New example sentences for level 1 words

Thank you yet again for your comments and email! Special thanks to Michèle for typo reports.

In this post, I will continue on the topic of “content”, that is, the words, translations and examples that constitute Speedanki’s heart. Last time I discussed word lists, so this time I will focus on the examples. Speedanki stands out among different Japanese flashcard systems for having a great set of example sentences, designed by a native speaker. Examples are extremely important in memorising vocabulary. The example attached to each card can be seen as having three purposes:

1. to help memorise the word;
2. to show how the word is used in context; and
3. to form a connection to one or more other cards that share the same example, further assisting in memorisation.

You could ask why every card only has one example sentence. Multiple examples would surely be beneficial in understanding how the word is used in context. But the primary objective of Speedanki is to help in memorisation. For that purpose, a single, well-crafted, memorable example is most valuable. Details regarding the uses and nuances of words are best learnt through reading and conversation. My experience is that once you have memorised new vocabulary through Speedanki, you then begin to notice that vocabulary everywhere, even though previously you didn’t even know it existed.

However, the Speedanki example base is not perfect. As students of level 1 vocabulary have noticed, many JLPT level 1 words are missing the example sentence. This is an issue that I and Péter spent some time thinking how to solve. We also got some suggestions from you.

One potential solution would be to enable users to submit example sentences. These examples could then be commented upon, rated, voted and so on. This approach is used by, for example, the very nice Japanese Grammar Database JGram.

However, I don’t think this approach would be optimal for Speedanki. Instead of one carefully crafted sentence for each word, you would get anything from zero to 20, with varying levels of correctness and pedagogic value. People like us who are still learning Japanese are not really the best people to assess and vote on the validity of the submissions. As a result, you couldn’t really trust the examples to be correct and natural.

I think the best way to go for Speedanki is to get more sentences from native Japanese speakers, ideally with some pedagogic ability. This way, the examples are correct and represent real, natural Japanese, as opposed to something copied from a manga or a movie. Constructing such sentences can be surprisingly hard work, but fortunately a qualified friend of mine is willing to help. Thus I present you, new example sentences for about 50 level 1 words that previously did not carry an example, online now!

I’ll try to entice my friend to make more soon, but to be honest, I expect it will be some time before each and every card has an example. Fortunately, it looks like I will actually be moving back to Tokyo next month, which will hopefully speed up the process. For those who are interested, I will be working as a post-doctoral researcher at the Interfaculty Initiative in Information Studies, University of Tokyo.

Finally, for Ken, who found he couldn’t understand many of the words in the example sentences without looking them up, don’t worry, that’s normal. It wouldn’t hurt to add yomigana to the examples, perhaps we’ll be able to add those in the future. Meanwhile, using rikaichan accomplishes basically the same thing.

That’s all for now. 勉強頑張りましょう！