I’m just over a month and a half into my Japanese study so I’m still finding the study methods that are best for my brain. I’ve found a lot of success with kanji study via WaniKani and grammar study via BunPro + other sources. But I’m really struggling to find a method of vocab study that works for me. WaniKani does teach some vocab but it’s not an ideal sole source since they’re mostly just after cementing the kanji meanings/readings in your brain.
I’ve tried a few different decks on Anki, the problem I find is that when I don’t already know the kanji or the radicals within them at least, I’m really struggling to synthesize the meaning, the reading, and recognizing the kanji itself all in one go. I’ve thought about making my own deck with furigana on the front of the card, but that feels like cheating and also I’m not particularly tech-savvy so making an Anki deck from scratch sounds like a lot. I’ve also thought about just focusing on vocab from kanji I already know or words that don’t use/rarely appear in kanji, but that feels pretty limiting.
Just wondering if anyone else had this problem and what they did. Should I just continue struggling through learning vocab and accept the glacial pace? Should I adapt my vocab learning around my kanji knowledge? TIA for any advice (:
3 comments
Wouldn’t it be easier then to learn kanji first? You can try RTK, any of Anki kanji decks or continue to use wanikani. If you do such way, you will delay a bit your N5-N3 studying, but it wouldn’t affect much N2-N1 and further, because at that point you are already expected to know 2k kanji.
Anki is very popular but I can see why you are struggling with it.
Downloading complicated decks is, in some ways, actually a more difficult path than making your own.
* When you make your own decks, you can add words that only use kanji you would like to focus on
* At first just to get yourself going, you can just use kana on some basic words. This is what Genki (a popular textbook) does on chapter 1 and 2, before they introduce kanji in chapter 3.
* When you make your own deck, you can add words that you find through reading, listening, gaming, or whatever, just words you think are cool. It’s very motivating. For instance I thought 煤ける (to be sooty) was funny so I added it early on, even though I probably never need that word.
* When you make your own deck, you pick the rules. You can put grammar in there, vocab, pictures, whatever you want. You can make a field for notes. You can make a field for sounds.
> I’m not particularly tech-savvy so making an Anki deck from scratch sounds like a lot
Take it from me, making your own deck is a snap. You don’t need to have a PhD in computer science, just click a few buttons. If you read the anki manual it will get easier for you. Then just make a few cards and you’ll have the hang of it in no time. Post here if you hit a snag and someone will help you out.
Block out an hour of time, relax and have some coffee, and click on this and have a read: https://docs.ankiweb.net/
I use hover-over furigana to train my reading ability. I usually still count the card as “wrong” if I need the hover-over hint, but it’s very nifty. And if the word has some kanji where I think it’s legit to use the hover-over furigana, I can even count the card as right sometimes.
I’ve had the same struggle – WaniKani works great, but premade decks with vocab are harder to make stick.
The thing that’s helped me most is adding my own notes and mnemonics to each vocab card. (You can edit them right in the middle of a review.) I look up the word in a dictionary like Akebi, copy over any useful synonyms and example sentences, and what each individual kanji usually means (like 朝日 = morning+sun). After that, I either write my own mnemonics, or look up the word on WaniKani’s site and base it off theirs.
It’s still a lot, but it works a lot better than brute memorization. I also let myself use furigana for some, if I know it’s not a word I’ll need to use anytime soon.