The best way to learn Japanese vocabulary

When learning vocabulary in a foreign language, you have two main goals: 1. Understand most of the words you hear 2. Be able to pick out the words you don't understand But these shouldn't just be *any* words. Some words are used much more frequently than others! In fact, the top ~1,500 words makes up just over 80% of all the words that appear on Netflix. By contrast, it takes ~5,000 words to reach 90% coverage and ~37,000 words to hit 99% coverage. These numbers in mind, Migaku recommends learners to: 1. First focus entirely on acquiring the first 1,500 words 2. Begin learning some key niche words in your favorite genre, but focus mostly on acquiring the first 5,000 words 3. From 5,000 words and beyond, focus on learning new words that appear in your favorite genres It's important that these words be taken directly from your favorite content because vocabulary words are used differently. If you primarily read fantasy books, you'd be much better off knowing 1,000 words that often show up in fantasy contexts than knowing 5,000 words that never appear in fantasy contexts. Migaku shows you how rare the words you see are and lets you turn useful words into high-quality flashcards with the press of a single button.