I usually do

Side One:
Sentence with Kanji
Side Two:
Japanese dictionary entry on word(s) I don't know/grammar points
Reading:
hiragana reading

I count this as correct if I got all the readings correct, if I understood it, and if I can rewrite the kanji without looking at it again.

OR

Side One:
Sentence in hiragana separated by spaces.
Sometimes a picture related to the sentence
Side Two:
Japanese dictionary entry on word(s) I don't know/grammar points
Reading:
Sentence in full kanji

Here I count it right if I wrote all of the kanji correctly, and understood it.


Khatzu has some articles on how to make sentences. He also recently suggested for those making the transition to start by looking up words you already know, to help get a feel for the dictionary.

I also recommend that you not bother with learning how to write people's names (unless these are people you have relationships with or something). There's too many ways to write names that you're better off just learning to read them.

When I enter sentences I do the following (from Understanding Basic Japanese Grammar):

Expression: 東京から大阪までは新幹線で３時間です。

Meaning: It takes three hours from Tokyo to Osaka by shinkansen.

Reading: とうきょうからおおさかまではしんかんせんでさんじかんです。

But I make the reading field invisible in Anki, so that when I press spacebar I see only the hiragana. If I'm struggling with the exact meaning, I can highlight the hidden text and see the English meaning. I think all I did was make the text white in the meaning field, but I can't find where that option is- it must be when you first set the deck up.

uberstuber wrote:

I also recommend that you not bother with learning how to write people's names (unless these are people you have relationships with or something). There's too many ways to write names that you're better off just learning to read them.

The exception to this is learning names of famous people (real, historical or fictional). Here you can use Anki to go photo to name and name to photo. Drama-wiki is great for this if your learning cast names of j-dramas you`re watching.

I think they're learning how to write out names in general.

Speaking of names...is there some way to look up kanji names to find out how they might be pronounced? I always ignored the problem of reading names up until recently. Now if I try to read something and the characters have Japanese names, I won't know what their names are(unless they give furigana).

I think it would be interesting to learn a few names. I'm tired to ignore written japanese. That's why I'm studying kanji so hard. And I dont intend to ignore anime, manga and videogames casts for much longer.

Not to mention some/many names are also words that are useful for vocabulary anyway. So learning some names, for instance of famous people you already know (from Manga or Anime, music/actors or VGs) can add to your vocab very quickly. you know the names and pronunciation already, now you pick up the meanings of the words and have a context for remembering them well (the source material).

johnzep wrote:

Also, the sentences in the book invaribably use really easy names like 田中　and 山田 and 木村, so when I encounter those, I change them too.  In the example above I changed the name from an easy name to 稲垣さん

Anyone seeing the irony in someone saying that the above kanji names are "really easy"? Sign of great progress.

For names, I liked what was recommended on AJATT, so I did my own way. I created a "Famous People" format in Anki where I put Kanji Name, Kana Pronunciation, Photo of Person and notes for the person. Idea being if I see the face, I can right down the name (and have an idea why shehe's famous) or if I see the name, I can pronounce it and have an idea what shehe looks like.

Currently, I'm just using Drama Wiki which has cast list links to bios. So I put in the cast list for a series I watched and enjoyed (like Tiger and Dragon).  Obviously, it works for famous historical and political figures as well.

Here is how you do this. You blank all your existing English definitions, and then you give yourself easy quick access to a dictionary through a program like JEDict. Then, for all your new cards you do full Japanese definitions. For stuff you really don't understand, you look in a bilingual dictionary. For everything else you attempt to use Japanese definitions.

Your sentence cards only need one or two sides. Mine only have one side, I test meaning and reading in one step. If I don't understand it or I can't read it then I fail that card. If you're feeling frisky you can have 2 sides. Put Japanese with kanji on the front then full hiragana on the back. I find it to be a real pain to have to type sentences twice. So, I just use one sided cards.

Never put an English translation to a sentence on a card. That's a terrible habit to get into. Unless you have lots of self-control, you'll just flip to the English translation the second you don't understand it. That's bad. You need that experience of it being really hard at first because you need to teach your brain to parse sentences. Forgetting and reparsing is a part of the process, and it will help you when you start reading new sentences.

Last edited by erlog (2008 September 19, 3:51 am)

If you have three fields, kanji, kana and English, then just make the English field display as white on your cards.  Then you can only see it by highlighting it.  So your cards will have kanji on the front and kana and English on the back, but you'll only be able to see the kana.

thermal wrote:

I think going J-J is actually a really simple process. What ever you are learning for the card, just explain it in Japanese.

For example if this is your sentence:

猫が好きです。

and the word 猫 is new, then explain the meaning in Japanese.

猫：（ねこ）寝ることと魚が好きな動物。

If you can't explain the new word in Japanese then either don't put in the answer, or get the definition from sanseido or something. Whatever you do don't put English on your cards.

When you are reviewing (or when you look up a word you don't know). If you don't understand the definition, then use something like rikaichan to help you. Finally if you still don't understand then look at the translation. This way the English translation is an absolute last resort and as you improve you will use it less and less.

For a grammar point, again explain or demonstrate it with examples in Japanese.

I would just be a little bit careful of making the change too early though. You can always switch back though if you need to.

I doubt writing your own definitions for words is a good thing. You will miss all the subtleties. It's okey for a basic word like cat, but eventually you will get words which are kind of hard to explain. A real japanese definition from a kokugo jisho makes sure you understand the word as it is understood by a japanese person.

yukamina wrote:

Speaking of names...is there some way to look up kanji names to find out how they might be pronounced? I always ignored the problem of reading names up until recently. Now if I try to read something and the characters have Japanese names, I won't know what their names are(unless they give furigana).

You can check the Japanese Wikipedia, specially if the person whose name you are looking up is famous.