Hi John, I had the same problem till I went on WaniKani where I learned to use better than I already did, the mnemonics. I do the same with the vocab lists in textfugu. A lot of times I have to make my own mnemonics, but that can be fun, because the targetgroup of our course are young americans and I’m neither young (68) nor american. I use also the other languages I know to make them, even if that means that I have to remember in which language I did it . Although I use the Anki, for long lists I make for myself small paper pieces with japanese on one-side and the meaning on the other, so I can mix the order and take out the ones I know well. You can put them in your pocket and study them wherever you want. I know you can do that on your Anki too, but I have no Iphone or Ipad that I can take with me. Good luck!

Dear Aikibujin,

Your explanation is of 2013 and now it’s 2016, so I don’t know if you’re still there. If so, I thank you very much. I had e lot of troubles with the Anki and I already wanted to switch to pen and paper, but then I found your post. It resolved (nearly) all my problems. Still don’t know how to get my japanese words in the passion list in hiragana.