If your hand stops within the first 100 words of Kin no Phrase, the problem is not your ability but your order. Kin's 1,000 headwords start at the 600 level. If you are currently in the 400s to 500s, putting a basics-only book in before it is faster in the end.

That book is Gin no Phrase, released in February 2018, by TEX Kato, ¥979 (tax included). By the same author as Kin, it is an introductory volume that narrows down to just 1,000 basic words that appear frequently on the TOEIC. Gin is not an 'easy Kin.' The included words themselves have been replaced with ones on the basics side — it is a different 1,000 words.

Let Your Score Decide the Range: The Breakdown of Gin's 1,000 Words

Gin has 1,000 headwords. The breakdown is four sections: 400 basic words, 300 high-frequency words, 200 essential words, and 100 advanced words. Cut your assigned range by your current score. If you are in the low 400s, make your assignment the 700 words up to the basic 400 and the high-frequency 300.

Drop the 100 advanced words for the first two passes. If you are in the 500s, you can assign all 1,000 words. Do not include the supplementary vocabulary at the back of the book in what you rotate through. Leave it in place as a dictionary substitute to look up when a word you do not know turns up.

Whether you should start with Gin at all can be judged in numbers. Try reading Kin's first section, the '400 words at the 600 level,' and if more than half of the words are ones whose meaning you cannot answer instantly, start with Gin. If the words you cannot answer instantly are 30% or less, skip Gin and go with Kin. Spend only 10 minutes on this judgement. If you choose by feel, you will usually pick the side that stretches you and stop partway through.

Rotate It the Same Way as Kin: Judge on Paper, Rotate with Audio

The audio for all words and all phrases can be downloaded for free, and you can also listen on abceed. The division of roles is exactly the same as with Kin: the paper book is for judging whether you know a word or not, and the audio is for rotation. Run the judging quickly, using about 10 seconds per word as a guide.

If the meaning does not come out of your mouth, do not try to memorize it on the spot — just mark it and move on. Do the memorizing on the second pass. If you work carefully on the first pass, you will run out of days before you reach 700 words.

For people who want to cut audio into short segments and listen repeatedly, Rehear is another option. It is a listening practice app made by the team behind this magazine, and you can use it to listen again and again to just the phrases you could not catch.

Keep only three things in your study log: the range you did that day, the number of words you could not answer instantly, and the time it took. What matters with Gin is the absolute number of words you do not know.

If, in the first 100 words of the first pass, the words you cannot answer instantly exceed 60, the vocabulary of junior-high-school English itself is missing. In that case, rather than increasing the number of Gin rotations, it is cheaper to insert two weeks of reviewing the junior-high range first. Without a log, you cannot make this distinction.

Two Passes in Four Weeks: Count Back from Test Day

The standard allocation is two passes in four weeks. The first pass takes two weeks. If your assigned range is 700 words, run through all of it at 50 words a day, judging only; if it is 1,000 words, 70 words a day. The second pass takes the next two weeks: re-judge only the marked words, and for those that remain, go as far as reading the whole phrase aloud.

If you can take 30 minutes a day, this allocation is not a strain. At the end of week four, count the instant-answer rate for your assigned range again. That becomes the material for the next decision.

If you have only two weeks until the test, do not lower the number of passes — lower the range. Doing two passes through the 700 words of the basic 400 and high-frequency 300 will score more than one pass through all 1,000 words. Conversely, if you have eight weeks or more until the test, do not take Gin into a third pass.

Cut it off at two passes and give the remaining time to Kin's assigned range. Gin is a book for consolidating the basics, and lingering here will not get you over the 600-point wall.

Three Conditions for Moving to Kin: Wait Until All Three Are Met

There are three conditions for moving to Kin. The first: across all 1,000 words, including the 100 advanced words, the share you can answer instantly exceeds 90%. The second: you score 550 or more on a mock test or the real test. The third: in listening, the points lost to 'I could hear it but could not get the meaning' visibly decrease.

Once all three are met, Gin's role is over. Kin's assigned range and how to rotate it are broken down in How to Use Kin no Phrase (Expanded & Revised). The words that overlap between Gin and Kin reappear on Kin's 600-level side as review. That is why Kin's first pass turns faster the more of a Gin graduate you are.

Conversely, the people who do not need to buy Gin are also decided. People who already have 550 or more, and people who have finished junior-high and high-school English and have no holes in their basic vocabulary. If this group rotates Gin, all that increases is the number of times they confirm words they already know; their score will not move.

One more: if your grammar basics have collapsed and you cannot even read the question sentences in Part 5, your order is to finish one grammar book before Gin. Vocabulary only piles up on top of a grammar foundation.

Who It Suits, Who It Does Not, and How to Buy It

It suits people with a score in the 300s to 500s who can give vocabulary 30 minutes a day, five days a week. It does not suit people who only follow words with their eyes and never say them aloud. Gin's 1,000 words are designed to be memorized in phrase units, so without reading aloud and rotating the audio, the effect is halved.

As for how to buy it: unlike Kin, Gin has no revised edition. The 2018 first edition is the current edition, and the included words are the same even secondhand. Even so, the price difference is only a few hundred yen. Considering the steps to get the audio, a new copy at ¥979 (tax included) is fine.

To buy it, go to Gin no Phrase (paper edition).