Vocab Learning Routine - What to do with a new word

Japanese
#1

Hello everyone!
I wanted to know what are your to-do things once you decide “Ok, this word needs to be learned!”

For example:
You click on that nice “Learn” button and a word pops up, what do you do?

I usually:

  1. Read the word aloud in both Japanese and English
  2. Read the Dictionary Definition
  3. Listen to the word pronunciation
  4. Read and listen the example sentences
  5. Write down the word in both Japanese and English on paper
  6. Write down the Dictionary Definition on paper
  7. Create a mnemonic, either by myself or with AI (I add this mnemonic with “Add a note” and i found this to be very useful)
  8. Write down the mnemonic on paper

This takes me something like 5 minutes per word, in my mind it feels like a very small amount of time but so far it has worked, i assume it won’t always be this easy, as words will start to get harder.

So my question is, what are some of your techniques to make sure vocabs stick to you (Before reviews), i want to create a more solid “routine” for each vocab i learn.

Have a wonderful day everyone!

6 Likes
#2

I’m the guy who forgets the word 誌面 a hundred times till i see it in context. However more recently, i just use the “kanji in context book” for new words and it is working wonderfully with physical copies, just reading the entire sentence out loud. although I’ve only learned about 150 words this week, so far every word has been sticky.

If a word really must be learned, i do repeat it in my head a couple hundred times and it tends to stick for a day or two.

2 Likes
#3

The ‘learn’ button is enough for me.
Making my own cards I have to get example sentence, definition and audio. Bunpro already has all that.
Grammar I might cross-referance with Genki or Quartet. Vocabulary I don’t.

3 Likes
#4

What you do is really good practice, especially at earlier levels. Later on it will be easier to do a less rigorous approach and just jump straight into the example questions as the foundation you build your vocab base grows.

As mentioned above seeing a word in context is the most important thing to use when you learn a word. I don’t have a routine though - if I’m adding 10+ words a day then I’m just going to go straight to the example sentences unless the meaning is ambiguous.

4 Likes
#5

I’ll also add that words don’t get “harder” after a certain point. Some words are hard, but often they’re the common words with 10’s of meanings like かける. Words become less common, but your brain is spongey and providing you take time to absorb you’ll constantly surprise yourself with what you learn.

#6

that’s a long process for a single word,
I usually jump in the example questions, pick one that I like, and only use this one for reviewing the vocab (since I’m using anki for vocab).
Sometimes I use AI to help me grasp the differences between one word and its synonym, or I use AI to generate an example question that fits my needs.

1 Like
#7

You think? And i thought i wasn’t doing enough :sweat_smile:
To be fair, as mentioned, the process takes like 5 minutes.

I like the above advice of focusing more about seeing the words in context, i will try to put more time into that! Thanks

#8

It’s doable in the early stage (N5), but I think it’s important to get good habits as early as possible (depending on your goal). If you are aiming for N1 then it’s important to speed up the process asap. I wish I have spent less time focusing on minor details that just resolved themself naturally by just trusting the srs process and getting more exposure to the language.

Especially the ‘writing things down on paper’ part, maybe you need to trust your brain and bunpro more on that part, you don’t need things to be written on paper to get a feeling of progress anymore. You can trust bunpro that this word will pop in your review (and in the content you’ll consume in japanese).

Having things structured in a hand written notebook is a good habit we learned at school , but you’ll save a lot of time by relying on bunpro and its srs.

1 Like
#9

Yeah 5 minutes per word to learn (Not counting what you’d do if you forget it, maybe rewrite it?) I threw it into Chat gpt for fun, doing say 20 new words a day with 90% retention, you’d take around 11-18 years to reach 10,000 words for JLPT N1. Definitely need a faster method.

There will be words you’ll just pick up over time without studying too (much like grammar points) and really don’t sweat about forgetting words either. there are some words that just aren’t very important in a language. sure the jlpt N1 may ask for a word like 征討, but really in 99.999% of situations, you’ll never need to know it.

I think you’re following bunpro’s vocab list though, so at least that won’t be much of an issue outside of the eye-doctor vocab which after living in japan 3 years, getting new glasses and contacts in japan, the word hasn’t come up a single time.

#10

Thank you so much for the advice, that really helps!

Just out of curiosity, where do the 11-18 years come from? Am i missing something?

5 minute per word per 20 Words, 10 minutes per word per 20 Words or any other amount of time, it’s still 20 words a day, unless you take more than an hour per word which makes it impossible.

10000 words is 50000 minutes, divided for 2 hours a day is around 14 months (Ofcourse only of the 5 minutes of first approach)

But yeah i get your point, i will try to cut down on the process and optimize time, i need to trust the system :pray:

#11

I would assume you learn 20 cards a day, (say you have about 2 hours to dedicate to this vocab learning every day) and every time you miss a card you redo the learning again. (from step 0) up to a maximum of 3x. (like if you miss the word 扉 3x, you won’t ever miss it again, but you would have deliberately “studied” that single word for 20 minutes) any any time past 2 hours you don’t do a new card. so first review>New cards in that order at a 90% remembrance rate.

even doing 2 hours a day, that’s a max of 24 new words a day, not counting any reviews. and that is how i got such a long time. because the forgetfulness is assuming you’re restarting the card or dropping 2 srs ranks. with “known” being 1 year SRS.

Realistically the number may be lower or longer depending on your success rates and if you study more than 2 hours a day.

The overall message is 5 minutes per word is extremely long unless you have like a 97% remembrance rate which is like savant level.

#12

Rukifellth misunderstood.
With 20 new words/day you can have 300 reviews perday. 5 minutes per card*300cards/60minutes per hour is 25 hours a day, which is impossible.

You only spend 5 minutes on new cards, and 30 seconds on vocab reviews
20cards x 5minutes+300 x 0.5 minutes=250 minutes or 4 hours and 10 minutes.

I don’t recommend following pre-built vocab lists all the way to N1.

#13

Ok my method that I’ve been using with a huge success after anki cramming.

For example I don’t know 誌面, first I would read 誌めん and going to try get what it means in context, I would think that it’s to do “something to do with a surface or some kind of face” (my guess) from the kanji 面.

My next step is to try to guess the first kanji based on context and elements it contain. For example I see that this kanji has 言 which is usually used as a meaning component and might do something with saying, knowledge, transferring etc. The right part is probably the sound one 志. It is 士 and 心, usually it wouldn’t be those 2 kanji, and it would have a pretty random reading, but might be that 士 (シ) gives the reading, therefor whole 誌 could sound similar, not sure how thou.

More importantly I try to look up in which words it can be found so I would open yomitan kanji dictionary for word references or go to my Yomiwa app on iPad. From what I can see the only word I know this kanji from is 記される when written with 誌, I remember that word from reading monogatari series.

The on reading for 誌 is シ which is very convenient, basically it is a direct reading from 士. Score.

Also, now when I’ve seen like 10-15 words with this kanji I can say that it’s a really simple and touchable concept, it basically always has to do with journal, so it’s a really easy kanji and more importantly root.

I don’t even have to remember it or something like that, just put some effort to remember where did I see this kanji next time I see it in another or some word somewhere. Also, all other words with this kanji now make perfect sense for and I can read most of them, now I just have to get their nuance from reading sentence examples in a context (or without depending on how directly word translates)

Could take 1 - 5 minutes depending on concentration, and how much stuff I already know.

#14

And you can do that with Anki, Bunpro, reading (my recommendation is content where you have like new kanji each few sentences to not get to overwhelmed) etc.
Of course more context is always better, and much much better.
I really would go again anki till you have a good intuition for that and it becomes just a way to track your vocab rather then a way to learn it.