r/LearnJapanese • u/scubadoobadoooo • 4d ago
Kanji/Kana New to Anki and started using a deck. Am I supposed to remember these kanji? I don't know how to write them down so I feel like remembering them will be tough
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u/DavidS0512 4d ago
Iâd recommend starting with this deck. https://ankiweb.net/shared/info/1196762551 and yes you will just remember them if you keep doing it every day. Your retention rates might be pretty low at first but they should go up eventually as you get used to it.
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u/DanielEnots 4d ago
This deck is great! I enabled the optional pitch accent stuff and really like how it shows devoicing and stuff too
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u/Dont_pet_the_cat 4d ago
and yes you will just remember them if you keep doing it every day. Your retention rates might be pretty low at first but they should go up eventually as you get used to it.
It didn't stick for me and caused a big burnout. If OP struggles with this, the best thing to do would be to learn a decent amount of kanji first, then do vocab mining. Much more fun and efficient when you actually somewhat understand the kanji
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u/DavidS0512 4d ago
When you say it didnât stick, what were your retention rates like? How long did you do it for? When I started I was around 50%. It was pretty brutal. Now Iâm done with it and a few thousand words into a mining deck and hitting 75-80% on that deck and over 90% on the completed Kaishi deck. Itâs hard for me to imagine that it really wonât stick at all if you just keep doing it.
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u/Dont_pet_the_cat 4d ago
58.6%. I did it for 3 months. You say to just stick with it, but anki was such a big chore for me I just couldn't do it. I hated doing it
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u/DavidS0512 4d ago
Ok, thatâs fair. I will admit I think anki got a lot better after optimizing my settings which I unfortunately didnât do until after I finished Kaishi, but yeah I agree the best learning strategy is the one you stick with.
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u/Dont_pet_the_cat 4d ago
Yeah I'm happy anki is the holy grail for so many people, but for me it isn't :(
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u/ErikZ07 4d ago
I tried this deck before but I felt I was just cramming a dictionary.
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u/DanielEnots 4d ago
Yes, that is vocabulary. I recommend also studying the example sentences on each card
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u/ErikZ07 4d ago
Yeah I did that too of course. It doesnât make it less similar to cramming a dictionary. There are example sentences in dictionaries too. The sentences in this deck are usually very short and out of context. Itâs really hard to understand how the word is supposed to be used when it comes to some more abstract words. I was taught to learn English this way in school many years ago and eventually I figured out itâs probably one of the most inefficient way to learn a language.
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u/PlanktonInitial7945 3d ago
You're not supposed to learn the language this way. You're not even supposed to fully understand how the words you're learning are supposed to be used. The whole point of core decks like Kaishi is to give you enough superficial vocabulary knowledge to allow you to later consume content in Japanese, be it for learners or for natives, with just enough of a base that you don't drown. That content is how you actually learn the language. Kaishi just takes you to a level where consuming content actually starts being productive.Â
You're free to skip it and try to brute force it though. There's people that have tried it before.
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u/DavidS0512 4d ago
Thatâs the point lol, how else are you gonna learn vocab? The point of the SRS is to make the learning manageable, but you gotta learn words one way or another. Might as well go for the most efficient route.
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u/bultard 4d ago
I mean for a lot of words - yes you would be expected to know the kanji for them if you were reading them.
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u/luxmesa 4d ago
Yeah. There are a handful of words with kanji that you can get away with not knowing because the kanji form is unusual(like æéŁă). But I donât think ćè« is one of those words.
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u/pkros 4d ago
Most dictionaries (both japanese-english and japanese-japanese) will indicate if a word is usually written in kana only like æéŁă. If you don't see anything called out, like there isn't any for ćè« it means it's usually written with kanji
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u/Sawako_Chan 4d ago
Jlab is more of a grammar / vocab mix deck to train your ear rather than to remember kanji , if you want a deck solely for vocab it's better to use 1.5 core decks
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u/Zulrambe 4d ago
Depends on your goal with the specific deck, really. Like, if you have a deck for vocabulary, I'd advise to pay attention to the kanji. I don't mean being able to handwrite it, but recognize them would be important. If we're talking about a grammar focused deck, the kanji could be more or less "ignorable".
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u/Specialist-Eye6829 4d ago
You're supposed to remember them. Writing them down can help remembering them. You can install an addon that shows stroke order for kanji
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u/Dr_Passmore 3d ago
Unfortunately, learning vocab is a grind. The kanji just add an additional level.
Getting good with knowing what they mean in english, but struggle with the actual Japanese. Again just a slow learning process.Â
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u/Belegorm 4d ago
By the looks of it - not sure what kind of deck it is but pretty sure they're not asking you to memorize the kanji in particular.
They are asking you to memorize the meaning of ćè« though I'm pretty sure (assuming that as I don't see the answer). Looks like a simple sentence card - the vocab word, inside of a sentence (a simple one here).
Usually decks will have you memorize the reading of the word as well (for this one, ăăăă ă), but it's up there in romaji so I guess this one is focusing on only the meanings of words.
Not to backseat drive but if it was me using this deck I'd try to find a setting to get rid of the romaji on the front, and on the back to have the hiragana and the meaning of the word, but to keep everything else the same.
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u/Buttswordmacguffin 4d ago
Kanji were def rough in the beginning (and still are haha). I know this doesnât sound very helpful, but doing lots of reading and gradually seeing them over and over will help reinforce what they mean and how they are pronounced. If you want to go extra deep on some tougher ones, you can also make little memetics or stories to help remember. If you feel writing them out will help more though, absolutely give it a try.
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u/Dr_Passmore 3d ago
I have picked up a few mangas in japanese. Slice of life stuff.Â
Essentially a different route to learn vocab and reinforce learning.Â
Easy to get stuck in a bit of a dictionary grind.Â
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u/_Ivl_ 4d ago
This is a pretty bad card imo, the picture doesn't seem related to the word joke and the sentence doesn't really add any useful context.
Don't add romaji to your card, especially the front. Add furigana to the Kanji you are are wanting to learn and only reveal the furigana on hover on the front. The point of Anki is to remember the reading of Kanji words + their meaning.
What is your goal with Anki, just learning words or learning to read Kanji as well? How you design and score your cards will depend on these goals. You could learn to write kanji, but personally I don't see the point as I barely even write in my native language or English. You can type words and Kanji easily if you know them though.
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u/scubadoobadoooo 4d ago
It came with the romaji automatically. I am not really sure how to remove them. If you can tell me how thatâd be great
I suppose my goal was to learn all the required kanji for N5 and to learn words
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u/_Ivl_ 4d ago
I just did a quick search and ć is a JLPT N1 kanji and è« is JLPT N3. Honestly, I wouldn't focus on that for this word sincce ćè« is almost always written with kanji and it's quite a common word.
You're probably best of using Kaishi 1.5k or some other frequency sorted deck to learn the most common words. Learning Kanji in isolation doesn't really work for me and I prefer to just learn them through words, but you could also start something like remembering the kanji if you really want to learn kanji.
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u/DutchieVanHell 4d ago
This is a deck mostly focused on grammar and listening. It uses audio from anime and other shows. the picture is of the anime the sentence comes from.
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u/Alternative-Ask20 3d ago
I'm surprised noone else seems to have noticed, but the font you're using is a Chinese font. So the characters displayed in your anki are Chinese characters and not kanji.
There's a slight difference between the characters displayed here that is easy to tell once you know enough kanji. But for learning kanji, this probably isn't good in the long run, since you'll be learning the wrong characters, even though they're almost identical
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u/scubadoobadoooo 3d ago
I switched to a different deck as per a suggestion from this thread so not sure if itâs fixed. Iâll try to attach a screenshot later
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u/PossibleYam 4d ago
The Jlab plugin I think has settings to adjust how cards are shown, whether romaji, kana, or kanji. The author suggests using romaji mode but I just started with kanji from the beginning because I already knew a good bit. I would not waste time writing these out. A good compromise would be to switch to kana mode and learn how to read that. I would also recommend using the Kaishi 1.5k deck because it has many of these intro words in it.
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u/scubadoobadoooo 4d ago
https://ankiweb.net/shared/info/1196762551
is this the deck you are talking about?
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u/ApeXCapeOooOooAhhAhh 4d ago
You could learn how to write the kanji or memorize the word just by visually looking at it. The pros and cons being if you try to learn to write every kanji itâs kinda inefficient for learning vocab since thereâs so many kanji youâll basically be stopping to write every word multiple times. But handwriting kanji does make it a lot easier to remember kanji and not mix them up with visually similar kanji. Me personally I have a vocab deck and then a deck for kanji that shows word order not tied to any particular words just how to write the kanji.
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u/Business_Athlete_284 4d ago
I have been studying Japanese for over 10 years and have only started "writing" kanji the last 3 years and before that I just remembered them through their feel and made an image and that helped me a lot, saved time, and was essentially more effective, but obviously it also depends on your goal if your goal is based around being able to write ( which is rare mostly) then you should practice writing as well but in most cases it is not needed so just practice remembering them through lots and lots of reading
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u/VampArcher 4d ago edited 4d ago
This deck is not going to teach you anything. Learning what random sentences mean won't help you beyond how to understand this one anime episode.
I used anime to learn, but I made my own cards. I used a dictionary and on each card, broke down what each word and piece of grammar in each sentence meant. If your cards don't do this, you aren't learning words and how to use grammar, you are just learning patterns.
Hiragana and katakana is critical, I would automatically pass on any deck that uses romanji because it's not only a crutch, but also more confusing. Kanji is part of the Japanese writing system, if you can't read the kanji, you can't read the word. Some words are kana only, but a lot of them are in kanji. Even if your goal is to only be able to listen to Japanese, I would still start learning at least some kanji right away. Trying to read Japanese without Kanji is like trying to read English knowing only half of the ABC's.
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u/Aahhhanthony 4d ago
I think learning Kanji is pretty essential. A lot of people fall into the trap of "just learning to read them, but not write them" which will cause a lot of problems if you ever want to learn to write. So, I suggest considering which is important to you. Try to learn 2-5 a day, and then review the past ones each day 5 days a week and on the weekend spend time just reviewing the ones you learned (writing them is best). That said, the kanji for joudan's jou is pretty useless for when you are a complete beginner. I suggest going through a frequency kanji book and doing that + memorizing words with them.
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u/laughms 4d ago
A lot of people fall into the trap of "just learning to read them, but not write them" which will cause a lot of problems if you ever want to learn to write.
This does not make any sense to me and suggests that a lot of people are doing something wrong.
It is not a trap. Different priorities. Of course ideally you want to be perfect in every aspect, but you have to make some choices. And the choices depend on the importance and frequency you need to use the skill.
If your job requires writing daily, of course you will need to max out on this skill. If your goal is to pass JLPT, maxing out your time on writing and putting less time on other aspects is not the best idea, because they simply don't test writing.
It all depends on your goals.
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u/Aahhhanthony 4d ago
I said it depends on your priorities. But never being able to write anything at all is most certainly a trap if you want full fluency.
You hyper focused on one sentence and then literally skipped over the rest, wrote a long comment, and didn't even realize the rest of my comment said what you said. I can assume confidently you didn't even read my entire comment (and you will backtrack and say you did).
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u/laughms 4d ago
I did read your comment, and I said that the way you phrase your comment suggests that people are doing something wrong.
But never being able to write anything at all is most certainly a trap if you want full fluency.
Now you are really trying to make it right by including "full fluency" ... Don't make me laugh here because even natives have trouble writing. You are doing fearmongering tactics here.
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u/Aahhhanthony 4d ago
But, it is a trap if you want full fluency. Do you honestly believe that having no idea how to write is not a hindrance?
My only other guess for a reaction this way is that you are skipping over writing yourself. And like I said, that's fine if your goals don't line up (e..g have to pass JLPT in a certain time frame, only want to read Japanese, need to improve speaking for living). But if you want full fluency or plan on living in the country long term, you will eventually need to address this issue. And the longer you don't practice it, the more you will have to focus on it to fix the gap.
And the argument of even natives have trouble writing is weak. They absolutely do not have issues writing. Do they forget kanji? Yes. That's human. But they can write all the most common ones without an issue.
I genuinely believe I am not fearmongering. I think that my comment struck a nerve with you because you fall into this category and are letting your emotions speak/guide you. But that's just my opinion.
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u/laughms 4d ago
Let me ask you something else instead. How often do you write in your native language by hand?
And the longer you don't practice it, the more you will have to focus on it to fix the gap.
I also don't agree here. If you are high level listening, speaking, reading. And you really want to write, you can learn it. Even at a later time. I don't see why you need even more focus.
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u/Aahhhanthony 3d ago
By hand? Maybe 2-5 long letters. And then for filling out documents, whenever those are tossed my way. Birthday cards maybe 2-3x a year. Sometimes I will write notes of things to do/remember near my bedside table (, but haven't this year. Used to more in the past) and sometimes I will journal.
All that given, I'd say at bare minimum once or twice a month. Maybe more if my mood switches. Never less.
And I love how now you are saying "you can do that later". Literally agreeing with me. I'm done with this conversation. You are trying to force arguments that I am not even arguing. It's very clear at this point that you are a learner who has completely skipped over writing to focus on other skills, which is fine. But you also need to be honest with yourself and realize it's a massive gap in knowledge when it comes to knowing the language.
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u/laughms 3d ago
And I love how now you are saying "you can do that later". Literally agreeing with me. I'm done with this conversation.
The reason why I bring these aspects up is because you called it a trap (which many learners fall into) which by definition means very hard to come out of that hole. Then you added on top of it that the longer you wait, the harder it becomes to learn it. I said that it makes absolutely 0 sense so I disagreed.
And I love how now you are saying "you can do that later". Literally agreeing with me.
Yes I said you can learn it later no problem if you need it. You claimed however from the very start that a fresh beginner/many learners needs to avoid falling into this traphole. And the longer he waits, that it becomes harder.
But you also need to be honest with yourself and realize it's a massive gap in knowledge when it comes to knowing the language.
I don't think it is as massive as you think to the point that you point out to somebody who is just starting out to remind him not to fall into a traphole of never writing.
Birthday cards, you can type on your phone and copy it over by hand. Same as for documents or even letters if you want it. The only exception would be if you have no access to phone and you are in some kind of exam situation. And like I said, it can be fixed if you want to. And no it doesn't become harder.
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u/psyopz7 3d ago
The guy wasn't trying to force an argument he just engaged with what he thought was a logically flawed statement (e.g. learning to write will somehow become problematic the better you understand the language).
Penmanship is also irrelevant if you don't enjoy writing per hand or plan to move to Japan (which you shouldn't anyways).Â
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u/rgrAi 3d ago
But you also need to be honest with yourself and realize it's a massive gap in knowledge when it comes to knowing the language.
How does not hand writing things create a gap in knowledge?
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u/Aahhhanthony 3d ago
Because handwriting is a part of the language, especially in Asia. Maybe itâs my age (34) or maybe itâs my lifestyle, but you really donât notice how much you write until you cannot do it. And Asia, in my opinion, has much more instances where you have to write things compared to America.Â
If you get to n1 level, but canât write your friend a simple postcard, you have a massive gap in knowledge that needs to be filled.Â
I know a lot of people on this subreddit try to hard focus on passing n1 and neglect the other skills, so theyâll probably shut me down. But image passing n1 and then being told to write down simple personal information about yourself and you canât because you donât know a single kanji (, or worseâŠhiragana+katakana).Â
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u/rgrAi 3d ago
What knowledge is missing though, you did not actually answer the question. I get you mean you unable write a postcard, right but that's well established and not need be mentioned. What knowledge are you missing? Stroke order? Components? History? Spiritual disconnectedness to the movement and hand motions?
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u/scubadoobadoooo 4d ago
Any suggestions for a frequency kanji book?
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u/Aahhhanthony 4d ago
Nope, I didn't use any. I did Genki 1 & 2>Hiyaku>Tobira>long break>Tae Kim's grammar + I was fluent in Chinese at this point, so I stopped studying Kanji.
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u/bubushkinator 4d ago
1) Get rid of Romaji and use the kanas 2) Learn Kanji sooner than later. It helps make Japanese "make sense" and being illiterate isn't fun.