I say if it becomes a chore than quit. NO FUN = NO GOOD!!!!! if you have been working on it for 3 years then you should start your own sentence deck and add things that you want to learn or work on :] 頑張って

I got through core10k pretty quickly (like in months) by not worrying about memorising definitions....

just concentrate on getting the various readings of kanji in your head using Anki.

Then learn the meaning of words by reading a buttload of native material using Rikai-sama as a guide.

You can get plenty of light novels in txt form if you know where to look >_>

Last edited by midonnay (2012 July 15, 6:59 pm)

midonnay wrote:

I got through core10k pretty quickly (like in months) by not worrying about memorising definitions....

This is actually really good advice. A lot of people study cards like there is one true interpretation and meaning. Dictionaries are not laws. Japanese is a fuzzy language at the best of times. It's okay to have a fuzzy understanding.

In my studies I got to the point where I became okay with having a fuzzy understanding of some things at first. There's bunches of words I knew the gist of or thought I knew better than I did. Then I finally saw them in the context of a native work, and had my なるほど moment with those things. I would find out that my understanding of it was wrong or just gain a deeper level of understanding.

OP, as long as you keep moving forward with something then it's fine to quit Core6k. Native materials with more context are better anyway. If you feel like you can handle it then just do that. That was your eventual goal when you started to do Core in the first place, right?

However it is possible your Japanese could have some weird holes in it that might be plugged by continuing. My suggestion is to move your Core6k deck to "long term" mode by doing this:

Unsuspend all new cards. Set new cards to be randomly mixed in with existing cards. Review 150 a day consistently. Don't bother with trying to clear out all the expired cards every day. Do your 150 cards per day, and with the rest of your time move on to better and brighter things.

So it boils down to instead of quitting Core6k just quit worrying about Core6k. Let go and let Anki. Do more of the things you want to do while keeping the things you don't really want to do at a minimum. But, don't stop doing those things completely since they do have some value.

Juniper Pansy - if you are quitting core 6000 without completing it why aren't you questioning your motivation?

Last edited by HonyakuJoshua (2012 July 16, 1:36 am)

vix86 wrote:

I think if one's goal were to be able to understand spoken language exceptionally well, then sub2srs would be great. However if you have plans to read, then a deck like the core6k will get you to a point where you can read. I've finished the 6k and I can say that in my reading of newspapers, light novels, mangas, etc, that about 80% of the words in the deck show up with enough common consistency to be considered important to learn. Thought I'd just point this out.

Yeah I agree finishing core6k will help you read a lot of stuff, but I've been thinking about that tower of babelfish method, where it says the first 1000 is 70%, and the next 1000 is another 10%, and after that really low. I don't know how accurate that is, but I was surprised how little benefit it becomes after the first couple thousand. So I decided it would be a better idea to learn from the sources I most want to understand. Of course if the vocabulary is sticking and it's enjoyable enough, then core is great. I'll use other sources besides subs2srs eventually, but it's fun right now.

I think the tipping point where you hardly have to look up anything anymore and basically can call your vocabulary native level is at around 20k words.

I just finished Core6k about a month ago. Here was my progression (during full-time study + part-time work):

0-2000: 12 months. Lots days didn't add any. Got behind with reviews a lot, etc.

Took a break for a few months. Read lots of Naruto.

2000-3500: 8 months or so. Whole weeks where I didn't add anything. Started getting really sick of it.

3500-6000: 3 months.

How did I speed up so much for the last 2500?

1. Just sucked it up and did 25 a day. Only had a handful of days during this time where I didn't add or didn't do my reviews. It just became a (pretty much) non-negotiable part of my day. Usually only took about an hour and would do it first thing in the morning, or last thing before sleeping.

2. Suspended (and eventually deleted) cards that I just didn't understand or kept getting wrong. THIS HELPS. I only had to delete about 25 cards in the end, but it stopped me getting frustrated and slowing down during reviews.

3. Focus on the target vocab for that card. Originally I tried to make sure I knew EVERY word perfectly on each card and would fail if I didn't. But then I later realised that those other words come up as target vocab with their own sentence later.

4. It get's easier. It's true. You really do get a feel for the Kanji and readings and can often guess the reading and/or meaning of new vocab as they appear.

I wanted to give up many time too. But as someone who felt the same, also took a long time, but eventually GOT IT DONE. I think it's worth finishing.

Inny Jan wrote:

dizmox wrote:

I think the tipping point where you hardly have to look up anything anymore and basically can call your vocabulary native level is at around 20k words.

So these 20k words are for a native poet, doctor, engineer or a simple minded garbage man?

Simple minded Japanese person. HS education.

Yarr... vileru, Aren't you confusing lexemes, phrasemes and morphemes in that assumption? Theoretically word number counts should be focused on individual lexemes, so indeed do, undo and redo would only count as one word(1 lexeme+bound morphemes), but another is its own lexeme despite it consisting of two different morphemes.
Core 6k is not 6k lexemes indeed, since it has many pairs like 規則ー不規則、線ー無線、やる、直すーやり直す、やる－やり et co. *

Either way, most word-count studies (aside from English, which for obvious reasons gets way more attention) are highly theoretical, if not more or less educated guesses. I wouldn't waste too much time thinking about the numbers. Just pick up a book which would be considered at your desired level and see if you can read it without having to look up too much; if you can then you're there, if you can't then there's more to study.


*please, feel welcome to correct me. Lexicology confuses me.

SammyB wrote:

Nagareboshi wrote:

Normally it would take about 10 months at a pace of 20 cards to finish off that portion of the deck.

OP only has 1500 words left, if I read correctly. That's more like 2 and a half months @ 20 a day.

I am aware of that. My point was to find out how it could have possibly taken the OP so long to get there, with my calculation not taking into consideration how much is left, but how many it would take on average to take so long.

Zgarbas wrote:

Yarr... vileru, Aren't you confusing lexemes, phrasemes and morphemes in that assumption? Theoretically word number counts should be focused on individual lexemes, so indeed do, undo and redo would only count as one word(1 lexeme+bound morphemes), but another is its own lexeme despite it consisting of two different morphemes.

I stand corrected. Although, I will add that I've seen different vocabulary studies cite widely varying average vocab sizes. It makes me wonder whether the studies count only lexemes or not...

90% correct
100-150 reviews a day
30-50 min maybe