Hi everyone.
Just starting out on LingQ and studying Japanese.
I am curious as to when you guys would tag words as known during lessons?
I am asking specifically for words that have a Kanji form. Would you wait until you can recognise the Kanji or would you tag the word as known as long as you can understand it being spoken / read and understand the kana form of the word?
For example the word for blue. I can read the hiragana and listen to it and know it is blue. But If I am to pick out the kanji, No chance (yet)
It depends on your goals, just find something that works for you and stick to it.
I personally don’t care so much about learning kanji at this moment. I had some familiarity with the main principles of kanji and knew a few common ones and this summer I went through “Kanji from Zero”, which, by the way, may help you recognize some basic couple of hundreds of kanji, including “aoi”/blue:
I’m still adding some passive kanji recognition here and there, but it’s no priority for me at this moment.
For that reason, I consider a word “known” if I understand its meaning in context based on pronunciation/kana.
If your goals are different, you may want to apply other criteria. The main purpose, IMO, of Lingq stats is to monitor your own progress, so do whatever you find useful to achieve that goal. The main mistake some learners make is to try to compare themselves to others.
This makes perfect sense. My priority for now is to build up speaking and listening, so I will tag them as known in that accord.
Also thank you for the book recommendation. When I first decided to dabble in Japanese as a complete beginner, Japanese From Zero was my first ever book. I really enjoyed its style. When the time comes to focus a little more on Kanji, I’m sure this will be a great resource!