Hi! I’m trying to get myself back into good study habits for Japanese, as I have not been consistent at all the past year and because of that have learnt practically nothing. I’ve suddenly got a bit of a motivation spark so I want to take advantage of that to build up good study habits and the such. I want to focus on drilling right now to get enough grammar, vocab, and kanji in my head before I move on to content. I’m thinking of trying WaniKani again for Kanji (I used it before but like everything else eventually missed a few days and those days turned into months which turned into over a year), and I would like to use Anki for vocab and grammar. I have a few questions about Anki which I would like to know before I start drilling things incorrectly.
1. How should I structure my cards? Should I always include Kanji with Furigina (if so, should I make the furigana a hint)? Should I be doubling *all* of my cards as double-sided? With grammar, should I practice it isolated or with phrases to translate? I mostly want to make sure that my cards are good before I’ve been using them for months.
2. In regards to the above, should I also be making my cards myself? It’d give me more control but to get started with I’m not sure if I should or if there is a good basis. I feel like I probably know \~60% of the N5 vocab and likely \~80-90% of the grammar, but I need to look through the lists again.
3. Is it okay to not make flash cards for things that I’m super confident in? i.e. 食べる, which is one of a lot of words I can think of that are just ingrained in my memory at this point.
4. Is it a good idea to just throw in every N5 (and maybe N4) word into the list (that I need to, if the answer to 3 is yes)? I feel like it’d give a bit of a headstart before I go into studying with content and putting words I see in content consumption in flash cards. Or should I be using some sort of list of common words? If JLPT vocab, where can I find a list of all/most of the words used?
5. How many cards should I study a day? I know 20 is the default, but it felt very slow when I tried it with some stuff today. I understand that the reviews can start to pile up but I’m not too sure how *fast* that piles up, and I’d like to get myself at the fastest possible pace that I am comfortable with (I’m willing to do flash cards for an hour or two a day if need be). I do also want to use WaniKani like mentioned previously so I’d also like to know how to measure and consider that.
6. I’ve heard that Anki can have a lot of addons and stuff like that. When I look for the stuff it starts to overwhelm me though. Does anyone have personal reccomendations?
7. Is pitch accent worth including in Anki cards (Tokyo dialect probably)? I’ve heard it’s a bit more context based and not just black-and-white, but I also don’t really want to end up having a thick accent or something that I could’ve corrected earlier. Is this just something I’d learn with corrections from speaking with other people?
Sorry for the text wall, I just want to set everything off right because the last few times were disastrous. Aside from drilling, I’d also like to know when it’s a good idea to start trying to understand content? A lot of the stuff I’d like to consume is just out of my skill level so I feel like drilling words for now is the best bet but I also don’t want to be dead wrong and ruin my learning.
6 comments
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1. I have three decks: one with the vocab, front in the language I am learning Japanese in, back with hiragana. Second is kanji on front and readings on back in kana. And the last one front with vocab in kanji (so 食べる and etc.) and the reading and meaning on the back.
2. I make my cards myself, if you can find a deck that would suit your needs then you can save time and effort.
3. Yeah, if you have words ingrained in your brain then you can skip them.
4. Well, the more the better. JLPT vocab lists are one of the reference points you can use.
5. Study as much as you can retain. 20 in the first couple days may be fine, but after 1000 cards? 1500? Don’t be scared to lower or increase the amount according to your needs.
6. You don’t need addons. I only use the one for coloring Again, Hard, Good and Easy buttons.
7. Don’t bother at this point.
Before we dive in to the specifics, maybe it‘s worth it to evaluate why you were inconsistent in the past year.
* What caused the derailment and is it still in your life?
* Why one was unable to adjust the directions as soon as something was wrong, and instead waited an entire year?
I’m not trying to be an ass…I definitely don’t mean to hurt you or anyone who reads this. I was a serial quitter when it comes to Japanese and the above questions I asked myself to get me out of the slumps. **The key is not to get a one-size-fits-all magical answer and shoot for perfection from the get-go, but to just do it and adjust it from time to time.** unit in years is a bit long for that period of adjustment…
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Below are my recommendations.
(Disclaimer: I don’t use Anki, take with a grain of salt)
1. How should I structure my cards? – Use pre made cards online.
2. Is it okay to not make flash cards for things that I’m super confident in? i.e. 食べる, – Edit pr-made decks to not include those.
3. Is it a good idea to just throw in every N5 (and maybe N4) word into the list (that I need to, if the answer to 3 is yes)? – use pre-made decks
4. If JLPT vocab, where can I find a list of all/most of the words used?- Google
5. How many cards should I study a day? I’m not too sure how fast that piles up. – Here’s a benefit of a shorter reflect cycle. Why don’t you try studying for 30 cards a day everyday and experiment how fast it piles up for you?
6. and I’d like to get myself at the fastest possible pace that I am comfortable with (I’m willing to do flash cards for an hour or two a day if need be). – I recommend you take the time you need to do your daily quota for flash cards, and then use the extra time to do other exercises like speaking or reading.
7. Is pitch accent worth including in Anki cards? – I wouldn’t. If a word is Odaka/ Nakadaka then maybe if you have seriously lots of time on your hands.
8. Is this just something I’d learn with corrections from speaking with other people? – that’s my personal experience. Your idea to try to memorize the intonation through flash cards isn’t necessarily bad, it’s just hard to argue for how practical it is, especially considering there are many cheap, interactive alternatives that require so much less upfront time investment.
9. I recommend you take a sunny weekend day, and take mock exams for N5 through N3 . The idea is to 1 gauge your current ability and knowledge distribution, and 2 to implant an balanced idea about wht’s out there next. Say if all I do is spending all my time doing flash cards, I’d probably score perfectly on Kanji, a little wobbly on Vocabs, barely scraping by on Grammar, and flunk reading and listening.
I’m no expert and will only share what worked for me. I’ve been doing Anki consistently daily since Oct last year. I set it to only 10 new cards a day and spend between 15 to 20mins on each review.
I started out with pre-made decks but didn’t like them because words just seemed random and out of context. So I mined my own deck from my favorite anime using japanese subtitles and yomichan. It is slow but I find it adds a lot of context and helps memory. I remember in what scene the word was used, and who said it.
I used the tools in this site to create my own anime-themed anki decks. [https://animecards.site/](https://animecards.site/)
I don’t care about exams though, so my method doesn’t work if passing the N5 is your goal. I get introduced to all kinds of vocabulary from N1 to N5 when mining anime.
The most important factor is, in my opinion, the why. Why do you want to study Japanese? The stronger your why, the easier the how.
Consistency isn’t 8-10 hrs every day for 365 years because that is hardly sustainable for anyone in the long run. And if you have no goal in mind, then it’s even harder to keep a routine. Consistency is a combination between efforts and healthy routines. Much like working out! You need to keep yourself engaged and challenged but not punch too far above your weight to keep the interest.
So, visualise a calender and imagine doing some Japanese everyday. Whether it’s a short vocab review at breakfast or a small reading segment during lunchbreak or some grammar in the evening. You will most likely have gotten more Japanese done that way instead of going hardcore for everyday until you hit a burn out after three months and quit for six and then start all over again. And even if you miss a couple of days, you’ll swing back in way easier than after a few months.
It doesn’t need to be overly complicated. As another commenter said, there isn’t a one fits all solution. If you want my two cents: Anki has its pros but in the long run, I feel like it gets too monotonous and boring. I am not a big fan of drilling kanji or grammar with flashcards, for neither language I’ve learned and engaged with.
Here’s what I recommend:
Step 1: get yourself Genki 1+2, including the workbook and answer key. Work through those on a regular basis. Additionally I can recommend Kanji Look&Learn Workbook and Textbook. They gave me a really good boost in motivation when I was struggling in the beginner phase.
Step 2: find something you enjoy in Japanese. Personally, I enjoy reading books and manga. Yes, even after Genki 1+2, you’ll still feel like you won’t understand a thing in the beginning but that’s fine. Your reading speed and vocab as well as grammar recognition will improve over time. I made it a habit to read some Japanese everyday, if it’s only 15 minutes before I go to sleep. If something is still highly above your level, just put it aside and come back later. The satisfaction of re-reading a book that was once too difficult only to see your own level-up is amazing.
Step 3: don’t get discouraged on days where you feel that progress is slow. It’s normal. It’s always better to rest than to quit.
Step 4: forgetting is part of remembering. Taking breaks is perfectly normal. Don’t underestimate your brain’s subconscious learning abilities.
Step 5: increase your input gradually and practise output. Try to move away from translation and train yourself to think with your Japanese brain.
Experiment with different methods, textbooks, immersion and don’t stress yourself. There’ll be times where you won’t get much studying in and that’s fine. Learning a language is a marathon and not a sprint.
Re cards
Personally, I don’t like Anki. Creating cards is time consuming, it doesn’t sync progress across decks, missed days pile reviews up insanely fast, and it always ends up feeling like a slog after a while. I’d encourage you to take a look at [jpdb.io](https://jpdb.io) instead. It has a very sane card structure, breaks down vocabulary into individual sub-vocab and kanji cards, it has pre-made decks for tons of books, anime, and visual novels and it lets you easily drop very easy cards (but there isn’t really a need to, since it very quickly learns when a word is trivial for you).
One thing JPDB doesn’t have is pre-made JLPT decks, but it lets you import Anki decks, so you could start by importing a shared N5 deck and going through it at a quick pace (I did 100 cards a day when I started) before reverting to ~20 cards a day and finding further core vocabulary decks (e.g. N4 or Core2K) or decks that target your specific interests (e.g. I did the decks for Your Name, Weathering with You, Kimi ni Todoke, and 9-nine visual novel). I do 30 cards a day and have about 100~150 reviews a day.
One tip for reviews – don’t accept “I sort of know” as “passed”. If the card takes you a minute to figure out, fail it. If you remember the meaning but not the reading, fail it. These partially known cards tend to pile up and slow you down down the road. It might feel like you’re increasing your workload by failing cards more often, but in reality your review time will shorten, so you can do more cards in the same amount of time.
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Re pitch accent
I wouldn’t worry about pitch accent at this stage, and I wouldn’t study it in the form of Anki cards. Shadow reading seems like a much more sane approach to training your pronunciation.