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When Do You Stop Adding New Cards To Anki? — 17 Comments

  1. This post inspired me to do another round of new cards tonight. I haven’t decided yet at what point, if any, I’ll stop adding cards to anki. I actually kind of enjoy using an SRS every day (although of course when reviews get out of hand, it becomes unfun), I know some people really, really hate it (despite recognizing its value). This may be the single biggest difference between those who continue to use anki life-long and those who eventually choose to set it aside.

    • Yeah, I mean as you get higher level it’s the ultimate “minor down time” savior. Waiting for a train, on line, or some other slightly unpleasant waiting task where you have nothing to do, and only have a few minutes. It’s absolutely perfect.

      We’ll see if in the near future I come up with a “the end” post, but for now it’s still here to stay.

  2. Is it bad that I can usually guess what articles the links go to? I imagine one day I’ll stop adding cards. Though I’m pretty new to the concept, just adding cards for knowledge gaps in the One Deck. It’ll be years before I’ll be at this point though.

    • A true fan!

      I think it definitely becomes a personal choice on how you want to continue the relationship with Anki.

  3. For a while I thought I would never stop adding cards because it used to be such a boon to my studying. Then it was going to be until I finish the one deck. There’s 5000 cards left on it, but at this point the value I get from them has decreased so much that by now doing other things does more for my progress.

    • Don’t feel any guilt in having to finish it. The One Deck’s purpose was originally just to introduce people to J-J, but that purpose has faded away since the main Jalup deck series was released. Follow your feeling on the matter.

  4. Hi to Adam and all JALUP users! I have a little doubt for anyone who would kindly help me :)

    I started studying years ago for some months (RtK – Genki 1-2 and part of an intermediate book) but then I went through an Anki burnout.

    Now That I’ve restarded on october-november, I’ve decided to go easy with Anki, I’ve ended reading my third light-novel and I’m going to start the fourth tomorrow.

    I’ve added some sentences to Anki, with words exclusively mined from the books I’ve read. Now I have 3000 cards in my Anki deck, because I still remember many words from when I studied the first time, and other words just stick by means of reading.

    My doubt is if it’s better to add even those words, many of which are really common or just obvious from kanji (both reading and meaning)?

    I know you Adam started with Anki when you were already past the beginner stage, so I wonder if you added even those kind of words, or only those you felt you needed to have in Anki to prevent forgetting them?

    * I just went through a frequency list of 3500 words just to have an idea of where I am now, and I already know most of them but I wonder if it’s better to still have them into Anki and just spam the “easy” key. Or must I just “ignore” them and add them eventually if I encounter them in native media and I notice that I’ve forgot them.

    Sorry for the long question and the bad english!

    • I had a similar experience. I added all those words into a separate deck and just powered through them all in a week (500 words I already knew) and just kept up with reviews ever since, now I get 2-3 reviews a day from it and I am glad I did that because now it is basically effortless to keep up with them.

    • I would argue that if you know them naturally, then wait with creating cards. If you forget them later, then you can create the cards then – otherwise, you saved yourself the time to make the cards, which can be better spent on other cards that you don’t already know :)

    • Jesper’s comment reflects on what my experience was, and how I handled it. The only exception I might make is if you know the word, but not the kanji. Or you know the word, but not in the specific way it is being used in your current example.

      • Thank you all for your answers! I’ll do it that way then.. In fact I’m already doing it, to add words to reinforce kanji knowledge, particularly to reinforce onyomi :p thank you again and thank to Adam for your website, it helps me enormously!

    • Depending on your goals and personality:if you feel that it would remove the fear of forgetting the words/grammar/kanji/keigo, or whatever else it is or if you are more of a perfectionist then go for it, add the cards to Anki or if you like see big numbers that is another reason to add the cards. Just remember that the thing isn’t if you need it or not it is about the way you feel.
      If you do not feel like having extra reviews then do not add the cards.

  5. I got the Japanese core 2000 deck but it takes me an hour each day to complete and it is hard to remember anything from it (possibly because it is agony going though it). Is there something I forgot to do? (sorry for posting this on a old article it must be hard to respond to every comment on the blog)

    • Hey Sakura, I ain’t Adam but since I went through the same issue you’re having right now I thought I’d share my experience with you, maybe it’s helpful.

      When I started learning Japanese, I tried the core deck too and I also found it just as agonizing which is why I ultimately switched over to Jalup.

      The reasons for this was because:

      A. I didn’t know a lot of the kanji at the time, so instead of just learning the words, I had to try remembering the kanji in context of each individual word. Usually not being to recall that kanji again when used in other words since I didn’t yet study it properly.

      B. A lot of the sentences had other words and grammar I didn’t know yet, because most core decks run on fluency rather than a +1 order like Jalup does. This means I had to constantly try to figure out each word I didn’t know in the dictionary, which was super time consuming.

      In summation, the core decks are agonizing because they bombard you with a lot of information you simply don’t know yet, instead of being constant drip feed of new information. There is a lot of assumed knowledge which you might not just have encountered yet.

      The reason I stuck with Jalup is that while reviews can still be a tad agonizing (especially if I leave them for a day or so), every sentence more or less builds off each other. In fact, so far (I’m on the latter half of the advance deck) there have only been a handful of times where I couldn’t figure out a sentence at all and had to resort to looking it up.

      I hope this helps ☺️

      • Hey Analogman. If you find it still a tad agonizing to do reviews, why not lower your new card count? The max I do is 10 new cards a day and my reviews stay at an average of 85 a day which takes about half an hour. Combine that with enough active immersion and you will progress quickly and see/hear(eventually) the words in your cards. I think you will find that reading a lot more will help you learn new words and repped words much more quickly. Just make sure to get enough listening in so it doesn’t really affect your accent from all that talking in your head as you read. Keep up the good work!

  6. There is probably a better artical to put this question on… So I am 200 cards into jalup intermediate. Which is not the Japanese stage this artical is about. But I have acouple questions abought when I should add new cards.
    1) If all of the criteria you listed is met, Should I make an anki card for a card that is not in Jalup intermediate?
    2) If I understand a card from context or kanji, should I put it in to learn the reading?
    3) J-E-J bridge modification I used baised on card linking. 1st, I look up the kanji in anki card browser to see if I already have it. If I don’t I look it up on weblio in the jishou and ruigo- each of those words I look up in anki. Rather than branching I put in an English translation in Anki or don’t make the card if I still don’t understand

    or wait because it is probably somewhere in the Jalup set (the time it takes to make a card, I could learn 3 jalup intermediate cards)

  7. Hey Noxsora,

    For me I didn’t start my own deck until I finished all of Jalup. There isn’t any one way to do it though of course. Whatever you feel works for you. I wouldn’t feel any pressure at all to make your own deck yet, but also don’t be afraid to do so.

    The reality is there are only so many new cards a person can handle adding per day. Right now you have ready made cards of words that you know are super important. So I would lean towards just adding as many Jalup cards as you can handle without burning out.

    When you get to 4000-5000 cards then ask yourself again and if your tired of jalup cards venture out on your own then based on what you find in immersion.

    Also I saw you posted a monthly goal, I used to love doing that here but they don’t really post those anymore. If you want a small place to post monthly study goals with others I recommend: https://forum.tadoku.app/

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