I am cruising through RTK though some kanji give me trouble, I can get most of them correct.

On the other hand, it is somewhat more difficult to do the reverse - remembering the keyword from the kanji. This combined with the difficulty of remembering one or two new kanji compounds per KO2001 sentence card along with their reading means that I would be lucky to remember the vocabulary from 4 cards per day.

I fear that the RTK ease is due in part to my good visual memory and the RTK mnemonics. Since kanji compounds involve both a new word meaning and a reading, and are not as easy to visualize or use mnemonics for, I wonder how other people are dealing with learning vocab. For me at least, it is 20 times harder.

Or perhaps KO2001 is not a good place to start.

Same here. When the difficulty arises, look up the kanji again to find its keyword, and it'll be a "eureka" moment - you'd find it hard to forget after that. Alternatively, ignore it, and it'll likely come up again in your SRS soon enough for you to remember seeing it in KO2001.

For compounds, more mnemonics might be a good idea if you're already skilled at them; otherwise, it's just a case of practice. Use Anki to keep reviewing them, saying them out loud each time; even if you don't fully get a word the first few times, you will after a while. After a while, you can also try writing select compounds from memory too - the more ways you practice a word, the easier it gets.

EDIT: I advocate using mnemonics only in cases of interference. Otherwise, not a good use of time.

Starting vocab is tough, no matter what list you use. The solution is to only learn the easy vocabulary sentences. Set your SRS to suspend leeches with a low leech threshold (single digit! Try 5.). Make sure to watch TV (and movies, radio, music, ...) to get the sounds in your head.

Eventually, you reach a critical mass of listening and vocabulary, it becomes much easier.

I do not recommend mnemonics for vocabulary. As long as there is vocabulary to learn that doesn't require mnemonics (most of it) you'd just be wasting your time. The human brain is much better adapted to remembering words than characters--we've been doing it longer.

I'm 100% with wildweathel. Mnemonics isn't going to work and learning vocabulary isn't supposed to be hard, it's just hard because it's all new to you. Listen to a lot of Japanese, start to recognize the sound and the patterns in the language and just bulldoze it.

Yea vocab is always hard in the beginning, just because you don't know what it means. It get's easier when you learn to adapt to Japanese. Eventually you're vocab will increase and so will you're understanding. But immersion helps alot with this.

Listen to them, you won't get anywhere by just silently reading stuff. You have to read it out loud or hear it spoken (while reading the word of course).

just　がんばる

I have been listening to japanese media for about 8 years and have a good listening comprehension, so that is not the issue. I have been told by japanese speakers that I am very good at listening and pronunciation.

Its just that learning new compounds with seemingly arbitrary readings is much more difficult than getting to know a picture from an english keyword. Though I imagine it will get easier in the future, it is a very very rough start to someone coming out of RTK1.

I am going to instead try using the sorted Core 2000 deck and see if that is easier to progress through. Though thanks to KO2001 I know that "円安で日本企業の輸出が増えた” this probably doesnt help as much as learning 5 sentences with 1 new compound each.

sikieiki Wrote:I have been listening to japanese media for about 8 years and have a good listening comprehension, so that is not the issue. I have been told by japanese speakers that I am very good at listening and pronunciation.

Its just that learning new compounds with seemingly arbitrary readings is much more difficult than getting to know a picture from an english keyword. Though I imagine it will get easier in the future, it is a very very rough start to someone coming out of RTK1.

I am going to instead try using the sorted Core 2000 deck and see if that is easier to progress through. Though thanks to KO2001 I know that "円安で日本企業の輸出が増えた” this probably doesnt help as much as learning 5 sentences with 1 new compound each.

The readings aren't arbitrary at all though, except for kun'yomi. Not only are the readings a combination of on'yomi from a repository of 300 or so possible ones, they are stuck to the kanji used since kanji only have a few on'yomi. As you learn more words, you get used not only to what makes up a proper on'yomi, but you get used to which kanji are read in which way. As you do that for some time, this feeling of arbitrariness just disappears and it becomes quite easy, especially if your familiar to both or at least one of the kanji in the compound.

And yeah, your main problem could be the "non i+1 ness" of the KO2001 sentences. Learning one new compound per sentence is a lot easier than learning many since that lets you focus on the stuff I mentioned in the paragraph above.

wildweathel Wrote:I do not recommend mnemonics for vocabulary. As long as there is vocabulary to learn that doesn't require mnemonics (most of it) you'd just be wasting your time. The human brain is much better adapted to remembering words than characters--we've been doing it longer.

Just to clarify: I only use mnemonics in this way for things that are otherwise especially difficult to memorise, generally because of interference. In any case, the definition of a mnemonic is just that it's a memory aid and there's no need to devise a complicated system for everything. I just find it useful when learning very new vocabulary to quickly come up with a small verbal mnemonic to disambiguate confusing material; when you're first starting out, this might be more useful, since it's harder to distinguish between more words.

So, what wildweathel said is true - they generally aren't necessary - but don't be afraid to recourse to them if you're really struggling with any given item. It's really about what costs you the least amount of time.

Actually I've started on 2001KO (sorted deck), and I'm using mnemonics for most new words! Is this bad? I don't see a reason not to - has been making remembering easier so far..

Some examples I can think of off the top of my head:

通り this street has a lot of DOORs..
空 SOLAR (quite obvious)
試合 this is a SHIte football game..
東 HE-GASH-SHE = eastern ladyboy (i don't know why, just powerful mental image)

I assume they'll drop away, so will keep doing it..

aphasiac Wrote:Actually I've started on 2001KO (sorted deck), and I'm using mnemonics for most new words! Is this bad? I don't see a reason not to - has been making remembering easier so far..

Some examples I can think of off the top of my head:

通り this street has a lot of DOORs..
空 SOLAR (quite obvious)
試合 this is a SHIte football game..
東 HE-GASH-SHE = eastern ladyboy (i don't know why, just powerful mental image)

I assume they'll drop away, so will keep doing it..

Bad? Probably not. Waste of time? Probably. It all depends on how your brain works, but one thing is certain, you won't use mnemonics to remember words when using Japanese later, so it's probably something you're using just for the very beginning regardless.

Tobberoth Wrote:Bad? Probably not. Waste of time? Probably. It all depends on how your brain works, but one thing is certain, you won't use mnemonics to remember words when using Japanese later, so it's probably something you're using just for the very beginning regardless.

Waste of time? Takes me about 3 seconds to think of each one! Also I've used mnemonics to remember how to spell words in English my whole life. I still use them now (my spelling is atrocious without them).

Maybe I've just got one of those brains..

aphasiac Wrote:

Tobberoth Wrote:Bad? Probably not. Waste of time? Probably. It all depends on how your brain works, but one thing is certain, you won't use mnemonics to remember words when using Japanese later, so it's probably something you're using just for the very beginning regardless.

Waste of time? Takes me about 3 seconds to think of each one! Also I've used mnemonics to remember how to spell words in English my whole life. I still use them now (my spelling is atrocious without them).

Maybe I've just got one of those brains..

Then yeah, it sounds like you have a brain meant for it. It takes me up to 10 seconds to think of a decent mnemonic and I never remember them, I have a much easier time simply remembering the word. Personally when I train vocabulary, I just look at the word. If the pronunciation doesn't jump into my mount directly automatically (as it needs to do when reading), I fail it, unless it's a really complicated word where I allow myself to reason for a while (in those cases, I may even use mnemonics at times).

Hmm, so I'm having serious problems remembering Japanese words without mnemonics.

I can see a card with a reading for a kanji 10 times, and still forget it. Also i seem to forget words 2 seconds after I hear them.

How do people brute-force new vocab? It seems absolutely impossible to me..

It's easy, with Iversen method. Drill words in sets of 6 or 7.

Make a list of 6 or 7 words with each line having Kanji, Kana, English. Cover Kana & English, and drill reading from Kanji until you can remember all of them. After that, repeat from English to reading.

Go as fast as you can, doing a different word each time so that there is some spacing between the repetitions, until you can remember all of them easily in any order. Shouldn't take more than 2 minutes per list of 7.

If there's a problem word then start with smaller spacing and gradually increase, eg if word 1 is a problem then drill, 1, 2, 1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5... This should get you outside of that 2 second memory.

aphasiac Wrote:Hmm, so I'm having serious problems remembering Japanese words without mnemonics.

I can see a card with a reading for a kanji 10 times, and still forget it. Also i seem to forget words 2 seconds after I hear them.

How do people brute-force new vocab? It seems absolutely impossible to me..

I started out like that, too. No matter which method you use to help you remember vocabulary, with time, your brain will get much better at short term memory. After a couple months or so, you probably won't depend on mnemonics so much.

I got a giant push in the back where it came to vocab, by loading in all vocab for the jlpt and from core6000 and ko2001 in my anki. My listening skills are levels ahead of my reading level, and those cards for which the soundbite and meaning was already stored somewhere in my head, I quickly learned to match those sounds and meanings to the kanji and their readings.
What also helped was unsuspending those cards I should be able to read and understand the meaning of. Solidifying a certain reading of a kanji or meaning. Especially in combination with those listening skills this seems to be quite a useful tactic.

It gave quite a powerboost for a while, at that time I thought it would be overwhelming to have thousands of vocab cards waiting for me, but it only made me realize what an enormous amount of vocab I had already picked up, it was just a matter of connecting the dots and transferring it to active knowledge.

I had already gotten through what seemed like mountain of vocab and sentences, when I started this, but with your listening comprehension it should give you quite a boost as well.

I just stick with it. I used to do the Iversion thingo, but that took too long. Now I just write out the word I got wrong once and read it a few times. Dunno how effective it is though. For really really troubling vocab I use a limited version of the movie method.

Movie method and Kanji Town use similar methods. Except they make sure the Onyomi has a connecting theme (either a movie or a location).

For Kunyomi, RTK2 has an interesting approach but I've not tried to put it into place. However, it's close to what you're doing.

Murphy's law: If it looks stupid but works, it ain't stupid.