Im not really predicting which words will be in my passive and active vocabulary. Its more that WK is not primarily a vocabulary learning program so my assessment of a word’s value is based on this premise. In general, I learn a vocabulary word if I come across it in an article/manga/anime etc more than once, or I think (for me) it will be useful at some point. That being said, I obviously miss words that would otherwise be useful, but I just learn them when they come up again anyway. When I see WK vocabulary, I see it more as an interesting association rather than an item to remember because I cant learn the words out of context - most of the provided sentences dont do it for me, though some are quite good and so I mine those. Even when I find a word in WK that I like, I look the word up from another source anyway.
As for medical terminology, I make every effort to learn as much of them as I can because, as LucasDesu stated, I use them on a daily basis, especially right now where I am talking to other Japanese medical students all day.
And yet the single largest group of items on this site is vocabulary.
I don’t really care what you do, but I’d prefer other people aren’t fooled by this stupidity. The vast vast vast majority of the words on this site are useful if your goal is to sound like an intelligent adult. If not, then just go learn パンチラ or whatever words you think are “useful.”
Calm down. I said that its not for everyone and that it was just my method.
This “stupidity” you talk of is not how you naturally learn, and it never has been. Of course vocabulary makes up a huge section of this site - theres more vocabulary than there is Kanji. The vocabulary on this site, as stated by the site creators themselves, is focused on consolidating your kanji knowledge and not to teach you new words. If you are getting your vocabulary from other, contextual based sources then I dont see what the problem is?
Again, to reiterate this is my method and you dont have to do it this way. I study full time and dont have time to waste on remember vocab lists and id rather learn them in context. If WK’s vocabulary suits you then go for it.
If a method was good, it’d be good for everyone. Saying “It’s not for everyone” is the equivalent of saying “I’m not racist, but…” Unless of course you’re not actually human and a sentient rat who decided to learn Japanese. But I’m a rat racist so in that case I don’t want to talk to you and you should go back to your hole in the wall.
@patjennings24 That’s super useful, I just used it 3 times in the last five minutes. I don’t know, here’s an interesting word: 蝕む
Really? So then, by your definition SRS is not good right? There are plenty of people who don’t like SRS systems and equally as many people are who are fluent in japanese who have not used SRS. To that end, every method of ‘studying’ is also not ‘good’ because no one method works for everyone and you’re kidding yourself if you think otherwise.
If someone’s method of studying challenges your own method, it does not make it any less effective. I did not say my method was good, nor did I say your method was bad. But, you’re entitled to your opinion and if you think its a bad way of learning, thats okay
But the senior doctors speak pretty decent English. They are often required to attend conferences and teach in English so it hasnt been too bad in terms of learning The students arent too bad either, but we end up communicating in english and Japanese!
Awesome!!! I guess random chance led to that find then, but still pretty neat. Just to check, I think I get the rough idea of what they are saying but are they suggesting these words are more common in writing than speaking??
I think that you need n1 to be a able to practice as a doctor, but not an n1 to study medicine. I believe there are foreign exchange programs you can attend where you can simultaneously learn Japanese and medicine at the same time, which may be what the poster is referring to.
Anyways, about the post, are you sure that you are learning kanji fastest this way? Unless you run into the specific kanji you see that level in the wild, I would think that after about a week of not looking at the kanji you would forget it. Not just that, but you wouldn’t really be able to know all the readings by just memorizing the kanji portion.
Unless you are searching for reading material using that specific level’s kanji, you really would not be practicing it at all. In which case, why bother with WaniKani? Why not just use the radicals you know thus far to learn kanji on the fly? Seems like you are wasting time at a step either way.
Also, there are example sentences that allow you to see the word in context. That and/or searching the word online should give you some idea of WaniKani’s vocabulary in context.
Not trying to berate you, just wondering if this is the right method for you.
I had thought of this previously and at the moment I am considering ditching WK to switch to RTK to learn the rest asap. The only think stopping me is that I may bite off more than I can chew. However, for the purposes of this last year WK suited my schedule. I use Anki for both medical studies and sentence mining, so WK is a nice change albeit only superficially.
In terms of forgetting the Kanji, remember that the bulk of my study is not WK but Anki where I am actively looking for sentences. Every Kanji I have learned so far appears in at least one sentence in my anki decks, more often than not appearing multiple times so I dont actually forget them that easily. If i come across a new reading or one that I dont know, I just add another sentence. Remember that I do often use WK’s vocabulary as well, I just dont study it inside WaniKani because the sentence that it provides is often not what im looking for (if you know AJATT, im talking about i+1). In that case, I find the word in a sentence that suits me and study that word inside Anki.
I realise this is a round about way to do it, but when I put in the vocab into wanikani, i not only add the sentence with the word, but japanese definitions as well as an audio of the sentence being read. The result is the same, but for me, I have a deeper understanding of the word at the end of it.
It doesn’t say they’re more common in writing, only that they rarely hear them, also it has a bad 語呂 to it, a bad ring to it. It doesn’t suggest they’re literary but my guess is that’s the only place you’d see them.
Congrats!! Seems like quite a ride you have had with your japanese during this year.
I’ve just finished reading the post and replies. I see you have done some customizing to your WK method … same here.
I’m in a position that I eventually see myself spending some months in Japan with the excuse of clinical/surgery related rotation. No time constriction, maybe in a year or two, according to my level of japanese and the possibilities that could arise by then.
Can you think of any good resource for sentence mining to get some medical vocab, as well as surgical vocab (ENT-HNS oriented )
There are plenty of Hospital dramas on Japanese TV. But I would like to point out, I consider myself reasonably competent in Japanese, but surgery scenes in those shows sound almost like gibberish to me. Actually working in a hospital would basically require learning an entirely separate language once you’ve “completed” normal Japanese.
Hi, I’ve actually started with one of those dramas (医師たちの恋愛事情) … but you know, there are the ER, Scrubs and the Grace Anatomy’s dramas… very different level (some more romance oriented… and then some are quite realistic… “ish” … up to some level anyway.
Me going to Japan and actually spending time in a hospital it’s a long time proyect. So I would like to start learning vocab little by little, as I gain all the rest of the vocab, since the most common vocab list (2k, 6k or longer) doesn’t sometime contain the most common vocab for my everyday activities (how do you say earwax in japanese by the way ? ).
By the way any good hospital drama that I’m missing?? Is there a japanese Dexter ??? Would love such a thing!!
There was one about Maternity and Neonatal care that I liked but can’t remember for the life of me. According to my dictionary 耳垢（みみあか) is earwax. Also you’re right the Core decks will contain many of the most common, but sometimes it’s hard to tell which is the medical word, such as 肌 / 皮膚 and 足首 / くるぶし
Also in a serious note, there might be some MEXT scholarships related.
(just learned 黄ばむ recently. I wonder if there is a set of verbs like this)
… same here.
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