact not the key to personal success.

Mecha Wrote:As someone who's currently 1k into the Core 6k when would be a good time to start viewing native material? I know some say now is the best time, but I would like some extra opinions on this.

Any time is fine.
My "first" native material was the Samurai X series. At the time, I was going through tae kim and rtk. I had already watched the English dubbed version, and I was trying to watch the series raw (I was strictly following Ajatt).

After the first twenty episodes or so of looking up definitions and mining words, there were still a lot of difficult words, but everything felt incredibly natural... and fun. I quickly got a grasp of the most "frequent" words.

In my experience, mined words from extremely enjoyable and relatable media has a much longer-lasting effect than learning off of pre-made word lists.

That's not to say core isn't effective. I currently use CorePlus [ordered by morphman]. However, to offset the lack of "connection" you have with the words you learn from frequency lists, try to enjoy as much media as possible.

edit:very insightful post above me

I don't use core, I make my own cards. But, if I were a beginner again, I would probably use core similarly to the way I make my own cards now.

I have a book that I want to read, and I read along and every time I hit a word I don't know, I make a card.

If I was using core, well, first I'd get core 10,000 to have a bigger set of words. Then I'd suspend -all- of the words. Then I'd -unsuspend- a card for each word that I didn't know that I found in the work that I was trying to read.

Mind you, I only treat -one- book this way. If I read some manga or another book or watch an anime, I only look things up when they really badly trip me up and I don't usually add them to Anki unless a word I find is really compelling for some reason.

Now, you might think that what I just described doesn't sound like fun at all... but I fairly enjoy my reading even with the stop-and-start nature of it, and when I go to review in Anki, I'm very motivated because the words that are coming up are going to certainly make it easier to read exactly what I want to read. There's no question about it that I'm reviewing words that are going to make it possible to enjoyably comprehend something.

Your work doesn't have to be a book either; manga obviously, but also anime, movies, and dramas if you can get a subtitle file, or a song if you can find the lyrics, whatever; at one point my study-works were the 'books' found inside the Skyrim video game, which are conveniently short and sometimes entertaining, or at least useful for understanding my quests.

If you really want to go through Core (I am, since the words are really common and I'm to lazy to make cards if they already exist), then you may want to try making the process enjoyable on it's own. Remember that every time you see a card, you are expanding your vocabulary. Every card you learn makes you better at Japanese. You should feel proud of yourself for finishing reviews. If you consciously remind yourself of even your tiniest accomplishments, you can train your brain to enjoy learning from anything. The dry content doesn't affect you as much when you find learning itself enjoyable.
It's not a perfect solution, but this is how I managed to get through the huge backlog of reviews I let pile up.

Obviously, it'd be much better if the Core decks were interesting, but I guess convenience and engaging content are rare to find together.

Also, I usually do my reviews before I go to sleep. If you have a tablet (I bought a cheap one for doing Anki reviews and for use as a dictionary) or smartphone, then you might want to try doing them then. I feel that there is less to distract me when I do them at night and I read something about it being better for your memory to study right before bed.
Other than that, try to study somewhere that doesn't have much to do. You'd be surprised how enjoyable reviews become when there isn't much else to occupy yourself with. Libraries and parks are nice because they're generally quiet and you don't usually have to worry about crowds (I don't like crowds personally).

By the way, I'm using the optimized Core deck. I think it's a lot better than the regular ordering. I also changed the cards from production to recognition, since I noticed that I wasn't remembering the written form for most words. I also just found them slow, annoying, and boring. Changing a prefabricated deck doesn't break it's (non-existant) magic, so change things that you don't like about any decks you use.

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uisukii Wrote:

Hyperborea Wrote:

uisukii Wrote:Look at sex: even when people are told NOT to do it, they manage to find multiple positions and partners to enjoy themselves with doing it. Use your imagination a little.

Hmmm, how to combine sex and Core 6K???? That would sure make Core 6K more fun.

Partner holds up a flash-card and you get spanked if the card is failed? *thinks* but that might lead to a dependance on failing cards... sorry, erhm, back to the subject afoot.

Replace the images with some "interesting ones" and only show them on answering correctly? Or perhaps on the 'days reviews completed' screen

Procrastination is my greatest enemy, but I think I've got ahold of it now. I don't think it has anything to do with how entertaining the cards are (although I do suspect that my subs2srs cards are much more entertaining than your core cards). It's just having a very consistent rhythm of getting it done, and, I think, giving lots of leeway to not do everything.

I usually do my main deck first thing after eating breakfast. This deck, however, absolutely must be finished for reviews each day. Even if it's agonisingly awful, it must be done. Missing a day leads to mass procrastination and possibly a complete collapse of the study routine - momentum is everything.
I also have a bunch of other decks that if I feel like studying more I can play around with those. This way there's no feeling of 'whoo - awesome day, I should add 50 new cards!' and then say fuckit the next when I have to review them all.

Anyway, consistency and momentum are the most important things. If it's routine, it doesn't even register as fun or not fun - it just is, and if you finish the minimum it's not so hard to want to keep going and do more.

Why must it be fun?

I love the fact that my progress is concrete and noticeable. It's not simply the case of suddenly one day "realizing" the progress I've made over a long period of time. I see it every day in the way I learn to instinctively recognize new readings, find new patterns in the way certain kanji is used (which in turn gives it a peculiar meaning outside words) and when I come across a word in native material that was unknown to me before, but now I can instantly recognize it.

Not to mention the fact I know my vocab is growing day by day, 20 words at a time - and more importantly my understanding of the Japanese language in the process. Seeing how the time spent reviewing and the learning of new words have decreased considerably since I started drilling the Core.

Yes, I know drilling vocab in Anki doesn't make me truly learn the words. What it does give me, though, is a meaning I can make use of to comprehend native materials and little by little all the nuances and meanings of the word come clear through effortless (since I don't have to look up every word anymore) and enjoyable activity of doing what I want to do in Japanese.

Anki ftw.

I found that picking up the pace and seeing the number of unseen cards go down daily to be the only thing that really motivated me enough to get through core6k... That, and the fact that it kept getting easier as I learned more words and would often know the reading for one or multiple characters in new vocab words as they came up. I didn't do the optimised order though... Maybe I should have. Also, if a particular word wouldn't stick, I just suspended it and came back to it at the end. Don't get bogged down.