So I’ve been learning Japanese for about 10 months, and I’m about N4 level (I know not that great) but I do this primarily as a hobby. I use Quizlet for flashcards and so far know about 2000 words, but I’d like to switch to Anki since I’ve heard it’s much better for memorization.
As of now, I just watch a bunch of native content (anime, youtube videos, podcasts) with Japanese subtitles, and any word I don’t know I add to my quizlet list, and I study those cards for about 1 hour every day.
Seeing as I already have a decent amount of vocabulary words, how should I go about switching to Anki? I’m just a little overwhelmed and wish I started sooner thanks for any help
10 comments
maybe try one of the core decks until you get your feet wet. Im currently doing the core 10k and I like it. I know alot of people suggest making your own decks, but as a fellow person doing this as a hobby I feel like i spend more time trying to format cards than I do studying when I do so. As you go through the deck and see a word you absolutly 100 percent know, you can suspend the card so it doesnt show up again and you dont waste your time on it.
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Once you feel comfortable with how it works, then maybe move on to making your own deck and theres tons of youtube videos on how to do that
Core 6k/2k
I highly recommend making your own Anki cards as I believe the general consensus is (and from my own personal anecdote) that it helps remember and learn faster.
On a side note, being at an N4 level in 10 months is very impressive – you’re doing an awesome job!
Just mine bro 😎👍
If you have money the “Nihongo lessons” app is by the Nihongo jlup team.
Basically it has no English (but you can check everything with the touch of a button to go to their dictionary app) teaches you 10 vocab a day, and those words are used in the definitions of the following words. There is native audio for every sentence, it teaches you how to read dictionary descriptions and how to use the words in multiple ways. as you progress you also get a deeper and more nuanced descriptions as well.
It’s not cheap. That’s it’s only flaw and why I don’t hear anyone talk much about it. But you can try a week free and after that I was sold. The amount of progress I’ve made since has been staggering.
You can probably skip the beginner coarse if you have some Anki under your belt too.
I use still Anki for specific contexts and sentences that I almost have but have a nuance im not used too. But I highly recommend you drop any premade deck once you have a grasp of the basics.
I recently built an iOS/macos sentence mining app for Anki if you’re on those platforms
Other people are mentioning the Core decks which are a good option, however I would download the Tango N5 and N4 decks and start going through those personally. With Tango you learn by sentences instead of single words. The sentences are in an i+1 format which means each sentence only has 1 new word as you go through the decks. By studying in this manner you see natural sentences, known words, and essential grammar constantly. The core decks have sentences too but they aren’t i+1 so they aren’t great for comprehension.
If you come across a card where you understand both the word and the sentence with ease then you can just suspend the card in Anki.
Once you get through those then start making your own cards from japanese media that you enjoy, starting with easy stuff first.
I think this video has great suggestions for structure though you aren’t a beginner you might find it helpful!
https://youtu.be/L1NQoQivkIY?si=qs1-8R4T2bC5-Ubu
Here tango N5 and N4
https://ankiweb.net/shared/info/419481234
https://ankiweb.net/shared/by-author/670249799
I was actually the opposite, i stopped using anki cause i found it jank. i paid for bunpro and wk instead
start by reading the manual
https://docs.ankiweb.net/
I started core 6k a bit over a year ago and with less than 1k to go it’s improved my vocab at a rate about 20 times what progress i made over the 5 years before that. Personally I do it on paper to help memorise the kanji but that’s probably not necessary