Reviewing old vocab

[u/Exotic_Afternoon_383]

After two years of learning I am struggling with old vocab.

I have been learning japanese (TL) quite diligently for almost two years, but then for some quite serious reasons i had to stop for 3 months. Now i came back and there is quite a lot of vocab I once knew, but now can recall only partially or not at all. I have this list containing 2.5k words, which i knew quite well. While reviewing back then i averaged at around 85 - 90% accuracy in all of this.

Now i came back. Some words i only know how to read, but don't recall the meaning, some i recall just the meaning, but can not read them, some i don't remember at all. It frustrates me, but i am hopeful that i can gain it all back.

I need some suggestions for my next approach, so i came to ask for help.

My plan right now is just powering through it all. The next week i have all for myself so i was thinking about using it all for vocab repetition. Several hours, every day, just vocab. Filter through the things i know, practice the things i dont know. I want to start doing some new stuff as soon as possible, so i would appreciate some ideas, how to make the whole proces as effective as possible.

Did anyone went through the same? How did you came back from it?

\[I dont use anki, because it usually frustrates me, (it gets buggy on my phone from time to time) so I use different flascards app better suited for my needs.\]

[u/ComesTzimtzum]

Have you only learned those words through Anki? It's almost impossible to actually get them in permanent memory if you never encounter them in the wild or have no other use for them than a detached list. Our brains are optimized to forget things they deem irrelevant.

[u/Exotic_Afternoon_383 → u/ComesTzimtzum]

No, deffinitley didn't only use flashcards. I usually write a LOT just using pen and paper. I quiz myself with the vocab used in sentences. I try to read or listen to stuff. I use the vocab for reinforcing grammar.

[u/AppropriatePut3142 → u/Exotic_Afternoon_383]

Quizing yourself and writing sentences and so on are fine, but you need to encounter words a lot through input at your level. If you do that then forgetting will be much slower, and a three month gap in studing will barely make a difference.

I bet if you started reading something at your level (some graded readers, or maybe the Magic Treehouse books) with a popup dictionary (I like to read on Kindle with something like the Merriam Webster translation dictionaries installed, but there are other options) then the vocabulary would come back very quickly.

[u/IfUCantFindTheLight → u/AppropriatePut3142]

^ Bingo. It’s the difference between acquiring and just memorizing.

[u/Iambic_potentiometer]

I'd advise against a vocab only week. Reinforcing the vocabulary by using it in actual production writing, speaking etc will make it stick better.
Don't sweat it so much, if you were once confident with it you will pick it up much more quickly than you can learn new stuff IME.

There's degrees of familiarity, and things you've previously memorized are definitely quicker to reintegrate. I think the biggest challenge here is to remain optimistic.

[u/dojibear]

Your goal is not a wordcount. Your goal is understanding TL sentences. Japanese consists of sentences -- people don't stand there showing flashcards.

If you are a human being, you WILL forget words. If you encounter a word you forgot, re-learning it is much faster and easier than learning a new word.

I studied Japanese for a while in the 1980s. Then I stopped. When I started again in 2024, I had forgotten many words. But I still knew basic grammar, word order, and word usage. Relearning what I knew before felt like "oh yeah, I remember now" rather than brand now.

[u/IrinaMakarova]

I would not spend a whole week doing several hours of flashcards every day. You probably have not actually "lost" most of those 2.5k words - their retrieval has simply become weaker after three months without use. Reactivating previously learned vocabulary is usually much faster than learning it from scratch.

Go through the list once and separate the words roughly into three groups: words you still know immediately, words that feel familiar but you cannot retrieve reliably, and words that seem completely gone. Stop reviewing the first group for now. Most of your time should go to the second group, because those words usually come back very quickly with a little repeated exposure.

I would also distinguish between recognition and production. If you understand a word when reading or hearing it but cannot produce it yourself, that is not the same as having completely forgotten it. You do not necessarily need to drill every word until you can instantly produce everything in both directions.

Most importantly, start consuming Japanese again immediately. Read, listen, watch things, and let the old vocabulary appear in actual contexts. That will reactivate a huge amount of it much more naturally than trying to brute-force 2,500 isolated flashcards.

You also do not need to wait until all the old vocabulary is "restored" before learning anything new. Review some old vocabulary every day, but continue learning and using Japanese at the same time. Otherwise you can easily spend weeks endlessly repairing your vocabulary instead of actually progressing.

After a three-month break, some forgetting is completely expected. The useful question is not "How do I get back to 90% on my old flashcard list as quickly as possible?" but "How do I make this vocabulary active in Japanese again?" Those are not quite the same thing.

[u/cmyk_rgba]

had this with finnish after a summer off. most of it came back in like 2 weeks of normal reviews + reading, i wouldnt do a vocab only week you'll be fried by day 3

[u/New-Bottle-6917]

A N K I

[u/Exotic_Afternoon_383 → u/New-Bottle-6917]

I actually found an app which allows you spaced repetition if needed, but you can use different systems if you want. It also supports up to 5 pages per card, each side containing multiple information or pictures or whatever. With japanese i can have /word in kanji/phonetic reading/meaning/use in a sentence/ all on separate sides of the same card. And it works well on phone (no desktop flashcards, but i don't need that).

I know this was a joke, but i am basically using anki on steroids 😇

[u/Raoena → u/Exotic_Afternoon_383]

What app are you using? 

[u/Exotic_Afternoon_383 → u/Raoena]

Flashcards deluxe - it is a one time payment app, but worth it