Hey I was just wondering if any of you had any tips on recording Japanese vocab on paper. I don’t want to just write things down in no particular order so any tips containing how to structure a vocab book would be greatly appreciated!
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I personally wouldn’t recommend recording/writing down vocab on paper, unless its for learning to write. For vocab I think vocab best to be used with SRS.
How are you attaining your vocab, you can buy vocab books. I alot of people attain vocab through through there actual course book (e.g. Genki/Tae Kim). If you did it this way, then i say write down any vocab you don’t understand whilst going through a book (same with vocab books that will start introducing more and more vocab).
The other way people get vocab is by running some source of text through a fequency analyser and learning from highest used word downwards. This can be double sided.
If you want vocab based on wanikani, I think there is a core 10k in wanikani which was done by fequency years ago.
There also anki decks/and kitsun deck available for core10k and genki vocab and this should be ordered (mostly)
How about a tip from a Japanese person who tried to learn English?
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Can you clarify if you’re interested in the structure of the book as a whole (sections, chapters) or the structure of the entries (kanji, kana, meaning, part of speech)?
Your ideal case might not be the same as someone else’s so any insight you can add would be helpful.
Would strongly suggest Skritter with their WaniKani lists.
It doesn’t sound like they want to buy a book that teaches vocab. Pretty sure they just want to make a notebook with vocab and are asking for recommendations on how to do that.
Yes, I agree
I guess it’s just a foreign enough concept to me that your answer sounded to me like it was talking about a more professionally put together book.
Simply working towards understanding the original question in more detail 
I typically keep separate notebooks for everything. I have a small one I carry around with me for just jotting down words I happen to hear in everyday life, one I use for whatever book I’m currently reading that’s structured by book chapter, and so on and so forth. Unfortunately, there’s really no good way to structure it unless you’re someone who likes writing down a whole bunch of words and then going back to organize later in a separate journal, at least not that I’ve found - but this depends on where you’re living and how much Japanese you’re encountering, too. Since I live in Japan, there’s not a single day that passes where I don’t see or hear at least twenty to fifty words I don’t know, so trying to over-structure a vocab book just becomes a hassle for me.
If you are interested in just writing down a bunch of words and organizing them later, you can always try organizing by the first hiragana character of the word. So, after you amass a bunch of words, write down all the あ words, then い、う、え、お、all the way until you reach the end. You could also try this method with separate parts of speech, too. It’s more structured, but you probably won’t be able to add entries later, which is the downside. Regardless, good luck!
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That’s what I’m getting at too, yeah. But I have a structure I use for individual entries
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guess you could get a Trapper keeper notebook and rearrange by whatever classification later? i mean that sounds like far too much organizing work for my taste lol
How about a tip from a Japanese person who tried to learn English?
This is brilliant! Thanks for posting it. Some great ideas I’ll try out myself.
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