IMPORTANT DISCLAIMER: Please keep in mind the OP is outdated as of now. I made this thread 6 months ago and I've made considerable progress since then. I've decided to bump this thread because the question is still related to the topic of SRS vs Extensive Reading, so please keep in mind I'm not talking about Core decks specifically anymore. Unless you're interested in the previous discussion, you can safely skip the OP and read from this point on!

Hello everyone!

So, I've been self-studying Japanese for about 3 months. I'll be finishing Genki 2 in a couple of days since I have only 2 lessons left to go. I have a little less than 700 kanji left to finish RTK, which I should be done with by the beginning of January. My next big goal I suppose is to do Tobira. But I think this is probably a good time to start reading more since I know a whole lot of kanji and basic grammar.

Lately, I've been reading a handful of graded readers. I think I've read 8 so far. They seem to be N5 level books (I'll be moving on to slightly more difficult ones shortly), so that means they're pretty easy to read since I'm about to be done with N4 grammar and stuff. But there's always something to learn in them and they make it easier to assign meaning to some of the kanji that I already know. I like this approach because I don't have to worry about memorizing vocabulary much, since I know I'll stumble upon the truly important stuff again soon enough.

I guess I should get to my question, right? So, I've noticed a lot of people talk about core decks, but are they actually worth doing if you're already doing some sort of extensive reading? I'm asking this because I feel graded readers or something like NHK easy news would not only improve my vocabulary in general, but also provide me with enough exposure to internalize more properly most of the grammar that I've studied so far. 

This puzzles me because I'd rather not rely on srsing to learn new words. Let me say this right now - I don't know core decks work. I find it appealing to have a handy vocabulary list (kind of) in context to give me some initial exposure, but I'm not sure about testing myself or getting a whole bunch of reviews. 100+ kanji reviews (production though, not recognition) are more than enough to turn me off, so I don't want to imagine what having several entries for the same word with core decks is like.

So when it comes to core decks, would it be worth it to put everything in the front to get it out of the way quickly, just to get a little bit of a headstart with vocabulary and help me learn how to read some kanji? Or maybe there's something else worth doing that would still allow me to learn mostly through input?

I frankly don't know if this is any better than tons of reading alone, so I'd rather hear the opinion of those who've done one of these things, or perhaps even both. It's easy to read for an hour or so every day, but srsing is time consuming and I'll be starting Tobira in January as well. Doing both Genki and RTK turned out to be really rough even though I'm okay with studying for hours on end daily, so I don't know if things will be any more difficult. As you may have realized, I'm not too worried about production as of now, so I'd rather keep it all efficient, yet simple and manageable if possible.


PS: While I'm at it, would you have any tips on how to transition from Genki 2 to Tobira? (such as other grammar points that weren't in Genki 1-2 that I may need to go over and stuff like that)

(2015-12-13, 1:12 am)FlameseeK Wrote: So, I've noticed a lot of people talk about core decks, but are they actually worth doing if you're already doing some sort of extensive reading?

The core decks are good if you want to brute force your vocabulary up to around an N2 level. I did it and I saw huge improvements on word recognition and somewhat on listening (I only tested reading recognition no listening). The problem usually isn't whether it's worth it or not, but rather whether or not you can deal with how boring and dry it gets. A lot of people complain about how dry the sentences are in the Core decks and that tends to make the review process grueling for some.

Well, I think it's quite worthwhile to do Core 3k regardless of the rest of your study plan. That first 3k words is going to show up -constantly- know matter what kind of material you read. The core decks do come with example sentences (and audio for at least the early ones. At some point there isn't whole-sentence audio I think, I forget at what point.) So it's not like these are words completely without some example context being simply learned in a vacuum as a Japanese-English word pair. And it is of course, quite a bit easier to read when you don't have to look up every other word.

If you're comfortable doing graded readers, News Easy, Erin's Challenge https://www.erin.ne.jp/en/ , readings from chokochoko https://chokochoko.wordpress.com/the-great-library/ , and so on, then I wouldn't particularly recommend doing 6k/10k or whatever of the bigger sets.

One option to consider, however, is to download 10k, suspend all the cards, and unsuspend them as you encounter the words in your reading. That saves you the trouble of creating cards for any card that is in the Core 10k. Of course, you will still need to create custom cards for words outside of Core if you want to SRS them.

Edit:
Looking over your post again, it seems to me your question may be more 'should I SRS vocabulary or just read?' ... and to that the answer is -definitely- that you should SRS vocabulary. It's very easy to 'lose' vocabulary that you don't see for a little while when trying to 'just read' as a beginner, or even an intermediate student of Japanese (or any language). Many people will say 'but people learned languages without SRS for decades!' ... well, -sure- they did, but they didn't learn without vocabulary -flashcards-. And SRS is just a timing system to make it easier to spend -less- time on your flashcards. Which is why you should SRS your vocabulary rather than a) forgetting it or b) over-reviewing it with traditional flashcards.

I didn't know some of those websites. There's some neat content in there, so thanks for letting me know about them.

I'm a little on the fence though. You say people didn't learn other languages without flashcards... well, I don't know why you say that. I'm not a native speaker of English and I never felt the need for a system like that when I was learning it. I didn't live abroad either, all I did was make English a part of my life and use it as much as I could.

Forgetting words was never an issue in my opinion. Some words you remember, other words you don't - that's part of the learning process. I either know a word once I see it again or look it up if I don't. If I've already seen a word, I may have an idea what it means but fail to remember the pronunciation, but next time it'll be easier just like when you review flashcards.

Some words stick more easily and require no reviews at all, while others turn out to be a little more challenging... but it's hard not to remember common, important words once you see them enough times. That being said, vocabulary in Japanese is definitely harder to remember and that goes for both pronunciation (only in the sense that words are very similar though) and "spelling". But I feel the more you see the word in different contexts, the easier it is to actually understand it anyway. I don't feel the need to remember every little thing I learn either, since eventually I'll internalize it all anyway.

I may give it a try, but I think right now it could be a little problematic. I do feel the need to do some reading every day to internalize what I've just seen in Genki 1-2, but there's still almost 700 kanji to learn and srs, so my reviews will get a considerable bump soon enough. Plus, I'll be starting Tobira in no more than a month. Wouldn't the core decks be a little too time consuming? I'm not sure if I should try them once I'm done with RTK (i.e. Tobira + graded reading + RTK reviews + core vocab) or if I should wait until I finish Tobira.

Anki + lots of reading = lots of good reinforcement. The fewer the pictures, the better. It forces you to figure out the meaning without extra visual cues.

Also, replace boring Core sentences as soon as you find interesting replacements.

Like from here:
http://yomou.syosetu.com/
Read web novels, grab sentences, pop in decks, go to town.
Rikaisama would work well with that site, I think. The writing quality isn't always top-notch, but it's good enough.

Just do whatever you are seeing progress from. When you stop seeing progress, that is the time to question your method. Personally, I find SRS to be a lot more convenient than reading, so it works better for me. Sounds like you enjoy reading, so that's working for you. So just keep that up. It's really that simple.

Concurring with some of the other posters re: SRS AND extensive reading. I tried to drop SRS for a while, and my ability to pick up new vocab words dropped considerably. Adding in SRS again reinforced my knowledge of vocab and of kanji readings, and makes it easier to tackle more complicated material.

Most of the issues people have with SRS are due to accepting the default steps, and adding too many words too quickly (and thus getting flooded with reviews). I altered my steps according to good advice I found on this forum (see here: http://forum.koohii.com/thread-12825-pos...#pid221615), and I limit my new words added if I feel like I'm drowning in reviews or my Mature Correct rate dips below 80%. That keeps my Anki use timeboxed to no more than 40 minutes. The rest of my Japanese time after that is spent on immersive reading, listening, and speaking.

(2015-12-14, 6:28 am)Zarxrax Wrote: Just do whatever you are seeing progress from. When you stop seeing progress, that is the time to question your method. Personally, I find SRS to be a lot more convenient than reading, so it works better for me. Sounds like you enjoy reading, so that's working for you. So just keep that up. It's really that simple.

I'd like to second this.  I've noticed that some people really get a lot out single word vocabulary cards and other people don't.  I'd say give it a try and see how you like it.  It's all about what works for you in the end, so try and see what sticks.  Also, what doesn't work for you as a beginner might work better once you progress further, so try back later.

(2015-12-14, 5:41 pm)yogert909 Wrote:

(2015-12-14, 6:28 am)Zarxrax Wrote: Just do whatever you are seeing progress from. When you stop seeing progress, that is the time to question your method. Personally, I find SRS to be a lot more convenient than reading, so it works better for me. Sounds like you enjoy reading, so that's working for you. So just keep that up. It's really that simple.

I'd like to second this.  I've noticed that some people really get a lot out single word vocabulary cards and other people don't.  I'd say give it a try and see how you like it.  It's all about what works for you in the end, so try and see what sticks.  Also, what doesn't work for you as a beginner might work better once you progress further, so try back later.

Agreed. But also experiment with settings, etc. I settled on single-word vocab cards, but only after a lot of experimentation with the format and Anki settings.

Thanks a lot for the suggestions guys! I think I'll finish RTK first before giving it a try. This way, I won't go crazy with too many reviews and have no issues with unknown kanji. I do have a couple of questions though.

(1) There's a ton of vocabulary in there that's a little too easy at this point. It'll take a while to add truly new words. Maybe 500-1000 words? I mean, that is A LOT... I don't know how many I should add at a time. Should I immediately suspend the stuff that I feel I already know well enough? I don't know if adding them all at once is a good idea, but I'm tempted to do that if I decide not to suspend anything at all.

(2) Is it a good idea to  only do recognition? I'm not sure if listening alone is that useful and it would certainly make the time I spend on Anki far longer. The same thing applies to kanjify cards - I get that recalling kanji is different from just being able to read, but wouldn't production be overkill at this point?

(3) How do you manage the amount of reviews you get? I've never really changed anything related to intervals, so I don't know if I should do that for Core. While Core reviews probably won't be nearly as boring as RTK reviews, I'm afraid things will get out of hand if I just start adding words like a lunatic.

Why do I say that ? Here's what I really want...
Because even though, 6k words is a lot (let alone 10k), I'll probably want to get them out of the way as soon as possible if I go down this path.

I've been studying Japanese for 3 months now. I don't know how good my Japanese will be by the time I finish Tobira, which I want to de done with by the end of February (3-4 days per unit)... but my main goal is to watch anime somewhat comfortably and read visual novels as soon as possible. More precisely, in 6 months - 1 year of study, i.e. 3 to 9 months from on.

I don't think that's a feat most people would consider reasonable, but that's what I really want. I have no patience for staying at beginner level, although I believe graded reading to be an invaluable means to internalize the language.

Any advice to help me achieve this goal is more than welcome.

(1)  Adding easy vocabulary.  There's no one size answer.  If you add them and press 4-easy every time, you will rarely see them after the first few reviews.  This will assure you shouldn't forget them after not seeing them for a while.  If you plan to continue graded readers and such, you would probably see the words often enough that you won't forget them if you suspend them in anki.  I'd say you likely have a better feel for if you need to have those words in anki than anybody else.

(2)  Recognition only.  I'm not sure what you are asking, but when I hear recognition only, I assume kanji word on front, furigana and english translation on back and you are testing for both reading and meaning.  I'm convinced this works best for me, but others seem to like sentences on the front for context.  There are variations where you can have the audio on the front too, but then you don't get to practice remembering the reading.  However having audio on the front makes reviewing the cards much faster.  

(3)  Managing reviews.  I target a specific accuracy rate and adjust anki to allow me to hit that percentage.  Add more learning steps if your learning percentage is low, lower your starting ease if your young and mature accuracy is too low.  Around 75% accuracy is the most efficient, but that demoralizes me, so I aim for slightly over 80%.

If your goal is watching anime and reading visual novels, I suggest doing core 2k and then pulling vocabulary from anime subs and visual novels.  Core 2k has most of the true core(multi purpose) words you'll find everywhere.  There are a lot of words in core 6k & 10k that you will rarely encounter in anime, so no need to spend time learning them.  But there are a lot of words that are common in anime which aren't in core at all.  Better to learn the words you'll need.

I guess I'll start hitting easy very often from the start then and perhaps suspend the no-brainers.

By the way, I have this 10k deck: https://ankiweb.net/shared/info/953269262
It's a pretty neat looking version of core 10k. I guess it's a safe bet that the first 2k words are all part of core 2k, right?

By the way, you say doing core 2k is good enough for anime, but is that really enough to get started with visual novels? I thought I'd need at least 6k words to get by somewhat comfortably.

(2015-12-15, 1:42 pm)FlameseeK Wrote: (1) There's a ton of vocabulary in there that's a little too easy at this point.

(2) Is it a good idea to  only do recognition?

(3) How do you manage the amount of reviews you get? 

1: No harm in just marking them as easy. Unless you set the max interval low they will soon enough disappear.
2: I read an article about this in a general sense, buddy was using portugese as an example but it would seem to apply anywhere. Trying to recall second language from your native language keyword apparently involves a deeper more involved mental process. I'd also assume it would be the better way to gain active vocab vs passive vocab. However if your goals are to only listen and read media you really have no need to active vocab.
The speed advantage fo recognition is probably best for you. Also as it doesn't take much time, if it isn't working for you, you can always flip the switch.
Myself, assuming I keep at it, I'll probably do the 10K deck, the JLPT lists and the various text vocab [hopefully with no overlapping cards] in recall with production mode and if I can get ANKI to do it, probably double up the cards for recognition. Once I get into native material I'll probably just recognition the rest. The top level of the Russian test assumes 8K active vocab and 12K more passive and that seems like roughly a good goal. However I'm not you [lucky you].
3: I set new daily cards to 0. Then I use custom settings to change the new cards for that day only. It should be in the middle as you go into the decks on the computer version. Bottom right hand if you try to open a deck with no new cards in the android version. I've been using that since day one. Do X RTK Kanji, release X cards, do Y release Y cards etc.
It's easy to do and allows you to cut back if you are getting too flooded and also allows you to adjust depending on mood... although that last point could be considered a disadvantage. I suppose if you prefer to keep new cards at a certain same level a day you can just dial that setting back if the reviews get to be a bit much.

(2015-12-15, 3:01 pm)FlameseeK Wrote: I guess I'll start hitting easy very often from the start then and perhaps suspend the no-brainers.

By the way, I have this 10k deck: https://ankiweb.net/shared/info/953269262
It's a pretty neat looking version of core 10k. I guess it's a safe bet that the first 2k words are all part of core 2k, right?

By the way, you say doing core 2k is good enough for anime, but is that really enough to get started with visual novels? I thought I'd need at least 6k words to get by somewhat comfortably.

In that deck, anything with a core index of 2000 or lower is core 2k.

2k isn't enough for visual novels, but the question after 2k becomes "which words?".  The core list was sourced from the frequency of newspapers and as such lacks a many of the words you'll encounter in visual novels but includes words you won't encounter.  As you get higher into the core list, the overlap with words frequently found in anime and visual novels becomes less and less.  If you are in a hurry to read visual novels, creating a more focused list makes a lot more sense to me.

Once again, thanks a lot for the replies guys.

My current deck does have sentences in the front. That's how I'll be reading words anyway, so I like that idea. But on the other hand, I wonder if I'll end up guessing certain words more than learning to read the kanji itself, or maybe remembering words just because I recognize the rest of the sentence.

Does anybody know if that's an actual issue? I'm sure both ways would work in the end, but I have to make up my mind before I get started because of the way Anki reviews work. Starting over would definitely suck.

(2015-12-15, 8:21 pm)FlameseeK Wrote: Once again, thanks a lot for the replies guys.

My current deck does have sentences in the front. That's how I'll be reading words anyway, so I like that idea. But on the other hand, I wonder if I'll end up guessing certain words more than learning to read the kanji itself, or maybe remembering words just because I recognize the rest of the sentence.

Does anybody know if that's an actual issue? I'm sure both ways would work in the end, but I have to make up my mind before I get started because of the way Anki reviews work. Starting over would definitely suck.

I think there is nothing to worry about:

Several people put the sentence separately on the front - and still test only the single word vocab.

Using white as a colour makes the sentence completely invisible (you have to mark the area to make it visible). Yellow would do the same and one member stated using light grey. Personally I just use normal black some cm below the vocab (well apart!), so if I do not recall the word I can see without any time loss the sentence.

In case I need help from the sentence I simply rate the word as difficult.

If you change after a while your opinion of reading also the whole sentence ("I like that idea"), you just skip the sentence reading if the word itself is sufficient. Or you just skip the sentences for the really easy words. Or every second sentence. Or whatever. That means you are flexible to change even if you first start out reading out all sentences.

(2015-12-15, 1:42 pm)FlameseeK Wrote: Thanks a lot for the suggestions guys! I think I'll finish RTK first before giving it a try. This way, I won't go crazy with too many reviews and have no issues with unknown kanji. I do have a couple of questions though.

(1) There's a ton of vocabulary in there that's a little too easy at this point. It'll take a while to add truly new words. Maybe 500-1000 words? I mean, that is A LOT... I don't know how many I should add at a time. Should I immediately suspend the stuff that I feel I already know well enough? I don't know if adding them all at once is a good idea, but I'm tempted to do that if I decide not to suspend anything at all.

(2) Is it a good idea to  only do recognition? I'm not sure if listening alone is that useful and it would certainly make the time I spend on Anki far longer. The same thing applies to kanjify cards - I get that recalling kanji is different from just being able to read, but wouldn't production be overkill at this point?

(3) How do you manage the amount of reviews you get? I've never really changed anything related to intervals, so I don't know if I should do that for Core. While Core reviews probably won't be nearly as boring as RTK reviews, I'm afraid things will get out of hand if I just start adding words like a lunatic.

Why do I say that ? Here's what I really want...
Because even though, 6k words is a lot (let alone 10k), I'll probably want to get them out of the way as soon as possible if I go down this path.

I've been studying Japanese for 3 months now. I don't know how good my Japanese will be by the time I finish Tobira, which I want to de done with by the end of February (3-4 days per unit)... but my main goal is to watch anime somewhat comfortably and read visual novels as soon as possible. More precisely, in 6 months - 1 year of study, i.e. 3 to 9 months from on.

I don't think that's a feat most people would consider reasonable, but that's what I really want. I have no patience for staying at beginner level, although I believe graded reading to be an invaluable means to internalize the language.

Any advice to help me achieve this goal is more than welcome.

How about doing core 2k and then just extracting unknown vocab from Japanese subtitle files of anime you do like? That way you get the general common words and the anime specific words. Sub2srs is perfect for auto generating anki cards with anime/drama
http://forum.koohii.com/thread-2512.html

As for your deck setup: I have the word and sentence up front. Others just have single vocab type cards. It's a preference really. Here is a post I made on another thread which shows how I set up my vocab cards. You can see other ppl's card setup also here
http://forum.koohii.com/thread-13063-pos...#pid226124

td; lr: 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. Like Matthias said,  with this format (or anything similar to the format I use) you have to option to look at both vocab and the sentence or just ignore the sentence altogether seeing how it is big and isolated at the top

(2015-12-15, 8:21 pm)FlameseeK Wrote: Once again, thanks a lot for the replies guys.

My current deck does have sentences in the front. That's how I'll be reading words anyway, so I like that idea. But on the other hand, I wonder if I'll end up guessing certain words more than learning to read the kanji itself, or maybe remembering words just because I recognize the rest of the sentence.

Does anybody know if that's an actual issue? I'm sure both ways would work in the end, but I have to make up my mind before I get started because of the way Anki reviews work. Starting over would definitely suck.

Sentence cards definitely cause me to guess the meaning of the word being tested by accidentally memorizing the sentence.  No question.  I've found myself reflexively passing several cards that upon further inspection contained several words that I didn't know because I'd memorized the english translation.  However, the sentence cards I have in my collection are not there to learn vocabulary, but to practice reading and internalize japanese grammar.  My other problem with sentence cards is that they take twice as long to review as single word cards.

(2015-12-15, 8:21 pm)FlameseeK Wrote: Does anybody know if that's an actual issue? I'm sure both ways would work in the end, but I have to make up my mind before I get started because of the way Anki reviews work. Starting over would definitely suck.

There seems to be some individual learning style with this. Personally I test Japanese sentence on front, the tested word written in a different color and slightly larger. There have been cases where I memorized the whole sentence and could answer before I reached the test word, but that's part of why you highlight it - so you read the test word first. You can also put the word being tested separately, even if the sentence is on the front, for even more reason to read the test word first.

Anyway, it turns out for me to be fine. If I've memorized the whole sentence, that -includes- the test word. When encountering words in the wild I don't find that it really makes a huge difference. Sometimes you have to look up words even though you've anki'd them (because you've never seen them in any other context and the connections just aren't there yet), and sometimes you just get it right away. I haven't seen a big difference between 'memorized the sentence' and 'learned the word' cards when it comes to actual reading.
I do often recall the whole anki sentence when I see the word in the wild the first few times, but that's not really a problem. You're always going to be remembering previously studied example sentences / native language glosses / target language synonyms, etc, etc, the first few times you encounter relatively new word. It wears off as you integrate the word into your working vocabulary.

I -did- find that isolated words didn't do anything for me. First they are annoying because they don't have context. They aren't anything like a majority, but there are -enough- words that have different readings or various meanings depending on context and I never knew how to grade myself on those or what hints to put on the front, and in any case, no matter how well I did in a test situation.... I couldn't actually read the word when I met it in the wild. Of course I would learn the words eventually from repeat dictionary lookups, but it was annoying to study a word and then not be able to actually read it in context.

So anyway, I stick to context sentences on the front, but others swear by the opposite.

(2015-12-15, 10:13 pm)yogert909 Wrote: Sentence cards definitely cause me to guess the meaning of the word being tested by accidentally memorizing the sentence.

I've found myself reflexively passing several cards that upon further inspection contained several words that I didn't know because I'd memorized the english translation.  

My other problem with sentence cards is that they take twice as long to review as single word cards.

You test the word first in isolation - only if you do not know or are not sure you check out the sentence. And then it is clear that this word has to be rated as difficult. And if it is just guessing you can rate it as fail.

You test only one word per card - it doesn't matter for the rating(!) if you do not know one or more of the other words of the example sentence.

All cards where you do not read the sentence take exactly the same time as pure single word cards.

(2015-12-16, 12:53 am)SomeCallMeChris Wrote: I -did- find that isolated words didn't do anything for me. First they are annoying because they don't have context. They aren't anything like a majority, but there are -enough- words that have different readings or various meanings depending on context and I never knew how to grade myself on those or what hints to put on the front, and in any case, no matter how well I did in a test situation.... I couldn't actually read the word when I met it in the wild. Of course I would learn the words eventually from repeat dictionary lookups, but it was annoying to study a word and then not be able to actually read it in context.

I do have cards without sentence on the front (or back). It is surprising how naked and meaningless these words appear after a relatively short time. The "retention" curve is actually all about forgetting, so I should no be surprised that even words from interesting reports, films, etc. which once stirred me, stunned me, made me think great, etc. come along as utterly boring total strangers after a while.
=> Yes, you can learn single words, but context on the card helps to anchor the word, gives natural companions for the word (words are never stand alone) and can remind you why on earth you found that word interesting.

So if I wanted to learn e.g. 鈍器 (which I don't) I would if possible add it with a sentence (fragment):

鈍器




大山さんは頭を鈍器のようなもので何度も殴られていたことが分かっていて、

(2015-12-15, 8:21 pm)FlameseeK Wrote: Once again, thanks a lot for the replies guys.

My current deck does have sentences in the front. That's how I'll be reading words anyway, so I like that idea. But on the other hand, I wonder if I'll end up guessing certain words more than learning to read the kanji itself, or maybe remembering words just because I recognize the rest of the sentence.

Does anybody know if that's an actual issue? I'm sure both ways would work in the end, but I have to make up my mind before I get started because of the way Anki reviews work. Starting over would definitely suck.

Anki distinguishes between "notes" and "cards". If you design your note (the underlying information) well, then you should be easily able to change your card (the display format) from sentences to vocab and back without having to start from scratch with a new database. Just make sure that all of your discreet information - individual words, the word's reading, your sentence(s), English and Japanese definitions - are all placed in separate note fields for maximum flexibility. 

I ended up landing on individual words only on the front, with readings, meanings in Japanese and English (where my dictionaries could find them), and sentences on the back. If I know the meaning of a word without context, great - I can review and be done with it in under a second. If I need context, it's there for me on the back of the card to learn from. Plus, I can add more context as time goes on. E.g., if I don't like the sentences the sentences that Epwing2Anki picked up (and if it grabbed them from the 広辞苑, I almost cerainly don't like them), I can find some better sentences on http://yourei.jp and add those instead. 

I try and view my Anki decks these days, not just as study resources, but as searchable, personal databases of Japanese knowledge. I use them for SRS, sure, but they're also there for me to consult on demand, as needed.

(2015-12-16, 1:14 am)Matthias Wrote: You test the word first in isolation - only if you do not know or are not sure you check out the sentence. And then it is clear that this word has to be rated as difficult. And if it is just guessing you can rate it as fail.

I do exactly the same only the sentence is on the back. Not really much of a difference, but I like the front of my cards as simple as possible with nothing to distract me aside from whatever is being tested. If it's a word on the front, I'm testing the word, if it's a sentence on the front, I'm testing understanding of the sentence, etc.

My cards look like this:
front

back


Sometimes when I see a word I just learned in the wild I won't immediately recognize it straight away and may even have to look it up again, but after that it usually sticks. I use Anki to build a some sort of a foundation for a word in my brain and use reading to really learn them.

P.S.：Yes, that's Chinese not Japanese

So, I know it's been a while since I made this thread and I've been srsing tons of vocabulary. I've been through the first 4k words in Core, a bunch of words scatter in the rest of the deck, and I have a deck with 1k words as well. But I feel this may be a good time to reconsider this approach in certain cases, so I thought I'd bump this thread and see others think. (I've been studying for hours on end every day, so these decisions do make a big difference in my case)

The main reason I'm making this post is because I'm about to finish Tobira, so I'll be getting into a whole lot more native material as soon as I get it out of the way. I can't help but wonder whether making flashcards will actually be a time-efficient approach. This depends on the case though, so allow me to explain my thoughts.

I've been thinking about rewatching some anime with subtitles in Japanese. It seems to me that if I can read the script and srs new words in advance, this would probably be a good way to improve since I'll have to look new words up anyway. I guess it could be tricky to make cards without knowing the exact meaning used in the anime though, unless I also try to understand it in context before making the card. But the most important point is, I'll have to look new words up at one point, right? And if I forget them, I'll have to look them up yet again. So this would probably help me save time in the long run.

However, when it comes to visual novels, I'm still on the fence. There seem to be tools out there that allow you to pretty much "rikai" your way through them. I don't know exactly what tool it is, but it seemed similar to rikai last time I saw it. I'm pretty sure there'll be countless words I've never seen before when I get started. But unlike anime, I'll almost always be able to double check the meaning and pronunciation of these words that I'm not familiar with fairly quickly. So it seems like a suitable opportunity to maximize exposure to these words and get used to their meaning by reading more.

What I'm trying to say is, if I spend 1h reading a visual novel and decide to srs the words I don't know afterwards, I'll probably spend another full hour just going through the text, checking the meaning of each new word, and making the flashcard. Not only that, I'll soon enough be flooded with reviews, which will take time away from reading. It seems like I'll end up spending more time making cards and reviewing new words than actually reading and getting used to these words in different contexts.

If it's a game or something that I have to alt-tab and look things up in a dictionary all the time, I feel srsing words would help me save time in the long run. But when it comes to visual novels, where you don't have to do that, is it really worth to read a single visual novel + srs most of the new vocabulary instead of reading 2 visual novels? I know how efficient srsing can be for vocabulary, but what I'm wondering is whether it's a truly time-efficient approach for someone who'll be reading lengthy visual novels with a tool that allows you to save time and instantly check the meaning/reading of a word. By the way, I'll be doing that on a daily basis... 1-2h+ as long as I have enough time, perhaps even more. (I think the only thing that could prevent me from having enough time for that is probably Anki anyway.)

(2015-12-13, 3:03 am)SomeCallMeChris Wrote: Well, I think it's quite worthwhile to do Core 3k regardless of the rest of your study plan. That first 3k words is going to show up -constantly- know matter what kind of material you read.

This is true, but by the same token, you will learn that first 3k words by extensive reading pretty quickly too, so it is really a question of which method you prefer.

I didn't use core decks and got all my vocabulary (beyond the absolute beginner few hundred words) from extensive reading/J-subbed anime.

I did and do use Anki to help cement vocabulary (though I don't Anki everything). I know people who can do it without. It really depends what you find works best for you.

I would prefer not to use SRS and pick up vocabulary purely organically, but I have found that using Anki as a secondary vocab-crutch in conjunction with extensive input is still most efficient for me at present.

You might be interested in this piece on "massive input vs anki" where I talk about the balance between input and SRS and how I have managed to somewhat shift the balance.

I have never tried to learn specific vocabulary in advance of reading/anime etc. Part of the reason for this is that if I put it in Anki as I encounter it, I begin by associating it with live experience and context rather than learning it cold as a list-word.

By the way you can use Rikaisama's real-time import function to turn Rikai look-ups into Anki cards with one keypress. You can also use it for J-J definitions if you decide to do that at any point.

"All I did was make English a part of my life and use it as much as I could." Absolutely this IS the key. Whether it is a good idea to use SRS and other artificial means depends on your learning style. Use them if they help. Ditch them if you find they are taking up more time than they are worth. Make sure they are always your servant, never your master! They should never be more than adjuncts to massive input.

But the key is making Japanese a part of your life.