I was thinking about adding images to (some) keywords, what do you guys think about it? I know there is an old thread "one kanji, one picture" but many of those pictures contain the element of the kanji itself, like "old" is a tomb with a cross above it. So it gives the kanji away.

I know the best thing is to put one or more japanese words on front of the cards but I want to use the card to review both the writing and readings.

For example:

Quote:FRONT

image: [image of a postal office]

keyword: "Convenience"

kunyomi: __り

onyomi: __利 ; 郵__局


BACK:

便

便[たよ]り

便利[べんり] ; 郵便局[ゆうびんきょく]

So that, when I review, I must write (or visualize) the kanji 便 and I must also say the readings.

What do you think about this way of reviewing, considering this would be (mostly*) my only deck?

As for now I'm doing the opposite, with kanji on front and I must say a word for each reading, but I fell that kanji production is way much powerful, but at the same time I cannot rely on japanese words on front (because I want to cloze-delete readings) and some times the keyword by itself is not enough...

So what do you think about this? To add pictures on front, or maybe little sentences, do make more clear what is the kanji we are talking about, and then write the kanji and fill out the clozed deleted words with their readings?



* I have a vocabulary deck but only for exceptions in readings, while for meanings I try to rely only on native media consumption, so you'll see here why it is helpful to me to at least review one word for each reading, and to do it at the same time I review the kanji itself it is the best for me (because it build a strong bond between the kanji and the readings)

Honestly this is a bit confusing for me: on the front you have:
- image of a post office
- keyword/convenience
- kun'yomi/tayori (which means correspondence)
- two on'yomi variants in two words benri/yuubinkyoku

which don't go together so I'd break this up in three cards: keyword+benri (kanji card), image of post office+yuubinkyoku (vocab card), tayori+an image of a pile of letters (vocab card)

For me a good card should test one thing not five, and this is why most people have a kanji deck, a vocab deck and/or a close-delete deck, otherwise I feel it's not only messy but a pain to learn. Not saying everyone should do like me but you need to be careful about these things in the long run if you don't want to mix everything up. Also as the lines clue each other too much, not sure how efficient the learning would be.

The problem here is images don't work well with abstractions, here the concept of convenience, and somehow associating it to a post office seems wrong. Even associating it to something a bit more obvious like 便所 still feels weird, because the purpose of a keyword is to help you produce the kanji out of the blue, if you have triggers like words why do you even need the keyword? (granted you don't have the word definition). To have only one deck, I get it, anyway, you're the boss, just my two cents.

That's what I liked about doing core both ways -- recognition and production -- one works on the reading alone, one on the kanji alone, and both reinforce words. So I guess instead of having one card for both reading and writing you should have one note, and two cards, but I don't know how to set that up. Seems like it would be perfect for you though.

mh... What you say is true, so it will be better to test only the kanji with my kanji deck, and to rely on vocabulary deck for the rest?

So to make the kanji production deck the best you suggest to put the english keyword and a japanese word? Like in your example keyword+benri? In the end I think I will do this xD

cophnia61 Wrote:mh... What you say is true, so it will be better to test only the kanji with my kanji deck, and to rely on vocabulary deck for the rest?

Imho yes, also note if you ever do a production vocabulary deck you can ditch the kanji deck at some point because you'll be reinforcing kanji through vocab already.

Quote:So to make the kanji production deck the best you suggest to put the english keyword and a japanese word? Like in your example keyword+benri? In the end I think I will do this xD

I find it practical (that's what I have). Also remark I choose benri here because it means convenient: still in this idea of testing only one thing and reinforcing, I think it's important to have a keyword + a Japanese word that are more or less equivalent (plus reviews are quicker).

EratiK Wrote:

cophnia61 Wrote:mh... What you say is true, so it will be better to test only the kanji with my kanji deck, and to rely on vocabulary deck for the rest?

Imho yes, also note if you ever do a production vocabulary deck you can ditch the kanji deck at some point because you'll be reinforcing kanji through vocab already.

Quote:So to make the kanji production deck the best you suggest to put the english keyword and a japanese word? Like in your example keyword+benri? In the end I think I will do this xD

I find it practical (that's what I have). Also remark I choose benri here because it means convenient: still in this idea of testing only one thing and reinforcing, I think it's important to have a keyword + a Japanese word that are more or less equivalent (plus reviews are quicker).

Thank you EratiK for your help! I asked because every time I try to read something in japanese, what really puts me off are kanji I don't know, more than unknown words, so I was thinking about what could be the best method to study new kanji but at the same time review their common onyomi without the need to do a dedicated vocabulary deck... As for now I am doing something similar to the "kanjidamage" method, I have kanji on front and common readings/meaning on back and I think it's working well but I feel the need to produce kanji to reinforce them...