(2015-12-15, 8:21 pm)FlameseeK Wrote: Does anybody know if that's an actual issue? I'm sure both ways would work in the end, but I have to make up my mind before I get started because of the way Anki reviews work. Starting over would definitely suck.
There seems to be some individual learning style with this. Personally I test Japanese sentence on front, the tested word written in a different color and slightly larger. There have been cases where I memorized the whole sentence and could answer before I reached the test word, but that's part of why you highlight it - so you read the test word first. You can also put the word being tested separately, even if the sentence is on the front, for even more reason to read the test word first.
Anyway, it turns out for me to be fine. If I've memorized the whole sentence, that -includes- the test word. When encountering words in the wild I don't find that it really makes a huge difference. Sometimes you have to look up words even though you've anki'd them (because you've never seen them in any other context and the connections just aren't there yet), and sometimes you just get it right away. I haven't seen a big difference between 'memorized the sentence' and 'learned the word' cards when it comes to actual reading.
I do often recall the whole anki sentence when I see the word in the wild the first few times, but that's not really a problem. You're always going to be remembering previously studied example sentences / native language glosses / target language synonyms, etc, etc, the first few times you encounter relatively new word. It wears off as you integrate the word into your working vocabulary.
I -did- find that isolated words didn't do anything for me. First they are annoying because they don't have context. They aren't anything like a majority, but there are -enough- words that have different readings or various meanings depending on context and I never knew how to grade myself on those or what hints to put on the front, and in any case, no matter how well I did in a test situation.... I couldn't actually read the word when I met it in the wild. Of course I would learn the words eventually from repeat dictionary lookups, but it was annoying to study a word and then not be able to actually read it in context.
So anyway, I stick to context sentences on the front, but others swear by the opposite.