As mentioned elsewhere, my primary goal for this year is to increase my vocabulary substantially and I am wondering what strategies you all have been using in this respect.

One invaluable tip already given on this forum concerned Japanese-Japanese revisions. I have reorganised my flashcards to include a dictionary.goo.ne.jp entry (together with their sample phrases) and am slowly incorporating J-J reviews into my daily routine. Still reviewing the new words the old way (Japanese -> a rough translation) but reading into the dictionary entry to get the auxiliary meanings, set phrases, the right particle to use with, etc. When a word has been recognised a few times, the revision is strictly J-J.

The above seems to work for me so far. Now to the problem of actually acquiring the vocabulary 'en masse'. Traditional reading and looking up words 'as you go' that seems to work in most languages irritates me to no end. I just can't help feeling that through this method I end up wasting time on infrequent and relatively useless words - which is fine in itself - but when I am still missing a good deal of more useful vocabulary I feel that my focus is somewhat diluted.

Hence I have embarked on the process of going through the vocabulary list for JPLT1 (over 7,000 entries). I am adding about 80 new flashcards on a good day and reviewing the old stuff. The revisions volume is growing very fast but there are two important things that I like about this method already: 1) there are a lot of quick kills, words made up of obvious components - you see it once and it sticks forever; 2) there is a lot of exposure to on-yomi readings 'en masse', in the context of frequently used words.

Parallel to that, I am still reading the stuff that interests me, in a much more relaxed way, stressing only about the words I know I've covered but cannot properly recall.

It seems to work for now but personally I can see a problem when the review volumes go up significantly and when I get to the fun letters like 'K' and 'S'... Another problem is how to deal with words that I cannot remember even after reviewing them a few times: possible solutions are devising a mnemonic to link a known foreign word with the sound of the Japanese word and (haven't tried this yet) building short stories that feature as many difficult words from one cluster (e.g., all starting with 'ma') in as few sentences as possible.

It would be interesting to hear about your methods of picking up vocabulary and your critique of the above.

I'm curious about it too. I understand you use rote learning with single words; I think I'm going to do the same with a JLPT list. I did learn a lot of vocabulary from reading, but it's often hard for me to look up the words and understand what's being said, since interesting reads don't always use easy grammar and basic expressions...

At first I wanted to do full sentences like suggested on alljapaneseallthetime, but it' a lot of work, especially to find interesting examples - "Mary is looking at John's book" and such gets quite repetitive. I pick up sentences from reading sometimes but I don't choose the words they contain, and I'm not always sure I understood it properly. So it's back to traditional word flashcards for me.

By the way, what do you use for flashcards? I have mnemosyne right now but I'd rather change, since it only gives a very limited control on the cards and doesn't show the stacks. If there's any program with an interface similar to RTK for vocab, I'd really like to know about it.

Serge Wrote:As mentioned elsewhere, my primary goal for this year is to increase my vocabulary substantially

Me too, but beginning when I finish grammar (May-ish).

Serge Wrote:I am adding about 80 new flashcards on a good day

That's incredible. I'm soooo jealous. I was elated to figure out a way to sustain 20 per day. Keep up the good work, man!

Btw, I use mnemonics with other languages (usually English) frequently, and they work well for me.

leosmith Wrote:Me too, but beginning when I finish grammar (May-ish).

That's incredible. I'm soooo jealous. I was elated to figure out a way to sustain 20 per day. Keep up the good work, man!

I finished the grammar and moved on to reading/listening and realised that I'm wasting too much time looking up words... Even while doing grammar I had to look up a lot of words in the sample sentences but I carried on.

80 per day is on a 'good' day, remember... And of that I only manage to recall less than 30% on day 3. I'm more concerned with creating my flashcard stack at this point. I'm very particular about creating my own stack as 1) this actually makes me think, look up words, etc.; 2) this gives me a very wide exposure to on-yomi; 3) this allows me to pick up on any 'quick kills' that don't need extra reviews but that I can start actively using straight away.

Ramchip Wrote:I understand you use rote learning with single words; .... I did learn a lot of vocabulary from reading, but it's often hard for me to look up the words and understand what's being said, since interesting reads don't always use easy grammar and basic expressions...

Very true what you say about reading. As for 'rote learning', I guess I'm just trying to do the 'cheaper-by-the-dozen' method: take the list, remember whatever is easy to remember and devise mnemonics for whatever is hard.

Ramchip Wrote:At first I wanted to do full sentences like suggested on alljapaneseallthetime, but it' a lot of work, especially to find interesting examples - "Mary is looking at John's book" and such gets quite repetitive.

That's why I find dictionary.goo.ne.jp so good: examples are short yet not too obvious. I also read my Kodansha Learner's Dictionary in bed at night, it's great for revision (as it's also alfabetic) and contains some beautiful examples.

Ramchip Wrote:By the way, what do you use for flashcards? I have mnemosyne right now but I'd rather change, since it only gives a very limited control on the cards and doesn't show the stacks. If there's any program with an interface similar to RTK for vocab, I'd really like to know about it.

I'm a big fan of iFlash (for Apple): it gives you unlimited number of fields and card sides, allows you to customise the fonts and sizes, allows to search and sort the stacks. Even more importantly, it allows several types of review, including the time interval spacing like this site's Leitner system. Incidentally, the time interval system can be easily customised to use individually adjusted intervals... And did I mention iFlash allows you to export your stacks to iPod?

I'd be more than happy to share my stacks with anyone but bear in mind that all translations are Japanese -> Russian. One of the reasons is that some of the features of the Japanese vocabulary are rather awkward when conveyed in English (like the pairs 'hajimaru'/'hajimeru') but have Russian equivalents that follow exactly the same logic ("начинаться"/"начинать"). The difference between such pairs I find crucial and there are other things as well...

Serge Wrote:I'd be more than happy to share my stacks with anyone but bear in mind that all translations are Japanese -> Russian. One of the reasons is that some of the features of the Japanese vocabulary are rather awkward when conveyed in English (like the pairs 'hajimaru'/'hajimeru') but have Russian equivalents that follow exactly the same logic ("начинаться"/"начинать"). The difference between such pairs I find crucial and there are other things as well...

I could use those if you would share them; I wonder if they could be exported into Excel or a text file though so that I could read them into Twinkle.
As for me, I have a stack from Kanji in Context with some example sentences taken from the same (lesson 1-6 so far), and another with words and example sentences taken from a couple of comic books I've been reading. They are E<->J.
You do have a good point about the transitive/intransitive verbs, it is a lot more transparent this way than putting "~ smth" or "trans" or whatever i use in English...

Sure, send me a message with your email address as I can't attach stuff in here...

After the test last year, I felt that my vocab was by far and away my weakest point, so I went about putting together a mnemosyne file that would cover all the vocab for 2級 of the JLPT. Basically I just swiped a pre-made list and formatted it so that I could import it into mnemosyne. I've finished it now, and if anyone wants a mnemosyne file for JLPT2 vocab just let me know.

That being said, this may not appeal to all, as it's designed for vocab building and not kanji readings, so the question is either Kanji/hiragana reading with the English meaning as the answer or vice-versa.

Christoph Wrote:if anyone wants a mnemosyne file for JLPT2 vocab just let me know.

Just the file I am looking for. Christoph, send it to me please. お願いします。

I've been stuck in Japanese at the same level for years, and I decided that it was my lack of basic vocabulary. So this year I bought Oxford Beginner's Japanese Dictionary, and I am slowly memorizing the E-to-J section. It's a small dictionary with good examples. I'm not memorizing every word in the section, just those that I know are important to know. Still, it is over 80 percent of the definitions. It will probably take me two years to complete (at my speed) and in the end I will have about 5,000 new words. I just started, so I'm still in the "A" section, but it's going well.

I use the jMemorize application, which is similar (though not as good) to the multi-bar interface of this web site.

Serge Wrote:80 per day is on a 'good' day, remember... And of that I only manage to recall less than 30% on day 3. I'm more concerned with creating my flashcard stack at this point. I'm very particular about creating my own stack as 1) this actually makes me think, look up words, etc.; 2) this gives me a very wide exposure to on-yomi; 3) this allows me to pick up on any 'quick kills' that don't need extra reviews but that I can start actively using straight away.

I see what you're doing now. Trying to "touch" every word as quickly as possible is a damn good idea; I might try your method myself.

Hey, isn't it supposed to be 10,000 for JLPT1? I keep hearing that, but it seems the lists I hear about are 7,000 words. Actually, jon sent me a list that I haven't gone thru yet; I'll see what the count is. hmmm

leosmith Wrote:Hey, isn't it supposed to be 10,000 for JLPT1? I keep hearing that, but it seems the lists I hear about are 7,000 words. Actually, jon sent me a list that I haven't gone thru yet; I'll see what the count is. hmmm

I have asked this same question elsewhere on the forum, there doesn't seem to be a clear answer to that. I'm not sure how 'official' these lists are: my gut feeling is that they have been compiled by good people from previous tests. It's reasonable to suggest, though, that while acquiring proficiency with those 7,000 one has been exposed to a further 3,000 words so the total builds up. And these 3,000 words would differ from person to person.

For the moment I've got my hands full with the 7,000 so I'll worry about the rest later...

i found that an excellent resource for improving my vocabulary was the podcasts on JapanesePod101.com. all the audio and video podcasts are free, and one comes out everyday. there are a variety of levels, from newbie to beginner to intermediate. even though i have taken 3 years of Japanese in university I learned many things from the beginner lessons too.

Basically, in every lesson there is a featured dialogue to which afterwards the translation is given and the relevant vocabulary is discussed. the lessons are VERY entertaining to listen to (it's kind of like listening to a radio show). and with each lesson there are PDFs that have transcripts of the dialogue, along with grammar & vocab notes. The accompanying PDF notes etc you have to pay for (but you can get a 7-day free trial access to see if you like it). i tried it out and i ended up buying a paid subscription, because in my opinion it's quite worth it. Oh, and if you get the premium subscription there's a section with JLPT practice tests, which I found quite useful.

anyway, i found using JapanesePod101.com to be the best way to continue to learn Japanese vocab on my own. doing vocab flashcards from textbooks just didn't work for me. in order for me to remember new vocab, i need to have some story to go with it (kind of like Heisig method, huh? ).

-Anita

Christoph Wrote:After the test last year, I felt that my vocab was by far and away my weakest point, so I went about putting together a mnemosyne file that would cover all the vocab for 2級 of the JLPT. Basically I just swiped a pre-made list and formatted it so that I could import it into mnemosyne. I've finished it now, and if anyone wants a mnemosyne file for JLPT2 vocab just let me know.

That being said, this may not appeal to all, as it's designed for vocab building and not kanji readings, so the question is either Kanji/hiragana reading with the English meaning as the answer or vice-versa.

me too. i would like this file

pleeeeeeeeeeease

timaki Wrote:I use the jMemorize application, which is similar (though not as good) to the multi-bar interface of this web site.

Thanks a lot! That's exactly what I was looking for.

sweetneet Wrote:i found that an excellent resource for improving my vocabulary was the podcasts on JapanesePod101.com. all the audio and video podcasts are free, and one comes out everyday. there are a variety of levels, from newbie to beginner to intermediate. even though i have taken 3 years of Japanese in university I learned many things from the beginner lessons too.

anyway, i found using JapanesePod101.com to be the best way to continue to learn Japanese vocab on my own. doing vocab flashcards from textbooks just didn't work for me. in order for me to remember new vocab, i need to have some story to go with it (kind of like Heisig method, huh?

JPod is excellent in many ways and it's true what you say that even beginner lessons come with some new vocabulary items. I've stopped actively listening to them, though, when I realised I'd smash my iPod against the floor next time I hear Peter say: 'oh yes, Sakura... oh yes, say it again... nice... very very nice'. I still occasionally listen to them but cut straight to the dialogues. The dialogues are truly excellent though, much funnier and less politically correct than another favourite of mine - the CPod.

The thing is, JPod will not give me 10,000 vocabulary items within a few months' time and they will always be conversation-oriented vs. media-oriented. Yesterday I learnt such words as 'abdication' and 'unanimous', plus some other legal vocabulary that I just can't see coming up in JPod any time soon...

yorkii Wrote:me too. i would like this file

pleeeeeeeeeeease

no problem, just send me an email, and I'll reply to it with the file, as I can't send it straight out through forum email system.

Chistoph...

Could I get a peek at your file too please?
I am going to take the JLPT test this year but I hav eno idea on how to go about acquiring more vocab...

So if you would be kind enough it would be much much appreciated
My email is bigspenderj@yahoo.com

Thanks in advance,

J.

Hiragana Times (http://www.hiraganatimes.com)
Nihongo Journal (Japanese learning magazine published in Japan)
Japanese Manga

Those are 3 very good ways of building vocab, especially for those
that finished RTK1.

Nihongo Journal has some sample material here:
http://www.alc.co.jp/nj/

Hiragana Times is available in downloadable PDF format. What's
great about this magazine is that ALL articles are written in English
AND Japanese. Plus there's furigana on top of every single kanji
in their articles. And you can copy/paste text directly from the articles.
They cover a wide variety of topics dealing with current events and culture.

Also, Don't understimate manga. Manga is especially good, since many have the furigana(pronunciation) for EVERY SINGLE KANJI. So you could pick up onyomi and kunyomi readings pretty fast if you read enough. The important thing is just
to do a little something everyday. Manga chapters are pretty short.
So just read 1 or 2 chapters a day.

Some people say manga isn't good for upper-level vocab. They usually
only think of adolescent shoujo and shounen manga. But they
tend to forget that there's a manga for everything, even adults. So if
you want to know vocab for business, law, medicine, journalism, etc,
just look for a manga that deals with that subject and you're good to go.
For example, Team Medical Dragon Iryu is great for learning medical terminology.

http://www.rawmanga.com has a few. Downloads are slow, but at least it works...

Douzo.

After finding this site for the Kanji, I went off in search of something similar for vocabulary. I know I could have used any one of the numerous Leitner based programmes for this, but I like having everything on a website so I can access it from work. Ideally I wanted something that followed the JLPT levels.
I was beginning to think there wasn't anything (and almost contemplating making my own personal site) when I came across http://www.studyjapanese.org . It uses a spaced repitition system for it's flash cards and has vocab lists for all four levels of the JLPT.
The only thing which annoys me so far is the fact that all the cards default to Japanese>English when testing, where as I like going the other way. There is a setting to change this, but you have to do it everytime you do a test...

Of course, if Fabrice want's to just rustle up a section on this website for vocabulary I would happily move across (although I bet his 'todo' list is already a mile long without starting new sections!)

What about http://www.speedanki.com?
The vocab is done by JLPT level.

Also there's http://www.jlpt-kanji.com
Click on "Vocabulary"

Chamcham,

Thank you for the links - the jlpt-kanji site appears to have the largest vocabulary base (about 8,000 on the level 1), the other ones are much smaller in comparison.

Still, the point remains that the only way to get review-ready stuff in the format that is exactly right for the reviews is to prepare one's own cards. As far as reviews go, some excellent tips were given in another thread on this forum. I have become a believer of including Japanese definitions into my review process, although I still go from Japanese to a rough translation on the early stages of the review (going the other way places too much dependance on the translation which is not serving any goals at all).

The other plus of this method is that the dictionary definitions list all possible meanings and also provide great examples - which practically makes reading redundant as you get enough context just out of the definition.

An example:

相互 (そうご) is defined as:

(1)互いに関係のある両方の側。たがい。
「―の利益をはかる」「―を残りなく解する/吾輩は猫である（漱石）」
(2)双方で、同じことをしあうこと。おたがい。
「―依存」

...two meanings, three examples of which one is from a famous book by Souseki. What other context can one wish to have? (The choice of this word was random but it's interesting to mention that in Chinese the same word is much more common and uses the reverse kanji order: 互相...)

Now, as compared to just doing the reading to pick out the words, the further I go down my list review method, the more I become convinced that this is a better way. Reading is either highly topical and heavy on legal terms or architecture terms or some other terms, or, in the case of fiction, random vocabulary with names of rare plants and places and other not immediately useful stuff. And while the not-so-useful stuff may still be immensely interesting in the context of the particular book I might be reading, by the time I get to it through other - more common but yet unknown - words, I lose patience.

I am now trying to discipline myself to read at least 3 articles from http://www.asahi.com and listen to 3 news items on http://www.nhk.com each day. It is really gratifying to see the words from my list coming back in the contexts of this material. I might give Nihongo Journal a try. Hiragana times is a bit too gaijin-oriented for my liking and I can't get any interest for manga/anime even if it's in my native language, I'm afraid - just not my cup of tea. Parallel to that, I'm still reading stuff for pleasure - at the moment, it's 『美しき日本の残像』 by the incomparable Alex Kerr (highly recommended)...

The aim is level 1 in December so the road ahead is a long one.

i re-read this thread and I believe that i am walking pretty much Exactly the same road as you. I have most of the grammar down now, but am looking for the best way to get that target 10,000 words down for december this year. I am basically picking my way through the "excel@japanese" file that some of the guys on here created and producing my own flashcards from which to review from.

good luck to both of us.

if i get any questions or have any thoughts, Ill put them here.

yorkii

Oh, I also forget to post this link:
http://www.asahi.com/paper/column.html

This from the Asahi Shimbun. It's updated with a new article
every weekday. So you can wake up every morning to a new
reading. The length is very good. Not too short. Not too long.

Try it out.

I would also suggest trying to find a Japanese conversation partner.
Craigslist.org (under the lessons section) and Meetup.com are good places
to find them. Even if you manage to memorize 10,000 words, it's useless
if you can't use them in real conversation. Also, you'll find that words you use in
conversation will be easier to remember.

Conversation in itself is just as intricate as kanji. The way Japanese people
use grammar patterns is often completely different from what you might expect.
Sometimes they cram 4 or 5 grammar points into one phrase and other times they
answer questions in ways that you would have never guessed if you were going
by the textbook.

It's not like once you memorize 10,000 words, you'll all of a sudden be great at conversation. In fact, soon after you take the JLPT, you're gonna forget most of those words anyway, since you're not studying for the exam anymore. And coming up with the right word on-the-spot when you're speaking is going to be really tough. You really need to attack Japanese from all different angles.

Remember that the JLPT is only a tool for motivation to learn the
language. There are tons of people that have passed the level 1 exam
and can barely hold a conversation in real life. I would suggest a mix
of listening, reading, listening, and writing(for ex. your own Japanese
blog on Mixi), with a heavier emphasis on reading

Level 1 JLPT DOES NOT mean you're fluent. Not even close. It only
means that you've passed their Level 1 exam. The Japanese I hear
spoken in dramas, movies, and even by people is nothing like what you see
in the textbooks. Of course, having a good grounding in formal standard Japanese is
a good base to support yourself on. But it's barely scratching the surface.

I had a native speaker mark through the level 2 grammar and pick out which phrases
are useful in daily life. Less than half were even remotely useful and most them
she had to look up the meanings, because she didn't know them herself! I get
the feeling that JLPT has even more useless grammar than Level 2.

Anyway, it's still a nice goal to aim for. Especially if you want to work in Japan.
I took the Level 2 exam in December and am aiming for level 1 just like you.

Ganbatte.

One more thing.
Another good site is http://www.corichan.com

It's the largest collection of Japanese music lyrics anywhere.
It covers all genres and many of the most recent albums even have Kanji lyrics.

You could look through your favorite songs and translate them yourself.
Even better, they keep up with all the newest albums.