building your first custom Anki deck, the fields that matter

what to add from day one so you're not rebuilding the whole deck in month three

01
start from the Basic note type
02
Sentence field first
the whole point is context, a bare word card teaches you nothing
03
Target word field, isolated
04
Definition field
05
Audio field
record it yourself if you can't find native audio, robotic TTS works but not by much
06
Image field (optional)
07
Sentence translation, hidden behind a toggle
(input > output), try recalling before you peek
08
tags for grammar point, not topic
topic tags i never used once, grammar tags constantly
09
cards straight from netflix subtitles, absurdly good for mining
10
AnkiWeb sync
11
Forvo for pronunciation
12
read the Anki manual once
sounds boring, skipped it for 2 years and rebuilt my deck twice because of it
13
card template, front/back design
the one people skip. show too much on the front and you're just reading, not recalling. stripped mine down, retention jumped
14
Yomitan for pop-up dictionary lookups