Zgarbas Wrote:The more you do a type of exercise, the faster you get at it. You can start now and just add fewer new words/deck until you get used to the new system. SRS exercises took me a long time at first (didn't start out with Anki, but half an hour meant about 50 mixed reps at most), but after 1-2 years of going at it 30 mins meant about 800 vocab+sentence reps. SRS is about consistency, not rushing.
A good idea is to do the same vocab in your vocab deck as you are doing in your sentence deck (e.g. I was doing the みんなの日本語 sentence deck as well as the vocab deck), but there is a limited number of resources where that is a possibility without wasting too much time on organisation and mining.

Wow! 800 vocab and sentence reps? How many cards do you usually have due in a day total? Does that include new cards too? New cards are usually what slow me down the most. Once I have something in the 10+ day interval, I can recall it really easily. But new material slows me down a ton.

Before I upped my studying, I was doing about 100 - 120 reps per day which I could easily finish off in about 20 minutes to half an hour. But now that I've upped my studying, I have a huge influx of new cards which brought my reps per day to about 200 on average plus the extra time to add everything in to Anki. So it just started to feel like a chore to go through all the reps.

It's really awesome to hear that you can get through so many reps so quickly though!

[Zgarbas]

I stopped doing reps a few years back, unfortunately. It included new cards; I started by adding like 5 cards per day like a normal person, but by the end I was adding 50+ words and 200+ sentences per day (should note that 'new' at that point was not necessarily something that I had never seen before, and I don't recall the actual number... my mining deck was the worst, and I could only add 5-10 words of it, had low accuracy, and overall hated it).

But numbers vary between individuals and levels. If it feels like a chore then change it. If the numbers are dragging you down then just lower the numbers. You get faster the more you exercise, and it is easier to learn 10 new words when you already know 5000 than when you only know 50. ATM with Mandarin I'm only going at about 3-5 new words/day, since that's where I feel comfortable. De gustibus I experimented a lot with my Anki decks before I felt comfortable, and even so, I would change some things about the arrangement every few months or so.

Zgarbas Wrote:I stopped doing reps a few years back, unfortunately. It included new cards; I started by adding like 5 cards per day like a normal person, but by the end I was adding 50+ words and 200+ sentences per day (should note that 'new' at that point was not necessarily something that I had never seen before, and I don't recall the actual number... my mining deck was the worst, and I could only add 5-10 words of it, had low accuracy, and overall hated it).

But numbers vary between individuals and levels. If it feels like a chore then change it. If the numbers are dragging you down then just lower the numbers. You get faster the more you exercise, and it is easier to learn 10 new words when you already know 5000 than when you only know 50. ATM with Mandarin I'm only going at about 3-5 new words/day, since that's where I feel comfortable. De gustibus I experimented a lot with my Anki decks before I felt comfortable, and even so, I would change some things about the arrangement every few months or so.

Wow! That's really awesome! It's really nice to hear anyway. I'll think of it as a muscle and just exercise it. haha

When you say you stopped doing reps a few years back, do you mean you did away with SRSing completely, or just for Japanese (or other another language?) You're learning Mandarin now, so I assume you're using an SRS for that, or did you find another method that works better for you?

[Zgarbas]

I stopped actively studying Japanese once I moved to Japan, otherwise I would have continued with the reps (reached a comfortable plateau).

I'm using iKnow (my SRS program of choice) for Mandarin, Duolingo for Spanish, Khan Academy for Maths, and Anki for various other things (Sociology, History, what not). I love SRS programs and would be quite terrible at life without them.

Zgarbas Wrote:I stopped actively studying Japanese once I moved to Japan, otherwise I would have continued with the reps (reached a comfortable plateau).

I'm using iKnow (my SRS program of choice) for Mandarin, Duolingo for Spanish, Khan Academy for Maths, and Anki for various other things (Sociology, History, what not). I love SRS programs and would be quite terrible at life without them.

Oh, I see. Once you stopped doing reps, did you find that your retention suffered at all? I guess once you reach a certain level and have constant exposure an SRS isn't needed so much. But I was wondering, being a second/third/whatever language, it's probably not as ingrained in our minds. So I was thinking even after achieving fluency I will continue with SRS reps.

I took a quick look at iKnow and I'm curious why you chose it as your SRS of choice? It looks good, but the paid service thing turns me off. haha Although the courses it has in it do look good.

I agree with you about SRS software though. Although I haven't applied it much outside of a few university classes and language learning. I'm starting to apply it a little more to daily life. It's super helpful. I'd be lost without it too. haha

[Zgarbas]

Back when I started with Japanese iKnow was a free service, and at the time it was the only thing that had remotely helped me make any progress so i decided to stick with it until i finished core 6000. Then i switched to anki and other programs, and it's not that they're bad or anything, but definitely not as friendly as iKnow had been.

My vocab has been steadily decreasing aince I stopped doing reps, and I don't learn new words that easily without them; i resumed my repa for 1 month before my entrance exams and my level went up significantly, but overall I don't have the time or motovation to keep to them. It's cool when I impress my frienda with my ridiculously extensive vocab, but it doesn't offer me enough benefits in my everyday life to be worth the time investment. Also, I'm lazy, and saying 'I know Japanese' versus 'I'm learning Japanese' does change your attitude towards it in a way that is difficult to explain.

Zgarbas Wrote:Back when I started with Japanese iKnow was a free service, and at the time it was the only thing that had remotely helped me make any progress so i decided to stick with it until i finished core 6000. Then i switched to anki and other programs, and it's not that they're bad or anything, but definitely not as friendly as iKnow had been.

My vocab has been steadily decreasing aince I stopped doing reps, and I don't learn new words that easily without them; i resumed my repa for 1 month before my entrance exams and my level went up significantly, but overall I don't have the time or motovation to keep to them. It's cool when I impress my frienda with my ridiculously extensive vocab, but it doesn't offer me enough benefits in my everyday life to be worth the time investment. Also, I'm lazy, and saying 'I know Japanese' versus 'I'm learning Japanese' does change your attitude towards it in a way that is difficult to explain.

Oh, gotcha. Whatever works is the best tool. :p

I guess as long as you're still maintaining enough to function in Japanese, it's all good. Most native speakers don't need an SRS, so I guess once you reach a certain level it's not really needed anymore, as long as you have enough exposure. :p Although, like you said, an SRS will help keep up vocab (especially more obscure vocab) and learn new vocab easier.

I've actually been considering adding a bit of English to my SRS. I've been in Korea for over a year now and I'm starting to notice my English slipping. There have actually been a few situations where I've had to use Korean to explain something because I couldn't think of the English. :o

I might be the OP you are mentioning xD.
I did ~500 Core Cards and after being on both sides of fences , I can confidently say that sentences are totally worth it. Sentences train your reading ability as well as contextual ability. I go to goo dictionary or oshiete.goo.com to get my sentences. It is a pretty easy process.
Example: The definition of word 勝手 (1st meaning) does not indicate its usage, but when you see the sentences over and over again 勝手なことを言うな , you actually get an intuitive understanding of the word (just by re-reading the sentence).
Then when you see that words in other sentence and definitions like 椅子が勝手に倒れた and 勝手に近づかないでくれ the word and its usage becomes second nature.
The process is long, but by the time that card gets mature, you'd have "known" that word, rather than just a translation.
Also, do NOT try to translate in your head. Try to make a movie of a scene if you can

manman2a Wrote:I might be the OP you are mentioning xD.
I did ~500 Core Cards and after being on both sides of fences , I can confidently say that sentences are totally worth it. Sentences train your reading ability as well as contextual ability. I go to goo dictionary or oshiete.goo.com to get my sentences. It is a pretty easy process.
Example: The definition of word 勝手 (1st meaning) does not indicate its usage, but when you see the sentences over and over again 勝手なことを言うな , you actually get an intuitive understanding of the word (just by re-reading the sentence).
Then when you see that words in other sentence and definitions like 椅子が勝手に倒れた and 勝手に近づかないでくれ the word and its usage becomes second nature.
The process is long, but by the time that card gets mature, you'd have "known" that word, rather than just a translation.
Also, do NOT try to translate in your head. Try to make a movie of a scene if you can

Thanks for the reply! It was also reassuring to read about your experiences!

I've put my vocabulary deck on hold for now, I'm not adding any new cards but just reviewing to keep up the vocabulary I've already learned, and started focusing on my sentence deck which is around 300 sentences now. I'm still wrapping my head around not translating...for some sentences it's really easy. But more complicated sentences take a few reads to get it without translating.

The thing I'm a little worried about is production and spelling. I studied production and recognition cards with my vocabulary deck, so spelling and usage in conversation was usually pretty quick to come out naturally. So I'm a little worried about that aspect. But I'm sure constant exposure will take care of that. Even if spelling and production takes a little longer, I'm also getting grammar, context, and reading practice.

All in all, I'm excited about moving to sentences. The hardest part is finding time to mine new sentences. I'm finding it takes a couple hours to mine sentences, and I've studied them all in a few minutes. So my new pile is always empty. haha

I personally have struggled with switching between sentence decks and straight vocabulary decks too. I love the idea of the sentence deck giving you context and just being overall more interesting but my experience was that doing reviews, when they start adding up, it just got to be too much work. It takes more time to read a sentence than to read a word. In the end I found that it was either vocab decks or nothing because I would just get too behind on the sentence deck and not study. Putting a sentence on the vocab deck to give a little context as an -option- worked well for me however.

That being said I think I might try adjusting my decks a little and making my sentence decks audio/listening decks. Listening, at least for me, takes less work than reading. So reading your thread I think I may test myself once with the vocabulary deck / reading kanji and again with a sentence or listening side.

BTW if you're just starting out I would definitely not mine sentences from the internet or books or anything. I think you're better off doing straight vocabulary instead. But using sentences from textbooks that (should) limit the grammar to what you know or soon will know will be much more useful. The Core 2k/6k/10k decks do a really good job with this - but they unfortunately don't raise the level enough once you're studying for N2 in my opinion.

Here's an alternative to highlighting the new, unknown word, as shown by Tetsueda.

Front:
Word (or Definition when mature, optional)

Hint:Expression
(Audio:Silence)(Audio:Silence)(Audio:SentenceAudio)

Back:
Definition (or Word when mature, optional)

Expression and Sentence Meaning
Additional Sentence Diagrams (optional)

Using this template sentence comprehension is automatic and serves as additional context to the function tested (production/recognition) as opposed to a required review element. The sentence is silently observed in the background and the learner can focus on the word currently being learned. During initial phases the sentence may be necessary but as the card matures the reviewer may skip the sentence and tap through reviews quickly.

Hey everyone, I am using core 6k and doing recognition. Front card is a sentence and below it a word which I've got to recognise, know it's reading and meaning. On the other side are meaning in English and whole audio to the sentence as well as the sentence again with whole furigana.

My question is while making recognition, should I get the meaning of the word from the sentence or simply recall it while reviewing cards and additionally read a sentence which is presented. I don't do production as I have no need to do that, not going to Japan any time soon and atm learning the language purely for games, and fun with the language in general.

cophnia61 Wrote:What I'm doing is something I read on this blog after a user posted it on another thread.

This way you can focus on the sentence while you study, but just glance at it and focus mostly on the word itself, when you review the card.

On the back of the card I have the definition with other example sentences so I can focus on them too while I study.

I put directly the original sentence where I find the word, for example:

ベータ上がりの奴らがそいつらに土下座さして (SAO)

what bore me the most is to go to all those sterile sentences to find one, and most of the time the original sentences is ok for me. If it's not enough I copy-paste some other sentences from the definition to the front of the card, again, just to glance at them:

行列を作った彼らのお目当てはソードアート·オンライン

- 彼はただ北極星を目当てとして進んだ.

This pushes me to use native media and to go through them outside of Anki, so even if I don't overanalyze the sentence during review, the same sentence is there on the native media from which I learned the word and from which I took the sentence.

This is basically what CureDolly suggests on her blog, to mine words from anime (and other sources). I just take the entire sentence, and put it with a context big enough to make the word meaning unambiguous.

For example:

ベータ上がりどもはこんクソゲームが始まったその日にビギナーを見捨てて消えよった

for this word I put a long sentence because it's needed to understand what the word 見捨てる means. I prefer this way than a short dictionary sentence which is a pain in the a** to read because it's too boring to me. Time is relatively perceived, so I prefer to spend more time on a sentence like this than the time to find one from a dictionary and then review it. But it differs from person to person

Oh cool! I'm glad someone else uses the MCBs method too. I never could do the traditional sentence method due to the fact I was too focused on every single word -_- I do a slightly modified version cuz I just like things to stick out:

http://imgur.com/IkJTiVO

I have the vocab word I want to learn first isolated on top (and bigger font size) in bold. Then the example sentence with the same vocab bold. I find having the isolated word in a bigger font in addition helps me see it better. Mainly cuz kanji in smaller font is difficult to see xD

RawrPk Wrote:

cophnia61 Wrote:What I'm doing is something I read on this blog after a user posted it on another thread.

This way you can focus on the sentence while you study, but just glance at it and focus mostly on the word itself, when you review the card.

On the back of the card I have the definition with other example sentences so I can focus on them too while I study.

I put directly the original sentence where I find the word, for example:

ベータ上がりの奴らがそいつらに土下座さして (SAO)

what bore me the most is to go to all those sterile sentences to find one, and most of the time the original sentences is ok for me. If it's not enough I copy-paste some other sentences from the definition to the front of the card, again, just to glance at them:

行列を作った彼らのお目当てはソードアート·オンライン

- 彼はただ北極星を目当てとして進んだ.

This pushes me to use native media and to go through them outside of Anki, so even if I don't overanalyze the sentence during review, the same sentence is there on the native media from which I learned the word and from which I took the sentence.

This is basically what CureDolly suggests on her blog, to mine words from anime (and other sources). I just take the entire sentence, and put it with a context big enough to make the word meaning unambiguous.

For example:

ベータ上がりどもはこんクソゲームが始まったその日にビギナーを見捨てて消えよった

for this word I put a long sentence because it's needed to understand what the word 見捨てる means. I prefer this way than a short dictionary sentence which is a pain in the a** to read because it's too boring to me. Time is relatively perceived, so I prefer to spend more time on a sentence like this than the time to find one from a dictionary and then review it. But it differs from person to person

Oh cool! I'm glad someone else uses the MCBs method too. I never could do the traditional sentence method due to the fact I was too focused on every single word -_- I do a slightly modified version cuz I just like things to stick out:

http://imgur.com/IkJTiVO

I have the vocab word I want to learn first isolated on top (and bigger font size) in bold. Then the example sentence with the same vocab bold. I find having the isolated word in a bigger font in addition helps me see it better. Mainly cuz kanji in smaller font is difficult to see xD

Lol, I omitted it but I'm doing the same exact thing xD But now most of the time I'm using a dictionary example sentence.
I started with the idea that an example sentence taken from the original source would have made me save time, but in the end it was the opposite.

What I do now is this:

(for anime/drama) I keep srt file open while I watch the episode and, if I encounter a word I don't know, I switch to the srt window, I copy the word and I add it to a txt file;
(for books) If I encounter a word that I don't know I highlight it (a kindle feature) so I can retrieve it later.

At the end of the day I have a list of words I don't know; then I convert them to dictionary form and I reorder them with cb's "JapaneseFrequencyListSorter" tool.

After that I will have a txt file with a list of words ordered by frequency. If they are very frequent ones I almost always keep them. While for the less frequent ones I check them one by one to see if I want to keep them.

Then I give the txt file to "Epwing2Anki" with the "automatically select 'x' sentences" option checked.

"Epwing2Anki" gives me a file to import inside my Anki deck, with this format.

As you can see I have a blank field named "sentence". I grab an example sentence from both the english or the japanese definition (I choose the simpler one) and I put it inside the "sentence" field.

It sounds like a lot of work but it's just a matter of a couple of minutes.

If one does not want to save words as he goes, one could use the cb's TextAnalysisTool. You can then easily remove the words you already know with another cb's tool (sorry I don't remember its name).

The fact that I must select an example sentence forces me to read at least a bunch of them, and to look more carefully to the definition, in order to select the sentence that fits better its meaning.

Moral of the story: thank you cb! xD

Oh wow! I never considered using a frequency tool.I'll def look into it though. I use Rikaisama, another cb tool, to create Anki cards from srt files or any media I can view on Firefox actually.

(for anime) I'm watching episodes all the way though with English subs (gomen) so I can get the gist of the story. I find it harder to understand even with Japanese subs cuz too much is happening that I don't want to think about whether I understand something or not. I just watch.

Then after I watch an episode (or 2...maybe more if I was really into it ), I'll put up the Japanes srt file onto Rikaisama and read the script. Then use the Rikaisama commands on the highlighted/hover words that I don't know. Then it is automatically made as a card in Anki. I just have to take the time to manually bold the word I want to focus on in every card. It's pretty easy actually.

(for drama) I watch raw and just attempt to understand whatever I can. I don't use subs here because I find drama is easier to understand the gist of the story in itself. I also use drama for improving my listening.

I instead use cb tool Sub2SRS for making anki cards. This deck is just sentences and not the MCBs method. It's ok so far because it is helping with listening but I might consider making a separate deck for drama like I do for anime for understanding vocab.

As you can tell I'm still sorta all over the place with methods. But the one that stuck longest was MCBs.

Wovaki Wrote:...
It seems many people think using a vocab deck is a waste of time.
...

It looks like you got a lot of answers already but I thought I'd just throw out my experience.

First of all, I can't imagine anyone seriously arguing that vocab decks are a waste of time. I think that people have been using flashcards with single words on them for learning foreign language vocabulary - with a great deal of success - since well before anki existed. I view anki as just improving that process by removing the physical paper and adding an SRS system.

In my case, my vocabulary deck has single words on it. I've been using that deck for 18 months now, have over 4k mature cards, and it's been a huge help for me when I speak with my friends or read stuff online. Since I don't live in Japan that's the main way I use Japanese now.

I also recently started creating a grammar deck with sentences on it. My cards looks like this:

front: 車はどろだらけだ。
back: The car is full of mud.
〜だらけだ。

I like sentences for grammar because, well, I think that you really need a whole sentence to demonstrate a grammar point. I don't need any additional context to know that "apple" is "ringo", etc.

In terms of time, anki says that I average about 10 seconds for vocab card, and 20 seconds for sentence card. The proportion sounds right to me (sentences take longer for me), but I am surprised that the numbers are so large. I would have expected the cards to take around 5 and 10 seconds. But there you go.

I guess that this is why I prefer to do my vocabulary as single words. It's faster for me, and there's just a ton of vocabulary to learn. Also, I feel like I sometimes spend too much time with anki as it is. But it's such a valuable tool that I don't want to stop using it altogether.

ariariari Wrote:In terms of time, anki says that I average about 10 seconds for vocab card, and 20 seconds for sentence card. The proportion sounds right to me (sentences take longer for me), but I am surprised that the numbers are so large. I would have expected the cards to take around 5 and 10 seconds. But there you go.

I don't know if this happens to you, but I often get distracted while reviewing, which pushes the response time higher than it would be if it were a measurement of how long it takes me to look at a card, recognize it, and show the answer.
Because of this, I don't take that stat too seriously (it's just a simple average of the time spent per card) and just monitor how long it took me to complete my reps on the "Review Time" graph.

If you want to make it less prone to error due to distraction, you can lower the limit on the response timer.

sholum Wrote:

ariariari Wrote:In terms of time, anki says that I average about 10 seconds for vocab card, and 20 seconds for sentence card. The proportion sounds right to me (sentences take longer for me), but I am surprised that the numbers are so large. I would have expected the cards to take around 5 and 10 seconds. But there you go.

I don't know if this happens to you, but I often get distracted while reviewing, which pushes the response time higher than it would be if it were a measurement of how long it takes me to look at a card, recognize it, and show the answer.
Because of this, I don't take that stat too seriously (it's just a simple average of the time spent per card) and just monitor how long it took me to complete my reps on the "Review Time" graph.

If you want to make it less prone to error due to distraction, you can lower the limit on the response timer.

Yeah, that makes sense to me. I go thru most of reps on my phone in the morning over coffee and breakfast. One of the huge advantages of anki over traditional flashcards IMHO. You can do it antime, anywhere, in little pieces as the mood strikes you.

Wovaki Wrote:...
It seems many people think using a vocab deck is a waste of time.
...

As ariariari said, this is far from the consensus opinion. Personally I have about the same number(~2.5k) of sentence cards as vocabulary cards, and often consider suspending the sentences so I have more time for vocabulary cards. I just feel that I learn so much more from single words since I HAVE to know the meaning and don't have hints from context or memorizing the sentence. And it takes less time than reading the same sentences over and over.

To the people who complain about not learning nuance from single word cards, I don't feel that SRS is the appropriate vehicle for learning nuance. Learning the definition of a word via SRS is the most efficient way of learning the gist of a word, but reading the same word in multiple sentences and contexts is a more efficient way of learning a word's nuance. I suppose you could add several sentences for each word, but that's a whole lot of sentences and not very fun. I'll admit that sometimes(<5% of cards) the english definition on the back of my cards is somewhat vague, so for these cases, I include a sentence in japanese and in english on the back of my card that I can glance at if I'm not entirely sure of the sense of the word. But I make the sentences in a small typeface and light gray, so I don't even notice it unless I decide to read it.

sholum Wrote:I don't know if this happens to you, but I often get distracted while reviewing, which pushes the response time higher than it would be if it were a measurement of how long it takes me to look at a card, recognize it, and show the answer.
Because of this, I don't take that stat too seriously (it's just a simple average of the time spent per card) and just monitor how long it took me to complete my reps on the "Review Time" graph.

If you want to make it less prone to error due to distraction, you can lower the limit on the response timer.

This happens to me all the time and it drives me nuts. I'd say that close to 1/3 of my time studying is spent staring out the window or at a wall. But unless I can stay focused and stop daydreaming, I feel that time should be accounted for because that's actually the time I spent answering. The 30 second timer works because it stops counting when you leave the computer so it doesn't keep counting for 5 hours while I make some lunch and run some errands.

I do short phrases usually 3-5 words long. Way faster and more useful than sentences in my opinion, and gives important context that you cant get from a single vocabulary word.

I still use vocabulary cards for words that are braindead simple to use.

Wovaki Wrote:...
It seems many people think using a vocab deck is a waste of time.
...

Wow, that was the wrong choice of words on my part. I was actually surprised I wrote that. I don't think vocab decks are a waste of time completely. Just that sentences seem to be more widely thought of as more efficient for overall learning.

I agree that vocab cards allow more efficient learning of the definition of a word itself. So that's something I'm starting to miss a little. Not long after learning a vocab card I would be able to use it. But with sentences it's a little slower to get the information in. But I'm am starting to see some returns already. So I'm hopeful it'll be worth the switch. I think once I get high enough sentences I may switch back to my vocab deck just to burn through vocab faster. But right now I need more grammatical input. :p

Thanks for all your opinions!

Wovaki Wrote:Just that sentences seem to be more widely thought of as more efficient for overall learning.

I think sentences have their place, but I believe that sentences outlive their usefulness after you gain solid reading proficiency. For instance I can see having 10k+ vocabulary cards, I can't see myself studying that many sentences. I might have the sentence on the back of the card for context, but I can't see studying the sentences as such. IMHO sentence cards help practice getting comfortable with japanese grammar and bridge the gap between illiteracy and literacy. But reading is much more effective and enjoyable once you get to the point where you can do it reasonably well.

Hey everyone, I am using core 6k and doing recognition. Front card is a sentence and below it a word which I've got to recognise, know it's reading and meaning. On the other side are meaning in English and whole audio to the sentence as well as the sentence again with whole furigana.

My question is while making recognition, should I get the meaning of the word from the sentence or simply recall it while reviewing cards and additionally read a sentence which is presented. I don't do production as I have no need to do that, not going to Japan any time soon and atm learning the language purely for games, and fun with the language in general.

[s0apgun]

Sentence is just to get a feel for how the word can be used. Pass/fail on meaning and reading of the vocab word.

Another big disadvantage with sentence decks is that it makes it hard to use printed material. As a Japanese learner, I'm against any technique that limits the scope of the material that one can pull from. Sure, you can transcribe interesting sentences from a book, but I guarantee you'll get tired of the practice after a few hours.

Sentence decks are only really practical using online material and a sentence mining tool like Rikaisama. Using vocab cards, it's easy to take unknown words from anywhere (a book, a TV show, an ad you saw in the subway station), throw them into a text file, and generate cards with a tool like Epwing2Anki.