Do you mine every word that you see that you don't know? What standards do you have for choosing what to put in Anki?
I think there's a tradeoff between Anki reviews and actually immersing. I'm around N3, have about 1,300 Kanji and 3,755 terms in review and I notice that, while doing èªè§£ practice, there's a lot that I can infer from context. So given that, do I really need a card for it?
I don't like spending more than an hour on Anki reviews. And of course even though I have scripts to streamline the mining process, it still takes time to mine Kanji and terms (I use my own template and don't use a pre-existing deck).
Curious what approach others have, particularly from those that actively try to minimize Anki reviews.
by Altruistic-Mammoth
11 comments
i just mine every i+1 sentence. Then sort by frequency based on cc100 dict. i try to spend less than 20 minutes every day on review and do 5 new cards per day. It allows me to stay consistent.
I just mine it if it has a new kanji even if I can tell it’s an ç•°ä½“å— or 旧自体 of a known kanji (發 > 発, 亂 > ä¹±, etc.) or if I can’t guess the reading+meaning based on the characters I know already. Don’t think about it too much. Add it if you think you should, you can delete in when you review it if you want.
Personally, I check to see if jisho lists it as a common word + I think about whether i can see myself in a context where i might need to use or remember it. So even if it might not be a common word but it’s a word related to something that I’m personally interested in, I add it to my own deck.
If I can understand a word from context but I possibly wouldn’t be able to in another context I make a card, if I can tell what a word means from kanji but can’t guess the reading first try I make a card, and generally if I’m thinking about whether or not I should make a card I just make the card anyways. I only don’t make cards for new words where the meaning and reading are self evident to me thanks to knowing the kanji from other words.
I don’t consider how common the word is at all because just because a word is uncommon generally, that doesn’t mean it’s going to be uncommon in my experience of what I read/listen to. If you’ve come across it once, it’s not that unthinkable that you’re going to come across it again soon in a similar type/the same piece of media.
You shouldnt be spending anywhere near 1 hour on Anki unless youre learning like 100 new cards everyday, you are either too slow and need to focus more, or have wrong settings.
I use frequency lists to check if the word is common or not. If it’s low frequency I ignore it. Also the number and kind of sentences they have in immersionkit.com can give you a sense of how useful the word is.
I add literally everything, and if there are kanji I don’t know, I’ll create a card/mnemonic for them and additional cards for any common words containing them.
It was a real slog at first, but it’s a hell of a lot easier now.
And for the odd example that isn’t so great, I’ll grab a better one from [here](https://www.immersionkit.com/dictionary).
I currently mine every word I can where I can’t infer the meaning from context / kanji.
Like others have said I hunt for I plus one sentence’s but sometimes if a sentence is interesting I may break it up into several cards, I nearly always do vocab cards and some phrases.
My current method of mining is to watch an anime without pausing usually with subs but not always and mine the words from the manga.
I’m currently working on my hero academia after buying the full series.
But my main goal for learning right now is to be able to read manga without help.
I find this method works pretty well for me, however it really is very specific in terms of my goals.
I do 10 words a day at the moment.
I usually remove words as I review rather than not add words.
I make it rather simple for myself, i add cards according to my goals, which is to be fluent. do I think natives understand this word? Do i know what this word is in my native language, if yes to one of these questions, i add it.
My thinking is to not waste time whether or not words are common enough. Most words i add are not tagged as common on jisho, but natives still use and understand these words ofc.
I feel like if your goal is to be fluent, your gonna have to learn all these words eventually anyways, so the order doesnt reallly matter to me that much
I use the 3 time rule. I’ll add a word to anki if I’ve searched it 3 times. I use lists in the Takoboto app to keep track of this. The rationale is that if I’ve had to search it 3 times I’m likely to encounter (and look up) again. It excludes words that have stuck naturally and excludes words that I will likely never see again.
I started anki when I hit about 5k words 3 years ago, so I’m starting to get 1 a year words hitting the threshold, but these are the words you’ve gotta learn in the long, long, tail of this journey
I’m doing the opposite, I *only* put words into Anki if I see them at least three different times.