The 80/20 Japanese Anki Pack has been updated to support Text-to-Speech for all included flashcards. This adds near-native speaker level audio for all of the Japanese characters, words and sentences featured in the flashcards. We hope that this will enhance your experience studying with the 80/20 Japanese Anki Pack.
This page explains how to update from the original version of the Anki Pack to the new version with Text-to-Speech, and to do so without losing any of your study history.
It is very important to follow these steps to ensure that the update is successful.
Start Here
How you proceed will depend on your answer to the following question. Click the answer to reveal steps for completing the update.
Have you been using the Anki Pack and want to retain your study history*?
If you have the original 80/20 Japanese Anki Pack installed in Anki, but have not studied at all or do not mind losing your study history and starting again, please follow the steps below.
1. Delete the existing Anki Pack decks
If you have the original Anki Pack installed in Anki, open the Anki app and delete the ‘master deck’ – the top-most deck entitled “80/20 Japanese (version)”.
On PC or Mac:
Click the gear icon next to the master deck and select “Delete”.
On iPhone, iPad or Android:
Tap and hold the master deck and then choose the option to delete the deck.
2. Sync Anki on all your devices
On Desktop:
On iPhone, iPad and Android devices, tap the Sync icon in the top-right corner of the home screen:
3. Import the new version of the Anki Pack
Follow the instructions in the Anki Pack User Guide to choose the appropriate version of the Anki Pack and import it into Anki.
Be sure to use one of the files located in the “Anki Pack” folder on the download page. The files should be named “80-20_Japanese_Anki_Pack_(version).apkg”.
Do NOT use the files with “Text-To-Speech_Update” or “[Original]”in the file name.
4. Sync Anki again.
Follow the instructions in the Anki Pack User Guide to choose the appropriate version of the Anki Pack and import it into Anki.
Be sure to use one of the files located in the “Anki Pack” folder on the download page. The files should be named “80-20_Japanese_Anki_Pack_(version).apkg”.
Do NOT use the files with “Text-To-Speech_Update” or “[Original]”in the file name.
Updating the Anki Pack so as to keep your study history
Update Checklist
Follow the steps below – in order – to ensure a successful update.
Failure to follow the steps as described could result in the loss of your study history.
Click the link next to each step for more detail about that step.
Before you begin
Preparation
Updating the Anki Pack
Before you begin – Some important notes
There are a few things to note before you get started:
1. Your study history will be kept, but make a backup just in case
The update will only affect the content and display of the cards, not the study history data associated with them, so your study history should be unaffected.
Nevertheless, be sure to back up your Anki collection just in case (see instructions below).
If you do not have any study history to keep, or do not mind losing it, delete the existing pack and use the new Anki Pack file (not the update) instead.
2. Information on where each word/sentence appears in the book will be lost
Originally, the vocabulary and sentence flashcards displayed the location (chapter/sub-chapter) in the book where that word or sentence first appears.
In order to make this update simple and effective, this information had to be sacrificed. The field storing that information has been used to add text of each word or sentence in a format that can be read accurately by the Text-To-Speech software.
As such, the cards will no longer display the location in the book where the word or sentence can be found.
That said, these flashcards will still have tags applied that indicate their location in the book.
If you need to find a word or sentence’s location, open the Anki Browser and do a search for the flashcard you wish to locate. Then, select the card in the list, and at the bottom of the browser window you will see a Tags field that looks something like this:
In this example, the flashcard has three tags applied. The word featured on this flashcard first appears in 80/20 Japanese in Chapter 8, specifically section 8.5, as indicated by the “8020J-Ch8” and “8020J-8.5” tags. (The 8020J-EJ tag tells us this card has English on the front and Japanese on the back).
3. The Verbs flashcards will only have audio for the answer side
Even though most of the Verbs flashcards have Japanese on both sides, due to the way the cards were structured in the original Anki Pack, it was only possible to add Text-To-Speech audio to one side of the card. We opted to enable audio for the answer side, except in the case of the Verbs -> Meaning deck, where the cards with English on the answer sides have no audio.
Note: If installing the new version of the Anki Pack from scratch, audio is available for both sides of these cards. You can opt to use this if you wish, but again, you would have to delete the existing decks, along with any study history you may have.
4. If you have deleted any cards or sub-decks, they will be re-added.
The update includes a new version of all the flashcards from the original pack, so any that you have manually deleted will be re-added. You can, of course, delete any cards or sub-decks after the update if you wish.
5. If you have modified the flashcards in any way, it may not work
Depending on the changes made, one of two things will likely happen:
- Your changes will be overwritten by the update.
- Your existing cards will be incompatible with the new ones, meaning the new version of the cards will either be imported as additional cards, or ignored completely.
It is impossible to provide instructions for dealing with this, as it depends entirely on what changes have been made. For this reason, make sure you follow the steps below to back-up your Anki collection before starting in case things go wrong.
Steps For Updating Your Anki Pack to Enable Text-To-Speech Audio
Preparation
There are two very important steps to take before starting the update.
1. Sync Anki across all devices on which you use it
If you use Anki on multiple devices, synced via AnkiWeb, then make sure Anki is synced to your latest study progress on all devices.
On Desktop, click Sync on the home screen.
On iPhone, iPad and Android devices, tap the Sync icon in the top-right corner of the home screen.
To ensure this is done correctly, sync first from the device on which you studied most recently, then proceed to sync any and all other devices.
If you only use Anki on one device and have not synced it via AnkiWeb, there is no need to complete this step.
2. Back up your Anki Collection
In case things don’t go to plan, we highly recommend creating a backup of your entire Anki collection so that you can revert to it if necessary.
To do this, using Anki on your computer (after having synced all devices first), go to File -> Export.
Make sure the Export Format is set to “Anki Collection Package (*colpkg)” and that “Include media” is checked. Click “Export…”.
Choose a location to save the file, then click Save.
Updating the Anki Pack
Once you have synced and backed up your Anki collection (explained above), follow the steps below to update your Anki Pack flashcards to include Text-To-Speech audio for all cards.
1. Identify which variant of the Anki Pack you are currently using
There are three variants of the 80/20 Japanese Anki Pack:
- Romaji only
- Kana + Kanji
- Kana + Kanji + Romaji
Predictably, these describe which characters are used to display the Japanese words on the flashcards.
Choose the variant that describes what appears on the flashcards in your current version of the Anki Pack.
If you are unsure which variant you are currently using, you can identify this by looking at the name of the master deck:
2. Download the appropriate Anki Pack update file
On your download page, there will be three folders containing different versions of the Anki Pack:
- Anki Pack
- Anki Pack [Original version]
- Anki Pack Text-To-Speech Update
If you are updating to add Text-to-Speech to your existing flashcards (and want to keep your study history):
You want to use one of the files from the “Anki Pack Text-To-Speech Update” folder. Click to expand this folder.
Based on the version of the Anki Pack that you currently have loaded into your Anki app, download the appropriate file, named as follows:
Kana + Kanji + Romaji: [Update] 80/20 Japanese Anki Pack (Kana + Kanji + Romaji)
File name: 80-20_Japanese_Anki_Pack_Text-To-Speech_Update_(Kana-Kanji-Romaji).apkg
Kana + Kanji: [Update] 80/20 Japanese Anki Pack (Kana + Kanji)
File name: 80-20_Japanese_Anki_Pack_Text-To-Speech_Update_(Kana-Kanji).apkg
Romaji only: [Update] 80/20 Japanese Anki Pack (Romaji)
File name: 80-20_Japanese_Anki_Pack_Text-To-Speech_Update_(Romaji).apkg
3. Import the updated Anki Pack file
1. On the Anki home screen, click Import File
2. Navigate to and select the Text-To-Speech Update file, which will be one of the following:
- 80-20_Japanese_Anki_Pack_Text-To-Speech_Update_(Kana-Kanji-Romaji).apkg
- 80-20_Japanese_Anki_Pack_Text-To-Speech_Update_(Kana-Kanji).apkg
- 80-20_Japanese_Anki_Pack_Text-To-Speech_Update_(Romaji).apkg
3. Click Open. The cards will be updated to the new version. The results should look like this:
Romaji:
Kana + Kanji:
Kana + Kanji + Romaji:
As you may notice, some notes will be skipped – this is expected. If the results screen looks like one of the above images, the update has been successful.
If the results are substantially different, take a screenshot of the results screen, or take note of what it says, then contact us for help.
Checking that it worked
If you want to check that everything has updated successfully, you can preview the cards in the Card Browser. To do this, click Browse, select a card by first selecting one of the sub-decks in the panel on the left, then click Preview.
In the Preview screen, click the right arrow to reveal the back of the card. Try a few cards from different decks. You should hear audio for whichever side of the card has Japanese text (or the “answer” side for cards from the Verbs decks, except for cards where the answer is in English, which will have no audio).
4. Sync Anki again
Sync Anki again on all of your devices, starting with the one used to complete the update.
At this point, Anki may prompt you to say that the collection being uploaded is not compatible with the one already synced to AnkiWeb:
Firstly, don’t panic. This is fine and not completely unexpected.
You want to choose “Upload to AnkiWeb” when syncing from the device used to complete the update. This will ensure all the updates are uploaded and saved to AnkiWeb. Do this first.
Then, when you sync on your other devices, choose instead to “Download from AnkiWeb”. This will download the up-to-date version you just uploaded.
DONE!
All of your flashcards should now have Text-To-Speech audio for the Japanese words and sentences.
Happy learning 🙂