Sayonaroo wrote:I don't think this problem is unique to Korean. I think it has to due with your study method at least with anki. why don't you just suspend them? Seeing them used in the same way over and over ( IS the format word on the front and meaning on the back) in anki is clearly not working. What will help is seeing those words being used over and over in different contexts in your reading/listening like you said and/or seeing other words that contain the same root hanja. the words you gave as example are pretty common as well as the individual hanja roots so I don't think it's worth reviewing them in anki... all that time and effort could be spent learning other words that are more easily remembered/retained VIA ANKI. are you trying to learn words off a list or learning words you encounter from reading/listening? learning words off a list is problematic for any language...
And maybe you should consider doing remember the hanzi to help you remember the meanings of the hanja. It's even more worth doing if you plan on learning mandarin, cantonese, or Japanese in the future.
I don't want to derail this thread, but feel compelled to reply even though I clearly have derailed it a bit. I am a person that appreciates measurements and as such I prefer them to however I might *feel* about how things are going.
So the very brief history which lead me to where I am now:
I began only reading and listening. Reading old material more than once as well as new material. Upon reviewing my progress, I found that this had not lead to a large vocabulary. After some rigorous testing, it seems I had learned new words at a rate of 4 or 5 per hour of 'Korean exposure'.
So I *added* Anki to the mix - being I continue to read content, but also do Anki. With Anki I found it very tough to get high correct rates. However I have doubled my passive vocabulary in the last 6 months! So even though words _are_ tough, its getting much more to stick than when I was just reading/listening.
Recently I've tried to improve my ability to retain vocab. It was suggested on Reddit by some experienced learners that I should learn the roots. However consensus was that I would not have to learn the actual chinese characters - just the sounds and Hangeul form. So I have made this a focus as of late.
Presently the focus on roots does not seem to appreciably change my actual Anki statistics and as such I don't think its having a measurable result.
Lastly I want to mention that the words you suggest I could leave out of Anki because they're not worth reviewing ARE words I encounter BOTH in Anki AND in the text I read... yet I am getting them wrong. So I conclude that I need _more_ focus on them, not less. I just am unsure what to do.
Hence my final conclusion: Korean is hard. Its vocab is hard. I'm sure other languages might be similarly hard for me too - so Korean might not be alone in this. But that may be the case... Korean and its vocab is still (IMHO) difficult.