This is probably a very basic question but I could not find anything on the forums so I apologize if this has an obvious answer.
I just started the 10k deck and I am confused about the purpose of the sentences with the vocab in context. When reviewing them, how am I supposed to know which vocab word is being targeted?
In general I think it’s more about whether you do or do not understand the sentence, but other users / the author would probably know better than me regarding the specifics of the deck.
I agree with Neicudi. It’s probably more about if you know the sentence as a whole and not the individual word.
However, as you learn the sentence card directly following the vocab, you will probably start remembering which specific word it was in regard to as it comes up in your reviews. At least in the early levels. When it comes up for review way down the line you might not remember, but at that point in time you will most likely remember what the sentence means in its entirety.
Thank you both @Neicudi @Argonaut_99. To clarify, is the answer correct when I recall meaning of the entire sentence or do I just need to know enough of it to recall the part with the targeted word?
How you use the sentence cards come down to personal preference I think.
For me, I don’t move forward unless I can read the whole sentence and understand the general meaning as a whole. Not word for word mind you. I’m happy if I think I understand what the sentence is trying to say.
If you’re early in your Japanese journey, I’d just skip all sentence cards, to be honest.
Focusing on vocab → Reading and vocab → meaning and turning off all the other options in the deck settings is the best option imo. Ask if you don’t know how to do this.
I personally am just doing the sentence cards because I already learned the vocabulary on Core 10k, so it’s more about having something to do on days I don’t SRS words from exposure.
I’m level 27 on WK (after roughly a year…) but just restarted learning grammar, haven’t done any immersion, etc., so I guess that would classify me as being in the early stages.
Are they better suited for someone who has already learned most of the vocab or is it just that they take too long at the beginning?
Sentence cards basically test you in 2 ways: one plays the audio of the sentence and the goal is to understand what’s being said, and the other is the sentence just in text and the goal is to understand what’s written.
They’re helpful to see how vocabulary is used in context, and to practice some reading/speaking skills. You can also get some training on grammar.
I don’t find them ideal to learn vocabulary, simply because after a while, you memorize the sentence more than the vocabulary itself. At your level, I wouldn’t bother with them and just do the vocabulary cards.
A layout is basically a different way of studying. For example, “Vocab Meaning” has the vocab in the front of the card, and it tests you on the meaning. I’d recommend you “Vocab Meaning” and “Vocab Reading”, so that you get tested on vocab, much like how WK works. I would deactivate the other options.
Hopefully, the gif helps understand how it works.
Thank you for the explanation. I guess at some point I will need to find a way to start doing immersion to test what I’ve learned in context but this seems like the most efficient method for now.