I've been wondering lately how effective is it to review a single highlighted word in a sentence instead of whole sentences?

Personally I've always been reviewing my sentences whole, and failing them if I mistake any word.

Recently I tested the "corePLUS" deck focusing only on the highlighted vocab and the reviews take much less time, but I'm wondering if this will be effective in the long run. What do you review and how has it worked out in the long run for retaining the vocab and improving your reading?

Cheers!

I only review single words.
Reviewing a whole sentence would take up so much more time which you could spend in reading some real things in Japanese.

I'll probably keep testing for a bit to see how it goes.

Today's reviews, with no new cards added:

446 in 39 minutes (corePLUS key word recognition only)
-> 5.2s each

200 in 32 minutes (subs2srs full sentence read & comprehend)
-> 9.6s each

117 in 33 minutes (rdmk2k full sentence read & comprehend)
-> 16.9s each

65 in 15 minutes (RTK kanji production)
-> 13.8s each

Obviously the key word recognition is quicker, although slower than I thought it would go.

As far as 'processing' Japanese the subs2srs lines might be best, as they often include some non-trivial grammar patterns.

You must evaluate yourself for only one thing at a time, be it a word or a grammar point. This does not mean you must put only a word... this word can be in a sentence but you must evaluate only on that word... in other words the sentence itself must be comprehensible... or n+1. If the sentence has more than one thing you don't understant, I think you must put the same sentence two times, with a different word bolded for each one. Sentences are essential, not only for context, but because you practice reading and become accustomed to the language, grammar, other words etc.. With sentences you are reviewing also the other words that appear in the same, grammar, patterns etc.. I know those things can be done outsite Anki, but still we cannot read al the time, especially when we are super beginner, so from the moment we must use Anki anyway, it is a good thing to take advantage of this to practice also other things and not only pure vocabulary. But yes, you must evaluate only one thing at a time, and sentence reading is optional, do it only if you need to and if you have time/will to do it. My .50 円

I tend to prefer reviewing one word at a time, though always as part of a sentence. I've got several kind of cards in my decks though, including full sentences with pretty much all the words highlighted... it basically depends on the word(s).

If it's a completely new word that I haven't encountered a lot yet, then I prefer highlighting this word only. If the sentence is easy vocabulary-wise, but the grammar still interests me, then I don't highlight any words and I simply test myself on the whole sentence.

I'm not sure how "efficient" any of those approaches are, I guess it mostly bogs down to your tolerance to frustration :p

I know I hate failing the same card over and over again, which tends to happen a lot when I review a difficult cards with 3 words or more that I don't know well. Maybe it's more efficient this way, but I know it would make doing my reps a chore.

Supermemo has these interesting "20 rules of formulating knowledge" ( http://supermemo.com/articles/20rules.htm ) and I tend to agree with a lot of the points they make.

I used to do whole sentences, but now I'm moving towards single words. I tend to memorize the words faster this way. However, if you're going to review single words, I recommend doing some extensive reading as well, so that you get used to seeing the words in context.

I review words on their own and in sentences. Sometimes I don't recognize/know how to pronounce a word in a sentence but because I remember the content of the sentence, I remember the word. So sometimes it's good to just review the word alone too.

Both.

Linval Wrote:I tend to prefer reviewing one word at a time, though always as part of a sentence. I've got several kind of cards in my decks though, including full sentences with pretty much all the words highlighted... it basically depends on the word(s).

This is the approach I take as well - highlighted word in a sentence. It's faster to quiz just the word, but I like to have the context on hand when I'm still learning the word.

You could also have just the word on the front of your card, with the corresponding example sentence on the back. I prefer having the sentence on the front, with the quiz word highlighted; it makes learning new words from context more fun and more productive.

To be sure, inputting sentences can be a pain when culling words from physical books. (Rikaisama simplifies this for online material.) But even when pulling from books, I prefer to have sentences on hand. I view Anki not just as an SRS program, but as a reference database for my Japanese learning. If I have a question about how a given word or grammar point is used in context, I can search my ever-growing database of Japanese sentences and find at least one (usually multiple) examples that I have taken the time to add to Anki, study, and annotate with useful notes.

When I drill individual words I include the sentence below the word in a small font and a light color. That way I don't see it unless I look for it. I look at the sentence less than 5% of the time, because I want to make sure I know the word without any hints.

I do sentences separately for grammar recognition.