All posts tagged: anki

New Anki deck, old goals

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I have started a new Anki deck… and I am not using anymore the one I started on the very first day of my learning Japanese. I have realised that my Anki deck was not fitting my goals anymore. When I created my deck, I had in mind a strategy to learn vocabulary as thoroughly as possible. As a result, each note was attached to three types of cards which were supposed to reflect all the way you handle vocabulary in real life: (in Anki, a note is where you enter the information you want to learn, a card is how you want Anki to test you using this information) Either you want to use this word yourself: Show English, Answer Japanese Or you read this word: Show Japanese, Answer pronunciation and English Or you hear this word: Play audio through the plugin “Awesome TTS”, answer English. I thought that this was the best way to learn vocabulary through Anki. In any case, it is a very thorough way, and I don’t regret having used …

Unclutter Anki

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I am struggling with Anki lately, and I have, therefore decided to do something to make Anki fun again (at least, if not fun, associated with positive feelings). There are two reasons why I hate studying Anki now: I have too many cards a day There are a lot of cards I actually don’t like From now on, I will try to improve Anki every time I study it. This means clean it a bit by removing some notes, make it more efficient by adding tips and changing the settings to find a studying pace that suits me. Unclutter my deck I think that I have been obsessed with numbers: how many words do I know, how many words do I have in Anki, can I reach 10,000 words at the end of the year, and so on… My deck has now a little less than 8000 words. I would never have thought of deleting notes because my goal was to see the number growing, not decreasing. When one is self-studying, numbers can be very rewarding and …

Daily Study: adding patterns to Anki

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As I am not studying JLPT materials or any other textbook, I have to find the new words I want to learn, by myself. My goal for 2018 was to reach 10,000 words by the end of the year, a plan that can be achieved only by learning 10 new words every day. I started adding new words to my Anki deck that I found in novels or any other thing I read in Japanese. However, several reflections on the importance of collecting patterns and collocations made me realise that I should add more expressions and phrases to my Anki. How it works When I look up a word in my electronic dictionary, I sometimes decide to add it to Anki because I consider it worth memorising. My Casio allows me to mark the word and stock it in a collection for further reference, as most apps and online dictionaries do, too. This is how I collect words that I will learn later. At least twice or three times a week, I check the words …

Motivation: studying Anki

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If you are learning a foreign language, you are certainly using a spaced repetition system (SRS) to memorise vocabulary. I personally use Anki and created my deck from scratch when I started learning Japanese. Today, it contains more than 7000 words and expressions and I can say that, contrary to any other material, this Anki deck has been with me all the way long from the very first day and is still the most solid pillar of my learning Japanese journey. It has witnessed all the phases of my studying process and contains some irrelevant words that make it very personal. Without Anki, I could not have remembered so many words. Still, more than often, I sigh before opening my deck and what motivates me is not as much the perspective of learning new words as the fear to procrastinate and find myself with double work the next day. I think that the main source of demotivation concerning Anki (or any other SRS) is the feeling that we are studying our deck for the sake …

Anki: mistakes to avoid and tips to regain control over your deck

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I have spent the last few days trying to regain control over my Anki deck. The problem is that I added much to many new words in a fit of overconfidence in my mental capacities and I ended up with a huge study plan every day that took me hours to put down to zero. I finally made a sort of Anki burn out and didn’t study my deck for a week. I have now more or less restored a “normal” deck but I am still facing 500 cards a day. These are some thoughts about how to keep a smooth relationship with Anki. Mistakes I made Too many new words per day I wanted to believe that it was possible to learn 40 words a day and challenged myself with it. The result is: I can learn 40 new words a day but it’s not a good idea. The thing is, learning 30 or 40 words a day for a short period of time is possible. Let’s say you are cramming for the JLPT …

My three daily anki decks 2: kanji

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I talked about my deck of words in this post. As for my deck of kanji, a note gives two cards which are: 1- Anki displays the kanji and some words using this kanji. I must know the kanji’s approximative meaning and I must pronounce the words. Note that I don’t bother saying all the pronunciation of the kanji, I just can’t remember them all, and anyway, it would not be useful for me to do so. I try to be practical and what is useful to me is to know how words are pronounced so I just focus on the words. As you can see, I visually separate the on and the kun readings. This really helps me! As for the words, they are all in my deck of words, which means that I am supposed to know their meaning. Anki displays the meaning and the pronunciation of the kanji, I must write the kanji and I should also write the words, but to be honest I often skip this step… If you like …

My three daily anki decks 1: words

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Like the majority of japanese learners (at least, I think so but I may be wrong), one part of my daily learning routine is anki. I have three decks, one for words, one for kanji and one for grammar (that I started recently because I just couldn’t figure out how to remember every grammar point from N2). In this post, I will present my deck for japanese words. It has three entries : french, kanji and hiragana. Every note has three cards : French is displayed and I must say the word in japanese The reason why I choose not to display the hiragana is because I tend to look only at the hiragana to check my answer and if correct, move on to the next card without even look at the kanji. No wonder I do not recognize the word (kanji) when I see it in a book or anywhere else later… I use the «hint» function to hide the hiragana and force myself to first look at the kanji. As for checking the …