How to Choose Basic Japanese Words to Learn
Choosing basic Japanese words to learn first is a logical and effective way of learning Japanese. Not all words are equal and picking the most common words helps you to understand Japanese quicker. There are a few approaches though you can take to find and choose these words. Let’s take a look at that and why basic vocabulary is so important.
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Why is learning Basic Japanese Words Important
People know somewhere around 20,000 to 30,0000 or even more vocabulary words in their native language. If we could remember words just by seeing them once then this would not be a lot. Instead, though, our brains are actively out to make us forget things that it sees as unimportant.
https://japaneseuniverse.com/2024/02/18/pac-man-in-japaneseconcepts-behind-development-to-global-icon/For this reason, it is hard to know exactly how long it will take to remember these words or which ones we will remember. If we keep on reading and listening to native material then we will eventually come across the same important words enough to remember them. But, this can be a long time and it does not give a lot of satisfaction since you will feel like you are not learning anything for a long period of time.
In order to get that motivational boost which is so important for learning, one method is to choose basic Japanese words to learn in the beginning. Basic words pretty much mean high frequent words or function words. Let’s take a look at some methods for choosing the right vocabulary.
Frequency Lists
A frequency list is a list of vocabulary in a language in order by the most used to the least. The easiest way to find basic words is to find one of these lists and to learn from the top. You can start by learning the first 100, then 1,000, 5,000, and so on. Once you get to 9,000 words you are in a great place! That will give you 98% coverage. That magic number means that you will know 98% of what you read. When you reach this level it is easier to guess the meaning of words from context so you can read fairly comfortably.
Find a Small Dictionary
It is important to emphasize small. If you have a dictionary that is too large then you are more likely to have words that are less likely used. Also, make sure you have a modern dictionary. If the dictionary is too old then the words will likely be a little dated. I would go with a small pocket dictionary with under 20,000 entries. When I learned Japanese I used a dictionary that was Japanese to English and English to Japanese with 20,000 entries. That means that there were likely duplicates so closer to 10,000 or maybe 15,000 unique entries.
Learn Function Words
Function words in English would be words such as, and, is, the, a and so on. These words are words that are hard to visualize but help to bind sentences together through grammar.
They are also very common. In Japanese, these would be particles for the most part. It could also be こそあど words which mean this, that and so on.
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