Hi
I am learning Japanese for around 2 months now.I do it just as a hobby, because it would be cool to understand anime in the original language.I don’t want to spend, and sometimes I don’t have time to spend more than 1h a day for studying (not counting immersion through watching anime).
My resources:
1. Words – 5 words a day with AnkiDroid – Core 2k/6k Optimized Japanese Vocabulary (read 220 words).
2. Grammar – Busuu (on lesson 110)
3. Reading – Lingq
All my resources are mobile, so I can study conveniently in spare time.I learned hiragana and katakana on Duolingo.I put Lingq on hold because I was interested in more advance material, and I think focusing on Busuu is better for now.
I usually study around 0,5h-1h a day.
The problem is that even with only 5 new words a day, I already have 60 words to repeat which can take 0,5h and sometimes this is all the time I have. Repetitions will probably take even more time in the future.
Should I lower number of words a day until repetition became stable or go down a little, or maybe there is a diffrent solution? This will slow down the progress (with 5 words, it will already take 4 years to finish the deck), but I think it is better to keep going instead of quitting.
Maybe focusing on radicals is better approach. I guess there is anki deck for this too.
If anyone has a suggestion to improve other parts of my studying, I am open to it.
I like Busuu and I think it is valuable despite seeing diffrent opinions on internet. Its biggest flow is that you can’t study only words you don’t remember, but Anki fills that gap since many words are overlapping, at least for now.
4 comments
I stop learning new words if the reviews are getting too high. When they reach a reasonable level I start leading again.
60 words should not take you 30 minutes. You should be able to get through at least 200-300 in that time.
Let’s say it takes you 5 seconds to get through a card you know, and 20 seconds to get through a hard card you don’t (struggle + review the back). Then, let’s say 20% of your cards are difficult. Then in 30 minutes, (30 * 0.8) / (5/60) = 288 quick cards, (30 * 0.2) / (20/60) = 18 slow cards.
To be honest, I think I spend 3 seconds on cards I know, and 10 seconds on cards I fail. Cards I struggle with I might initially look at the back to remember what I wrote or where I found it, but the more I fail it the more I don’t need to look at the back, and eventually it becomes a 3 second pass.
Something is very wrong. 60 cards should only take a few minutes at most.
I’d suggest changing up your card format or deck to make it easier. I found having sentences (with one new word) and audio on the front helped a lot. Making it easier doesn’t mean worse retention. If necessary stop adding new cards for a couple of days to get reviews down, but your success rate for mature cards should be high enough that cards don’t build up too much.