I'm quickly approaching the end of Remembering the Kanji and will have completed it in a week or so. Right now I'm trying to figure out what my study plan will be after finishing RTK.

My idea so far is that I'll start working through Genki I and II (I've already done the first two chapters of Genki I), while doing a core 10k deck. But I cant decide whether to approach vocab from a production or recognition basis. After finishing Heisig, I'm biased towards production because if you can produce a word you'll definitely be able to recognize it. However, this takes longer to learn than recognition. I calculate that to make it through 10k words in a year I'll need to be doing about 30 words a day. I'm not sure I'll be able to do 30 words a day on top of working through Genki I and II or whatever other textbooks I want to tackle.

Has anyone here approached the 10k deck from a production perspective? I'm moving to Japan in 3 months and want to be able to speak with people so that's another reason I'm leaning towards production.

Also if someone could recommend the best 10k decks on Anki I'd appreciate it.

Production and Recognition are separate activities. You may be able to produce some of what you can recognize, or vice versa, there won't be 100% if you only focus on one.

The only issue with production is that until you reach a certain point, your production will be E->J which will lead to issues when trying to produce to the overlap in meaning of some things. People here have suggested a number of possible workarounds such as hints on the card or sentences with the key word removed. These are things you can do for production.

Also keep in mind that there is obviously audio recognition of words and also written recognition.

EDIT: I'll also add that recognition if far easier to learn than production. Pulling the words and grammar out on the spot are incredibly difficult activities and even if you can produce the word in review you may still find it difficult to produce in conversation. But it'll be far easier to produce if you are reviewing for production than if you were doing recognition only.

Are you TRYING to start a holy war with this title?

Seriously, though, I view these as separate activities that require separate practice. I'm not big on SRS production. I find production decks take a long time to build, take a long time to review, and are ultimately quite boring. But that's just my opinion.

My suggestion would be to build your vocab using Anki or a similar SRS, and work 1:1 with language exchange partners or iTalki teachers to practice production. If what you want to do is speak, then practice speaking.

Also, make sure your expectations are reasonable. You won't be very conversant in three months (esp. if you're still studying basic grammar and vocab), but you'll likely be able to learn enough to speak simple sentences and get by.

Chomskyan Wrote:I'm quickly approaching the end of Remembering the Kanji and will have completed it in a week or so. Right now I'm trying to figure out what my study plan will be after finishing RTK.

My idea so far is that I'll start working through Genki I and II (I've already done the first two chapters of Genki I), while doing a core 10k deck. But I cant decide whether to approach vocab from a production or recognition basis. After finishing Heisig, I'm biased towards production because if you can produce a word you'll definitely be able to recognize it. However, this takes longer to learn than recognition. I calculate that to make it through 10k words in a year I'll need to be doing about 30 words a day. I'm not sure I'll be able to do 30 words a day on top of working through Genki I and II or whatever other textbooks I want to tackle.

Has anyone here approached the 10k deck from a production perspective? I'm moving to Japan in 3 months and want to be able to speak with people so that's another reason I'm leaning towards production.

Also if someone could recommend the best 10k decks on Anki I'd appreciate it.

Holy war indeed. But it's a good question, so here's my take on it, for what it's worth.

I'd recommend recognition only, and 20 to 30 words a day. I'm pretty conservative on adding material. I mean, you're trying to add 10,000 words to your vocabulary, so wow.

I spent years on production, and in great retrospect feel it's too slow, because you spend a lot of time going over the same material in order to be able to do it competently.

The plus side of production is that you gain the ability to have simple conversations in a limited range of circumstances. But trust me, you're gonna get real tired of having the same conversations over and over in Japan. Where you from? Really, wow. And you can eat octopus? Amazing.

The way out of that is to massively increase your vocabulary. And one way to do that is to focus on recognition, cover a lot of material, and let the production take care of itself. In the end, it's far more important to understand what people are saying, than to say things yourself. Anyway, that's what I think.

To add to what JRo7 said, I've been doing weekly Japanese-only conversation for over a year now, and if there's one thing I've learned, it's that you can never really prepare for a good conversation. Sure, you can cobble together maybe five or six minutes of material beforehand. But what are you going to talk about for the remaining 50+ minutes?

Real conversations go in directions you can't predict, much less control. I've gone into lessons expecting to chat about the weather and what I did with my kids over the weekend, only to find 15 minutes later that my conversation partner and I are talking about the 都議会ヤジ事件, or the Japanese tax system. (True story.)

So, yeah. Stick with recognition, and for production, have real conversations that pull you out of your comfort zone. It's going to suck at first, but eventually...well, it'll start to suck just a little less.

I agree that you can never really prepare for a good conversation, but there is something you can do to improve your "output": write about topics you like. With this you will naturally practice to remember the words you will need and will reinforce all grammar you need to talk.

I am doing this to improve my fluency in English and it feels like it is working. Maybe it will work for you too.

jahnke Wrote:I agree that you can never really prepare for a good conversation, but there is something you can do to improve your "output": write about topics you like. With this you will naturally practice to remember the words you will need and will reinforce all grammar you need to talk.

I am doing this to improve my fluency in English and it feels like it is working. Maybe it will work for you too.

Agreed. Writing something after a conversation is also a great way to help commit what you learned during the convo to memory.

Quote:I'd recommend recognition only, and 20 to 30 words a day. I'm pretty conservative on adding material.

I agree with this very much.

Production (through Anki) is slow and painful and urgh. And chances are you don't actually need to produce anything at this point unless you live in Japan and still can't stumble through ordering food or something. If you're sitting around in some other country without any pressing need to speak ... what do you need to produce for? Leave it for later - build up your vocabulary in the least painful way possible first.

Aikynaro Wrote:Production (through Anki) is slow and painful and urgh. And chances are you don't actually need to produce anything at this point unless you live in Japan and still can't stumble through ordering food or something. If you're sitting around in some other country without any pressing need to speak ... what do you need to produce for? Leave it for later - build up your vocabulary in the least painful way possible first.

You can still practice production long before you ever go to Japan. And I'd encourage it. I'm very glad I've been practicing speaking for the past year, as it's really built up my skills and gotten rid of a lot of the hesitancy and fear around speaking that I once had. I will be far from fluent when I visit Tokyo in October, but I at least know I'll be able to communicate my intentions and have decent conversations with strangers.

But again, agreed on not using Anki for production. Urgh indeed.

I'm surprised to see everyone so opposed to learning production via Anki. I just worry that by not focusing on production, I will seriously hinder my ability to hold conversations with Japanese people once I arrive in Japan. So I think I will follow the advice here to avoid production for my core 10k. However, I will do production for my Genki/Textbook vocabulary. I'll also look into starting a lang-8 blog and holding conversations over skype with Japanese friends to practice production.

These are just our opinions. Not everyone on this forum is opposed to using Anki for production. Some members have made some really powerful production-based Anki decks. You can find older threads on using Anki for production by searching the forum.

You'll also find folks on this forum who dislike Anki as such and don't use SRS at all. C'est la vie.

I'd say try various things and see what works for you.

Chomskyan Wrote:I'm surprised to see everyone so opposed to learning production via Anki.

Just to clarify, I wouldn't say "opposed." I think practicing production, with Anki or otherwise, is great. But it's slow.

I find it difficult to recall the words I want to use, and I doubt it's only me. Like I'm trapped in the office today--so what's the word for "imprisoned"? Can't ... quite ... remember ... So I'd have to fail that card, and start all over again re-learning it. That's a slow process.

But if I saw the word for "imprisoned" (監禁), I could read it, so that's a pass. Also, I can reinforce connections with other words I know (like "coach" and "no smoking"), so that's another benefit. I find I can do many times more words in the same amount of time, focusing on recognition instead of production.

Also, going through core is really a building block for learning how to read, as well as a natural transition from RTK. Reading, it probably goes without saying, is fundamental for acquiring a language.

So I'd say that the process of vocabulary-building and learning to read is a long-term investment. Production, on the other hand, may be more immediately useful, but you'll soon find yourself limited in vocabulary and general knowledge.

You only have so much time in the day, so invest it wisely, would be my advice. Sorry for being so preachy. Ah jeez, now how do I say "preachy" in Japanese?

I think 押し付けがましい or
大きなお世話

If anyone has a better idea feel free to chime in

Btw recognition all the way IMO. There's way too much fun Japanese media to consume or discover if u have none to consume to the point that you're asking this question.

JapaneseRuleOf7 Wrote:You only have so much time in the day, so invest it wisely, would be my advice. Sorry for being so preachy. Ah jeez, now how do I say "preachy" in Japanese?

今日の説教は終わりか？(^.^)

.

gaiaslastlaugh Wrote:

Aikynaro Wrote:Production (through Anki) is slow and painful and urgh. And chances are you don't actually need to produce anything at this point unless you live in Japan and still can't stumble through ordering food or something. If you're sitting around in some other country without any pressing need to speak ... what do you need to produce for? Leave it for later - build up your vocabulary in the least painful way possible first.

You can still practice production long before you ever go to Japan. And I'd encourage it. I'm very glad I've been practicing speaking for the past year, as it's really built up my skills and gotten rid of a lot of the hesitancy and fear around speaking that I once had. I will be far from fluent when I visit Tokyo in October, but I at least know I'll be able to communicate my intentions and have decent conversations with strangers.

But again, agreed on not using Anki for production. Urgh indeed.

Don't get me wrong - I'm not discouraging practicing production in general. But I think a complete beginner shouldn't unless there's some particular and pressing need to. Of course when you have a workable vocabulary, practicing speaking and such is a totally fine and sensible thing to do.

JapaneseRuleOf7 Wrote:Ah jeez, now how do I say "preachy" in Japanese?

説教臭い♪

For those who do recognition only, do you write (copy) the compounds while you're reviewing? Or only when you're learning the word? Or never? Do you think it is useful to write down the word in terms of retention?

Reviewing as fast as possible is Holy. I can't imagine writing being more beneficial than doing twice as many cards in the same amount of time.

My learning routine is the same as my reviewing routine, just with fewer cards at a time, and more steps.

Chomskyan Wrote:I'm surprised to see everyone so opposed to learning production via Anki. I just worry that by not focusing on production, I will seriously hinder my ability to hold conversations with Japanese people once I arrive in Japan.

Yeah, I wouldn't worry so much. Truth be told, you won't have much ability to hold a conversation until you can understand what the other person is saying. If you can understand, then that is much more than half the battle. You are eighty percent of the way there. Understanding something contains within it the seed of being able to say something. Get enough exposure, and words and sentences will just start to come out fully formed (if not necessarily perfect). In time you can polish it up with focused practice, but the raw material is vocabulary and knowledge of common patterns. Learn your sentences. Then lots of listening and reading, listening and reading.

I have said this elsewhere, but I made the most progress in being able to speak when I was listening to radio all the time (which was possible also because I learned vocab). I would listen to radio, watch tv, study all week long, the on the weekend have a chat with a friend for a few hours. That was my only output and it didn't hinder me at all.

Your conversational partners will also be thankful. If they can talk about a range of topics without fear that you wont be able to keep up, it's more fun for them and you have a better chance of striking up friendships and getting more practice in over all.

I used to do production flashcards for years. Biggest mistake I ever made and in hindsight it slowed me down massively. Now I only do recognition and find it 10x more effective.

Aikynaro Wrote:Don't get me wrong - I'm not discouraging practicing production in general. But I think a complete beginner shouldn't unless there's some particular and pressing need to. Of course when you have a workable vocabulary, practicing speaking and such is a totally fine and sensible thing to do.

Agreed, so long as you go into it with the proper mindset (I.e., you will struggle to speak at first even if you know 10,000+ words).

Cophnia61 Wrote:For those who do recognition only, do you write (copy) the compounds while you're reviewing? Or only when you're learning the word? Or never? Do you think it is useful to write down the word in terms of retention?

I used skitter for vocab for over a year. I found it really useful in becoming familiar with kanji. I stopped doing this when drilling vocab in isolation became tedious (I moved back to subs2srs and sentence mining to study vocab in context), and now I barely practice writing at all. Since all of my written Japanese output is on the computer, this doesn't bother me. But yes, I found writing very useful for my first 10,000 words.

Should I keep going the way I'm going? I'm doing nukemarines optimized core2k/6k and have under 2000 words left to learn. I agree that production is a pain in the ass and not very enjoyable but it does help me write journal entries about my daily life (when interesting things happen).

I also do recognition, both reading and listening, so my plan now is finish 6000 words in production and just focus and ramp up recognition learning.

If its working and you enjoy it, then keep doing it.

vix86 Wrote:If its working and you enjoy it, then keep doing it.

Better advice has never been given.