Hello I’m using a website called Kanshudo to learn words. It has a JLPT word collection and spaced repitition flashcard system. Obviously I want to learn as many words as possible in the shortest amount of time. But I want to be able to remember the words too. Another issue I noticed is that if I learn words I can usually recognize them but can’t always recall them to use for conversation or typing.
My memory has always been bad. I could comfortably learn a few words a day but that’s very slow. I want to be around N1 level 4 years from now and am only nearing the end of N5 vocab, grammar and kanji in several weeks time. I believe there’s about 10k words i’ll need to learn so 2500 words a year minimum. That’s 7 words a day mimimum. But honestly I would like to do 15 which would give me over 5k words in a year.
So I guess what I’m really asking is the best ways to make the words stick in my head for recognition and eventually recall, and can I realistically learn and retain 7-15 words a day? because I have self imposed deadlines. I have been covering 15 words a day from the JLPT N5 list but I know most of the words so its actually been approx 4 new words a day. I go through these in the morning and at night. Then when they come up as reviews through the SRS, I just review them.
But I can’t go through the words morning and night forever as I would eventually have 100s even over 1000 words to go through each morning and night. Once I move on to the next 100 I only go through them morning and night, which means i’ll only see the older words via review from the spaced repitition system. Even on like 4 new words I sometimes forget the odd word, although it’s much easier to re-learn than the first time. So I’m wondering if I should learn more cards or do something else to help my recall of these words.
12 comments
If you want words to stick, you should do more reading. Words don’t “stick” very long if you just memorize them, even with SRS.
I think it’d be better of you focused on learning kanji rather than the vocabulary(2500 kanji vs 10000words) or you could learn a kanji and some words under it. you can deduce the reading/meaning of the words from the kanji most of the time. Practice regularly to keep from forgetting.
Idk why anyone would learn words instead seems backwards.
Anki user here, don’t know a lot about other apps.
1) Aim for a retention rate of 85%
2) Build up slowly! Doing an SRS, amount of reviews will increase slowly. Getting bored thinking you can handle more might just end up burning you out
Aiming for a retention rate of 85% makes learning optimal as you maximize the amount you learn while also maximizing the amount you remember. As your reviews build up over a few weeks, you wilm end up reviewing manyfold the amount of new cards you do every day. I heard somewhere (probably MattVsJapan or something) that its x7 but that is highly dependant on settings and person. As an example, you might think that 15 new words a day is doable, but doing the math:
So, just throwing numbers out there
15 × 5 = 75 reviews a day
Add amount of new cards, which you will need to review at least two times
75 + 15 × 3 =110
And don’t forget that you will fail some of your reviews, so you need to add that also.
The point being, even if the math isn’t correct at all, that you should build up very slowly. Do 5, 6 or 7 new words a day for a few weeks… Also, are you scheduling reviews yourself? You shouldn’t be doing them in batches, the SRS you’re using will postpone the card anyway if you answer correctly
If you wanna have 10k words for N1, and you wanna do that in 4 years you have
10,000/(365*4) = 6.85 words a day
However that assumes you have A) perfect memory and B) those are the words you actually need for N1 that year.
Which are both not true.
So really you might wanna learn 10-12 words a day. That’s pretty aggressive actually. I do 8 words a day and of those 8 usually 2 are re-learns. That gives me 30 min of anki/day which is all I am interested in doing.
Anyway, it’s pretty complicated but I would say at least 10.
It depends how much time you want to put in and for how long you intend to do it.
I did 50 words a day and it was fine… but I was doing an hour of learning then 3 hours of review throughout the day. I only sustained it for 12 days before I just took the next two weeks off to let the SRS in Memrise “catch up” to where I was only doing about 20 minutes a day.
I was able to sustain 75 words a week for ~40 weeks though for Arabic. That ended up being the sweet spot for me. 15 words a day but leaving the weekend to review, sometimes taking a week off.
Remember that you have to be in it for the long haul. 10 words a day for a year is 3650 words which is intermediate proficiency.
Fully prepared to be downvoted for this, but as always I feel compelled to offer the “oldschool” perspective…
You’re completely overthinking this. Don’t worry about it so much. Everyone learns at their own pace, and the only way to find the optimal pace *for you* is by figuring it out for yourself through trial and error.
If you feel like you’re not progressing quickly enough currently, then try to challenge yourself to learn more. If that gets overwhelming and you feel like you’re not retaining things, then slow down. Adjust this until you find your “sweet spot”, and then be prepared to adjust it down the line as you get more comfortable learning things (or if life commitments get in the way, etc.)
The idea that you can find the absolutely optimal way of doing something as complex and multi-faceted as learning Japanese without before actually doing it is a fallacy. You’ll gain more out of the learning process if you figure these things out for yourself through the actual process of studying rather than spending excessive time consulting the internet and thinking about it.
(I can’t say any more than this, because someone who never used Anki or an SRS system of any kind — because they didn’t exist back when I was actively studying the language — I went from zero to full proficiency without ever having the slightest idea how many words I was learning in a given day.)
what is SRS
Honestly i find that burn through 1000-1500 Kanji in 2-3 weeks. Then trying done with first 2000-3000 words as soon as possible (50-100 words a day). Read through a short and comprehensive grammar guide so you get the ideas of how the language works. Then jump to reading as quick as you can. Just choose simple reading material at first.
Of course keep anki going at slower speed a long side with reading. This way you’re using and learning the language at the same time, which is much more enjoyable and easier to keep on learning for a long time.
1-2 years of bits by bits learning/ankying each day and never get to the using the language is boring. Chances of lost interest and giving up is very high.
If you need 7 a day, I would recommend 10 a day. It’s a manageable pace, and will get you where you want to end up.
I’ve been doing 10 a day since I started about three years ago and I can read everything except heavy literature reasonably well. Taking the N1 next month and expecting to pass it based on taking past papers at home.
Majority of people can handle 10-15 words/day and it’s actually a very fast pace, because kids usually learn only 1k words in a year.
However, it depends on 2 things. How easy is material, because with time it becomes easier. We start with mostly completely unknown words, but later switch more towards compounds and new meanings of known words. So it’s common that people can do only 15 words at the beginning, but later even 30-50 becomes possible, simply because amount of new information to learn decreases a lot. Another factor if you study something outside of that. Everything counts, learning grammar, reading or even learning something in your native language. You can notice that while you do only SRS, you are fine, but once you add content usage to that, you start to have problems with recalling. That’s because even if we don’t do anything intentional, we still can learn passively and have things to learn/memorize. More things to learn, harder to recall later.
Thus usually people orient on retention ration. If you can recall 100%, most likely you could learn more. If you recall less than 80%, then you are already wasting a bit of time and doing smaller amount with 85%-95% retention would give the same result in a smaller amount of time. However, if you don’t learn much generally and have problems with 10-15 words in SRS, then I would advise to change approach, because this one doesn’t work very well. You can try different SRS application, you can try different learning method like using content and checking result after 1-2 months, or you can try to use different style. For example, there are image-decks, you learn Japanese words looking at pics and listening to pronunciation. You can try to write by hand, for some people it works well. You can try associations and mnemonics approach, basically you try to associate the word with something else.
The only indicator that you push too much is when you start to have a headache, it’s the final indicator of exhaustion and better to stop earlier than that.
I’ve been using Kanshudo mostly because it has a nice Kanji lookup system once you memorize some components, but I use Anki as my flashcard system and generate my own flashcards. I don’t only practice recall and recognition for the written words, but also verbal recognition and writing recall/practice, and context using an example sentence, using my phone and a stylus. With this approach, 15 unique words a day would be impossible since I typically generate 3-4 cards per word (or Anki note).
However, I am actively creating important connections in my memory that generate fluency for different ways to use the language, and creating context with practicing the example sentences, and that takes a lot of mental effort. You could probably skip the writing practice. However, it is both helpful and relatively fast to look up new words using your smartphone and stylus by writing them into Anki + a dictionary or Kanshudo and looking them up that way. (You also get to practice an important skill, using Japanese on your smartphone!) That also naturally facilitates context, you’re getting more practice writing words that you don’t yet know while learning the context with your consumption of new material, and you can compare them to other words that you do know that use similar components or Kanji.
Kanshudo also has a reading section, I haven’t used it much yet, but it has beginner friendly texts as well. I read a lot on my own, generally games and vns I’ve played before for now, but after I’m finished with my current vn I’ll probably work my way through the material on Kanshudo and try some manga.
But I agree with the other posters so far, don’t worry about your pace so much and just find stuff to read at your level or somewhat higher for a challenge, and trust that it’ll stick better with more practice.
Anki lets you set review and new item caps. You can leverage that. I’m personally running with 150-200 reviews and 10 new items daily, otherwise I would burn out.