Why I Stopped Using Flashcards | Read Manga in Japanese – Omake

Hi, I’m Andre, and this is Learning to Read Manga in Japanese…in written form!

But first, I want to sincerely thank everybody who is watching the videos, leaving likes, leaving positive comments, and asking good questions. The channel hit over 100 subscribers recently, and I am extremely grateful.

Thank you!

My goal with the videos is to help manga fans like me study Japanese in a way that makes sense to them and is tailored to them, and it seems like many of you are finding them useful. Again, I’m no language-learning expert—I’ve spent years of my life trial-and-erroring my way through Japanese until I found my footing, and I just wanted to share with people the path I’ve taken thus far…with the fat trimmed off.

Today, I wanted to talk to you guys about some of my up-to-date thoughts about learning Japanese. Plus, I’m going to trim off some more fat: flashcards. I no longer think flashcards are useful.

But first, let’s talk about language-learning in general.

THE SECRET MAGIC FORMULA

I’m sure many of you have searched up things like:

“best way to learn japanese”

“how to become fluent in Japanese EASY”

or “learn japanese fastest method”

…stuff like that. And when you do that, you end up finding articles and videos like these:

“How to Learn Japanese in 24 Hours”

“Learn Japanese While Sleeping”

“HOW TO LEARN JAPANESE INSANELY FAST: 10 SMART LANGUAGE HACKS”

“How to Learn Japanese the Easy Way”

“Speaking Japanese Fluently in 6 Months | 6 Steps to Success”

“Learn Japanese in 30 Days – Scientifically Proven Method”

(these are all real titles of webpages I found)

But, the thing is, there is no secret formula. There is no trick. There are no hacks. There is no super efficient advanced strategy for learning Japanese “fast.” Learning new languages is difficult. It takes time and effort. You can’t do it in your sleep. But it’s also not complicated. The simple truth about language acquisition is this:

USE IT, OR LOSE IT.

If you want to learn to speak Japanese, you MUST find some way to regularly practice speaking Japanese (preferably with a native speaker).

If you want to learn to write in Japanese, you NEED to find a way to write Japanese regularly (preferably under the guidance of a native writer).

If you want to learn how to read Japanese, you HAVE to read native Japanese writing as regularly as you can. (And that can be in the form of manga, newspapers, books, video game dialogue, whatever).

And if you want to learn to understand spoken Japanese, it is IMPERATIVE that you listen to native speakers speaking, as regularly as possible (either in person or through radio, tv shows, movies, anime, youtube channels, etc.)

That’s it. If any of those things is your goal, the above is all you need to do in order to achieve it. Basically, once you’ve laid your foundation and learned the basics of the Japanese writing system and grammatical structure, focus your attention away from study materials and towards native Japanese media/people.

SHONEN TRAINING WEIGHTS

Using language-learning apps, studying grammar textbooks, going through workbooks and study materials, listening to podcasts made for students, and making/reviewing flashcards are all totally okay things to do during the beginning phases of learning Japanese…but ultimately that’s not where the bulk of your learning should come from. Those things need to be shed like shonen training weights.

Unleash your potential like Goku at the 23rd Tenkaichi Budoukai!

Or Rock Lee at the Chunin Exam Section 3 Prelims!

If you are past the fundamentals stage, and your goal is to read Japanese manga, then just do that. Don’t weigh yourself down with other distractions.

“But Andre! When I try to read manga, I have to look up almost everything! Doesn’t that mean that I’m not good enough?” – Worried Person

Rest assured that what you are going through is…

Absolutely…

Positively…

Completely…

NORMAL.

You are learning a new language—OF COURSE you don’t know everything yet.

And realistically, you will NEVER know everything.

WHAT IS “LEARNING”?

Learning a language is a lifelong process. There is no magic fluency switch that once you hit, you will never have to look up a word in the dictionary again. I am a native English speaker, and I STILL run into unfamiliar English words all the time!

So, ARE you good enough to read manga? Maybe, maybe not. But if you keep worrying over it, trust me, YOU WILL NEVER FEEL READY. It’s a leap of faith. Take the leap. Have faith in yourself.

“But Andre! Even words I’ve already looked up, I keep forgetting them and having to look them up over and over again!”

This seems like a big problem, right?

It’s not. This is the learning process.

You run into walls, and you have to learn to climb over them. Over time, you learn to climb faster and faster until eventually the walls that stopped you before, you can now hop over them.

Often when you run into these learning “problems”, that’s when some well-meaning people will advise:

“FLASHCARDS! Make them! Review them! Then you’ll never forget anything ever again!”

Let’s talk about flashcards.

FLASHCARDS: ARE THEY GOOD?

First of all, I want to be completely self-aware here. One of my videos in the Read Manga in Japanese series was all about flashcards and I explicitly recommended using them for furthering your manga fluency. I have taken that video down and I’d like to apologize to anyone who started using flashcards errantly because of it.

Sorry!

I used to believe in flashcards, but at the time I was making that video, I was already starting to question them and was no longer putting it into practice myself. But I figured since so many language-learners recommend it, it must be useful and I felt I should probably talk about it in my video.

Needless to say I changed my mind.

And I know there are a lot of people who swear by flashcards, who don’t want to hear someone rip it apart. Don’t worry—I’m not just going to bash on flashcards for the rest of this post. In fact, why don’t we talk first about what flashcards ARE good for. And when it comes to learning Japanese, I think there are maybe 3 things:

(1) If you are a beginner Japanese student laying their foundation, flashcards can help you memorize your hiragana and katakana. They can help you memorize the vocabulary lists or grammar concepts in your textbooks.

(2) In a classroom setting, flashcards are good for cramming. If you need to memorize stuff for a quiz or exam or presentation tomorrow, making and reviewing flashcards is a good way to approach that.

And finally (3), if you need to memorize something specific for a specific event, then flashcards may be a good way to prepare for it. Let me give an example:

When I was getting ready for my first trip to Japan last summer, I was afraid I would get there and not know how to read any signs or labels. They don’t teach you how to read street signs, business open/closed signs, signs at an airport, restaurant menus, or the buttons on a remote control in the Japanese textbooks I used. Nor are any of those of much focus in most manga either. So since I had no other way to review them organically, I made a flashcard deck to help memorize them. And I can’t tell you how significantly that helped me during my trip.

MEMORIZING VS. LEARNING

Basically, flashcards help you memorize things. But it’s important to make a distinction between “memorizing” and “learning.” When you memorize something, you make it stick in your mind. But when you learn something, you understand how to apply it to new situations. When you decide to use flashcards, make sure you know what you expect to gain from it.

How does this apply to reading Japanese manga? I see it often recommended that while you are engaging with native Japanese material like manga or anime, you should note down every word you don’t know and turn it into a flashcard (which is basically what I used to do).

But the problem is flashcards lack CONTEXT. Especially if you make the basic “term-on-the-front-definition-on-the-back” style of flashcards, simply memorizing the meaning of a word does not help you learn how to use it yourself nor does it protect you from confusion when you see that word again in the wild in a new context. Some Japanese-learners try to circumvent this by putting context in their flashcards (i.e. example sentences). But I think that is a misguided effort. In fact, I think it’s redundant.

READING IS REVIEWING

When you are reading manga, you are right where you need to be. Immersing yourself into native material. Every word you lay your eyes on, familiar or unfamiliar, presents itself to you in the context of the story and the dialogue.

Let’s say you see the word 本当 (hontou) in a manga, for example. It’s a common word so you’re likely to see it again. Guess what? Each time you see the word 本当 again, it’s going to be in a new sentence and in a different story context than when you saw it previously.

Each time you see it, you are reinforcing it just a bit more in your mind. Sound familiar?

It’s (almost) the same thing that happens when you review the word 本当 in a flashcard deck over and over. Each time you see it, you reinforce it.

But the problem with the flashcard deck is that you are seeing 本当 out of context. In the manga, it will ALWAYS be in context. Even if you put an example sentence or two in your flashcard, each time you review that flashcard, you are ONLY reviewing THAT sentence or two. By reading your manga, you will get to see 本当 in a new context each and every time you review it, each time furthering your understanding of how 本当 can be used.

FLASHCARDS: ARE THEY BAD?

To be clear, making and reviewing flashcards is not necessarily harmful to your progress; it’s just a time-waster. All that time you spend carefully crafting and reviewing cards could be used instead for way more reading time, where you’ll be learning new words and reviewing familiar ones in new contexts—a much more productive activity.

So going back to that original question, if you find yourself constantly having to look up the same word in the dictionary over and over again because you keep forgetting what it means, that’s totally okay! It’s either you look it up over and over again until you remember OR you make a flashcard and review THAT over and over again until you remember. Some may advise you to make a flashcard, but I would not.

One other thing about flashcards is just that I personally find making and reviewing them veeeeeery boring. Whereas I find reading manga fun. Back when I used to make flashcards, I never liked how they always interrupted my reading, and I hated having to review them later.

That said, there are people who DO enjoy making and reviewing flashcards. And that’s fine, but if you are that person, be careful not to fall into the trap of spending so much time with flashcards, you forget that reading is your priority. That’s something I think even the staunchest believers in flashcards will agree with me on.

WHAT ABOUT ANKI’S SPACED REPETITION?

Many people love the spaced repetition system of Anki (and other digital flashcard software).

Basically what it does is when you are reviewing your flashcards, it will schedule when each of your cards show up according to how well you know them, with less familiar cards prioritized sooner and more familiar cards later.

The issue with this is Anki doesn’t know what words are actually important for you to memorize or not. If you DO decide to make flashcards while reading manga, it’s important not to enter in literally every single word you don’t know; because it’s likely you won’t see many of them again. It’s especially easy to fall into the trap of making flashcards for obscure words if you are a beginner, since it’s harder for you to tell if a word is common or not (I was guilty of this).

But just by focusing on reading manga (and not making flashcards), you will start to notice what words show up frequently—those are the words that are important for you to remember. The more frequent they are, the more important they are. And since they show up so frequently in your reading, you are also already reviewing them more than any other words. For obscure words that you rarely see more than once, it’s totally okay to look it up once and let yourself forget it until the next once-in-a-blue-moon occasion you see it again.

To those still interested in Anki’s spaced repetition system (despite everything I’ve said), I’d just like to warn you on one thing:

AVOID making or downloading large flashcard decks.

When decks have hundreds of cards in them, cards that are marked “easy” get pushed months—or even YEARS—into the future, and it’s inevitable that by the time you see that card again, you’ve forgotten it. At least, that was my experience. The same cards would constantly cycle between easy and hard, memorized and forgotten, and as more and more new cards were added, the effect became even more pronounced. Ultimately, it felt like I was not making any progress.

Yes, I memorized 本当 months ago, but now that I see it again after all this time, I don’t remember what it means anymore. So what was the point? Did I really “learn” 本当? Will I “learn” 本当 if I review the card again?

SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION

The bottom line is, if you know exactly what you want to do with Japanese, tailor your studying to that goal. Step away from the academic study materials and immerse yourself in native material or with native speakers, as much as you can.

If you want to learn how to read manga in Japanese, take care of your fundamentals first (kana, basic grammar), then prioritize immersing yourself with as much reading practice as possible. Don’t bother with flashcards. Using language-learning apps, books, and materials should ONLY be supplemental if used at all.

But also, I want to remind you all that all of this is just my opinion. There are many people who would agree with me and there are many people who would disagree with me. I am simply speaking from my personal experience, and in the end, it’s up to each individual to decide what methods work for them and what doesn’t.

And with that, I want to thank you all again for watching, liking, and commenting on my videos. To those of you who subscribed to the channel I really really appreciate it, but just know that I likely won’t have time to upload videos very often, so absolutely no worries if you want to unsubscribe for lack of content.

Thank you all for reading, and…

…Remember to have fun!

– Andre

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