Anki for Japanese: which deck, how to set up the cards, and a daily pace

To use Anki for Japanese, learn hiragana and katakana first, then pick one beginner vocabulary deck, usually Kaishi 1.5k or a Core 2k/6k deck, and add 10 to 20 new words a day. Each card should show the word in Japanese and ask for its reading and meaning, with an example sentence and audio on the back. Anki's default settings are a fine place to start.

Learn kana first

Japanese vocabulary decks are written in kana and kanji, not romaji. Hiragana has 46 basic characters and katakana another 46, so at about 10 new cards a day each one takes a week or so. Start with hiragana: see how to learn hiragana, then how to learn katakana.

Skip decks that print romaji on the card. You end up reading the Latin letters instead of the kana, and most Japanese learning material drops romaji early.

Pick one vocabulary deck

Two beginner decks are the usual choice. Best Anki decks covers decks for other languages and how to judge any deck.

• Kaishi 1.5k. About 1,500 beginner words, each with an example sentence, audio and a reading. It's made as a first deck, and it's kept on GitHub as well as AnkiWeb.
• Core 2k/6k. Decks built on iKnow's Core 2000 and Core 6000 lists: common words in study order, each with a sentence. AnkiWeb has many versions, with different orders and card layouts, so read the description and study a few cards before you commit.

Both start from the most common words, so much of one is in the other. Pick one and finish it; running both means learning many words twice and paying for both sets of reviews. The first 100 words of the Core 2000 show what that list looks like.

Kanji: a separate deck, or through words

There are two common approaches.

• Kanji first. Learn each character with a keyword and a mnemonic, then the words that use it. Remembering the Kanji by James Heisig is the best-known method, and AnkiWeb has many decks built on it.
• Through vocabulary. Learn kanji as part of the words in your vocabulary deck, and look a character up when it keeps tripping you up.

Many learners do the second, or start vocabulary and run a kanji deck alongside. A kanji deck brings its own reviews, so count them in your daily total. For scale, the jōyō list, the kanji taught in Japanese schools, has 2,136 characters.

What the card should ask

For a vocabulary card, the usual layout is:

• Front: the word as it's normally written, in kanji where it has them.
• Back: the reading, the meaning, an example sentence with its translation, and audio.

Read the word, say the reading aloud, then flip. Decide in advance whether a wrong reading counts as a miss and stick to it. Many learners press Again when they knew the meaning but not the reading, because knowing a Japanese word includes knowing how it's said.

Furigana

If the front shows furigana (small hiragana over each kanji), you read the kana and never practise the kanji. A common setup is the word without furigana on the front and the reading on the back. Furigana on the example sentence is fine, since the sentence is there for context, not to be tested.

Anki has furigana built in. Write the reading in square brackets after the kanji, like 日本語[にほんご], and show the field with {{furigana:Field}} in the card template, using your field's name. {{kana:Field}} shows only the reading and {{kanji:Field}} only the kanji, so one field can appear as plain kanji on the front and with furigana on the back. When a word follows other text, put a space before it so Anki knows where the reading starts.

Word cards or sentence cards

Kaishi and the Core decks test the word and use the sentence for context. Some learners later move to sentence cards, where the whole sentence is on the front and you have to understand all of it. Sentence cards vs word cards covers the trade-off, and cloze cards are a way to test producing the word.

One direction or both

Japanese to English (recognition) is the direction that helps you read and listen. English to Japanese (production) is much harder in Japanese, because you have to come up with the word and, if you write it, its kanji. Most vocabulary decks are recognition only. Adding the reverse roughly doubles your reviews; if you do, turn on sibling burying so the two directions don't come up on the same day. The best Anki settings for language learning covers both settings.

Audio

Kaishi 1.5k has audio, as do many Core 2k/6k versions; check the deck description. Play it on every card and say the word with it. Long vowels change the word (obasan is aunt, obāsan is grandmother), and they're easy to miss when you only read.

How many new words a day

The usual range is 10 to 20, and Japanese sits toward the low end for most people: each word comes with a reading and often unfamiliar kanji, so more cards fail and come back. Anki's manual says 20 new cards a day leads to about 200 reviews a day.

That's how long it takes to see every card once; reviews continue after. How many new cards per day in Anki explains how to choose.

Settings

The defaults suit a Japanese vocabulary deck: learning steps of 1m 10m, a 10-minute relearning step and 200 maximum reviews a day. If you use FSRS, leave desired retention at 90%. Leave the new-card order alone, too: these decks put the most common words first on purpose. The best Anki settings for language learning goes through each one.

Common pitfalls

• Two beginner decks at once. They overlap, and the reviews add up.
• Too many new cards in the first month. The reviews arrive weeks later. If they pile up, pause new cards until they settle.
• Pressing Hard when you forgot. Hard counts as a pass. See Hard vs Again.
• Furigana on the front. You end up testing kana, not kanji.
• Expecting a vocabulary deck to teach grammar. It doesn't explain particles or verb forms. Use a grammar guide or textbook alongside it.
• Look-alike kanji that never stick. A card you keep failing becomes a leech. Rewrite it, or add a note on the back about what tells the pair apart.

On iPhone

Decks, the app this site is for, has Japanese Core 2000, Japanese Core 6000 and hiragana and katakana decks in its library, with furigana and audio. It can't open Anki decks or .apkg files, and it's iPhone only.