Hi ! I use NihongoDera - Text Analyzer to analyze texts.
And I always wondered “what do I do with this list ?”
So here is what I do:
First, I go to nihongodera and get a nice list.
白熊 (しろくま、シロクマ)
polar bear (Ursus maritimus)
カフェ (カフェ、カフェー、キャフェ、カッフェー、カッフェ)
cafe; coffeehouse
I copy the list to the clipboard.
In Excel, I’ve created two sheets, one is called “Words” and the other is called “Known”.
First step - I work with the “Words” sheet: If any words is in the “Known” sheet, I simply remove them from the “Words” sheet.
Second step - Then I read the remaining list and if I know some more words I move the row to the known sheet.
I’ve made macros (copy-pasting for the internet) to run it smoothly
In Excel, first step is simply “copy-paste”. With a special macro. (Ctrl-w) I can copy paste directly from NihongoDera.
If you don’t use NihongoDera, I’ve created a shortcut to only remove known words from the list (Ctrl-Shift-e)
Then Second step is just another macro (Ctrl-e) to move the entire row from one sheet (“Words”) to another (“Known”).
So, after some texts… your list of “Known” words will grow and the unknown “words” list will be smaller. That way you won’t have to read that big long list again and can concentrate on a shorter list…
When you have experimented with the file and you are ready to start with your own vocabulary lists, just select all words from the “Known” sheet and remove them!
PS: I don’t know how to share an Excel file on this forum so I’ve put it on GitHub
The file extension is xlsm. It requires Macros to be turned on (since it’s built upon VBA Macros…).
Right now, I’m using Excel 2007.
I really hope that someone will find it useful too.