I finished 11 days ago. Feels good man. If it makes you feel any better, I dropped my Heisig deck very early on, a month after finishing it. It's very easy to re-learn the characters when you need to (especially when you read them regularly), although I can't say I've had any reason to do that recently. I'll get back into writing whenever I decide I want to undergo a JLPTest.

I had a three month head start, so you're still doing better than me. Honestly, it's not going to hurt to slow down a bit. Nothing happens if you finish in another 45 days instead of 35. You really weren't going to understand the Genji Monogatari in 10 days of Anki reviews anyway.

The last ~700 for me was unpleasant. I had some down time at work (literally nothing at all to do), so I was able to ramp up my new card rate near the end to 40+ per day. I wanted to finish before the holidays. It was absolutely horrible.

qwertyytrewq Wrote:I now subscribe to the idea that it is better to stagger your vocab memorization (learn and memorize a bunch of vocab decently, allowing it to settle in your mind, before moving onto the next bunch)

Agreed. Every day I saw a new batch of words and thought: "Oh god not this again. Another bunch of random sounds with random symbols. How did I ever learn the last 5k?". Some words stood out as particularly difficult ones that I failed many times. Then, three days later, I'd pass the cards just like any other. Your little struggle ends up making you familiar with them. It's kind of nice, actually.

Here are some deck lifetime stats.
Here are stats for the last month, if you want to see what the last part was like for me.

I have no idea how you got 40,000 reviews.

I don't know how my attempt at this compares with others' efforts. I like to think I did well enough.

The graphs don't show that I have 486 cards due at the moment. I've decided not to bother reviewing until I go back to work in a couple days. Holidays are too rare to waste on boring old Core6k sentences. I'm playing Zelda: Skyward Sword in Japanese instead :p. (And loads of fun is being had).

600 left. So close yet so far.

Tips for those doing Core 6000: The first 2000 is easy. 2000 to 4000 gets harder. 3000 to 5000 is the hardest. At 5000 old Kanji gets used again and it gets easy.

So basically, Core 6000 is easy, then hard, then easy. In my opinion. I already had decent basic vocab before doing it.

netsplitter Wrote:I had a three month head start, so you're still doing better than me. Honestly, it's not going to hurt to slow down a bit. Nothing happens if you finish in another 45 days instead of 35.

Perhaps but I'm getting old and man only has a lifespan of 70-80. I need to be fluent as soon as possible.

As for you, where to from here? Will you do the next 4000 to make it Core 10000?

I think instead of Core 10000, I'll finally move on to simple video games and making game-based Anki decks of vocab I don't know. 6000 is good enough, maybe. The reason I did Core 6000 is to minimize dictionary lookups in native material.

Ah yes, the easy batch at 5000-5400. I remember it fondly.

I won't do Core 10000. I don't think I could suffer another core sentence.

I'm going the video game route as well, as I mentioned above. I don't regularly add vocab from it (it interrupts the fun), but sometimes if I see a word more than twice, or it's part of some Serious Business™ cutscene, I figure it's probably integral to the game, so I add it to Anki. I take a picture of my monitor and put it on the front of my card. The quality is horrendous. I don't plan to keep the deck after I'm done with the game. Maybe I should get a capture card and try to OCR it (while it's playing!). A project for another year, probably.

Zelda was probably not the best choice either. There is a lot I can understand, sometimes even perfectly, but there are many parts where it's just old-timey royalty speak where I understand almost none of it, and I got tired of looking up all the words early on.

That's for vocab. My grammar is still weak. I have a copy of ADOBJG collecting dust. I got bored half way through, but it'll probably be more exciting this time around, if only because I can say "oh yeah, so that's what this thing I keep seeing meant all along", since I'm actually reading a lot more now.

I also got one of those parallel texts on Zgarbas's recommendation. It seems like it's really good, but I've only read a few sentences so far (not enough time in the day, arghh).

Anyway, good luck with your last 600.

[RawToast]

qwertyytrewq Wrote:Anki gives me an average of 200-350 reviews a day and if the reviews don't burn me out, I also do about 20-50 new cards. I hate missing a day. Missing a day means my reviews shoot up to 600+ the next day. On one day, I did about 1500+ reviews in 3 hours to make up for lost reviews.

Is that 20-50 new vocab a day? If so, your review count must have ramped up fast! Missing a day is nasty even when your reviews number around 100-150 a day. If I am going to miss a full set of reviews I find its best to at least review a few cards from each deck to ease the pain.

qwertyytrewq Wrote:I now subscribe to the idea that it is better to stagger your vocab memorization (learn and memorize a bunch of vocab decently, allowing it to settle in your mind, before moving onto the next bunch) than to do 1000 new cards a day, which is too much new information all at once. Basically, what Anki is intended to be used for is the right way.

I tried this and it works well. I was doing 15 new vocab a day until I reached 500. I then added no new cards for a week to enforce my learning of any words I struggled with before moving on.

Yep, on average, through the lifetime of my Core 6000 on Anki (130 days so far), I do an average or 400 reviews a day and 40 new cards a day. Out of those 130 days, I had about 1 to 2 weeks of do-nothing days.

I always fail new cards the first time I see them, unless I know it already, which means that I'll see the new card again the next day.

Due to my workload, if miss one day, then my reviews will increase to 600. If I miss 2 days, then 900. At one point, I had 1500 reviews. I finished all 1500 on that same day in 3 hours. Never again.

Make no mistake, you need utmost consistency to do this or else the reviews will overwhelm you. Otherwise, most people would be better off doing 10-20 cards per day which is much more manageable as well as not looking at new cards until the review count goes down. I'm doing double because I have time, the incentives, and because I'm impatient.

100 reviews a day is too easy. 200 is very good, enough to make you think you are making progress while not being boring. 300 is manageable but quite mentally boring. Anything over 300 should be avoided.

Since I have 600 cards left, my motivation is at an all time high so I'll finish it very soon.

The other motivation booster is the fact that I see core vocabulary in native material, and I know the reading and meaning without using a dictionary.

netsplitter Wrote:I'm going the video game route as well, as I mentioned above. I don't regularly add vocab from it (it interrupts the fun), but sometimes if I see a word more than twice, or it's part of some Serious Business™ cutscene, I figure it's probably integral to the game, so I add it to Anki. I take a picture of my monitor and put it on the front of my card. The quality is horrendous. I don't plan to keep the deck after I'm done with the game. Maybe I should get a capture card and try to OCR it (while it's playing!). A project for another year, probably.

Zelda was probably not the best choice either. There is a lot I can understand, sometimes even perfectly, but there are many parts where it's just old-timey royalty speak where I understand almost none of it, and I got tired of looking up all the words early on.

Have you tried the print-screen button instead?
And yeah, Zelda got some weird stuff, but I find Twilight Princess to be much better, and it even includes furigana.

[RawToast]

Quote:always fail new cards the first time I see them, unless I know it already, which means that I'll see the new card again the next day.

Sounds like a heavier version of my own routine; I couldn't spend 2/3 hours reviewing whilst holding down a job!

Quote:The other motivation booster is the fact that I see core vocabulary in native material, and I know the reading and meaning without using a dictionary.

For the same reason I am only studying new cards which have Genki I tags (around 300 words in my deck) as I am using a Genki sentences deck alongside Tae Kim. I hate doing grammar as "Alice did <something negative in the past>" :S

Where can I see the numer of total cards that I have learned in anki 2?

Think I've asked this before, but when you learn new cards, do you write them down and study, or just review and speak it out loud until you remembers it?

qwertyytrewq Wrote:600 left. So close yet so far.

Tips for those doing Core 6000: The first 2000 is easy. 2000 to 4000 gets harder. 3000 to 5000 is the hardest. At 5000 old Kanji gets used again and it gets easy.

So basically, Core 6000 is easy, then hard, then easy. In my opinion. I already had decent basic vocab before doing it.

I really have to disagree with this, but perhaps that is because my basic vocab wasn't that great.

The first 2000 words were quite a pain for me, since new kanji were introduced so often. Plus, I hadn't created any mental imagery for some of the kanji that would appear in similar words later (which at the moment helps me with understanding the meaning), nor had I memorized the common readings. Especially abstract concepts were hard to get a good grasp on. It truly was a steep hill to climb.

Now at 2600, I think that the past 300 words have been the easiest thus far. I know most of the kanji that comes up (and so the readings too), plus they help me reinforce the words I already know and the words are easier to grasp too.

I'll see how/if that changes when I get to 3000's!

Do you learn the kanjis as well and not just the hiragana?

xanan66 Wrote:Think I've asked this before, but when you learn new cards, do you write them down and study, or just review and speak it out loud until you remembers it? Do you learn the kanjis as well and not just the hiragana?

I recommend for learning new cards, especially at the beginning to write down the word, it's kana, and the sample sentence (use kana for kanji you don't know how to write yet). In addition, speak out the word and the sentence. After that during review phase, you're just writing down and pronounce the word when you're trying to answer the card. You're only testing the vocabulary word, nothing else.

For learning, yes, learn the word in it's kanji form. That's the reason I put learning 555 KO kanji in RTK order first so that the first 1,000 vocabulary words you learn only use either only kana or only those kanji. For non-RTK students, I suggest just testing kana for words they don't know the kanji for at the moment then start testing for kanji as you learn them in whatever method being used if any.

Stian Wrote:Have you tried the print-screen button instead?
And yeah, Zelda got some weird stuff, but I find Twilight Princess to be much better, and it even includes furigana.

Ehhh, give me a bit of credit here . I'm playing Skyward Sword, so it's a Wii game connected straight to my monitor. No computer in between, hence the suggestion for getting myself a capture card. This game also has furigana.

xanan66 Wrote:Where can I see the numer of total cards that I have learned in anki 2?

Click the icon with the bars (second from right) or push Shift + S. You'll get a stats screen. Go to the very bottom.

netsplitter Wrote:Ehhh, give me a bit of credit here . I'm playing Skyward Sword, so it's a Wii game connected straight to my monitor. No computer in between, hence the suggestion for getting myself a capture card. This game also has furigana.

Can you play Skyward Sword on a Western console?

You can play anything after soft-modding it. I now buy English Wii games in PAL and download the Japanese equivalent from Share or some such place. I figured it's fair enough that way, although I'm sure Nintendo will disagree.

Thx netsplitter, 2% done. over 5,9k left

xanan66 Wrote:Thx netsplitter, 2% done. over 5,9k left

Almost there!

Hey, Nuke. Shouldn't at least the first lesson of Tae Kim's Essential Grammar be learned before starting Core2k? (On account that Core2k uses polite language and Tae Kim doesn't mention polite language in Basic Grammar at all)

It's such an easy lesson, too. Way easier than the final Basic Grammar lessons.

P.S. The lesson about the て form would also be needed to make sense of the structure of many of the sentences.

Finished. On the last day, I did 1000 reviews and almost 200 new cards.

Deck age: 141 days Number of cards: 5999 Number of facts: 5999

Card age Mature cards: 3948 (65.8 %) Young cards: 2051 (34.2 %) Unseen cards: 0 (0.0 %) Average interval: 55.9 days

Correct Answers Mature cards: 80.0 % % (3023 of 3778) Young cards: 65.7 % (34288 of 52194) Seen the first time: 26.7 % (1601 of 5999)

Forecast Tomorrow due: 470 cards Tomorrow new: 0 cards Estimated time tomorrow: 134 min. New cards finished in: 0 days

Average seen last week Reviews: 584.6 cards/day New cards: 46.9 cards/day

Average seen last month Reviews: 537.7 cards/day New cards: 39.2 cards/day

Average seen last year Reviews: 397.0 cards/day New cards: 42.5 cards/day

Average seen ever Reviews: 439.5 cards/day New cards: 42.5 cards/day

Those are crazy numbers. Well done.

qwertyytrewq Wrote:Finished. On the last day, I did 1000 reviews and almost 200 new cards.

Deck age: 141 days Number of cards: 5999 Number of facts: 5999

Card age Mature cards: 3948 (65.8 %) Young cards: 2051 (34.2 %) Unseen cards: 0 (0.0 %) Average interval: 55.9 days

Correct Answers Mature cards: 80.0 % % (3023 of 3778) Young cards: 65.7 % (34288 of 52194) Seen the first time: 26.7 % (1601 of 5999)

Forecast Tomorrow due: 470 cards Tomorrow new: 0 cards Estimated time tomorrow: 134 min. New cards finished in: 0 days

Average seen last week Reviews: 584.6 cards/day New cards: 46.9 cards/day

Average seen last month Reviews: 537.7 cards/day New cards: 39.2 cards/day

Average seen last year Reviews: 397.0 cards/day New cards: 42.5 cards/day

Average seen ever Reviews: 439.5 cards/day New cards: 42.5 cards/day

And these were sentences, right?

Do you mind describing the process of adding new cards and reviewing them?

For instance, I spend a lot of time adding a difficult sentence. I look for ways to associate the words I don't know with ones I know. I try to recall/find known words that have the same Kanji reading, I try to look for words with similar meanings and compare them, I look at antonyms, etc. Various tricks to help remember the word.

Then, if I fail to learn the card that way, after 3-4 failed reviews I actually single out the problem words for individual attention (write them out on a piece of paper, go over them before I start reviewing the next day). If that fails to work too, after another 2-3 reviews I just give up and add the reading of the problem words to the question.

Eventually, the word pops up in another sentence, and I just learn it then. A second context does wonders.

Obviously, the advantage is low failure rates, the disadvantage is time spent doing all this. I'd love to know your exact process. Maybe it will help adjust mine.

netsplitter Wrote:Those are crazy numbers. Well done.

Thanks! Now that there's no more new cards, I'm looking forward to see the reviews go down, and to actually properly read something Japanese from start to finish.

2 things that unexpected happened in the last 500 Kanji or so are:

1. Katakana words went way down.
2. In the last 200 or so Kanji, I started seeing non-Heisig Kanji in greater numbers. It was disappointing to see that words like 囁く (to whisper) were not considered Jouyou Kanji.

By the way, in case anyone cares, those stats come from Ankimobile which means that I can review anytime, anywhere, even when I'm at work. I'm not restricted to a computer or laptop/notebook. That might explain why I have enough time to keep up with reviews, do new cards almost every day, and finish Core 6000 in less than 5 months. Also, doing Anki on a mobile is more comfortable and less distracting than doing it on a PC.

Another thing worth noting is that my "seen the first time" correct rate is almost 30%. Seen the first time means you know the meaning and reading of a vocab word the first time you see (in Core). So what this means is that I knew about 30% of the Core 6000 vocabulary outside of Core (stuff like numbers, dates, colors, the basics) beforehand. I was already reading (basic) Japanese before I did Core so that gives me an unfair advantage/head start over someone who enters Core 6000 with no knowledge of any vocab at all.

I don't regret giving up my Heisig Kanji deck. It has done its job. The mystery of Kanji is disappearing and all I have to do is focus on reading and meanings, not the make up of the Kanji itself.

The nice thing now is that when I look at any Japanese paragraph, I understand more than what I don't understand (50%+) and dictionary usage is minimized. If I were to use the immersion method, then I would have made myself crazy from looking up every little word. Not to say there are no benefits to immersion, but that I went through short term pain (Core 6000) in order to minimize long term pain (dictionary lookups every 3 seconds). Or something. Think of Core 6000 as Heisig. A little pain today to unlock the benefits tomorrow.

Anyway, with a solid 6000 vocab bank, I feel ready to properly read some shit now.

Stansfield123 Wrote:Do you mind describing the process of adding new cards and reviewing them?

For instance, I spend a lot of time adding a difficult sentence. I look for ways to associate the words I don't know with ones I know. I try to recall/find known words that have the same Kanji reading, I try to look for words with similar meanings and compare them, I look at antonyms, etc. Various tricks to help remember the word.

My main goal is to increase my vocab so that I can minimize dictionary lookups. When I read something, I want my dictionary to be my brain.
My main method is breadth (the "basics") and not depth (the details). While depth gives me a greater understanding of a vocab in a sentence, breadth gives me a greater understanding of the paragraph.

It sounds like you want to fully flesh out a Kanji while I'm content with a skeleton understanding. Any meat/details I memorize along the way is just a bonus.

Or to use an analogy, college Japanese learners have a very good understanding of 300 Kanji in 3 months. Heisig learners have a decent understanding of 2200 Kanji in the same time.

I don't really care about example sentences, the sentences are just for showing what the verb/noun/adverb/etc might look like in a real sentence.

Since your goal is different from mine, then the Anki process will be different too.

Stansfield123 Wrote:Obviously, the advantage is low failure rates, the disadvantage is time spent doing all this. I'd love to know your exact process. Maybe it will help adjust mine.

Suppose I wake up in the morning and I have 300 reviews to do. By the way, I'm still using Anki 1, not Anki 2 so scoring comprises Fail/Soon, Hard, Good, Very Good. I rarely use Very Good except for the most easy and easy-to-remember Kanji/Vocab.

My card only has two items: The isolated vocab that is in Kanji, Hiragana or Katakana form and the sentence which is at the bottom of the card and displayed off screen until I scroll to it.

First I do 100 reviews (reviews meaning I've seen the vocab before). I do reviews first because reviews are more important than doing new cards. Also, if you do new cards before doing reviews, then that "300" number will be hanging over you, and demotivating you. So the vocab pops up:

REVIEW PROCESS
1. Can I memorize the English meaning exactly and the Japanese reading exactly? If yes, then "Good." If not:
2. Can I memorize the English meaning generally and/or sort of the Japanese reading (mostly mistakes from raising or not raising the sound like 大小 (size): saying Taishou (wrong) instead of Daishou (correct)? Then "Hard." If not:
3. Did I fail to get the English meaning and Japanese reading badly? Then "Hard/Soon."

After 100 cards, I ask myself, am I getting bored? If so, I take a break and go eat or drink something. If not, then I keep going for another 50 reviews. Every 50 reviews, I access my desire to take a break or to do more reviews.

After the reviews are finished and if I have time for new cards, then I do new cards.

NEW CARD PROCESS
1. Can I memorize the English meaning exactly and the Japanese reading exactly? If yes, then "Good." If not:
2. I attempt to read the example sentence and then:
3. Did I fail to get the English meaning and Japanese reading? Then "Hard/Soon."

Eventually, on the same day, the same new card will pop up again (second time):

4. Can I memorize the English meaning exactly and the Japanese reading exactly? If yes, then "Good." If not: go to 5. In other words, I will see this vocab again the next day. The reasoning is I can memorize the new vocab after minutes or hours, but can I memorize it tomorrow?
5. Did I fail to get the English meaning and Japanese reading badly? Then "Hard/Soon" again until it finally becomes a "Good."

Basically, I am harsh on new cards (see it often) but relatively relaxed on the old cards.

This strategy requires commitment and consistency. Otherwise the short term reviews will pile up quick.

The advantage is that you see the new vocab often in the first few days so that you can decide if you really have memorized it or not before giving it a "Good."

Thanks for the reply. I'm gonna stick to sentences though, I like to have as much context as possible when memorizing a word.

Btw, I use Anki 1 too. But from next week the ankiweb for it is discontinued, so I'm gonna have to bite the bullet and switch. Even though I hate the new version.

@qwertyytrewq Congrats!
BTW, on a follow up to a previous question (about what you put on front and back) I didn't put the sentence way down as you did, I kept it but in small font. Since I started I've never read the sentence before flipping the card, and so I agree that the sentence is a way to cheat into knowing the meaning of the word. For people who finished RTK, the hint for the meaning is already in the Kanji, so I don't think the sentence can be used to know the meaning.

My problem now lies in remembering the pronunciation by looking at Okurigana, and this becomes clearer when I read something and don't understand the word because it's conjugated!