Should you write out the entire sentence from your flashcard, or should you concentrate on the part you’re actually trying to memorize here? We don’t have time for every perfectionistic “effort”, we gotta focus on what we need the most right now (that’s the very basis of SRS theory!)

Why not tailor the SRS to function in that way to begin with? Why not concentrate on only one kanji from the sentence and if you feel like learning other kanji from the same sentence, just make one more flashcard for each one of them? Same sentence, but now the “cloze” (blank) is another kanji…

When I first read about MCDs I didn’t fully get why they were so intelligent. Now, reading this post, I understand it! It really makes sense! I’m beginning my studies and that’s what I’m gonna try! 

just wanted to let you know i didn’t forget about the cantokanye mixes i said i was going to post up. i’ve actually turned it into a bit more of an ambitious thing (lots more tracks from more artists) and i can’t wait to see what you think!

If you have and iphone or an ipod touch, you have to get the “kanji” app – it costs $0.99, and it has all of the kanji (well, 2000 of them) with their English readings plus Japanese readings. It also has a search function (you can find kanji by English meaning, Japanese pronounciation, or by drawing it with your fingers/stick and having the app recognize what you drew). What that means is that not only can you learn/review kanji on the go, but you can also use it as an electronic kanji dictionary.

I just got it and I can’t believe I was ever considering using a paper kanji dictionary while I read on the train/subway. Waaay too long…

kakijun.main.jp/

Over 4000 kanji all with descriptions and animated gifs of the stroke order. If you right click and save the image file, you can put the image into anki and have the stroke order play out when the card comes up.

I found it useful to iron out specific grammatical aspects/mistakes, such as using は/が、書いたほうがいい/書くほうがいい… Two words of caution:
1° Make sure you keep your sentences as short as possible (which you should anyway).
2° Even though it speaking is less time consuming than writing, it is still mentally tiring. It might then be a good idea to choose specific items, as other commenters noted.

Sometimes, when I’m bored, I’ll just write in Japanese and try to do things from memory… But as far as writing out entire/pieces-of sentences for *each* entry, I’m sure you’ll get carpal tunnel+tendonitis+burnout quickly.

Writing is important. If it helps your reading, great! However, reading is far more important and, strangely enough: the more you read, the better your handwriting will become automatically.

Similar to the more times you see a Santa Claus/kitten/dog/beer-bottle, the more details you will remember about it over time, and the better chance you have of reproducing a drawing of said object from memory.

Regardless of his family’s literary past, it is a good question. I once tried writing out each sentence as part of an “experiment” and the result was a hideously deformed reviewing monster which I could not control. This translate to: It took too much damn time! Writing out the failed/forgotten sentences would be useful, as it would help to consolidate the knowledge of the words as well as help you remember how to write some kanji-specific words (I think most of us have no problem with writing out hirakata).
However, I would still warn against trying to write out each sentence, because, as Mr. J says, you burn out too quickly.

I really like your blog and enjoy reading your posts! I love your attitude about language learning and I look forward to your future posts!

1-misread anything in the sentence
2-read the sentence correctly but it wasn’t smooth, or I wasn’t totally confident on a reading.

At this point, if I have read the sentence smoothly (this applies mostly to older cards), i try to write it down without looking at the screen. Ideally, I’ll write the whole sentence, but this isn’t always necessary. This once again reinforces the importance of SHORT sentence items, but if the sentence is long by necessity, then I select only the most important parts to write down-what it is I am trying to learn in that particular sentence.

If I am able to copy the sentence correctly, but need to look at the screen to correct myself/check for errors, I score the sentence a 3.

If I am able to copy the sentence correctly, from memory, without referring to the screen again, then it gets a 4. Therefore a “perfect” score on a sentence requires me to both read and write the sentence smoothly.

I’ve been doing it like this for about two weeks, and we’ll see what happens. I hope it will enable me to produce the words I am learning more readily than what I was doing before. It also made me realize that with my previous scoring system, I had rather a lot of sentences that were “old” but that I was still not completely smooth at for either reading or writing.

For reference here’s how I used to do it.
I used to have Anki automatically generate two cards one was a “reading” card – the score is based on how well it is read out loud. The other card was a “writing card.” Basically, this card would ask me to produce the kanji for a particular target word (i.e. new word) given the reading and the context. This is similar to how Japanese high school kids take Kanji tests (i.e. the Kanken (漢字検定））

Doing this, I found doing my of “Reading only” cards to be incredibly sleep-inducing, and was looking for a change. I liked my “writing” cards, they gave me more 達成感 than any of my other cards, but they did require a lot of time, and in the end seemed redundant to have two cards for the same thing.

I hope this new way should eventually save time and be less boring. Hoping, praying, that it will save time and be less boring…

Just out of curiosity, what sort of sentence (item) would not fall under this category?