Words rarely live alone. Learn common pairs to boost fluency, prediction, and recall under time pressure.
Why collocations
- Faster recall: phrases resurface as units (注意を払う, 影響を与える).
- Natural production: fewer awkward literal translations.
- Better reading predictions: partners cue meaning before you finish reading.
How to build a collocation deck
- Mine 3–5 phrases from each reading/listening session.
- Store as phrase‑level cards (front: phrase; back: short example + audio).
- Tag by topic (school, work, travel) and by grammar pattern.
Drills that pay off
- Partner swap: given a verb, list 3 nouns that pair; then reverse.
- Cloze deletion: hide the verb or noun inside a sentence (…を＿＿する).
- Paraphrase: say the idea with a similar collocation you know.
Sources
- News/essays (formal): 影響を及ぼす、課題に取り組む、役割を果たす。
- Daily dialogs (casual): 気にする、面倒を見る、時間がかかる。
- Textbooks and graded readers: mine the ones you actually read.
Pitfalls
- Saving isolated words without partners.
- Adding rare or domain‑specific phrases you never see again.
- Ignoring register (formal/casual) when building examples.
Metrics
- Phrases learned/week and resurfaced in your reading.
- Time to produce a partner (under 2 seconds once known).
- Variety: number of topics with ≥ 10 phrases each.
How Kanji Koi helps
- Phrase‑friendly cards with audio for natural pacing.
- Component/kanji breakdown helps when phrases include new compounds.
- Offline mode supports quick daily mining and reviews.
Link collocations to kanji by tagging compounds. When a kanji family resurfaces, you’ll recall the phrase it lives in and understand new compounds faster.
Link collocations to kanji where relevant; components help decode new compounds you see later.