I started with plain vocabulary since I didn't have any idea how to learn vocabulary systematically at that point.

I think it'd be best if you do something like the optimized Core deck; where you have a specific word you're focusing on, but with a sentence for context. I edited it to have recognition cards, but leaving it as a production deck isn't a terrible way to go either, if you like it.

Like you said though, there's a lot of words you won't understand in the beginning, but as you learn more and more, you'll be able to understand more of what you read or hear. As you learn more, it actually becomes easier to learn new vocabulary and phrases.

As for how many, I say to just do what's comfortable. I try to add thirty cards a day, but between work and school, I don't always have the energy or time to do so. Usually, the least I'll add is twenty, but any progress counts. I stick to multiples of ten though, because it's easier to keep track of my progress that way.
To begin with, twenty should be good if you use Core or another shared deck (which is the best way to start). It might seem like a large number, but it's really not that much, especially if the words are grouped by kanji, as they are in this deck.

Last edited by sholum (2013 May 21, 9:34 pm)

danatoth wrote:

Did most of you start out with only a few sentences a day and build up? Or did you just jump right in head first and pick a number and just learn that many a day every day?

When I started out, I read through a few grammar books and then moved on from there.

For those who wish to implement goal-setting:

Dalton and Spiller wrote:

The authors’ third study also showed that participants could benefit from implemental plans if they were helped to view their goals as relatively easy to execute.

Link

Last edited by Aspiring (2013 May 23, 7:46 pm)

I started with vocabulary and only added sentences around the 6k mark. I just added how many words I felt like doing that day (being on iknow made it easier to do as many reviews as I felt like instead of thinking about how many words to add). I got an average of 30/day for the whole set, but I had days with 0-5 new terms, and days with 50+.

Then I was adding 10-60 sentences per day, depending on difficulty. Start slowly(5-15/day)  and see where your limit (of patience, time and burnout) is; it's better to keep to your own pace than to force yourself to some limits based on other people's experience.

Here's what I did:

Post-RTK/some Tae Kim's grammar under my belt, start up Core6k. First thousand-1500 words are rought but then the difficulty eases a fair bit.

Simultaneously buy Dictionary of Basic Japanese Grammar, and download the corresponding deck (I dl'd the original bare edition deck but uisukii's version is so much better, consider yourself lucky). As I went through the book I learned new sentences on the deck little by little. The Basic edition of the deck has like 2000+ sentences, and the vocab is quite easy and can for the most part be tackled with like 1000-2000 words in Core (which it should be, as you'll be learning *grammar* patterns through the sentences). As a plus side there are many common Japanese names in the DoBJG deck that you can learn at the same time, but that don't significantly stress you out while trying to decipher the grammar. Since I had read the book itself I could take maybe 50 new sentences a day without the reviews taking too long, so I finished fast.

Studying like this has given me great results so far. I started inserting sentences from Dictionary of Intermediate Japanese Grammar but after 2500 or so words studied in Core the vocab on those sentences is quite taxing for me, which made deciphering the grammar points harder. However, fortunately the core vocab and DoIJG vocab seem to overlap quite a bit since I've learned most of the vocab in DoIJG sentences from the Core deck's 2500-4500 stage (where I'm at right now).

Do not think that you are forced to study pre-made sentences at that point however, as that is totally unnecessary. I only do it to gain some exposure to less common yet still useful grammar patterns while at the same time exposing myself to native materials.

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Lastly I want to mention that Imabi's website has some great sentences to mine if you want to complement the DoJG decks. The grammar books don't quite cover everything I'd wish for but it seems Imabi's grammar guide has a ton of examples to mine if you want exposure to things like different meanings of kakaru/kakeru, idioms and such.

Last edited by Betelgeuzah (2013 May 22, 9:23 am)

@Animosophy

Postage stamp is　切手（きって）

I think I'm going to be approaching this a bit differently.  I just tried to start the optimized Core deck on Anki yesterday and got slammed with numbers, which I've been neglecting.  I know the number kanji, but I haven't bothered to memorize all the counting rules until now.

So, I ended up studying Japanese grammar rules, especially in regards to counting.  I feel like it's a better approach to understand the rules and have the Anki sentences as examples and memory aids, rather than just memorizing random sentences without understanding how they work.

Although I think that learning to actually think in Japanese is much better than learning how to translate the Japanese we read into English in our heads, we're not as stupid as 5 year olds.  We don't always need to blindly poke our way through the grammar.

Last edited by Silty (2013 May 24, 9:12 am)

Aikynaro wrote:

I find that for me - reading about grammar is inefficient until I already know the rule itself pretty decently anyway just from exposure. Once I have a feel for what's going on, or even if I just know there's something that's going on but I don't know what it is - then if I read an explanation for it, it sticks.

So how did you manage to get a feel for the insanely elaborate counting rules in Japanese?

Last edited by Silty (2013 May 24, 10:25 am)

Animosophy wrote:

@Silty, I experienced the exact same thing with the numbers/counting.

The only problem is that virtually all things to do with numbers, time and counters involve irregular readings, but they're pretty much uniform irregularities. I'd visit Tae Kim's page, read it through and practice writing/pronouncing everything every day. You'll have it all in less than a week.

Yeah, that's exactly what I'm doing.  Tae Kim has the best resource I've found about counting, especially since I'm going out of my way to avoid guides with romaji, so I'm just memorizing the readings on his pages.  After that, Anki seems like it would help more.

To Dana, that depends on how difficult the sentences are. You should try to choose sentences in which there is exactly one new word. Sure, this seems difficult when you're starting out, but it's not impossible. You can study numbers, days, months, counters, common expressions (i.e. greetings) separately, before you even begin drilling sentences. That gives you a bunch of words, with relatively little effort. Then there's all the katakana words that come from English. Most of those should count as known as well.

Adding sentences with more than one completely unknown word is a bad idea.

To Silty, there is an Anki deck which contains all the Tae Kim example sentences. It has a  clozed deleted field, but you don't have to use it, you can just set the full sentence as the question (personally, I didn't like the clozed deleted version).