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1. Learning Chinese characters with Anki. After a decade out of practice, I realize I would have done a lot better in my college studies if I actually studied.

1. Learning Chinese characters with Anki. After a decade out of practice, I realize I would have done a lot better in my college studies if I actually studied. Wild idea, I know. One thing that prevented me from memorizing characters was the idea that it wasn't worth doing. However, this passage from the Self-Regulated Learning paper [0] that circulated around HN convinced me otherwise: "We need to understand, too, that our capacity for storing to-be-learned information or procedures is essentially unlimited. In fact, storing information in human memory appears to create capacity — that is, opportunities for additional linkages and storage — rather than use it up." 2. Learning (even very basic) Chess has opened my eyes up to how interesting a "solved" game can be. [0]: http://www.excaliburtsa.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/Self-regulated-learning-Bjork.pdf http://www.excaliburtsa.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/Se...

yorwba 8y ago
For making Chinese flashcards in Anki, I can recommend this addon https://ankiweb.net/shared/info/3448800906 https://ankiweb.net/shared/info/3448800906 (Anki 2.0 only, for Anki 2.1 there's a fork https://github.com/luoliyan/chinese-support-redux https://github.com/luoliyan/chinese-support-redux )
- matthewrudy 8y ago
  I need to learn the tooling around anki. I was trying to edit the full hsk1-6 flashcard set to just show hsk5. But I didn't manage to find the right tools. Tried to manually change the file (it's a sqlite dB inside a zip file) but the db is not structured in a way I managed get my head round. Should try again.
  - faitswulff 8y ago
    > I was trying to edit the full hsk1-6 flashcard set to just show hsk5. > But I didn't manage to find the right tools. This is by far the worst part of those decks (which I am also using). You are literally encouraged to just browse the cards and delete the levels that you're not using. It's really not user friendly.
  - yorwba 8y ago
    I think that's what "Tools > Create filtered deck" is for. Assuming the cards are appropriately tagged, "tag:hsk5" should be enough. For more complex operations Anki doesn't support directly, I usually just export as text instead of dealing with the database directly.
  - ashtonabc 8y ago
    The default tooling isn't great. Tools like CrowdAnki [0] and Anki Deck Manager [1] make it possible to manage decks in plain text. It's also helpful for collaborative deck development. Unfortunately I haven't been able to find many examples of decks managed this way online, but there is a relatively high quality geography deck worth looking at [2]. [0] https://github.com/Stvad/CrowdAnki https://github.com/Stvad/CrowdAnki [1] https://github.com/OnkelTem/anki-dm https://github.com/OnkelTem/anki-dm [2] https://github.com/axelboc/anki-ultimate-geography https://github.com/axelboc/anki-ultimate-geography
msvan 8y ago
As someone who spent a lot of time learning Chinese without any clear end goal, I think it was mostly a waste of time. Educational? Yes, and it's fun to be able to understand Chinese characters from time to time, but in hindsight I would've rather spent all that time on something more meaningful to my life. That said, if you intend to live in China or have Chinese heritage or you have some other reason to study Chinese --- that's great! But it's not a bad idea to consider where you're going with something before dumping thousands of hours into it. (In fact, I quit chess for the same reason...)
- faitswulff 8y ago
  That's a fair point. It's a heritage language for me, and my wife and in-laws are fluent, which leaves me in the dark or asking for translations all the time. I don't have a concrete goal, but I do have motive.

yorwba 8y ago

For making Chinese flashcards in Anki, I can recommend this addon https://ankiweb.net/shared/info/3448800906 https://ankiweb.net/shared/info/3448800906 (Anki 2.0 only, for Anki 2.1 there's a fork https://github.com/luoliyan/chinese-support-redux https://github.com/luoliyan/chinese-support-redux )

matthewrudy 8y ago
I need to learn the tooling around anki. I was trying to edit the full hsk1-6 flashcard set to just show hsk5. But I didn't manage to find the right tools. Tried to manually change the file (it's a sqlite dB inside a zip file) but the db is not structured in a way I managed get my head round. Should try again.
- faitswulff 8y ago
  > I was trying to edit the full hsk1-6 flashcard set to just show hsk5. > But I didn't manage to find the right tools. This is by far the worst part of those decks (which I am also using). You are literally encouraged to just browse the cards and delete the levels that you're not using. It's really not user friendly.
- yorwba 8y ago
  I think that's what "Tools > Create filtered deck" is for. Assuming the cards are appropriately tagged, "tag:hsk5" should be enough. For more complex operations Anki doesn't support directly, I usually just export as text instead of dealing with the database directly.
- ashtonabc 8y ago
  The default tooling isn't great. Tools like CrowdAnki [0] and Anki Deck Manager [1] make it possible to manage decks in plain text. It's also helpful for collaborative deck development. Unfortunately I haven't been able to find many examples of decks managed this way online, but there is a relatively high quality geography deck worth looking at [2]. [0] https://github.com/Stvad/CrowdAnki https://github.com/Stvad/CrowdAnki [1] https://github.com/OnkelTem/anki-dm https://github.com/OnkelTem/anki-dm [2] https://github.com/axelboc/anki-ultimate-geography https://github.com/axelboc/anki-ultimate-geography

msvan 8y ago

As someone who spent a lot of time learning Chinese without any clear end goal, I think it was mostly a waste of time. Educational? Yes, and it's fun to be able to understand Chinese characters from time to time, but in hindsight I would've rather spent all that time on something more meaningful to my life. That said, if you intend to live in China or have Chinese heritage or you have some other reason to study Chinese --- that's great! But it's not a bad idea to consider where you're going with something before dumping thousands of hours into it. (In fact, I quit chess for the same reason...)

faitswulff 8y ago
That's a fair point. It's a heritage language for me, and my wife and in-laws are fluent, which leaves me in the dark or asking for translations all the time. I don't have a concrete goal, but I do have motive.