KiC (Kanji in Context) Experience?

Has anyone used the KiC system, and if so, what was it like? Did you find the full-sentence context helped with retention and actual usage? Did you apply your own mnemonics, since the book does not offer its own? Were you able to jump around to accommodate important kanji you see in the real world, or is the book order very important? Did you just Anki the sentences, or have another method?

I’m just finishing up Tobira and will be starting New Authentic soon, which is supposed to be used in conjunction with KiC, I think (both Japan Times). I don’t want to get into why WK isn’t really doing it for me, but needless to say, my eye is wandering.

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No one? I ordered the set to try out, but am still curious about others’ long term experiences.

I’m not the best at answering this since I’m only providing secondhand information, and I imagine you’ve already scoured around looking at other reviews for this resource. Regardless, I’ll see if I can help at least to keep the thread bumping.

If the book’s main purpose is to provide you with exposure to a wealth of vocabulary used in different situations with example sentences, then it sounds like whipping out Anki and SRS would be the way to go.

Based on this review of KiC, the author notes that they logged every sentence as an Anki card, and boy howdy it sounds like a lot. But it does sound incredibly valuable, as is WK, after sticking with it.

I have to wonder if the approach the book supposedly recommends (reading it all three times) is particularly effective over SRS. I have to admit that it sounds like reading a dictionary repeatedly over, say, a novel.

This Redditor outlined their entire Anki strategy with KiC.

At the end of the day, if there’s a system that is working and you’re able to stick with it, then I’d consider that as a success in that ever evasive Kanji mastery. :slight_smile:

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I’d read both of those reviews, and the first one in particular is probably what made me go ahead and buy it. The Reddit person is really just SRSing isolated words, which is not much different from WK. I’m more interested in the sentence approach. The thing is, I won’t know if it is really sticking until way down the road, which is why I’m curious if others have tried this.

Just took a further look locally here on these forums. Weirdly enough, searching for “Kanji in Context” here on the forums yields not too many results or ones where people just say the phrase “kanji in context”.

This is really the only impression I’ve found, and that was rather basic…

For what it’s worth, I found that kumasensei wrote that it was the primary factor from going from N2 to N1, so that’s quite good testimonial.

I hope you’ll find others that can share their wholehearted experience. For what it’s worth, it might be worthwhile to broaden your search if searching for KiC content is too specific. I recall that, Kodansha’s Kanji Learner Course also has a sentence reader as auxiliary material for their kanji textbook. It might be a good strategy to see how SRS with sentences could be helpful for you.

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I actually have the KKLC main book, but never used it very much. I might possibly look into the “readers” as well if I need more sentences. I like the fact that the KiC is specifically aimed at students who have learned up through ~N3 grammar, so that it will double as review practice of all of the grammar points I can barely keep in my head. Since I’m close to finishing Tobira, I feel like I should make an effort not to lose all of the work I just did.

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I brought it up there, but unfortunately I can’t offer any new input. Haven’t started it yet. (Maybe this is a good reminder. :smile: )

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I got the workbooks now and will starting Anki-ing sentences tomorrow. Getting through the last chapter of the Tobira grammar book today first.

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