How to study vocabulary? Confused about preferred method

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Reply #1 - 2013 June 18, 4:35 pm
Doctorate Member
Registered: 2013-06-06 Posts: 15

Im working my way through RTK at the moment.
However, I want to know how to study vocabulary, as I will finish RTK within a month!

1. Studying proper

In this step I will have the words that i want to learn. I'm guessing I should write out the kanji, kana, and English meaning of the word. I should memorise these? This will allow me to learn the reading.

Example:
水 ー water ー みず
Memorise using whatever method (I personally use a mnemonic system for learning pronunciations)

The problem here seems to be that I will have to 'translate' in the order stated above.
If I were reading a basic Japanese text that contained 「水」I would do " 水 is water. And water is みず" in my mind.

Is this dangerous? Or normal/unavoidable?

2. Review (anki)
I'm going to use core2k or 6k.

I'm lost here. Which is the best item to put on the front/back of the cards?

How will I distinguish between homonyms that have different meanings?

Reply #2 - 2013 June 18, 6:16 pm
RawToast お巡りさん
From: UK Registered: 2012-09-03 Posts: 431 Website

Your probably going to be flooded with answers on this one smile

Whatever you go with, I recommend Nukemarine's improved ordering:
http://forum.koohii.com/viewtopic.php?id=5322

At the moment I use:

Front

Kanji (Large text)
Sentence (Small text, rather not look at it unless I have to: e.g. asingle kanji with different readings/meanings)
Hint -> Picture

Back:
Audio (Auto plays)
Kana reading
Picture
English meaning
Sentence translation

If I were reading a basic Japanese text that contained 「水」I would do " 水 is water. And water is みず" in my mind.

I do that for some words and others I just think in Japanese (such as みず). I'd be interested on seeing some opinions on this too.

Reply #3 - 2013 June 18, 6:17 pm
comeauch Member
From: Canada Registered: 2011-11-04 Posts: 175

Mh, this has been covered in many many threads before lol... Basically there are a lot of different methods. I personally do kanji + meaning on one side and reading on the other. For homophones, I include the kanji on both sides. With Anki, you're not restricted to 2-sided cards, you could even do triangular cards lol (but every fact would then create 6 cards... and review would rapidly pile up!)

So combine two of them according to your priorities. Then again, this is not to learn how to use those words, merely to get familiar with them... Lots of people use cloze-delete cards too, if that's more your style.

Again, only my opinion, but I don't consider it harmful to associate new words with their English translations. As long as you're aware of the fact that it's just a general meaning, not a direct equivalent.

In short: No suggestion is ever going to be as good as what you come up with. Think about what you want to learn and why. Then you should figure out the "how" by yourself big_smile

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Reply #4 - 2013 June 18, 6:24 pm
Fillanzea Member
From: New York, NY Registered: 2009-10-02 Posts: 534 Website

Doctorate wrote:

The problem here seems to be that I will have to 'translate' in the order stated above.
If I were reading a basic Japanese text that contained 「水」I would do " 水 is water. And water is みず" in my mind.

Is this dangerous? Or normal/unavoidable?

For the beginning stages it's probably not a big deal, but you should definitely work towards strengthening the 水/みず association. I think it would be helpful to spend time reading texts out loud -- you may not be advanced enough to do so, but even a beginner textbook or the very first levels of graded readers could be useful. And when you don't read texts out loud, at least sort of subvocalize them in your head so that you're *thinking* each of the syllables rather than skipping over them by just thinking of the meaning.

Reply #5 - 2013 June 18, 6:25 pm
RawToast お巡りさん
From: UK Registered: 2012-09-03 Posts: 431 Website

comeauch wrote:

Mh, this has been covered in many many threads before lol...

I know, but from the looks of it Doctorate has mad an effort and been around a few threads like Nuke's trying to workout what to do. cool

Reply #6 - 2013 June 18, 9:27 pm
howtwosavealif3 Member
From: USA Registered: 2008-02-09 Posts: 889 Website

how about through context... or like learning kanji readings through song lyrics.. .you know simple, tangible, yet effective ways to learn vocab/readings.

there's rikai-chan y'know.

making a mnemonic for mizu sounds ridiculous. it's a pretty common word.

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