I’m learning vocabulary and I want to know if it matters which way round I learn vocab flashcards . Currently I’m doing JP- Eng which is useful since I learn to recognise the Kanji but bad since sometimes I can just guess and remeber the meaning from looking at it, whereas I want to be able to recall words . I would think Eng-Jp is better but the only bad thing is I don’t recognize Kanji as much . What should I do ?
Should I just do 2 decks, one JP to eng and one eng to JP ?
Anyone have any experience with this?
4 comments
**NEVER** do EN -> JP. It’s bad. **Always** do JP -> EN (or JP -> JP definition).
There’s so many ways EN -> JP can go wrong because there’s so many words that can translate differently from English to Japanese depending on context. You are trying to learn and understand **Japanese** words, not trying to practice contextless translations from English to Japanese.
As an example:
“Bat” -> what’s the Japanese word? I don’t know, is it the animal or the baseball thing?
“Spring” -> Uh… is it the season? Or is it the metal thing that goes boing boing?
“Know” -> Is it 知る or 分かる? Guess what? It can be both, depending on the sentence
English to Japanese is **bad**.
There are so many different vocab flash cards one can make. The reviews really pile up so choose carefully.
I find having an example sentence helps provide some context.
OP, what deck are you using?
My decks are always both in the same deck. It prevents me from accidentally not learning cards because I learned a part of the card and can guess it.