Link

Linked above is the thing I’m making in Notion to help me and hopefully other people find videos that they can sentence mine easily.

I first came across the idea of sentence mining when I read a blog called AJATT (all japanese all the time). Maybe I don’t remember every detail, but the basic idea was to put sentences from your immersion content (books, games, online articles, … ) in a spaced repetition system like Anki for review.

These sentences should contain 1 unknown word or grammar point you want to learn. This way, you review words that are relevant to you (because they come from content you like) and by reviewing them in full sentences you’ll learn them in context (instead of learning single words in isolation).

(This is just a short summary in my own words. If you want to learn more about sentence mining you can find more information on AJATT but also on Refold. There are also lots of videos on YouTube.)

I liked the idea and was very motivated to try it out — several times.

I added sentences with one unknown word from content I've read. In the beginning I was very motivated. But somehow after a few weeks creating and reviewing cards felt more and more meaningless and tedious. I didn’t know where these feelings came from. I enjoyed reading books in Japanese, but somehow I didn’t enjoy reviewing sentences from these books in Anki.

Sentence mining sounds great in theory but after trying it out I came across some difficulties:

Reading on the computer makes card creation very easy thanks to Yomichan. But since most of my favorite reading material is physical Yomichan doesn’t help much. This makes copying sentences more time consuming.

I’m working full-time so my free time is very limited. Creating and reviewing cards takes time. Using sentence mining means in my case that there's much less time left for reading & listening.

I struggled to find good sentences that fulfill the conditions. Often sentences were long and contained more than one unknown word. And even when I’ve found a sentence with one unknown word it was not always a sentence that provided enough context. When you read words in the full context of a story, you have much more information that are connected to this word (situation, who is talking to whom, what happens before and after this sentence, ... ). That's why sometimes one sentence is not enough.

Reviewing cards felt meaningless after a while. I was not happy with the sentences I collected. Although they were from content I liked, I didn't enjoy reviewing them. Some of them didn't provided enough context. I also started to ask myself why I review these sentences. Some words come up often enough in the books I read so it’s not necessary to put them into Anki (natural SRS). Other words are rather rare or are only important in certain books so that it’s not a big deal to look them up when they come up once in awhile. That’s why I started to ask myself "Why using sentence mining at all?“.

Please don't get me wrong, I'm not against Anki or sentence mining. I just describe what I experienced. Anki does work, it's just that these feelings and doubts made it very difficult for me to use sentence mining longer than a few weeks.

After trying sentence mining several times I gave up. I wondered how some people are able to use sentence mining for several years and create and review thousands of cards during this time — while still reading and listening a lot to Japanese content.

Since then I mostly read extensively and look up words that seem important or come up several times. I don't review them seperately. I don’t have much time for Japanese but this way I enjoy every minute.

I still like the idea of sentence mining, though. I often think that my vocabulary would improve faster if I would use Anki. I really wish I would like using Anki as much as other people do. But for the reasons I described above I would really have to force myself. After a long working day, I don’t want to spend my little free time with something that drains my energy even more. :(

I really would like to find a way that makes it easier for me to use sentence mining over a long period of time but I have no idea how. I tried different ways of sentence mining in the past, but the result was always the same.

Hello Japanese language learning friends and media enthusiasts! It's time to dive into my favorite guides, resources, and tools to get the perfect Japanese language immersion learning setup. All for free!

It is never too early and never too late for you to start consuming native Japanese media. Whether you're a complete beginner, stuck in the intermediate plateau, or an advanced Japanese language learner looking to improve, you are bound to find something useful in this list. These are guides and tools that I have tried and tested, and I plan to add on to this list when I encounter something new and good.

ANKI: The Ultimate Spaced Repetition System

Let's just say that if I had never discovered Anki, I would still be having the worst time of my life trying to memorize vocabulary using paper flashcards, writing them repeatedly, and eventually just forgetting them anyway. With Anki, I have thousands of vocabulary and grammar flashcards from the media I've consumed - also known as sentence mining - with native audio, context sentence, and images.

Even if I complain about Anki sometimes, it has fast tracked my learning so much that I will never go back to whatever I was doing before. I would highly recommend starting Anki at twenty new cards a day (never more!), and be familiar with 600 new vocabulary in a month. That's 7,300 words a year all on one application.

If you're a complete beginner and don't know how to sentence mine yet, there are vocabulary decks (Tango N5 and N4 and Core 2.3k VN Deck) from TheMoeWay that you can use to start.

ANKI SETUP GUIDE: Animecards/Vocabulary Cards

Speaking of adding words to Anki, I recently switched to vocabulary cards or anime cards and it has been better for my recognition in the wild, and my time in Anki has been reduced to less than half the time I used to spend using sentence cards even when I have 300 reviews for the day. Check this Anki setup for animecards to start your sentence mining journey.

YOMICHAN: The Best Dictionary Browser Extension

Read anything Japanese on your browser with Yomichan as your dictionary extension and instantly add words you don't know to Anki with a few clicks. Check this guide to setup Ankiconnect and Yomichan. I also recommend setting up Yomichan on KiwiBrowser on your mobile so you can read and lookup words on your html or epub on the go with Ttu's Reader.

MONOLINGUAL DICTIONARIES: TheMoeWay's Monolingual Transition and the Best Dictionaries for Yomichan

Of course, you can't use Yomichan without a good set of dictionaries. Boost your Japanese comprehension in both vocabulary and grammar with monolingual dictionaries. All of my Anki cards have monolingual definitions on them, and my lookups while reading (save for common nouns, technical terms, etc.) are monolingual.

TheMoeWay has the best compilation of resources and dictionaries out there and it is constantly updated. My most used dictionaries are 大辞林 第三版, 新明解国語辞典 第五版, and 旺文社国語辞典 第十一版 since I found that they are the most comprehensive and easiest to understand.

ViSUAL NOVEL GUIDES: Easy Setup Guides to Reading Japanese Visual Novels

I learned how to setup Visual Novels through theMoeWay while the animecards site walks you through how to sentence mine from them for Anki, which makes use of programs like Textractor and ShareX. These guides are extensive and may seem complicated at first glance, but since it helps you read raw text and make cards that come with the target word, context sentence, image, and audio if available, they are not only high quality, but also makes reading easy and fun even for beginners!

GRAMMAR

Tae Kim's Grammar Guide - Read through this and get a decent grasp of grammar from basic to advanced

Cure Dolly - I haven't watched every video robotic voice rip but I did learn a lot from the few that I have

Dictionary of Japanese Grammar Series - Not free unless you read TheMoeWay then it totally is and comes with an Anki deck too but a very good textbook reference to most if not all grammar points that exist.

Yomichan with Monolingual Dictionaries - probably the best way to learn grammar but may be intimidating for a lot of people

DISCORD COMMUNITY

TheMoeWay has a language learning Discord that I spend too much time in that has a ton of resources shared daily, monthly reading challenges, anime and movie streams, and pretty sweet immersion leaderboards to help gamify the process of language learning.

I highly recommend reading the site thoroughly before joining the Discord especially the resources page, since it provides you with a lot of information on how to learn Japanese at all levels, and it overall offers good advice on language learning through immersion.

I go by meimae there as well. Come say hi!

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The word “filipendulous” is a relatively obscure word with a unique and interesting history. It comes from the Latin “filum” meaning “thread” and “pendere” meaning “to hang,” thus literally meaning “hanging by a thread.” In other words, it is used to describe something that is precariously suspended or in danger of falling.

One of the most common uses of the word is in a figurative sense, to describe a situation or relationship that is unstable or uncertain. For example, one might say that a political alliance is “filipendulous” if it is hanging by a thread and in danger of falling apart. The word is also often used in the sense of something that is in danger of collapse, like a bridge that is “filipendulous”, meaning it’s hanging by a thin thread of holding on, it could collapse at any time.

The word can also be used literally, as in describing a physical object that is literally hanging by a thread or wire. For instance, a trapeze artist performing a trick could be said to be “filipendulous” if they are hanging by a single rope or cable.

Humorously speaking, one could use the word “filipendulous” to describe a situation that is unlikely or absurd. For example, a humorous sentence could be something like this : “Draluc the rhinosaurus was feeling quite filipendulous about his new balancing act, where he hangs by a single thread from the top of the jungle gym, while eating his favorite leaves”

All in all, “filipendulous” is an interesting and versatile word that can be used in a variety of contexts to describe something that is precariously suspended or in danger of collapse. It’s etymology, which comes from latin roots, adds an extra layer of meaning and color to the word, that make it stand out from other synonyms.

New series! I haven’t found any way to get myself to work on this blog lately, as the idea of talking about grammar is honestly almost terrifying to me haha. I hate grammar and I’m not particularly good at it, so I’m gonna be focusing on vocabulary and practical posts. I compiled a few sentences related to online ordering, from real emails I’ve received myself, so you have 100% authentic examples! I’ll pick out some problematic/useful vocabulary and sentence structures from these phrases too. Don’t fret about being lost, this is formal language and not the way we speak in everyday life!

Nous vous remercions de votre commande, dont vous trouverez ci-dessous le récapitulatif.

Thank you for your order, whose summary you can find below.

Vous pouvez retrouver le détail de votre commande dans votre espace client ou dans votre application XXX.

You can see the details of your order on your account or in your XXX app.

Votre commande sera traitée le plus rapidement possible.

Your order will be processed as soon as possible.

Nous avons bien reçu le paiement de votre commande et votre commande est en cours de préparation.

We have received payment for your order, and your order is being prepared.

Veuillez trouver en pièce jointe votre facture d’achat. Conservez précieusement ce document, il fait office de garantie.

Please find attached your purchase invoice. Keep this document safely, as it serves as a guarantee.

Votre colis a été envoyé. Voici le numéro de suivi : XXX

Your package has been sent. Here is the tracking number: XXX

Le colis N°XXX expédié/confié par XXX est parti en livraison et vous sera livré aujourd’hui.

The parcel n°XXX sent/entrusted by XXX has left for delivery and will be delivered to you today.

Vous avez choisi une livraison dans un point de retrait.

You have chosen a delivery to a pick-up location.

Nous vous adresserons un mail dès que votre colis sera disponible et nous vous invitons à attendre ce second message afin d’éviter tout déplacement inutile.

We will send you an email as soon as your parcel is available and we invite you to wait for this second message to avoid any unnecessary travel.

Vocabulary:

remercier [qqn] de + V/N: to thank [sb] for V/noun

dont: whose, of which/whom...

espace client: customer area/”Your account” section. The part of the website where you can find your personal customer information.

bien: commonly translated as “well” but here, it’s used with a passé composé to insist on the fact that the action has, indeed, been completed successfully. Like you’d use “do” in English (We did send your package). This use of bien is pretty common.

en cours de + N: in the process of... 

Veuillez...: 2nd person plural of the verb “vouloir” (to want), but it’s used as a means of saying “please...” in formal (and mostly written) language. E.g.: Veuillez 

faire office de: to serve as

Il vous sera livré: pronoun order is pretty hard to understand, but all you have to remember here is that with compound tenses, object pronouns go before the auxiliary verb. See this article for more on this topic (this website seems excellent for French grammar)

So you could, for example, watch a show you want to sentence mine, type/paste the sentences you look up into Pleco clipboard. Then after the show, just go through and highlight the sentences and make them into flashcards. You can paste translations in from Baidu Translate/your translator or write your own.

Working with a webnovel would be even easier: read the novel in Pleco Reader, highlight a sentence you want to mine (that you’ve probably just clicked to figure out the definitions of the words for), add it as a flashcard and type in the translation/your notes real quick. It would only take a few seconds longer than adding a regular 1-word flashcard while reading in the Reader.

I just created a Sentence Mining deck in Pleco app to put these kinds of flashcards I make, since they rely less on Pleco’s automatically given definitions (since that works better on words and chengyu). 

Hi!

Always, always, choose immersion over Anki, in this case, more listening material. Just pick out some anime, drama, tv shows, audiobooks, podcasts, and YouTube channels you like and listen to those. You will improve over time, I assure you.

If you want some easy listening material, I always recommend condensed audio - you can find a bunch in this site under Condensed Audio:

If you were planning on using the audio deck to practice hearing pitch better, I recommend practicing with this site instead of Anki, then continue immersing more to hear them better.

Alternatively, if you really want an audio deck (and I'm going to assume that you have the basic vocabulary card setup with Yomichan that already comes with audio), then you can just take your existing cards (or duplicate them) and convert them into audio cards by going into Cards in the Anki Browser, and instead of having the Word or Sentence in the Front Template, have the Audio field in Front instead. That's the easiest way to turn your cards into audio cards that I know of.

I’d use the sentences tab in Pleco dictionary app, and pick a sentence from the list for the new word I’m studying. (If I wanted to exclusively use the Pleco flashcard system, I’m fairly sure Pleco let’s you make sentences into flashcards IF the sentence was from the sentence section of the dictionary entry). This would also work for grammar points if you look up the word involved in the grammar structure, find an example sentence of the grammar structure being used, and add that to your flashcard deck. (The benefit of doing this all within Pleco - your flashcards have the Chinese, English, tones labeled by color, audio already. You do not have to manually enter any of that information, and you can also quickly look up the dictionary entry for review when desired.) Also, if doing all your srs review in Pleco, I would recommend looking up “Pleco’s srs settings” on google and following one of the guides people have made, in order to make sure your flashcard deck is the most helpful to you.

I’d use a grammar guide like AllSetLearning’s Chinese Wiki (but any would work) and take grammar examples from there to make cards for new grammar points I’m studying.

Finally, I might add some sentences from dramas or novels I’m reading.

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Alternatively, the premade decks approach:

Use the app Clozemaster and use it’s sentences as a substitute for new-word sentence mining.