Im very much a beginner (I’ve been studying for a couple months but im just now figuring out how I want to study Japanese) but when it comes to vocabulary im somewhat.. lost? Im using the tango N5 deck on anki for vocab but most of the stuff im learning I never actually encounter making it hell to actually remember, should I try making my own deck or just stick with what im doing?
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Caveat: I’ve only been learning for about three months myself, so take with a grain of salt.
If you’re using a textbook, consider using the decks for that book to begin with. And then move on to something like the core2.3k decks which are based on word frequency, so you’re more likely to encounter them in whatever you’re reading. Unless you’re targeting the JLPT test specifically an N5 targeted deck might not be right.
That’s basically what I’m doing. I’m working through Genki, so my first decks are the Genki ones so the words I learn are definitely being used. Then I have the core2.3k deck lined up after that for when I finish the Genki ones or some words are locked behind kanji I don’t know yet.
That said, I still can’t really read enough to see these words very often so I mostly have to rely on just pure memorizing through the SRS. Most of what I can read so far relies on the same small set of verbs and vocabulary and grammar, so I’ve yet to encounter words like 医者 or 雑誌 in any materials yet even though those are good words to know.
You need to find a deck that covers the most frequently used common words (I don’t know what exactly tango N5 covers). If you can’t find one, make one up for yourself. Once you set up the card structure in Anki then you can make card creation easier by putting all your words in a simple spreadsheet, saving as .csv and importing into Anki.
Once you have enough common words and grammar to start reading you’ll come across loads of new words to add – and they’ll all be relevant as you need to read them. See my post for some [guidance on this and resources](https://www.reddit.com/r/LearnJapanese/comments/s5mtva/comment/ht1lo0x/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).
Devil’s advocate: As much as I hate premade decks (I started Anki *after* becoming conversational), more or less all N5 vocab are insanely common unless you just don’t make a habit of getting input at all. And that does seem to genuinely be a problem at that level, as far as level-appropriate native input is concerned.
> I never actually encounter
that’s kind of what happens until you start immersing
I learned my first vocab words from the Genki textbook, one of those words was 給料 (salary)
I read 8 books and none of them had that word in it. On the 9th book I read, they were talking about someone’s salary. And used that word.
It’s like that.
You’re already doing it right; just keep doing what you’re already doing. A lot of the stuff you learn will inevitably be things you won’t see on a day to day basis (and that number goes up the more advanced you get) which is exactly why you use Anki and SRS programs in the first place.
What kind of content are you consuming? It’s important to get reading and listening input at all levels, especially beginning. The more input you get the more you will notice vocab you’ve learned and learn vocab outside Anki, which is preferable simply because it sticks better. For your level, I recommend:
For reading (and some listening):
https://tadoku.org/japanese/en/what-is-tadoku-en/
For listening:
Comprehensible Japanese YouTube channel. She has Absolute beginner, Beginner, and Intermediate playlists.
Reading helped me increase my vocabulary. If you know the basic particles then you should be fine