When doing recognition cards, why is the English translation of the Japanese sentence also included in the front? Wouldn't it be easier to know what the Japanese word is since you know that one of the word in the English sentence is the answer?

EXAMPLE

FRONT:
なる
verb
彼は医者になりました。
He became a doctor.

BACK:
become
なる なる 1;0
彼{かれ}は医者{いしゃ}になりました。

In the example above, you would know that なる is "to become" since it is translated already in front. You know that 彼 is "he", and 医者 is "doctor", so you're already left with become. So why is the format like this? If any of you are wondering, I'm using "Core 2k/6k/10K Further Optimized PIC/SOUND" found in shared decks of Anki website.

Lastly, how do you do grammar? Most people here say the doing the Core deck and immersion is not enough because it lacks grammar. Core deck, they say, only helps with vocabulary, and immersion helps with reinforcing these vocabularies. People also say that classes do not work and neither do grammar books. So, how do I learn grammar? Is there a deck for that? Do sentence deck (J Sentence in front, E sentence in back) help with grammar?

This is why I moved the english from the front to the back, worked much better for the way I like to do my cards.

Many people do recommend only testing one thing at a time ( either pronunciation OR what it means ) but I like to hit 2 birds with one stone and don't find it takes significantly longer.

Grammar, pretty well I go through my textbook, do the exercises, try to practice in conversation, language exchange, and by trying to understand the grammar I am exposed to in the core sentences, as well as other reading that I attempt to do.

Main benefit of the sentence packs for grammar is that it reinforces grammar patterns, but without trying to produce them on your own likely they won't become natural to use as quickly.

AFAIK that deck has non-native audio and is riddled with mistakes, making it a terrible deck for beginners.

I recommend starting with Nukemarine's core6k optimised deck, which has native audio and is essentially error-free. After that you can pick up the remaining ~3600 cards from the core10kv4 deck and fix the mistakes yourself, and then move on to the Harry Potter deck (~2600 cards), fixing the mistakes as you go. The cards get harder and harder, but you get better and better at it, so the overall difficulty of adding new cards remains about the same, and the ones with regular readings become much easier.

Of course the above assumes that you've done RTK first (or at least a fair chunk of it), and learned the kana.

Edit the card template to put the Japanese sentence on the front, and everything else on the back (furigana, word, audio, etc). Back when I struggled even to read kana, I put the furigana on the front of the card as well, though this turned out to be way too passive to learn the words reliably, so after a while I edited the template to remove the furigana and just failed cards as necessary as they came up in reviews.

Another thing is to change the 'steps' and 'starting ease' in the deck options, as I for one found the defaults to be somewhat absurd, though ymmv. Something like 40 100 250 for steps and 150% for starting ease seems more reasonable for me. I also set the initial 'easy' interval to 2 days, as I find myself far more inclined to use the easy button on new cards if I know they're going to come up again in 2 days. A lower starting ease gives a higher number of easier reviews, so there is a balance to be struck.

I also recommend editing the cards to put as much kanji on the front as possible even when the words are usually written in kana, as the kanji acts as a kind of soft cloze-deletion, which I find makes the words stick much better when transferring to the wild, though I only do this for already mature cards, in the (often forlorn) hope that the previous passive exposure will ease the transition.

All told that's about 12,200 cards, which will take you less than a month at 500 new cards a day!

BTW I suggest reading Tae Kim's grammar guide only after the first ~1k cards have reached mature intervals, as it will make a lot more sense. Just ignore the grammar until then.

HTH

Good luck!

anotherjohn Wrote:AFAIK that deck has non-native audio and is riddled with mistakes, making it a terrible deck for beginners.

It's based on a more up-to-date version of the data than Nukemarine's. What makes you think iKnow made it worse rather than better?

(The part after 6k is a different story, but that's irrelevant when comparing Core6k decks).

Vempele Wrote:

anotherjohn Wrote:AFAIK that deck has non-native audio and is riddled with mistakes, making it a terrible deck for beginners.

It's based on a more up-to-date version of the data than Nukemarine's. What makes you think iKnow made it worse rather than better?

He just said what: it has errors and non-native audio. (or did he mean that there's errors and non native audio after the first 6K cards?)

What makes you think Nukemarine's data needs improving, and what are these supposed improvements?

markcat Wrote:Lastly, how do you do grammar? Most people here say the doing the Core deck and immersion is not enough because it lacks grammar. Core deck, they say, only helps with vocabulary, and immersion helps with reinforcing these vocabularies. People also say that classes do not work and neither do grammar books. So, how do I learn grammar? Is there a deck for that? Do sentence deck (J Sentence in front, E sentence in back) help with grammar?

There are decks, yes. There's one which has the examples from Japanese the Manga Way, for instance: http://forum.koohii.com/showthread.php?p...#pid180277

I would recommend reading that book (studying each example, in the book), and then reviewing what you learn, with the help of that deck.

There are also other ones (for Tae Kim's guide, and also for more advanced materials), but I think this is the best one to start with.

Stansfield123 Wrote:He just said what: it has errors and non-native audio.

What makes you think Nukemarine's data needs improving?

No mention of non-native audio or mistakes (except a stray comment that there are mistakes in "Core 2k/6k Optimized Japanese Vocabulary") in the thread dedicated to the deck, so I'm going to call bullshit on that.

As for the need for improvement: the whole point of the deck was the i+1 ordering.

markcat Wrote:When doing recognition cards, why is the English translation of the Japanese sentence also included in the front?

To make the question easier, for total noobs. But it's not a good idea. It's best to review stuff that's easy enough without the translation.

I don't have ANY English in my core cards. If I really need the English translation, I pop out the view that shows all the fields. But I usually don't, because I've studied the sentences before I started reviewing them, and because I try to review materials that aren't too difficult.

Dustin_Calgary Wrote:This is why I moved the english from the front to the back, worked much better for the way I like to do my cards.

How do you move the English to the back? I can't work it out!

Helena4 Wrote:

Dustin_Calgary Wrote:This is why I moved the english from the front to the back, worked much better for the way I like to do my cards.

How do you move the English to the back? I can't work it out!

When reviewing, click Edit->Cards... and move {{sentence-translation}} from the front to the back.

Helena4 Wrote:How do you move the English to the back? I can't work it out!

This will be of some use: http://ankisrs.net/docs/manual.html

Vempele Wrote:

Helena4 Wrote:

Dustin_Calgary Wrote:This is why I moved the english from the front to the back, worked much better for the way I like to do my cards.

How do you move the English to the back? I can't work it out!

When reviewing, click Edit->Cards... and move {{sentence-translation}} from the front to the back.

Thanks, I'll try that out. Bit scared to go back and see how many reviews I've got because I keep only half-doing my reviews! I need something portable to do them on...