Improving Japanese with Karaoke

Does karaoke help you improving your Japanese? Absolutely! Let me tell you about my experiences!

The first time I went to karaoke was 2016 in Osaka, as we went with a group from a hostel to a nearby karaoke bar. Was like a normal bar, but there were also two screens to showing the lyrics of songs, two mikes and a tablet to select the songs you wanna sing. 

As we were a group of mostly foreigners, we chose many English songs. But at same point I wanted to have a go on Japanese songs. The thing was just at that time I even though I was able to read hiragana and katakana - my reading speed wasn't really good enough to keep up with speed as the lyrics are running through on the screen. So I needed a song which I need knew at least a little bit. So I tried the first DBZ theme song "Chala Head Chala" from Hironobu Kageyama. I struggled, but I was happy that I tried.

Two years later after moving to Tokyo, I started going to karaoke boxes with friends more regularly and with my constantly improving Japanese skills I got more confident trying more and more songs. I even started practicing at home by using lyrics videos available on YouTube. 

Now I can feel confidently sing "Chala Head Chala", "Dan Dan", "We gotta Power", "Kimi ga ireba" and many more. I keep trying many new songs from Dragon Ball, One Piece, Detective Conan or even Slam Dunk .. It's endless. "

I even tried crazy stuff like "Ultimate Battle" (究極の聖戦) from Akira Kushida. Those who have seen the Tournament of Power in Dragon Ball Super know what I'm talking about^^

Last November I went with a Japanese friend to karaoke for three hours to only sing Dragon Ball and/or Kageyama-related songs. We found several songs from videogames or old movie endings which I knew from hearing, but never tried singing. I gave it a go and wasn't too bad.

So therefore I can safely say that karaoke is a good way to get confidence in your Japanese. The more you try, the better you get and it improves your reading speed. Especially when you try songs from which you know the melody, but not the lyrics by hearts.

If you are learning Japanese and live in Japan, definitely give it a go! And if you a lacking confidence, get a drink before you start^^

Japanese with Corona: Useful Vocabulary

The Coronavirus pandemic changed our life - especially in the past month - and will continue to do so. You barely find any news article not being related to it. If you are studying Japanese you'll find certain words used in articles quite regularly. Let's take a look at a few ones:

感染（かんせん）
It simple means "infection" and by adding additional kanji you can create related terms like with 症 it makes it an "infectious disease" (感染症). Adding 者 makes it an infected person (感染者). That list can get long, so just more additional example with 爆発 (explosion) added: It becomes 感染爆発 (explosive growth of infections).

不要不急 （ふようふきゅう）
It literally means "not necessary and not urgent". I saw it used in the first articles when people in Tokyo and around where advised to stay at home on the weekend. Interesting is here also the structure of 不*不* of which the Japanese language certainly has several examples. Me, as a Dragon Ball fan, know the pattern from 不老不死, which literally means "not aging and not dying".

延期（えんき）
As the Coronavirus causes several events to be postponed, you'll find 延期 quite often.

緊急事態宣言 (きんきゅうじたいせんげん)

It's a quite long term which you find often recently as it means "declaration of a state of emergency". 緊急 means "urgent", 事態 means "situation" and 宣言 means "declaration".

My Language Learning Goals in 2020

As the new year has started I'd like to give input on my thoughts about my personal goals and feelings regarding language learning in 2020.

Much like in recent years, I keep on improving my Japanese. As I just passed N3, I already started studying for the N2 exam. It's a huge amount of more vocabulary, kanji and grammar I have to remember and understand.

I continue studying with the Anki app having a personalized deck, but I also downloaded a separate deck with N2 words. I study grammar with YouTube channels, and it's best to use some channels where the explanation is all in Japanese (like Nihongo No Mori, 日本語の森). 

Also, I can keep reading a lot of manga, but I feel that I should try reading an unknown story from a novel at some point this year. And manga with no furigana on the kanji would also be important. But for now I'm busy reading through all 42 volumes of Dragon Ball as well as catching up One Piece and Detective Conan with their recent volumes.

Also, as much as I'm able to read manga quite well, I still have lots of trouble understanding keigo in restaurants or combinis. Also it's spoken quite fast making me often unable to follow. Yeah, that's something I need to get better in.

Therefore, Japanese is keeping me busy on daily basis, but I also have some thoughts and plans regarding other languages:

As I grew up near Luxembourg, I speak a German dialect very close to the Luxembourgish language, and can also read news articles in that language. However, interestingly: I cannot really write it, I don't know the exact spelling of words. So I set myself also the goal to use the language more in written form, like texting.

And what about improving other languages? I know basic French and Spanish, but I've currently no ambition or even focus to pursue that. Could it be a something to focus on in the future? Maybe, but for now it's ok to just use it in a basic way, wherever needed. 

About learning any languages from zero? There are surely languages I have an interest to learn, but not this year. Another Germanic language would be interesting. I already understand and can read a bit of Dutch as it's quite close to my native German. 
Swedish or Norwegian would also be interesting. Or even Finnish, which is completely different language, but special in many ways. Also Italian could be interesting as I like the sound of it.

Other Asian languages? I studied a bit of Korean characters on my trip to Seoul by the end of last year and figured that it's actually quite simple. Still, when I sometimes see a name somewhere on social media I try to figure out the reading. Apart from that, I don't really have a connection to the language to further pursue it. And that's something which I feel is quite important. But I wouldn't exclude that there could be something which motivates me on that in the future...

Currently I have no deeper interest in learning other Asian languages. Learning Kanji can keep understanding a bit of Chinese. But I'm pretty sure I would struggle with the correct pronunciation. 

Anyway, I have enough goals right now anyway to keep myself busy. Let's see where this year will bring me.

「Ｎ３へ」ついに合格した! 次は...「一月の考え」

ついにN3を合格した！やっとやったぜ！でもN3への道は簡単のじゃなかった。実はまだ沢山勉強しなきゃ。

面白いことは今回は初めて日本語能力試験を合格した。自分のJLPTの歴史はこのようにだった:

2016年07月　N5　不合格
2018年07月　N4　不合格
2018年12月　N3　不合格
2019年07月　N3　不合格
2019年12月　N3　　合格

N3の三回目に合格した。この時に自分の問題のせいであまり勉強しなかった。試験日に日本にいるかどうかしらかなかった。とにかく、たくさんドラゴンボール漫画読んだし、もちろん毎日奥さんと話した。あと、アンキのアプリに新単語を勉強した。

もっと文法や、長いテクスト読みたかった。だからリーディングには24点だけだった。聴解(リスニング)の点はちょっとびっくりした。ときどき会話は早すぎだった、半分しか分からなかった。とにかく、上達した。

夏にＮ２を試してみると思う。今もう、新しい感じやＮ２の文法を勉強しています。特にユーチューブの「日本語の森」のチャンネルは本当にいいですね。たぶん本も買います。

あと、今はドラゴンボールを最初から読んでいる中、今は第17巻を読んで終えた。本当に簡単です。でも逆にワンピースに使った単語はほうが難しい。今の「ワノ国編」は沢山Ｎ１日本語がある。多分このことについて他の記事書きます。

じゃあ、これからもっと上達したい。頑張ります！N3は大切な目標だったんだけど、本当の挑戦は今のだ！

「Ｎ３へ」上達したけど…「十二月の考え」

夏にはまた合格しなかった。今回、少なくとも去年より点が上達した。だから十二月のテストまた登録した…

じゃあ、まずは七月のテストの不合格の理由について書きたい。大きな問題はこの日にちゃんと集中できなかったんだ。東京で七月の上旬の天気は本当に曇りだった。この数週間に太陽全然見えなかった。この時たぶん覚えてるでしょうね。

だからテスト中の文法とテクストの分に集中できなくなった。答えは推測した、仕方なかった。少なくとも単語と漢字の分に集中できたけど、いろんな間違えしちゃった。テストの休憩にもう気ついた。例えばほとんど同じ漢字「線」と「緑」の意味とか。あと、最後の分、「聴解」に感じはほうが良さそうだったけどまだよく分からなった。

これはもう二回目だった、また合格しなかった？その通り、八月末に確認された。一回目より84点だったけど、またできなかった。でも次のテストに参加するのは知らなかった。
新しいビサを申し込んだんだけど、もらうのは大きな質問だった。でも九月に登録した、本当に「今回こそ合格」と思った。

でもビサもらえなかった、だから韓国に行った。そのあとテストのため日本に帰った！今回はいい感じだった。単語か漢字はいいと思った。長いテクストはまだ問題だった。まだ遅いんですね。聴解もカンペキじゃない。

じゃあ、合格するの可能性があるね。じゃあ、これから待っています。

Tooned McLaren - Japanese Dialogue in Episode 7 "The Rising Son"

© 2012 McLaren Animation

As an F1 fan I used to follow the Tooned series by the McLaren F1 Team. In Episode 7 of the 2012 season, there was a dialogue between Jenson Button and Lewis Hamilton in Japanese. Unlike back then, I can understand the conversation now.

That's how the dialogue looks in Japanese: 

バトン「おい、ルイス。今日は何をするつもりかな」
ハミルトン「やめて！日本語が分からないから。」
バトン「あー、そうか」

A literal translation would be like this:
Button: "Hey Lewis. What are we going to do today?"
Hamilton: "Stop. I don't speak Japanese."
Button: "Ah. I see."

The subs are a bit different, but adapted to fit the situation like adding the professor. The sentence is kinda vague anyway.

It is implied that Button knows some Japanese as he had a Japanese girlfriend at that time.

Watching the dialogue now gives me a smile as I can understand it unlike in 2012 watching this episode for the first time. An interesting thing to look back.

「Ｎ３へ」今の日本語はどうになった？ 「五月の考え」

僕の目標は7月の日本語能力試験のＮ３を合格したいです。しかも挑戦は僕は自分で勉強しています。去年の失敗後に今年の夏にチャンスはどうかな。

僕は今もうほとんど九ヶ月に日本で住んでいる。最初からいっぱい勉強した。毎日に日本語話すし、新単語はアンキのモバイルアプリで追加し勉強しています。でも問題はたくさん言葉は漫画とアニメから。僕はときどき使うけどでも答えは「あまり使わない」とか。

好きな漫画はドラゴンボールとワンピースと名探偵コナン。この漫画ほよく買いに行く。漫画を読む中面白くて必要な新単語見つけると僕はアプリに追加します。特に仕事の前に電車中。私の次の駅から会社の近くの駅までには多分40分ぐらいです。その時に僕のカバンの中に持っていた漫画読む。特に去年に僕はすごくゆっくり読み方のせいで一つの単行本は数週の間かかった。でも最近は自分の記録は六日間だけ！おっけ、これはドラゴンボールのが外伝だったのに、自分の早さに本当にびっくりした。しかも前に名探偵コナンに巻９５読んだけどよく分かりました。でも実はワンピースはドラゴンボールと名探偵コナンより難しいです。多分たくさん昔の単語のせいで、でも漫画は海賊時代から、今編はワノ国。

漫画以外、私の文法はまだ下手とおもう。日本語の文章を読むと誰が何をするは分かりにくい。たとえば、男の人と女の人が買い物について話せば、誰が何を買うときどき分からない。文章を調べる時間があれば、多分分かるでも会話中に問題です。それよりいっぱい文法的なルールがある。去年よりもっと分かるけどまだ満足じゃない。

だから六月にもっともっと勉強しています。七月のN3の合格のため。頑張ります！

N3 not passed - as expected!

As I live in Japan now I wanted go to the next level and tried the N3 last December, but it was clear that was it bit too early for me to pass.

Looking back, my JLPT history is certainly not the best read at the first glimpse:
- Failed N5 (07/2016)
- Failed N4 (07/2018)
- Failed N3 (12/2018)

But if you look at how much my Japanese improved during the last year is stunning. Taking part at the tests pushed me further even though I failed. Even one year ago I was considering trying N5 again, but then I thought that would not have given me the challenge I wanted.

And since I live in Japan since August I my level is increasing on a daily basis by conversations, learning vocabulary/grammar, reading manga (yes, currently on Volume 91 of One Piece), seeing characters every day,... Generally living here really helps.

Anyway, back to the test. The biggest issue I had was my lack of reading and understanding speed. Also lots of unknown words. But understanding is a big point and I'm in the situation many Japanese learners are: I understand what a text or a dialogue is about, but not exactly. Who is buying the shoes? Did she only really the yellow ones and bought the blue ones instead? Okay, this could be an issue in any language^^ But seriously, exact understanding is something I really need to focus on. That's why I need to comprehend the grammar better, it's necessary.

Although I thought that the listening was the easiest part I got still more than half wrong, the part of the test where I expected more as I knew I would struggle at longer texts. Maybe the same issue as before.

Anyway, there is still a lot to do, I keep on learning and this time I'm intending to take N3 again in summer. Not planning on N2 just yet, maybe in December if everything goes well in July.

7 years with Anki

Over the years Anki has become an important and useful tool for myself to collect, repeat and learn vocabulary. 

More than seven years ago I was determined to improve my English and learn as much vocabulary as possible. When I read articles online I found new words, I added them into a deck, same as from TV shows like How I Met Your Mother, Lost and many more.

I was going to a school class in the evening after work which included two hours of English study - although it was probably too easy, but at least it helped me getting more personal confidence. Plus, I also added words from the classes to my deck.

Around that time I started creating a new English Anki deck every year to collect vocabulary. It got more and more and it helped me a lot. The repetition pattern was truly helpful.

Therefore it did the same with other languages like for the time I lived in Spain I collected lots of words with Anki.

But especially recently I got really efficient using it with Japanese. I downloaded decks to learn hiragana and katakana, started with  personal deck of my vocabulary.

It has more than 3300 entries by now. First, I entered words only in hiragana or katakana, but then I found the "Ultimate" template which has line for kanji, kana and English translation. And luckily, the well-known dictionary app Jisho has a connection to Anki so that I can easily send words from the dictionary to my own deck.

It allows me to increase vocabulary lists rapidly - especially now living in Japan. I collect words from everywhere: Anime, manga, music, conversations, advertisement, manuals, office work, streets signs,...

My settings give me like 100 words a day and it's seems quite efficient. I also created another personal deck with sentences and initially I also filled out the kana line for the Japanese reading, but now I leave it as I expect myself to be able to read the kanji used in the sentence.

Generally, I can only recommend using Anki - it's a great tool for personalized vocabulary learning and especially to recommend for learning Japanese. Maybe because Anki (暗記) is a Japanese word and means "memorization"...

The trouble of learning two languages at once

Last year I lived in Spain and faced the inner trouble of trying to learn two languages at once.

For a job opportunity I moved to Spain and I wanted to take advantage of living in another country by picking up the Spanish language.

I used the Memrise app for getting more and more vocabulary and created my own Anki deck to collect more words myself which I either saw on streets, heard in conversations or in social media. I also started following Spanish social media sites covering my interests - like anime. Even acquired a Spanish One Piece manga.

As for the work in the company I didn't necessarily need Spanish, but sometimes emails were in Spanish - same as conversation between colleagues depending on their background. I tried to immerse to get more and more palabras, but having conversations was still troublesome. I felt more comfortable in reading as it gave me time to understand.

And I didn't start from zero, a few years before I started some self-studying and participated in a course in Valencia, yet still a lot to be learned.

But I was in a conflict: I was also studying Japanese. I even brought a few Japanese manga to Spain to read sometimes. And as Japanese is a much bigger challenge to learn - especially character-wise, I actually didn't have the time to do both. It's actually too much.

Some people asked, if I don't mix it all up, and at first I interestingly replied that it wouldn't be a problem, since it's about two completely different languages. So I thought, but in hindsight I was totally wrong...

It actually caused chaos in my brain, because while trying to speak Spanish I sometimes accidentally almost (and possibly sometimes did) mixed it up putting a Japanese word into a Spanish sentence.

A funny example was the usage of "to drink". In Japanese it's 飲む (nomu) and in Spanish it's "beber" and "a drink" would be "la bebida". However, as I mixed it up, I created a new word called "nomida". So basically my brain took the Japanese infinitive of verb to create a Spanish noun. Total mess, but kinda funny.

There were probably more examples, but that's the funniest one. As mentioned before I filled my memory with lots of vocabulary using Memrise and Anki in Spanish, but I did the same for Japanese. Probably because the learning process was kinda similar (even though) different characters - the way of remembering vocabulary remained in a similar pattern.

As Spain also has anime conventions I went to one where I you could watch the movie "Your Name (君の名は). It was in Japanese with Spanish subtitles. And it really summed up both my back then language priorities. I was able to understand most of the movie, partially the listening Japanese and also through Spanish subs.

Still apart from that, my priority was Japanese and it definitely distracted me from Spanish. For language learning it's definitely better to have full focus on only one like I have now with only looking into 日本語 - that's the best way to actually learn a language. After leaving Spain and now living in Japan, it's really effective with setting my priorities straight.

My personal conclusion was actually also like: As Japanese is for many reasons more difficult to learn I figured that it's also better to learn it the earlier the better. Maybe one day, I go back to learning Spanish again, although I still passively absorb it by social media or listening to working colleagues talking.

Did you have a similar situation with setting priorities on languages? Please tell me yours in the comments!

Confronted with Chinese characters while learning Japanese

As I started learning Japanese from last year more seriously than before I faced a few times the situation that I saw Chinese characters and got extremely curious about their meanings.

Is it being at the airport, running through Chinatown or working in a factory, it's so easy to be confronted with Chinese characters. But when you are studying Japanese it can be confusing: You notice characters which look familiar and some you've definitely seen before. You even know their Japanese readings and also what it means... But you don't speak any Chinese language!

But as an learning addict your mind wants to figure out the meanings. Looking at food menus you often get an idea on what it means, but on the other hand I noticed some train stations in Singapore which I couldn't understand properly.

Then I was in a factory and I could read characters for example for milk. The characters don't feel like 'unreadable' anymore, it's amazing. 

You even start looking up characters via radical search with your Japanese dictionary app (e.g. Jsho) only to find out that the character is only not really used in Japanese. For example I found this on a package of a box:  姆

Looking at the radicals it means "female" and "mother", so it made me curious of course.

Also, I guy from Hong Kong I met in Australia told a good example of how meanings of a Kanji can differ by the example of 湯. In Japanese it's ゆ and a common term for hot water - especially at places like onsen. However, in Chinese the meaning would be "soup" (tang). I found that quite interesting. 

I'm aware that there are lots of examples, so if you know an interesting one, just let me know in the comments.

And how do you feel as Japanese learner being confronted with Chinese characters? Okay, of course it's clear to me, that Japanese Kanji are based on Chinese ones, so maybe I should rephrase: Are Chinese words confusing Japanese learners or make them rather curious?

Let me know^^

How much you understand and how much you don't...

With my current chance to live among many Japanese people in a hostel I'm daily confronted with Japanese - in terms of listening to conversations and speaking a bit myself.

On the one side I notice already how much I understand, even if it's just a bit or sometimes even whole sentences. However the lack of knowing the context or certain vocabulary or grammar rules makes it difficult on the other side.

First you have the relief seeing your progress getting more and more understanding and being able to have easy conversations yourself or even shocking some Japanese people by being able to talk to them in their native language.

The latter is certainly funny and I tell things like: '自分で勉強します。(I'm studying myself). It's definitely nice to be praised for your effort learning Japanese - personally I'm satisfied on the one hand - just comparing myself to last year - but I want more.

I noticed my ability to read manga or even some Facebook comments, news articles with furigana and similar stuff got faster. 

The biggest issue stopping me from reading faster is the lack of Kanji and certain vocabulary. But luckily I could see some improvement in that regard.

Through these daily conversations - also on FB messenger - I can increase my Japanese skills gradually which is really motivating.

But still, it's a long way ahead which I'm willing to follow.

New Japanese vocabulary - Mid-February 2018

As I'm currently continuing to improve towards my goal learning more and more Japanese I'm currently surrounded by many Japanese people which helps me getting more and more vocabulary - these ones I found quite important this week:

休憩きゅうけい
Meaning: break, recess
Comment: It's an important word for being at work. I memorized this word by using the following sentences to my Japanese working colleague: 休憩までは１０分。=> 'It's 10 minutes until the break.'

個室こしつ

Meaning: private room
Comment: As I switched to a private room that week I was taught this important word. I especially to a closer look at the second kanji: 室. It means 'room' and is one of the level N4 ones which I can remember now.

連絡れんらく
Meaning: to contact, to get in touch

Comment: Actually an easy and common one, but as I had it in several conversations (LINE and 'real') this week plus I still struggle to memorize the Kanji it made sense to put it into this list. Despite it's seems quite often used, the Kanji characters are for JLPT N2 and N3.

渡るわたるMeaning: to cross over, to go across
Comment: After work, a street needed to be crossed and like 'koeru' 'wataru' can be used. How I memorize it? Wataru is also a Japanese name and the first thing which comes to mind is Takagi Wataru (police guy from Detective Conan, 名探偵コナン). So I thing like 'Takagi is crossing the street' and here we go^^

Application out for JLPT N4!

This year it's time to go for the JLPT again. But unlike two years ago I will go one step further and will try the JLPT N4.

It's time to raise my game and give my ambitions improving my Japanese a new challenge. Two years ago I failed passing the N5 test, but back then I wasn't really used to read Japanese and my Kanji and vocabulary knowledge was quite low.

Especially the ability to read is important which I noticed during the test in 2016. I wasn't used to it and way too slow. I couldn't really read the longer text at the end and ended up guessing the answers without having gone through the text through the lack of time I had.

Additionally I wasn't that confident with the N5 Kanji and I guess I even made silly mistakes in that regard.

But the situation now is different: Just a few months after failing that test a acquired some manga in Japanese on my travels and kept me more into reading the language plus it also plays a huge role in learning new words. My Anki deck is getting filled with lots of vocabulary and especially words directly written in Kanji (but with furigana).

I found with Obenkyo an interesting recommendation for learning Kanji and the necessary vocabulary.

But surely it's not just that: Many grammar rules are important and are needed to be understood and learned. It's something where I definitely need to catch up.

Recently I was indecisive about taking N5 or N4, but I felt like that I could already easily pass N5 by now, but as it's still a few months to go until July I figured that it would be best to aim one step higher and go for N4.

So with currently being in New Zealand I had to sent my application via post delivery to Düsseldorf in Germany as they don't have the option yet to apply online. I found out that other places have that possibility already and that it's really easy in Japan as well of course.

But anyway, the application is out and now I can fully focus on passing N4 in July.

How I will continue to follow One Piece

After watching One Piece for around 15 years and especially in the last few years in the original dub with subtitles I recently decided to take another approach...

I was mostly following the anime being around 20-30 episodes behind the broadcast and was on the way to reach episode 800. Through some spoilers I was aware that there will be an emotional fight between Luffy and Sanji soon and checked that volume 84 will cover exactly that.

And with my will to take my Japanese skills to the next level I decided the following step:
- watch the One Piece anime that far that I can continue with reading volume 84... in Japanese!

While being in Tokyo I bought this very volume and caught up with the anime that I could start reading in it's original form.

To explain, it's not my first Japanese manga, but mostly I bought manga where I already knew the story like some Dragon Ball or Detective Conan volumes. And of course I had to look up lots of kanji and vocabulary. But the important ones ended up in my Anki deck.

But the situation now is different: I'm now reading a manga story (where I know what happened up until now), but need to understand the upcoming development of the Whole Cake Island arc in Japanese.

It's a challenge, I need to read the chapter twice and more to get the meanings. And I wouldn't say I get every line. Sometimes I'm happy with understanding the just some words in a sentence. The furigana are helping a lot, but sometimes the kanji itself are helping more to get the meaning than the furigana.

Often used words I look up in Jisho.org and add them in my Anki deck. Generally I realized: Once I dived in reading it all in Japanese, having the time to focus on it really works. I see progress in my understanding and reading skills.

By now I already continued with volume 85 and will keep on going this path.

Starting with Japanese

When you start learning a new language it's really important that you have a connection with it. In terms of Japanese many people including me got the initial interest by watching anime.

It's not about just watching it - the interest for the language comes by understanding some words in subbed animes - it's probably with something easy like ありがとう (arigatou => thank you). Even some people who aren't interested in learning a language prefer watching anime with subtitle just because they like the way the language sounds. It's where the connection starts.

Another step for the interest in Japanese is that animes include music, especially the opening and ending themes. The lyrics are written on the screen while the music is running.

With the help of subs you can at least understand the text, but when you see the language in its written form it's still something where you have no idea how it works at the beginning. It's because it's simply too much at once. You are simply overwhelmed!

The easiest way would be to learn the Hiragana letters gradually with some important words you may have already collected while watching anime. Same goes for Katakana - because you'll notice the amount of foreign words for which they're used.

But how to learn these letters? Print out a chart of both sets and try to find some mnemonics! For example た looks similar like meaning: ta. Try to memorize these characters step by step and be consistent repeating them daily. Also try to build some words.

I'd recommend to have an deck with the Anki flashcards on your phone. The Android version is even a free one and you can have an account which is connected with the PC version. Such decks are free available to download.

And the following is also an interesting way of collecting vocabulary: Create your own deck where you collect your words in Hiragana. I'd start with easy stuff like nouns you can see around you.
Example: かがみ (kagami => mirror) or いす (isu ==> chair). Continue with adding more and more words you get from lists, from anime or even songs.

This is just an example how to start - but that's just the beginning of a long way...