I have noticed that I am getting at a level where I can, for instance, understand the sentenceひさしぶりに 国に 帰るので、家族も喜びます。(It has been some time since I went home to my country, so my family will also be happy.)
I have no trouble understanding/recognizing the meaning (and reading) of 喜びます, however I would struggle **a lot** to actually use it and to recall it during a dialogue or while writing. I live in Italy, and I am studying by myself for the most part. I understand that practice is needed, but I wonder if someone found a way to speed up the process.
Right now, my format to learn vocabulary has the target-word (for instance, 喜ぶ) and an example sentence on the front, while on the back I have the audio for target-word and the translation in English. Sometimes if context is not needed the sentence is in the hint filed on the front, and on the back there are information about grammar or a picure.
I am playing around this new card type:
FRONT:
Cloze: ひさしぶりに 国に 帰るので、家族も {{c1::喜びます}}。(so, {{c1::喜びます}} would not appear on the front, it would show {{…}}Hint: It has been some time since I went home to my country, so my family will also be happy.
BACK:
ひさしぶりに 国\[くに\]に 帰\[かえ\]るので、 家族\[かぞく\]も 喜\[よろこ\]びます。(on Anki it appears as furigana)+ kanji stroke order
I feel like it sort of works, but I am already creating cards where I suppose more than one Japanese world would be appropriate. Maybe I need to give it time, but I feel like there may be a better format out there.
I hope the post makes sense; I feel like it is a common problem and yet I was struggling to describe it and to find something using the search option.
3 comments
> I have no trouble understanding/recognizing the meaning (and reading) of 喜びます, however I would struggle a lot to actually use it and to recall it during a dialogue or while writing.
It seems that your cards train only recognition and not production, thus naturally, your production skill lags. Production will eventually improve (slowly) if you continue to practice only recognition, but if it’s important to you, you can try creating cards to specifically train production.
> I feel like it sort of works, but I am already creating cards where I suppose more than one Japanese world would be appropriate.
The hint field that includes the translation should take care of that problem.
Mnemonics might help you immensely when it comes to recalling vocab.
Just practice speaking then! Also I never used flashcards for whole sentences, just individual words or yojijukugo.
Context can be your enemy in some cases too, if you overly rely on it.