Best Japanese Anki Decks: Easy ways to remember Japanese

Looking for an effective and easy way to start learning new Japanese words? Try using Anki.

Using spaced repetition system (SRS), it allows you to revisit new vocabularies repetitively — but in a programmed time frame. Through this, you can spend more time on words that you have a harder time remembering, and less on easier ones.

When setting up an Anki, we recommend you use pre-made Anki decks. Once you know your learning preference, you can then customize them. Anki decks can easily be downloaded from the Anki website.

Check out the 10 best Japanese Anki decks. Before that, make sure to head to our Japanese learner’s guide to starting Anki flashcards.

How to choose the right Anki Deck?
Best Japanese Anki Decks
1. Japanese Core 2000 Step 01 Listening Sentence Vocab + Images
2. Japanese Core 2000 Step 02 Listening Sentence Vocab + Images
3. Japanese Basic Hiragana
4. JLPT Grammar from Jtest4you
5. Japanese Visual Novel, Anime, Manga, LN Vocab – V2K 
6. Katakana Reading Practice
7. Official KanjiDamage deck
8. All in One Kanji Deck
9. Kanji All in One Heisig RTK + Kondansha KKLC + Vocabulary Ex
10. Kana Mnemonics (Tofugu)

How to choose the right Anki Deck?

With there are hundreds of Japanese Anki decks for learning, choosing the right one can be difficult and confusing. This is especially so for first-time users of Anki who are still figuring out how to use the software. It’s not that hard when you get used to it, but we don’t want to add more to your full bowl.

On the Anki website, there is a section under ” Popular categories: Languages ” where you could see links to landing pages for different languages.

Click on the “Japanese” link and it would bring you to the page full of different Japanese Anki decks. If you already have a topic in mind that you want to study, there is a manual search option in the top right corner.

If you have a problem choosing, you can click on each Anki deck and look at the reviews. There is also a rating column that shows the ratings of the different tabs.

Once you have chosen the Anki Deck you want to use, just simply click the “download” button to open the Anki on your device.

Best Japanese Anki Decks

1. Japanese Core 2000 Step 01 Listening Sentence Vocab + Images

Japanese Core 2000 Step 01 is one of the most popular and used Anki decks to memorize Japanese vocabularies. Specifically customized for beginners to Japanese, this Anki Deck has over 2,000 Japanese words for you to learn.

The contents in this Anki deck are well-structured, with images provided for easier memorization. The deck contains 405 audio files and 235 images combined with example sentences for the Kanji.

It would probably take you 2-3 months to complete this Anki deck if you practice consistently — and consistency is the number one thing for improvement.

Visit the Anki website to download the Anki Deck onto your computer. Once the deck is imported to your device, the flashcards will appear on your screen. You can edit the cards by clicking on the “edit” button.

2. Japanese Core 2000 Step 02 Listening Sentence Vocab + Images

Japanese Core 2000 Step 02 is the second part of the Japanese Core 2000 Anki series. Make sure you start with Step 01 before you visit Step 02. Still, for beginners, this Anki Deck is a more advanced version with audio files, English translations and images are provided in the flashcards.

There are Japanese Kanji, verbs and example sentences that are used in everyday life. In this Anki Deck, there are over 404 Audio files and 236 Images.

Similar to Step 01, it would probably take you 2-3 months to complete this Anki Deck if you practice consistently.

Visit the Anki website to download the Anki deck onto your computer. Once the deck is imported to your device, the flashcards will appear on your screen. You can edit the cards by clicking on the “edit” button.

3. Japanese Basic Hiragana

Japanese Basic Hiragana comes as a highly recommended Japanese Anki deck for beginners to learn the fundamentals of hiragana. Unlike the Japanese Core Series Anki Deck, this Anki deck does not have any pictures.

The deck was modified from the TextFugu Hiragana deck and only includes 46 basic audio Hiragana character files.

However, you can actually type in romaji under particular hiragana characters. You can easily complete as the contents are basic and simple for beginners. Since there are only 46 notes, the deck is a good refresher for new learners.

Since it only covers fundamentals, it does not have all the hiragana characters. So, you might want to move on to more advanced Japanese Anki Decks once you have completed the Deck.

4. JLPT Grammar from Jtest4you

Jtest4you Anki Deck is a JLPT N1-to-N5 grammar-focused flashcard. It includes example sentences as well as romaji and translations that can be added in the front and back of the flashcards.

What’s good about this Anki deck is that the vocabularies are split up by different JLPTs level so you can choose to study those that are relevant to your current situation.

In most flashcards, the front would be the kanji and example sentence in Japanese while the back of the flashcard would be the furigana, romaji and English translation.

Visit the Anki website to download the Anki deck onto your computer. Once the deck is imported to your device, the flashcards will appear on your screen. You can edit the cards by clicking on the “edit” button.

5. Japanese Visual Novel, Anime, Manga, LN Vocab – V2K 

If you are interested in Japanese visual media, Japanese Visual Novel, Anime, Manga, LN Vocab – V2K Anki Deck could be perfect for you.

This Anki Deck has over 2,000 common words that are found in popular Japanese media such as novels, anime and manga. In Japanese media, words and phrases often serve a variety of different contexts and examples.

Hence, this Anki deck helps users make the link between the particular kanji and familiar English translations.

It is a beginner-focused Anki deck where users will learn kanji and furigana along with a pre-recorded audio that can be found at the front of the flashcard.

You will be able to pick up heaps of useful words such as 全然駄目だ、結構 that are frequently mentioned in anime and manga. It will also significantly improve reading and listening comprehension.

Visit the Anki website to download the Anki deck onto your computer. Once the deck is imported to your device, the flashcards will appear on your screen. You can edit the cards by clicking on the “edit” button.

6. Katakana Reading Practice

Katakana Reading Practice is an Anki deck that acts as a guide for beginners to learn katakana. With over 1,000 words and phrases in Katakana, the contents in the flashcard focuses a lot on foreign loanwords, proper names, onomatopoeia, animal names as well as brand names.

Many users of this Anki deck have found that it is very helpful in improving speed and confidence with speaking and writing katakana.

English speakers might think it’s unnecessary to learn katakana. After all, they are loan words from English — but you’d be surprised by some of the Japanese katakana words that don’t sound similar to the original English words.

Visit the Anki website to download the Anki deck onto your computer. Once the deck is imported to your device, the flashcards will appear on your screen. You can edit the cards by clicking on the “edit” button.

7. Official KanjiDamage deck

KanjiDamage is the ultimate deck to learn Kanji with the KanjiDamage method, which is basically learning Kanji using mnemonics. There are over 1,700 Kanji to learn from in this Anki Deck.

You will learn a mix of commonly used Kanji as well as uncommonly used Kanji that has been put in random order. The stroke order of how to write the Kanji is also included.

If you want to learn kanji frequency instead, check out another Anki Deck made by the same user, which is a reordered version of this Anki deck. It has been reordered based on the frequency of each Kanji character so that you can more common characters first followed by the uncommon ones.

Visit the Anki website to download the Anki Deck onto your computer. Once the deck are imported to your device, the flashcards will appear on your screen. You can edit the cards by clicking on the “edit” button.

8. All in One Kanji Deck

Looking to learn pretty much everything there is to learn about Kanji? All in One Kanji deck is one of the most comprehensive and informative collections out there. It is perfect for those looking to practice writing the Kanji and gaining more knowledge on kanji meaning and readings.

The Anki deck is nicely formatted. With over 10,000 flashcards, you will learn how to read each kanji in onyomi, kunyomi, nanori as well as learn the number of strokes and stroke orders.

It also teaches you how each Kanji had been changed from its original Chinese elements to become a Japanese character.

9. Kanji All in One Heisig RTK + Kondansha KKLC + Vocabulary Ex

Kanji All in One Heisig RTK + Kondansha KKLC + Vocabulary Ex Anki Deck is rich in information as it combines information and stories from the most popular books to learn kanji characters:

• Remembering the Kanji (RTK) by Heisig.
• Kodansha Kanji Learner’s Course (KKLC) by Conning and Halpern.
• Stories from WaniKani and Koohii.

This is one of the most comprehensive Japanese Anki Decks and has three different types of cards: Recognition, Production and Memrise. The deck is good for learning as you can easily choose to hide the information you don’t want.

There are also animated gifs in each flashcard that show you the stroke order of each Kanji.

10. Kana Mnemonics (Tofugu)

Kana Mnemonics is an Anki Deck that teaches you Japanese Hiragana and Katakana with mnemonics created by Tofugu. With Hiragana and Katakana being the foundation of Japanese learning, in this Anki Deck, you will be able to learn the basics of Japanese pronunciation.

Through descriptive and animative mnemonics, they make learning fun and interactive and are a perfect method for memorization! We also recommend downloading the Tofugu hiragana chart for reference before you get started with this Anki Deck.

Visit the Anki website to download the Anki Deck onto your computer. Once the deck is imported to your device, the flashcards will appear on your screen. You can edit the cards by clicking on the “edit” button.

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