I'm a third of the way through RTK and I've been listening to the Pimsleur tapes. I do a little of some other activities, too. Recently I added the JLPT 4 級 vocabulary list to my studying. I have it in an ANKI deck with ordering preference to the Kanji I already remember.

I'm finding the vocabulary extremely difficult. The Kanji system has ways for me to hook memory onto stories and oddly is the easiest vocabulary-like system I've ever memorized. The sounds of the language in the Pimsleur tapes I find I'm getting used to after 30-some lessons. But the organization of the vocabulary in my mind seems impossible.

Part of it is surely the foreignness. I speak fluent Spanish and English so I'm accustomed to having a toehold or analogy or even a contradiction to work with in my memory for learning one language from another. When I work with tiny sounds like 家 or 言う I'm okay for the first two or three but once there are a few in memory, I just don't have vivid enough associations to work with. Compounds like 毎週 are easier so maybe this is a problem that will resolve itself after I learn a thousand or so words and the rest are longer. I wouldn't say that even things like 毎週 and 先月 are easy compared to stuffing ten thousand Spanish words into my head.

So I'd like to how how you do it, what you found were the hard parts, and what tricks and schemes helped along the way. Good ideas from the RTK community are much appreciated.

I'd like to know the best way to do it as well, I have learned 438 through rtoe and am hoping for a great strategy. (Or a book like Heisig's with mnemonics)

Read the posts in this thread by vix86. His method has saved me an ungodly amount of time while learning new vocab.

Just as a tip, I've found that it works best if you add the new words you want to learn to your "learn deck" at the beginning of the day, and then review them in your "normal deck" right before you go to bed. Ideally, you'll want to have reviewed the new words several times throughout the day before this step. Anyway, if you do things this way, then the new words will be fresh in your short-term memory and you'll be able to identify confusing or difficult to recall words. Try it out and let us know if it makes a difference.

WildUtah Wrote:Compounds like 毎週 are easier so maybe this is a problem that will resolve itself after I learn a thousand or so words and the rest are longer.

If you're only a beginner, don't worry, you won't have this problem forever. Personally, it has gotten easier the longer I've been learning Japanese. I actually don't use any kind of SRS any more (too lazy) - I just learn words when I read them in websites, manga, whatever, by looking them up there and then. The test comes when (or if) I see it again - I've either remembered it, or I haven't, in which case I look it up again. This way, I'm learning a tonne of words without actually sitting down and using a separate SRS. If I keep seeing a word come up, I'll remember it, and if it's a word I see once and then never again, it's a word I didn't need to learn anyway. This way I don't waste any time constantly reviewing words that aren't actually useful, and I get through much more new vocabulary, which is important due to the sheer amount of words you need to be able to use in order to sound fluent.

Some people swear by their SRS and that's cool, but don't think it's the only way to learn vocabulary. Personally, I find it boring and just end up not wanting to do it.

I do occasionally use mnemonics for words I'm having difficulty remembering. I used to never be able to remember how to read 覆る. I knew it roughly meant "capsize" thanks to Heisig, so eventually I came up with - if you try to change your shoes (靴　替える) while you're walking, you'll capsize. It's usually Japanese words that are problematic - Chinese kanji compounds you can remember with Heisig, and being able to read the phonetic components.

I'm also interested in the way to learn vocabulary. The compounds are relatively easy -mostly just rote memorising the reading, and heisig keywords -> meaning-, although in the beginning I do not know a single reading so I can't even make an educated guess. But the hiragana-only words are already much harder, but especially verbs and some kanji on their own are difficult because both reading and meaning have to be remembered.

louis89 Wrote:I do occasionally use pneumonics for words I'm having difficulty remembering.

^_^ Respiration practice to remember words.. could be a nice idea.

i think it is really about getting enough exposure over time to take in a lot vocabulary (followed by/accompanied by reading them so you understand their usage). there are some words i know like 私 which i never bothered memorizing but.. there they are stuck in my memory due to reading its definition once, and seeing it everywhere in all the Japanese beginner books I read. if you expose yourself enough over time, you can do anything.

I faced this same problem when I started doing vocab. The answer (at least for me) was just to do it. I just line up words in groups of seven, memorize them well enough to go over all of them once without making a mistake, and do this for every group. Then I just make sure I still remember them and call the words memorized. I don't actually do this for all my words, but only for the ones I think I won't remember (either weird Kanji meanings, or new readings).

If a word is super difficult to remember, I just make a mnemonic for it. I only do this in the worst cases though, since it can take time to come up with a good mnemonic. They don't even really have to make sense, and I mostly did this just for the sake of remembernig readings.

Overall though, what it comes I think it comes down to is just exposure. If you see a word appear X amount of times (either in media or SRS) you will remember it, even if you don't have any sort of special method.

It gets easier over time, trust me. A lot easier. So you don't really have to worry about vocab being annoying as long as you keep practicing

I am also struggling with Anki trying to learn new vocabulary.
In comparison with other languages, I think Japanese words (especially those with on-yomi readings) pose specific memorization problems as soon as one tries to learn both readings and writings simultaneously.
This is because some (phonetic) similarities with already known vocabulary, which one might be tempted to use in order to memorize a new word, may be in contradiction with their writings in kanji. This is just as if, in another language, one needed to check that the similarity between two words, which makes the new one sound more familiar, is actually based on a sound etymological relationship before using it as a way to improve memorization.
I sometimes wonder whether it might be better to first make sure that the words are learned phonetically (just like young children learn by hearing their parents), and study their writings only at a later stage. But on the other hand, for many other words, splitting them into their components really makes sense and helps remembering them.

Does anybody have experience, suggestions or thoughts regarding this question?