if you wanted to do a card like 収める, then just use the most commonly used definitions.
Or if not that, use the definition that matches the material that you are currently reading, etc. It might also just be easier to use an example sentence with each definition for the word if you really want to know EVERY definition for it. Good Japanese-English definitions can be found in the Kenkyusha 新和英大辞典

Hashiriya Wrote:if you wanted to do a card like 収める, then just use the most commonly used definitions.
Or if not that, use the definition that matches the material that you are currently reading, etc. It might also just be easier to use an example sentence with each definition for the word if you really want to know EVERY definition for it. Good Japanese-English definitions can be found in the Kenkyusha 新和英大辞典

That's what I did but I can hardly call that card - simple, evaluating also becomes problematic. Using the meaning from my material is some sort of solution but in my case most words come from premade lists... Besides, words that I added manually are also the easiest to remember but not thanks to countless repetitions but rather because of context I encountered them in.

thurd Wrote:That's what I did but I can hardly call that card - simple, evaluating also becomes problematic. Using the meaning from my material is some sort of solution but in my case most words come from premade lists... Besides, words that I added manually are also the easiest to remember but not thanks to countless repetitions but rather because of context I encountered them in.

Are you doing a course that requires you to use pre-made lists? Any way you can ditch them? Doesn't sound like it's the best way to learn for you. (Not trying to sound presumptuous or lecture-y here, so sorry if I come across like that.)

I'm like you - I need context to learn I drive all of my vocab from reading or listening. When I find a word I don't know, I plop it into my deck, along with the sentence in which I found it (for context). Working from contextless lists of words would drive me nuts too.

I'm in the same boat as you, Thurd. I've just finished entering in all the sentences from KO2001 and other than doing the reps in that deck, I'm getting ready to take a break from SRS. It's really frustrating failing the same cards over and over again, and having a really shaky idea of the reading/meaning of the word on the card.
If you've already gone through 6K+ words in SRS, there's no reason why you couldn't switch to learning through reading. It shouldn't be too much if a problem for you to learn new vocab and re-enforce it simply through extended reading.

quark Wrote:I'm in the same boat as you, Thurd. I've just finished entering in all the sentences from KO2001 and other than doing the reps in that deck, I'm getting ready to take a break from SRS. It's really frustrating failing the same cards over and over again, and having a really shaky idea of the reading/meaning of the word on the card.
If you've already gone through 6K+ words in SRS, there's no reason why you couldn't switch to learning through reading. It shouldn't be too much if a problem for you to learn new vocab and re-enforce it simply through extended reading.

Bravo! Well done! The frustration of failing cards, even though you have seen them numerous times is a familiar feeling for everyone I guess, but this changes with your attitude towards failing cards. Once you realize that you simply can't remember every single word all the time, and that seeing them outside the SRS anway, you will probably learn to stop giving yourself a hard time.

Guess how long it took for me to internalize such rather simple words as 磁石. I tell you, 5 months, until finally I remembered the stupid reading. There are other words with which it is exactly the same, the reading doesn't stick. But it doesn't matter, because either I see it and learn it outside the SRS, or it isn't worth remembering. Then there are words that aren't really worth remembering that stick, say 鶏頭, which I read and remembered. If you check what it means you will see how unimportant it is.

What I did while doing KO, was to drag along words I could not remember, but only until they were spaced out no further than 14 days. If, by then, I still wasn't able to remember reading / meaning of the word, I simply failed it. This worked very well. Later on I simply let them mature, and right now, I sometimes have to fail mature cards, but it doesn't matter much.

It is great to be able to learn a huge amount of words, but no one can expect that every word will be remembered, or every word must be memorized in the first place. So why bother? What sticks, sticks, and what doesn't, doesn't.

A great thread, and should be kept as a reference. It boils down to this: we should reevaluate our learning methods and try new ones every now and then, and stick to what 'works'!

Edit: it seems I missed this topic and someone posed and deleted his post today, lol. A good read nonetheless.

@undead_saif: Thanks for pushing the topic.. Recently, I'm also thinking about quitting Anki, although I just cannot stop adding new words using Rikai-sama when reading something online or when stumbling across a word I still don't know when watching Anime. I got quite addicted to SRSing, I must admit and there is not much space for practicing active listening or even reading a novel that interests me.. I'm just afraid to discover new words that hinder me understanding a sentence. I'm curious about how you guys "understand" a sentence. Do you translate it in your head into your native language?

When I hear Russian, I have the German-stream simultanously in my head (that's due to my background perhaps). Maybe my brain is desperately trying to achieve the same for Japanese, which is naturally difficult as hell... Oops, off-topic

Tori-kun Wrote:I'm curious about how you guys "understand" a sentence. Do you translate it in your head into your native language?

I don't translate things I understand. For me, translation is an entirely separate skill and takes extra energy. However, there are times when I'm speaking my native language (Russian) but I'll occasionally find something easier to say in English out of habit and I have to pause and think of a Russian translation.

I don't use Anki for Japanese, by the way. I do however keep track of new words. I keep them in a Wakan vocab list and mark them with different colors so I know if I'm seeing a word for the 1st or 4th time and how long ago I encountered it last. That way each time I encounter a new word it feels like a game. I get to keep it and color it. =)

Tori-kun Wrote:@undead_saif: Thanks for pushing the topic.. Recently, I'm also thinking about quitting Anki, although I just cannot stop adding new words using Rikai-sama when reading something online or when stumbling across a word I still don't know when watching Anime. I got quite addicted to SRSing, I must admit and there is not much space for practicing active listening or even reading a novel that interests me..

SRSing words you run across in アニメ sounds like active listening to me, my friend.

I view my Anki deck as a backstop for words I don't encounter as frequently as I would like. I want most of the words I retain to come from daily reading and listening. It seems to be working, if my increasing ability to read 単行本 and NHK News is any indicator.

FWIW, I'm adding 30 news words/day, and it usually takes me about 40-45 minutes on average to complete my deck every day. The rest of my Japanese time is dedicated to reading, listening, or speaking.

Tori-kun Wrote:I'm just afraid to discover new words that hinder me understanding a sentence. I'm curious about how you guys "understand" a sentence. Do you translate it in your head into your native language?

I'm with shinsen - "translation" is an extra step. I find myself still thinking of the English equivalents of a lot of words, but am working more on understanding the "sense" of a word more than its English meaning (which usually isn't a precise equivalent anyhow). I don't take time to translate the full sentence into actual English unless I can't grok it, and need to analyze it more closely to understand it.

There usually isn't time to translate, esp. when listening. The words come too damn quickly.

Tori-kun Wrote:I'm just afraid to discover new words that hinder me understanding a sentence.

Be careful about this! Maybe adding new words through Rikaisama is easy but it's not always available and looking up a word in a dic spoils the fun in what you're doing. You NEED to have the ability to skip words you don't understand unless they make critical sentences ambiguous, of course don't filter all unknown words. Sometimes when I'm enjoying reading something in English, and encounter a word that I don't know and makes the sentence incomprehensible, I keep on reading in hope that later sentences give away the meaning of it, if not, sometimes I open a dictionary, and sometimes I ignore it! BTW, I use Wikipedia frequently as a dictionary!

Tori-kun Wrote:I'm curious about how you guys "understand" a sentence. Do you translate it in your head into your native language?

Just understand it! Just like how a sequence of notes in music gives a certain feeling, so does a sequence of words gives a meaning. It's just our brains!!

Nagareboshi Wrote:

quark Wrote:I'm in the same boat as you, Thurd. I've just finished entering in all the sentences from KO2001 and other than doing the reps in that deck, I'm getting ready to take a break from SRS. It's really frustrating failing the same cards over and over again, and having a really shaky idea of the reading/meaning of the word on the card.
If you've already gone through 6K+ words in SRS, there's no reason why you couldn't switch to learning through reading. It shouldn't be too much if a problem for you to learn new vocab and re-enforce it simply through extended reading.

Bravo! Well done! The frustration of failing cards, even though you have seen them numerous times is a familiar feeling for everyone I guess, but this changes with your attitude towards failing cards. Once you realize that you simply can't remember every single word all the time, and that seeing them outside the SRS anway, you will probably learn to stop giving yourself a hard time.

Guess how long it took for me to internalize such rather simple words as 磁石. I tell you, 5 months, until finally I remembered the stupid reading. There are other words with which it is exactly the same, the reading doesn't stick. But it doesn't matter, because either I see it and learn it outside the SRS, or it isn't worth remembering. Then there are words that aren't really worth remembering that stick, say 鶏頭, which I read and remembered. If you check what it means you will see how unimportant it is.

What I did while doing KO, was to drag along words I could not remember, but only until they were spaced out no further than 14 days. If, by then, I still wasn't able to remember reading / meaning of the word, I simply failed it. This worked very well. Later on I simply let them mature, and right now, I sometimes have to fail mature cards, but it doesn't matter much.

It is great to be able to learn a huge amount of words, but no one can expect that every word will be remembered, or every word must be memorized in the first place. So why bother? What sticks, sticks, and what doesn't, doesn't.

I agree that some words are easier to remember than other words but it also depends on your immersion and whether you've encountered that word yet or in a memorae way. I had no problem learning the word jishaku despite its strange reading bc I came across it in talk variety shows. It was a word that was part of a funny story or a funny phrase. Like I remember a onna geinin named mitsuura saying she was a busu jishaku.

I'm sure if I just added jishaku into anki without having encountered it whatsoever just for the same of wanting to know the word I wouldhave probably pressed hard/easy every couple days while not really learning/remembering it