Write down the sentences from each new card you add, it helps me quite a lot. Also if you don't know how to read/write the word in question, try to at least write/read it, but still mark it as wrong answer. Make sure that you're doing this deck https://ankiweb.net/shared/info/1102215805

Dont get discouraged, it may take dozens of times until you remember some words the first day you add them. At the same time that you learn vocab, you learn readings for the kanji and the more you know, the easier it gets, since the same kanji and readings for them appear in other new words you learn.

Last edited by meeatcookies (2013 April 25, 3:13 pm)

Fair enough, I did indeed notice I guessed some words I've never seen before correctly. 電話, for example. Thing is, even though I can 'guess' the reading of a word like that, I don't learn it well enough to recognize it when I hear it.

I could guess how to pronounce 決める, but when I hear "kimeru" somewhere, I'd have no idea what it means. The "きめ" part has no connection to the idea of 'deciding' to me, whatsoever.

I got inspired by the 'multiple decks' idea. I now copied my core2k6k deck twice.

In the first deck, I have the Kana of the word and the Clozed sentence in which to "place" the word, and on the back I have the proper kanji and the meaning of the word/sentence. This so I can learn the 'words'.

And then a second deck where I have on the front the kanji, and on the back the reading and that's it.



Tomorrow I'll try and see if this works for me. Any more advice is still highly welcome<3

Wow, I never figured out that multiple card from one note thing. Thanks for the heads up, it's pretty amazing.

Stansfield123 wrote:

It wouldn't be better to learn the words with hiragana first. It would be much harder ... What would help, however, is to SRS new words as a part of meaningful sentences, with audio

Hmmn, agree or disagree...

I learn new words hiragana first as I said. I also learn them in the context of a sentence. Of course, the OP is using Core so a sentence is in fact a given in that case. I'm not a supporter at -all- of learning words without sentences, preferably full context from some native-oriented material or correspondence from a native. However, there's nothing wrong with learning words from dictionary or textbook example sentences either.

Assuming you don't neglect a certain amount of listening practice to stay in touch with reality, kana should convey relatively correctly the pronunciation. It shouldn't be necessary to have the audio for every single new word as long as you're not neglecting audio so far as to have no idea of pronunciation patterns.

I do think it's better to learn pronunciation and meaning first, and then associate it with kanji. Kanji are great for distinguishing homonyms, but for non-native speakers of Japanese when learning words kanji-first it's far too easy to connect kanji->one's own native language->japanese pronunciation and slow everything down. Enough L-R will fix that, but not many people actively practice L-R techniques and I don't know that enough straight up reading will change the habit. In the privacy of one's own head it's easy to read a kanji word as a word in one's own native language and not bother with the Japanese pronunciation at all, so no matter how much you read there's no reason to fix that, leaving phonetic vocabulary to be picked up later if it wasn't picked up earlier.

So ultimately, I agree with your focus on context-sentences but disagree that learning kana first is somehow 'worse' or 'more difficult' than learning 'kanji first'. Kana represent pronunciation, and if you listen to enough, then reading kana should be essentially the same as listening. If it isn't, you should do more listening or better yet do some L-R practice.

Last edited by SomeCallMeChris (2013 April 26, 1:32 am)

SomeCallMeChris wrote:

Hmmn, agree or disagree...

I learn new words hiragana first as I said. I also learn them in the context of a sentence. Of course, the OP is using Core so a sentence is in fact a given in that case. I'm not a supporter at -all- of learning words without sentences, preferably full context from some native-oriented material or correspondence from a native. However, there's nothing wrong with learning words from dictionary or textbook example sentences either.

Assuming you don't neglect a certain amount of listening practice to stay in touch with reality, kana should convey relatively correctly the pronunciation. It shouldn't be necessary to have the audio for every single new word as long as you're not neglecting audio so far as to have no idea of pronunciation patterns.

I do think it's better to learn pronunciation and meaning first, and then associate it with kanji. Kanji are great for distinguishing homonyms, but for non-native speakers of Japanese when learning words kanji-first it's far too easy to connect kanji->one's own native language->japanese pronunciation and slow everything down. Enough L-R will fix that, but not many people actively practice L-R techniques and I don't know that enough straight up reading will change the habit. In the privacy of one's own head it's easy to read a kanji word as a word in one's own native language and not bother with the Japanese pronunciation at all, so no matter how much you read there's no reason to fix that, leaving phonetic vocabulary to be picked up later if it wasn't picked up earlier.

So ultimately, I agree with your focus on context-sentences but disagree that learning kana first is somehow 'worse' or 'more difficult' than learning 'kanji first'. Kana represent pronunciation, and if you listen to enough, then reading kana should be essentially the same as listening. If it isn't, you should do more listening or better yet do some L-R practice.

Well, my options are agree or disagree, so I have to go with disagree. But, more importantly, I have some arguments too:

1. Kanji aren't just there to help with homonyms. Kanji have only a few readings (and it's usually pretty clear which one applies). They tell you how to read them. After a while, it gradually becomes less and less necessary to memorize the readings of words, you'll know the readings based just on the Kanji.

2. In my experience, listening helps memorize sentences. Audio has extra context the written language doesn't ( a sentence can be read many ways, the particular way in which it is read, where the accent falls, how the sentence flows - even just by a piece of software - is a lot of extra context).

3. Incorrect pronunciation comes from trying to speak/read without listening. For pronunciation, it helps to listen to EVERYTHING that's new, rather than try and read it. This of course contradicts me aggressively militating for learning by reading: yes, if one learns by reading (and no audio is available, as it probably isn't, in Japanese), one must pay special attention to pronunciation. The reason why I'm a fan of reading anyway is because pronunciation, if studied correctly, is by orders of magnitude easier to learn than vocab and grammar. So I'd rather pick the best way for learning vocab and grammar, and work on pronunciation separately. But why do that if there's quality audio, or if generating it is as easy as a few clicks?

Last edited by Stansfield123 (2013 April 26, 4:33 pm)

I tried it for a few days, and I actually scrapped the hiragana>kanji card. I suspected it would be the english > japanese card to go, but it's helping me more than I expected.

I now have:
-One card with English word and japanese Clozed, requires me to speak out loud the kana and visualize/write the kanji.
-One card with the kanji and japanese sentence, also requires me to speak out loud the kana, and visualize the meaning.



Regarding pronunciation, I prefer to do that through immersion, outside of Anki. By listening to music/anime for example.
Thanks for the lots of advice here!