I just wanted to share this method i've been using so far to study vocab, maybe its not for some but it seems a hell of a lot easier than than grinding through words using kanji-kana or kana-kanji. Basically I look at the kanji and substitute one of its radicals and also give the first syllable as a hint. Then when reviewing i read the sentence then glance at the underlined word {け古再} then write out the full version 結構

結構=け古再

Front:
すみまえんが,　ペンはありません "鉛筆で{け古再}です。

back:
結構;fine;ok
すみまえんが,　ペンはありません" 鉛筆[えんぴつ]で 結構[けっこう]です。

the only problem so far is finding radicals that are obscure
and using them like ⺤

wow, I must be slow, but I have no idea what the hell you are talking about. Could you clarify this a bit?

I kinda see what you're doing but I dont think its necessary to break up the first kanji into radicals. Why now just leave the kanji as it is and still give the hint in hiragana. I think that will cause a lot less headaches in the future, unless you're trying to focus on your writing ability I suppose.

What are you trying to achieve doing this?

If you're trying to learn the vocabs meaning easily I would just do kanji + reading to meaning as this is what you get in real books.

dusmar84 Wrote:I kinda see what you're doing but I dont think its necessary to break up the first kanji into radicals. Why now just leave the kanji as it is and still give the hint in hiragana. I think that will cause a lot less headaches in the future, unless you're trying to focus on your writing ability I suppose.

I tried it that way but it just seems too easy, I want to be able to "guess" what the character is and also "guess" the sound at the same time, yea I can go from kanji-to reading to meaning, but for me its just too slow and inefficient

Seems to me you'll be in danger of learning nonsense like け古再, because you'll be seeing it every time you review.

I know what you mean about having the kanji being too easy. Personally, I go from hiragana to kanji + reading + meaning, so that I ensure I'd recognise the word if I heard someone say it, as well as if I saw it written down in kanji.

I just do kanji with hiragana on the front. Meaning on the back. It's relatively easy to do and I can read quite a few things without furigana or guess. That said, if you want to be able to read without furigana fast then you'll need to force it a lot more (i.e., no furigana in books or cards.) I don't mind an extra 3-6 months to pick up the readings (if you actually focus on them when your reping, you'll pick them up anyway.)

Hmmm... currently, I'm doing minimal vocab as I'm only mining books (I do a lot of other stuff). This might be a good opportunity to add in some bold text as I'm making my own spread sheet.

Example:
はん・たい
反対

or

あたら・しい
新しい

or maybe:
はん・たい
反対

Just to break things up more.

fakewookie Wrote:I know what you mean about having the kanji being too easy. Personally, I go from hiragana to kanji + reading + meaning, so that I ensure I'd recognise the word if I heard someone say it, as well as if I saw it written down in kanji.

I think this is getting at the fundamental point -- the thing you're going to get better at is the thing you are getting the SRS to drill you on. So hiragana->stuff is useful (for listening), or audio->stuff, or kanji->kana/meaning. But weird hint->kanji/meaning is just teaching you to associate things with your hints, which isn't a skill that's actually useful in the real world.

I do something similar for my production deck which goes from kana to kanji then meaning(translation). But it's purely for writing from memory. It's so I gain the ability to write the majority of kanji from memory when I need to. I.e. filling out forms,general writing,general notes,etc. Even though writing may not be the most important skill to worry about, it is still vital for mastery(complete).

I give you points for creativity, but this doesn't seem lazy to me at all. I do feel lazy just reading about it. How do you go about creating a typical card? Even with creation aside, it strikes me as an overly complicated series of maneuvers.

At any rate, I also recommend just doing active recall or recognition cards if you're doing single words, at least, for an initial period. Leave the fancy associations for your brain, if, say, you want to use mnemonic devices, or whatnot. Perhaps pictures and sound files, and writing things out. I can't agree that this stuff is ‘grinding’ because it's the SRS, not rote. Active recall might seem difficult, but I think it's worth it when you're first learning a bevy of readings to go with the kanji, contextualized in meaningful words and sentences, rich with post-RTK associations, and complemented by audio such as from thurd's JDIC plugin or Core sentences or KO2001 or subs2srs, etc.

I've already done about 2200 sentences this way, and it seems to work fine, i'm able to read/write/recognize when it appears in real time and i don't associate it with anything "weird" because those are elements of the kanji / word, I've spent all this time learning these radicals so why not use them as hints? Maybe its a little weird for some but i never liked learning the traditional way either .

Whatever works for you. Thanks for sharing, it's an interesting take.