Getting the most out of vocabulary lessons

[Sidcaiyar]

When I do vocab lessons for a word I’ve never heard before, or one which seems to be synonymous with other words I’ve learnt, I’ll look it up on Jisho.org to see if I can get a better understanding of usage/context. I also sometimes ask people usage differences on HelloTalk etc.

What other tools do you guys use to achieve this same goal? I’ve heard of some people using JP dictionaries and thesauruses, but I do not know what online ones are good.

[rmizuno]

There’s some JP to JP dictionaries listed here:

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[rmizuno]

I haven’t spent as much time with them as I’d like, but I’ve mostly used Goo, mostly because it was at the top of the list.

[rodrigowaick]

I always look up example sentences on Jisho or Tangorin. It has been noted multiple times on this forum, however, that many sentences are weird or unnatural, so take it with a grain of salt. It’s good enough to get an idea of the usage of vocabulary.

[jprspereira]

I used to use Jisho, not you can’t never be sure if the example sentences are correct there, since they were written by non native speakers. Also, I felt that sometimes Jisho didn’t have any results for some JP words. I’m using http://ejje.weblio.jp/ at the moment.

Also, don’t be scared just because it’s in JP. You don’t need much to use a JP => JP dictionary honestly.

[polv]

don’t be scared just because it’s in JP. You don’t need much to use a JP => JP dictionary honestly.

Exactly. The sentences in the dictionary tend to be short and easy to parse. You can always use Rikai-chan to help translate.

I use https://dictionary.goo.ne.jp (Digital Daijiten)

Also, in this website, there is a Japanese-bred JE dictionary. (Shogakukan Progressive JE). There is also a thesaurus in this website.

My another trick is dictation of E->J in Anki.

You might also use these two scripts to get more out of vocab lessons. Actually, if you read some real stuff, you always get more out of vocab,

• [Userscript] Context sentence in review
• [Userscript] WaniKani External Definition from Weblio (JP) and Kanjipedia

Weblio JP uses Digital Daijirin.

[Sidcaiyar]

Thanks all, I will incorporate these into my lessons!