Ridiculous words in N5 deck

[CursedKitsune]

The word is far more common in Japanese than in English. I am a native English speaker and use that word maybe once a year whilst seeing it maybe two or three times but I have used 眼科 multiple times in the one year I have lived in Japan and I see it basically daily. As I mentioned above in this thread, Japanese people see an opthalmologist to get their eyes tested and get their glasses.

This word, as with may others that people take issue with in beginner level materials, is more common than people realise if you are in Japan. The JLPT is aimed at people who are using Japanese in Japan and not at people who are learning how to read LNs or watch anime so there is very often a disconnect for English speaking learners online who are learning as a hobby or for otaku reasons.

Sidenote: It is different from an optometrist. An opthalmologist is a an actual medical doctor.

[I-k-d]

Just because it’s common in Japan doesn’t mean it should be in a deck that is created solely for the point of passing a test, when it won’t be in that test.

I’m not learning japanese to watch anime, I live in Japan too and go to school here. But if you were teaching someone english, would you teach them how to say opthalmologist or optometrist after a year of learning english? Like it’s a useful word to know at a higher level.

I’m not like picking apart this specific word, I’m just saying that if they are marketing the decks to be JLPT, they should use the offical lists(if there are some i think there are), and stick to them, and those who are living in japan and are desperate to know how to say opthalmologist can go and search up that specific word and add it to their reviews.

Also thanks for explaining the difference haha, I see why I’ve never seen the word before, I don’t think we use medical doctors to check eyes in nz

[CursedKitsune]

Completely agree with you. As I also said above in this thread, I agree with the main topic of this thread which is that this word doesn’t belong in the N5 deck. I was more generally trying to reply to people in this thread who are saying that because they don’t use or know this word in English it means it is also super rare in Japanese.

[I-k-d]

Maybe they should make an anime about a 眼科者 so people learn the word hehe

[narfi]

If I recall correctly from previous forum posts, the N5 vocabulary contains the vocabulary aimed at N5 plus the Genki I vocabulary. I believe this was because the book is so commonly used by students at that level.

As for myself, when I studied Genki I by myself, I completely ignored this word and several others similar ones … They came up naturally in conversations multiple years later.

[Jake]

Just thought I would chime in. We are planning on overhauling the decks, both what we include in each JLPT level but also providing what we think is a good order to learn them in (its not alphabetical, at least for N5-N3 )

The reason some of those weird words are in there is because we originally decided to merge our N5 list with the Genki I list. In retrospect, that wasn’t ideal for users not using Genki I.

The overhaul of the deck content and a Deck 2.0 version will both come out before the end of the year hopefully!

[I-k-d]

I’m glad to hear that! The decks are really helpful and I also really like how we can search up words and add to reviews, so if I find a word I want to learn I can add it to my reviews with no effort. Thanks for all your hard work!

[jrmr50]

removing opthalmologist from the N5 deck seems like a short-sighted move.

[Jake]

Hindsight is 20-20

[Superpnut]

Well whatever you do just make it as best as you can. Something is only late until it’s done, but if something is bad it’s bad forever.
Kind of a polite way of a saying we have in the trades.

But don’t make it too too good, I still need something to complain about sometimes.

[I-k-d]

Maybe we should make a non-possum mascot then hehe

[simias]

I think it’s a cultural thing to some extent. It’s a rather common word in my native French as well because we go see (poorly) an ophthalmologist to get a prescription and then go to the optician to get the glasses. It seems that the Japanese have a similar system.

In the other hand other countries like Portugal or apparently the USA let opticians do everything in-house when it comes to basic vision correction so it’s probably a less commonly used word there.

I’ve also seen “eye doctor” used in English instead of ophthalmologist I think.

[carstenosu]

I just wanted to say thank for making this thread. I am taking N1 in December and didn’t know 眼科 but after reading this, it’s pretty solidly committed to memory lol

[Superpnut]

NEVER SAY THIS AGAIN!!!

[EagerProgrammer]

Besides the strange vocabulary in N5 the order is also “interessting” to put it that way.
I would prefer rather grouped by topic or order by relefance for learning. Stuff like basic pronouns are sometimes at the very end of the deck.
I have to admit that Duolingo did a better job here to learn vocabulary for a specific context, besides the fact that otherwise Duolingo did everthing else in a terrible fashion.

I also notices strange translationsa hat I never came across in my English learning journey because they felt unnatual, or missing definitions when you scroll through the examples.

[OneLotusPetal]

How can I do the words flashcards? It doesn’t pop up anywhere in my profile, only grammar

[atsui]

It should be available at the Deck section of the website, available here:

After which if you scroll down enough, you can find the vocabulary decks for N5-N1:

Once you clicked into one of the Vocab Decks, you can add it as your secondary deck to your “Learn” button at your home page:

After you added it as your secondary deck, it should be available on your “Learn” button (after clicking the drop down button):

[simias]

@EagerProgrammer

I would prefer rather grouped by topic or order by relefance for learning. Stuff like basic pronouns are sometimes at the very end of the deck.

I find that grouping too much can be a double-edged sword because you may end up having to learn close synonyms together and things can get confusing pretty fast.

For instance I’d argue that it’s probably a good idea to introduce 私 first, then some time later 僕, then 俺, then 我, then… Giving some buffer between each so that you have the time to memorize their individual nuance instead of being given half a dozen words that mean “I/me” at once.

I feel the same way for things like transitive/intransitive verb pairs for instance.

[I-k-d]

Well I’m pretty sure 俺 is in the N1 deck - - cause its soooo much harder than 眼科

[simias]

A bit silly but I suppose the logic is that they want to avoid “rough” language in introductory materials. I’m not too surprised that the JLPT wouldn’t feature 俺 too often, especially in the lower tiers.