Hello

Does anyone here have any recommendations on a good anki vocabulary deck for beginners? I'm sure this has been asked many times, but I haven't found anything specifically on what I am looking for. I just started learning Japanese around the beginning of the year but have been focusing almost entirely on writing and vocabulary, using Tae Kim's guide and a kanji anki deck.

I am looking for something with a layout like

Front
word written in kanji (or kana if that's how it is typically written)

Back
pronunciation in both hiragana text and audio
maybe an example sentence to give context

I was thinking about using one of the Core decks, 6000 looks the best. Those are the one's I always hear about, but there are so many of them, and I cannot decide on which one is most suitable to my level and goals. I am also willing to try others if someone here thinks one better. I haven't had any luck in finding any in the layout I want. Can someone here please link me to one like what I described (if it exists). I also read about people editing ones they downloaded but I have no idea how to edit these.

My goal is to build up a vocabulary of the most common Japanese words. I only know about 200 now (almost all from Tae Kim's grammar guide), and can only understand about 5% of what I read (which means I don't get the meaning at all). I know there will not be a deck that has all I need to become fluent in the language but this seems like the most efficient way to work towards that for someone at my level.

And if someone has an strategy they believe would work better, I am open to recommended alternatives.

Thanks

I think you got the right idea. The Core decks are a decent way to go. Not all the words will probably be relevant to you. But Core generally does scale in difficulty.

Personally, I prefer reviewing sentences with a single word that is highlighted out of it. On the flip side, I have audio and either highlighted words in the translation or a definition.
I mix the Core decks with Anime Subs2srs cards, picking and choosing kinda randomly which words I want to learn next. (I just add a special tag and use a filtered deck to do the initial reviews for these here.) And the Morphology plugin helps me decide I'm learning easy words for myself.

[url=I think you got the right idea. The Core decks are a decent way to go. Not all the words will probably be relevant to you. But Core generally does scale in difficulty. There are three Core sets, 2k/6k/10k. It would probably be best if you get a deck with all of them combined.

Personally, I prefer reviewing sentences with a single word that is highlighted out of it. On the flip side, I have audio and either highlighted words in the translation or a definition. (See below.) I mix the Core decks with Anime Subs2srs cards, picking and choosing kinda randomly which words are interesting enough for me to learn next. (I just add a special tag and use a filtered deck to do the initial reviews for these here.) And the Morphology plugin helps me sort by my own personal difficulty.

What I like about Core is it has a ton of vocab words. What I like about my anime sentences is they are interesting to me because I like the shows.

Anyway, here is a screenshot of one of my (more amusing) sentences, with two words highlighted out of it.
Anki_Hyouka_Screenshot_2014-07-04 02.33.59.png

My layout:
[Image]

[prior lines for context]
Sentence
[following lines for context]
-----------
Sentence with furigana

[prior lines for context in English]
Sentence in English
[following lines for context in English]
(If dictionary definitions are needed they tend to go here.)

Sequence in episode
(Any focus morphs show up here)

Core decks have their usefulness, but I'd suggest you start making your own decks as soon as you can. There are many tools out there that are worth your time (subs2srs comes to mind).

But for a start, the core 2K decks ( https://ankiweb.net/shared/info/4271439873 ) can give you a good base, even if the sentences are rather stiff and textbook-ish.

As a beginner, the only decks worth considering are those with native audio, which pretty much leaves you with Nukemarine's Core6k optimised i+1 deck as the only choice.

The card template is not a factor when choosing a deck as it is editable (Browse -> Cards ...).

Daichi Wrote:I think you got the right idea. The Core decks are a decent way to go. Not all the words will probably be relevant to you. But Core generally does scale in difficulty.

Personally, I prefer reviewing sentences with a single word that is highlighted out of it. On the flip side, I have audio and either highlighted words in the translation or a definition.
I mix the Core decks with Anime Subs2srs cards, picking and choosing kinda randomly which words I want to learn next. (I just add a special tag and use a filtered deck to do the initial reviews for these here.) And the Morphology plugin helps me decide I'm learning easy words for myself.

[url=I think you got the right idea. The Core decks are a decent way to go. Not all the words will probably be relevant to you. But Core generally does scale in difficulty. There are three Core sets, 2k/6k/10k. It would probably be best if you get a deck with all of them combined.

Personally, I prefer reviewing sentences with a single word that is highlighted out of it. On the flip side, I have audio and either highlighted words in the translation or a definition. (See below.) I mix the Core decks with Anime Subs2srs cards, picking and choosing kinda randomly which words are interesting enough for me to learn next. (I just add a special tag and use a filtered deck to do the initial reviews for these here.) And the Morphology plugin helps me sort by my own personal difficulty.

What I like about Core is it has a ton of vocab words. What I like about my anime sentences is they are interesting to me because I like the shows.

Anyway, here is a screenshot of one of my (more amusing) sentences, with two words highlighted out of it.
Anki_Hyouka_Screenshot_2014-07-04 02.33.59.png

My layout:
[Image]

[prior lines for context]
Sentence
[following lines for context]
-----------
Sentence with furigana

[prior lines for context in English]
Sentence in English
[following lines for context in English]
(If dictionary definitions are needed they tend to go here.)

Sequence in episode
(Any focus morphs show up here)

I'm thinking about getting into subs2srs but there's a lot to take in. It seems like it will take some time to get used to the program and then you have to get an anime/drama (I think you have to download the episodes for it to work with subs2srs right?), find subtitles for it, sync it all up, etc.

@learningkanji

I was so intimidated by subs2srs (and aegisub) at first too...but I have since made 11 decks out of dramas, and am currently making a huge deck out of the first harry potter book + audiobook (you can even use mp3 files with subs2srs - I tested it out and now have a deck with the first two chapters completed!) The more you use subs2srs and aegisub, the easier it gets, promise! I've only gotten through about 75% of my drama decks but I already notice a drastic improvement to my listening skills when watching other drama without subtitles, and I only started this year.
Sorry for fangirling, I just can't recommend these programs enough!

Thanks for the advice.
I'll probably go with the core10K (core 2k6k +4k more). That seems to be closest to what I'm looking for.

Another one that looked interesting is Core 2k/6k Optimized Japanese Vocabulary. It gives a sentence containing the vocabulary word on the front, but missing the word. What is the reasoning behind this layout. I'm worried that this may not be the best way of teaching me to recognize the word while reading. Has anyone who used a deck formatted in that way run into that problem?

anotherjohn Wrote:As a beginner, the only decks worth considering are those with native audio, which pretty much leaves you with Nukemarine's Core6k optimised i+1 deck as the only choice.

As far as I can hear, it's the same two people no matter which of these you pick.

Bob123: see https://www.google.com/search?q=producti...gws_rd=ssl for the debate.

comatosebunny Wrote:@learningkanji

I was so intimidated by subs2srs (and aegisub) at first too...but I have since made 11 decks out of dramas, and am currently making a huge deck out of the first harry potter book + audiobook (you can even use mp3 files with subs2srs - I tested it out and now have a deck with the first two chapters completed!) The more you use subs2srs and aegisub, the easier it gets, promise! I've only gotten through about 75% of my drama decks but I already notice a drastic improvement to my listening skills when watching other drama without subtitles, and I only started this year.
Sorry for fangirling, I just can't recommend these programs enough!

What dramas did you start with? Maybe if I can find one on the easier side with the subtitles, I can start trying it out.

learningkanji Wrote:

comatosebunny Wrote:@learningkanji

I was so intimidated by subs2srs (and aegisub) at first too...but I have since made 11 decks out of dramas, and am currently making a huge deck out of the first harry potter book + audiobook (you can even use mp3 files with subs2srs - I tested it out and now have a deck with the first two chapters completed!) The more you use subs2srs and aegisub, the easier it gets, promise! I've only gotten through about 75% of my drama decks but I already notice a drastic improvement to my listening skills when watching other drama without subtitles, and I only started this year.
Sorry for fangirling, I just can't recommend these programs enough!

What dramas did you start with? Maybe if I can find one on the easier side with the subtitles, I can start trying it out.

I started with Hana Yori Dango and 1 litre of tears. After those, I moved on to Akumu-chan, Ataru, Last Cinderella, Ando Lloyd, and most recently Alice no Toge. I recently watched a drama called Lost Days that was really easy to understand, though the acting was a bit awkward at times, but I have yet to make a deck from any episodes. That may be a good place to start though because of the ease!

Didn't you say you made 11 decks so far?

If you mean decks from dramas other then the ones in the last post, how did you go about making them? I've only made simple card decks but if you're using a drama, the sentences can be pretty complicated. Do you make sure you understand the whole sentence or a single word?

Yes! I have 2 Hana Yori Dango, 3 1 litre of tears, 1 of all those other ones, and one that I forgot about because I haven't done too much of it yet - Watashi ga Renai Dekinai Riyuu. Sorry for not clarifying!

learningkanji Wrote:I'm thinking about getting into subs2srs but there's a lot to take in. It seems like it will take some time to get used to the program and then you have to get an anime/drama (I think you have to download the episodes for it to work with subs2srs right?), find subtitles for it, sync it all up, etc.

I'd be lying if I said the setup was easy. I've put hours into setting up anime series to properly run through subs2srs before. But I do think it was so worth it in the long run.

What's the process like?

learningkanji Wrote:What's the process like?

http://subs2srs.sourceforge.net/ gives you a good idea of what to expect. It looks more daunting that it really is though. Try it for yourself, the tutorial is really well made.

The difficult part is finding good japanese / english subtitles, and timing them properly so that they match. And even then, you could have the first fifteen minutes of a movie perfectly synched, and have the remaining 1 hour be completely out of sync.

However, once successfully set up, it's an easy hundreds-of-cards deck done pretty much effortlessly, after you've done a little editing work to prune to uninteresting and faulty cards out, of course.

Linval Wrote:The difficult part is finding good japanese / english subtitles, and timing them properly so that they match.

You can also ditch this part completely, using only the Japanese subtitles, and then the process becomes much easier. You can also extend the audio to a half second on each end so that you have to worry less about the differences in speech and subtitle timings.

Another trick is to run MorphMan on your subs2srs deck so that it reorders everything into digestible chunks.

learningkanji Wrote:What's the process like?

I can go over this in more details if needed, but usually my process goes like this:
1) Find 日本語 subtitles and English soft subtitled video files.

2) Fix English subs
* Extract English subs from video files.
* Delete anything not needed, like OP and ED theme lyrics, signs, etc. I found this stuff just tends to get in the way of subs2srs processing.
* Repeat this step for every episode.

3) Fix Japanese subs
* Re-time subtitles. Often times these subtitles will be timed for broadcast airing, so all the times will need to be shifted, and this normally means I'll also have to remove the length of the commercial breaks. (Shift times feature in subs2srs).
* Delete anything not needed. (as above for English subtitles)
* Repeat this step for every episode.

4) Process these subs in Subs2srs
* Play with the settings till I get what I want.
* Open the subs in preview mode and test a few lines out of every episode. Usually a line in the beginning, middle and end. (It's just too much of a bother to fix an episode that is off by half a second when you discover it is wrong months down the line. So I prefer to take the extra time to make sure everything is completely good.)
* Hit the go button and wait a few hours.

5) Fix the subs2srs output. (I reorder some stuff for easier input into Anki, I'm not sure this is really needed for most people.)

6) Import into Anki.
* You need a card template, obviously. But once you have this, it's pretty simple.
* Hit the import button, and select the subs2srs output file. You need to make sure everything maps to the right field in Anki. (My post processing from the last step reorders everything to almost exactly how I have it in my card template.)
* Open the card browser
** Glance over everything in the card browser to make sure everything looks good.
** Select everything recently imported and "Bulk-add readings" so I have auto-generated furigana on everything. This isn't perfect but it sure beats doing it myself. I generally correct furigana errors as I notice them.
* Run Morphman Recalc, so I know which vocabulary I need to learn next.

7) Study

I will note that Kamigami scripts are easier to work with then broadcast captions. Broadcast subtitles always have the commercial breaks to deal with and sometimes they split sentences in odd ways. Like a long sentence will be broken up into ->
fragments with arrows between ->
the lines. XD

I've seen a lot of JDrama captions do this, which is the primary reason I haven't actually processed any drama shows for subs2srsing.

Anyway, hope this helps.

I remember Nukemarine also has a guide, I think up on YouTube that you could check out. And I don't think with as many steps as my process.

Damn that's quite a lot to do. Are there any sites where people who have done all that upload it so people can just download it and start studying right away?

learningkanji Wrote:Damn that's quite a lot to do. Are there any sites where people who have done all that upload it so people can just download it and start studying right away?

The Wiki has a few, but I'm not sure how many links here work.

At the koohii wiki, you can get pre-made decks. So you will need to:

1) Go to Koohii wiki and download the deck you want. http://rtkwiki.koohii.com/wiki/Subs2srs#Shared_decks
2) Import into Anki.
3) Go thru and delete the ultra-easy cards. Because in any work of any kind, some lines are super-easy lines that beginners will have no problem with. Like, people saying other people's names to get their attention or basic greetings. You could try doing this in the browser, or you could try reviewing through them and suspending/deleting all the easy ones.

Then you'll be all set. This simpler "method" is made simpler because someone at Koohii wiki did a lot of work for you.

You don't really need the English subs. If the sentences are i+1, just find the definition of the "+1". It doesn't take much time: a daily batch of 20-ish cards could easily be prepared in 15-20 minutes before going to bed.

The drama links don't work on that site. And how would the sentences be i+1 when using a drama? Aren't you just studying the sentences from the beginning of the drama to the end? I've never done this before so I'm not sure how it works.

Well, you make the cards you want. If you want to study a sentence at a time, then go for it.

I'd advise only focusing on one word at a time though, but always in context. Not only does it make your reviews much easier and (arguably) more efficient, but it also make creating the cards muuuuch easier, since you don't have to find a proper translation for the whole sentence.

Find a sentence you understand except for a word or two, then highlight one word, find the definition, find an example sentence, and voilà, you have your card. You can then do the same thing for other +1 words in the sentence.

I like pmnox's Core10k optimized deck. I think it's the best currently available. The main issue with the deck is that the "core" vocabulary lists were made with dated materials and dubious methodology, so the grouping of the words into 2k chunks is not really representative of word frequency. But we've gotten newer/better frequency lists are and working on improving things.

[RawToast]

It doesn't have audio, but I like the look of this deck as a supplement to Core to those who have done RTK:

Japanese Vocabulary w/ Kanji-based Mnemonics
https://ankiweb.net/shared/info/3138861285

It only contains 2 kanji compounds, but the words have been specifically chosen due to the way they utilise the RTK meanings. e.g. 再婚 -> 再: again + 婚: marriage = Second Marriage.