Here’s what you can do.

1. Open one of the downloaded decks.
2. Click “Browse” near the top of the screen.
3. Press the Enter key to show the current deck. You will see a list of all the cards in the deck. Below this list are two buttons: “Fields” and “Cards”.
4. Click the “Cards” button. This will open the card editor.
5. At the top of the screen, you will see one tab that reads “Recognition” on the left (assuming all the decks follow the same format, that is”, as well as an addition sign (+) button on the right. Click the “+” button to create another card type.
6. If you wish to rename the new card type (not necessary) from the default value (“Card 2″), click the “More” button at the bottom of the window, click “Rename”, and give the card type a new name like “Production”.
7. In the top-left data entry field, labeled “Front Template”, delete everything so that the box is blank.
8. From the bottom-left data entry field, labeled “Back Template”, cut the following: “{{Meaning}}”.
9. Paste the cut text into the “Front Template” (top) data entry field.

Edit: It looks like all the decks on the site use the same note type (“Japanese”) so you should only have to do this once.

Buy default, an option called “Bury related new cards until the next day” is enabled. This option will delay showing two new cards of the same note (that is the English-to-Japanese and Japanese-to-English) on the same day. This option is supposed to (and does) save you time. If you want to disable this option:
1. Open the deck.
2. Click the “Options” button at the bottom of the screen.
3. Deselect the “Bury related new cards until the next day” check box.
4. Click the “OK” button.

Edit: Since the decks all use different options groups, you will have to do this for each new deck, or assign each new deck to the same options group.

• This reply was modified 9 years, 4 months ago by  thisiskyle.

Those decks were probably originally created for Anki 1, which I believe had an option to include reverse cards just by checking a box. They were probably not changed (or not much) when Anki 2 came out.

Some people, myself (depending on when you ask) included, would say not to worry about going English->Japanese. In my opinion, the purpose of flashcards is not to “learn” a word, but to provide you with just enough information so that you can understand a word when seen in real context. They provide a bit of a crutch to hold you over until you actually internalize a meaning for the word. Going E->J would not really help in this regard.

Going E->J also runs into problems when your vocabulary starts to include words with similar meanings. Take for instance さむい and つめたい. Both mean “cold”, but you couldn’t really go E->J unless you added information like “cold for people or weather” or “cold (for objects)..a cold drink”. Which is fine, and you might make that distinction on a J->E card too, if you were so inclined. But it would not be necessary, since knowing that both mean “cold” is enough to let you understand the meaning when you see the word in context. The slight difference in usage would be picked up eventually over repeated interactions with the words, and with making mistakes when speaking or writing. Of course, for words that are actually synonymous in Japanese, you really couldn’t add anything to the English side of a card to help you distinguish.

I basically use the English side of the card not to provide a ‘definition’ or ‘translation’ of the Japanese side, but to provide a short hand or mnemonic to provide a clue to what the word means in context.