Why are the core 2k anki decks so highly recommended?

13 comments

1. Whilst textbooks are useful for grammar and learning some words, if you want to get reading as soon as possible (which is generally recommended) then you have to do an upfront rote memory exercise to get familiar with the most common words you’ll encounter.

   So learning about 1000 or so very common words is a useful boost towards reading. Once you start reading then you can add more words and grammar to your own personal decks.

   Edit: I’ve not used the core decks and didn’t think they were highly recommended (I’ve never got that impression). Initially I used a 1000 word refold deck. I’d not bother learning kanji on their own at this point – just learn some common words. You’ll get to know kanji via learning words.

   Here’s some [guidance & resources](https://www.reddit.com/r/LearnJapanese/comments/s5mtva/comment/ht1lo0x/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3) that may help.

2. Not a beginner but I remember when I tried one of these anki decks it didn’t work at all for me

3. The core decks are made for people who are going out of their way to see the words elsewhere by reading, listening to, or watching Japanese books, podcasts, or TV.

   If you’re just doing genki, then trying to memorize anki cards is going to be a bit tough. It’s somewhat helpful to do it now, but progress would go quicker doing those things as well.

4. > So far, I am just doing Genki and using anki to memorize the words I use in the text, and its much more useful in my opinion.

   That’s perfectly valid and a lot of people even recommend to use Anki that way: using to to review rather than to learn.

   Personally, I like how Anki with Core 2k allows me to push large amounts of vocab into my brain that I will encounter anyway. But it’s not for everyone.

5. I don’t like the 2k either. Use the deck for genki if you’re studying genki. I have the MNN deck cause that’s my text book. Otherwise I make all my own cards. It works way better. As you consume media you can just add words you want to learn.

6. Yeah I can’t get on with 2.3k. Just doling out random words with no context or structure is not helpful for me at all and leads to basically zero retention. I’m finding Kanjidamage (reordered) working best for me

7. The benefit of using the core deck is that it’s supposedly curated to be the most common words in usage. I’ve seen it said that a vocabulary of 2000 words makes up about 80% of usage in most languages, so having that foundation gives you a lot more ability to understand things when you read. It’s probably the most efficient way of getting a useful enough vocabulary to begin reading some things.

   Personally I’m using the core deck but I’ve put it behind my Genki decks. Which means the first words and kanji I learn are from the textbook decks. When I got through those decks, or any of the words were locked, it would dip into the core deck as backup.

   I think for me that was the right way to do it. That way I prioritized the Genki vocab while I’m working through the Genki book, which made it a lot easier. I learned words faster than I got through the chapters, so I actually already “know” 95% of the vocabulary from Genki II even though I’m still in Genki I right now. Sure some of the words are pretty uncommon overall, but specifically for my studying I needed them so it was worth it. And now that I’m reading more outside of the textbook the core deck is starting to be more useful. But doing Genki vocab first alongside the book was best for me.

   As for memorizing things, I find that it’s a skill that got better as I went along. The first words and kanji I learned were rough, and I couldn’t remember them by the next day, even just doing 5 cards or basic kanji components. Now I can comfortably do 20 new cards a day, and that’s mostly bounded just by the amount of time I can spend doing reviews and not necessarily ability to remember the words. I still come across some words that give me trouble like 都合 so when I find that I’m failing the word a lot I’ll have to go out of my way to find some example sentences or something to help add more context than just seeing it.

8. I’ve wondered too. With the random example sentences it’s so hard to actually learn what the words mean with it. I tried it at first and gave up. The series commonly called “Tango” on the other hand has examples that you are actually meant to be able to understand, which I think is huge.

9. Hi Op, I was the same as you starting out. Core decks just felt like a random list of words without context.

   I switched to mining words from anime with simpler vocabulary. Animecards has a good guide on how to do it, but the mining is tedious when first starting out because you will be mining every word and every sentence. Once you have a few months of Anki under your belt, it goes faster because words you already know you can skip. For reference, it would take me almost 1 to 2 hours to fully mine a 20min anime episode when first starting out.

   Mining from anime gives me a lot more context. I get a screenshot, sentence, and audio clip attached to the word in Anki. I remember how and why that word was used in the context of the story.

   Also be warned not to go to the animecards discord. It’s apparently toxic and full of hate. I’ve don’t use discord so I don’t know, but the guide is good.

10. What you’re doing is fine and can be seen as the standard beginner approach.

11. Yes I can attest to the usage of this deck,
    the main usage is this:

    You will learn the first two thousand most common vocab words far quicker and more efficiently than just by studying from genki.

    If you find it isn’t working for you or it’s ruining your enjoyment then don’t continue with it, but personally I’m glad I kept grinding through boring vocab and sentence decks, because they allowed me to move on to more interesting forms of study like immersion, much faster.

12. I tried and failed the core 2k probably 3 times. It was only after I did RTK that everything clicked, and now I’ve been breezing through the core 6k for the past 2 months, regularly hitting 100 words a day when I have spare time.

    I don’t think it’s for everyone, given it was a 120hr upfront investment, but it really did change the game in revolutionising my ability to remember Japanese words.

13. I’ve been working on the core 2k/6k deck for a little over a year (1 year mark was on 4/4/23) was doing 10 new words a day until my reviews were in the 400s per day. Scaled back to 4 new a day and should be done mid next year. About 60% complete at the moment. It’s definitely challenging and kind of a bore at times but I’ve resolved to become fluent so here I am. I’d say it’s not something I could’ve done as a beginner.

    I’ve got quite a number of decks defeated before taking this one on, such as old school RTK (making my own cards/mnemonics using kanji koohii), recognition RTK after that, refold jp1k, and a vocab deck I’ve made myself over the years (only about 500 words). Try revisiting 2k further down the road and you might have a better time with it

    Best of luck to you in your studies 🙂