warning: LOTS OF yapping because this is something i am quite passionate on
Introduction
Today marks my 1 year anniversary since starting Anki! Last year holidays I got into a Japanese grinding grindset (I told myself I would get an A that year - didnโt turn out so great!) and initially started to review the basic vocabulary required for school and WACE. It was a year of ups and downs, where every day was a struggle to open this app and finish the deck, (many days I didnโt). This covers my journey of starting Anki and my plans moving forward for Japanese (and other subjects)
Journey
I initially started to review the basic vocabulary required for school and WACE as Iโve always found myself weak vocabulary wise. I just imported all the Education Perfect words onto one deck, and started doing 10-20 new cards a day, and focusing on doing my reviews. The cards were VERY simple, and at that time, I had a back and front card, because I believed that recognition and output is different. It is incredibly hilarious to look back at myself a year ago, making many mistakes, and exclusively using the Again/Easy instead of Again/Good!
Eventually, I finished the deck, and my reviews lessened, as did my time spent on Anki. At the red line, I began losing motivation to even do this, as after all, I already know most of the Year 11 Vocabulary by now!
Eventually, I stopped reviews for my โvocabโ deck entirely, and started on the 2nd of October, a โCore 2k/6k Deckโ to take in as much Japanese words as I can. I was also introduced to a YouTuber by the name of โLivakiviโ around this timeโฆ
This eventually would serve as the catalyst to my Japanese study, as I delved into the rabbit hole.
I did many optimisations to improve my Japanese study. The biggest change was that I FINALLY switched to Again/Good, and used the Migaku addon to stop Ease Hell (later changed because of FSRS, but ill talk about that later). I kind of shot myself at the start by using Easy so often, but I hope that it didnโt do that much of damage, as I can just use sentence mining to re-aquire long forgotten words.
I also learnt about Sentence Mining - This is basically the concept of getting so much input, and โMiningโ the โVocabโ you donโt know from โSentencesโ you find in vocabulary and anime, to continually improve and test your comprehension. The one drawback is that this does not provide the necessary output practice required for WACE, and this is mainly because the โRefold Communityโ (as ive named it) heavily favours output AFTER you get a good grasp of input and what is inherently wrong or right, as that is the time you are able to correct yourself on mistakes you make, instead of forming life-long habits. I donโt have a solution for this-yet. I also donโt do as much input as I am supposed to-I believe the ideal ratio is 80% Input: 20% Vocab but currently I am 80% Vocab: 20% Input. This will continue for now as I deal with the abundance of reviews after switching to FSRS.
I have changed to the FSRS algorithm very recently, as it promises less reviews for higher retention. I also have developed a problem of looking and judging cards too fast, due to the requirement of high reviews during my Again/Easy phase (there is no punishment for getting it wrong then, whilst if you press Again on new cards, you have to press Good twice to pass it.) However, I also converted my cards into FSRS scheduled cards, and this gave me 600+ old cards I have to slowly get through before โresettingโ my schedule. How fun!
Anyways, that is all I can think about! I might update this article if I think of anything and to complete some sections but thatโs it for my journey,,, so far <3
Lessons
Future
More Stats (fun!)
So, how many words do I know now? After 83+ hours of Japanese study throughout 365 days, how many words did I learn?
Keep in mind that I installed this extension only very recently (a week or so ago), so the retention may not be fully accurate. HOWEVER, assuming I retain 92.55% of all my cards, I know ~2544 cards fully, and am familiar with 2749 cards. However, there are A LOT of recaps, as I use the 1) Core 6k, 2) WACE Vocab, 3) Sentence Mined, so some cards may appear up to 3 times in the deck. I would estimate I know ~2000 words though.
That is about 30words/hour or about 0.5words/minute! If I were to increase my time dedicated to Anki to 200 hours in 2024, Iโd learn 6000 new words!
In the grand scope of things, this isnโt much at all. But, Iโm quite happy with what Iโve achieved and that I can say that I can comprehend basically 85% of Japanese
However, I donโt think that this is somewhere I should stop. It is incredibly appealing that, although there are diminishing returns, I can understand 99% of Japanese, which is where I set my long term goal to be 20,000 words.