Hello Everyone,

I hope I am posting this in the correct section I apologise in advance if this is a mistake and would ask a mod to just move or delete this topic if it already exists.

Moving on to my topic, I have been studying Japanese for about a year I have a decent grasp over the grammar, about 300 Kanji writing and meaning, in addition to that I managed to communicate fairly well in my visit to Japan (not that it was difficult since I used fairly basic language, signs and the people were extremely helpful in general).

However, I have noticed that I am severly lacking in my vocabulary to the point that I can barely read some of the Manga targeted towards young teenagers. So I am wondering should I keep continue on my journey with RtK to learn the Kanji and the vocabulary will just come naturally or should I just pick up easy books/childrens books and gradually build up my vocabulary?

tl;dr version : How to improve Japanese vocabulary to a degree of reading books?

I would love to hear what methods and tips people can give me that they used or currently use in order to improve their reading in Japanese.

Thank you.

well you don't have to limit yourself to books to build vocabulary. sometimes hearing the word or grammar is more memorable. i'd say look into song lyrics since there's rikai-chan/rikai-sama and it sounds like you can learn a lot from it. if you don't have japanese music that you like then yo ucan have finding some on youtube etc.

Well I was only wondering about Books because I am an avid reader so I thought it might be a good way to hit two birds with one stone so learning and fun. However, never heard of Rikai-chan/Rikai Sama will definitely look into them, thank you very much.

BigBrother Wrote:However, I have noticed that I am severly lacking in my vocabulary to the point that I can barely read some of the Manga targeted towards young teenagers. So I am wondering should I keep continue on my journey with RtK to learn the Kanji and the vocabulary will just come naturally or should I just pick up easy books/childrens books and gradually build up my vocabulary?

Not sure how far in RTK you are, but for reading, vocabulary has to be learned (unless you read things providing the pronounciation like furigana/audio it won't happen naturally) -- for example by using the Spaced Repetition System (SRS) Anki with premade decks like Core 6000 -- and in order to learn vocabulary you have to know kanji.

Strange as it may sound, there is a way to learn languages (Japanese included) and read (and listen to) books at the same time. I’ve been doing it ever since I started reading as a child. The way is described here:
http://users.bestweb.net/%7Esiom/martian...ssages.htm
All the necessary materials are included.
http://users.bestweb.net/~siom/martian_mountain/

By the way, I've never used SRS to learn anything.

[s0apgun]

I would start diving into vocabulary with a SRS and native materials. RTK is useful but most consider it the trial period to the mass acquisition of vocab. NHK News Easy is a great start for beginning to read in Japanese.

s0apgun Wrote:I would start diving into vocabulary with a SRS and native materials. RTK is useful but most consider it the trial period to the mass acquisition of vocab. NHK News Easy is a great start for beginning to read in Japanese.

Thank you very much i'll look into this, just one question though when you were referring to digging into Native materials even the NHK News Easy website, did you just go there and attempted to read then whatever words you didn't understand look them up online?

EratiK Wrote:Not sure how far in RTK you are, but for reading, vocabulary has to be learned (unless you read things providing the pronounciation like furigana/audio it won't happen naturally) -- for example by using the Spaced Repetition System (SRS) Anki with premade decks like Core 6000 -- and in order to learn vocabulary you have to know kanji.

I was planning to read some mangas with Furigana, I know this might sound stupid to some of the more dedicated members here however my end-goal in Japanese is to basically be able to read it as my top priority since I enjoy reading their literature, so matters such as prounounciation aren't of great importance at the moment for me.

So far it seems SRS should be the number 1 priority since it is mentioned in both posts. I will try to do it, just one last question though, is there an average amount of words learned per-day ? or does it vary from person to perosn ?

[s0apgun]

Use Rikai-chan (http://www.polarcloud.com/rikaichan/) in Firefox for streamlined dictionary lookups.

Rikai-kun, the google chrome port (https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detai...mmhp?hl=en).

In 3 steps...

You should watch the video first to get a jist of what they will be talking about. Then attempt to read the articles, mousing over each word you don't know to reveal their definition. After you make it through the article, you can shadow (follow along) with the audio clip that reads the article to you.

Don't worry too much about memorizing the words you don't know. Internalize them for a few seconds and keep moving. These words will continue to pop up and you will learn them just like a SRS works. The good thing with native material you will encounter the different nuances for those vocab words which increases your retention rate in SRS.

You also have the option to throw the words you don't know into Anki with a plug-in for Rikai-chan to SRS them later.

As a beginner, I would recommend you to spend most your reading online using Rikai-chan. Drudging through mangas or novels with a conventional dictionary is a waste of time and will make you HATE it.

s0apgun Wrote:Use Rikai-chan (http://www.polarcloud.com/rikaichan/) in Firefox for streamlined dictionary lookups.

Rikai-kun, the google chrome port (https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detai...mmhp?hl=en).

In 3 steps...

You should watch the video first to get a jist of what they will be talking about. Then attempt to read the articles, mousing over each word you don't know to reveal their definition. After you make it through the article, you can shadow (follow along) with the audio clip that reads the article to you.

Don't worry too much about memorizing the words you don't know. Internalize them for a few seconds and keep moving. These words will continue to pop up and you will learn them just like a SRS works. The good thing with native material you will encounter the different nuances for those vocab words which increases your retention rate in SRS.

You also have the option to throw the words you don't know into Anki with a plug-in for Rikai-chan to SRS them later.

As a beginner, I would recommend you to spend most your reading online using Rikai-chan. Drudging through mangas or novels with a conventional dictionary is a waste of time and will make you HATE it.

Thanks so much for this i'll make sure to follow each step, I will start doing Anki, RTK and Rikai chan, everyone has been really helpful here thank you all.

You can also set Rikaichan to hide English definitions and only give you the readings of words. That makes it like reading a book/website with furigana, but the furigana only pops up when you hover your mouse over a word.

And, if needed, with the press of another button (D, by default) the definition can be accessed too. Or, when you want to look into a Kanji instead of a word, press shift and a keyword for the Kanji pops up (you can set which one, I just use the Heisig keywords).

Manga of course can't really be used with Rikaichan, but I disagree that beginners can't read manga. You just need furigana (that's a must) and a fan-translation (they're all over the web), in parallel, to help you when you don't understand something. If it's a manga you're interested in, you should read it even if it's a little more complicated than just using Rikaichan.

I've been enjoying doing both.

BigBrother Wrote:

s0apgun Wrote:Use Rikai-chan (http://www.polarcloud.com/rikaichan/) in Firefox for streamlined dictionary lookups.

Rikai-kun, the google chrome port (https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detai...mmhp?hl=en).

In 3 steps...

You should watch the video first to get a jist of what they will be talking about. Then attempt to read the articles, mousing over each word you don't know to reveal their definition. After you make it through the article, you can shadow (follow along) with the audio clip that reads the article to you.

Don't worry too much about memorizing the words you don't know. Internalize them for a few seconds and keep moving. These words will continue to pop up and you will learn them just like a SRS works. The good thing with native material you will encounter the different nuances for those vocab words which increases your retention rate in SRS.

You also have the option to throw the words you don't know into Anki with a plug-in for Rikai-chan to SRS them later.

As a beginner, I would recommend you to spend most your reading online using Rikai-chan. Drudging through mangas or novels with a conventional dictionary is a waste of time and will make you HATE it.

Thanks so much for this i'll make sure to follow each step, I will start doing Anki, RTK and Rikai chan, everyone has been really helpful here thank you all.

If your using firefox, no reason not to use rikaisama instead of rikaichan. It's much more feature full.

BigBrother Wrote:I was planning to read some mangas with Furigana, I know this might sound stupid to some of the more dedicated members here however my end-goal in Japanese is to basically be able to read it as my top priority since I enjoy reading their literature, so matters such as prounounciation aren't of great importance at the moment for me.

So far it seems SRS should be the number 1 priority since it is mentioned in both posts. I will try to do it, just one last question though, is there an average amount of words learned per-day ? or does it vary from person to perosn ?

Doesn't sound stupid at all. In fact, if you enjoy reading and reading comprehension is your primary goal it would be stupid not to read. I did the same thing (started reading simple manga early on, eventually added children's books, light novels and visual novels in the mix); especially in the beginning it was frustrating and even discouraging due to the sheer amount of unknowns, but I kept up anyway (looking up way more than I probably should've ) and don't regret it one bit, because the progress is fabulous.

In my experience, SRSing vocab is useful to rapidly develop a basic vocabulary to get you started. When my reading ability improved I just ditched my pain the ass core deck and now I just add (often edited/partial) sentences I encounter while reading whenever I feel like it, making it much less of a chore. It's actually kind of fun to have a deck that constantly reminds you of every work of fiction you've ever read in Japanese ^^

s0apgun Wrote:As a beginner, I would recommend you to spend most your reading online using Rikai-chan. Drudging through mangas or novels with a conventional dictionary is a waste of time and will make you HATE it.

I agree efficient lookups are a must, but I disagree only web reading with Rikai* fulfills this requirement. For manga/novel scans there's KanjiTomo (and nothing wrong with a regular edict/epwing dictionary either if it's got furigana), for printed books with furigana a smartphone dictionary works well enough and for visual novels the heavenly Interactive Text Hooker + Translation Aggregator combination does an excellent job. I would recommend reading not restricting yourself to a particular medium but rather aiming for materials with a good balance between matching your reading level and sparking your interest.

By the way, if you want to try books eventually: I can't recommend the 青い鳥文庫 and 角川つばさ文庫 collections enough. All of their books are guaranteed to have 100% furigana even if the original didn't. The former has all kinds of children's novels, the latter has a ベストセラー line with reprints of famous novels like 時をかける少女 and キノの旅. As for manga, did you already know about the excellent recommendation thread (with difficulty/furigana ratings) stickied to one of the boards here?

Savii Wrote:Doesn't sound stupid at all. In fact, if you enjoy reading and reading comprehension is your primary goal it would be stupid not to read. I did the same thing (started reading simple manga early on, eventually added children's books, light novels and visual novels in the mix); especially in the beginning it was frustrating and even discouraging due to the sheer amount of unknowns, but I kept up anyway (looking up way more than I probably should've ) and don't regret it one bit, because the progress is fabulous.

In my experience, SRSing vocab is useful to rapidly develop a basic vocabulary to get you started. When my reading ability improved I just ditched my pain the ass core deck and now I just add (often edited/partial) sentences I encounter while reading whenever I feel like it, making it much less of a chore. It's actually kind of fun to have a deck that constantly reminds you of every work of fiction you've ever read in Japanese ^^

s0apgun Wrote:As a beginner, I would recommend you to spend most your reading online using Rikai-chan. Drudging through mangas or novels with a conventional dictionary is a waste of time and will make you HATE it.

I agree efficient lookups are a must, but I disagree only web reading with Rikai* fulfills this requirement. For manga/novel scans there's KanjiTomo (and nothing wrong with a regular edict/epwing dictionary either if it's got furigana), for printed books with furigana a smartphone dictionary works well enough and for visual novels the heavenly Interactive Text Hooker + Translation Aggregator combination does an excellent job. I would recommend reading not restricting yourself to a particular medium but rather aiming for materials with a good balance between matching your reading level and sparking your interest.

By the way, if you want to try books eventually: I can't recommend the 青い鳥文庫 and 角川つばさ文庫 collections enough. All of their books are guaranteed to have 100% furigana even if the original didn't. The former has all kinds of children's novels, the latter has a ベストセラー line with reprints of famous novels like 時をかける少女 and キノの旅. As for manga, did you already know about the excellent recommendation thread (with difficulty/furigana ratings) stickied to one of the boards here?

Wow such a good read and great advice, thanks a lot, did you use a specific dictionary or just the internet for the words you didn't know? Also did you use the core6k deck in Anki or did another one work out for you better?

EDIT: Just one last question what do people mean by reviews when mentioned in this site concerning the RTK1 is it just putting the words you learned previously into an Anki deck then reviewing all of them every single day? Or is there more to it.

BigBrother Wrote:Wow such a good read and great advice, thanks a lot, did you use a specific dictionary or just the internet for the words you didn't know? Also did you use the core6k deck in Anki or did another one work out for you better?

I've mostly used jmdict/edict, which is what websites like Tangorin and Denshi Jisho, programs like KanjiTomo and Translation Aggregator, and apps like Akebi and Aedict use as source data. It has some shortcomings, but especially when starting out it's a solid choice; it was practically made for the Japanese learner and helps understand a word in most situations. Eijirou is very useful as a supplement (can be searched for free at alc.co.jp), it's more sentence and expression oriented rather than word oriented. Eventually you may want to look into other dictionaries intended for native speakers of Japanese, such as Kenkyuusha J-E (can be used on smartphones). They're not very beginner friendly but contain much more information than edict.

I did Core2k and part of Core6k; I unsuspended partly based on order and partly based on what I encountered while reading. Never mind that though, I would recommend finding out what works best for you. When it comes to cramming as much new vocabulary as you can it works differently for everyone and persistence is the most important factor anyway. It doesn't really matter as long as you have a decent vocabulary base after some time, then you can ditch the separate vocab study and just dive into reading/listening materials. The right moment will probably become clear when you arrive at that point. Regularly try reading simple manga (Yotsubato-level simple, most shounen/shoujo is actually pretty tough) to see how you're progressing. And keep in mind that truly easy native materials don't exist, literally everything you try will be hard when you don't have much reading experience yet.

BigBrother Wrote:EDIT: Just one last question what do people mean by reviews when mentioned in this site concerning the RTK1 is it just putting the words you learned previously into an Anki deck then reviewing all of them every single day? Or is there more to it.

RTK reviews are usually done keyword -> kanji, and vocab/sentence reviews are kept in a seperate deck. You review every day, but Anki doesn't show *everything* *every* day obviously, that'd be torture and it's the reason why SRS is used in the first place. You may also be interested in this deck which includes Japanese keywords and anti-keyword-confusion notes but excludes some relatively uncommon RTK kanji.

Thank you so much Savii you have been extremely helpful. In addition to actually giving me some hope that I don't need to learn ALL of my vocabulary from random sentences or SRS decks, not that there is anything wrong with the method It's just that I enjoy learning by reading and said method has worked out for me in learning both French and English even though it can be painfully slow sometimes.

buonaparte Wrote:Strange as it may sound, there is a way to learn languages (Japanese included) and read (and listen to) books at the same time. I’ve been doing it ever since I started reading as a child. The way is described here:
http://users.bestweb.net/%7Esiom/martian...ssages.htm
All the necessary materials are included.
http://users.bestweb.net/~siom/martian_mountain/

By the way, I've never used SRS to learn anything.

I think this is a very intriguing method that deserves more attention. It seems like a good alternative or at least an addition to the SRS approach. The description itself is a pretty entertaining read, and the underlying concept seems sound.

I'd be interested in hearing about anybody else who's tried this.

I didn't learn by L-R as a primary method, but I have borrowed L-R techniques for improving my reading & listening comprehension and reading speed. I find it a worthwhile endeavor. If I decide to tackle another language after Japanese I might use L-R as the primary method.

I think SRS does complement L-R very well, actually, for people that don't hate SRSing (obviously learning methods that make you miserable are unlikely to be effective). Anyway, L-R methods are very good at building the necessary mental structure for understanding the language, while SRS is good for reinforcing the memory of specific words or phrases. If you're L-Ring though, SRSing the most common words is going to be both annoying and pretty much worthless, since the most common words are going to come at you fast and thick anyway. If you combine L-R with Core, I'd be liberal about suspending cards that are annoying you by being too simple.

If you have enough dedication you can read through something and STUDY most of the new vocabulary/grammar you face. RTK is great to achieve Kanji mastery, but you'll have to finish it (or at least the lite version) to reap the fruit. After doing RTK you can focus on acquiring masses of vocab, or "naturally" if you want to.