I've been inputting new vocab into Anki as sentences so far, because there are normally a plentiful number of sentences with the vocab word in it.

However, I would like to learn more technical vocab, such as scientific and mathematical vocab, which are present as single words on ALC but not in sentences. Is it wise to learn these by themselves as part of a new Anki deck? I could, obviously create very simple sentences such as これは代数多様体です。(This is an algebraic manifold.), but I don't feel this is necessary.

Does anyone have experience of learning single words by themselves on Anki, and would it also be a good idea to include reverse answer cards (English to Japanese), in a deck like this?

I've used a single-word deck for a bit. It's a fine idea, IMO. If you want to be able to translate quickly from English to Japanese, the reverse deck would be at least a bit useful, IMO, and I would make one. It should be easy to do the reversing with a script.

For technical vocab, just SRSing individual words should be fine. I mean, if it's grammar you don't understand, or if it somehow needs context, then yeah, a sentence might be better. If it's just a noun (like your example), i don't really see what the sentence adds.

I went through a phase at work where i just mined everything i could get my hands on for vocab. It's become more of a trickle as i read more, though. The key is lots of reading (as with anything). Technical japanese often uses a different style of writing to most stuff, which takes some getting used to (terse in the extreme, in my experience).

Of course flash cards of single words are perfectly fine to learn from it's been done for centuries with results, and will be far faster than learning them through sentences. Much of technical vocabulary is simply based off of the English word as well, so many people find them to actually be easier to learn than typical Japanese vocabulary, since it's just the katakana-fication (I swear that's a word, shhh) of the English you already know.

Aijin Wrote:Much of technical vocabulary is simply based off of the English word as well, so many people find them to actually be easier to learn than typical Japanese vocabulary, since it's just the katakana-fication (I swear that's a word, shhh) of the English you already know.

Yes, definitely. Even for the technical vocab that isn't katakana, the kanji used are usually far more logical than in general Japanese, at least in my experience (YMMV). And there are none of those annoying hiragana-only words, yay.

On the downside, i can read a technical control system specification better than i can read a manga meant for 7 year olds. Yeah, that gets old quick.