How to Use Anki to Improve Your Memory(superpoweredself.com)
superpoweredself.com
How to Use Anki to Improve Your Memory
https://superpoweredself.com/gentle-introduction-how-to-use-anki-to-improve-your-memory
149 comments
I agree with your first paragraph.
But if your goal is purely to expand your vocabulary, don’t you think reading is more tangential than drilling words with flash cards?
But if your goal is purely to expand your vocabulary, don’t you think reading is more tangential than drilling words with flash cards?
I've never had luck with flash cards for learning Finnish. The time->recall thing has never worked for me in this respect. If, for example I get Perehdytys, then Kuljettajaohje I've forgotten them straight away. After half an hour, I still can't recall how to spell them - at which point I'm going crazy.
However, after a couple of weeks coding a project related to Perehdytykset and Kuljettajaohjeet, I now know the words.
However, after a couple of weeks coding a project related to Perehdytykset and Kuljettajaohjeet, I now know the words.
I think you have to do the flash cards multiple times to be effective. I've manually written out 1000 hindi flash cards. I would go through them a few times each day. I usually add a few of the older cards randomly, and I've had good progress over the course of a year. I think it was better for me to use that than Anki since I had to learn to write the devegnari.
I also heard finnish is a really hard language, so maybe it's that.
I also heard finnish is a really hard language, so maybe it's that.
For speakers of European based languages with Latin character sets, learning to read and write Finnish isn't so hard IMO. It's phonetically spelled, and the character sounds are more or less the same as other European languages. The grammar is tricky, but literacy is simple. Or at least it should be.
How have you been making these flashcards? Finnish word in front -> English word on the back?
I have used the technique from "Fluent Forever" [1] to create my flashcards using images, not only translations for learning Swedish the past years and it works surprisingly well. Much easier to fixated words when you have a more personal connection to it, finding the right image for them is part of the process and it's worked for me, personally.
Of course, using the language and having reasons to learn a specific word help even more. I've used my deck to learn words that I came across in newspapers, in government articles and so on, to expose myself to words outside of the daily conversation usage.
Another technique from "Fluent Forever" that I think helped me a lot was listening to minimal pairs to train my ears to the sound of Swedish and intuitively know how words sound when spoken.
[1] https://blog.fluent-forever.com/simple-word-flashcards/
I have used the technique from "Fluent Forever" [1] to create my flashcards using images, not only translations for learning Swedish the past years and it works surprisingly well. Much easier to fixated words when you have a more personal connection to it, finding the right image for them is part of the process and it's worked for me, personally.
Of course, using the language and having reasons to learn a specific word help even more. I've used my deck to learn words that I came across in newspapers, in government articles and so on, to expose myself to words outside of the daily conversation usage.
Another technique from "Fluent Forever" that I think helped me a lot was listening to minimal pairs to train my ears to the sound of Swedish and intuitively know how words sound when spoken.
[1] https://blog.fluent-forever.com/simple-word-flashcards/
Thanks for the link.
It's been a while since I Used Anki, so my memory is a bit fuzzy. If I remember correctly I tried it with both text and images. I also remember using TinyCards, which had multiple choice and I had more success getting correct answers with that, because I didn't have to pull the word out of my head and remember how it sounded/looked. However, even though I could guess correctly, I still had problems with recall.
It's been a while since I Used Anki, so my memory is a bit fuzzy. If I remember correctly I tried it with both text and images. I also remember using TinyCards, which had multiple choice and I had more success getting correct answers with that, because I didn't have to pull the word out of my head and remember how it sounded/looked. However, even though I could guess correctly, I still had problems with recall.
I'd love some flashcard with native language. For example, I'm from Finland and I've been using Anki to leard Japanese, but there's no Japanese to Finnish sets available. So, the only way to learn using Anki is to translate Japanese -> English -> Finnish. And there's often new English words for me which will need a translation. I guess this kind of double learning is effective, but sometimes a little frustrating. I have decided to write some Finnish explanations to each kanji, which takes time.
Still, I think Anki is great for remembering new words. You'll just have to use it daily.
Still, I think Anki is great for remembering new words. You'll just have to use it daily.
I think drilling words will always be more direct than reading but at a higher "cost" (the overhead of building, maintaining and drilling via anki). Ideally, words that are more important will naturally appear more often -- a "natural" anki with little overhead.
But many things are list-like, or maybe just don't stick in your mind via reading, or need to be memorized quickly, or are better memorized in a digital/artificial context, or can only be memorized "naturally" at a high cost (just theorizing here). In this cause Anki is worth the overhead.
If anki were cost free (every interesting thought I heard in a podcast were automatically added to the deck), I'd use it store everything I didn't want to forget.
But many things are list-like, or maybe just don't stick in your mind via reading, or need to be memorized quickly, or are better memorized in a digital/artificial context, or can only be memorized "naturally" at a high cost (just theorizing here). In this cause Anki is worth the overhead.
If anki were cost free (every interesting thought I heard in a podcast were automatically added to the deck), I'd use it store everything I didn't want to forget.
I think the static nature of an Anki deck is it’s downfall.
The advantage of reading is seeing a word in different contexts, and grasping the many nuances.
The advantage of reading is seeing a word in different contexts, and grasping the many nuances.
One thing I found from language learning is not all words are created equal in this respect. Concrete nouns (ie items which you already know in your native language) can be learned by drilling but other words are more context dependent, or have a commonly found inflection, or function more grammatically and should be learned as part of a surrounding context.
There's certainly truth in this notion - if you have a goal in mind, going directly after it is often the most effective and straightforward choice. What I'm advocating is that the most direct path isn't always obvious.
Many masters say the fastest progress can be made in chess by doing "find the checkmate" exercises on tricky or otherwise interesting positions. This aspect of chess disproportionately contributes to success, compared to how much time is spent on each of these positions in the natural course of play. A bit of meta-knowledge about what makes someone successful at chess lets players play more effectively by focusing most on whatever helps them win.
Similarly, if you're learning a language and find yourself constantly groping for the right word, you might make a connection between your ineffectiveness at communication and lack of a memorized vocabulary, then shore it up by focusing specifically on that.
While there's a very strong correlation, there's no special rule of nature dictating that the best way to learn a thing is the same as doing it.
Many masters say the fastest progress can be made in chess by doing "find the checkmate" exercises on tricky or otherwise interesting positions. This aspect of chess disproportionately contributes to success, compared to how much time is spent on each of these positions in the natural course of play. A bit of meta-knowledge about what makes someone successful at chess lets players play more effectively by focusing most on whatever helps them win.
Similarly, if you're learning a language and find yourself constantly groping for the right word, you might make a connection between your ineffectiveness at communication and lack of a memorized vocabulary, then shore it up by focusing specifically on that.
While there's a very strong correlation, there's no special rule of nature dictating that the best way to learn a thing is the same as doing it.
I believe this to be the case for any competitive endeavor.
Go players practice life and death, basketball players practice shooting hoops, football players practice dribbling.
I designed macro exercises to give my students when I taught Starcraft.
The problem with these exercises is they are rarely very fun. To be great at something, you have to put in the hours. You won't if you aren't enjoying the time spent.
Go players practice life and death, basketball players practice shooting hoops, football players practice dribbling.
I designed macro exercises to give my students when I taught Starcraft.
The problem with these exercises is they are rarely very fun. To be great at something, you have to put in the hours. You won't if you aren't enjoying the time spent.
Yeah I agree. That's not to say that tools like Anki don't have a use -- they do! Use of Anki and memory palace type techniques is really useful for when rote memorization is a /required/ foundation for further progression -- language learning and so on.
But I do agree with you that it takes you there and no further. Moreover, I find the branding of this site (and others of its ilk, these seem to pop up every now and then over the years) to be really disingenuous. I don't think it's on purpose, more out of naievete.
An implicit assumption with these kinds of things is that it's cognitive fitness getting in the way of whatever it is you want to do. That's deeply presumptuous, IMO. The truth is more likely to be as you say -- it's not a lack of "cognitive fitness" -- it's a lack of experience doing the thing you want to do! And so if you want to get better at doing that thing, the difference between success and failure is figuring out a way to practice it consistently and slowly pick more challenging things to do. Not look at it like a leetcode problem with a trick that must be found which magically makes the problem tractable.
But I do agree with you that it takes you there and no further. Moreover, I find the branding of this site (and others of its ilk, these seem to pop up every now and then over the years) to be really disingenuous. I don't think it's on purpose, more out of naievete.
An implicit assumption with these kinds of things is that it's cognitive fitness getting in the way of whatever it is you want to do. That's deeply presumptuous, IMO. The truth is more likely to be as you say -- it's not a lack of "cognitive fitness" -- it's a lack of experience doing the thing you want to do! And so if you want to get better at doing that thing, the difference between success and failure is figuring out a way to practice it consistently and slowly pick more challenging things to do. Not look at it like a leetcode problem with a trick that must be found which magically makes the problem tractable.
Who says you can't do both?
At a certain point doing the "fun thing" will lead to stagnation of your skills.
It takes effort to get good at something, and that effort is not always going to be fun.
At a certain point doing the "fun thing" will lead to stagnation of your skills.
It takes effort to get good at something, and that effort is not always going to be fun.
The paper "The Role of Deliberate Practice in the Acquisition of Expert Performance" by K. Anders Ericsson et al[0] goes into more detail. The article was stretched into a book titled "Peak: Secrets from the New Science of Expertise".
The gist of it is that there are several types of "practice". "Naive", "purposeful", and "deliberate".
- [0]: https://mrbartonmaths.com/resourcesnew/8.%20Research/Explici...
The gist of it is that there are several types of "practice". "Naive", "purposeful", and "deliberate".
- [0]: https://mrbartonmaths.com/resourcesnew/8.%20Research/Explici...
How do you remember the new words you look up when reading books? Making an Anki card for each will make sure those words are permanently etched into your memory.
Words tend to come up again with varied enough reading. It's built-in spaced repetition!
I think that depends on your learning style, doesn’t it? In school they always want us to use the word in a sentence, and from my own experiences learning foreign languages and eastern philosophy, some words just don’t translate.
It’s a big reason why when you ask your friend what the two foreign characters in the movie are muttering they may pause and say, “this character is really mad at that character.” Because translating their swearing just does not make any sense in English, or sounds even harsher than it really is (according to screenplay writers, the French like to slip the word “whore” into any exclamation, from jovial mocking to impotent rage. Or perhaps more illustrative, there’s a “dang it” that refers to either a cow, or a dog’s name.)
Or going the other way, you want to explain “Bob’s your uncle” to a Swede? There’s a political history lesson in that explanation. They’re so weird you just learn them in context and go on, mostly.
It’s a big reason why when you ask your friend what the two foreign characters in the movie are muttering they may pause and say, “this character is really mad at that character.” Because translating their swearing just does not make any sense in English, or sounds even harsher than it really is (according to screenplay writers, the French like to slip the word “whore” into any exclamation, from jovial mocking to impotent rage. Or perhaps more illustrative, there’s a “dang it” that refers to either a cow, or a dog’s name.)
Or going the other way, you want to explain “Bob’s your uncle” to a Swede? There’s a political history lesson in that explanation. They’re so weird you just learn them in context and go on, mostly.
Something like Anki becomes useful when you've gotten to the point where the new vocabulary you are encountering are so rare that you only see them once every few months. I've read somewhere that it takes about 10 exposures to learn a new word. I was seeing certain words once a year (I track how often I look up vocabulary), it would have taken me a decade to learn those words naturally, and those obscure words are likely to be the most important words in the sentence, which means that if you don't know it, you miss the point of the sentence entirely. Anki exposure isn't like real in-context exposure, so it might take more than 10 passes to learn the word, but it should take less than a decade.
I think SRS comes in handy for things where you need to be up to speed now and do not have time to learn through repeated, natural practice.
As an airline pilot I’ve had to learn new aircraft a few times over the last 5 years. The airlines can’t afford to give you 100 hours in a simulator to drive in every little detail. You have to spend time in the manual using rote memorization to be up to speed on things before you’re out in the world operating the machine.
Learning by doing is my preferred method as well and it has its place. Just trying to point out that sometimes rote memorization, and tools to make it easier, are an important piece of learning something new.
As an airline pilot I’ve had to learn new aircraft a few times over the last 5 years. The airlines can’t afford to give you 100 hours in a simulator to drive in every little detail. You have to spend time in the manual using rote memorization to be up to speed on things before you’re out in the world operating the machine.
Learning by doing is my preferred method as well and it has its place. Just trying to point out that sometimes rote memorization, and tools to make it easier, are an important piece of learning something new.
Regarding vocabulary expansion, more than once I've come across the same word during reading, looked up its meaning, and then forgot about it. A quick dictionary lookup in the moment will help me understand it then and there, but the time gap until I encounter the word a second time is large, and I'll likely forget it before then.
A good approach is to use Anki to memorize words but only add words that you've actually encountered in the wild.
A good approach is to use Anki to memorize words but only add words that you've actually encountered in the wild.
I generally agree with this position an think it’s the better default but I think this position misses the value in a tool like Anki by discounting the value pf rote memorization. Tote is undervalued in American culture.
i read a lot of books and still use anki to keep my vocabulary by studying them everyday.
Anki was my introduction to spaced repetition and started me down a learning journey that I'm very happy to be taking. That said, Anki didn't end up sticking as the way I do spaced repetition - but it took me a long time to be able to articulate why. These days I am using Roam along with roam-toolkit. Having tried it this way, my biggest realization is that facts are memorable when they have many visceral associations. A corollary of this is that, to remember well, I should practice making lots of different connections between the things I know. Now when I do spaced repetition, I annotate things as I go, forming new connections and associations, then putting them in my knowledge graph forever (forever, knock on wood). By contrast, Anki feels like I am over-training flash cards in a very siloed and narrow way, such that the skill I learn is closer to "answering flash cards" as opposed to the actual thing I want to be good at.
That's exactly my idea of a lifelong learning journey, spaced repetition where you build connections as you gain deeper understanding. I've built Traverse.link to do this natively (ie connected notes with spaced repetition), let me know if you find it helpful
That is an interesting take on Anki.
I always saw Anki as an implementation of spaced repetition. What is your process?
How do you codify connections and associations into spaced repetition?
I always saw Anki as an implementation of spaced repetition. What is your process?
How do you codify connections and associations into spaced repetition?
Here's a concrete example. Some of my spaced repetition is to translate between languages. When I do a translation, if it's different from the canonical answer, I write it in below. Over time I have a list of the different ways I translated, which helps me notice when I repeat mistakes or of what kind.
I've been using Anki for about 3 years to learn Korean and it's been tremendously successful. In that time I've learned around 3000 new words (both English -> Korean and Korean -> English with reversed cards) and a ton of grammar (using Cloze cards). I couldn't imagine trying to memorize this amount of information any other way now.
How do you do it? I've been torn on learning sentences or just words as both are difficult in their own right. One helps with speaking, another expands your vocab. It almost feels like to me they're both necessary to stay good at this.
Both! I make a card with English on the front and Korean on the back, and I include a sample sentence in a custom field with the target word highlighted. I always read the sentence out loud after I answer the card.
I also make Cloze cards specifically for grammar where I'll cloze out the conjugated verb and put an English hint, like: 7시니까 댄 씨는 벌써 {{c1::퇴근했을 거예요::I think he left work}}.
I also make Cloze cards specifically for grammar where I'll cloze out the conjugated verb and put an English hint, like: 7시니까 댄 씨는 벌써 {{c1::퇴근했을 거예요::I think he left work}}.
I will have to make an effort to give those a go. I'm always interested in finding new ways to make self study more worthwhile instead of just a memory game. Thanks!
I read Gabriel Wyner's book, _Fluent Forever_, which was pretty decent for giving ideas on how to effectively use SRS for language learning. That would probably be a good place to start.
I disagree with his approach (which I haven't followed since original discussions) to then try to monetize this by basically creating a closed-source, locked-down Anki replacement. As I recall, he wanted to do what he said in his book wouldn't be effective -- to sell his cards to others.
I disagree with his approach (which I haven't followed since original discussions) to then try to monetize this by basically creating a closed-source, locked-down Anki replacement. As I recall, he wanted to do what he said in his book wouldn't be effective -- to sell his cards to others.
The "sell cards to others thing" isn't correct. The locked down Anki (for highly purpose specific and optimised interface for SRS language learning is what his app is).
I've tried his new app. Built in image search, pronunciation trainers, many included sentences with audio of varying difficulty. Now you can finally add custom words... It's at least gradually honing his vision into an app.
They are also going to have community supported languages, rather than simply not have more rare languages.
Granted, it's a premium app. Currently not got a freemium offering, and certainly not open source, so will put many off.
But at the same time, I know so many people who couldn't work with Anki, but could easily work with the app, so it does at least offer the system to a much broader audience.
I've tried his new app. Built in image search, pronunciation trainers, many included sentences with audio of varying difficulty. Now you can finally add custom words... It's at least gradually honing his vision into an app.
They are also going to have community supported languages, rather than simply not have more rare languages.
Granted, it's a premium app. Currently not got a freemium offering, and certainly not open source, so will put many off.
But at the same time, I know so many people who couldn't work with Anki, but could easily work with the app, so it does at least offer the system to a much broader audience.
I managed to average that volume of new vocab in 3 months with Anki when I learned Japanese a decade ago.
It was a brutal, breakneck pace but the result was nothing short of phenomenal.
It was a brutal, breakneck pace but the result was nothing short of phenomenal.
“You can get a good deal from rehearsal,
If it just has the proper dispersal.
You would just be an ass,
To do it en masse,
Your remembering would turn out much worsal.”
Ulrich Neisser, Retrieval Practice and The Maintenance of Knowledge
https://www.gwern.net/docs/spacedrepetition/1988-bjork.pdf
If it just has the proper dispersal.
You would just be an ass,
To do it en masse,
Your remembering would turn out much worsal.”
Ulrich Neisser, Retrieval Practice and The Maintenance of Knowledge
https://www.gwern.net/docs/spacedrepetition/1988-bjork.pdf
Any suggestions for what to use Anki to remember in everyday life as a software engineer?
Author of the piece here.
My number one recommendation is to not get overly excited about it. One of the first things that happen when you start using Anki and realize the superpower that it is being in charge of your memory is that you want to include EVERYTHING in it.
You start creating cards with obscure bash one-liners, little-used git commands, or Javascript functions you read about in a random article. You add all of it to Anki. After all, you might use them in the future right? And it doesn't cost you anything to create a card with them so why not.
What happens is that because you don't have a clear picture of why those cards are valuable to you - you just added them because they might be useful, one of these days - you will have trouble retaining their knowledge, meaning that you will keep failing to successfully review those cards.
And because of the way spaced repetition algorithms work, those cards will be constantly appearing in your reviews, and you will keep failing them. And they will keep appearing. And so on and so forth until you lose all motivation to use Anki because it's becoming a frustrating experience to do your reviews.
The most important thing about using Anki is to keep using it. That's how you get the benefits of it, so be more selective about what you add to Anki instead of profligately adding cards that you gain nothing from.
My number one recommendation is to not get overly excited about it. One of the first things that happen when you start using Anki and realize the superpower that it is being in charge of your memory is that you want to include EVERYTHING in it.
You start creating cards with obscure bash one-liners, little-used git commands, or Javascript functions you read about in a random article. You add all of it to Anki. After all, you might use them in the future right? And it doesn't cost you anything to create a card with them so why not.
What happens is that because you don't have a clear picture of why those cards are valuable to you - you just added them because they might be useful, one of these days - you will have trouble retaining their knowledge, meaning that you will keep failing to successfully review those cards.
And because of the way spaced repetition algorithms work, those cards will be constantly appearing in your reviews, and you will keep failing them. And they will keep appearing. And so on and so forth until you lose all motivation to use Anki because it's becoming a frustrating experience to do your reviews.
The most important thing about using Anki is to keep using it. That's how you get the benefits of it, so be more selective about what you add to Anki instead of profligately adding cards that you gain nothing from.
This was exactly my experience when I tried to use it for software engineering. This is after having used it incredibly successfully to learn Japanese a decade prior and being very experienced with it.
I’m having some success remembering C++ with Anki because the language itself has such massive complexity and syntax. I am inputting Scott Meyers books into it right now. Its still really hard to write good prompts with enough context- akin to writing an interview type quiz. So far I think the main benefit is in understanding complicated template code I wouldn’t have a reason to write myself. I don’t expect to be able to use these features just recognize them though.
I think a good way would be to only ankify things that would save one 5 or so minutes of one's time.
Do you have a sample deck
I use it to remember the names of persons I encounter in my day-to-day.
Coworkers, neighbors (like that neighbor 3 blocks away that I talked with for a few minutes about {such-and-such}, but don't see that often), restaurant employees/proprietors, delivery people, maintenance workers, friends-of-friends I've met.
Without Anki I have an abysmal memory for names. I have aphantasia[0] which might relate to my difficulty with names.
Now, with Anki, (if I'm using it regularly) I have a freakishly good memory for names. :)
Goes a long way to helping others feel welcome and appreciated, which in turn means _I_ end up feeling welcome and appreciated. A very virtuous cycle.
Edit: I'm a software engineer, but most of my Anki usage is not focused on software engineering directly. To create new Anki cards, I follow the "20 rules for formulating knowledge"[1], so it takes a bit of work before I can take some new bit of information and "process" it to something ready for Anki.
[0] https://www.facebook.com/notes/blake-ross/aphantasia-how-it-...
[1]: https://www.supermemo.com/en/archives1990-2015/articles/20ru...
Coworkers, neighbors (like that neighbor 3 blocks away that I talked with for a few minutes about {such-and-such}, but don't see that often), restaurant employees/proprietors, delivery people, maintenance workers, friends-of-friends I've met.
Without Anki I have an abysmal memory for names. I have aphantasia[0] which might relate to my difficulty with names.
Now, with Anki, (if I'm using it regularly) I have a freakishly good memory for names. :)
Goes a long way to helping others feel welcome and appreciated, which in turn means _I_ end up feeling welcome and appreciated. A very virtuous cycle.
Edit: I'm a software engineer, but most of my Anki usage is not focused on software engineering directly. To create new Anki cards, I follow the "20 rules for formulating knowledge"[1], so it takes a bit of work before I can take some new bit of information and "process" it to something ready for Anki.
[0] https://www.facebook.com/notes/blake-ross/aphantasia-how-it-...
[1]: https://www.supermemo.com/en/archives1990-2015/articles/20ru...
I'm curious, what format do you use for cards to do this? Do you use Cloze cards like: My delivery driver is ___? How do you specify in the card which co-worker you mean?
I'm a few days late, so I don't know if you'll see this.
When adding "people cards", I do anki's forward-and-reverse card, and I build the card so I can read both sides, and generate the opposite side.
I'm just trying to build an association in my brain for their name, so I might do:
Front: "people: Neighbors to west, older couple, he likes woodworking"
Back: "people: Joe and Trish"
I only use a single Anki deck for all my cards, which span many interests, so I'll usually give myself a word to specify the topic, like "Go, Ruby, People, Mental Models"
Or if I can grab a headshot or picture from Slack, Twitter, or LinkedIn, I'll often put the picture on the front, name on the back.
When I review the card "from the back", I try to remember what the person looks like.
I have aphantasia [0] so this form of recall is effortful.
[0] https://www.facebook.com/notes/blake-ross/aphantasia-how-it-...
When adding "people cards", I do anki's forward-and-reverse card, and I build the card so I can read both sides, and generate the opposite side.
I'm just trying to build an association in my brain for their name, so I might do:
Front: "people: Neighbors to west, older couple, he likes woodworking"
Back: "people: Joe and Trish"
I only use a single Anki deck for all my cards, which span many interests, so I'll usually give myself a word to specify the topic, like "Go, Ruby, People, Mental Models"
Or if I can grab a headshot or picture from Slack, Twitter, or LinkedIn, I'll often put the picture on the front, name on the back.
When I review the card "from the back", I try to remember what the person looks like.
I have aphantasia [0] so this form of recall is effortful.
[0] https://www.facebook.com/notes/blake-ross/aphantasia-how-it-...
I did come back and see this, so thanks for taking the time to write it up! That's very interesting and useful.
I worked on a relatively narrow part of a complex domain, I had an anki deck to keep track of the various acronyms and remember some of the weirder processes my systems participated in. Most of the questions were one of:
- what does ABC stand for
- describe process X
- how process X differs from Y, and why
- what is the role of system A in process Z
- what is the shape of data that comes from A to B in process Ł
This vastly reduced the number of times I got stumped with something during various high-level meetings (to the point that I routinely pointed out some false assumptions people made). It worked better for me than passive documentation. The domain was unusually complex though.
- what does ABC stand for
- describe process X
- how process X differs from Y, and why
- what is the role of system A in process Z
- what is the shape of data that comes from A to B in process Ł
This vastly reduced the number of times I got stumped with something during various high-level meetings (to the point that I routinely pointed out some false assumptions people made). It worked better for me than passive documentation. The domain was unusually complex though.
I use it to help me as a cloud engineer. For an example of some of the things I use it for. I have cards that are for
- Emacs Commands
- Emacs Key Strokes
- Greek letters, words and sounds
- The wikipedia List of non-standard dates
- Physic ideas
- General principles of organization
- Learning principles
- Bible verses
- Command line utility options
- Vimium key strokes
Basically anything that I want to learn I end up ankifying. I find that Anki is most effective for remembering things that I don't do all the time, but need to remember two or three times a week/month. Here's a good tip, if you need to DuckDuckGo it more than once it's probably a good idea to throw it in an Anki card.
- Emacs Commands
- Emacs Key Strokes
- Greek letters, words and sounds
- The wikipedia List of non-standard dates
- Physic ideas
- General principles of organization
- Learning principles
- Bible verses
- Command line utility options
- Vimium key strokes
Basically anything that I want to learn I end up ankifying. I find that Anki is most effective for remembering things that I don't do all the time, but need to remember two or three times a week/month. Here's a good tip, if you need to DuckDuckGo it more than once it's probably a good idea to throw it in an Anki card.
That feels like a really broad question. I always find it useful to look up the reading lists for university courses on subjects I’m interested in. You can usually find the PDFs with a quick search in Google Scholar. Then, using something like Polar, you can annotate the readings and directly save your annotations as Anki cards.
That way, you can build a knowledge base of what actually interests you, which you’re much more likely to study and retain in the first place.
That way, you can build a knowledge base of what actually interests you, which you’re much more likely to study and retain in the first place.
* [your lang] std lib functions, their arg order.
* HTTP status codes
* Acronyms
* Syntax mistakes (spot the bug).
* Command line or vim snippets, e.g. "write a for loop over all files in a directory in bash" "grep and only show match"
I find it most useful for catching things I commonly screw up. The trick, of course, is to build the habit of identifying when you've repeated a blunder and then to make it into a card. An example for this in Go would be using `range` and forgetting the second arg: `for val := range slice` is legal syntax, but `val` is actually the index var here, it should be `for _, val := range slice`.
* HTTP status codes
* Acronyms
* Syntax mistakes (spot the bug).
* Command line or vim snippets, e.g. "write a for loop over all files in a directory in bash" "grep and only show match"
I find it most useful for catching things I commonly screw up. The trick, of course, is to build the habit of identifying when you've repeated a blunder and then to make it into a card. An example for this in Go would be using `range` and forgetting the second arg: `for val := range slice` is legal syntax, but `val` is actually the index var here, it should be `for _, val := range slice`.
I've been using them to remember specific things I look up commonly. The rule is if I look things up 3 times, I add a card. If I can remember these things, I won't have to break my flow to look things up on Stackoverflow.
It's usually simple things, like what's the method signature for slice? Or how do I run bash inside of a docker container?
The tough part for me is sticking to reviewing. There, I'm trying to figure out where to attach it to something I often already do.
It's usually simple things, like what's the method signature for slice? Or how do I run bash inside of a docker container?
The tough part for me is sticking to reviewing. There, I'm trying to figure out where to attach it to something I often already do.
> I'm trying to figure out where to attach it to something I often already do.
I've started reviewing a question or three in the rest breaks during my workouts.
Not all exercises or routines work great for that, but it works surprisingly well for things like bodyweight HIIT.
I've started reviewing a question or three in the rest breaks during my workouts.
Not all exercises or routines work great for that, but it works surprisingly well for things like bodyweight HIIT.
As a software engineer I spend hours a day in the languages and tools I use. That's more than enough reinforcement for me. I've never felt like I couldn't remember enough in 20 years of programming. What sort of things do you think it would be helpful to memorize?
Possibly command line utilities like awk/sed/etc? I've used them a bit for Docker commands.
Acronyms. In my role as software architect I encounter a new block of acronyms every few months.
Just make a card for anything that you had to look up more than once.
The NATO phonetic alphabet. If you've ever tried to read an email, password or any set of letters over the phone, it makes it a lot easier. It's not an obvious thing, but it's only 26 cards.
Maybe start by using it to remember git commands, or something of that nature
I feel like Anki is not designed to help you succeed. Eventually, you'll start missing your reviews. One day you'll open Anki, see that you have hundreds of cards scheduled, and just quit the app.
The author of this article mentions he'll post an article tackling this issue, looking forward to that!
The author of this article mentions he'll post an article tackling this issue, looking forward to that!
I'm not sure whether or not this is true. It may be based on personality. I've seen people struggle with it, but I've never had a problem. I've been using Anki for over 5 years, and hardly ever fall behind on reviews.
I've been able to use it about 30-45 minutes per day, every single day for five years. Even when Im sick or traveling. If I know I am going to be busy, I just turn down the number of new cards in advance and by the time I'm busy my review count has usually responded.
I've been able to use it about 30-45 minutes per day, every single day for five years. Even when Im sick or traveling. If I know I am going to be busy, I just turn down the number of new cards in advance and by the time I'm busy my review count has usually responded.
I found that issue too when I tried Anki. I missed a few days and when I returned there was a pile of cards that needed review.
I later wrote my own flashcard app[1] with spaced repetition and ended up hiding the details of what was overdue and instead just let you set up a daily goal of number of cards reviewed. When you do a lesson, it picks up the overdue cards first, but if there aren't any, it pulls in new cards instead.
It's funny because I originally thought telling you how many were due each day would be a great motivator (at least for me), but I'm finding I actually don't care. If you miss a few days, the cards still remain overdue, but when you return it doesn't feel bad.
I think for me, it's more important when learning to aim for the long-term commitment to it than to be perfect each day in your studies. If you aim for perfection, you end up not meeting your high standards and may end up quitting. Also, I think the "deadline" for when to review in spaced repetition isn't exactly accurate to the day or hour that something is due, so there's a little bit of malleability there, and I think that's okay.
[1] https://www.ussherpress.com/freshcards/
I later wrote my own flashcard app[1] with spaced repetition and ended up hiding the details of what was overdue and instead just let you set up a daily goal of number of cards reviewed. When you do a lesson, it picks up the overdue cards first, but if there aren't any, it pulls in new cards instead.
It's funny because I originally thought telling you how many were due each day would be a great motivator (at least for me), but I'm finding I actually don't care. If you miss a few days, the cards still remain overdue, but when you return it doesn't feel bad.
I think for me, it's more important when learning to aim for the long-term commitment to it than to be perfect each day in your studies. If you aim for perfection, you end up not meeting your high standards and may end up quitting. Also, I think the "deadline" for when to review in spaced repetition isn't exactly accurate to the day or hour that something is due, so there's a little bit of malleability there, and I think that's okay.
[1] https://www.ussherpress.com/freshcards/
just let you set up a daily goal of number of cards reviewed. When you do a lesson, it picks up the overdue cards first, but if there aren't any, it pulls in new cards instead.
Those are features of AnkiDroid, and probably the desktop Anki also.
There is a daily review limit, and you can configure to see review cards before new cards. Anki does not tell you how much is overdue beyond the review limit.
If you're set on writing your own app, you will tend to overlook the configuration details of the original, though.
Those are features of AnkiDroid, and probably the desktop Anki also.
There is a daily review limit, and you can configure to see review cards before new cards. Anki does not tell you how much is overdue beyond the review limit.
If you're set on writing your own app, you will tend to overlook the configuration details of the original, though.
I wrote my own app as a fun project and as a way to look at how I could make a flashcard a better user experience overall. The daily overdue experience was just one thing that I didn't like.
I think Anki is powerful and has a lot of configuration settings and add-ons to support new scenarios, but I think for a lot of average non-technical users, they may be overwhelmed by that and not interested in learning it. My goal was to write an app for those people (and for me).
I think Anki is powerful and has a lot of configuration settings and add-ons to support new scenarios, but I think for a lot of average non-technical users, they may be overwhelmed by that and not interested in learning it. My goal was to write an app for those people (and for me).
Default settings matter, when you start out it's hard to know what's better - new cards first, or review cards first. I wish I spent some time on configuring that when I first started with Anki.
That looks great, I will definitely try that out. How well does the time-to-response work as a proxy for how difficult it was to remember something? Is there an option to specify that manually instead?
I think it's been working really well.
I found with Anki that it was sometimes difficult to self report precisely how well I remembered something. It also added an extra cognitive step on each card to have to consider it, which over time was an annoyance.
I don't have any scientific proof that judging response time is better than self-reporting, but my thinking is self-reporting accuracy is low enough and forgetting curve is approximate enough for each card that in aggregate it doesn't make a huge difference. It would be interesting to have real scientific tests, but I think it would be difficult to set up.
I considered adding a way to self-report your score, but it didn't make the MVP and I'm really trying to target less technical users and not people who are already familiar with Anki. I might add it one day as an option since the underlying design of app can handle it.
I found with Anki that it was sometimes difficult to self report precisely how well I remembered something. It also added an extra cognitive step on each card to have to consider it, which over time was an annoyance.
I don't have any scientific proof that judging response time is better than self-reporting, but my thinking is self-reporting accuracy is low enough and forgetting curve is approximate enough for each card that in aggregate it doesn't make a huge difference. It would be interesting to have real scientific tests, but I think it would be difficult to set up.
I considered adding a way to self-report your score, but it didn't make the MVP and I'm really trying to target less technical users and not people who are already familiar with Anki. I might add it one day as an option since the underlying design of app can handle it.
Looks great! Is a Windows and/or Linux version on the cards?
Checkout https://yeerodite.com !
It's basically Anki but a chrome extension where you can set intervals for how often you want the cards to show up!
Thank you! Unfortunately, no. My professional dev background is in iOS and Mac, so I naturally wrote it for those platforms first.
If there's enough interest, I might try to port it to Android next year as a fun project.
If there's enough interest, I might try to port it to Android next year as a fun project.
I've hardly missed a day since starting AnkiDroid some four or five years ago? The reviews have dwindled down to single digits per day in all decks where I do not add new material.
(I don't use the desktop Anki, by the way; I used it briefly for doing some editing on decks.)
Tha said, AnkiDroid could use a vacation feature. How vacation mode could work would be simply by rescheduling all cards, delaying them by the vacation amount (14 days or whatever). Thus, no cards are due for the next 14 days, and on day 15, the same cards are due that would have been due day 1 (no "snowplow" accumulation). It would probably help if the app generated a notification a day before vacation ends.
It's incredible that neither the author of the original Anki, nor the authors of the AnkiDroid clone, recognize the value of a vacation.
(I don't use the desktop Anki, by the way; I used it briefly for doing some editing on decks.)
Tha said, AnkiDroid could use a vacation feature. How vacation mode could work would be simply by rescheduling all cards, delaying them by the vacation amount (14 days or whatever). Thus, no cards are due for the next 14 days, and on day 15, the same cards are due that would have been due day 1 (no "snowplow" accumulation). It would probably help if the app generated a notification a day before vacation ends.
It's incredible that neither the author of the original Anki, nor the authors of the AnkiDroid clone, recognize the value of a vacation.
Not what you have in mind, but you can use the Load Balanced Scheduler to ease the pain of missing a few days: https://ankiweb.net/shared/info/208879074
But the vacation idea is great, I'm sure someone could make an add-on to implement it.
But the vacation idea is great, I'm sure someone could make an add-on to implement it.
[deleted]
The vacation idea needs to be in the core application.
A simple toggle: "pause Anki". Here are my requirements:
- in the paused state, the review UI is entirely disabled. You cannot review anything.
- when you toggle out of the paused state, Anki calculates the number of days since the pause, and delays all cards in all decks by that many days.
- pausing and resuming on the same day has no effect since the days delta is zero; the UI just becomes enabled.
- For the purposes of the delta calculation, a day is the study day (e.g. 7 a.m to 7 a.m), not the midnight-to-midnight calendar day. If you pause at 11:45 p.m. and resume at 1:15 a.m., that's a no-op since that's the same study day.
- since resuming is potentially a time-consuming operation that destructively manipulates the database, unpausing comes with some yes/cancel prompt, except in the no-op case.
A simple toggle: "pause Anki". Here are my requirements:
- in the paused state, the review UI is entirely disabled. You cannot review anything.
- when you toggle out of the paused state, Anki calculates the number of days since the pause, and delays all cards in all decks by that many days.
- pausing and resuming on the same day has no effect since the days delta is zero; the UI just becomes enabled.
- For the purposes of the delta calculation, a day is the study day (e.g. 7 a.m to 7 a.m), not the midnight-to-midnight calendar day. If you pause at 11:45 p.m. and resume at 1:15 a.m., that's a no-op since that's the same study day.
- since resuming is potentially a time-consuming operation that destructively manipulates the database, unpausing comes with some yes/cancel prompt, except in the no-op case.
There's a lot of things that should be in the core app but aren't I'm afraid.
I've started to think of it like node: A slim core with an expansive userland in the form of add-ons.
I've started to think of it like node: A slim core with an expansive userland in the form of add-ons.
This is a problem with pretty much anything. Just being consistent every day gets you 80% there.
The only thing I’ve found to help here is to make sure the act of reviewing the cards is inherently fun— then you’re less likely to get behind.
My strategy for this was to dump the entire text of some good literature into Anki decks that give me one new paragraph per day. The steady drip of unseen material removes the stigma of pressing the “again” button and gives me a small reward of story progression from each session.
In a separate deck, I use cloze deletion on sheet music to help learn songs. That deck only gets reviewed by actively playing music, which is an inherently enjoyable activity on its own.
My strategy for this was to dump the entire text of some good literature into Anki decks that give me one new paragraph per day. The steady drip of unseen material removes the stigma of pressing the “again” button and gives me a small reward of story progression from each session.
In a separate deck, I use cloze deletion on sheet music to help learn songs. That deck only gets reviewed by actively playing music, which is an inherently enjoyable activity on its own.
Are you saying you’re reading through anki? If so, what?
Brilliant strategy.
Brilliant strategy.
This is called 'incremental reading' and techniques around this have been developed by research/development from the person who wrote supermemo (the closed source anki predecessor).
Thanks for the keywords — looks like some tooling already exists for this (https://ankiweb.net/shared/info/935264945), though it’s mostly focused on articles. Gotta do some more research on this.
It’s closely related, but I suspect that Dr. Wozniak would consider my implementation to not be “true” incremental reading: There’s no attempt to progressively distill passages down into more traditional flashcards, and a fixed rate of new material; There are almost certainly other differences as well.
Yes. At the moment, I’m working through Frankenstein, Alice in Wonderland, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations, and the Rust book.
This is still a fairly new strategy for me, so I don’t yet know how many parallel threads I can keep straight at the same time— So far, it doesn’t feel like I’m anywhere near the limit.
This is still a fairly new strategy for me, so I don’t yet know how many parallel threads I can keep straight at the same time— So far, it doesn’t feel like I’m anywhere near the limit.
You should definitely write something about this, seems very interesting.
Agreed. In particular, how do you order these? And how does it fit within spaced repetition paradigm?.. I've been struggling with reading classics. I wonder if it would help.
This is still in the experimental phase, and I want to wait on a full writeup until it’s had sufficient time to prove itself and get the kinks worked out. I’m happy to ramble on about it here for a bit, though.
This idea was actually born to combat review starvation: I haven’t been very active at adding new cards lately, and there was a risk that my daily review count would hit 0 for long enough that I’d stop checking regularly— I needed a source for lots of interesting but low-priority cards to keep the pump primed.
The original paper on cloze deletion [1] uses them as a readability measure: Readers are given an unfamiliar text with blanks and are asked to guess the omitted words; the percentage correct is then a measure of the text’s quality rather than the reader’s knowledge.
Instead of a knowledge quiz, which is how clozes are usually treated in the SRS world, this is an automated reading comprehension test— Just the thing for capturing the intangible benefits of reading literature. In theory, as you become more familiar with the book’s style and subject matter, you should be able to pass the first review of an unseen passage most of the time.
I settled on 25 lines of text per card with one omitted word about 2/3 through the passage. Successive cards contain some duplicated lines (5) to provide a sense of continuity between the cards, which are presented in a disjoint manner.
I import each book into its own deck set to show 1 new card per day (in the order added)- I want whatever mental connections are necessary to understand the next passage to end up in long-term rather than short-term memory. The reviews give me an opportunity to spot details that seemed unimportant on a first reading but that foreshadow something that happens later.
Beyond that, it’s driven by Anki’s normal scheduling algorithm; these are subdecks of my general-review deck, so Anki will autumatically mix the new cards and reviews with any other reviews I have due.
Most of the books I’ve imported are 300-400 cards, so it’ll take about a year to work through each of them. I wouldn’t be surprised if I end up doubling the number of books I’m reading at once, which would bring the average to around 1/month.
[1] https://www.gwern.net/docs/psychology/writing/1953-taylor.pd...
This idea was actually born to combat review starvation: I haven’t been very active at adding new cards lately, and there was a risk that my daily review count would hit 0 for long enough that I’d stop checking regularly— I needed a source for lots of interesting but low-priority cards to keep the pump primed.
The original paper on cloze deletion [1] uses them as a readability measure: Readers are given an unfamiliar text with blanks and are asked to guess the omitted words; the percentage correct is then a measure of the text’s quality rather than the reader’s knowledge.
Instead of a knowledge quiz, which is how clozes are usually treated in the SRS world, this is an automated reading comprehension test— Just the thing for capturing the intangible benefits of reading literature. In theory, as you become more familiar with the book’s style and subject matter, you should be able to pass the first review of an unseen passage most of the time.
I settled on 25 lines of text per card with one omitted word about 2/3 through the passage. Successive cards contain some duplicated lines (5) to provide a sense of continuity between the cards, which are presented in a disjoint manner.
I import each book into its own deck set to show 1 new card per day (in the order added)- I want whatever mental connections are necessary to understand the next passage to end up in long-term rather than short-term memory. The reviews give me an opportunity to spot details that seemed unimportant on a first reading but that foreshadow something that happens later.
Beyond that, it’s driven by Anki’s normal scheduling algorithm; these are subdecks of my general-review deck, so Anki will autumatically mix the new cards and reviews with any other reviews I have due.
Most of the books I’ve imported are 300-400 cards, so it’ll take about a year to work through each of them. I wouldn’t be surprised if I end up doubling the number of books I’m reading at once, which would bring the average to around 1/month.
[1] https://www.gwern.net/docs/psychology/writing/1953-taylor.pd...
Interesting. Do you have an automated way of breaking books down, or are you doing it manually?
Semi-automated: I have a hacky Python script that will break up the main text and pick the cloze words, but the other metadata on my cards has to be entered manually (Title, Author, Chapter)
I did the first one manually. In addition to being a lot of work, there were major spoiler hazards— If I wasn’t already familiar with the general shape of the plot, the process would have revealed secrets too early.
I did the first one manually. In addition to being a lot of work, there were major spoiler hazards— If I wasn’t already familiar with the general shape of the plot, the process would have revealed secrets too early.
Are you able to share your script or your deck? Would love to experiment with that.
Sure, but it's pretty rough; the cards are normal Anki cloze cards with a couple of extra fields.
The script will ask you for a text file to process and the pop up a Tkinter window with a single button. Each time you press the button, it copies the next card's body text to the clipboard, ready to be pasted into Anki's Add window.
The text file needs to be already split into reasonable-length lines, like the ones you get from gutenberg.org
Card template: https://pastebin.com/BFJxW1jC
Cloze splitting script: https://pastebin.com/4Jek0G7u
The script will ask you for a text file to process and the pop up a Tkinter window with a single button. Each time you press the button, it copies the next card's body text to the clipboard, ready to be pasted into Anki's Add window.
The text file needs to be already split into reasonable-length lines, like the ones you get from gutenberg.org
Card template: https://pastebin.com/BFJxW1jC
Cloze splitting script: https://pastebin.com/4Jek0G7u
Interesting! So that's a separate deck with paragraphs as cards? And that's gets "mixed in" into whatever else that you are learning?
Right; each book is a subdeck of my main one with a new card limit of 1/day and a lengthened repetition schedule.
Because paragraphs are so variable, my Project Gutenberg import script makes 25-line cards with a 5-line overlap between adjacent cards (for context). It also blanks out a random word on the 15th line as a cloze deletion test, to ensure I have some understanding of what’s going on.
Because paragraphs are so variable, my Project Gutenberg import script makes 25-line cards with a 5-line overlap between adjacent cards (for context). It also blanks out a random word on the 15th line as a cloze deletion test, to ensure I have some understanding of what’s going on.
I've been doing something similar for reading, mainly articles but also want to try this with books. I'll split them in paragraphs and then turn every paragraph into a note. The ones I want to remember become flashcards. I've actually developed https://traverse.link/ to streamline this process
I created an add-on (Anki Killstreaks - https://ankiweb.net/shared/info/579111794) that uses the killstreak feature from Halo and COD to make the reviews more fun. Has a corresponding leaderboard (https://AnkiAchievements.com) that shows your rank while reviewing in Anki to help you stay motivated. Both are FOSS.
Once you get cards to an interval of over a year, you have 'learned' the card pretty much. So if your worry is about eventually quitting Anki, it shouldn't be an issue.
>I feel like Anki is not designed to help you succeed. Eventually, you'll start missing your reviews. One day you'll open Anki, see that you have hundreds of cards scheduled, and just quit the app.
You could also just do it every day, if it's important to you. You're not destined for failure, it's a choice you make.
>I feel like Anki is not designed to help you succeed. Eventually, you'll start missing your reviews. One day you'll open Anki, see that you have hundreds of cards scheduled, and just quit the app.
You could also just do it every day, if it's important to you. You're not destined for failure, it's a choice you make.
That is not a given. Just several days ago I lapsed on a 4.5 year card. The interval went down to 2.2 years or so; hopefully I will get it that time around.
You will forget stuff over time. What was the leading actor's name in that movie? Aaargh, it was practically a household word in the early 90's ....
> You could also just do it every day.
Even people who stick with it 7 days a week for 50 weeks could use a 2 week vacation.
You will forget stuff over time. What was the leading actor's name in that movie? Aaargh, it was practically a household word in the early 90's ....
> You could also just do it every day.
Even people who stick with it 7 days a week for 50 weeks could use a 2 week vacation.
Well yea, no program, no method of learning, will make it impossible to forget something. You should have >90% retention on mature cards however (it's what the default settings are configured for). There's plenty of charts that show the diminishing returns of aiming for higher retentions, and surprisingly aiming for 75% retention is actually much more efficient, however your sanity would likely take a hit from missing so many cards.
>Even people who stick with it 7 days a week for 50 weeks could use a 2 week vacation.
Then you'll need the discipline to do ~10x your normal daily volume when you get back (not doing new cards ever day makes it not a clean 14x).
>That is not a given. Just several days ago I lapsed on a 4.5 year card. The interval went down to 2.2 years or so; hopefully I will get it that time around.
The default settings set it to 10% of the interval after an again, so you must have messed with that. You can also configure that to be 0% if it bothers you.
>Even people who stick with it 7 days a week for 50 weeks could use a 2 week vacation.
Then you'll need the discipline to do ~10x your normal daily volume when you get back (not doing new cards ever day makes it not a clean 14x).
>That is not a given. Just several days ago I lapsed on a 4.5 year card. The interval went down to 2.2 years or so; hopefully I will get it that time around.
The default settings set it to 10% of the interval after an again, so you must have messed with that. You can also configure that to be 0% if it bothers you.
> Then you'll need the discipline to do ~10x your normal daily volume when you get back
I've seen curious comments like this in various past forum discussions on the topic of Anki vacation ideas.
A vacation is not a period of rest followed by double the amount of work to catch up.
A vacation is a pause in work, which delays all subsequent work by that much time.
> not doing new cards ever day makes it not a clean 14x
You can't do new cards everyday; eventually you will have seen all new cards of a deck. I'm still working decks whose new cards ran out years ago. The presence and scheduling of new cards is a temporary condition with little long-term significance.
I've seen curious comments like this in various past forum discussions on the topic of Anki vacation ideas.
A vacation is not a period of rest followed by double the amount of work to catch up.
A vacation is a pause in work, which delays all subsequent work by that much time.
> not doing new cards ever day makes it not a clean 14x
You can't do new cards everyday; eventually you will have seen all new cards of a deck. I'm still working decks whose new cards ran out years ago. The presence and scheduling of new cards is a temporary condition with little long-term significance.
>You can't do new cards everyday; eventually you will have seen all new cards of a deck. I'm still working decks whose new cards ran out years ago. The presence and scheduling of new cards is a temporary condition with little long-term significance.
My new cards comment was to explain why it's not 14x when you go on vacation.
>I've seen curious comments like this in various past forum discussions on the topic of Anki vacation ideas.
>A vacation is not a period of rest followed by double the amount of work to catch up.
>A vacation is a pause in work, which delays all subsequent work by that much time.
This is simply cheating the SRS. Some SRS programs do allow you to do this, wanikani does it for instance, but it is quite literally cheating. Instead of seeing it after 30 days, you see it after 44, but the program pretends it's only been 30. It's not a good feature, besides to make people feel better about themselves.
>I've seen curious comments like this in various past forum discussions on the topic of Anki vacation ideas.
It's cheating. And in this case, the only person you are cheating, is yourself.
My new cards comment was to explain why it's not 14x when you go on vacation.
>I've seen curious comments like this in various past forum discussions on the topic of Anki vacation ideas.
>A vacation is not a period of rest followed by double the amount of work to catch up.
>A vacation is a pause in work, which delays all subsequent work by that much time.
This is simply cheating the SRS. Some SRS programs do allow you to do this, wanikani does it for instance, but it is quite literally cheating. Instead of seeing it after 30 days, you see it after 44, but the program pretends it's only been 30. It's not a good feature, besides to make people feel better about themselves.
>I've seen curious comments like this in various past forum discussions on the topic of Anki vacation ideas.
It's cheating. And in this case, the only person you are cheating, is yourself.
Yes, this is the "Anki lunatic" attitude I have seen in Japanese learning forums when Anki discussions come up.
One particular comment I remember was about the Anki feature of reviewing ahead. The poster said that you shouldn't do it because it will "mess up your stats". But, think about how idiotic that is. According to that reasoning, you should not read any native language material. Because if you read, you will encounter some of the words which are scheduled in your Anki, and recall them prematurely. And that will cause your Anki progress to deviate from what the SRS algorithm predicts, making it seem like you're doing better. Hence, reading native material is cheating: sticking to the algorithm is the goal, not learning the language!
SRS is just a tool; it's not a master to be served, but the servant. It's based on soft science, and is self-correcting. Any user behavior which leads to increased forgetting will result in more lapses, and an increased workload to make up for it.
Mature grown-ups with busy lives adopt the tool to best suit them, rather than to adopt themselves to serve the tool.
If the only way you can use the tool is less optimal, so that learning takes longer, well maybe that's the best it can be, in relation to everything else you have going on in your life!
The SRS implementation in Anki has a large number of parameters. The defaults are poor and don't work well for people. Good parameters are a matter of opinion. Someone taking a vacation according to a regular pattern, like one week every four months, is effectively just tuning another parameter.
You're making a mistake of inference. Someone getting a card right after 44 days, but getting only 30 days of "credit" for it in he program does not have a reason to feel good, other than to feel good about remembering the card after 44 days. You raise a good point there though. In fact, a correct implementation of vacation mode should not literally just make time stop; it should somehow give the user credit for recalling cards beyond their scheduled interval. The recalled cards should perhaps get a bit of a boost in their next interval.
The point of a vacation feature is simply to feel rested, not to feel gleeful about somehow "cheating". If someone misuses the feature to take a one week vacation after every week of studying, that's their problem, and not a reason why a reasonable user shouldn't be able to take a break.
One particular comment I remember was about the Anki feature of reviewing ahead. The poster said that you shouldn't do it because it will "mess up your stats". But, think about how idiotic that is. According to that reasoning, you should not read any native language material. Because if you read, you will encounter some of the words which are scheduled in your Anki, and recall them prematurely. And that will cause your Anki progress to deviate from what the SRS algorithm predicts, making it seem like you're doing better. Hence, reading native material is cheating: sticking to the algorithm is the goal, not learning the language!
SRS is just a tool; it's not a master to be served, but the servant. It's based on soft science, and is self-correcting. Any user behavior which leads to increased forgetting will result in more lapses, and an increased workload to make up for it.
Mature grown-ups with busy lives adopt the tool to best suit them, rather than to adopt themselves to serve the tool.
If the only way you can use the tool is less optimal, so that learning takes longer, well maybe that's the best it can be, in relation to everything else you have going on in your life!
The SRS implementation in Anki has a large number of parameters. The defaults are poor and don't work well for people. Good parameters are a matter of opinion. Someone taking a vacation according to a regular pattern, like one week every four months, is effectively just tuning another parameter.
You're making a mistake of inference. Someone getting a card right after 44 days, but getting only 30 days of "credit" for it in he program does not have a reason to feel good, other than to feel good about remembering the card after 44 days. You raise a good point there though. In fact, a correct implementation of vacation mode should not literally just make time stop; it should somehow give the user credit for recalling cards beyond their scheduled interval. The recalled cards should perhaps get a bit of a boost in their next interval.
The point of a vacation feature is simply to feel rested, not to feel gleeful about somehow "cheating". If someone misuses the feature to take a one week vacation after every week of studying, that's their problem, and not a reason why a reasonable user shouldn't be able to take a break.
Thanks for posting this. You hit the nail on the head. I've seen this dogmatic attitude as well, as if following how Anki does it is the One True Way and if you stray from it, you may as well quit.
It's just a tool, and if you miss some lessons, it's not like those cards immediately vanish from your head. If you fall behind because you weren't disciplined, no big deal, just pick it up again and carry on. Learning is a marathon, not a sprint.
For me, SRS algorithms try to model how memory works, it's not an exact match to it, so even missing a card deadline by a day or two or even a week isn't the end of the world.
It's just a tool, and if you miss some lessons, it's not like those cards immediately vanish from your head. If you fall behind because you weren't disciplined, no big deal, just pick it up again and carry on. Learning is a marathon, not a sprint.
For me, SRS algorithms try to model how memory works, it's not an exact match to it, so even missing a card deadline by a day or two or even a week isn't the end of the world.
> I've seen this dogmatic attitude as well, as if following how Anki does it is the One True Way and if you stray from it, you may as well quit.
I suspect that the reason is that language-learning forums are full of children.
I suspect that the reason is that language-learning forums are full of children.
Hey why do you have to be a dick to try to get your point across?
Jesus christ, calling someone a child because they disagree about adding a cheat vacation mode to an SRS program? You gotta take a step back and look at your life.
Jesus christ, calling someone a child because they disagree about adding a cheat vacation mode to an SRS program? You gotta take a step back and look at your life.
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Solution: You can set a maximum number of reviews per day in the deck settings.
I have my decks capped at 100 reviews/day. If there's a backlog, it'll still be there tomorrow. I think Anki suffers from poor defaults, and sure "this isn't the optimal repetition scheme for optimal retention" but I did already miss my reviews, so that went out the window.
I've done my daily reviews now for over 1000 days without missing one. It's really just up to you to make time for it if it's something you want to do.
The best way to deal with having hundreds of cards to review after a break is to shrug your shoulders and say "who cares".
Maybe you only review a few of those hundreds of cards that are due. So what? The algorithm still achieves its purpose. You are still focused on cards you are least likely to have permanently learned. No matter how you use or abuse space repetition algorithms they ensure your study time is well spent (assuming flashcards are the right thing to be studying at all).
I learned this from experience. I have some math concepts I'd like to have memorized. I made some flashcards in a space repetition program. I haven't review them for about 6 months. It is what it is -- at least I know all my progress wont be gone when I finally do return to those flashcards. I will have forgotten some cards, those cards will be shown to me frequently. I will have remembered some cards, those cards will get a boost because I've remembered them for 6-months without review, and will rarely be shown to me. The spaced repetition algorithms still work; they are robust.
Maybe you only review a few of those hundreds of cards that are due. So what? The algorithm still achieves its purpose. You are still focused on cards you are least likely to have permanently learned. No matter how you use or abuse space repetition algorithms they ensure your study time is well spent (assuming flashcards are the right thing to be studying at all).
I learned this from experience. I have some math concepts I'd like to have memorized. I made some flashcards in a space repetition program. I haven't review them for about 6 months. It is what it is -- at least I know all my progress wont be gone when I finally do return to those flashcards. I will have forgotten some cards, those cards will be shown to me frequently. I will have remembered some cards, those cards will get a boost because I've remembered them for 6-months without review, and will rarely be shown to me. The spaced repetition algorithms still work; they are robust.
I fought through 1000 card review piles a handful of times.
It happens. Every time it was a slog but I just got through it.
The one thing I can say for certain is given enough time it will happen. But whether you can overcome it or it causes you to quit is down to how intrinsically motivated you are (Anki or no Anki) to achieve the goal you are using Anki to help you accomplish. If you would continue to pursue the goal even without Anki then you will most likely persevere. If the goal is simply to remember everything and not forget stuff and you're only using Anki to use Anki then you will almost certainly quit when you hit this wall.
It happens. Every time it was a slog but I just got through it.
The one thing I can say for certain is given enough time it will happen. But whether you can overcome it or it causes you to quit is down to how intrinsically motivated you are (Anki or no Anki) to achieve the goal you are using Anki to help you accomplish. If you would continue to pursue the goal even without Anki then you will most likely persevere. If the goal is simply to remember everything and not forget stuff and you're only using Anki to use Anki then you will almost certainly quit when you hit this wall.
One solution is using a Vacation add-on. Migaku has already implemented it, and I have it though I find it no use in my position. Migaku will release the vacation add-on for free after a while of beta-testing, I think. He also has days off addon, you can not to do Anki on weekends for example, and have more load during weekdays. Retimement addon too! You can see the uploaded already stuff here https://ankiweb.net/shared/byauthor/1666520655 (retirement only so far, a couple of others) If you want to get the rest, either wait or become Migaku's supporter, his Patreon listed on one of the add-ons.
I will update the post with screenshots or something tomorrow, for credibility.
I will update the post with screenshots or something tomorrow, for credibility.
Here you go folks, a few screenshots https://pixfed.com/p/kelamir/236135097303175168
I built a Chrome extension that is basically Anki. It doesn't schedule anything but you can set intervals for how often you want cards to be shown on the website you're surfing. Check it out: https://yeerodite.com
It currently doesn't support importing Anki decks like it says but I'm still working on it!
Hi your addon seems to be doing something very similar to what we want to achieve with https://traverse.link/. It's a webapp and it doesn't have a chrome extension yet but I was wondering if you were interested on working together on an integration? (It has anki import already so that could help you)
Three things:
1. Never set a maximum number of reviews. It will create an unstoppable backlog no matter what you do.
2. If you have a huge backlog of like 500 cards then just hit "HARD" on 50% of them until the backlog is spread out over multiple days and you have a manageable number reviews.
3. Don't have too many young cards at once. Stop adding new cards after you have 500 young cards (exact number depends on how easy the cards are).
1. Never set a maximum number of reviews. It will create an unstoppable backlog no matter what you do.
2. If you have a huge backlog of like 500 cards then just hit "HARD" on 50% of them until the backlog is spread out over multiple days and you have a manageable number reviews.
3. Don't have too many young cards at once. Stop adding new cards after you have 500 young cards (exact number depends on how easy the cards are).
You can use the ReMemorize add-on to distribute the cards you missed over the next X days. Here's a good video explaining how to manage it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UXgck-g0nQA&t=1189s . If I get home too late and don't have time to do all my cards, that's what I do.
One way I've successfully used Anki is learning new technology. It can't directly teach you the concepts, but it's much easier to learn and and retain the concepts when you're drilling the building blocks.
The mere fact of retrieving information from memory helped me in understanding. I was using Anki back when I was learning Python, and it definitely helps in productivity (reducing my hits to StackOverflow to 50%+).
Thanks for the article, I've read though.
I've been using Anki quite successfully to learn things about wines in french, especially about the wine domains in Bordeaux and Bourgogne. It's easy to create, as a flash card. One side shows the map, the other shows the name.
Now, I'm keen on learning the list of the main french authors of each century, but I don't know how to proceed.
Let's say a list of 20 names, how would you do it?
You would not create one flash card with 19th century on one side, and the 20 names on the other side. I've been struggling with that issue.
Maybe using the cloze type?
I've been using Anki quite successfully to learn things about wines in french, especially about the wine domains in Bordeaux and Bourgogne. It's easy to create, as a flash card. One side shows the map, the other shows the name.
Now, I'm keen on learning the list of the main french authors of each century, but I don't know how to proceed.
Let's say a list of 20 names, how would you do it?
You would not create one flash card with 19th century on one side, and the 20 names on the other side. I've been struggling with that issue.
Maybe using the cloze type?
Piotr Woznaik recommends turning lists into enumerations. You can see more here: https://www.supermemo.com/en/archives1990-2015/articles/20ru...
In general you want to reduce the amount of things you have to retrieve from memory in one go, and attempting to retrieve a 20 person list is just going to give you problems.
The cloze solution is certainly better than the full list (and does follow the minimum information principle because you just have to retrieve a single name) but the problem is that it doesn't give you any handles. If you have 19 names and Flaubert is hidden, how would you know it's Flaubert that's missing? Long-term you're bound to fail those cards.
But I would also question the premise of the card. Do you expect to have to come up with the 20 names each time you want to talk about 19th century French literature? As in, each time the context is "19th century French literature" is the appropriate knowledge to retrieve "* list of 20 authors *"?
Instead a better approach might be to flip it around and ask yourself, "In which century did Flaubert write Madame Bovary?" or something along those lines. You can both reconstruct the list from that and if you're writing about Flaubert the knowledge that he wrote during the 19th century will come more fluidly to you.
In general you want to reduce the amount of things you have to retrieve from memory in one go, and attempting to retrieve a 20 person list is just going to give you problems.
The cloze solution is certainly better than the full list (and does follow the minimum information principle because you just have to retrieve a single name) but the problem is that it doesn't give you any handles. If you have 19 names and Flaubert is hidden, how would you know it's Flaubert that's missing? Long-term you're bound to fail those cards.
But I would also question the premise of the card. Do you expect to have to come up with the 20 names each time you want to talk about 19th century French literature? As in, each time the context is "19th century French literature" is the appropriate knowledge to retrieve "* list of 20 authors *"?
Instead a better approach might be to flip it around and ask yourself, "In which century did Flaubert write Madame Bovary?" or something along those lines. You can both reconstruct the list from that and if you're writing about Flaubert the knowledge that he wrote during the 19th century will come more fluidly to you.
Thank you.
Your answer and your link (especially the paragraph about sets) help me a lot
Your answer and your link (especially the paragraph about sets) help me a lot
Anki is great for learning individual arbitrary facts, ie vocab words that would otherwise be difficult to encounter frequently enough in the wild. Learning to reproduce a list doesn’t fit well as you observed because there is no 1:1 prompt for each author, unless you come up with one like “Author of Madame Bovary”, and 20 things is too much for one card. This is more like memory palace territory which I rarely find useful in real life but fits exactly your task.
I kinda wish there was spaced repetition for interview practice. So that everyday, I have a set number of questions to try, and I don't have to make that decision. And if I don't get it the first time, no problem, I know it'll come up again. And if I do get it, the goal is to get faster.
Anyone else study this way, like an Anki for interview questions? If not, how do you pick what questions to practice and what order do them in when studying for interviews?
Anyone else study this way, like an Anki for interview questions? If not, how do you pick what questions to practice and what order do them in when studying for interviews?
Take a problem set and dump it into Anki. Tune the deck to only give you 2-3 new problems and 2-3 review problems (because these take time). Solve them, rate them, just like any other deck.
If you don't want to practice programming exercises, but rather memorize facts, Anki is fine. Go through the common algorithms/data structures (and the less common ones) and create cards that ask you things about it. "What's the big-O for inserting into a sorted linked list?"
Or do like me, and skip those interviews because they're usually a miserable experience and don't really gauge the quality of the hire.
If you don't want to practice programming exercises, but rather memorize facts, Anki is fine. Go through the common algorithms/data structures (and the less common ones) and create cards that ask you things about it. "What's the big-O for inserting into a sorted linked list?"
Or do like me, and skip those interviews because they're usually a miserable experience and don't really gauge the quality of the hire.
An interview that sings from a hymn sheet of blessed questions is not a good interview. Anki is good for learning cold hard facts, but applying those or synthesising something new from them — which is what a good interview should be establishing — is not its goal.
Yeah! I actually built a Chrome extension that is basically like Anki. I'm actually using it to study for interviews!
Its called Yeerodite!
It basically shows cards on the website you're browsing at intervals (e.g. every 10 minutes, 5 cards show up to test me).
I have heard a lots of good stuff about Anki. The adoption of it is wider than expected, and people really enjoy it. Up to a point when they are requesting to offer Anki for Summon The JSON, what seems to be an interesting idea
I would recommend Joshua Foer "Moonwalking with Einstein" for those interested in memory. Spaced repition is effective to an extent, but I find the techniques explored in his book to be much more effective. The tl;dr is that you are much better off constructing "memory palaces" in your head. You pick a place you know extremely well (like your family home), and you imagine yourself navigating that space and "placing" reminders of the things you'd like to remember along the way.
It's like inventing a very surreal dream to help you avoid forgetting things. I use variants of it for things like people's names and ideas I'd like to explore all the time, it's super helpful.
It's like inventing a very surreal dream to help you avoid forgetting things. I use variants of it for things like people's names and ideas I'd like to explore all the time, it's super helpful.
The memory palace technique is not a silver bullet to permanently remember things. Sure it is fun at first. Eventually, you will have to review your memory palace periodically otherwise you will forget it.
That's all very well and good but what happens if you move house? /s
I find the spaces repetition approach good for learning new Japanese words I don’t often use. I made an app that lets you look up a word and get a reminder a few days later: https://shirabe.app/
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Pretty useless for code and math. Making my concise own notes in Latex/Asciidoc which I review at regular intervals helps me far more and I don't need to fight the interface.
Am I the only one who finds Anki's UI/UX to be absolutely atrocious? I know it's petty, but it's literally the only reason that's always made me not use it for more than just a few days at a time.
Is anyone working on improving the UI? Or are there alternative "frontends" out there? Does anyone know how hard it would be do it? (I assume it might not be trivial since Anki has a plugin system, but I don't know to what extent they can modify the UI)
Is anyone working on improving the UI? Or are there alternative "frontends" out there? Does anyone know how hard it would be do it? (I assume it might not be trivial since Anki has a plugin system, but I don't know to what extent they can modify the UI)
While not a "frontend" to Anki, I built Mochi[0] in part because I was also frustrated with Anki's UI/UX and it supports importing Anki decks to an extent.
It uses a similar scheduling algorithm to Anki, but it's based on simple markdown note cards, and has some features around that as well, such as bi-directional link references.
[0] https://mochi.cards/
It uses a similar scheduling algorithm to Anki, but it's based on simple markdown note cards, and has some features around that as well, such as bi-directional link references.
[0] https://mochi.cards/
In the words of the venerable late Steve Jobs: "You're using it wrong."
Personally I find the UI/UX to be exactly what I want it to be. What exactly do you not like about it?
Personally I find the UI/UX to be exactly what I want it to be. What exactly do you not like about it?
I know it's not perfect, but imo it's design was more focused on additional functionality and it working fine.
It's by no means pretty and definitely has a learning curve. That's what makes it such a useful tool though. Otherwise you end up with duolingo...
It's by no means pretty and definitely has a learning curve. That's what makes it such a useful tool though. Otherwise you end up with duolingo...
Some other alternatives already mentioned but there's also https://traverse.link/ for spaced repetition on connected notes
There's always Memrise https://www.memrise.com/ which does pretty much the same as Anki, with some interesting extra features
Anki is just terrible, even to the point of losing data in my case.
> Instead of turning in your bed unable to sleep terrified of the exam coming the next day, you would soundly sleep with the knowledge that you know everything you need to know to ace the exam.
What? If you can ace the exam by memorizing, it must mean that awarding of merit in your field of study requires little more than the mere regurgitation of facts.
In a typical engineering exam, you can bring a sheet of formulas and facts, and a programmable calculator. This is so that the exam is less about rote memorization and more about application.
What? If you can ace the exam by memorizing, it must mean that awarding of merit in your field of study requires little more than the mere regurgitation of facts.
In a typical engineering exam, you can bring a sheet of formulas and facts, and a programmable calculator. This is so that the exam is less about rote memorization and more about application.
Can Anki or spaced repetition be used to learn software development? Or can you become more proficient at it?
> The Centuries Old Science They Don’t Tell You About
Conspiracy? Well it must be true.
Conspiracy? Well it must be true.
More like, "The not-yet centuries old science they constantly tell you about on Hacker News."
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quizlet is another excellent alternative -- all web-based no installers
... and unfortunately without spaced repetition. It was once part of the premium service but has been removed around a year ago. Source: I was a paying user.
Same for Memrise
I never managed to use Anki for long. Maybe the interface is just too clunky.
Sets that can be downloaded are also often low quality, or at least there is no way to tell in advance.
I think some day there may be a unicorn startup doing the flash card thing right.
Sets that can be downloaded are also often low quality, or at least there is no way to tell in advance.
I think some day there may be a unicorn startup doing the flash card thing right.
I’ve heard that for Anki to be very effective you need to make your own cards.
There are software companies doing the spaced repetition thing (like Duolingo).
There are software companies doing the spaced repetition thing (like Duolingo).
If you want to improve your vocabulary read more books. If you want to improve in a programming language program more in that language. If you want to learn chess openings - play more chess.
Actually doing things you want to learn is way more fun than rote memorization so you are more likely to stick with it.