So I am around n3 I think and I am reading with a study buddy Harry Potter in Japanese once a week. After that, I take like 20 new words and copy them + meaning + sentence to Anki. Sometimes I search for grammar stuff and etc that I don’t understand.
All this process takes me like 1-2 hours a week + the few times a week that I use Anki. And I don’t feel super remembering all the things that I added. So I just thought lately, wouldn’t it will be better to use these 2-4 hours to just reread or read more instead of trying to push these words into my head? Cus I feel like it takes a lot of time and is not worth it.
3 comments
Just adding the words into Anki don’t really have to take that long. You can automate most of it, by just adding the word and source sentence, and let add-ons fill in the translation and other source information etc.
Then you use Anki every day to repeat what you’ve learned in order to remember it.
Of course the studying of the words and grammar you need to do in some way, and if that is by rereading the passages, or looking up the info and repeating, that’s fine. And if you don’t feel the need to use Anki, then that’s fine too. But it seems like you don’t really use Anki in an efficient way as it is.
Don’t use it! There are benefits to using SRS techniques to learn, but it isn’t for everyone. Beginners seem to latch on to it as the one true method, but ultimately it’s just one tool in your language tool bag. Use whatever works for you!
The only way I remember new words is by using them. Anki makes me do that. I put everything in there but don’t bother with sentences anymore. You can add a link to sentences on your card if you really need to and/or a link to Jisho where you can then look at example sentences too.