How To Use Anki To Learn Japanese

If you are learning Japanese, then Anki is probably a tool you should be using to help you.

I often see people (and I am guilty of this too) say “Just do anki” …but what does that actually mean, how do you actually do it? …this is what I will cover here, where I will go through what you actually need to do to learn Japanese with Anki.

What Is Anki?

I guess we should start with what Anki actually is, in case you don’t know.

Very briefly it is just a free flashcard computer programme you can download. It is not designed for Japanese in particular, and is really for helping you learn anything you want.

It is just a blank canvas really, that allows you to create your own flashcards on whatever topic you want. Anki has a spaced repetition system, which means it has an algorithm that knows the best time to show you each flashcard.

The idea is that it should be showing you a card at various intervals, usually getting longer and longer and it knows when the best time to show you each card is …hopefully just before your brain forgets it and then seeing it again should refresh your memory and helps you maintain it in your brain for longer.

Why Is Anki Important For Learning Japanese?

If you are wondering why any of this matters, or why there is such a big fuss around Anki, it all simply comes down to repeat exposure.

To learn anything, especially Japanese, you need a lot of exposure to it. If I tell you a new word right now …how long will it take before you forget it …probably pretty quickly and Anki is the opposite of this.

Anki will show you the same words over and over again (using its algorithm) and while this sounds boring, this is exactly what you need to learn the word. You are going to start seeing the word enough times that you will actually remember it.

This along with hearing the words during your immersion means you are getting lots of repeated comprehensible input and this will help your brain actually acquire Japanese. 

(You can read more about – Is Anki The Best Flashcard App For Learning A Language?)

What Do You Actually Do With Anki

Actually using anki is pretty straight forward. The interface can look a little ugly and intimidating, but once you understand the basics, you will realise it is a very simple app.

Add New Words

Anki is a flashcard app, so if you are trying to learn Japanese, you will need to make flash cards with Japanese words.

You can actually arrange your cards into decks, and this can be useful if you are learning different things, topics or even languages, but for now, we will say you just need to create one deck, and call it “Japanese” or whatever you want.

(If you think back before computers where a thing, people made flashcards …on actual pieces of card …and stored them in a deck, like a deck of cards! …Anki has digitalised all this)

Once you have created a deck you can “add new card” which is as simple as inputting some information to the app. Where you get this information is down to you, but most likely you are going to be adding words you want to learn, which you have probably come across when immersing. 

You can change the set up of your cards, but really you just need the Japanese word on one side, and the English version on the back and it’s as simple as that. The easiest way to do this to have Japanese word on the front, so you will be shown the Japanese word first, however you can do it the other way round if you want to make things more challenging.   

Learn New Words

Once the words have been added, you can set the amount of new words you want to be shown to you each day.

How you do this is down to you. You can add words today and “lean them” today or you can add them in bulk and basically put them in a queue to be shown to you at a later date.

I have my daily limit set to 5 new words, but I might add 100 new words a  time …but they are going to get shown me 5 at a time, so it will take a few weeks to go through everything.

This might not seem like a lot, but you will be shown these 5 words multiple times over the next few weeks and months, so you may see 5 “new” words today …but there can be a lot of cards that you need to review too form the pervious days, so you will usually be looking at a lot more cards than just the 5.

When you are starting out you are going to come across a lot of new words, so it’s easier to add as many as you can and just place them in the queue, you may also find 5 is not a lot to learn and you might want to do more, it’s all down to you, there are no rules.

If anything you will need to play around with things and find the pace that works best for you.

Review Words You have Already Learned

You will need to log into anki everyday, as there will be words to review. As I already mentioned, when you lean a new word, it will be shown to you a number of times in the next few days and these are called “reviews”.

These usually start to stack up, so even if you are adding a small number of “new” words, the reviews will compound over time.

What Do You Actually Do?

If everything I have said so far still seems vague, let me be very clear about what you actually do.

Open anki, and you will see the name of your deck and a number next to it. This will be the number of reviews and new cards.

Click on the deck and it will show you in more detail the cards that are ‘New’, ‘learning’ and ‘To Review’ …while this is good to know, it’s not too important, just click the “study now” button where you will be shown your first card.

You should hopefully be seeing a Japanese word on the screen …all you have to is say to yourself what it means.

Let’s say your card says –  猫 …maybe you even have the hiragana to help you out – ねこ.

So now all you need to do is read that and tell yourself what it means. In your head just go “This means CAT” …and then press the ‘show answer’ button, where the other side of the card will be shown, which is the English word …and hopefully it matched with what you said.

You will have the option of Again, Hard, Good and Easy and each button will have a different length of time above it. Pick whatever button you feel is right. If you got it wrong, press Again, and it will show you again shortly, if you thought it was easy …press that and it will show you in whatever time it says, maybe a few days,

There are no rules here, press what you think is best. You can even press easy if you made a silly mistake, or you can press again if you just want to see it again shortly.

This is exactly what you do for “new” and “reviews” the only difference will be the time you will see above the buttons. A new word is probably going to shown again in 1 minute, or maybe 5 minutes and so on, basically you will see that card a few times today …then it expects you to “know it”.  Each time you see the card the time options will get longer, so eventually a new card will be moved to a few days time, or maybe just tomorrow.

The time above review cards is always going to be a few days, if you get it wrong and press again … it will show you it again today and it will kind of reset the options back to showing you it over a shorter time span.

It really is this easy. Look at the words, say what it means, see if you got it right and click the best option and repeat until all the cards are cleared.

Using Anki With Yomichan

If you want a very easy way to make new cards …use Yomichan. This is a browser addon that will make everything so quick and simple.

This app is linked to a dictionary so you can actually hover over words and a little box will pop up and tell you the definition. This will make looking up words you come across in your immersion a lot easier …but the beautiful thing is that you can link this to anki, once the definition pops up, you can click a button and the word will be added as new card.

I go into more detail on how to set this all up here – How To Download Anki and Set It Up For Japanese Language Learning

(You can read more about setting this up here – How To Download Anki and Set It Up For Japanese Language Learning)

Should You Add Single Words Or Sentences

When it comes to making new cards, there is often a lot of debate about adding words, or sentences.

The argument for adding full sentences is stronger, as you are adding the context around the new word, making it both easier and more comprehensible for you, so in theory, you should have more success with this.

However, there is nothing wrong with just adding words, while there will be no context, it can still work.

I would suggest you try both and see what you prefer. You will probably find that as you advance, the idea of using full sentences will be better. When you are first starting and know very little, you might not know enough to have a whole example sentence, which is why I say it is still going to be okay to add single words.

As with most things, just do what you feel is right for you.

What About Using A Pre-made Deck?

There is also a lot of debate around using premade decks or making your own. This is again something you need to play around with, but again …the better you get the more you will realise making your own is better.

The reality is that on your first day you don’t know any words, you don’t know what words to add and everything can be overwhelming. It can be easier to just download the “most common 1000 words” or whatever and go from there.

All the “new” words are added for you and all you need to do is set a daily limit and then start working your way through the cards each day, learning as you go.

I have used both techniques and I think there is merit for both.

What Premade Decks Have I Used?

So I have downloaded a number of premade decks, the first was the Kana (Hiragana) that was just the hiragana the letters and this was a short deck, and it was fine. It helped me remember the letters, I can’t complain.

I have also used the RRTK I – Recognition Remembering The Kanji when I was trying out that method. If you are doing the RTK, then this deck is what you want.

I also have a deck called JP Study Buddy which I didn’t really use, although it does seem quite good, it has a grammar, kana and vocab section, all split down further into different levels … so maybe I should start this one properly and give it a real go.

The last one I have is the JLPT N5 Vocabulary Deck which does as expected, it has around the 750 words that you are expected to know for this level. This deck is fine. If you are want a place to start, this deck will be a good place, all the real basics are going to be here. 

You can download of these decks here – https://ankiweb.net/shared/decks

There are many more that are always recommended, but I have not tried myself.

You Can Use Other Alternatives

Before I wrap up here, I think it is important to remember that Anki is not the only option. There are plenty of other flash card apps out there and actually apps that are more “Japanese focused”.

Something like Wanikani is a flash card app for leaning kanji, but you could argue it’s just a fancy looking premade Anki deck, and you could just stick with Anki.

Either way these alternatives are out there for you and if you are not a fan of Anki they may be worth a try …although I imagine it’s the act of flashcarding that you don’t like, rather than Anki itself.  

(You can read more about – Apps You Can Use To Learn Japanese)

Conclusion

This article went on a bit, which is a surprise as using Anki for Japanese is actually really easy, but hopefully I have covered everything you will ever need to know.

Now can get started with Anki today and actually understand what you are supposed to be doing and how to make it work and where to get the Japanese words form.

It is a little strange at first, but once you see how it works, it is a very simple system and it can really help you make progress, so stick with it and give it a chance …but also remember, as much as I love it, it is not the only way, so don’t feel like you have to use it if you really hate it …but hopefully you love it.