I have a question about how you deal with your Anki cards. My cards look as usual: Kanji/Vocab and sentence on the front, no furigana. Voice, image, explanation etc. on the back.
Unfortunately, I realize again and again: When I see a sentence or word, I know what it means in my mother tongue, but I have no idea or only a wrong idea how to pronounce the word. I don't mean 100% correct pronunciation, but something completely wrong. Although I have had the word in front of me several times.
Unfortunately, this happens to me with about 50% of my Anki cards, which is why I always consider these cards to be “failed”. Apart from the fact that I get a huge review pile, it's also kind of frustrating.
So I wanted to ask if you do the same or what your criteria are for whether you have passed or failed an Anki card?
For me, I'm now thinking about activating the furigana or writing down the hiragana over and over again with a piece of paper, just so that the thing goes into my head.
I'm afraid that I won't remember the pronunciation of the furigana either. I can't learn so well on the go with paper and paper because I can't write there, for example.
by SuspectNode
15 comments
I have multiple cards. 4 is the goal actually. I have:
One in pure kanji -> meaning
One in pure hiragana -> meaning
And these two are aspirational:
Kanji->hiragana
Meaning->hiragana
I have my own website built for this, so adding those last two is mostly a matter of having enough adhd spoons free.
Yeah idk how far you are with learning but I do the same thing because I think pronouncing it is incredibly important as knowing what it means. So continue failing if you don’t know one of those. And to not have a ton of reviews just lower the amount of words you have. As of now Ive been struggling and having 40-50 reviews a day and on top of 5 new words I have to review each day. Also review a ton through the day or in a session so you know the answer for tomorrow
What do you mean “pronouncing” it? Pitch accent or just the reading? Because if it’s the reading, you have failed the card.
What helps me with that is to have audio more than anything. If your cards don’t have audio, [TTS](https://ankiweb.net/shared/info/111623432) is the next best thing. Listening the word in context also helps.
Hi, I’ve been studying JP for about a month now with Anki and others
I do 20 new vocab per day in 1.5k Kashi deck.
10 new kanji from rrtk deck per day
I use furigana on the front of my vocab words.
I also use rrtk kanji deck to learn to remember kanji (this doesn’t necessarily mean their definitions as words)
The kanji cards have no hiragana or pronounciation on either side of the card. Just kanji on front and English meaning on back, and story to remember the kanji on back
I see these routes
1. Kanji -> rrtk meanings (no pronunciation) -> mother tongue understanding
3. Hiragana > pronunciation -> mother tongue understanding
2. Vocab words with Kanji in them -> hiragana
I think the strategy that I will use, and is the best. Is
1. Go through rrtk kanji deck to be able to identify the kanji and remember their meaning
3. Go through the 1.5k Kashi deck. With furigana. To learn the hiragana -> pronunciation -> meaning.
If the word at this point contains all kanji I already know, I write down the kanji as well, but I do not focus on route 3. Only route 2.
2. Once done with the 1.5k Kashi deck. I will download another of the same deck, remove all words that don’t have kanji in them, do this deck with no furigana.
The goal is that
1. Learn to remember the kanji instead of them being just weird lines
3. Learn the hiragana to understanding part of the word, with pronunciation
2. Learn the kanji to hiragana part
I have had 90-100 daily reviews for the last couple weeks. I pass a card if I can guess its meaning. I want to also get its reading right, but if i get it wrong, i will sometimes still pass it. Im really just trying to jumpstart my vocab for reading. I dont think you can master vocab through Anki alone. I believe the words i learn in Anki will stick when i encounter them reading. So im ok passing some that i cant say, or sometimes i feel shaky about a review card’s meaning, and i pass it to kick it down the road a week or two. Again, it will stick through reading later anyway, and i want to lower my daily reviews.
If you forget the actual reading of the word but not the meaning, it’s still a failed card in my book. For example, reading 一緒 as いっしょう and not いっしょ means I’m going to press “Again”, even though it was really close. If half the cards are like this for you, then start writing them out. Maybe add type-in answer field to your Anki cards instead of relying on recognition.
For me, it depends on how old the card is. If it’s a new card, I’m happy knowing just the meaning. If it’s a card that I have revised many times, I have to know its reading. Although sometimes, if I have a huge backlog and I half-guessed the reading (and I will see the card tomorrow or in a couple of days), I will let it pass.
My vocab cards have a similar setup, front has vocab+sentence without furigana. I fail a card if:
– I don’t correctly remember the reading. I don’t care about the pitch, but the reading needs to be completely right
– or I don’t remember what the word means (regardless of getting the reading right or not).
Take it slow. Get audio on your card’s back side; the pronunciation will stick much better that way.
To pass a vocab card, I have to have the reading and meaning both down. Reading has to be exact. For meaning, I have to get either the exact meaning on the card or a synonym that encompasses the same meaning (so for something like 沢山, if I say lots but the card says many, plenty, that’s close enough).
If there’s a card that I keep on repeatedly having trouble with, I will note that down and spend a few minutes studying those in detail afterwards. Usually its because the kanji is visually similar to other kanji, so I’ll take the two or three kanji I keep on confusing and work on those – noting the radicals, and finding example words/sentences.
Like others who have commented, for my vocab cards I will only pass it if I remember the meaning and the reading.
The advice I would give you is to be very selective with what cards you put in your deck when starting out. One thing I had a hard time with was remembering the correct reading for very common kanji that have several readings, like 日、生、人. For characters like that, I’d recommend focusing on words with just one reading to start until you get it down. Even then, less common kanji still usually have an *on* and *kun* reading, so focusing on words with one reading first can still help for a long time.
So using 生 as an example, pick a reading like せい and make sure the words in your deck with 生 only have that reading. Like 先生、生活. Then once you feel comfortable with those words, add words with other readings like 生じる.
Finally, be aggressive in cutting out cards that aren’t sticking, and come back to them later. At the beginning it’s best to try and get as many easy to remember words as you can. It will also feel less frustrating since you won’t be failing the same card over and over and over. Suspend the ones that are hard or won’t stick and come back for them later.
I personally set anki to auto-suspend leeches after 8 lapses (but you could go lower, like 6 or 4), and once a month I will manually go through my list of leeches and un-suspend leeches that are over 2 months old and try them again.
Good luck!
Failed reading – not passing.
I once during a lesson couldn’t remember how to say “doctor”
Then I remembered something and I said いし, everyone were confused… and I know why… いしゃ and いし is not the same… 😭
Now I am not regretting that mistake, it’s now hard coded in my memory. But yeah… failed reading is not the pass in my book. Unless your goal is just recognizing kanji?? Like in RTK or sth
My criteria for passing a card is only if I remember the reading. You should also learn the meaning as well, but if you remember the reading, you can look it up later. Not so much the other way around. Once I know the reading of a word, then I’ll focus on the meaning. The meaning is easier to remember, so I focus on the harder part first.
You have described one of the reasons why **Anki and other flashcard-based “study” methods are huge wastes of time**. Learning and retention are most effective when the new knowledge can be “attached” to knowledge and concepts that you already have in your head… and *the disconnected, context-free environment of a flashcard* is almost perfectly designed to make that “attachment” harder!
I strongly recommend that you stop wasting your time with Anki and instead *study Japanese*. Writing practice, as you suggest is good! (It’s even better if you’re able to practice writing sentences, because that gives you more points of attachment with pronunciation, vocabulary, grammar, etc.) Reading practice is also good; so are speaking and listening.
Good luck, and have fun!
Been using it about 2 years now and pass mainly with 100% of the reading, meaning is less important that native translation is only there as an initial bridge because here’s the thing, you will only ever acquire that word in native material through seeing it in context, not anki.
Like if you see “kimochi” you dont want to think “feeling” right you want to think “kimochi”.
Depends on your reason for learning Japanese. I’m learning primarily to read, so I pass a card if I know its meaning, even if I don’t know its pronunciation. I hard fail a card if I know neither, and soft fail if I know the pronunciation but not the meaning.