Obviously this is a subjective and not easy to define idea, but I want to know: When do you feel like you have learned a new vocabulary word well enough to move on from focusing on it? Do you check back after a week? A month? Do you write a sentence with it in it and see if it comes readily to mind? Just wondering what everyone’s thought process is (vaguely).
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For me it’s when I hear it either in a conversation or something I’m watching and I remember what it means.
If I don’t have to look it up next time I run across it, I consider that a success.
Do you know when to use the word and when not to? (context, nuances, etc.). Can you distinguish it from words with similar meanings? (i.e. collocations). Is the word clearly set in your mind or do you need to check a dictionary before using it?
If you answered yes to those 3 questions, you can confidently say you know the word.
>When do you feel like you have learned a new vocabulary word well enough to move on from focusing on it? Do you check back after a week? A month?
This is exactly what an SRS is for, so I don’t overthink it and just use one.
I let Anki do all that for me since it shows me the word again after x amount of increasing time. If I ever forget the word, I’ll just fail it so that I can start seeing it more frequently again.
Well, if you can think of it when trying to convey the relevant meaning, and you immediately know the meaning when you hear or see it being used, you can conclude that you’ve “learnt it”.
For me it’s when I hear the word and know what it means instantly without translating it in my head. That’s when I don’t bother to review it anymore. But honestly I learn words in stages. I learn them just to recognize them and move on to newer words, but I keep reviewing the old ones until I can translate the English word I want to use into the Japanese one. I consider that a success. But I keep reviewing the word until I don’t really have to think about what it means anymore.
I normally just read, and then eventually it pops up. Things stick in your memory very well after seeing them for the first time in a while. As we’re on vocab, check out drawnjapanese on instagram which makes mnemonic drawings for Japanese words