17 ms·

Anki: Memorization with Spaced Learning

636 points by tarboreus 8y ago

cheunste 8y ago
It has been a while since I used Anki and I vaguely recall I have a horrible experience with creating cards. I really wish there is a way I can create cards in vim or something, but that sounds really limited when it comes to things like Chinese where you need to somehow write out the character or find an image of it on the Internet.
- vaughnegut 8y ago
  Honest question, what is so hard about writing Chinese to create carss? I find at least typing in pinyin on windows and android isn't so bad, or did you mean specifically in the context of vim?
  - cheunste 8y ago
    specifically with vim.
_raoulcousins 8y ago
Is there a popular repository of shared Anki decks other than https://ankiweb.net/shared/decks/ https://ankiweb.net/shared/decks/?
- blaket 8y ago
  Not that I know of, but I recommend making your own decks. Two reasons: you only add what you're interested in learning as you're reviewing material and figuring out how to make the cards for your material helps learning.
  - philsnow 8y ago
    I recently started a new job, and wrote a quick script that scrapes a slack team for all the names and profile photos and creates an Anki deck out of it. I'm usually terrible with names and faces so this helped me immensely.
    - Nadya 8y ago
      Do you mind sharing the script? Because the company I work for has grown at an insane rate - and there are a good 300+ coworkers I don't know. It'd be nice to know peoples' faces for when I see them walking around the building.
      - philsnow 8y ago
        Sure, I'll paste a link to a gist or something later
      - philsnow 8y ago
        https://github.com/philsnow/slanki https://github.com/philsnow/slanki
        Nadya 8y ago
        Thank you very much!
    - patrickdavey 8y ago
      Hah! I used the Meetup.com API for the same reason. Super annoying that lots of people use avatars though right ;) I also do this for friends and the ever growing list of baby names that I can't keep track of.
      - philsnow 8y ago
        Some people's Slack avatars are dogs, pictures of two or more people, etc, so I'm overtraining a lot but overall it's positive.
  - bunderbunder 8y ago
    Seconded. I'm pretty sure that every minute spent making your own cards saves at least 2 minutes spent reviewing them.
AlphaWeaver 8y ago
I started using Anki a few weeks ago when the SuperMemo article popped up on HN. I really like it, and it has helped me remember key terms and learn a new language, all in a really short time... Feel free to ask me questions if you're confused about how it works! I'm fairly experienced now.
- baxtr 8y ago
  I want to learn Spanish. I have a basic vocabulary and understanding. What’s the fastest way forward in your opinion?
  - AlphaWeaver 8y ago
    On AnkiWeb there are a ton of decks available made by other people, including some really high-quality ones for Spanish. I'd recommend you download one of those, and then if there are words/content you're already familiar with, I believe you can go and set that you've already "learned" those words.
  - xkfm 8y ago
    Other than Anki, clozemaster and supermemo.com are two good paid options. I'm currently paying for supermemo.com*, and the two decks I'm using for Spanish seem to be pretty good. Clozemaster uses word frequency lists and sentences. Honestly it's (clozemaster) one of the best free SRS products I've seen for multiple languages. I'd avoid memrise (too many horrible quality decks). Duolingo isn't bad but certainly isn't comprehensive by any means. The reason I'm paying for supermemo.com is because it has a good quality Chinese deck and those are hard to come by. I also want to use the updated SRS algos that it uses. SM-2 is really old and does not handle skipped days well at all. The newer versions of the sm algo are much better in that respect.
  - aasasd 8y ago
    Note that flash cards have only limited usefulness with learning languages: you can use them to remember grammatical rules at first, then do isolated word-choice tasks and expand the vocabulary. You'll still want to do massive amounts of reading in the target language to absorb the proper word usage, and the grammatical practices will stick better this way.
breakpointalpha 8y ago
Spaced learning really works. I've started to slowly convert python, sql, and postgres docs to flash cards in Anki. Anki's implementation has some rough edges, but for $0/mon for multi-device use, it's an amazing way to get your feet wet with this learning technique.
- erikb 8y ago
  The iphone app costs like $25 tho.
  - nathanasmith 8y ago
    If the Anki iPhone app were the only way there was to do spaced repetition, I wouldn't hesitate to pay $25,000 for it. $25 is a pittance for the work Damien Elmes puts in, not to mention his efforts in maintaining the sync server so you can easily stop and resume your sessions on any device.
  - guu 8y ago
    While it won't work offline, you can use the web version on iPhone (https://ankiweb.net/about https://ankiweb.net/about).
  - jacekm 8y ago
    I was taking a Japanese course couple of years ago. The course was difficult and if you did not pass mid-term and end-of-term exams you had to repeat the term which costed a lot of money. Fearing that I could fail I decided to invest in Anki. Needless to say it was the best spent $25 ever. $25 is surely expensive for a simple app, especially if you are a student without a steady income. But if anyone wonders whether Anki is worth this much money - try thinking of the potential benefits.
  - dotancohen 8y ago
    And I bought it even though I use AnkiDroid on my Samsung Note 3. Why? Because it is the only way to support Anki's sole developer. He cannot take donations due to Japanese laws. AnkiDroid also does not take donations, though I do intend to start contributing code to that project. If you really enjoy Anki, consider buying the iPhone app even if you don't have an iPhone.
tushartyagi 8y ago
Also worth reading is the excellent (and pretty extensive) article by Michael Nielsen[1] showcasing how he used Anki to create an in-depth knowledge about AlphaGo. Personally, I've used Anki to keep remembering/revisiting the concepts that I use for a while and then move onto something else. Common APIs of programming languages and their standard libraries is one such area. I've found that while it's not really difficult to learn and get into the flow of using a programming language (or history, mathematics, physics for that matter), it's more difficult to try using the same knowledge after a break of few months. My main language at work is C# and Web Development, but I keep trying to learn other languages and domains in my free time. If I do not use the knowledge for a few months, I forget everything. But with Anki I have to just open the app for around 10 minutes a day and it helps me to recall such concepts in a timely fashion. I would suggest everyone who has the time and faces similar issues should give it a shot. [1] http://augmentingcognition.com/ltm.html http://augmentingcognition.com/ltm.html
- Sirupsen 8y ago
  This article is the best summarization of real, everyday usage of Anki outside of language learning and medical studies which are common uses of Anki. Reviewing flash cards is the highest leverage 10-15 minute habit I have besides planning my day. There's a certain joy and relief from having a reasonable confidence new information will be readily available to you for years to come. Much knowledge is better absorbed through practice, conversation, and writing. If you can distinguish between what you can learn through flash cards, and what you can absorb through other practices and not conflate the two too much—you'll be in a great place. Some categories of cards I have that may serve as inspiration for others wishing to get into flash cards.. * Basic information about countries e.g. population * Ingredients and dishes from restaurant menus I didn't know * Important people and places * History facts (typically from Kindle highlights) * Conversions between units (e.g. lbs to kg) * Season for various vegetables and fruits * Keyboard shortcuts for vim, readline, etc. * Learning words and terms I don't know from Kindle/Instapaper highlights * Useful statistics
  - jamesbvaughan 8y ago
    What specific techniques are you referring to when you mention planning your day as a high leverage habit?
graeme 8y ago
I’m using anki to gradually learn japanese kanji using the RTK method. Working really well so far, up to about 800 with little struggle.
- x0x0 8y ago
  have you tried readlang? I'm really happy with it, but I'm studying German. Not sure if it works with asian languages. The website doesn't emphasize it, but readlang has a spaced repetition vocab tool. With multiple (at least for romance languages) built in dictionaries.
  - baxtr 8y ago
    Readlang sounds quite promising, I will try it for my Spanish! Thanks for sharing :)
- graeme 8y ago
  Looks super useful, thanks! May try it for German. The system I'm doing isn't s reading one though. Instead, you associate each of the 2200 Kanji with an English keyword. You break down the kanji into component primitives, and then you remember how to draw each one by visualizing a phrase associated with that keyword. For example, Seedling: 苗 The top part is flower: 艹 The bottom part is rixe field: 田 You can make a story like: if you plant seedlings in a field, they will flower. And you imagine it visually. (Note, I have terrible visualization, but can do it well enough for it to work) This is a really simple example, but you can get more complex stuff. The system generally sticks to Japanese etymology, but sometimes will make up new primitives where it's more convenient for learning.
- JepZ 8y ago
  While searching the AUR for Anki I just found this extension for Firefox which has some Anki integration. Looks promising for people who want to learn Japanese: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/yomichan/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/yomichan/
- irq11 8y ago
  Take my advice, as a somewhat advanced learner: don’t do this. RTK is this weird honeypot for beginning learners, but it’s nearly always a mistake. The “discouraged RTK user” is almost a comic meme in Japanese language study. You will spend months “learning kanji”, only to discover that knowing kanji meanings, in isolation, is unhelpful in most situations. You can get all of the same benefits, with more immediate utility, by just learning words.
sigi45 8y ago
While I do like the project, the webui is horrible :/.
- DarthMader 8y ago
  It's a lot better for the desktop app and the add-ons make it more powerful.
scolby33 8y ago
This looks like a derivative/expansion of the Leitner Method[0] which I first came across over on Reddit in /r/flying for flashcard-based studying. I have definitely always had more success with paper-based studying than studying electronically--I recommend that you take a look at that document if you fall into this category as well! [0] https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BzlHy07nfEjOQ2hXWjU3LWpDdmc/view https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BzlHy07nfEjOQ2hXWjU3LWpDdmc...
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- aasasd 8y ago
  I'd say one of the main benefits with Anki or SuperMemo is that the automation of the algorithm allows for many more variables than you could track manually. For each card, the history of its reviews can be remembered and taken into account―e.g. both Anki and SM have several possible answers for how well you remember the card instead of just "yes/no," varying the next interval relative to the previous one. You can tune parameters for each set of cards, allocating more or less attention to them depending on how easily you remember different kinds of information. This control, IMO, optimizes the schedule over the course of months. (Though it does make tweaking the params rather complicated sometimes.)
- pessimizer 8y ago
  I also just use a leitner box. Or rather a pair of business card file boxes. Wikipedia actually has a great explanation, the labels are pretty ingenious. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leitner_system https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leitner_system
Marorin 8y ago
I always kinda wondered how to make Anki stuff for like algorithms and the like.
- xkfm 8y ago
  For Anki, I'd grab the complete article from Wikipedia/textbook/[good source], and then write a few examples. The flashcards would be a number of cloze deletions, and then I'd have a separate deck with a practice question to recall from a blank state. For example [1], I'd take this Wikipedia article, and break it down like so: In computer science, a stack is an abstract data type that serves as a collection of elements, with two principal operations: pop and push. This sentence would become a number of flashcards that look like ([...] is a cloze deletion where you have to insert the missing word, each cloze is a flashcard): In computer science, a [...] is an abstract data type that serves as a collection of elements, with two principal operations: pop and push. In computer science, a stack is an abstract data type that serves as a [...] of elements, with two principal operations: pop and push. In computer science, a stack is an abstract data type that serves as a collection of [...], with two principal operations: pop and push. In computer science, a stack is an abstract data type that serves as a collection of elements, with [...] principal operations: pop and push. In computer science, a stack is an abstract data type that serves as a collection of elements, with two principal operations: [...] and push. In computer science, a stack is an abstract data type that serves as a collection of elements, with two principal operations: pop and [...]. You'd do that for most of the article. Find a few examples of a stack, do the same thing from cloze deletions, and then in a separate card, make a few questions to have you write from scratch, parts of a stack. The separate deck would be so your regular reviews don't take forever, when you get a question asking you to write out a stack. The other deck would be done say 3-4 days a week, and have many fewer cards, because they're going to take awhile to answer. You could even use the index card method for this part as it's closer to actual practice than recall. In another deck, I'd also have short answer questions. For example, what's the difference between a stack and a queue, or stack and array, etc. This would also be more for practice sessions, rather than daily repetitions, as the questions could take awhile to answer. Note that you'll have a ton of flashcards this way for each algo, but they'll be extremely easy to answer (a good thing). Five flashcards you can answer in 2-10 seconds each, is much better than one flashcard that takes you a minute to answer. Assuming five seconds to answer a flashcard, you could easily do 120 repetitions through the day. The nice thing about Anki is the mobile clients, so you can do a few cards while you have some downtime. When I was in school, I was usually doing flashcards while I was waiting for class to start or going to the bathroom etc.
Marorin 8y ago
Always wanted to try this, never was sure how to use it for algorithms and the like though.
ainar-g 8y ago
For anyone who wants to use spaced repetition for learning languages, I recommend Clozemaster[1]. It uses the cloze deletion technique and has thousands of sentences for most languages. Using it has significantly improved my German. [1] https://www.clozemaster.com/ https://www.clozemaster.com/ [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloze_test https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloze_test
- jacekm 8y ago
  Interesting, I just tried it for Japanese. But too often I could fill in a word without understanding it (there's often only one grammatical form that fits). Also each sentence is accompanied by English translation which feels a little bit like cheating ;) Does the method still works even with the translation available?
  - ainar-g 8y ago
    It works, but you can actually disable the translation in the settings, or make it show after you've answered.
naguas 8y ago
I started Anki about two weeks ago and I've already reviewed over 1,200 cards. It's a fun way to start the day and is surprisingly therapeutic. It really makes remembering a choice.
lgessler 8y ago
I couldn't imagine learning a language without Anki. I had to learn Coptic in a month, which required memorizing the most common ~1000 words in the language. Anki made this as easy as it can be. I don't think I would have been able to meet my deadline had I been making paper flashcards or using some more informal system. The nice thing about Anki is that you can use it at any time without any overhead associated with beginning or ending your session. There are so many scraps of time in my day (on the bus, waiting for someone to meet me, waiting for my food to heat up in the microwave, walking to the store, etc.) that are mostly only useful for being a zombie on my phone, enjoying my surroundings, or being alone with my thoughts, which are all also sometimes appropriate uses of the time, but in all of these times, I can also just pull out my phone and start reviewing my cards, even if I get in just a few.
- ColinWright 8y ago
  What was your list of the most common ~1k words? Do you have a link?
  - lgessler 8y ago
    This is an Anki deck that was made from the book I used: https://ankiweb.net/shared/info/1657789477 https://ankiweb.net/shared/info/1657789477 I made my own Anki deck because this deck didn't have tags by chapter, and I wanted to study only the words I'd been exposed to so far.
    - ColinWright 8y ago
      Thanks for that - do you know if there is a way to export the list of words without going through the full process of installing Anki? I'm interested in different people's concept of "the thousand most useful words" and would love to extract the list you've used. It seems like it would be less overall work for you to do it than for me to do it, although I realise I'm asking you to do work. Thanks.
      - lgessler 8y ago
hazard 8y ago
I've had huge success using Anki in taking required professional exams. I'm in finance, so at various times I've had to take the JSDA, the Series 56, and Series 65. I originally signed up for a Kaplan class for the 65, thinking it was going to be a cram class. In reality, it turned out to be a review class. Halfway through the first day on Monday, I told the teacher I hadn't started reviewing the material yet for the test on Friday. He said I was essentially a lost cause, and I should sign up to take the test again in a month. I immediately left the classroom and spent the rest of the day entering every question from the practice exams into Anki. I spent 8-10 hours the next 3 days doing nothing but running Anki questions. On Friday, I crushed the exam. Other useful things I've learned with Anki include the Number Major System and the answers to a bunch of those useless "brainteaser" interview questions.
Noumenon72 8y ago
I used Anki for about a year, and it definitely didn't work for me. Going through and remembering the answers was always a struggle. I only ended up with 36 cards -- the idea of making a bunch for every person I meet and book I read would overload my memory like crazy. My memory has always been really good at indexing "what's the word for that", "there is an algorithm for this called X", "the keyboard shortcut for this is Y", "there is something weird about the way Z works in situation W". But it's index only, and I have to look up the content every time. At least since I turned 35 and realized I was forgetting the answer to every problem I'd solved before. It's been 2.5 years and I don't remember the answers to any questions. Maybe using it for precise definitions is the wrong way, as that might be more like remembering 20 things in a row. I had questions like Q: What is type erasure? A: Java implements generic types by deleting them. It does a compile-time check that your types match, then replaces the types with their bounds (eg, when T extends Number) or with Object. I have retained a vague, but not precise knowledge of what type erasure is. I know exactly what to do when I program something that uses it. But even Anki can't give me the kind of sharp memory you might need for a job interview or quiz. It's so easy for me to learn things by working with them. Hundreds of concepts, functions, keywords, and strategies a year, more than all my colleagues. I tried to memorize the things I don't use every day. It was unpleasant and that made it unsuccessful.
- Jtsummers 8y ago
  Your answer doesn't answer the question. You ask what type erasure is and then answer with some very specific information on Java's generics. Nothing in your question indicates that it's about Java or generics. > Maybe using it for precise definitions is the wrong way, as that might be more like remembering 20 things in a row. This is exactly what it can be like. The 20 rules from SuperMemo are really useful for trying to formulate and transform the cards. https://www.supermemo.com/en/articles/20rules https://www.supermemo.com/en/articles/20rules
  - Noumenon72 8y ago
    It's always odd how failing at most things leads me to ask "how am I doing this wrong?" and overcome, but I never asked this about Anki. Thanks for the link. I was not aware till this moment that type erasure was something that C++ also has. I thought it was a specific gotcha for Java like the whole "no == for Strings" thing. In that context, I've only seen it connected to generics.
tayo42 8y ago
If anyone is familiar with memrise, is it simmilar?
- Jtsummers 8y ago
  It uses a similar algorithm, yes.
- xkfm 8y ago
  It does, but many of the decks on memrise are horribly made, so I stopped using it. Clozemaster is much better in my opinion.
jacekm 8y ago
I've been using Anki for some time and I love it but it's not a perfect tool. What I especially like is it's flexibility when it comes to designing flashcards. You can adjust colors, font-sizes and pretty much every visual aspect using css code. You can even embed your own font within a deck, which can come in handy when you are dealing with Japanese kanji (Printed and handwritten kanji sometimes differ and iPhone contains only "printed" versions of kanji fonts. I searched online for a "handwritten" font and embedded it into my decks). There are cons too. The flexibility comes at the price - while reviewing the flashcards is smooth and easy, creating a deck can be very frustrating - the interface is not the most user-friendly. I ended up creating decks in Excel, exporting to csv and importing in Anki. That made the whole process much easier but I still had to jump through some hoops to achieve that. Another problem (with the algorithm, not Anki itself) is that it's very easy to forget what you've just learned if you don't keep using the app. It's super easy to learn hundreds of vocabulary within a short period of time and pass the exam, but you need to keep reviewing the deck for at least a year, otherwise you'll forget it as quickly as you've learned it.
- wodenokoto 8y ago
  > Another problem (with the algorithm, not Anki itself) My main gripe with the algorithm is you can't take weekends off. I used Anki a lot in College, and Mondays where terrible, due to the backlog built-up over the weekend. One could also say, one shouldn't be drinking the weekend away ...
  - aasasd 8y ago
    Actually, it's mentioned several times in the docs that you shouldn't think that backlog build-up means you have to crunch―or more specifically, IMO, 'backlog' isn't a thing here at all. If you can only put in thirty minutes a day, then do it and then close the app, this doesn't change because of a missed day. The cards will be there the next day, it's not like they catch fire when you skip a session. Stressing over the backlog would likely only make your mind work worse. Instead, change the limit of cards to review to the number that you can get through in the time you have. (Unless your college schedule requires you to actually crunch some number of cards every day? I don't know if that's a thing, but using spaced repetition in such a case would seem ill-fitting anyway.)
xkfm 8y ago
I use supermemo, and the vast majority of my collection isn't language related. For languages, something like clozemaster, supermemo.com, or premade anki decks/courses are fine. I still find it odd that the only two groups of people who seem to use the software a lot are med students and language learning enthusiasts. Supermemo is really buggy, and the website is extremely disorganized, but has a lot of useful information on it. The main reason I use it is its incremental reading function. Essentially, you can import articles, and turn them into flashcards in one swoop, while still having access to the full text via built in search (if you choose). For example, I just finished importing most of the CSS reference [1]. And it only took me ~10 minutes to open the tabs and import them into Supermemo. Each page will get whittled down into flashcards over the next few weeks. As others have stated, my srs usage is actually quite a small portion of my day, and extremely high leverage. The hardest skill to learn is learning how to make flashcards properly [2]. I almost exclusively rely on cloze deletions now. I do my repetitions in the morning when my memory is still fresh. [1] https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/CSS/Reference https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/CSS/Reference [2] https://www.supermemo.com/en/articles/20rules https://www.supermemo.com/en/articles/20rules
- aasasd 8y ago
  There's a plugin for Anki for incremental reading: https://github.com/luoliyan/incremental-reading https://github.com/luoliyan/incremental-reading (Though I'm not sure how the internal database structure works with that, I think you can't save the whole text along with a deck instead of individual notes―but maybe addons can change that.)
  - xkfm 8y ago
    I tried it awhile ago, and it didn't work well, but I'll try it again. Incremental reading is kind of finicky to get right. Incremental reading is the real draw of these programs for me, and Supermemo (despite it's flaws) is kind of the only one that has a decent implementation of it.
    - misiti3780 8y ago
vram22 8y ago
Derek Sivers (CD Baby guy) had written an article about how to memorize a programming language using SRS and Anki: https://sivers.org/srs https://sivers.org/srs
antykodon 8y ago
I've used anki for learning German a few years ago and it really worked for me - I was able to learn a few (<500) hundred new words in about 2 months. Not bad at all for a person with no language talent. Although, I've stopped learning the language 3 years ago, I still understand German texts, thanks to anki. When using anki, a browser extension, enabling creation of flashcards, from the content found on the Internet, is handy. I find a website fluentcards.com and its browser extension, quite OK. Unluckily, it seems not to be maintained and there is no official add-on for Firefox, but you can build it from the github repo [1] and it will work on FF, too. The webpage also allows export of the words saved on Kindle to the anki. There are also a few extensions for learning Japanese specifically. [2] seems to be the most popular. [1] https://github.com/katspaugh/fluentcards-extension https://github.com/katspaugh/fluentcards-extension [2] https://foosoft.net/projects/yomichan/ https://foosoft.net/projects/yomichan/
vedtopkar 8y ago
Anki has become the de-facto standard for memorizing the large swaths of information required during medical school. Not everyone uses it, but pretty much everyone that does and sticks to it sees impressive results.
- jhayward 8y ago
  > Not everyone uses it, but pretty much everyone that does and sticks to it sees impressive results. This is another way of say "everyone that it works for gets good results"
  - nathanasmith 8y ago
    It's interesting to note in studies comparing spaced repetition vs. massed learning, when students are asked afterward which method works better, they more often choose massed even though their own test results favor spaced repetition[0]. The upshot is people can use spaced repetition, it can "work" (in the sense that they remember the material better and test better) yet still drop it thinking massed practice to be superior. [0]https://www.gwern.net/docs/spacedrepetition/2001-simon.pdf https://www.gwern.net/docs/spacedrepetition/2001-simon.pdf
  - vedtopkar 8y ago
    Yeah that's a fair assessment, and I agree that it's not for everyone. But I do feel strongly that everyone should at least give it a shot.
inetsee 8y ago
I really like the idea of spaced repetition learning, but it's the little details that are driving me crazy. I cannot get Anki working on Raspberry Pi. (I have a Raspberry Pi connected to a TV in front of my rowing machine so I can study while I'm exercising.) I tried Mnemosyne but I can't get the sync server working, and I'm disappointed in the formatting options provided. I tried org-drill but adding images to cards is quite difficult. Right now I'm working on writing some Javascript that can be plugged into web pages to provide the spaced repetition functionality. That way I would have the full capability of html5, css3, javascript, etc. Syncing would be handled by whatever file syncing software the user preferred. Creating/editing cards would be by whatever workflow the user wanted. If anybody has any other solutions to the problems I'm having (running Anki on Raspberry Pi, Mnemosyne syncing/formatting, etc), I'm ready to listen.
- themodelplumber 8y ago
  If you have access to a smartphone or tablet, there are some great apps for this available...
- nathanasmith 8y ago
  Have you tried just going to the website https://ankiweb.net/decks/ https://ankiweb.net/decks/ and reviewing your cards there? It should work on any device with a browser including your RasberryPi.
  - inetsee 8y ago
    I tried going to the Anki website and I discovered another thing that I don't like about Anki. I went to one of my old decks and tried one of the cards; the spacing options for this card were <10 minutes, 1, 2 and 6 YEARS. I'd really like more control over the spacing of the card presentations.
    - ShinTakuya 8y ago
      You can actually change that up all in the settings (even on a per deck basis). It takes a bit of tinkering because it's not clear from the beginning what each setting does. Typically if I get something wrong I reset it to 20% of its previous time (so if it was a month since I saw it last I'd see it in around 6 days). I'd trust the system though. Typically once you get to the point where you won't see it for more than a year you're highly unlikely to forget the content anyway. Although it depends on what you're trying to learn. The default settings are optimised for learning Japanese.
rradish 8y ago
I really like the https://ankimono.com https://ankimono.com webapp, although creating your own clone is a great way to learn a new framework or language.
- roger_wiz 8y ago
  That's a clozed-source knockoff of Anki. With SRS it's important that you choose a solution that will still be working in 5, 10, or even 20 years. Anki being open-source and sporting an open format fits that bill. Also, it has a proper desktop app, so you never need to worry about losing access to your data ahead of an important exam, etc.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
rdfi 8y ago
I've been using Anki since 2013 (almost 5 years). One really nice thing about Anki is that it has analytics. I currently have 4532 cards and my numbers are 99.18% correct answers for "Learning" (very young) cards, 98.44% for Young cards and 92.52% for Mature cards. No way I would be able to remember over 4000 pieces of information without spaced repetition. I truly believe this is the best learning "hack" there is. I've wrote about my experience here: https://www.blinkingcaret.com/2016/05/04/hack-your-brain-learn-faster-better/ https://www.blinkingcaret.com/2016/05/04/hack-your-brain-lea...
noddy1w 8y ago
I got through all my medical anaesthesiology board exams with anki,although i do prefer flashcards where the order is the same rather than anki style algo.
leandot 8y ago
Related and useful website I've found - https://codecode.ninja/ https://codecode.ninja/, spaced learning for devs
laurieg 8y ago
I've used Anki over the past 8 years or so very successfully. I strongly recommend it to anyone learning a language. Here are some tips to get the most out of it: * Only put things you know into Anki. An individual Anki card should feel a little too easy when you make it. * Put in words with a good amount of context. Avoid single words as much as possible. The quickest way to do this is to just input the sentence from the book/TV where you learned the word. You'll learn collocations and grammar structures by doing this. * Delete cards when they give you trouble. Language learning is a marathon, if the word is important you'll see it again. If you keep getting a card wrong then you probably didn't actually learn it in the first place, or the card is written in a confusing way. * Avoid the temptation to input huge lists of words automatically. Lots of beginners download "3000 Most Common Words", put them all into Anki and then give up within a few weeks. A language is much more than just a list of words.
- afro88 8y ago
  Sounds like the way you use Anki is more of a learning supplementary rather than a singular tool? Like you are learning of words elsewhere and entering them into Anki for memorization once you have learned about them? I’m just curious. I’d like to use Anki to get better at reading and playing chords (on keyboard / piano) from symbol notation but I haven’t started yet. Would you recommend learning each chord one by one and entering them into Anki as I learn them?
  - laurieg 8y ago
    I think that's a very fair assessment of how I use Anki. I think if you spend all your time using Anki and no time interacting with the actual language you're learning you won't get very far. Basically every sentence I put into Anki comes from a book, movie, TV show or conversation. The question about piano chords is really interesting. I often compare learning a language to learning to play the piano. Both are real time skills that require practice, to just learning. I meet someone who loves reading grammar books I say "You can read a book on piano construction 100 times and you won't learn to play the piano. As for your case, what is the skill you want to learn? Playing the chords right? Then that has to form the main focus of your practice. By all means, use Anki to help memorise chord names and chord patterns but be careful: You might just get really good at seeing a chord and saying it's name rather than seeing a chord and playing it! Also, sight-reading is a very real-time skill. You have to read those chords and then play them on the right beat. If you practice chords with Anki you might get good at seeing them in Anki and then playing them a few seconds later, but it's not the same as doing it in real time.
jameshart 8y ago
I'm always a little confused when I see articles on the internet extolling the virtues of spaced repetition learning. I don't doubt that it's a good way to memorize things; it's just that I have never really found that memorization was ever an obstacle to my ability to learn something. I've always found that retention proceeds from understanding. Time spent flicking through flashcards for vocabulary or formulae or chemical paths or whatever seems like a poor substitute for time spent reading material that uses the vocabulary, explains the derivation of the formulae, or describes the chemical process, or whatever... Is this just about passing tests, or is this genuinely how other people approach learning?
- josephst18 8y ago
  I’ve found it to be immensely helpful in medical school. I only add cards after I understand a particular concept—read about a concept first, then add cards to make sure I retain it. The most popular decks on r/medicalschoolAnki have many thousands of premade cards; with additional cards for microbiology and pharmacology, people may have as many as 20K Anki cards by the time they take Step 1 (standardized national exam of basic medical knowledge) after 2 years of medical school. With this approach, Anki is much more about retention than learning. Books and lectures are good for learning, but Anki is ideal for ensuring I can remember side effects of a particular heart medication months or years after cardiovascular lectures ended. It’s certainly useful for passing tests too, but the main value is in retaining knowledge long after a particular test has been taken.
- theonemind 8y ago
  General guidelines for spaced repetition tell you not to memorize things you don't understand anyway, and say that you only waste your time by doing so. In general, it helps with indefinite retention. And if you don't do something often, or regularly, any permanent footholds offer some scaffolding to get back up to speed quicker the next time you need to do it. As a problem approaches looking like learning a language, spaced repetition gets more useful. If you learn a second language, you will probably hit a plateau if you never try to memorize anything, because language has a large set of symbols, some infrequently used, but still critical in some situations. It probably helps anywhere that "deliberate practice" and "memorization" almost overlap in how they work or in effectiveness, say, in memorizing program hot-keys.
axiomek 8y ago
About a week ago I developed a browser plugin for chrome and firefox which replaces the new tab page with anki flashcards to review. The idea is that with it, each time I open a new tab I will review a few cards, thus making it more lightweight than an hour-long anki session. If anyone is interested the code (licensed under The Unlicense) and links to the web stores can be found at https://github.com/corollari/ankiTab https://github.com/corollari/ankiTab Note: In order for it to work you need to be logged in ankiweb.net
- Kagerjay 8y ago
  wow this is a great tool, I have been searching for something like this. If only there was a way to quickly add cards that would be nice.
mrmondo 8y ago
$39AUD for the mobile app with no free / demo version is more than a little steep IMO.
- OriginalPenguin 8y ago
  The desktop version is free and open source. You'll want to start with the desktop version anyway, because it's easier to make your cards on a computer than a phone. After a while you'll know if it's for you or not. Then you can buy the iOS version. The Android version is made by a different set of people, and it's completely free as well. It's called AnkiDroid.
aeto 8y ago
I'm a big fan of spaced repetition, made a lightweight browser extension to carry around with me when I'm surfing the web https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/harvest-take-notes-and-le/dejecgndbecimagkaefkfdaedaimamji https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/harvest-take-notes...
emmanueloga_ 8y ago
It seems there's a lot of evidence spaced repetition is an effective learning aid. Two things come to mind: First, some times I see ppl calling spaced repetition a "trick" or "hack" (I read "shortcut"), but the truth is, using SRS actually entails a lot of work! [0] It seems a pretty important part of the process is to formulate your own cards, which also puts more emphasis in understanding first and memorizing later [1]. SRS is a hack to memorize as much as going to the gym is a hack to gain muscles... Second some ppl object that "memorizing is not understanding", but I think better recall aids in faster learning, so one feeds the other. [1], again, talks about this: one should only strive to remember what one has already understood. OTOH, a lot of types of knowledge requires mostly memorization. For instance: irregular verb conjugations. 0: I tried SRS and failed to keep up a bunch of times... and I want to give it a sec^H^Hthird chance at some point! 1: https://www.supermemo.com/en/articles/20rules https://www.supermemo.com/en/articles/20rules
- xkfm 8y ago
  It works well. I recommend not making too many flashcards at once, and using the mobile Anki apps to get repetitions in throughout the day.
- aasasd 8y ago
  I see SRS as simply automation of the natural need of the memory: facts have to be repeated to be remembered. It's not like one can just dismiss that neuronal connections get stronger on repetition. Then, a computerized approach allows for fine control of many variables in the scheduling of individual cards. Some people use mnemonics to boost memorization, essentially supplying context and associations where there's none—hijacking another natural tendency of memory. But you can't invent many mnemonics e.g. for geographic facts, and rote memorization is the primary approach there. (And IMO mnemonics are fragile and unreliable due to their nature of being invented out of thin air.)
fyrabanks 8y ago
Not to be an ass, but is there some new feature of Anki I'm missing? Or is this kind of like posting "Google: A Search Engine Worth Checking Out"?
- dotancohen 8y ago
  I would absolutely read "Google: A Search Engine Worth Checking Out". For the past few years, one can be longer do verbatim searches with operators, and every short search is filled with movie and pop music results even though I consume neither. If there is anything worth checking it about Google's search engine today, I would want to know. Rant off: I'm sure that those in the HN crowd who don't yet know what Anki is, would like to. It is the whole secret to my career success.
stephenl 8y ago
I found Anki the only software that can easily make flash cards using LaTeX. I typically have a lot of equations and I prefer to write my cards using the outlines package in LaTeX. It makes it very easy to write bulleted lists. https://www.ctan.org/tex-archive/macros/latex/contrib/outlines https://www.ctan.org/tex-archive/macros/latex/contrib/outlin... In the latest version of Anki, the LaTeX is rendered using SVG and looks great on Retina and HiDPI screens without having large file sizes. I know others who maintain their cards/latex in a text file and import the changes rather than working in the Anki software for creating and maintaining cards.
roger_wiz 8y ago
Anki is great, but it's easy to use wrong. It can't be overstated how important it to design your flashcards well. Do it wrong and you'll quickly be frustrated and overwhelmed by the work you have to put towards memorizing the info. The best guidelines I've found on writing flashcards are Supermemo's 20 rules: https://www.supermemo.com/en/articles/20rules https://www.supermemo.com/en/articles/20rules. Honestly, this is a seminal work that anyone jumping into SRS or flashcards in general should read. I also found this recent discussion about spaced repetition on HN to be very helpful: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17706776 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17706776 As far as Anki itself is concerned: Make sure to check out some of the add-ons that are out there – they can really improve your workflow and motivate you to keep on going: https://ankiweb.net/shared/addons/ https://ankiweb.net/shared/addons/
seeker12521 8y ago
Does anyone here have suggestions or similar experience with strategies to maintain physical practices like sports, martial arts or playing musical instruments?
garden 8y ago
I use Anki everyday for medical school and for personal learning-- geography, notes from books I've read, research ideas I've thought up I want to review later, etc. If you put in the time (I do at least 45 minutes of Anki a day, which turns out to be roughly 300 cards, 50+ of which are new) and you're consistent, the volume of information you can retain is truly staggering. I have a retention rate of 90.1% and I've learned 15000 cards over the last 16 months. About 2000 of those cards are my own-- the rest are fromv arious premade medical decks. Using premade decks is perfectly fine, but you do need to make you get a first pass of the material through some other method first-- Anki is not ideal for learning material, just retaining it. Mnemonics can be successfully integrated into Anki cards-- but I think they're best for information that's easily confused with other bits or for really tedious stuff. Example: remembering which random medical drug is best for which genetic mutation, or which chromosome is mutated in which disease. Stuff like that is just pure tedium-- so translate it into images with the Major Mnemonic System or into memorable images like Sketchy Microbiology does.

636 points by tarboreus 8y ago

It has been a while since I used Anki and I vaguely recall I have a horrible experience with creating cards. I really wish there is a way I can create cards in vim or something, but that sounds really limited when it comes to things like Chinese where you need to somehow write out the character or find an image of it on the Internet.

vaughnegut 8y ago
Honest question, what is so hard about writing Chinese to create carss? I find at least typing in pinyin on windows and android isn't so bad, or did you mean specifically in the context of vim?
- cheunste 8y ago
  specifically with vim.

_raoulcousins 8y ago

Is there a popular repository of shared Anki decks other than https://ankiweb.net/shared/decks/ https://ankiweb.net/shared/decks/?

blaket 8y ago
Not that I know of, but I recommend making your own decks. Two reasons: you only add what you're interested in learning as you're reviewing material and figuring out how to make the cards for your material helps learning.
- philsnow 8y ago
  I recently started a new job, and wrote a quick script that scrapes a slack team for all the names and profile photos and creates an Anki deck out of it. I'm usually terrible with names and faces so this helped me immensely.
  - Nadya 8y ago
    Do you mind sharing the script? Because the company I work for has grown at an insane rate - and there are a good 300+ coworkers I don't know. It'd be nice to know peoples' faces for when I see them walking around the building.
    - philsnow 8y ago
      Sure, I'll paste a link to a gist or something later
    - philsnow 8y ago
      https://github.com/philsnow/slanki https://github.com/philsnow/slanki
      - Nadya 8y ago
        Thank you very much!
  - patrickdavey 8y ago
    Hah! I used the Meetup.com API for the same reason. Super annoying that lots of people use avatars though right ;) I also do this for friends and the ever growing list of baby names that I can't keep track of.
    - philsnow 8y ago
      Some people's Slack avatars are dogs, pictures of two or more people, etc, so I'm overtraining a lot but overall it's positive.
- bunderbunder 8y ago
  Seconded. I'm pretty sure that every minute spent making your own cards saves at least 2 minutes spent reviewing them.

AlphaWeaver 8y ago

I started using Anki a few weeks ago when the SuperMemo article popped up on HN. I really like it, and it has helped me remember key terms and learn a new language, all in a really short time... Feel free to ask me questions if you're confused about how it works! I'm fairly experienced now.

baxtr 8y ago
I want to learn Spanish. I have a basic vocabulary and understanding. What’s the fastest way forward in your opinion?
- AlphaWeaver 8y ago
  On AnkiWeb there are a ton of decks available made by other people, including some really high-quality ones for Spanish. I'd recommend you download one of those, and then if there are words/content you're already familiar with, I believe you can go and set that you've already "learned" those words.
- xkfm 8y ago
  Other than Anki, clozemaster and supermemo.com are two good paid options. I'm currently paying for supermemo.com*, and the two decks I'm using for Spanish seem to be pretty good. Clozemaster uses word frequency lists and sentences. Honestly it's (clozemaster) one of the best free SRS products I've seen for multiple languages. I'd avoid memrise (too many horrible quality decks). Duolingo isn't bad but certainly isn't comprehensive by any means. The reason I'm paying for supermemo.com is because it has a good quality Chinese deck and those are hard to come by. I also want to use the updated SRS algos that it uses. SM-2 is really old and does not handle skipped days well at all. The newer versions of the sm algo are much better in that respect.
- aasasd 8y ago
  Note that flash cards have only limited usefulness with learning languages: you can use them to remember grammatical rules at first, then do isolated word-choice tasks and expand the vocabulary. You'll still want to do massive amounts of reading in the target language to absorb the proper word usage, and the grammatical practices will stick better this way.

breakpointalpha 8y ago

Spaced learning really works. I've started to slowly convert python, sql, and postgres docs to flash cards in Anki. Anki's implementation has some rough edges, but for $0/mon for multi-device use, it's an amazing way to get your feet wet with this learning technique.

erikb 8y ago
The iphone app costs like $25 tho.
- nathanasmith 8y ago
  If the Anki iPhone app were the only way there was to do spaced repetition, I wouldn't hesitate to pay $25,000 for it. $25 is a pittance for the work Damien Elmes puts in, not to mention his efforts in maintaining the sync server so you can easily stop and resume your sessions on any device.
- guu 8y ago
  While it won't work offline, you can use the web version on iPhone (https://ankiweb.net/about https://ankiweb.net/about).
- jacekm 8y ago
  I was taking a Japanese course couple of years ago. The course was difficult and if you did not pass mid-term and end-of-term exams you had to repeat the term which costed a lot of money. Fearing that I could fail I decided to invest in Anki. Needless to say it was the best spent $25 ever. $25 is surely expensive for a simple app, especially if you are a student without a steady income. But if anyone wonders whether Anki is worth this much money - try thinking of the potential benefits.
- dotancohen 8y ago
  And I bought it even though I use AnkiDroid on my Samsung Note 3. Why? Because it is the only way to support Anki's sole developer. He cannot take donations due to Japanese laws. AnkiDroid also does not take donations, though I do intend to start contributing code to that project. If you really enjoy Anki, consider buying the iPhone app even if you don't have an iPhone.

tushartyagi 8y ago

Also worth reading is the excellent (and pretty extensive) article by Michael Nielsen[1] showcasing how he used Anki to create an in-depth knowledge about AlphaGo. Personally, I've used Anki to keep remembering/revisiting the concepts that I use for a while and then move onto something else. Common APIs of programming languages and their standard libraries is one such area. I've found that while it's not really difficult to learn and get into the flow of using a programming language (or history, mathematics, physics for that matter), it's more difficult to try using the same knowledge after a break of few months. My main language at work is C# and Web Development, but I keep trying to learn other languages and domains in my free time. If I do not use the knowledge for a few months, I forget everything. But with Anki I have to just open the app for around 10 minutes a day and it helps me to recall such concepts in a timely fashion. I would suggest everyone who has the time and faces similar issues should give it a shot. [1] http://augmentingcognition.com/ltm.html http://augmentingcognition.com/ltm.html

Sirupsen 8y ago
This article is the best summarization of real, everyday usage of Anki outside of language learning and medical studies which are common uses of Anki. Reviewing flash cards is the highest leverage 10-15 minute habit I have besides planning my day. There's a certain joy and relief from having a reasonable confidence new information will be readily available to you for years to come. Much knowledge is better absorbed through practice, conversation, and writing. If you can distinguish between what you can learn through flash cards, and what you can absorb through other practices and not conflate the two too much—you'll be in a great place. Some categories of cards I have that may serve as inspiration for others wishing to get into flash cards.. * Basic information about countries e.g. population * Ingredients and dishes from restaurant menus I didn't know * Important people and places * History facts (typically from Kindle highlights) * Conversions between units (e.g. lbs to kg) * Season for various vegetables and fruits * Keyboard shortcuts for vim, readline, etc. * Learning words and terms I don't know from Kindle/Instapaper highlights * Useful statistics
- jamesbvaughan 8y ago
  What specific techniques are you referring to when you mention planning your day as a high leverage habit?

graeme 8y ago

I’m using anki to gradually learn japanese kanji using the RTK method. Working really well so far, up to about 800 with little struggle.

x0x0 8y ago
have you tried readlang? I'm really happy with it, but I'm studying German. Not sure if it works with asian languages. The website doesn't emphasize it, but readlang has a spaced repetition vocab tool. With multiple (at least for romance languages) built in dictionaries.
- baxtr 8y ago
  Readlang sounds quite promising, I will try it for my Spanish! Thanks for sharing :)
graeme 8y ago
Looks super useful, thanks! May try it for German. The system I'm doing isn't s reading one though. Instead, you associate each of the 2200 Kanji with an English keyword. You break down the kanji into component primitives, and then you remember how to draw each one by visualizing a phrase associated with that keyword. For example, Seedling: 苗 The top part is flower: 艹 The bottom part is rixe field: 田 You can make a story like: if you plant seedlings in a field, they will flower. And you imagine it visually. (Note, I have terrible visualization, but can do it well enough for it to work) This is a really simple example, but you can get more complex stuff. The system generally sticks to Japanese etymology, but sometimes will make up new primitives where it's more convenient for learning.
JepZ 8y ago
While searching the AUR for Anki I just found this extension for Firefox which has some Anki integration. Looks promising for people who want to learn Japanese: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/yomichan/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/yomichan/
irq11 8y ago
Take my advice, as a somewhat advanced learner: don’t do this. RTK is this weird honeypot for beginning learners, but it’s nearly always a mistake. The “discouraged RTK user” is almost a comic meme in Japanese language study. You will spend months “learning kanji”, only to discover that knowing kanji meanings, in isolation, is unhelpful in most situations. You can get all of the same benefits, with more immediate utility, by just learning words.

sigi45 8y ago

While I do like the project, the webui is horrible :/.

DarthMader 8y ago
It's a lot better for the desktop app and the add-ons make it more powerful.

scolby33 8y ago

This looks like a derivative/expansion of the Leitner Method[0] which I first came across over on Reddit in /r/flying for flashcard-based studying. I have definitely always had more success with paper-based studying than studying electronically--I recommend that you take a look at that document if you fall into this category as well! [0] https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BzlHy07nfEjOQ2hXWjU3LWpDdmc/view https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BzlHy07nfEjOQ2hXWjU3LWpDdmc...

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
aasasd 8y ago
I'd say one of the main benefits with Anki or SuperMemo is that the automation of the algorithm allows for many more variables than you could track manually. For each card, the history of its reviews can be remembered and taken into account―e.g. both Anki and SM have several possible answers for how well you remember the card instead of just "yes/no," varying the next interval relative to the previous one. You can tune parameters for each set of cards, allocating more or less attention to them depending on how easily you remember different kinds of information. This control, IMO, optimizes the schedule over the course of months. (Though it does make tweaking the params rather complicated sometimes.)
pessimizer 8y ago
I also just use a leitner box. Or rather a pair of business card file boxes. Wikipedia actually has a great explanation, the labels are pretty ingenious. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leitner_system https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leitner_system

Marorin 8y ago

I always kinda wondered how to make Anki stuff for like algorithms and the like.

xkfm 8y ago
For Anki, I'd grab the complete article from Wikipedia/textbook/[good source], and then write a few examples. The flashcards would be a number of cloze deletions, and then I'd have a separate deck with a practice question to recall from a blank state. For example [1], I'd take this Wikipedia article, and break it down like so: In computer science, a stack is an abstract data type that serves as a collection of elements, with two principal operations: pop and push. This sentence would become a number of flashcards that look like ([...] is a cloze deletion where you have to insert the missing word, each cloze is a flashcard): In computer science, a [...] is an abstract data type that serves as a collection of elements, with two principal operations: pop and push. In computer science, a stack is an abstract data type that serves as a [...] of elements, with two principal operations: pop and push. In computer science, a stack is an abstract data type that serves as a collection of [...], with two principal operations: pop and push. In computer science, a stack is an abstract data type that serves as a collection of elements, with [...] principal operations: pop and push. In computer science, a stack is an abstract data type that serves as a collection of elements, with two principal operations: [...] and push. In computer science, a stack is an abstract data type that serves as a collection of elements, with two principal operations: pop and [...]. You'd do that for most of the article. Find a few examples of a stack, do the same thing from cloze deletions, and then in a separate card, make a few questions to have you write from scratch, parts of a stack. The separate deck would be so your regular reviews don't take forever, when you get a question asking you to write out a stack. The other deck would be done say 3-4 days a week, and have many fewer cards, because they're going to take awhile to answer. You could even use the index card method for this part as it's closer to actual practice than recall. In another deck, I'd also have short answer questions. For example, what's the difference between a stack and a queue, or stack and array, etc. This would also be more for practice sessions, rather than daily repetitions, as the questions could take awhile to answer. Note that you'll have a ton of flashcards this way for each algo, but they'll be extremely easy to answer (a good thing). Five flashcards you can answer in 2-10 seconds each, is much better than one flashcard that takes you a minute to answer. Assuming five seconds to answer a flashcard, you could easily do 120 repetitions through the day. The nice thing about Anki is the mobile clients, so you can do a few cards while you have some downtime. When I was in school, I was usually doing flashcards while I was waiting for class to start or going to the bathroom etc.

Marorin 8y ago

Always wanted to try this, never was sure how to use it for algorithms and the like though.

ainar-g 8y ago

For anyone who wants to use spaced repetition for learning languages, I recommend Clozemaster[1]. It uses the cloze deletion technique and has thousands of sentences for most languages. Using it has significantly improved my German. [1] https://www.clozemaster.com/ https://www.clozemaster.com/ [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloze_test https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloze_test

jacekm 8y ago
Interesting, I just tried it for Japanese. But too often I could fill in a word without understanding it (there's often only one grammatical form that fits). Also each sentence is accompanied by English translation which feels a little bit like cheating ;) Does the method still works even with the translation available?
- ainar-g 8y ago
  It works, but you can actually disable the translation in the settings, or make it show after you've answered.

naguas 8y ago

I started Anki about two weeks ago and I've already reviewed over 1,200 cards. It's a fun way to start the day and is surprisingly therapeutic. It really makes remembering a choice.

lgessler 8y ago

I couldn't imagine learning a language without Anki. I had to learn Coptic in a month, which required memorizing the most common ~1000 words in the language. Anki made this as easy as it can be. I don't think I would have been able to meet my deadline had I been making paper flashcards or using some more informal system. The nice thing about Anki is that you can use it at any time without any overhead associated with beginning or ending your session. There are so many scraps of time in my day (on the bus, waiting for someone to meet me, waiting for my food to heat up in the microwave, walking to the store, etc.) that are mostly only useful for being a zombie on my phone, enjoying my surroundings, or being alone with my thoughts, which are all also sometimes appropriate uses of the time, but in all of these times, I can also just pull out my phone and start reviewing my cards, even if I get in just a few.

ColinWright 8y ago
What was your list of the most common ~1k words? Do you have a link?
- lgessler 8y ago
  This is an Anki deck that was made from the book I used: https://ankiweb.net/shared/info/1657789477 https://ankiweb.net/shared/info/1657789477 I made my own Anki deck because this deck didn't have tags by chapter, and I wanted to study only the words I'd been exposed to so far.
  - ColinWright 8y ago
    Thanks for that - do you know if there is a way to export the list of words without going through the full process of installing Anki? I'm interested in different people's concept of "the thousand most useful words" and would love to extract the list you've used. It seems like it would be less overall work for you to do it than for me to do it, although I realise I'm asking you to do work. Thanks.
    - lgessler 8y ago

hazard 8y ago

I've had huge success using Anki in taking required professional exams. I'm in finance, so at various times I've had to take the JSDA, the Series 56, and Series 65. I originally signed up for a Kaplan class for the 65, thinking it was going to be a cram class. In reality, it turned out to be a review class. Halfway through the first day on Monday, I told the teacher I hadn't started reviewing the material yet for the test on Friday. He said I was essentially a lost cause, and I should sign up to take the test again in a month. I immediately left the classroom and spent the rest of the day entering every question from the practice exams into Anki. I spent 8-10 hours the next 3 days doing nothing but running Anki questions. On Friday, I crushed the exam. Other useful things I've learned with Anki include the Number Major System and the answers to a bunch of those useless "brainteaser" interview questions.

Noumenon72 8y ago

I used Anki for about a year, and it definitely didn't work for me. Going through and remembering the answers was always a struggle. I only ended up with 36 cards -- the idea of making a bunch for every person I meet and book I read would overload my memory like crazy. My memory has always been really good at indexing "what's the word for that", "there is an algorithm for this called X", "the keyboard shortcut for this is Y", "there is something weird about the way Z works in situation W". But it's index only, and I have to look up the content every time. At least since I turned 35 and realized I was forgetting the answer to every problem I'd solved before. It's been 2.5 years and I don't remember the answers to any questions. Maybe using it for precise definitions is the wrong way, as that might be more like remembering 20 things in a row. I had questions like Q: What is type erasure? A: Java implements generic types by deleting them. It does a compile-time check that your types match, then replaces the types with their bounds (eg, when T extends Number) or with Object. I have retained a vague, but not precise knowledge of what type erasure is. I know exactly what to do when I program something that uses it. But even Anki can't give me the kind of sharp memory you might need for a job interview or quiz. It's so easy for me to learn things by working with them. Hundreds of concepts, functions, keywords, and strategies a year, more than all my colleagues. I tried to memorize the things I don't use every day. It was unpleasant and that made it unsuccessful.

Jtsummers 8y ago
Your answer doesn't answer the question. You ask what type erasure is and then answer with some very specific information on Java's generics. Nothing in your question indicates that it's about Java or generics. > Maybe using it for precise definitions is the wrong way, as that might be more like remembering 20 things in a row. This is exactly what it can be like. The 20 rules from SuperMemo are really useful for trying to formulate and transform the cards. https://www.supermemo.com/en/articles/20rules https://www.supermemo.com/en/articles/20rules
- Noumenon72 8y ago
  It's always odd how failing at most things leads me to ask "how am I doing this wrong?" and overcome, but I never asked this about Anki. Thanks for the link. I was not aware till this moment that type erasure was something that C++ also has. I thought it was a specific gotcha for Java like the whole "no == for Strings" thing. In that context, I've only seen it connected to generics.

tayo42 8y ago

If anyone is familiar with memrise, is it simmilar?

Jtsummers 8y ago
It uses a similar algorithm, yes.
xkfm 8y ago
It does, but many of the decks on memrise are horribly made, so I stopped using it. Clozemaster is much better in my opinion.

jacekm 8y ago

I've been using Anki for some time and I love it but it's not a perfect tool. What I especially like is it's flexibility when it comes to designing flashcards. You can adjust colors, font-sizes and pretty much every visual aspect using css code. You can even embed your own font within a deck, which can come in handy when you are dealing with Japanese kanji (Printed and handwritten kanji sometimes differ and iPhone contains only "printed" versions of kanji fonts. I searched online for a "handwritten" font and embedded it into my decks). There are cons too. The flexibility comes at the price - while reviewing the flashcards is smooth and easy, creating a deck can be very frustrating - the interface is not the most user-friendly. I ended up creating decks in Excel, exporting to csv and importing in Anki. That made the whole process much easier but I still had to jump through some hoops to achieve that. Another problem (with the algorithm, not Anki itself) is that it's very easy to forget what you've just learned if you don't keep using the app. It's super easy to learn hundreds of vocabulary within a short period of time and pass the exam, but you need to keep reviewing the deck for at least a year, otherwise you'll forget it as quickly as you've learned it.

wodenokoto 8y ago
> Another problem (with the algorithm, not Anki itself) My main gripe with the algorithm is you can't take weekends off. I used Anki a lot in College, and Mondays where terrible, due to the backlog built-up over the weekend. One could also say, one shouldn't be drinking the weekend away ...
- aasasd 8y ago
  Actually, it's mentioned several times in the docs that you shouldn't think that backlog build-up means you have to crunch―or more specifically, IMO, 'backlog' isn't a thing here at all. If you can only put in thirty minutes a day, then do it and then close the app, this doesn't change because of a missed day. The cards will be there the next day, it's not like they catch fire when you skip a session. Stressing over the backlog would likely only make your mind work worse. Instead, change the limit of cards to review to the number that you can get through in the time you have. (Unless your college schedule requires you to actually crunch some number of cards every day? I don't know if that's a thing, but using spaced repetition in such a case would seem ill-fitting anyway.)

xkfm 8y ago

I use supermemo, and the vast majority of my collection isn't language related. For languages, something like clozemaster, supermemo.com, or premade anki decks/courses are fine. I still find it odd that the only two groups of people who seem to use the software a lot are med students and language learning enthusiasts. Supermemo is really buggy, and the website is extremely disorganized, but has a lot of useful information on it. The main reason I use it is its incremental reading function. Essentially, you can import articles, and turn them into flashcards in one swoop, while still having access to the full text via built in search (if you choose). For example, I just finished importing most of the CSS reference [1]. And it only took me ~10 minutes to open the tabs and import them into Supermemo. Each page will get whittled down into flashcards over the next few weeks. As others have stated, my srs usage is actually quite a small portion of my day, and extremely high leverage. The hardest skill to learn is learning how to make flashcards properly [2]. I almost exclusively rely on cloze deletions now. I do my repetitions in the morning when my memory is still fresh. [1] https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/CSS/Reference https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/CSS/Reference [2] https://www.supermemo.com/en/articles/20rules https://www.supermemo.com/en/articles/20rules

aasasd 8y ago
There's a plugin for Anki for incremental reading: https://github.com/luoliyan/incremental-reading https://github.com/luoliyan/incremental-reading (Though I'm not sure how the internal database structure works with that, I think you can't save the whole text along with a deck instead of individual notes―but maybe addons can change that.)
- xkfm 8y ago
  I tried it awhile ago, and it didn't work well, but I'll try it again. Incremental reading is kind of finicky to get right. Incremental reading is the real draw of these programs for me, and Supermemo (despite it's flaws) is kind of the only one that has a decent implementation of it.
  - misiti3780 8y ago

vram22 8y ago

Derek Sivers (CD Baby guy) had written an article about how to memorize a programming language using SRS and Anki: https://sivers.org/srs https://sivers.org/srs

antykodon 8y ago

I've used anki for learning German a few years ago and it really worked for me - I was able to learn a few (<500) hundred new words in about 2 months. Not bad at all for a person with no language talent. Although, I've stopped learning the language 3 years ago, I still understand German texts, thanks to anki. When using anki, a browser extension, enabling creation of flashcards, from the content found on the Internet, is handy. I find a website fluentcards.com and its browser extension, quite OK. Unluckily, it seems not to be maintained and there is no official add-on for Firefox, but you can build it from the github repo [1] and it will work on FF, too. The webpage also allows export of the words saved on Kindle to the anki. There are also a few extensions for learning Japanese specifically. [2] seems to be the most popular. [1] https://github.com/katspaugh/fluentcards-extension https://github.com/katspaugh/fluentcards-extension [2] https://foosoft.net/projects/yomichan/ https://foosoft.net/projects/yomichan/

vedtopkar 8y ago

Anki has become the de-facto standard for memorizing the large swaths of information required during medical school. Not everyone uses it, but pretty much everyone that does and sticks to it sees impressive results.

jhayward 8y ago
> Not everyone uses it, but pretty much everyone that does and sticks to it sees impressive results. This is another way of say "everyone that it works for gets good results"
- nathanasmith 8y ago
  It's interesting to note in studies comparing spaced repetition vs. massed learning, when students are asked afterward which method works better, they more often choose massed even though their own test results favor spaced repetition[0]. The upshot is people can use spaced repetition, it can "work" (in the sense that they remember the material better and test better) yet still drop it thinking massed practice to be superior. [0]https://www.gwern.net/docs/spacedrepetition/2001-simon.pdf https://www.gwern.net/docs/spacedrepetition/2001-simon.pdf
- vedtopkar 8y ago
  Yeah that's a fair assessment, and I agree that it's not for everyone. But I do feel strongly that everyone should at least give it a shot.

inetsee 8y ago

I really like the idea of spaced repetition learning, but it's the little details that are driving me crazy. I cannot get Anki working on Raspberry Pi. (I have a Raspberry Pi connected to a TV in front of my rowing machine so I can study while I'm exercising.) I tried Mnemosyne but I can't get the sync server working, and I'm disappointed in the formatting options provided. I tried org-drill but adding images to cards is quite difficult. Right now I'm working on writing some Javascript that can be plugged into web pages to provide the spaced repetition functionality. That way I would have the full capability of html5, css3, javascript, etc. Syncing would be handled by whatever file syncing software the user preferred. Creating/editing cards would be by whatever workflow the user wanted. If anybody has any other solutions to the problems I'm having (running Anki on Raspberry Pi, Mnemosyne syncing/formatting, etc), I'm ready to listen.

themodelplumber 8y ago
If you have access to a smartphone or tablet, there are some great apps for this available...
nathanasmith 8y ago
Have you tried just going to the website https://ankiweb.net/decks/ https://ankiweb.net/decks/ and reviewing your cards there? It should work on any device with a browser including your RasberryPi.
- inetsee 8y ago
  I tried going to the Anki website and I discovered another thing that I don't like about Anki. I went to one of my old decks and tried one of the cards; the spacing options for this card were <10 minutes, 1, 2 and 6 YEARS. I'd really like more control over the spacing of the card presentations.
  - ShinTakuya 8y ago
    You can actually change that up all in the settings (even on a per deck basis). It takes a bit of tinkering because it's not clear from the beginning what each setting does. Typically if I get something wrong I reset it to 20% of its previous time (so if it was a month since I saw it last I'd see it in around 6 days). I'd trust the system though. Typically once you get to the point where you won't see it for more than a year you're highly unlikely to forget the content anyway. Although it depends on what you're trying to learn. The default settings are optimised for learning Japanese.

rradish 8y ago

I really like the https://ankimono.com https://ankimono.com webapp, although creating your own clone is a great way to learn a new framework or language.

roger_wiz 8y ago
That's a clozed-source knockoff of Anki. With SRS it's important that you choose a solution that will still be working in 5, 10, or even 20 years. Anki being open-source and sporting an open format fits that bill. Also, it has a proper desktop app, so you never need to worry about losing access to your data ahead of an important exam, etc.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

rdfi 8y ago

I've been using Anki since 2013 (almost 5 years). One really nice thing about Anki is that it has analytics. I currently have 4532 cards and my numbers are 99.18% correct answers for "Learning" (very young) cards, 98.44% for Young cards and 92.52% for Mature cards. No way I would be able to remember over 4000 pieces of information without spaced repetition. I truly believe this is the best learning "hack" there is. I've wrote about my experience here: https://www.blinkingcaret.com/2016/05/04/hack-your-brain-learn-faster-better/ https://www.blinkingcaret.com/2016/05/04/hack-your-brain-lea...

noddy1w 8y ago

I got through all my medical anaesthesiology board exams with anki,although i do prefer flashcards where the order is the same rather than anki style algo.

leandot 8y ago

Related and useful website I've found - https://codecode.ninja/ https://codecode.ninja/, spaced learning for devs

laurieg 8y ago

I've used Anki over the past 8 years or so very successfully. I strongly recommend it to anyone learning a language. Here are some tips to get the most out of it: * Only put things you know into Anki. An individual Anki card should feel a little too easy when you make it. * Put in words with a good amount of context. Avoid single words as much as possible. The quickest way to do this is to just input the sentence from the book/TV where you learned the word. You'll learn collocations and grammar structures by doing this. * Delete cards when they give you trouble. Language learning is a marathon, if the word is important you'll see it again. If you keep getting a card wrong then you probably didn't actually learn it in the first place, or the card is written in a confusing way. * Avoid the temptation to input huge lists of words automatically. Lots of beginners download "3000 Most Common Words", put them all into Anki and then give up within a few weeks. A language is much more than just a list of words.

afro88 8y ago
Sounds like the way you use Anki is more of a learning supplementary rather than a singular tool? Like you are learning of words elsewhere and entering them into Anki for memorization once you have learned about them? I’m just curious. I’d like to use Anki to get better at reading and playing chords (on keyboard / piano) from symbol notation but I haven’t started yet. Would you recommend learning each chord one by one and entering them into Anki as I learn them?
- laurieg 8y ago
  I think that's a very fair assessment of how I use Anki. I think if you spend all your time using Anki and no time interacting with the actual language you're learning you won't get very far. Basically every sentence I put into Anki comes from a book, movie, TV show or conversation. The question about piano chords is really interesting. I often compare learning a language to learning to play the piano. Both are real time skills that require practice, to just learning. I meet someone who loves reading grammar books I say "You can read a book on piano construction 100 times and you won't learn to play the piano. As for your case, what is the skill you want to learn? Playing the chords right? Then that has to form the main focus of your practice. By all means, use Anki to help memorise chord names and chord patterns but be careful: You might just get really good at seeing a chord and saying it's name rather than seeing a chord and playing it! Also, sight-reading is a very real-time skill. You have to read those chords and then play them on the right beat. If you practice chords with Anki you might get good at seeing them in Anki and then playing them a few seconds later, but it's not the same as doing it in real time.

jameshart 8y ago

I'm always a little confused when I see articles on the internet extolling the virtues of spaced repetition learning. I don't doubt that it's a good way to memorize things; it's just that I have never really found that memorization was ever an obstacle to my ability to learn something. I've always found that retention proceeds from understanding. Time spent flicking through flashcards for vocabulary or formulae or chemical paths or whatever seems like a poor substitute for time spent reading material that uses the vocabulary, explains the derivation of the formulae, or describes the chemical process, or whatever... Is this just about passing tests, or is this genuinely how other people approach learning?

josephst18 8y ago
I’ve found it to be immensely helpful in medical school. I only add cards after I understand a particular concept—read about a concept first, then add cards to make sure I retain it. The most popular decks on r/medicalschoolAnki have many thousands of premade cards; with additional cards for microbiology and pharmacology, people may have as many as 20K Anki cards by the time they take Step 1 (standardized national exam of basic medical knowledge) after 2 years of medical school. With this approach, Anki is much more about retention than learning. Books and lectures are good for learning, but Anki is ideal for ensuring I can remember side effects of a particular heart medication months or years after cardiovascular lectures ended. It’s certainly useful for passing tests too, but the main value is in retaining knowledge long after a particular test has been taken.
theonemind 8y ago
General guidelines for spaced repetition tell you not to memorize things you don't understand anyway, and say that you only waste your time by doing so. In general, it helps with indefinite retention. And if you don't do something often, or regularly, any permanent footholds offer some scaffolding to get back up to speed quicker the next time you need to do it. As a problem approaches looking like learning a language, spaced repetition gets more useful. If you learn a second language, you will probably hit a plateau if you never try to memorize anything, because language has a large set of symbols, some infrequently used, but still critical in some situations. It probably helps anywhere that "deliberate practice" and "memorization" almost overlap in how they work or in effectiveness, say, in memorizing program hot-keys.

axiomek 8y ago

About a week ago I developed a browser plugin for chrome and firefox which replaces the new tab page with anki flashcards to review. The idea is that with it, each time I open a new tab I will review a few cards, thus making it more lightweight than an hour-long anki session. If anyone is interested the code (licensed under The Unlicense) and links to the web stores can be found at https://github.com/corollari/ankiTab https://github.com/corollari/ankiTab Note: In order for it to work you need to be logged in ankiweb.net

Kagerjay 8y ago
wow this is a great tool, I have been searching for something like this. If only there was a way to quickly add cards that would be nice.

mrmondo 8y ago

$39AUD for the mobile app with no free / demo version is more than a little steep IMO.

OriginalPenguin 8y ago
The desktop version is free and open source. You'll want to start with the desktop version anyway, because it's easier to make your cards on a computer than a phone. After a while you'll know if it's for you or not. Then you can buy the iOS version. The Android version is made by a different set of people, and it's completely free as well. It's called AnkiDroid.

aeto 8y ago

I'm a big fan of spaced repetition, made a lightweight browser extension to carry around with me when I'm surfing the web https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/harvest-take-notes-and-le/dejecgndbecimagkaefkfdaedaimamji https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/harvest-take-notes...

emmanueloga_ 8y ago

It seems there's a lot of evidence spaced repetition is an effective learning aid. Two things come to mind: First, some times I see ppl calling spaced repetition a "trick" or "hack" (I read "shortcut"), but the truth is, using SRS actually entails a lot of work! [0] It seems a pretty important part of the process is to formulate your own cards, which also puts more emphasis in understanding first and memorizing later [1]. SRS is a hack to memorize as much as going to the gym is a hack to gain muscles... Second some ppl object that "memorizing is not understanding", but I think better recall aids in faster learning, so one feeds the other. [1], again, talks about this: one should only strive to remember what one has already understood. OTOH, a lot of types of knowledge requires mostly memorization. For instance: irregular verb conjugations. 0: I tried SRS and failed to keep up a bunch of times... and I want to give it a sec^H^Hthird chance at some point! 1: https://www.supermemo.com/en/articles/20rules https://www.supermemo.com/en/articles/20rules

xkfm 8y ago
It works well. I recommend not making too many flashcards at once, and using the mobile Anki apps to get repetitions in throughout the day.
aasasd 8y ago
I see SRS as simply automation of the natural need of the memory: facts have to be repeated to be remembered. It's not like one can just dismiss that neuronal connections get stronger on repetition. Then, a computerized approach allows for fine control of many variables in the scheduling of individual cards. Some people use mnemonics to boost memorization, essentially supplying context and associations where there's none—hijacking another natural tendency of memory. But you can't invent many mnemonics e.g. for geographic facts, and rote memorization is the primary approach there. (And IMO mnemonics are fragile and unreliable due to their nature of being invented out of thin air.)

fyrabanks 8y ago

Not to be an ass, but is there some new feature of Anki I'm missing? Or is this kind of like posting "Google: A Search Engine Worth Checking Out"?

dotancohen 8y ago
I would absolutely read "Google: A Search Engine Worth Checking Out". For the past few years, one can be longer do verbatim searches with operators, and every short search is filled with movie and pop music results even though I consume neither. If there is anything worth checking it about Google's search engine today, I would want to know. Rant off: I'm sure that those in the HN crowd who don't yet know what Anki is, would like to. It is the whole secret to my career success.

stephenl 8y ago

I found Anki the only software that can easily make flash cards using LaTeX. I typically have a lot of equations and I prefer to write my cards using the outlines package in LaTeX. It makes it very easy to write bulleted lists. https://www.ctan.org/tex-archive/macros/latex/contrib/outlines https://www.ctan.org/tex-archive/macros/latex/contrib/outlin... In the latest version of Anki, the LaTeX is rendered using SVG and looks great on Retina and HiDPI screens without having large file sizes. I know others who maintain their cards/latex in a text file and import the changes rather than working in the Anki software for creating and maintaining cards.

roger_wiz 8y ago

Anki is great, but it's easy to use wrong. It can't be overstated how important it to design your flashcards well. Do it wrong and you'll quickly be frustrated and overwhelmed by the work you have to put towards memorizing the info. The best guidelines I've found on writing flashcards are Supermemo's 20 rules: https://www.supermemo.com/en/articles/20rules https://www.supermemo.com/en/articles/20rules. Honestly, this is a seminal work that anyone jumping into SRS or flashcards in general should read. I also found this recent discussion about spaced repetition on HN to be very helpful: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17706776 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17706776 As far as Anki itself is concerned: Make sure to check out some of the add-ons that are out there – they can really improve your workflow and motivate you to keep on going: https://ankiweb.net/shared/addons/ https://ankiweb.net/shared/addons/

seeker12521 8y ago

Does anyone here have suggestions or similar experience with strategies to maintain physical practices like sports, martial arts or playing musical instruments?

garden 8y ago

I use Anki everyday for medical school and for personal learning-- geography, notes from books I've read, research ideas I've thought up I want to review later, etc. If you put in the time (I do at least 45 minutes of Anki a day, which turns out to be roughly 300 cards, 50+ of which are new) and you're consistent, the volume of information you can retain is truly staggering. I have a retention rate of 90.1% and I've learned 15000 cards over the last 16 months. About 2000 of those cards are my own-- the rest are fromv arious premade medical decks. Using premade decks is perfectly fine, but you do need to make you get a first pass of the material through some other method first-- Anki is not ideal for learning material, just retaining it. Mnemonics can be successfully integrated into Anki cards-- but I think they're best for information that's easily confused with other bits or for really tedious stuff. Example: remembering which random medical drug is best for which genetic mutation, or which chromosome is mutated in which disease. Stuff like that is just pure tedium-- so translate it into images with the Major Mnemonic System or into memorable images like Sketchy Microbiology does.