Continuing my adventures from my last thread, I decided to stay the course with immersion practice both with and without subtitles. I have a deck of over 700 vocab cards in Anki on top of what I’m doing in WaniKani. But I thought I’d try phasing them out and replace them with anime cards.
For several reasons, instead of using anime screenshots and sound clips, I use Google for context images and example sentences and Suzuki-kun for example sentence audio. I’ve made 15 notes so far and I have a few questions…
This is going to sound weird, but… how do I know if I’m right? With WaniKani and my other Anki deck, it’s easy: if I think of one of the English words that could be the answer, I know it. But without English on the reverse side, the threshold gets blurrier. I try to visualize the thing in my head, but when I’m translating intangible nouns like 仮設, that gets weird.
Does anyone know what this katakana is that 明鏡国語辞典 lists in some of its entries? I have the same dictionary on my tablet as well. The same katakana shows there in a 2×2 square formation like . I’ve Googled in both languages and read what I could of the dictionary’s appendices and I can’t find anything that indicates what that represents.
Should I hold off for now and/or keep adding to my Japanese → English Anki deck for the time being as well? I don’t want to overwhelm myself (which I’m probably already doing) but I’d guess that even after I complete WaniKani, I’ll need time before I can learn all my new Japanese words in Japanese.
Any advice on improving my word-adding workflow? I’m not doing this part of anime cards for several reasons: when I tried to set it up, it to be more trouble than it’s worth; I don’t get nearly enough of my vocab from anime; I don’t feel like learning new hotkeys or unlearning old ones; anime screenshots of conversations don’t often indicate what the characters are talking about; I hate firing up half a dozen programs before I even start practicing. Anime cards are quicker than what I was doing for my J→E deck, but Googling for images and example sentences still seems inefficient and unnecessarily time-consuming.
Anyway, these are all issues that I’m certain that further-along learners have faced and overcome, so I thought I’d see if I can avoid reinventing the wheel. Thanks as always!
I do the transition gradually. So, in case I know a synonym or can make a very brief description / expression in Japanese I put this as the expected meaning.
I don’t have multiple anki decks, only one. If I can make the meaning in Japanese I write it in Japanese. If not, I try to write it in English. If I can’t do that… or I think I’ll loose too much of a nuance, I write it in my mother-tongue.
So far, I use the “type the answer in” function. That’s how I know if I’m right or how close I am to the expected answer.
I also add audio files including audio files for context sentences. With this I can easily switch to an audio driven approach (Listening to the context sentence → typing the expected Japanese term). I always try to use context from the original material as it helps me to build a stronger connection with the vocab.
I’m not sure, whether this is going into the direction you’d like to get feedback on. But feel free to ask in case something caught your interest or is unclear
I leave the other points to other durtles as I have not fully understood what they are about.
I got curious and did some searching about the katakana thing and I think I found the answer?
I looked through some entries and it always seemed to be some sort of alternate spelling so it seems to be the case! I’m definitely not an expert though, maybe someone with more knowledge about it than me can shed some light on it
I tried to do that a while back but I had trouble setting it up. I should try again.
I just watched an episode of Neon Genesis Evangelion and I took your advice. I used a still and the text from the show for my context. I’ll find out whether it works!
Now that you’ve both pointed it out, it’s so obvious. I can’t believe I didn’t think of this! Well, at least I know I can pretty much ignore this until my Japanese is so good that I’m using the 広辞苑!
. I’ve Googled in both languages and read what I could of the dictionary’s appendices and I can’t find anything that indicates what that represents.
