So I’m doing japanese flashcards. I tried learning cards with the word on the front in kanji and the English meaning on the back. However I struggle to recognize the kanji. Then I have to remember the reading for the ones that don’t contain kanji as well, and the meaning. So I decided to learn kanji individually and a few key words with them. It makes learning a words reading in kanji much easier if I know the form and meaning of a kanji already.
Other than that I’m learning vocabulary. I started learning them so English is on the front then when I flip it the kanji with furigana is on the back with the kanji being small but i barely look at it. I can either do that or have it so kanji is on the front with furigana on top, then they’ll be kana and english when I flip the card. Which one should I do? Having only kanji on the front is too difficult when I don’t know the individual kanjis.
3 comments
Highly recommend Kodanshas Kanji Learners Course anki deck if you are wanting to learn Vocab with your Kanji. Its very guided and provides one to two important words to learn with each one.
I have the word on the front (using Anki) – in the form that it’s most often seen. If that’s with kanji (usually is) then the word appears with kanji on the front. Nothing else appears on the front – nothing at all (not even tags). The idea is not to provide any context on the front of the card that may provide a hint as that hint won’t be available elsewhere and I don’t want my brain to learn the hint rather than the word.
On the back you can have anything that helps – English meaning, kana equivalent, audio clip, example sentence, pictures, notes…etc.
The flashcards should not be the learning material. You need to learn the words (as spelled) first. The flashcards are for keeping that knowledge fresh in your mind.
I think its best to consider how you want to be able to read. If you want to read without furigana, then set the front of your cards up like that.
Don’t expect to get every card right, you may even expect to get a card wrong several times at, especially at the start. You just need to see a word over and over again.
I can see long words like 帰命頂礼, 御機嫌麗しい, 出稼ぎ労働者 being hard to do, but you dont get many of those until later. All you need to think when you see 奸佞 is かんねい and have an idea of what it means, simple enough right?
Also drop the English -> Japanese cards, its a waste of time