I've read it's bad to learn more than 1 new vocab/kanji reading per card, so I'm confused what to do. I'm wondering how I should grade myself on sentences that contain more than one kanji I can't read yet. For instance, the sentence for 見る.

私は絵を見るのが好きです。

Should I just grade myself if I can read 見る correctly? Or should I try to learn every kanji in the sentence?

Thank you for any help.

What I am doing, and I'm not saying this is a right or wrong method, is making a card for each and every word in the sentence. Since I'm doing the Core2000 deck, most of the words in each given sentence is included in the deck as a separate vocabulary card. If one is missing from the deck, I make my own. I grade the card as wrong if I get ANY of the words in the sentence incorrect.

I think this is working pretty well for me, so far, but I'm only halfway through Step 2 (so about 300 words in).

Where did you hear learning more than one reading a card is bad? That's how I thought you were supposed to do it.

Well that's how Khatz says to do it.

Khatzumoto Wrote:Do not: learn individual words. Learn sentences

Hmm, I'm interested in this as well.

It matters not which way you do it, just that you do it. I think the determining factor for me would be whether or not you are struggling with learning multiple readings or not. When using pre-made decks I personally copy-paste it and go through it once and grade just based on keyword (making mental note of the rest of the sentence), then when finished throw it into my primary deck where I focus on the whole sentence. That way you get it in bite-sized chunks that are easy to remember. You already know the keyword, so that just leaves the remaining elements.

wishroom Wrote:Should I just grade myself if I can read 見る correctly? Or should I try to learn every kanji in the sentence?

Might as well make a card with just 見る then. Makes no sense to grade yourself on only that aspect of the sentence. If you do you're just totally disregarding the rest of the sentence which you shouldn't be doing. I think it's better to try and learn all the new readings you don't know upfront. Might be difficult at first, but words will come up again and again.

Liking even breaking down your sentence 私は絵を見るのが好きです。
私/好き=Extremely common
絵=Really common

FL1PPY Wrote:Where did you hear learning more than one reading a card is bad? That's how I thought you were supposed to do it.

Probably the i+1 talk

Lets do (i+2)^1.5

CerpinTaxt Wrote:

wishroom Wrote:Should I just grade myself if I can read 見る correctly? Or should I try to learn every kanji in the sentence?

Might as well make a card with just 見る then. Makes no sense to grade yourself on only that aspect of the sentence. If you do you're just totally disregarding the rest of the sentence which you shouldn't be doing. I think it's better to try and learn all the new readings you don't know upfront. Might be difficult at first, but words will come up again and again.

Liking even breaking down your sentence 私は絵を見るのが好きです。
私/好き=Extremely common
絵=Really common

FL1PPY Wrote:Where did you hear learning more than one reading a card is bad? That's how I thought you were supposed to do it.

Probably the i+1 talk

Yes, the i+1 talk as you said got me worried about learning too much at once. I used the import smart.fm plug-in and imported step 1 of smart.fm. So splitting the sentence up would probably screw up the whole deck as I'm not too familiar with Anki yet.

I'll just try to learn everything in the sentence then. Thanks everyone for your help.

I'm doing iknow sentences myself (KO2001 lists), and it can be a pain in the ass if a card has 4+ new words, which on occasion happens. It does seem to take more effort and is as such maybe less efficient. But I want to learn that damn sentence, so I just work on it, maybe fail it many times, and focus on learning them as both one at a time (then failing) and then progress through, keeping the meaning of the sentence in mind. I usually "fail" because I struggle for a bit to pronounce all the words correctly, but the meaning of the sentence usually is there. Sometimes they turn into leeches, and at that point I either un-suspend (as usually I am close by this point to having it), or let it hibernate for a bit depending on mood/fatigue, etc. The nice thing is that will happen less and less as you build your vocabulary. And if the sentence from the get go is just too damn big and daunting, it's ok to put it on ice, and come back later to find you learned some/most of the words somewhere else, and it's a piece of cake. But I usually just grind it out. Many of the most difficult ones from a few months ago are super smooth now, and I figure this is how it will be with most stuff.

Also - If I fail it, fail it, fail it, in session until it is too damn taxing, I'll just mark it hard, study it in my ipod, and go get after it the next day.

This is the same problem I was having when doing KO2001.

Try this thread and apply these ideas to your sentences:
http://forum.koohii.com/showthread.php?tid=4371

Basically this checks kanji frequency throughout your sentences and builds a list around that. Then it's sorting sentences based on that frequency list. The result is that your sentences introduce minimum possible amount new kanji. It's not a prefect algorithm but still a big improvement.

I'm using it right now and find it much better than original KO2001 order.

Thanks for the input guys. I'm going to fail from now on if I don't know everything in the sentence....grammar, vocab, particles, and kanji reading. After RTK all I have is kanji on the brain which needs to change now.

You should learn each function of a sentence: the vocabulary, the grammar, etc. Otherwise I don't see it as being beneficial at all for overall knowledge of the language you're learning.

To use your example: 私は絵を見るのが好きです。

You should understand all the components individually:
私 = I
は = particle marking the subject (私)
絵 = pictures
を = particle for the direct object of the verb (絵)
見る = to see
の = particle used after the dictionary form of the verb (見る) to transform the verb into a noun
が好き = liked (indicating that the act of seeing pictures 絵を見るの is liked)
です = in this case simply an indication of politeness/formality in speech

Isolate whichever part of a sentence is not understood. If you've never seen the grammar of Dictionary Form of Verb + の, then it's important to understand and study that individually, until it's really soaked in. If it's just vocabulary you're unfamiliar with, study each of the words in isolation.

Correct me if I am wrong, but I am under the impression that you've learned kanji, but are just beginning grammar, vocabulary, and such? I don't think that it's a good idea to jump straight into sentences, to be honest. In my experience this usually just leads to understanding of those single sentences, rather than the more universal knowledge of the grammar and vocab in those sentences. Does that make sense? I don't know if I am expressing myself well.

What I mean is that a sentence is only useful if you can apply what you learned from that sentence (grammatically and vocabulary-wise) into any situation. To use your example, of 私は絵を見るのが好きです, the importance of studying that sentence is to be able to use that sentence construction both in expression and comprehension. In this case the most direct importance is expressing that you like doing [insert verb here].

ピアノを弾くのが好き = I like playing piano
寿司を食べるのが好き = I like eating sushi
映画を見るのが好き　= I like watching movies

And the secondary importance would be the grammar of turning verbs into nouns by adding の after the dictionary form.

食べる = to eat 食べるの = eating
泳ぐ = to swim 泳ぐの= swimming
飲む = to drink 飲むの = to drink


You probably know all that already, I am just trying to explain that I think you should take whatever aspect of a sentence you don't understand, and then study it in isolation until it is well understood and can be put back into the large-scale.

Well I read through Tae Kim maybe 6 months ago, so I have a basic understanding about particles and grammar. I'll give it another read before I begin doing sentences. My vocabulary would be the weakest at the moment. I know maybe 15-20 words and probably 10 readings for kanji. So, I'll take into account your isolation advice.

Again, it was stupid about asking grading kanji only. I was confused at the time, RTK put me in a kanji only mind frame.

Thanks for all the feedback.

Something you can do (similar to what I did) is suspend all cards in the Core 2000 deck, go through the Core 2000 using the iKnow application and then unsuspend the cards as they become 100%. That way you are learning the words well and you are getting used to simple sentence patterns.

Don't forget that the point of SRS is to help you remember stuff which you've already learned. If you come across a sentence with four new readings, obviously you'll need to spend a little longer studying it before you make a card out of it.

If you don't know any of the core2000 vocabulary before you start out, smart.fm can be something of a grind to begin with. Just be sure to study new words thoroughly. Don't rush through trying to add X cards/sentences per day because reviews will pile up and you'll fail a lot. More failures means even more reviews, and failing regularly over a period of weeks can be severely demotivating (I've been there).

Personally I created a core2000 vocab deck to go along with with the sentences. It only takes half an hour to drill each set of 20 words initially and the reviews themselves take even less time. Reviewing entire sentences can be rather slow & monotonous so it's great to be able to rush through 100+ reviews in a matter of minutes.

I think IceCream's strategy of doing all the core6000 vocab exclusively over a period of 40-50 days is a great idea. If I was a complete beginner now I'd probably do that and then get into mining via native media rather than smart.fm's somewhat mundane sentences.

Aijin Wrote:は = particle marking the subject (私)

It doesn't really matter, but は doesn't necessarily mark the subject (「秋は空がきれいです。」「秋は楽しく過ごした」). It marks the topic. [/being picky]

I was speaking about the usage of the various components in the specific sentence being discussed, not trying to explain every usage and nuance of the particles :\

harhol Wrote:Don't forget that the point of SRS is to help you remember stuff which you've already learned. If you come across a sentence with four new readings, obviously you'll need to spend a little longer studying it before you make a card out of it.

How exactly do you "spend a little longer studying" vocab or anything grammar wise? Just keep reading it over and over? I thought that was the point of an SRS, keep seeing it until you learn it.

I use Anki to both help me remember material AND to learn it. Sure, I fail the card a bunch in the beginning, but I see no reason to learn through one method and remember through another.

stplush Wrote:How exactly do you "spend a little longer studying" vocab or anything grammar wise? Just keep reading it over and over? I thought that was the point of an SRS, keep seeing it until you learn it.

Well it's a personal thing, so this probably won't apply to everybody, but I like to go over each new word/reading for a few minutes until it sticks. I'll play the audio a few times, get used to saying it, writing it, typing it, etc.

If there are 3-4 new words/readings in a sentence, I'll isolate them and spend a few minutes going over each. I think this is very important if the word/reading is entirely new to you, since it's essentially just a sequence of random syllables. If you're adding 50 sequences of random syllables to your deck each day, it helps to be able to distinguish between them, especially as there are so many similar-sounding words.

Of course, what's important is that everyone finds an approach which works for them. I just think that using SRS to learn as well as memorize is counter-productive. Some may argue that learning & memorization are essentially the same thing when it comes to languages, but I see a big difference between getting used to a word/reading (i.e. being able to recall the writing & reading from memory without a prompt) and simply recalling & recognizing it in the context of a sentence.

I learn isolated vocabulary first with iKnow and add (unsuspend) the complete sentence in anki, when I reach 100% (EDIT: like kazelee wrote). If there are a lot (or few difficult) unknown words in the sentence, I look for other, simple sentences (from smart.fm) that have the unknown words and add them too.

I believe the purpose of vocabulary and sentence lists in language acquisition is not "you must learn everything on this list, it's good for you" but "hey, brain, here's a target-rich environment; let's rock and roll!" What matters isn't how many items escape, but just how fast you can catch the ones you do catch. Be fast, cheap, and out of control. Use leech control to keep too-hard sentences from wasting your time.

I'm a little wary of numbers, since you shouldn't judge yourself against me (that's just stupid) but always be trying to improve yourself. But, this approach is working for me, and I'd like to show you how.

My goal is 30 minutes of Core 2000 study a day. Over the past week, I've studied between 15 and 35 minutes a day and have met my goal five days running. I've introduced 415 new items in the last week, an average of 29.7 sentences a day. Over the lifetime of my deck, I've discarded 6.40% (172/2686) of all items seen for being too hard(1.90 per day at my current rate). This means I'm retaining 93.40% of what I introduce, or 27.8 sentences a day.

Sentences are disposable and inexhaustible. Don't study hard ones. Throw them out; move on to something you're ready to learn now.