Does the N3 deck include N4 vocabulary words?

Hello!

Nice to meet you all! I hope this question is in the right place.

I’m just starting kitsun to study vocabulary for N3. I was wondering if it would be beneficial for me to study the N4 and N3 vocabulary decks? Like is there a crossover between the two?

Also about the 10k deck… it seems cool but it’s so big and I’m a bit worried about tackling it lol. Would you guys suggest it for studying? Also if so, how do you exclude stuff? I’m level 32 on wani kani and have some kanji/vocabulary knowledge, so I guess I’m wondering where to start with it all.

I love the style of kitsun though! I’m excited to be here haha.

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Welcome to Kitsun!

While you can expect N4 vocabulary to be mixed in with N3 vocabulary on the JLPT tests (it’s cumulative after all), the decks should have no overlap, aside from when it might want to teach you a different definition of the same word.

So perhaps you could just take a look at the cards management page of the N4 deck, scroll through it and check if you encounter words you don’t know yet? You could hibernate (suspend) every card except the ones you don’t know if you already feel confident about those :smiley:

Regarding the 10k deck, I think it’s just a matter of going for it and not thinking about having to reach the end, but rather just making sure you consistently chip away at it :smiley:

As the 10k deck is tagged with WK levels you can hibernate those cards by filtering on (level) tags at the cards management page.

I think it’s also sorted by wk level, but I’m not sure about that.

Perhaps @jprspereira has some more tips for you as he went through pretty much the whole deck already ^^

Thanks for the compliment and glad to have you around! :smile:

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I don’t think the deck is tagged by Wanikani levels but by Wanikani. So OP can only hibernate the cards on Wanikani.


I completely agree with this. I think of it as a place to go and learn common words. No need to speed through it or think how further away you are from finishing it. I think the 10000 words on this deck are a very good foundation to becoming an advanced learner of Japanese. So in the same way that one thinks that learning Japanese is a long journey, this deck is also for the long journey, so to speak.

About hibernating cards, if you’re really not willing to do lessons for those words, you can search for the tag “WK” and hibernate those cards. My take on it was going card by card and hibernating those I’d find unnecessary to learn. Sometimes, Wanikani skips important definitions for vocabulary that this deck will have. So in a way, learning the extra meanings by doing the lesson for those cards is relevant.


I also think it’s useful to understand a bit better how the Core 10k is built. If you go to deck settings and open the Layout Filtering section, you’ll see this:

image

These are all the several ways that the content from this deck can be studied:

  • Vocab Recognition - Input card; the audio of the vocab is played and the goal is for you to understand what it says - listening practice.

  • Vocab Recall - Input card, the English meanings are displayed and you have to recall the Japanese word that it refers to.

  • Vocab Comprehension - Input card, the word is displayed and you have to type its meaning.

  • Vocab Reading - Input card; the vocab is displayed and you have to type the correct reading of the kanji vocab.

  • Sentence Comprehension - Flip card; the example sentence displays in front of you and the goal is for you to be able to read it and comprehend what it says - reading practice

  • Sentence Recognition - Flip card; the audio of the example sentences is played and the goal is for you to understand what’s said - listening practice.

What I initially did was vocab recall, vocab comprehension and vocab reading. Nowadays, I’m purely doing the sentence cards (Sentence Comprehension and Sentence Recognition).

I think that the approach one should take depends on their level of Japanese. As a general approach, if your vocab and kanji level is under N3/N2, I think one should use these layouts:

  • Vocab Comprehension
  • Vocab Reading

This will allow you to recognize the words when seen through text.

If one is around N2 and above level and knows most words in this deck, focusing on these 2 would be preferable:

  • Sentence Comprehension - Great for reading practice.
  • Sentence Recognition - Great for listening practice.

The thing with sentence cards is that you’re not only reviewing words with extra context, but you’re also reviewing several cards in 1 go, making it more efficient than reviewing word by word.

Hope this helps understand a bit better how the deck is structured :slight_smile: Let me/us know if you have more questions :grin: We’re here to help.

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Thank you!!! Kitsun has been on my radar for a while, but I finally decided to take the plunge and give it a shot.

I’ll work on both the N4 and N3 decks then :slight_smile: Thank you!!

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Thank you so much for this detailed breakdown of how to use this deck, wow! This is super helpful.

I didn’t realize I could do so much on this site! I’m working towards N3, but the fact that I can work on listening comprehension is awesome.

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You’re welcome! Sorry about the confusion above, seems like I confused it with other decks where the cards are tagged with the WK levels specifically.

If you want to train listening comprehension more, you might also be interested in the Subs2Kitsun feature (can be found through the sidemenu). You can drop video and subtitle files in there and automatically record audio + sentences and generate cards from your fav movies/shows. Something to keep in mind for later maybe! :smiley:

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