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StudyingReading Strategies (Vocabulary Acquisition without Anki) (self.LearnJapanese)

postat acum 1 an în urmă de către kenkyuukai

/u/podoka posed a really interesting question in last week's シツモンデー.

My vocabulary is very basic and small, but I want to stop using anki. ( I don't even use it
anymore. ) Would you guys suggest reading as much as possible, even if I'll have a hard
time?

As somebody who never used Anki (or other SRS) but did read a lot, I'd like to give my
answer. I hope my strategy, in part or in full, will help more than just one person so I'm
making a new post for more visibility.

Summary

Language is, by nature, repetitive and reading is a natural form of spaced repetition.
Normal books aren't written with a Pimsleur-esque scientific repetition interval in mind
but it does have a tendency to repeat the most relevant words the most. Best of all, it does
it all in context. In a language so unrelated to English and with its peculiar orthography
you can't just jump into reading Japanese day one, but reading early (six months to a
year) and often is possible and beneficial.

Background

First just a quick bit on my credentials. In total I've been studying Japanese for 9 years, 8
of those in Japan. I took my first stab at JLPT1 級 after three years, missed by 1%, and
passed a year later (I have never taken N1). I've spent the last five years working as an
engineer in a Japanese environment.

I can read most Meiji era and later texts, write technical reports, take business phone calls
using keigo, and play video games/RPGs. I have my list of "can'ts" as well and I'm no
native speaker but I do occasionally know what I'm talking about.

Reading Styles
Not all reading is the same. In the broadest terms there is extensive reading (reading for
quantity) and intensive reading (reading for quality). When reading for second language
acquisition, I'd propose a third style of reading, vocabulary-centric reading.

 Extensive reading

What: In extensive reading you are trying to cover as much content as possible. If you
read fifty thousand words and only understand half, you've still processed more than if
you had read 500 and understood them all. Extensive reading provides breadth, it exposes
you to a lot of new vocabulary, new grammatical constructions, and new styles
(especially if you read many different authors).

How: The focus is on more. Read (relatively) quickly and do not stop to look anything
up. Read for story arc. It's OK to not understand everything, especially the details, as long
as you understand enough to move forward and process more.

At first it may feel like watching a muted movie - understanding what is happening
without always understanding why - but with continued study this will get better.

 Vocabulary-centric reading

What: Vocabulary-centric reading is reading with intent to identify and learn new words.
It's similar to sentence mining that SRS users do and can be used with any variety of
other study/memorization methods once the target words are identified.

How: Although we are keeping an eye out for new vocabulary, the idea is still to read and
understand, not just pick unknown words out of a wall of text. As you come across
unknown vocabulary, mark the word and continue reading. I prefer to use a separate piece
of paper and write the word and it's page number. This can also be done for unknown
grammatical constructions.

These words can be looked up later. Why? Because some of the meanings will become
clearer up as you continue to read. Others you might never see again and you might
realize it's not important enough (now or ever) to actually study. Like extensive reading,
we are still aiming for quantity to some extent.

 Intensive reading

What: Intensive reading focuses on the detail and nuance of the text. It is reading for both
comprehension and art. What does this passage mean, both literally and figuratively?
Why was this word or construction used?

How: Read slowly and carefully. It's OK to look up words as you go. Take notes if you
have to or want to. On your first go it will be overwhelming to understand everything but
aim to understand all the verbs and most of the subjects.
Reading Strategy

How do we effectively employ the three reading styles above? In the beginning, I think a
cyclic, "spiral in" approach is best: Extensive → Vocabulary-centric → Intensive →
Extensive → ....

A lot of people start with an intensive approach, get bogged down on the first page, and
give up. Start with extensive reading instead. You might only make it a page or two
before you choose to spiral in, but you can hopefully gauge overall difficulty, some of the
plot, and your interest level.

If you've decided to continue, go back and reread it more intensely. If you understood a
good bit the first time, come at it with a vocabulary-centric approach. I find simply
reading something twice improves comprehension but make note of the words you still
don't understand. If you understood very little, come at it from an intensive perspective.
You can ignore adverbs and non-predicate adjectives but try to lock down the basic
subject-object-verb.

Now we come back to extensive reading. For right now, it's best to just move on to the
next part and repeat. In a couple hours or overnight, however, try coming back to part you
just read after having put the book down and let some time pass. What you didn't
understand yesterday may, after having looked up a few key words and grammar, make
much more sense now that things have had a chance to sink in.

The end game is being able to switch reading styles at will or based on the text you're
approaching. New but difficult subject matter? Intensive. Got a flat surface to write on?
Vocab time. Feeling tired but want to read before bed? See how many pages you can
knock out (extensive reading) before you fall asleep.

Dictionary Use

In the extensive reading section I said don't look anything up. That's part of the strategy
but in reality your experience can be a bit more flexible. If looking up one or two words
is the key to a passage and will put the entire scene in perspective, go ahead and look
them up. Do things make sense now? Good. Now put away your dictionary again.

Dictionaries aren't evil but I think they get in the way. I didn't own a dictionary (paper or
electronic) for the first 2.5 years I lived in Japan. Not only did I survive, I think it helped
me. When I read, I had to just read. I developed my ability to learn from context and any
word I felt curious enough to look up hours later when I finally got to a computer I was
bound to remember. In some cases, not having a dictionary was motivation to ask
somebody and get some speaking practice in as well.
Pop-up dictionaries like Rikai-chan and Rikai-kun are amazing tools and I use them even
now. For a lot of people, though, they aren't always a great learning tool. They allow you
to read relatively fluidly, which is one reason why normal dictionary use is discouraged
in extensive reading, but it's also no effort. The more you use Rikai-chan the less your
brain is going to work to internalize meanings. Use it when you have to know what
something means or navigate a site, but try reading without it when it's study time.

What to Read

If you start with the classics like Natsume Soseki or popular contemporary authors like
Murakami Haruki, you're going to have a tough time. Just like you started with The
Berenstain Bears years before you got to Shakespeare, you need to start with something
easy in Japanese. I actually advise against (young) children's books, however. Not only
are they often boring as hell and kill your motivation, they use style and vocabulary that
isn't applicable or necessary for many adults. Every child knows ぺこぺこ but you want
to start with おなかがすいた.

I recommend starting with translations. The goal isn't to read them in parallel but to start
with a story you already know. This improves overall comprehension, which lends
motivation to extensive reading, and provides a framework to help understand words
from context.

青い鳥文庫 has a ton of translations aimed at mid to late elementary school age students
(ages 10 - 12). All the kanji have furigana which means you don't have to be a kanji
master to start and they have selections like Tom Sawyer, Arabian Nights, Les
Miserables, and Romance of Three Kingdoms so you can pick something that's more
intellectually challenging than Spot the Dog. You can see their catalog of international
works here.

When to Start

I didn't use Genki or Remembering the Kanji or a lot of other popular study methods. I
pretty much started with a few random internet lessons until I found Tae Kim's Guide to
Japanese Grammar (the Grammar Guide, before there was a Comprehensive Guide), and
then read Pomax's An Introduction to Japanese Syntax, Grammar, & Language at
NihongoResources.com. You'll have to find a resource that works for you (there's no one
best method so just start and see what works) but after you've gone through one or two
courses (six months to a year), you should be able to take a stab at reading.

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cel mai bun

[–]DitzKrieg 5 puncte 1 an în urmă

I'm curious as to how you approached Tae Kim. Did you simply read it? How did you
ensure that you retained the grammar knowledge?

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[–]kenkyuukai[S] 6 puncte 1 an în urmă

Yes. I didn't do any drills or make any flashcards. I simply read the guide and then went
out and used what I learned. If I couldn't speak then I wrote, either with penpals or lang-8
once that became a thing.

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[–]kronpas 9 puncte 1 an în urmă*

If people cant acquire new words without using Anki, they are doing it wrong. Anki helps
solidify what you ve learned, but can never replace vocab acquisition by context.

... but i want to stop using anki

How the hell did you do to enlarge your vocab so far? Core deck grind?

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[–]podoka 3 puncte 1 an în urmă

I was using the core 2k/6k/10k optimized deck. I got 10% into the deck ( around 1k
cards. ) . I did learn new words but I can't force myself to use anki anymore. I prefer
reading than boring flash cards.

I wish I could tough it out and get to at least the 6k point, but I know I won't be able to.

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[–]kronpas 4 puncte 1 an în urmă

Keep using anki, but change the way you utilize it: read alot, put more frequently
encountered words into anki and keep reviewing time to minimum (like half an hour a
day) then see if things improved.

Btw why my previous post downvoted? Core deck fanatics downvote O_o?

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[–]kenkyuukai[S] 6 puncte 1 an în urmă

put more frequently encountered words into anki

That seems counter intuitive to me. If the words are repeating naturally, just keep reading.
Although I personally had no motivation to do so, I think Anki would work better for the
words that don't otherwise repeat.

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[–]kronpas 1 punct 1 an în urmă

You can always delete entries if deemed not necessary, i do it all the time. Which words
to put into anki aint always the most frequent but which you think worth grinding on,
frequency is but one of my criterias.

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[–]podoka 1 punct 1 an în urmă

Is it downvoted? I don't see anything but the [score hidden]. A lot of people are in love
with the core decks and swear by it, so maybe someone got mad, lol.

I think the way the optimized deck is set up so that the similar kanji come together one
after another. I don't know how to set it up by frequency though. : c

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[–]podoka 3 puncte 1 an în urmă*

I didn't expect to get such a nice answer on this. Also I'm really surprised you know about
the aoitori books too! I've only seen myself and another person ( on the RTK forums )
mention them. :) They are great and I have 2 from kinokuniya, as well as one on my
kindle. I haven't jumped into them yet though.
Also edit : There's also [つばさ文庫!] (http://www.tsubasabunko.jp/menu/index.php\).
It's similar to the aoitori books, but it's just under a different publisher. I don't know if the
books are directed at a lower age group or not though.

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[–]churakaagii 3 puncte 1 an în urmă

I studied the mental processes of learning in graduate school, and I just want to say that
this post is ace.

The only thing I would add is a recommendation to try and intentionally practice the
important vocabulary you acquire in this way, by making practice sentences you get
checked by a native speaker, for example.

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[–]kenkyuukai[S] 1 punct 1 an în urmă

I hired an online tutor for around 10 months and would go through tougher sections of the
books I was reading with her. I did try doing sentences and having them corrected for a
little while and thought it helped.

In the end, however, I decided to spend the tutor time (which I was paying for) talking
through the issues and using lang-8 (free!) for writing essays. Still, I would type up my
list of questions the day before and go through the list verbally in class which gave me
some repetition and output concerning the vocab and grammar which, more than the
particular method, is the real key.

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[–]itaShadd 2 puncte 1 an în urmă

In my opinion, the only effective way to make use of SRS systems, especially with
Japanese, is to use them with longer texts, rather than sentences or single words. For
example one could read 1-3 NHK easy articles a day, that would be reproposed from time
to time to be reviewed. This way you can learn a bunch of vocabulary, kanji and figures
of speech in context and carry on until you understand the article completely without
resorting to a dictionary. Spaced repetition with individual words or kanji is nothing more
than visual memory, which is not the only thing needed when reading, considering we
never really look into the details of the symbols when we read letters or ideograms.

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[–]kenkyuukai[S] 2 puncte 1 an în urmă

If using software to time the interval between first and second read works for you, by all
means use it. I do most of my reading on the train or during my lunch break so I just
approximate the interval (i.e., the next train ride or the next day).

I also think there is a limit to how many times you can productively review an entire
article, short story, or book. Twice is usually all I can manage, though I will go over
shorter passages as necessary as detailed in the OP.

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[–]itaShadd 2 puncte 1 an în urmă

Personally I stopped using Anki since ages, that was just the only method I can think to
render its use somewhat useful; obviously approximated repetition works as well. And
yes, reviewing the same thing more than x times is definitely useless, but the x varies
from person to person and though the repetition does give diminishing returns after each
session, it's still useful until x is reached, if we add new articles between the reviews of
the old ones.

For someone like me, making Anki a habit would mainly serve to motivate me having
some concrete numbers and objectives in front of me; if I don't tie myself in some rigid
method, I move too irrationally and learn rather slowly.

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[–]acratus 2 puncte 1 an în urmă

Thank you for all the advice. What's your take on kanji? Do you recommend learning
purely from context? There are a bunch of words I know the meanings of from
encountering them in the wild, but I couldn't tell you how to say them despite my best
efforts at memorizing the pronunciations.

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[–]kenkyuukai[S] 3 puncte 1 an în urmă

I think learning kanji through vocab is really important so I've never bought into
strategies like Remembering the Kanji but I also think you need more than just reading to
pick them up. Since Japanese is hard to just pick up and read from the get-go, you'll need
to find a different strategy to memorize the first couple hundred kanji.

I learned the first 300 or so kanji by writing out the JLPT4 級 and JLPT3 級 kanji lists.
While writing was a method that worked for me and one I used throughout my studies, I
do not recommend just writing out single characters. When I discovered Unicom's 実力
アップ！日本語能力試験 ２級 漢字単語ドリル, which is an excellent book, I
switched to writing out full words.

Although the title says "drill" the book doesn't really have any fill in the blank type drills.
It's great because:

1. It introduces kanji through vocabulary

2. It groups kanji by phonetic component
3. It covers common homophones
4. It provides example sentences for all the vocabulary
5. It has full but coverable furigana (using an included translucent red plastic sheet
to cover all red text)

If the book is still available, I highly recommend it but I also highly recommend reading
in parallel. I did eventually do some more rote memorization of kanji specifically to pass
the JLPT1 級, but again I just wrote words out and read.

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[–]FermiAnyon 2 puncte 1 an în urmă

Nice post. Good advice. My thoughts exactly with text being a natural SRS.

The end game is being able to switch reading styles at will or based on the text you're
approaching. ...

I think this is a very mature approach. It took me a while to learn to let go of having to
understand everything I read and having to make a note of every new word. I eventually
realized that the Japanese language (and most others) provide a functionally infinite
supply of reading material, so I can be as nuanced or as general as I like in my reading
approach and I'll never run out.

I actually tend to change my approach based on the medium. I'll do extensive reading
with manga, but I'll do vocabulary-centric reading with light novels/novels and I might
do intensive reading with stuff like poetry or music lyrics.

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[–][deleted] 3 puncte 1 an în urmă

Has anyone tried reading The Bible? I assume it would have some not so common Kanji
but it repeats words a good amount throughout depending on the writer so I feel like once
I got started with it I could do ok but I want to start with some of OP's recommendations
first.
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[–]kenkyuukai[S] 3 puncte 1 an în urmă

If you're interested in the Bible but worried about kanji, check out 聖書物語＜旧約編＞
and 聖書物語＜新約編＞ from 青い鳥.

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[–]Soulgee 1 punct 1 an în urmă

As a beginner struggling... thank you!! So much helpful information and resources.

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[–]FrankGoldman 1 punct 1 an în urmă

any book you recommend? I am in my 3rd semester of Japanese.

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[–]podoka 2 puncte 1 an în urmă

Not the OP but a lot of people will recommend either manga, or things aimed towards
children. ( I can't stand children stories tbh. I bought some and they are boring! ) .

Have you tried yotsubato? That's always everyone's first suggestion. To Love Ru is also
pretty simple.

Or do you want a novel? Like OP said, aoitori is really nice and useful. ( Everything has
furigana ) . You can purchase these from amazon.co.jp or kinokuniya.

My only other recommendation would be Zero No Tsukaima. I tried to take a jab at it, but
didn't do so well.

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[–]FrankGoldman 1 punct 1 an în urmă

yea I prefer novels. Any novels that you recommend? I haven't seen/read les miserables
yet so I'm slightly leaning towards that.

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[–]podoka 1 punct 1 an în urmă

It depends what you like. I also forgot to mention there's also tsubasa bunko. That's where
I've gotten my books so far. It's similar, if not 100% like the aoitori selection. There's just
different series, under different publishers.

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[–]FrankGoldman 1 punct 1 an în urmă

right... how do I get things from amazon.co.jp to deliver to the states?

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[–]podoka 1 punct 1 an în urmă

You're going to need a forwarding service like tenso. They will give you an address and
will ship it to you from there. ( But you have to pay them. )

Honestly check out kinokuniya first if you can. They ship in the US and it's really
cheap. :/

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[–]Pennwisedom 1 punct 1 an în urmă

You can get eBooks via a method like this: http://nihonjon.com/how-to-download-

japanese-books-for-kindle/

However as mentioned, I would suggest Kinokuniya or Book Off.

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[–]veezbo 1 punct 1 an în urmă

Amazon Japan delivers books worldwide, and very quickly too.

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[–]voxanimus 1 punct 1 an în urmă

you want to, generally, avoid western literature classics. think about it. what sorts of
books would you recommend for people learning english? A Tale of Two Cities? or
Where the Wild Things Are?

same idea. things like Yotsubato are pretty good analogues of children's literature and are
specifically designed to be easy to understand and free of ambiguity.

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[–]kenkyuukai[S] 2 puncte 1 an în urmă

I think it's important to find a balance between easy material and stimulating material.
Abridged versions or young adult versions of classic works are usually easy enough but
finding something you like is equally important. I wouldn't want to read Dickens or
Shakespeare in the original but I was happy to read Twain and Swift translated for
Japanese children.

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[–]PatchSalts 1 punct 1 an în urmă

I'm using Genki. How far along should I wait before reading anything?

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[–]kenkyuukai[S] 1 punct 1 an în urmă

I never used Genki and don't know how much Genki I covers versus Genki II, etc. My
only suggestion is to take a look at the table of contents of Tae Kim's Grammar Guide; if
you've covered up to Section 5 - Special Expressions, you've got enough grammar to
start. You can work your way through more advanced grammar in parallel or simply as
you come across it through reading, listening, or other study.

The bigger your base vocabulary is the more productive reading will be, but even with a
small vocabulary you can still make gains if you accept that you won't understand a lot
the first time through and don't give up.

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[–]PatchSalts 1 punct 1 an în urmă

Thanks! Also, could you look up 東方香霖堂　～ Curiosities of Lotus Asia and tell me
if it's worth reading for practicing? It's an officially printed book/magazine/[I don't
fucking know] based on the Touhou (東方) series of games, which means I'm interested
and will know a lot of the subject matter. Plus, translations are available online.

That sounded weird, let me try again.

Maybe read page one of 東方香霖堂　～ Curiosities of Lotus Asia and tell me if it
seems too basic/advanced or not?

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[–][deleted] 1 punct 1 an în urmă

If you mean this manga, it looks more complicated than most manga. It might take you a
long time to read each page, plus it doesn't have furigana.

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[–]PatchSalts 1 punct 1 an în urmă

The characters seem right, but IIRC, the page style is completely different.

EDIT: I found a scan, should I link to the place I got it?

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[–][deleted] 1 punct 1 an în urmă

Not allowed to link stuff like that. But if the content is the same, it's quite complex.

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[–]PatchSalts 1 punct 1 an în urmă

Oh well.

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[–]kenkyuukai[S] 1 punct 1 an în urmă

How about you read a couple pages and find out for yourself?
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[–]PatchSalts 1 punct 1 an în urmă*

I can't yet. I'm literally on chapter 1 of Genki. I thought it was worth a shot, though.

ESIT: I have a link to the entire scan, though, if you want to see it.

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