Anyone studying Japanese should check out Flashcard Tree: http://www.flashcardtree.com/
It's an SRS like Anki with a focus on integrating real video content like Anime into the learning process.
It's an SRS like Anki with a focus on integrating real video content like Anime into the learning process.
My advice would be not to rely too much on Anki. I considered it as a silver bullet because it was so much better that using a notebook (like I did in my childhood), that was a mistake. Find other way to practice. Take lessons (maybe one day I'll try these Skype conversion offers), read articles, watch tv show with subtitles, find people you cant talk to…
Its power comes from using it with those tools. I always struggle to memorize a word or kanji if the first time I see a word or kanji is in the program. It just isn't the right tool for that. But when I make cram decks for whatever chapter I'm studying at the moment, it becomes extremely easy to memorize that information.
In college I always did ok my vocabulary and kanji test but I was always spending hours doing it and it wasn't fun. When I got higher up and setup Anki to review only words from the current chapter I never really had to worry anymore about my quizzes because the information was already in my head. My scores consistently stayed high on those quizzes ever since. Once the current chapter was over I would add the information to the much larger deck of what I've studied already and exam season wasn't bad either because I never had a chance to forget any words.
In conversational Japanese it's rarely an issue. Don't sweat it. Just avoid learning 2 homophones at the same day/week so that you don't get confused.