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3,000 words is barely a start! You need much more vocabulary than that to get to a very functional level. You absolutely don't need Anki to learn that many words (which your comment originally claimed before you edited it). FWIW, I still couldn't comfortably read Chinese when I had 3,000 characters and closer to 25,000 words under my belt. That said, I think using Anki as a scaffold for the first few thousand words is reasonable. After even 1k, I'd advise getting graded readers which are easy enough for you that you know 97-99% of the words and read 50 pages a day. It will probably take you under 90 minutes since it's easy enough that you're actually reading instead of decoding. Progress might seem slow at first, but you'll be building a solid base with all that input and reinforcing previously learned words in many, many contexts. You'll also be getting collocations, history, shared cultural beliefs, etc. As your vocabulary builds, you can also start listening to radio or podcasts. They're less forgiving due to moving at a set speed but will do wonders for your conversational abilities. Even when it comes to word definitions, as you pointed out, it's not a 1-to-1 mapping. The Korean word for "nose", for example, can be used for pigs and elephants as well as for humans. In English, you couldn't do that—pigs have snouts and elephants have trunks. Similarly, in English, if you talk about "black eyes" it means something completely different (bruising) than it does in Korean (dark brown eyes). This is stuff you don't pick up from flashcards, unless you make super elaborate flashcards (which take more time than reading)! |
No, but anki makes retaining them much easier. There are a great many words that I've learned that come up infrequently enough that it's easy to start forgetting them. In fact, a great many of the more niche words that I learn through tv shows, etc, are easy to forget unless I'm retaining them via anki.
> After even 1k, I'd advise getting graded readers
Yes, but there aren't really any for Korean. Also 1k is really nothing at all, almost all content at that point will be excruciating to read.
I am not arguing to use anki -alone-. Obviously one needs to be reading material as well, but that's tertiary to this discussion on anki and its usecases.
> This is stuff you don't pick up from flashcards,
No, this is stuff not picked up from poorly made flashcards. I.e., most flashcards. Mine include tidbits like this when applicable. Each of my cards has several fields like hanja/grammar type/notes that I fill out, hence it taking a while to make them.