I recently downloaded the "Core 2000 and 6000 Vocabulary and Senten" shared deck from Anki, and I'm wondering if anyone else has used any of the Core decks? I've been reading through the cards and some of the seem a bit off. They seem to use あなた a lot, and I thought that was a bit of a no-no in Japanese? Also, the sentences are way more complete than I've seen in other resources and in the few real Japanese things I've tried to read. Is that normal?

The sentences in the Core decks come from iKnow, who got them from a company called Corego, IIRC.

If you don't like them, then you can always study the vocab words and look up sentences from the yahoo.co.jp dictionaries. There are 2 JP-EN dictionaries there, and both are professionally produced by real Japanese lexicographers.

EDIT: The downside, of course, is that it's a huge time sink to do this, and you'll lose the audio for the sentences.

あなた　わたし　etc. are just to make the sentence clear since you have little context as far as subjects go. While doing the decks I barely even listen to them I just listen for the direction the action takes place which is an important skill. The main point is the Vocab and i think it does a good job at that. It boost your vocabulary listening and reading ability so you can progress from there. I use Kore 2k6k uploaded to anki by Nukemarine.

The あなた　わたし etc have not transferred to my active style of speaking.

Might as well go for the Core 10,000. The sentences are very good, especially for vocabulary. Don't forget to download the audio files. They also include a fair amount of informal Japanese, Japanese that you're likely to use. I like it a lot.

rich_f Wrote:If you don't like them, then you can always study the vocab words and look up sentences from the yahoo.co.jp dictionaries. There are 2 JP-EN dictionaries there, and both are professionally produced by real Japanese lexicographers.

How does one navigate to these sentences? I can't find where (or what to click) on the site.

jkun666 Wrote:

rich_f Wrote:If you don't like them, then you can always study the vocab words and look up sentences from the yahoo.co.jp dictionaries. There are 2 JP-EN dictionaries there, and both are professionally produced by real Japanese lexicographers.

How does one navigate to these sentences? I can't find where (or what to click) on the site.

Click on 辞書 (じしょ) and type in the word you want to look up. On the page the search function leads you to click on 和英 (わえい) Japanese -> English under the search-bar.

kyaserin Wrote:I recently downloaded the "Core 2000 and 6000 Vocabulary and Senten" shared deck from Anki, and I'm wondering if anyone else has used any of the Core decks?

I used to use them. They're not terrible, but I wasn't happy with any of the standard orderings (tried a number of the indices available in Kore); while some were better than others, all orderings had sentences show up with multiple words I didn't know fairly often. Some of the basic vocab used in the sentences aren't even in core6k (this is mostly an issue if you start core after RTK and a grammar book but no prior vocab study). I also experienced a lot of interference with readings and grew tired of the contrived and context-less sentence. It was boring, felt like work, and I only continued slugging through it because the sentences from my subs2srs deck I tried making looked downright scary.

Since then I've dropped Core and just use subs2srs decks with Morph Man sorting them in a sane way. If you're not a fan of dramas/anime then perhaps your experience will be different, but I found the switch to subs2srs to be nothing short of downright amazing. It's simply _fun_ to hear your favorite characters recite awesome lines and it's very satisfying to learn them. cb4960 is #1

I started doing the core 2000 steps and for the first time I thought it would be a waste of time because I knew almost 90% of the first 2 steps and when I entered the 3rd I found myself among near 200 words and on top of it they were somewhat hard to learn and I almost stopped it.
Im happy I didnt, because there are a lot of words in these lists that I started to see everywhere from animes, to blogs even in my japanese classes.
Im only at core step 5 still thou, but I can understand a lot more than before it.

Edit: I would recommend doing it only after RTK thou, as it makes learning the kanjis a lot more easier

All the political terms in the Core series are really brutal to learn, IMO.

I did the core 2000, and then 500 of the core 6000 before I stopped using them. The core 2000 is a good start in my opinion, it's a lot easyer to jump into unlike some subs2srs decks you'd make. But, I'm glad I decided to stop with the core 6000 and switch to Subs2srs, which was one of the best moves I've made in my Japanese learning so far. If your just starting out, It would'nt hurt to do the first 2000, and then do as I did and switch to subs2srs. Just my 2 cents.

Good luck!

skeenbot Wrote:I did the core 2000, and then 500 of the core 6000 before I stopped using them. The core 2000 is a good start in my opinion, it's a lot easyer to jump into unlike some subs2srs decks you'd make. But, I'm glad I decided to stop with the core 6000 and switch to Subs2srs, which was one of the best moves I've made in my Japanese learning so far. If your just starting out, It would'nt hurt to do the first 2000, and then do as I did and switch to subs2srs. Just my 2 cents.

Good luck!

Are you using pre-made decks for subs2srs?

So I should focus more on the vocab than in the sentences? Well, I guess that makes sense now that I read it here but I thought I had to remember the whole sentence or something, and it's been frustrating because of this.

I've completed the Core 6000 and am now doing the Core 10000 too. I've also been collecting my own sentences and now I notice that the Core 10000 covers a lot of sentences I found necessary to mine myself, so it's a confirmation how well it is compiled.

I wonder why smart.fm only voiced 6000 sentences.

bcrAn Wrote:So I should focus more on the vocab than in the sentences? Well, I guess that makes sense now that I read it here but I thought I had to remember the whole sentence or something, and it's been frustrating because of this.

you can do either one.

i did the whole sentence; initially it took really long to do reps, but now i fly through them and it also has good carry over to native material.

Learning the whole sentence does give you the skill to rapidly get though native material, but it does make you very used to only those specific forms. For instance, I've seen 幸せ a million times and read it instantly, but I frowned a few times when I saw シアワセ. It IS the same word.

Core sentences are pretty esy to remember most of the time, but I only focus on the word itself.
Just by being exposed to some words (the ones in setences), I can remember them later on, even without having put much effort in learn them.

Im currently on core 2000 step 9 and Im going forward to core 6000 as it really increased my vocabulary, thou this time Im gonna try to get the whole core deck instead of each individual steps... Not sure yet.