While learning vocabulary in context obviously gives you the best overall feel eventually, I also like just drilling vocabulary as I feel like it gives me an easy way to quickly learn a ton of new words.

For anyone who does this, what method do you use? I've been using both J-E and E-J (production / recognition) cards, but I'm wondering if going just J-E is a better idea? For instance, the meaning INFORMATION could resolve as 情報　知識　案内 or whatever. I realize I'll get nuance from sentences, so I'm starting to think that only going J-E is a better idea for learning and will cut my cards in half. My thoughts for keeping E-J is that when I'm speaking and trying to think of the word for "recession", maybe it's helpful that I drilled recession-不況 rather than only the other direction - but RTK obviously doesn't do this and assumes you'll get it when you need it.

Thoughts anyone?

You should never think "I want to say recession in Japanese, how do you do that?". If you do, you're translating English to Japanese in your head then saying it, you're not speaking Japanese. Going english - japanese is thus a bad idea, you're coupling your English with your Japanese too hard. You should keep the two languages as separate as possible which is why as soon as possible, you should go J-J, not J-E.

That's kinda what I was thinking. Maybe I'll start over doing J-E for awhile with some J-J mixed in - and hopefully transition to all J-J.

With somewhat limited vocabulary - how do you usually do your J-J definitions for vocabulary drilling? Do you make them up, or pull them off one of the online Japanese dictionaries?

Making them up would be a poor idea since a) you might be wrong and b) your Japanese probably WILL be wrong. Grab them from a dictionary. Or, I don't include any definitions in any of my flashcards; they're just kanji - kana. I generally have a harder time remembering specific readings for a word than the word's meaning. And if I do forget, I just look it up again.
This might not work as well with a bunch of contextless cards though.

Specifically for J-J definitions, which online sources do you recommend? Obviously looking for simple and concise definitions - probably with some synonyms, too.

Using 不況 as an example, most of the definitions aren't too hard assuming you know what 景気 means. If you don't, the definitions of 景気 are pretty hard (for me).

I'm on a Mac so I have the Dictionary app built in that's pretty good in general. Also, GOO has a free widget for the Mac if anyone is interested.

sanseido.net is great for J-J definitions.

Ah yes - Sanseido looks great. I couldn't remember this one - was messing around on ALC, etc. This seems to be the most concise and simple J-J that I've seen.

Just a general question for Sanseido - if they use hiragana, is it likely that the word appears more often as hiragana than kanji? For instance, 有様 or ありさま - on EDICT it doesn't say uk, but I have found EDICT to be way off on kanji usage. On Sanseido, it appears that ありさま is probably more common.

Never mind - Google has 751000 hits for ありさま and 26000000 for 有様. Oh well, back to just seeing it in context for that.

Sanseido puts the hiragana for easier comprehension. There is a faq somewhere in the dictionary that explains it.

Sanseido.net is good when you can't understand the harder definitions, but personally I prefer daijirin (which is available both on dic.yahoo.co.jp and OS X Dictionary app). The definitions are very fleshed out and example sentences are often supplied. However, when you're in doubt about a word, the best idea is generally to cross reference 2 or more dictionaries.

Personally, I use daijirin for about 90% of my J-J. I also complement it with kenkyuusha waei daijiten which is an extremely good J-E dictionary filled with great native Japanese example sentences.

Tobberoth Wrote:Personally, I use daijirin for about 90% of my J-J. I also complement it with kenkyuusha waei daijiten which is an extremely good J-E dictionary filled with great native Japanese example sentences.

Can you supply us with a means to use the kenkyuusha waei daijiten? Online? 電子辞書?

<Disregard, misread question>

(I don't remember if I bound the shortcut myself or if it was default, but command-ctrl-D brings up the dictionary popup for the text the cursor is over for me, though it's sometimes bad at guessing word boundaries.)

~J

tokyostyle Wrote:On the other hand I get practice with the Japanese kana order.

I've never forgotten it thanks to Heisig's advice to sing it to the tune of frere jacque.

Ryuujin27 Wrote:

Tobberoth Wrote:Personally, I use daijirin for about 90% of my J-J. I also complement it with kenkyuusha waei daijiten which is an extremely good J-E dictionary filled with great native Japanese example sentences.

Can you supply us with a means to use the kenkyuusha waei daijiten? Online? 電子辞書?

I picked my 電子辞書 (Casio EX-word GP9700) specifically because it had the Kenkyuusha. You might be able to buy it separately as an add-on dictionary for other models. There is an online version which you can buy access to.