I finished RTK1 and was planning on going through the Anki deck of Core2K, among other things. Had a question of the best way to utilize.

I've just been looking at and listening to cards (iknow_core2000 deck, in case there's more than one). I sometimes will shadow / repeat. Then I mark it correct if I understand it.

My only concern is that sometimes I understand it, but I doubt I could use it - or maybe even understand it if I encountered it in a different context. Even something as simple as 一時間以上遅れた might make me pause and wonder if it was more than, not as much as, or even 送る (which makes no sense in context and even conjugates differently, but that's my problem with conversation speed).

Anyways - should I assume that over time and once I move on to other material, this will take care of itself with exposure? Normally my grammar and construction is pretty good - yet I lack vocabulary and have trouble connecting grammar. Very simple sentences are easy - complex sentences go right over my head. Hard to find the in-between.

(my level is probably lower intermediate. I can make myself understand slowly in one-on-one conversations, but I'm totally lost with normal speed native stuff)

When I first started doing core2k i did production cards. ie question side had picture and played the audio of the sentence. I then shadowed until I could say it at the same speed as the audio and wrote down the sentence and thought of the meaning in my head. Answer side had the sentence in Kanji and kana.

Pros: really improved my pronuciation and and rhythm, writing became much faster and better looking. Listening improved.

cons: reviews were time consuming and harder to do on the move, eg. couldn't do em on the train. Took me a LONG time to get through first 1000 sentences (though retention for mature cards was really high, like 95%...)

I switched in the end though (to Kanji on question side, kana + audio as the answer, no writing at all) cause it felt like it was taking too long to get through reviews. I learn more words now, but also experience what you described: hearing those words "in the wild" and not remembering what they mean... this didn't happen much with words I was learning in the more time consuming production style mentioned above.... Not sure which one is better in the end. *shrugs*

Thanks. This is exactly what I'm thinking about. I'm doing Kanji and Audio on the question side, kana and meaning on the answer. I also try to concentrate on the individual kanji - although maybe your method of putting the audio on the answer side is better, because the audio feels like I'm already getting the answer (readings, etc). Maybe I'll try experimenting with that.

I've been using a bit complicated mixture of your ways - on the question side I have kanji and the sentence in kanji which is visible only on mouseover, when I press "R"to get hints, the audio plays and reading of the word and sentence with furigana is showed. Finally, the answer consists of all that + english meaning of the word and the sentence. I usually rate 'hard' the word I could answer with the hint and it seems to be effective for now...

Btw I hope you're using Kore instead of Core, it has much more natural progression(especially in the beginning). If you somehow missed the thread about kore you can read about it here: http://forum.koohii.com/showthread.php?tid=5091

Thanks - I'm interested in the Kore thing. I'm just using a deck called iknow_core2000 that I downloaded. I downloaded kore.txt from that link, but I'm still confused on how to use it. I do like the idea of a more sensible progression, although since I just finished RTK1 and have a bit of background, maybe it doesn't make too much of a difference?

I'd say that the fact that you have some background on kanji makes all the difference in this case, you could read about the particulars in the thread or by searching for kore on the forum, explaining theory isn't really my thing

Anyway now that you got kore.txt open it in google docs or open office, delete the columns you don't need(like remote sound, jlpt number or whatever), and sort the spreadsheet by the 22nd column, 'ko2001-index'. After that just save the spreadsheet as txt and import to new deck in Anki.

Cool - I'll try that. But basically if I have a good grounding in kanji from RTK1 and a bit of normal Japanese, the order isn't as important? I figure I'll do Core 2000, then do Core 6000 anyways, along with my own pure vocab deck that I'm slowly building.

Well order isn't really important, it's just that this way is more intuitive and it should be easier(thus faster).

One tip that I wish I heard when I started doing SRS: suspend/delete cards that you're absolutely sure you know, there are many really basic cards in core2k that could cost you a lot of time in the long run

I use what has been described above as the "production method", always writing out the word that the sentence is concentrated on, and sometimes the whole sentence...it takes longer but I feel the benefits are at least proportional.
I've also been wondering why everyone on these forums always talks about core2000 and core6000 but never of the other ones...? Can someone clarify this; I have the unpleasant feeling that I've missed something. (on iknow there's core1000/core2000/core3000 etc...)

Core 2000 (10 steps, 200 words per step) and Core 6000 (12 steps, 200 -500 words per step) are the old beginner and intermediate lists from the old smart.fm. Core2000 contained 2000 words, and Core6000 4000 - doing both took you up to a 6000 word vocabulary.

Now smart.fm has become a pay-site iknow.jp, they rejigged their lists and broke them up more to make them easier to follow. Now to learn the magic 6000 words, you do Core 1000, then 2000, then 3000 and so on, each "course" having 1000 words, 100 words per step.

Same content, just differently sized lists.

I used the core list for vocab (recognition) rather than sentences, vocab vs sentences has been discussed a few times here.... eg http://forum.koohii.com/showthread.php?tid=5656&page=1

Thanks aphasiac : ) , that makes a lot of sense now!