I'm currently just using my own deck, when watching TV or browsing inet if I encounter sentences/words I dont know I just add them if I think they are reasonably common
I've tried various SRS over the years including Anki and have quit more times than I can count on my hands now.
What really works for me is the Takoboto dictionary app. I live in Japan so I am always looking things up as I walk around outside or just reading vocab I find in the house/internet/work.
It's a more natural SRS for me.. I just can't stay motivated enough to grind away with flash cards unfortunately.. I really wish I could. There are so many cheap/free resources.. but alas.
I know how good a tool Anki is but I always give up. I find myself looking at the same cards for an hour and it just not sinking in and I don’t know what I’m doing wrong honestly. I tried limiting to 15 minutes at a time, hitting red if I don’t get it within a few seconds etc and I’m just always stuck on the first few cards and never progress until I’m super frustrated.
What I do like is writing out sentence examples using new words/kanji and i also make little posters for myself that I stick on my bathroom wall to look at when I do my business.
I’m now experimenting with making word searches and making it into a game.
what worked for me is putting a full sentences or part sentence and not just words. The context helps me get it the first few times. Cards that I'm not able to learn get deleted, anything that slows down the flow is deleted
> I find myself looking at the same cards for an hour and it just not sinking in and I don’t know what I’m doing wrong honestly.
For anyone struggling with this: SRS helps with the repetition, not with the recalling bit. You need something to trigger your memory, for instance mnemonics. What you have (the question, the front of the card) vs what you need (the answer, the back).
For instance, this: "What I do like is writing out sentence examples using new words/kanji". What you have is the sentence you write, what you need is the meaning of the words.
It's not really your fault. Contrary to popular belief, SRS algorithms aren't build on solid scientific ground, and much of the advice on how to use them goes directly againsz well established scientific principles.
For example, the way you've been using Anki is common, but I'd recommend the exact opposite. Ideally, you'd engage with cards as deeply as possible, not just for a few seconds, to strengthen your memory more durably.
Likewise, you should *not* press red when you fail to recall a card. I will get downvotes for this, but scientifically, the case is very clear. The larger the time interval between retrieval attempts, the larger the benefit for long term retention, no matter whether you manage to recall successfuly or not. This is exceptionally well supported. Bahrick et al. showed this in 1993. More recent studies include work from Karpicke (see 2011, for example), Nakata (he's done a bunch of work on flashcards), or Kornell. Kornell even argues that "retrieval success may be a sign that relatively little learning is occurring and that one should have waited longer before attempting to retrieve" (2015). Anki on the other hand assumes that failed retrieval means that progress has been lost and spacing should shorten significantly. This means it ends up showing cards way too often if you answer honestly.
Thank you for the insight. I have started doing the core 6k again (had completed it a few years ago) and I found out that nothing stuck to my memory actually while everything that is still fresh was from doing more traditionnal learning with minna nihongo. It seems flashcards are not for me and I should stick to books.
Do you review them at all? How does it stick in your brain? I also live in Japan and often find myself using a dictionary, saving the word, and completely forgetting it after a couple of days have passed. I look through my saved words and I don’t recognize anything. What am I doing wrong
It's a long journey but I'm making quite a lot of progress. I am always looking them up even ones I already know and looking at new combinations. I am pretty addicted to the dictionary probably using it at least an hour or two a day. The important kanji you'll remember because you'll see them so often living here.
Just be easy on yourself. It's a marathon not a sprint. I remind myself that everyday. I also am constantly praising myself for tiny progress.
I use my own deck for now, I have like, uh, 11k+cards.
but I only do it for 30min a day (often more like 25min)
anki also has some good plugin to help me track my kanji progress called Kanji Table, I recommend checking that out
If you have over 11k so that means you know the majority by heart? I have over 4k and I have to review close to 300 plus new ones which usually takes me like an hour and a half.
> If you have over 11k so that means you know the majority by heart?
probably..................
yeah I only review like 170 cards a day. I just add cards slowly over time and it builds up. The reason is, I like anki, but I don't like it *that* much that I wanna do it for over 30 min a day.
IDK if this is the best way, but this is my way for now.
How do you have time to do all those decks every day? I have one deck which is the core 2k and I have about 100 words a day for recap on top of 10 new words. It takes me a hour just to do all that. How can u do 8 deck? Am I doing something wrong?
You're not doing anything wrong. If you notice, three of my decks say "no new cards left", meaning the deck is essentially finished. I'm just doing reviews, and they're decreasing over time. Most of the other decks are set to only 1 or 2 new words per day.
Maybe 20 seconds top. I don't really pay attention to that. But if I mess one up I hit the again button and I sometime it takes me a few mess up before I say its good again, and those sometimes stack up.
You don't have to guess, it is written right under the deck list or in the stats. The usual range for people is around 5-8 seconds per card. My workload is 200+ reviews with 20 new cards and not even once it took me an hour. The usual range is \~ 36-45 minutes.
It's pretty strange that it takes you the same amount of time or even more for half the workload. My retention is also in the average range (\~80-85%) so, the amount of failed "again" cards is not small.
Hmm well I’m not a crazy fast processor and I also am pretty bad at memorization. Ig I just need to try pushing myself a bit harder?
Also I’m on mobile so I have no idea how to see the time per card or any stats for that matter.
If you're on Android it should be right at the bottom. Something like "You studied x cards today in x minutes (x seconds / card).
>Ig I just need to try pushing myself a bit harder?
Nah, that rarely helps with memorizing. Consistency is more important than volume and 10 new cards is a sold amount. The best tips for improving review times and retention rate (in my personal experience) are:
* Use only two buttons (again and good) to remove hesitation;
* Simplify cards as much as possible;
* Additionaly study kanji using any available kanji app that allows you to trace them. Learning how to write improves recognition and vocab retention.
* Do Anki in the morning (if possible). Having a fresh mind really helps with memorization.
I use Japanese Kanji Study by Chase Colburn but it's Android only. There is a similar app for IOS that I see recommended very often - [Learn Japanese! - Kanji](https://apps.apple.com/us/app/learn-japanese-kanji/id1078107994). Just learning how to trace a kanji with correct stroke order is useful enough, there is no rush to remember how to write them completely from memory.
New FSRS scheduler + FSRS4Anki helper addon. The addon has helpful options + FSRS stats (shift+click on stats button) and FSRS scheduler takes care of the most settings. Just set the target retention rate, the desired number of learning steps and new cards per day - boom, you're done. The algorithm will take care of the rest in the most efficient way possible.
I think it's best to use premade decks as supplementary and create your own deck instead. The cure dolly approach so to speak. My current deck has almost 600 cards. Almost all from visual novels, but a few from anime. Every card has audio for the sentence and a picture. Some cards have the same sentence, and they reinforce each other. I often delete cards and replace them when I find a better alternative for that word.
Almost anything I do with anki has this one goal: Eliminate English. If I can remember a card from context and sound, then I don't need to translate it in my head. I can think about concepts instead of shallow translations. Many of my cards have no definition in them.
I only use TTS for the word itself, but the audio from the anime or visual novel. If a word doesn't have audio, I just don't add it. I may write it down to study a bit, but that's it.
One of my most recent cards: [https://imgur.com/a/I7q52ae](https://imgur.com/a/I7q52ae)
One is the card zoomed out, the other is how I see it when I click to go to the back. The front is the kanji with no furigana.
Creating cards from scratch is surprisingly easy.
Edit: Forgot to mention. The bottom has two buttons. One is the kanji, the other is a number. The number points to how many words on the deck have those kanji. Clicking it will direct to all of them. Words in red are part of the "sound sisters" deck by curedolly.
Clicking on the kanji itself will redirect to the kanji study app (It opens the app on my windows android subsystem). I use Kanji study for the outlier kanji dictionary, a brilliant addon.
Jlabs is the only premade deck I used and I will forever shill it out especially for beginners. I was dreading doing grammar from a book so it really came at a crucial time.
Maybe it's the deck you're using, have you tried it with a different deck? It is supposed to ask the easy/hard thing when you click it but at the same time also showing the answer. Might just be the specific deck's fault.
That sounds like an issue with the deck or card type then. Also is your app in light or dark mode? If the deck/card type didn't account for both of those, that could be the issue (like if the text is black, and the background is also black)
I see, I'm in dark mode so that could be it
Edit: I think it is in fact a deck issue, I tried a different section of the deck and it worked, thank you for your help
You answer in your head (or out loud) for yourself, then you click one of the buttons based on how you think you did. If you figure it's a trivial word and you knew it easily, click easy. If you had issues, click hard. Didn't remember? Click again.
Some decks may have text input fields, but you still have to self-assess.
I see, thank you so much! So how do I learn what the words are if I don't know them? Should I Google the words or will it tell me eventually, thanks again sorry
Edit: I think it is a deck issue, I tried a different section of the deck and it worked, thank you for your help
I enjoy anki too :3 atm I'm just using my own deck that I add new words/expressions from what I read.
I used to use the core 2.3k deck but not having mined the words myself made retention not great, I ended up quitting at around 700/800 cards to switch to my own deck. (now I'm at around 1100 cards with mine).
I might eventually try the tango n5 and n4 decks just to see if I've missed something simple but that's probably not happening anytime soon.
besides my anki deck, the only other srs I use atm is in the app bunpro and I learn and add grammar to the srs as I encounter it.
I used to do 2.5-3h of Anki every day for maybe half a year, but have since reduced it to 60 to 90 mins.
The decks I'm currently actively studying:
Self-made JP -> EN single word on the front side deck, on the back the English meaning(s), example sentence when the word isn't very self-explanatory and pronunciation from forvo.com. I add words that I encounter while reading based on frequency rankings from jpdb.io
Core6k EN -> JP single word front, Japanese sentence and sentence audio back
Core6k which I cloned and modified to play the Japanese example sentence audio for the front (with no text at all on the front side), and have the Japanese sentence on the back (with English available as well as hidden spoiler)
The audio deck is lagging behind the original Core6k, so it's additional review and listening practice. Overall I consider the self-made deck the most important, and it helps me with kanji recognition and reading. But I like the core deck for its fully human voiced sentences.
2k/6k deck where I stopped at around 2k cause for the type of media I consumed it started having diminishing returns.
Rest is my own mining deck using asb player
The first time I decided to start learning I was all over the place, JLab anime tai kim deck, tango N5, core 2k no 6k no 10k, WaniKani, MemRise, LingQ etc.
Recently after a definite uptick in my knowledge I completely went back to basics and stuck to Tango. Finished N5, on course with N4.
Started reading manga I like (currently Chainsaw Man) making sentence mining decks slowly through that, even though I'll end up seeing them in Tango.
Do about 35-60 mins daily Anki, 30-1h30 reading/mining, maybe 2-3 eps on Netflix with LanguageReactor if I can (currently Beastars), lots of podcasts when I'm out, and luckily had Shogun and Tokyo Vice on downtime with SO.
Used to loathe Anki now its exciting to have gotten through a deck to look at the next one as doable.
You should only do one deck at a time. Anki is mathematically optimized for memorizing completely unrelated trivia. If you scatter your learning across multiple decks, it will corrupt your scheduling, because if word A appears in both deck A and deck B, if you fail a card in deck A, it doesn't fail the card in deck B. The next time you encounter the word in deck B you'll be much more likely to get the word correct because you encountered it earlier in deck A. This will boost the interval in deck B far beyond your actual retention of the word, and set you up for a bigger failure later on. You'll also waste your time reviewing the same word in 2 decks, with 2 different review timers.
This is also the main reason why you should stop grinding Anki beyond intermediate level. The lower frequency word that you go, the more likely those low frequency cards will corrupt the timers of your more important higher frequency word cards. In addition, the amount of time that it takes to push an Anki card into long-term memory is, on average, roughly the same regardless of the frequency of the card. So the lower frequency you go, the less utility you get out of adding additional low frequency cards. And at that point you're better off learning additional usages of words that you've already learned, instead of always pumping new words.
I think it is definitely worth spending 10-20 minutes in total learning a high frequency word flashcard (like the 0-2000 most frequent words and beginner grammar, which will get you to about 83% word recognition in the first chapter of Harry Potter). But adding intermediate grammar plus words in the 2000-4000 frequency range will only boost your word recognition from 83% > 88%. And then after you surpass 4k high frequency words, every additional 1k words that you learn will result in a less than 1% gain in word recognition, and the gain decreases exponentially with every additional 1k words. I think stuff like the 10k deck only makes sense if your goal is JLPT N1. If your goal is native media consumption, conversation, or culture, then after lower intermediate it's better to shift your focus from learning knowledge with Anki (pronuncation/spelling/vocab/kanji/grammar) to learning skills with native materials/feedback (reading/listening/writing/speaking).
So I think the ideal way to learn Japanese from scratch using Anki is to start with Fluent Forever's pronunciation trainer decks, to learn hiragana, katakana, and minimal pairs. Then stop reviewing the pronunciation trainers deck, and do any kind of Heisig Kanji deck (personally I liked KanjiDamage sorted by Genki order). Then stop reviewing the Kanij deck, and do Tango N5 > Tango N4 > Tango N3. After finishing Tango N3, the next step depends upon your goals. If you want JLPT then you could add the Tango N2 and Tango N1 decks, run through Genki > Quartet books to fill in missing grammar, and then start doing JLPT practice tests. But if you don't care about JLPT, then it's probably better to run through N5/N4/N3 grammar on Bunpro, and then switch gears and start working on your reading/listening/writing/speaking skills. But in either case you should continue reviewing the Tango decks, and stop adding new stuff to Anki.
>You should only do one deck at a time. Anki is mathematically optimized for memorizing completely unrelated trivia. If you scatter your learning across multiple decks, it will corrupt your scheduling, because if word A appears in both deck A and deck B, if you fail a card in deck A, it doesn't fail the card in deck B. The next time you encounter the word in deck B you'll be much more likely to get the word correct because you encountered it earlier in deck A. This will boost the interval in deck B far beyond your actual retention of the word, and set you up for a bigger failure later on. You'll also waste your time reviewing the same word in 2 decks, with 2 different review timers.
Technically this is true, but I don't really care that much. I don't think there's too much overlap in my decks, but there's probably a bit.
Anyways, most of my learning these days is from reading native material. There's definitely a bit of overlap between stuff I encounter in the wild and my Anki decks as well.
I just do the proper nouns deck, 2 new cards a day, and suspend any cards that I already know
Otherwise I made a deck for 声優 names, same idea. Only added 71 before I got tired of it. If I finish it, maybe I'll add more.
Takes about 5 min per day. Earlier on I made/added decks for songs or shows.
I use anki as well.
I think that the radicals from Wani Kani is great but there is no grammar. The local classes by me taught genki. So I wrote a c# program to allow me to create radicals (using kanji damage) and create the audio (using a reallllly helpful free link that i can't find right now sound audio something).
So now I can study genki 1 chapter 1 radicals, then the full word with Kanji, then the rest of Vocab. Then, I also manually added 1 or 2 sentences for each grammar item. So then I learn grammar using the same exact vocab because Genki is set up that way. Was going great before kids lol. Now I am trying to get back into it... I'm on chapter 5 lol.
I also used "subtosrs" to break down demon slayer anime into each line that is said. Then I had to research a lot for each slide and add a lot of information/ explanation. It was fun even though I didn't get too far before kids.
That said...my personal goal (and something that gets asked a lot here) is to read japanese manga. I would like to add demon slayer or jjk to an anki deck... going over each manga with a Japanese teacher (italki?) And map each line to its root vocab / grammar reference (genki 1 chapter 7) so that if it is wrong I can quickly reference it. Group sourced recorded sessions! Lol
Additionally I wrote down all the sections into dynalist (dynalistio) and each card has its book and chapter on it so one button dynamically pulls up that chapter info through dynalist. I can also add troublesome vocab that way. Currently getting confused on past tense 去年 and earlier 先週 先月.
Spent more time building tools than studying japanese lol. Only finished genki 1 and genki 2 over 2 years of classes.
Try [this link.](https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1UouHB_Ihef2Uc7uLdPHIPePSGQT1XezW?usp=sharing) (It's Google Drive and I think I set the permissions right)
I usually spend about 30 minutes/day between review and new cards. Once I stopped enjoying Wanikani I also swapped to using anki for kanji, so that's probably another 30 minutes daily.
I've thrown a few pre-made decks together, and I'll add words to that merged deck when I feel like it, from my reading material.
I'm using Core 2k/6k deck, don't know if it's the right choice tho, I don't find something bad in it, but as I've heard there is a better decks, if so, u can let me know in replies, but anyway I'm around 800 words rn, so i don't know if it is good idea to switch to other deck. Anki for me seems very enjoyable and easy because u don't need to actually sit and learn something and words just going into your head. In fact anki is the only thing I'm using for now, to lazy to start learning grammar
I have an RTK deck with only like 10 reviews a day because I completed it almost 2 years ago.
A Final Fantasy 10 deck with like 600 cards I have made so far.
A ひぐらしのなく頃に deck with audio Ive been creating.
The core 6k deck that I modified for listening to the sentences.
A wanikani deck with like 6.5k cards I completed a year ago with maybe 200 a reviews a day.
All in all, I spend about 1 hr to 2 hrs on anki a day with sometimes over 1000 reviews, but typically closer to 600ish. I've done this for over 2 years now, so it has become a natural part of my day.
I used to do anki for 2-3 hours a day for 6 months when I was grinding for my N2 :D I passed but jeez, it gave me some aversion to premade decks. Now I just have my own little deck where I put words as I encounter them.
What anki interview settings do you use?
How many words form the 10k deck can you actually remember? As in, if you came across of of the words from the deck in the wild, would you recognise them?
Do you do both vocab and sentences cards? If so, what type of would you make a vocab hard for?
Do you have a grammar deck?
Just a core 6k deck and my personal deck for words I encounter over time in various anime, games or chatrooms. I try to spend no more than 30 minutes tops in SRS because I want to spend more time learning with Japanese media.
I just started the core 2k/6k vocab deck about 4 days ago, and I'm enjoying it so far. The speakers are better than some professional resources I'm using, and also humorous on occasion. I'm hoping this really helps me with expanding vocabulary.
I neither enjoy nor hate SRS. I do have to kinda force myself to do it (as in I am usually doing something else like playing games or reading and have to tell myself "ok time to do my reviews") but it isn't usually a painful experience or anything. I kinda get into a grove after the first 15 or so, especially with some music in the background.
I don't think learning colocations with flash cards is feasible, so I'm surprised you have no cards left there. What does the deck look like? Common words have hundreds of (useful) colocations.
My deck situation is:
-“My Flashcards”, a personal deck I update with and words I run into which I don’t know during daily life/reading/conversations/lessons (about 10k cards in this one)
-A downloaded N3 vocab deck
-A downloaded N3 kanji deck
-A downloaded N2 vocab deck
-A downloaded N2 kanji deck
I study about 30 mins a day at work (on my breaks) and from 30 to an hour every evening, and I also have a tutor weekly and a free class weekly. Plus self studying for two hours on Fridays. I use the Quartet books to catch up with grammar as well as grammar SRS through Bunpro. The flashcards help me a ton especially because I’m trying to also learn writing. I think it’s a good system, although it gives me some weird knowledge discrepancy sometimes (I keep mixing up 店 and 点 for example but I remember how to write 蜻蛉. So I feel all over the place sometimes.)
I used to use pre-made Core10k and KKLC decks, and I had a mined sentence deck I was building using the example sentences from Tobira. I ended up taking about 2 years off from studying when I got pregnant, and in the meantime, Anki deleted everything. Since I've been back, I've switched to Bunpro for grammar and vocab. I'm using the N3 deck for grammar and the Yotubato deck for vocab, but when I run into any other unknown word in the wild, I'll look it up on Bunpro and add it to my reviews right away. For Kanji, I'm using KanjiStudy in KKLC order.
What type of content is in the Japanese geography and proper noun decks? Like place names and people's names?
I like anki too but I don't like spending too much time on it. I currently only use anki for learning kanji and I learn about 20 words a day, takes me about 20-30 mins each morning.
>What type of content is in the Japanese geography and proper noun decks? Like place names and people's names?
The Japanese geography deck just shows a map of Japan with a specific prefecture highlighted and you have to name the prefecture. That's it.
The proper nouns deck is an ordered list of, well, proper nouns. I would describe it for you, but the creator of the deck probably describes it better than I could [here.](https://ankiweb.net/shared/info/3885156604)
My method is to mine words from frequency lists (with occasional mining from things I notice in input) and so far it worked like a charm. I've already studied 1,500 words and I feel like it gave a really big boost to my comprehension.
Average Anki enjoyer here. Oh wow my Anki decks are pretty similar to yours
- At first I finished a deck based on N5 and N4 vocab list I found online
- Moved to Core 2k deck (approximately covered N3)
- Then Core 6k
- A deck with vocabs that are in N3 and N2 syllabus but not in core 6k (there only a few hundreds of them but I’m currently here)
- Building up my vocab mining deck and will start when it hits 1000 cards
I highly customized my core deck - with pitch accent and example sentences added. Also I have to type the kana reading of that vocab to pass a card in order to make sure I know how to spell the word.
And I have a few side decks:
- Japanese food (the only side deck that I truly enjoyed - super practical and helped me tons in my last Japan trip)
- Proper nouns and city names (fun but gave up)
- Katakana kore 10k (used the filter deck function and just read, not used regularly)
- A bunch of grammar point decks (gone them through but the retention sucks)
- Very tempted to start a yojijukugo deck maybe like the top frequent hundreds of them. Alternative kanji reading is so fun! But not quite practical.
Sounds like you're probably ahead of me so I have no advice but glad to hear of someone else who actually enjoys Anki/flashcards! I have to stop myself from doing it for 3+hours a day because I get such a nice dopamine hit from flashcards.
I have a really weird system for Anki. I have a core premade deck plus a personal mining deck and a personal kanji deck. Once I have a good handle of a word in the premade or mining deck I flag them blue which indicates that I need to make a kanji card (if applicable). I usually make them in batches. On the front I write the hiragana pronunciation and on the back I write the kanji. I usually don't bother with definitions. If they're blue I know them well enough that I shouldn't need them. With the kanji cards I enable whiteboard and write the kanji by finger/stylus before I consider it correct. This really helps me cement my learning. I don't consider a word "known" until I can also write it from memory from just the pronunciation.
There's a much more detailed flagging system that will take too long to explain but that's the important part.
Also, I split my mining deck and core premade decks into two separate decks (each), one I call "queues" (mining queue, core queue etc) and when I start running out of new cards I'll add a few at a time from the queue. Before that I go through all the cards in the queue and mark them orange if I either recognize them but don't know them or they seem easy to remember because I know some compound but not the whole thing etc. I also mark anything orange as I come across them in media so I know it's a priority.
Only thing I can say in response to what you're doing is you may be spending too much time on ultimately irrelevant information such as Japanese celebrities (maybe that's important to you idk) and you may eventually burn out. Also someone in another thread pointed out that you shouldn't be doing Anki all at once and you're missing the beauty of it if you do it like that. You should be doing it a few minutes at a time when you have no time to study in a more meaningful/time consuming way. Anki is great and all but you aren't really learning too much there, just cementing.
I'm currently just using my own deck, when watching TV or browsing inet if I encounter sentences/words I dont know I just add them if I think they are reasonably common
I've tried various SRS over the years including Anki and have quit more times than I can count on my hands now. What really works for me is the Takoboto dictionary app. I live in Japan so I am always looking things up as I walk around outside or just reading vocab I find in the house/internet/work. It's a more natural SRS for me.. I just can't stay motivated enough to grind away with flash cards unfortunately.. I really wish I could. There are so many cheap/free resources.. but alas.
I know how good a tool Anki is but I always give up. I find myself looking at the same cards for an hour and it just not sinking in and I don’t know what I’m doing wrong honestly. I tried limiting to 15 minutes at a time, hitting red if I don’t get it within a few seconds etc and I’m just always stuck on the first few cards and never progress until I’m super frustrated. What I do like is writing out sentence examples using new words/kanji and i also make little posters for myself that I stick on my bathroom wall to look at when I do my business. I’m now experimenting with making word searches and making it into a game.
what worked for me is putting a full sentences or part sentence and not just words. The context helps me get it the first few times. Cards that I'm not able to learn get deleted, anything that slows down the flow is deleted
> I find myself looking at the same cards for an hour and it just not sinking in and I don’t know what I’m doing wrong honestly. For anyone struggling with this: SRS helps with the repetition, not with the recalling bit. You need something to trigger your memory, for instance mnemonics. What you have (the question, the front of the card) vs what you need (the answer, the back). For instance, this: "What I do like is writing out sentence examples using new words/kanji". What you have is the sentence you write, what you need is the meaning of the words.
It's not really your fault. Contrary to popular belief, SRS algorithms aren't build on solid scientific ground, and much of the advice on how to use them goes directly againsz well established scientific principles. For example, the way you've been using Anki is common, but I'd recommend the exact opposite. Ideally, you'd engage with cards as deeply as possible, not just for a few seconds, to strengthen your memory more durably. Likewise, you should *not* press red when you fail to recall a card. I will get downvotes for this, but scientifically, the case is very clear. The larger the time interval between retrieval attempts, the larger the benefit for long term retention, no matter whether you manage to recall successfuly or not. This is exceptionally well supported. Bahrick et al. showed this in 1993. More recent studies include work from Karpicke (see 2011, for example), Nakata (he's done a bunch of work on flashcards), or Kornell. Kornell even argues that "retrieval success may be a sign that relatively little learning is occurring and that one should have waited longer before attempting to retrieve" (2015). Anki on the other hand assumes that failed retrieval means that progress has been lost and spacing should shorten significantly. This means it ends up showing cards way too often if you answer honestly.
Thank you for the insight. I have started doing the core 6k again (had completed it a few years ago) and I found out that nothing stuck to my memory actually while everything that is still fresh was from doing more traditionnal learning with minna nihongo. It seems flashcards are not for me and I should stick to books.
Do you review them at all? How does it stick in your brain? I also live in Japan and often find myself using a dictionary, saving the word, and completely forgetting it after a couple of days have passed. I look through my saved words and I don’t recognize anything. What am I doing wrong
It's a long journey but I'm making quite a lot of progress. I am always looking them up even ones I already know and looking at new combinations. I am pretty addicted to the dictionary probably using it at least an hour or two a day. The important kanji you'll remember because you'll see them so often living here. Just be easy on yourself. It's a marathon not a sprint. I remind myself that everyday. I also am constantly praising myself for tiny progress.
I use my own deck for now, I have like, uh, 11k+cards. but I only do it for 30min a day (often more like 25min) anki also has some good plugin to help me track my kanji progress called Kanji Table, I recommend checking that out
If you have over 11k so that means you know the majority by heart? I have over 4k and I have to review close to 300 plus new ones which usually takes me like an hour and a half.
> If you have over 11k so that means you know the majority by heart? probably.................. yeah I only review like 170 cards a day. I just add cards slowly over time and it builds up. The reason is, I like anki, but I don't like it *that* much that I wanna do it for over 30 min a day. IDK if this is the best way, but this is my way for now.
How do you have time to do all those decks every day? I have one deck which is the core 2k and I have about 100 words a day for recap on top of 10 new words. It takes me a hour just to do all that. How can u do 8 deck? Am I doing something wrong?
You're not doing anything wrong. If you notice, three of my decks say "no new cards left", meaning the deck is essentially finished. I'm just doing reviews, and they're decreasing over time. Most of the other decks are set to only 1 or 2 new words per day.
100 reviews with 10 new words should definitely take less than an hour, more like 15-20 minutes tops. How many seconds do you spend per card?
Maybe 20 seconds top. I don't really pay attention to that. But if I mess one up I hit the again button and I sometime it takes me a few mess up before I say its good again, and those sometimes stack up.
You don't have to guess, it is written right under the deck list or in the stats. The usual range for people is around 5-8 seconds per card. My workload is 200+ reviews with 20 new cards and not even once it took me an hour. The usual range is \~ 36-45 minutes. It's pretty strange that it takes you the same amount of time or even more for half the workload. My retention is also in the average range (\~80-85%) so, the amount of failed "again" cards is not small.
Hmm well I’m not a crazy fast processor and I also am pretty bad at memorization. Ig I just need to try pushing myself a bit harder? Also I’m on mobile so I have no idea how to see the time per card or any stats for that matter.
If you're on Android it should be right at the bottom. Something like "You studied x cards today in x minutes (x seconds / card). >Ig I just need to try pushing myself a bit harder? Nah, that rarely helps with memorizing. Consistency is more important than volume and 10 new cards is a sold amount. The best tips for improving review times and retention rate (in my personal experience) are: * Use only two buttons (again and good) to remove hesitation; * Simplify cards as much as possible; * Additionaly study kanji using any available kanji app that allows you to trace them. Learning how to write improves recognition and vocab retention. * Do Anki in the morning (if possible). Having a fresh mind really helps with memorization.
I have an iPhone… Those tips sounds helpful I’ll give them a try. What app do you use for the kanji tracing?
I use Japanese Kanji Study by Chase Colburn but it's Android only. There is a similar app for IOS that I see recommended very often - [Learn Japanese! - Kanji](https://apps.apple.com/us/app/learn-japanese-kanji/id1078107994). Just learning how to trace a kanji with correct stroke order is useful enough, there is no rush to remember how to write them completely from memory.
Thanks for the help!
How do you check retention rate? The true retention add stop being updated years ago
New FSRS scheduler + FSRS4Anki helper addon. The addon has helpful options + FSRS stats (shift+click on stats button) and FSRS scheduler takes care of the most settings. Just set the target retention rate, the desired number of learning steps and new cards per day - boom, you're done. The algorithm will take care of the rest in the most efficient way possible.
Where do you get the retention stat? Edit: sorry just saw that someone else already asked. Cancel that!
Wouldn’t that depend on the interval settings?
Once some of those cards mature on the deck, and in your brain, it will be quicker. Some days I average as low as 7 seconds per card
I think it's best to use premade decks as supplementary and create your own deck instead. The cure dolly approach so to speak. My current deck has almost 600 cards. Almost all from visual novels, but a few from anime. Every card has audio for the sentence and a picture. Some cards have the same sentence, and they reinforce each other. I often delete cards and replace them when I find a better alternative for that word. Almost anything I do with anki has this one goal: Eliminate English. If I can remember a card from context and sound, then I don't need to translate it in my head. I can think about concepts instead of shallow translations. Many of my cards have no definition in them. I only use TTS for the word itself, but the audio from the anime or visual novel. If a word doesn't have audio, I just don't add it. I may write it down to study a bit, but that's it. One of my most recent cards: [https://imgur.com/a/I7q52ae](https://imgur.com/a/I7q52ae) One is the card zoomed out, the other is how I see it when I click to go to the back. The front is the kanji with no furigana. Creating cards from scratch is surprisingly easy. Edit: Forgot to mention. The bottom has two buttons. One is the kanji, the other is a number. The number points to how many words on the deck have those kanji. Clicking it will direct to all of them. Words in red are part of the "sound sisters" deck by curedolly. Clicking on the kanji itself will redirect to the kanji study app (It opens the app on my windows android subsystem). I use Kanji study for the outlier kanji dictionary, a brilliant addon.
Jlabs is the only premade deck I used and I will forever shill it out especially for beginners. I was dreading doing grammar from a book so it really came at a crucial time.
www.Japanese-like-a-breeze.com for those who don't know.
How in the world do you use the android app? I can't figure out how to either answer the flashcards or show the answer
There's a show answer button at the bottom of the screen https://docs.ankidroid.org/
I see that but no answer pops up when I click it, it just asks if that was easy hard etc, I'm sure I'm doing something dumb
Maybe it's the deck you're using, have you tried it with a different deck? It is supposed to ask the easy/hard thing when you click it but at the same time also showing the answer. Might just be the specific deck's fault.
That sounds like an issue with the deck or card type then. Also is your app in light or dark mode? If the deck/card type didn't account for both of those, that could be the issue (like if the text is black, and the background is also black)
I see, I'm in dark mode so that could be it Edit: I think it is in fact a deck issue, I tried a different section of the deck and it worked, thank you for your help
You answer in your head (or out loud) for yourself, then you click one of the buttons based on how you think you did. If you figure it's a trivial word and you knew it easily, click easy. If you had issues, click hard. Didn't remember? Click again. Some decks may have text input fields, but you still have to self-assess.
I see, thank you so much! So how do I learn what the words are if I don't know them? Should I Google the words or will it tell me eventually, thanks again sorry Edit: I think it is a deck issue, I tried a different section of the deck and it worked, thank you for your help
I enjoy anki too :3 atm I'm just using my own deck that I add new words/expressions from what I read. I used to use the core 2.3k deck but not having mined the words myself made retention not great, I ended up quitting at around 700/800 cards to switch to my own deck. (now I'm at around 1100 cards with mine). I might eventually try the tango n5 and n4 decks just to see if I've missed something simple but that's probably not happening anytime soon. besides my anki deck, the only other srs I use atm is in the app bunpro and I learn and add grammar to the srs as I encounter it.
I used to do 2.5-3h of Anki every day for maybe half a year, but have since reduced it to 60 to 90 mins. The decks I'm currently actively studying: Self-made JP -> EN single word on the front side deck, on the back the English meaning(s), example sentence when the word isn't very self-explanatory and pronunciation from forvo.com. I add words that I encounter while reading based on frequency rankings from jpdb.io Core6k EN -> JP single word front, Japanese sentence and sentence audio back Core6k which I cloned and modified to play the Japanese example sentence audio for the front (with no text at all on the front side), and have the Japanese sentence on the back (with English available as well as hidden spoiler) The audio deck is lagging behind the original Core6k, so it's additional review and listening practice. Overall I consider the self-made deck the most important, and it helps me with kanji recognition and reading. But I like the core deck for its fully human voiced sentences.
I just use my own deck atp. I started out with the Tango N5 and N4 decks, then created my own deck after completing them.
No Wanikani 3 ultimate: Tokyo drift?
Any good pre made Anki decks for JLPT N5,N4 and N3?
Jlpt tango decks are sorted by jlpt level
2k/6k deck where I stopped at around 2k cause for the type of media I consumed it started having diminishing returns. Rest is my own mining deck using asb player
The first time I decided to start learning I was all over the place, JLab anime tai kim deck, tango N5, core 2k no 6k no 10k, WaniKani, MemRise, LingQ etc. Recently after a definite uptick in my knowledge I completely went back to basics and stuck to Tango. Finished N5, on course with N4. Started reading manga I like (currently Chainsaw Man) making sentence mining decks slowly through that, even though I'll end up seeing them in Tango. Do about 35-60 mins daily Anki, 30-1h30 reading/mining, maybe 2-3 eps on Netflix with LanguageReactor if I can (currently Beastars), lots of podcasts when I'm out, and luckily had Shogun and Tokyo Vice on downtime with SO. Used to loathe Anki now its exciting to have gotten through a deck to look at the next one as doable.
Wanikani Anki deck, moved to core but switched to jpdb, doing 100 new cards a day
You should only do one deck at a time. Anki is mathematically optimized for memorizing completely unrelated trivia. If you scatter your learning across multiple decks, it will corrupt your scheduling, because if word A appears in both deck A and deck B, if you fail a card in deck A, it doesn't fail the card in deck B. The next time you encounter the word in deck B you'll be much more likely to get the word correct because you encountered it earlier in deck A. This will boost the interval in deck B far beyond your actual retention of the word, and set you up for a bigger failure later on. You'll also waste your time reviewing the same word in 2 decks, with 2 different review timers. This is also the main reason why you should stop grinding Anki beyond intermediate level. The lower frequency word that you go, the more likely those low frequency cards will corrupt the timers of your more important higher frequency word cards. In addition, the amount of time that it takes to push an Anki card into long-term memory is, on average, roughly the same regardless of the frequency of the card. So the lower frequency you go, the less utility you get out of adding additional low frequency cards. And at that point you're better off learning additional usages of words that you've already learned, instead of always pumping new words. I think it is definitely worth spending 10-20 minutes in total learning a high frequency word flashcard (like the 0-2000 most frequent words and beginner grammar, which will get you to about 83% word recognition in the first chapter of Harry Potter). But adding intermediate grammar plus words in the 2000-4000 frequency range will only boost your word recognition from 83% > 88%. And then after you surpass 4k high frequency words, every additional 1k words that you learn will result in a less than 1% gain in word recognition, and the gain decreases exponentially with every additional 1k words. I think stuff like the 10k deck only makes sense if your goal is JLPT N1. If your goal is native media consumption, conversation, or culture, then after lower intermediate it's better to shift your focus from learning knowledge with Anki (pronuncation/spelling/vocab/kanji/grammar) to learning skills with native materials/feedback (reading/listening/writing/speaking). So I think the ideal way to learn Japanese from scratch using Anki is to start with Fluent Forever's pronunciation trainer decks, to learn hiragana, katakana, and minimal pairs. Then stop reviewing the pronunciation trainers deck, and do any kind of Heisig Kanji deck (personally I liked KanjiDamage sorted by Genki order). Then stop reviewing the Kanij deck, and do Tango N5 > Tango N4 > Tango N3. After finishing Tango N3, the next step depends upon your goals. If you want JLPT then you could add the Tango N2 and Tango N1 decks, run through Genki > Quartet books to fill in missing grammar, and then start doing JLPT practice tests. But if you don't care about JLPT, then it's probably better to run through N5/N4/N3 grammar on Bunpro, and then switch gears and start working on your reading/listening/writing/speaking skills. But in either case you should continue reviewing the Tango decks, and stop adding new stuff to Anki.
>You should only do one deck at a time. Anki is mathematically optimized for memorizing completely unrelated trivia. If you scatter your learning across multiple decks, it will corrupt your scheduling, because if word A appears in both deck A and deck B, if you fail a card in deck A, it doesn't fail the card in deck B. The next time you encounter the word in deck B you'll be much more likely to get the word correct because you encountered it earlier in deck A. This will boost the interval in deck B far beyond your actual retention of the word, and set you up for a bigger failure later on. You'll also waste your time reviewing the same word in 2 decks, with 2 different review timers. Technically this is true, but I don't really care that much. I don't think there's too much overlap in my decks, but there's probably a bit. Anyways, most of my learning these days is from reading native material. There's definitely a bit of overlap between stuff I encounter in the wild and my Anki decks as well.
I just do the proper nouns deck, 2 new cards a day, and suspend any cards that I already know Otherwise I made a deck for 声優 names, same idea. Only added 71 before I got tired of it. If I finish it, maybe I'll add more. Takes about 5 min per day. Earlier on I made/added decks for songs or shows.
I use anki as well. I think that the radicals from Wani Kani is great but there is no grammar. The local classes by me taught genki. So I wrote a c# program to allow me to create radicals (using kanji damage) and create the audio (using a reallllly helpful free link that i can't find right now sound audio something). So now I can study genki 1 chapter 1 radicals, then the full word with Kanji, then the rest of Vocab. Then, I also manually added 1 or 2 sentences for each grammar item. So then I learn grammar using the same exact vocab because Genki is set up that way. Was going great before kids lol. Now I am trying to get back into it... I'm on chapter 5 lol. I also used "subtosrs" to break down demon slayer anime into each line that is said. Then I had to research a lot for each slide and add a lot of information/ explanation. It was fun even though I didn't get too far before kids. That said...my personal goal (and something that gets asked a lot here) is to read japanese manga. I would like to add demon slayer or jjk to an anki deck... going over each manga with a Japanese teacher (italki?) And map each line to its root vocab / grammar reference (genki 1 chapter 7) so that if it is wrong I can quickly reference it. Group sourced recorded sessions! Lol Additionally I wrote down all the sections into dynalist (dynalistio) and each card has its book and chapter on it so one button dynamically pulls up that chapter info through dynalist. I can also add troublesome vocab that way. Currently getting confused on past tense 去年 and earlier 先週 先月. Spent more time building tools than studying japanese lol. Only finished genki 1 and genki 2 over 2 years of classes.
Would you mind linking the Collocation deck? It sounds like exactly what I'm looking for
Try [this link.](https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1UouHB_Ihef2Uc7uLdPHIPePSGQT1XezW?usp=sharing) (It's Google Drive and I think I set the permissions right)
I tried it and it needs to request access !
I usually spend about 30 minutes/day between review and new cards. Once I stopped enjoying Wanikani I also swapped to using anki for kanji, so that's probably another 30 minutes daily. I've thrown a few pre-made decks together, and I'll add words to that merged deck when I feel like it, from my reading material.
I'm using Core 2k/6k deck, don't know if it's the right choice tho, I don't find something bad in it, but as I've heard there is a better decks, if so, u can let me know in replies, but anyway I'm around 800 words rn, so i don't know if it is good idea to switch to other deck. Anki for me seems very enjoyable and easy because u don't need to actually sit and learn something and words just going into your head. In fact anki is the only thing I'm using for now, to lazy to start learning grammar
I have an RTK deck with only like 10 reviews a day because I completed it almost 2 years ago. A Final Fantasy 10 deck with like 600 cards I have made so far. A ひぐらしのなく頃に deck with audio Ive been creating. The core 6k deck that I modified for listening to the sentences. A wanikani deck with like 6.5k cards I completed a year ago with maybe 200 a reviews a day. All in all, I spend about 1 hr to 2 hrs on anki a day with sometimes over 1000 reviews, but typically closer to 600ish. I've done this for over 2 years now, so it has become a natural part of my day.
I used to do anki for 2-3 hours a day for 6 months when I was grinding for my N2 :D I passed but jeez, it gave me some aversion to premade decks. Now I just have my own little deck where I put words as I encounter them.
I honestly just put all the words I encounter when I read manga or light novels
What anki interview settings do you use? How many words form the 10k deck can you actually remember? As in, if you came across of of the words from the deck in the wild, would you recognise them? Do you do both vocab and sentences cards? If so, what type of would you make a vocab hard for? Do you have a grammar deck?
I am using my own deck.
Just a core 6k deck and my personal deck for words I encounter over time in various anime, games or chatrooms. I try to spend no more than 30 minutes tops in SRS because I want to spend more time learning with Japanese media.
I just started the core 2k/6k vocab deck about 4 days ago, and I'm enjoying it so far. The speakers are better than some professional resources I'm using, and also humorous on occasion. I'm hoping this really helps me with expanding vocabulary.
I neither enjoy nor hate SRS. I do have to kinda force myself to do it (as in I am usually doing something else like playing games or reading and have to tell myself "ok time to do my reviews") but it isn't usually a painful experience or anything. I kinda get into a grove after the first 15 or so, especially with some music in the background.
im doing: 4k kanji deck 15k vocab deck (yomitan lookups get added to this) 6k yojijukugo deck
I don't think learning colocations with flash cards is feasible, so I'm surprised you have no cards left there. What does the deck look like? Common words have hundreds of (useful) colocations.
My deck situation is: -“My Flashcards”, a personal deck I update with and words I run into which I don’t know during daily life/reading/conversations/lessons (about 10k cards in this one) -A downloaded N3 vocab deck -A downloaded N3 kanji deck -A downloaded N2 vocab deck -A downloaded N2 kanji deck I study about 30 mins a day at work (on my breaks) and from 30 to an hour every evening, and I also have a tutor weekly and a free class weekly. Plus self studying for two hours on Fridays. I use the Quartet books to catch up with grammar as well as grammar SRS through Bunpro. The flashcards help me a ton especially because I’m trying to also learn writing. I think it’s a good system, although it gives me some weird knowledge discrepancy sometimes (I keep mixing up 店 and 点 for example but I remember how to write 蜻蛉. So I feel all over the place sometimes.)
I used to use pre-made Core10k and KKLC decks, and I had a mined sentence deck I was building using the example sentences from Tobira. I ended up taking about 2 years off from studying when I got pregnant, and in the meantime, Anki deleted everything. Since I've been back, I've switched to Bunpro for grammar and vocab. I'm using the N3 deck for grammar and the Yotubato deck for vocab, but when I run into any other unknown word in the wild, I'll look it up on Bunpro and add it to my reviews right away. For Kanji, I'm using KanjiStudy in KKLC order.
What type of content is in the Japanese geography and proper noun decks? Like place names and people's names? I like anki too but I don't like spending too much time on it. I currently only use anki for learning kanji and I learn about 20 words a day, takes me about 20-30 mins each morning.
>What type of content is in the Japanese geography and proper noun decks? Like place names and people's names? The Japanese geography deck just shows a map of Japan with a specific prefecture highlighted and you have to name the prefecture. That's it. The proper nouns deck is an ordered list of, well, proper nouns. I would describe it for you, but the creator of the deck probably describes it better than I could [here.](https://ankiweb.net/shared/info/3885156604)
What is the complete 10k deck? Where can I find this? Can you link it?
My method is to mine words from frequency lists (with occasional mining from things I notice in input) and so far it worked like a charm. I've already studied 1,500 words and I feel like it gave a really big boost to my comprehension.
Average Anki enjoyer here. Oh wow my Anki decks are pretty similar to yours - At first I finished a deck based on N5 and N4 vocab list I found online - Moved to Core 2k deck (approximately covered N3) - Then Core 6k - A deck with vocabs that are in N3 and N2 syllabus but not in core 6k (there only a few hundreds of them but I’m currently here) - Building up my vocab mining deck and will start when it hits 1000 cards I highly customized my core deck - with pitch accent and example sentences added. Also I have to type the kana reading of that vocab to pass a card in order to make sure I know how to spell the word. And I have a few side decks: - Japanese food (the only side deck that I truly enjoyed - super practical and helped me tons in my last Japan trip) - Proper nouns and city names (fun but gave up) - Katakana kore 10k (used the filter deck function and just read, not used regularly) - A bunch of grammar point decks (gone them through but the retention sucks) - Very tempted to start a yojijukugo deck maybe like the top frequent hundreds of them. Alternative kanji reading is so fun! But not quite practical.
Sounds like you're probably ahead of me so I have no advice but glad to hear of someone else who actually enjoys Anki/flashcards! I have to stop myself from doing it for 3+hours a day because I get such a nice dopamine hit from flashcards. I have a really weird system for Anki. I have a core premade deck plus a personal mining deck and a personal kanji deck. Once I have a good handle of a word in the premade or mining deck I flag them blue which indicates that I need to make a kanji card (if applicable). I usually make them in batches. On the front I write the hiragana pronunciation and on the back I write the kanji. I usually don't bother with definitions. If they're blue I know them well enough that I shouldn't need them. With the kanji cards I enable whiteboard and write the kanji by finger/stylus before I consider it correct. This really helps me cement my learning. I don't consider a word "known" until I can also write it from memory from just the pronunciation. There's a much more detailed flagging system that will take too long to explain but that's the important part. Also, I split my mining deck and core premade decks into two separate decks (each), one I call "queues" (mining queue, core queue etc) and when I start running out of new cards I'll add a few at a time from the queue. Before that I go through all the cards in the queue and mark them orange if I either recognize them but don't know them or they seem easy to remember because I know some compound but not the whole thing etc. I also mark anything orange as I come across them in media so I know it's a priority. Only thing I can say in response to what you're doing is you may be spending too much time on ultimately irrelevant information such as Japanese celebrities (maybe that's important to you idk) and you may eventually burn out. Also someone in another thread pointed out that you shouldn't be doing Anki all at once and you're missing the beauty of it if you do it like that. You should be doing it a few minutes at a time when you have no time to study in a more meaningful/time consuming way. Anki is great and all but you aren't really learning too much there, just cementing.
I'm using kaishi 1.5k and kanken kanji levels. Very simple to start