I am level 10 in WaniKani now and I want to collect and process vocabulary from other sources such as text books. I need a system like WaniKani where I can learn both reading and meaning of a vocabulary but using a custom deck.
I tried Anki and it is great. But I want my Latin characters converted to Hiragana while I am typing the reading of a vocabulary, just like WaniKani. I know that I can use MS-IME but currently there is not any efficient way to swap between English Keyboard and Hiragana frequently.(Alt+Shift changes to Japanese but I can not force Hiragana so I have to click from taskbar.)
Do anyone know a good way to achieve this on Anki or a way to efficiently swap between input languages in Windows? I also liked kitsun.io(it is exactly what I need) but I need a free or cheaper solution. I am open to all kinds of suggestions.
I think there might be a way to convert romaji to hiragana in Anki, though I’m really not sure how to do that. On the IME though, you can also use Alt+~ to switch from romaji to hiragana input, which definitely makes it a bit faster!
(Personally, I ended up just switching my default keyboard to Japanese and using the romaji input for English. It had the side effect of putting a lot of apps in Japanese as well, but hey immersion’s good right? )
I’ve found kamesame to be very helpful as an SRS, but you will have to be able to change your computer’s keyboard settings which is not very difficult. I think Tofugu has an article about setting up your computer to type in Japanese.
I already followed Tofugu article but as I said in the post, it is not efficient to swap between languages in Windows. When I change to Japanese IME, it chooses direct input as first choice and this option does not convert to Hiragana. It is not efficient for a 120 review session where I have to swap to Japanese for reading and to English for meaning.
I don’t even have ~ in my keyboard Actually I did not want to go into that much detail but my display language is English but my input language is Turkish so I have 3 input languages and Windows does not give permission to delete English one, which makes changing IME even less efficient.
You can choose not to require a typed answer on your Anki cards. Just say the answer out loud or in your head and then compare it to the correct answer and mark whether you got it correct or not. That’s what I do for my 6000 card Anki deck and I wouldn’t even consider forcing a typed answer for every card - way too time consuming and a hassle switching between inputs as you note.
Hmm, I’m not sure what the shortcut would be then. Do you have a different key to the left of 1 that might be treated the same for the shortcut? (so like Alt+whatever key is to the left of 1 for you, since that’s where ~ is) If not I imagine there’s a way to change what the shortcut is, but that’s really above my paygrade
Edit: I also found this post which has some stuff about incorporating an IME in Anki, but I don’t really know how to do it myself:
Along with Houhou, try Torii. Houhou has pretty much all the words Jisho has while Torii does the 10k but has example sentences and even audio for one. I find example sentences really help with memory retention. I use these two in tandem to srs words I come across so if it’s not in Torii then I can find it in Houhou.
I’m curious, can you show us a picture of what a turkish keyboard looks like? I’m sure you’d have a button to the left of 1 as natalie already asked.
I know you already found a great solution, but just in case you want to know in the future, or someone else wants to know, I’ll put down a possible way to make it more effective to switch between English/romaji input and Japanese/hiragana input on the Microsoft IME.
The thing is, I don’t know if the options exist in the new IME that came with the May (I think?) Windows 10 update. Luckily, there is an option to convert back to the old IME for those who have the update. There are some difference between the new and the old, but I don’t think it’d be that important to go back unless you use the numbering next to each suggestion in the IME display.
The great part about it is the fact this will allow you to set your own key. I haven’t tested it with many keys other than the function keys, but I’m sure many work. I’d suggest using a function key as that would be less likely to interfere with other possible actions the computer associates with that key, but it does mean if you are using a laptop where you have function keys that can alternate usage you have to make sure function mode is on (so function keys do not have their other uses active instead, like changing brightness or volume). On desktop, at least on mine, you would not press the function key in the bottom right when using this. So my keyboard shortcut was F1, so all I would need to press was F1 to switch between romaji and hiragana.
Steps
Go to Settings
Time & Language
Language
Click on the Japanese language pack
Options
Keyboards
Microsoft IME
Options
IF you have the new IME, follow these steps:
8.1. General
8.2. Compatibility
8.3. Use previous version of Microsoft IME
8.4. On
Advanced settings
Open advanced settings
General
Editing operation and behavior
Key template
Custom
Advanced
Example key: F1
IME ON/OFF in the first column
I originally wrote these down as notes for myself but haven’t completely checked if they are exactly correct , so if anyone follows this and has problems, let me know.
Strange that you can’t delete the English keyboard. I also have English as my display language and I use a Polish keyboard as my primary and Japanese as secondary (so no English keyboard) without any trouble.
I think I had to set it up this way myself but I use Alt+Shift to switch between the 2 keyboards and then Shift+Caps-lock to switch to hiragana input.
)
, so if anyone follows this and has problems, let me know.