I started core2k a few months ago until I finished step 1. I then got the optimized core2k/6k deck and started that for a month until I realized I should practice recognition instead of just production so I continued with core2k step 2 while also doing core2k/6k.

With core2k/6k though I've noticed that I had to lower the new words a day to 15 because the reviews pile up fast. This is because I have a hard time remembering all the new similar sounding vocabulary that towards the end of the daily new cards I just keep repeating the same 5 or so words until I somehow remember them. Then the next day I completely forget most of those new words and I have more new words to struggle with and forget.

Core2k helps me more because even though I do 30 cards a day there, it's not 30 unique words a day. The reason I made this topic is because I see people post here that they do 30-50 new words a day and I feel like my pace might be too slow. At my rate it would take me a little over a year to finish core2k/6k which seems really long to me. Any advice on how I can improve my study methods?

I'm also doing Tae Kim grammar and have a deck for that too so that takes time as well.

Anki is designed primarily to help you retain things you already know. As such, you should try doing a little more to cement new words in your short-term memory, so that Anki can do its job in moving them into long-term storage.

I used to keep a vocab list of all the new words I had learned in the previous week (on quizlet.com) and drill them every morning before reviews. However, I do 100-150 new cards a day using unoptimized Core decks, so I frequently see 30-50 new words a day. As such my pre-review review started taking as long as my actual review, which defeats the purpose of SRS. If you see fewer cards per day or drop words out of your vocab list more frequently (after, say, a couple days) you won't have this problem.

What I do now is write out every single new word I hit in Core, with furigana, every single time I see it for the first day. This really helps cement most of the words I see, and has the added benefit of reinforcing kanji readings and usage patterns.

As a final note, the default stepping in Anki is ridiculous. The jump from 10 minutes to 24 hours on new cards is just too much for learning a foreign language. I have mine set to give an extra step for new cards at 30 minutes which has helped my retention quite a bit. With this stepping I write out new vocab around six times on the day I see it, which is enough for most new words.

learningkanji Wrote:I started core2k a few months ago until I finished step 1. I then got the optimized core2k/6k deck and started that for a month until I realized I should practice recognition instead of just production so I continued with core2k step 2 while also doing core2k/6k.

With core2k/6k though I've noticed that I had to lower the new words a day to 15 because the reviews pile up fast. This is because I have a hard time remembering all the new similar sounding vocabulary that towards the end of the daily new cards I just keep repeating the same 5 or so words until I somehow remember them. Then the next day I completely forget most of those new words and I have more new words to struggle with and forget.

Core2k helps me more because even though I do 30 cards a day there, it's not 30 unique words a day. The reason I made this topic is because I see people post here that they do 30-50 new words a day and I feel like my pace might be too slow. At my rate it would take me a little over a year to finish core2k/6k which seems really long to me. Any advice on how I can improve my study methods?

I'm also doing Tae Kim grammar and have a deck for that too so that takes time as well.

I'm not sure I quite follow your description of the problem since I don't know why a difference n the decks affects you so much. But I think your issue is with learning new words. You can export the notes from anki into a spreadsheet. Print out the next 500 or so words so you have them handy. You can review the new words on paper first. Write notes on the words next to them on things such as ON and KUN usage. Seeing them on paper first may help rather than trying to flick through the new words on anki and digest the there for the first time.

PotbellyPig Wrote:

learningkanji Wrote:I started core2k a few months ago until I finished step 1. I then got the optimized core2k/6k deck and started that for a month until I realized I should practice recognition instead of just production so I continued with core2k step 2 while also doing core2k/6k.

With core2k/6k though I've noticed that I had to lower the new words a day to 15 because the reviews pile up fast. This is because I have a hard time remembering all the new similar sounding vocabulary that towards the end of the daily new cards I just keep repeating the same 5 or so words until I somehow remember them. Then the next day I completely forget most of those new words and I have more new words to struggle with and forget.

Core2k helps me more because even though I do 30 cards a day there, it's not 30 unique words a day. The reason I made this topic is because I see people post here that they do 30-50 new words a day and I feel like my pace might be too slow. At my rate it would take me a little over a year to finish core2k/6k which seems really long to me. Any advice on how I can improve my study methods?

I'm also doing Tae Kim grammar and have a deck for that too so that takes time as well.

I'm not sure I quite follow your description of the problem since I don't know why a difference n the decks affects you so much. But I think your issue is with learning new words. You can export the notes from anki into a spreadsheet. Print out the next 500 or so words so you have them handy. You can review the new words on paper first. Write notes on the words next to them on things such as ON and KUN usage. Seeing them on paper first may help rather than trying to flick through the new words on anki and digest the there for the first time.

The difference in decks is that in core2k/6k every card is a unique word. In core2k, you get multiple cards for each word: 1 for reading recognition of the word, 1 for reading recognition of the word in a sentence, 1 for production of the word, 1 for listening to the word, and 1 for listening to the word in a sentence. That means you see a word 5 times as often in core2k than in core2k/6k while practicing in all departments. That makes it much easier to remember and stick in your head. However you are exposed to new words at a way slower rate than core2k/6k.

afterglowefx Wrote:As a final note, the default stepping in Anki is ridiculous. The jump from 10 minutes to 24 hours on new cards is just too much for learning a foreign language. I have mine set to give an extra step for new cards at 30 minutes which has helped my retention quite a bit. With this stepping I write out new vocab around six times on the day I see it, which is enough for most new words.

Honestly this sounds weird and time consuming. This kind of drilling reminds of rote-memorizing. Your initial learning of the word doesn't have to be focused on short term memory. Anki isn't made for this. As I understand it, Anki is to help move things from medium term memory to long-term memory. My interval for new cards is 3 days, and I never fail cards that have only 1 review, worst case I hit hard. And I don't even have a good memory, I just don't expect my brain to learn 50 new words in a hour. It half learns half of them, then 3 days later, it 2/3 knows 2/3 of them, and a week later most of them are known.

learningkanji Wrote:The difference in decks is that in core2k/6k every card is a unique word. In core2k, you get multiple cards for each word: 1 for reading recognition of the word, 1 for reading recognition of the word in a sentence, 1 for production of the word, 1 for listening to the word, and 1 for listening to the word in a sentence. That means you see a word 5 times as often in core2k than in core2k/6k while practicing in all departments. That makes it much easier to remember and stick in your head. However you are exposed to new words at a way slower rate than core2k/6k.

Ah, you might have a special deck then, because afaik the regular core2k is like your 6k. So my advice would be to get the regular 2k, mark all the cards as not new then start reviewing to learn to deal with all the infos at once. When you're confortable doing the same with 6k should be easier.

EratiK Wrote:

afterglowefx Wrote:As a final note, the default stepping in Anki is ridiculous. The jump from 10 minutes to 24 hours on new cards is just too much for learning a foreign language. I have mine set to give an extra step for new cards at 30 minutes which has helped my retention quite a bit. With this stepping I write out new vocab around six times on the day I see it, which is enough for most new words.

Honestly this sounds weird and time consuming. This kind of drilling reminds of rote-memorizing. Your initial learning of the word doesn't have to be focused on short term memory. Anki isn't made for this. As I understand it, Anki is to help move things from medium term memory to long-term memory. My interval for new cards is 3 days, and I never fail cards that have only 1 review, worst case I hit hard. And I don't even have a good memory, I just don't expect my brain to learn 50 new words in a hour. It half learns half of them, then 3 days later, it 2/3 knows 2/3 of them, and a week later most of them are known.

learningkanji Wrote:The difference in decks is that in core2k/6k every card is a unique word. In core2k, you get multiple cards for each word: 1 for reading recognition of the word, 1 for reading recognition of the word in a sentence, 1 for production of the word, 1 for listening to the word, and 1 for listening to the word in a sentence. That means you see a word 5 times as often in core2k than in core2k/6k while practicing in all departments. That makes it much easier to remember and stick in your head. However you are exposed to new words at a way slower rate than core2k/6k.

Ah, you might have a special deck then, because afaik the regular core2k is like your 6k. So my advice would be to get the regular 2k, mark all the cards as not new then start reviewing to learn to deal with all the infos at once. When you're confortable doing the same with 6k should be easier.

The deck(s) I'm using are Japanese Core 2000 Step XX Listening Sentence Vocab + Images. If the normal core2k is only production like core2k/6k then I wouldn't get to practice recognition would I? If most people are using core2k and core2k/6k, what do they use for recognition?

EratiK Wrote:Honestly this sounds weird and time consuming. This kind of drilling reminds of rote-memorizing. Your initial learning of the word doesn't have to be focused on short term memory. Anki isn't made for this. As I understand it, Anki is to help move things from medium term memory to long-term memory. My interval for new cards is 3 days, and I never fail cards that have only 1 review, worst case I hit hard. And I don't even have a good memory, I just don't expect my brain to learn 50 new words in a hour. It half learns half of them, then 3 days later, it 2/3 knows 2/3 of them, and a week later most of them are known.

I do expect my brain to know that many new words every day. I also expect to remember the kanji that make up the word, and I further expect to recall the reading when I see the kanji again elsewhere. This is a lot to expect, granted, but it also doesn't take more than a few seconds to write out the kanji and furigana. It's good practice, and per word you're only looking at a time investment of a few tens of seconds. And my retention rate hovers at around 95%, that with instant-failing any word I don't recognize inside of 5 seconds.

learningkanji Wrote:The deck(s) I'm using are Japanese Core 2000 Step XX Listening Sentence Vocab + Images. If the normal core2k is only production like core2k/6k then I wouldn't get to practice recognition would I? If most people are using core2k and core2k/6k, what do they use for recognition?

I'm sorry I didn't understand earlier your optimized deck was only for production, because one of my decks called "further optimized" does both production and recognition. But the few other core decks I encountered were the same: they had the double amount of cards to review both ways (and I believe a lot of people suspend one way for some reason). Guess I never stopped to look for a deck with the single amount.

afterglowefx Wrote:I do expect my brain to know that many new words every day. I also expect to remember the kanji that make up the word, and I further expect to recall the reading when I see the kanji again elsewhere. This is a lot to expect, granted, but it also doesn't take more than a few seconds to write out the kanji and furigana. It's good practice, and per word you're only looking at a time investment of a few tens of seconds. And my retention rate hovers at around 95%, that with instant-failing any word I don't recognize inside of 5 seconds.

I wasn't talking about reviews (of young or mature cards). Nukemarine did a production core, and wrote the words out, and he had great retention too. But you'll never convince me 6 passes on new cards isn't overkill. No matter how fast you go imo it's 5 times too slow.

EratiK Wrote:I wasn't talking about reviews (of young or mature cards). Nukemarine did a production core, and wrote the words out, and he had great retention too. But you'll never convince me 6 passes on new cards isn't overkill. No matter how fast you go imo it's 5 times too slow.

Ohhh, yeah, sorry, I wasn't clear enough. I'm using the standard Core6k decks, so I see new words five times: 1) listening 2) recognition 3) sentence listening 4) sentence recognition 5) production

I write out the word when I get either a listening or production card. With custom stepping I see new cards first, then ten minutes later, then thirty minutes later for a final time. So that works out to writing each new word six times, but I only see new cards three times.

I should try experimenting with the stepping again. 1/10/30 is great for retention but I wonder if I could do 1/30 and still be fine with brand new vocab.

What I do when words does not stick or I fail way too much is to list them all; then, search them on Aedict (an android app) and review. It shows detailed information such as on, kun readings, writing order, sample sentences etc. The next day, I review them again on Aedict before doing Anki. It has an export as flashcard to Anki, notepad, quiz & other tools but I haven't used them yet.

On another note, some cards that bothered me are things like furafura, burabura, etc and no matter what I do, it just does not click easily -_-

afterglowefx Wrote:As a final note, the default stepping in Anki is ridiculous. The jump from 10 minutes to 24 hours on new cards is just too much for learning a foreign language. I have mine set to give an extra step for new cards at 30 minutes which has helped my retention quite a bit. With this stepping I write out new vocab around six times on the day I see it, which is enough for most new words.

Consider that idea stolen. You just add a 30 in the New Cards/Steps, after the 1 10, right?

...You guys are confusing me.
What is the best way to start studying vocabulary? I just finished RTK so I want to know...
Can you settle on 1 method or something?

Stansfield123 Wrote:Consider that idea stolen. You just add a 30 in the New Cards/Steps, after the 1 10, right?

Yep, that's all there is to it.

I've seen a major improvement for what's really a small amount of extra work.

afterglowefx Wrote:Ohhh, yeah, sorry, I wasn't clear enough. I'm using the standard Core6k decks, so I see new words five times: 1) listening 2) recognition 3) sentence listening 4) sentence recognition 5) production

I write out the word when I get either a listening or production card. With custom stepping I see new cards first, then ten minutes later, then thirty minutes later for a final time. So that works out to writing each new word six times, but I only see new cards three times.

I should try experimenting with the stepping again. 1/10/30 is great for retention but I wonder if I could do 1/30 and still be fine with brand new vocab.

Ah, thanks for the explanation, I didn't know this 5-card thing was "standard core". Then again I've been out of the loop a little while.

Givala Wrote:...You guys are confusing me.
What is the best way to start studying vocabulary? I just finished RTK so I want to know...
Can you settle on 1 method or something?

We can't settle on one method. Everyone is different. I used the iKnow! website for the first 6000 words which are more like what the OP explained: Hits you with the word from different directions-> english->japanese; japanese->english, etc.. I then did the final ~4000 words in Core 10k with just a recognition deck and then I'm up to about 6,000 words from my own reading in a recognition deck (so I'm at about 16,000 words now). Recognition is easier and faster to review than production so you may want to stick with a deck that just goes from Japanese->English. To prep for studying your XX new words a day, you can dump the anki deck into a spreadsheet and print it out. Look over the words for the next day on paper and take notes. That may make things a bit easier as well. This is my method. I'm sure there are many others.

PotbellyPig Wrote:

Givala Wrote:...You guys are confusing me.
What is the best way to start studying vocabulary? I just finished RTK so I want to know...
Can you settle on 1 method or something?

We can't settle on one method. Everyone is different.

If there were one, best method none of us would be here, this site wouldn't exist, and everybody would speak 2-3 languages. The hardest thing about learning a language is taking the tens of thousands of little bits of the puzzle, putting them all in your brain, and remembering how the hell they all go together. I can no more offer you a road-map to your own brain than you can to mine.

I like writing out my vocab. EratiK prefers a more passive approach where new vocab words sort of slowly percolate in over time. PotbellyPig prefers to review ahead on paper. None of these are wrong, they just happen to work for us, and they may work for you too. Try it and see which one you like best.