Other resources that teach vocabulary similarly to how WK does?

[astramari]

since i recently subbed to satori reader, i’ve been poking thru Human Japanese a little bit (mixed feelings on that one as a primary resource, but that’s a tangent) and i’ll use this lesson excerpt to illustrate my complaint:

a very early lesson titled “times and seasons” drops a bunch of vocabulary relevant to the topic in tables like this, which is typical of most lessons in this resource.

when i started studying japanese earlier this year, i jumped right into WK, wanting to get a head start on getting kanji under my belt, since my main goal is being able to read.

what i’ve noticed, right away, is that WK’s method of introducing you to each of the constituent parts of compound words before teaching you the related vocabulary works phenomenally more effectively than contextless tables like these.

for example, if i already know that kon 今 means ‘now’ and shuu 週 means ‘week’, it’s obviously really easy to remember that konshuu 今週 is ‘this week’. conversely, while i could do the manual work of paying attention to patterns in tables like the above, and figure out the parts of that compound for myself, it still feels a lot more arbitrary and a lot less sticky in my head when it’s presented like that.

so, my question is, are there structured resources for learning vocabulary that follow a pattern of introducing general concepts before showing you related compounds, as in that example?

i tried a little bit of bunpro’s N5 vocab deck but it feels basically the same issue, random words shown based on frequency and simplicity but devoid of linguistic context. the first anki deck i downloaded was essentially identical. what else should i test out?

[Alonzo-xyz]

To me it sounds like you want to buy a kanji book. Many kanji books include several compounds to illustrate the readings they introduce.

I will say, I personally have experienced a little bit of a phase transition recently. Initially, knowing the kanji for something felt like a big unlock in terms of linguistic context, as you say. However, for extremely common words that are usually written in kana, I’m finding it more of a curiosity than anything particularly helpful. like, is knowing that “XによるとY” can be written “Xに拠るとY” gonna help me learn more about よる? Actually not really—although it does help me learn more about 拠

[EmmaJGray]

Not similarly to WK but I’ve explored several and what I really like is Pimsleur’s course. It provides a different way of learning, like attacking the problem from a different direction, that I find appealing. Unfortunately they don’t provide the vocab and sentences in kana so I often need to convert them which, for me, is ChatGPT.

My current WK level is only 2 but I have been as high as 13 or so. I bowed out a couple of years ago and am back and thoroughly enjoying how much more comfortable it is to study WK after studying 日本語 very diligently and daily in between.

Please don’t take that to mean that I’ve finished Pimsleur because I haven’t. I got about half way through but became aware that something about my study and/or their teaching wasn’t bridging something for me. Now, and contrary to what Dr. Pimsleur prescribed, I’m making copious notes in a journal, and creating my own stories (only for self-study exercises) to use the language and help embed it in my brain.