What do you use for vocabulary in conjunction with Bunpro?

Bunpro
#13

Studying for only ~8ish months so take my words with a heavy grain of salt. Started with core 6k deck as a fresh beginner and using wanikani’s mnemonics to help teach me along the way (basically just copy and pasted everything into the deck along the way.) Did this for the first 2k words but the way it’s structured is really tough as early on you’ll be swamped with new kanji and words you’re very rarely going to see as a beginner (for the most part)

After that I switched to the WK deck and suspended everything that wasn’t vocab cards and started from the beginning, suspending cards I had already learned along the way. This is an interesting approach as you’re starting with simple kanji and then building off of that with various words. One issue is that some of the words early on aren’t exactly useful (Planets???) but they use the kanji so good to know. I’m really enjoying this method, will finish the entire deck then either go to making my own mining or finishing up the core (most likely.)

I think people also do the Tango N5/4/etc. decks but never used them so can’t comment. If you’re a big VN fan there’s decks out there that iirc are like 2k most common words used in there so you’ll be able to not struggle. Again, haven’t used it but just going off of what friends told me.

#14

For higher levels, wouldn’t one be better of by just reading books?

#15

Yes, but if I need to extract a sentence or input a vocabulary word I don’t know, iKnow doesn’t really allow me that flexibility. I’m not gonna sit here and pretend I know the 35,000 to 45,000 words the average Japanese college student knows.

#16

If you need any help getting started with sentence mining shoot me a message and I can toss along some links your way to help you set up the process however you’re getting your material from!

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#17

That’s quite an achievement, but I’m afraid my tenure won’t be as long as yours. At one point it did overtake me though. My longest study streak was 413 days, and I only broke it because I was busy preparing a halloween party and forget.

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#18

I mainly read these days, though I try to do 5 minutes of Bunpro, Kanji Senpai, Anki and Renshuu

@Vella07 Yeah, Renshuu.org is amazing! For anyone who has not tried it, I really recommend it too. It has words, kanji, sentences and more. Considering its made by 2 people, its really something. I have been using it for 8+ years. Also its possible to print your own kanji sheets to practice!

Kanji Senpai (phone app) is really good alternative to Wani Kani, in some ways it is better. Like there are tests for the stroke order, some sentences and the audio is really good too. It has around 8k words and kanji grouped by JLPT.

Anki (I mainly use it on my phone) took me 6 months of experimentation to set up with the idea of slowly using only Japanese in my new Anki cards. I mainly add new stuff from time to time based on words / kanji that I have seen while reading. It has kanji, words, sentences, JLPT questions and grammar :slight_smile: I try to be as complete as possible and have images and audio where possible.

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#19

I’m using WK to get to know these kanji and kamesame.com for WK production and for the vocab that I mine from Visual Novels.
I’m migrating my Anki vocab from previous learning to kamesame which is so much better.
I long hesitated between kamesame and kitsun (because everyone seems so fond of kitsun) but kamesame is just so much effective.
I don’t spend any time to set up anything, no deck, no fields, i just add words and Bam ! I’m learning ! (with input, not button or choice question, just like I want it).
The “it works but it’s not what was expected !” works wonderfully just like on Bunpro.
And if I don’t agree with the expected input I just add the alternative I want to be there and it’s done ! I’m back to learning.
Love it

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#20

WK sells additional sentences a-la-carte as well and has sales a few times a year. The sentences really help reinforce the vocab you know, as well as implicitly introducing new words.

WaniKani 4,500 Japanese Sentences
$39.99 → $4.99 is the best sale I’ve seen

I bought it during a $5 sale. The normal price of $40 feels high… but I would’ve been happy paying $10 or even $20. For the most part, they’re good, thoughtful sentences that have helpful context.

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#21

This is a good shout!

I’ve been trying to use Anki recently, and started Renshuu yesterday, but the management of it is kind of a hassle. Renshuu has premade stuff, but I haven’t been able to filter through for stuff I don’t already know yet, which is a bit of a pain in the backend. I’m just no good at making cards that are actually useful when it comes to Anki, they’re just all a bit ugly and ineffectual.

I used to use Kamesame just to reinforce WK, then I stopped using it for a while… so I might just bung up a new account or something and start afresh with the stuff I actually need to reinforce, rather than adding literally everything from WK up to my current lvl (35). 30+ and added vocab sounds like a good strategy for me.

Cheers for the reminder that KS can do that!

#22

I’ve only been studinyg Japanese for ~7 weeks so I can’t really speak for anything that is more advanced but I thought I’d share my experiene nontheless!

For the moment I am learning the vocabulary in Genki (I always learn them a chapter in advance) and use memrise to solidify them. Memrise is really caterd towards beginners so it’s a great asset to me at my current stage. I plan to switch onto a more advanced SRS system when I am over the beginner stage. It seems that setting up custom decks in anki / kitsun / renshuu is a little more advanced so I haven’t really looked too much into it just yet.

I learn additional vocab through WaniKani and revise that with both KameSame and KaniWani. KameSame has some additinal vocab lists and let’s you add your own vocab but again, I personally am not yet at a stage where it’s feasable for me to add even more.

I think that getting the basics down with Genki and having WaniKani as additional resource works fine for me just now and my plan is to look into more advanced decks when I actually have finished Genki :muscle:

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#23

@sushi-fish You can use KameSame to learn Genki vocab too by using the “Study Words Found In Content” feature, you just type in the Genki vocab there and let’s go !

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#24

I actually do have this set. Need to do more of them, just replaced my printer recently.

#25

You know, if there’s a mention of Kitsun anywhere on the internet, I immediately get summoned :fox_face: (more like I’m going to subscribe back to Bunpro but shhh tell no one)

I know I’m biased, but another vote for Kitsun. I started using it from the moment that it was announced on the WK forums and since then the platform has only been growing more and more. The biggest proof that it worked for me is the fact that I spent 1 year trying to get into Anki and couldn’t use it for more than a few days in a row. With Kitsun, I have already more than 21 000 cards learned. This last week, a system to memorize your “known words” has been released (Kitsun now knows which words you know so you don’t have to deal with duplicates on other decks) and apps are to be released soon :slight_smile:

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#26

This is likely what’s gonna sell me on it - I love to study during my commute, but like you I’ve been having trouble getting into Anki even though I know I really should be using it, or at least something similar.

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#27

Try using it on the browser. The experience is pretty much the same compared to desktop :slight_smile: if you have trouble with connection during the commute, just preload your reviews before losing connection. Once the connection is back, Kitsun sends your answers back to the server (as if it was offline mode). It’s not a perfect system, but in my experience it tends to send at least 90% of the items reviewed back.

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#28

:exploding_head: :scream: I suddenly feel lazy. Are you going through BP :bunprogold: now?

@severian, be sure to add Kitsun to home screen since it is a pwa it launches just like a native app and you have max screen real estate compared to just a browser. It feels like a native app to me and I’m really happy with it but look forward to see what an official app can offer.

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#29

Yup :stuck_out_tongue: My weakest point is grammar, so it’s time. I’m very perfectionist when it comes to Japanese grammar (I feel like I can only feel something is learned when I can explain it), so that has been hurting my progress a lot. But I need that N3 more consolidated and to learn N2 so here I am ^^

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#30

Today I learnt something new about technology! Never heard of PWA before but that’s great to know.

Thanks, @s1212z and @jprspereira! I’ll give it a whirl on the fortnight trial and see how it goes from there.

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#31

Preach, brother!

So true, if you can’t explain it then you don’t truly understand it.

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#32

I’m in same boat when it comes to liking Kamesame over Kitsun. I don’t like the “how do you feel you did on remembering this word?” aspect of Kitsun or Anki. I like to either the answer correct, or get it wrong. It does suck that KameSame doesn’t have the same layout as WaniKani, I’d like to be able to write my own mnemonics and memorization techniques and see them on screen at the same time as studying, but it’s still great.