Frequent Questions and Problems
If you don’t want to learn listening-first, I recommend to turn the listening deck into a reading deck. You need to do two things: Disable automatic audio playback and remove the roumaji. Either use the jlab addon for adjusting the script or edit the card template as explained here.
Roumaji are the latin transcriptions the jlab deck contains by default. Their use is controversially discussed among Japanese learners, therefore I made some efforts to help you turning them off. You can do this by using the jlab addon on desktop anki or by editing the card template.
The use of roumaji is controversial. Their reputation is bad, most websites recommend to avoid them at all cost. However, I’ve been using them to practice listening comprehension for years and can’t confirm most of the common criticism. If you’re interested in reading, you should probably avoid them. On the other hand, they help you to quickly improve your listening comprehension from the beginning on and keep the learning curve flat. Especially for people short on time, this is important. So in my opinion, it’s a matter of personal preferrence. I’ll share my experience in a more detailed post.