How do you learn vocab?

9 comments

1. Look up words you don’t know while listening/reading and you’ll eventually be able to use them yourself. If you want to speed that process up make flash cards for a few words every day

2. Reading and looking up words on a dictionary might be a good option

   There are sites for easier Japanese like nhk easy, or japanese.io where you can find texts to read

3. One thing that helped me a lot was making lists of useful words (like a list of verbs, adjectives, adverbs, city places, etc) and create Anki decks with the word (in Japanese, kanji and all) on the front and the reading (in hiragana) on the back (no translation, those stay on my notebook and I only check if needed. I need it more at first and less after, ofc)

   Make the list in English and then look up the translation. For the translation I recommend Wikipedia (check an article in English and change the language) or Google, to find if someone already asked for it in some forum. This use better than a translating app because there are some verbs (like 貰う) that are a lot more complex than they should be and some words that just went be translated right on a translating program.

   I also recommend this great app called “Japanese kanji study” by Chase Colburn, it’s really good.

4. I’d love to see a list of the most common thousand words or something similar.

5. A simple google search might help you.

   Some wonderful individual have given JLPT 1 and 2 lists that are quite comprehensive. They have assembled the 8700 tp 10 000 words that are the most useful.

   Others may say that studying vocabulary is not a good idea in itself, I disagree.

6. There’s this app called Tobo Japanese which I have found helpful for learning vocab. It also has a fun game in it which forces you to remember quickly.

7. >don’t say something like anki/ flash cards

   Well then I won’t say anything.

8. I usually play video games in Japanese and look up words I don’t know. If you don’t know grammar tho, it might be hard to do games.

9. I’ve learned a lot of new vocab using the app Drops.