13 ms·
Spaced repetition systems have gotten better
- hshshshshsh 1y ago[flagged]
- Smaug123 1y agoYou're free to choose not to memorise things, but please don't be an arsehole about people who do want to do so for whatever reason. Having said that, you seem to misunderstand the point of spaced repetition, which is that you don't memorise the same thing over and over again; instead, you memorise it enough times to learn it, and not many more.
- hshshshshsh 1y ago[flagged]
- kaklslkd 1y agoReality check incoming. Yes you are an asshole. Your word choice matters, and you picked a large number of insulting terms. "not ... smart", "[only use is to] win stupid games.", "[you will spend] your life doing jobs you hate for money". My dude, I'm learning Japanese vocabulary, which has helped me to start reading light novels for fun. By your argument: I'm not smart, wasting my time, and hate my life, or soon will? Thing is I would fully agree with you that memorizing != comprehension, but that doesn't mean than memorizing is without it's use. Do yourself a favor and learn to not be so rude. It is literally the first item in the site guidelines: > Be kind. Don't be snarky.
- hshshshshsh 1y agoYou got triggered because I said memorizing something doesn't make one smart. And called me an asshole. You also said reading stuff in English give you less satisfaction than reading in Japanese. You might want to reflect on why that is the case.
- kaklslkd 1y agoTriggered? Nah, I was merely answering your question. It's clear at this point that any more time I spend here would only be feeding a troll, so rather than address any of that nonsense I think I'll do something more productive instead. Maybe I'll do some flashcards.
- hshshshshsh 1y agoCapable of making any arguments than name calling?
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- entropie 1y agoPretty OT: A few month ago I tried to marry my simple note system with anki. My goal was to be able to send simple front/backside cards to an api and it would get integrated and I can use it immediately. Ofc, when I edit cards via my notes-backend, the cards in anki should update too. Long story short: not possible with anki. It took like an entire day for me to realize its just not possible without diving deep into ankis sqlitedb and having the client installed on my server to interact in a horrible way with decks. I wrote my own space repetition [1] backend in a week and never looked back to anki. Ill intergrate FSRS in my software. 1: https://github.com/entropie/ha2itat/tree/main/plugins/entroment https://github.com/entropie/ha2itat/tree/main/plugins/entrom...
- welder 1y agoEdit: nevermind
- entropie 1y agoIam not sure what you are trying to tell me. Do you think I didnt use the original anki software? I think I have never heard of "AnkiApp" before.
- johanyc 1y agoEvery anki card is just a webview. Its very possible to call an api
- entropie 1y agoThen you should be able to link me to some docs.
- david_allison 1y ago> In Anki, templates are written in HTML, which is the language that web pages are written in. The styling section is CSS, which is the language used for styling web pages. https://docs.ankiweb.net/templates/intro.html https://docs.ankiweb.net/templates/intro.html ---- But you'd want AnkiConnect, or a Python-based addon for your workflow
- Macha 1y agoI do think that Wanikani and Bunpro are kind of in a catch-22 on this compared to Anki. They've built their gamification features and UI on the idea that cards have specific buckets that they're in and something like FSRS is a lot more varied than that. Especially Wanikani, which has a system of unlocking more items based on your current items reaching a specific stage.
- bpev 1y agoSo I haven't integrated FSRS, and of these two, I've only used Wanikani, and have been playing with a reimplemention for Chinese hanzi: https://hanzi.bpev.me https://hanzi.bpev.me But seeing how it's implemented, I think they could totally integrate something like FSRS to at least just replace their scheduling (how long until an item is next shown). The unlocking system can be implemented as a separate gatekeeping mechanism, and the buckets can be coded for certain step thresholds (instead of wanikani's "stage"). Basically, this is their entire srs system: https://docs.api.wanikani.com/20170710/#spaced-repetition-system-data-structure https://docs.api.wanikani.com/20170710/#spaced-repetition-sy...
- domenicd 1y agoI dream of building a WaniKani competitor that uses FSRS. Unfortunately it's one of those projects where 10% of the work is building, and 90% of the work is marketing/community building/evangelism. (And the 10% is not trivial work either!)
- bpev 1y agoSooooo.... ehe... I got a little inspired yesterday, and got a head start on that 10%: https://github.com/inro-digital/simple-tools/tree/main/packages/flashcards/schedulers#fsrs-levels-scheduler https://github.com/inro-digital/simple-tools/tree/main/packa... YMMV though, since I haven't user-tested it in my app yet haha. TBH though, I think for a true WaniKani competitor, need to reserve a decent % of work for building the dataset. Putting together all those mnemonics, cleaning up definitions, defining the order of introduction of characters and choosing words... is a lot of effort. There's a reason that WaniKani's so generous with pretty much their entire platform, but specifically states in their docs that the mnemonics/hints data doesn't belong to you... it's a large part of the effort. Although, I guess could be integrated into the 90% work if you make sharing mnemonics into a community effort.
- gitroom 1y ago[dead]
- bearjaws 1y agoSpaced repetition has been all the rage for 20 years now. Dozens of apps, thousands of lectures, and it turns out its not really a silver bullet. There's nothing really wrong with it, it's just that people tend to fall off the same way they do on any other education pattern. A couple years ago I was thinking "If Google and Apple really cared about kids they would make a spaced repetition unlock system", where by you have to make note cards every week and then have to answer correctly to get into your phone. (obviously requires some bypass system, other rules, etc) You could probably jury rig it with a popup that comes up after you unlock, but people would never install it anyway.
- huhkerrf 1y agoIf you're expecting it to be a silver bullet, then you're in for a bad time. You still have to do the work. It's a lever or a pulley, nothing more.
- jgalt212 1y ago> You still have to do the work Spaced repetition is doing the work.
- petesergeant 1y ago> There's nothing really wrong with it And a gigantic amount right with it. This is a strange comment because it shrugs off something that has been transformative and hugely useful to a lot of people because it doesn’t fix all conceivable problems.
- keiferski 1y agoI’ve been using Anki for about a decade now, and as far as I’m concerned, the only real improvements needed are design/UI based. It is functionally irrelevant if the algorithm is optimized or not when the actual user interface seems boring to potential users. While I do like that Anki has power user options, it’s also very unintuitive to the average person just looking into it. Which is really a shame, as the spacing effect itself is such an underrated aspect of human learning that it almost feels like cheating.
- arrowsmith 1y agoI love Anki but it’s an archetypal example of “designed by an engineer”. It’s powerful, with a lot of depth to its features - but it’s also hideous, clunky and unintuitive, and it takes a long time to figure out how to use it effectively. An HN-reading tech nerd can probably figure it out, but your average Duolingomaxxing normie? No chance.
- cenamus 1y agoSorry, but what's clunky about it? All buttons in reach of your thumb on the mobile app and usable keybindings on desktop? Is there not enough useless whitespace around every button?
- dustincoates 1y agoI'll give you one example. Occasionally, I come across something that needs to be not be shown anymore. I realize that the question wasn't a good one, or my template spit out something empty. Now, do I suspend card or suspend note? Every single time, I have to go search for which is the right one. (Okay, okay, maybe user error, but still.) Another example until recently was the extremely useful image occlusion enhanced add-on. Can you easily tell the difference between overlapping and nonoverlapping? At least they renamed those settings to the much more intuitive "Hide One , Reveal All" and "Hide All, Reveal One."
- felipeerias 1y agoI have been trying to use Anki for years. Every time it is the same story: I keep it up for a few months until I miss a couple days, then due cards accumulate far beyond what can be reasonably managed, and I end up spending more time trying to fix the app than actually learning anything.
- montebicyclelo 1y agoLanguage vocab seems a good use case. What other things are people here using spaced repition for?
- aeonik 1y agoEverything, I use it to memorize anything that doesn't stick the first time. I just don't use an app. I will challenge myself to remember things or practice things manually. It's probably sub optimal compared to structured spaced repetition, but it works well enough for me.
- Xelbair 1y agoI used it whenever i studied anything, but with a 'recursive' twist. Every time i did repetition, i've made a shorter note about the subject. Then next repetition cycle, i'm reading the note, and making shorter note based on it. and so on. once few cycles i'm re-reading the main starting note i made.
- petesergeant 1y agoMine has all sorts of shit in it. Mac keyboard shortcuts. Nautical terms. Cyrillic characters. Credit card verification codes. Phone numbers. Airport codes. Ionic component names. Names of my friends’ kids. A surprising amount of Z Specification. Anything I think it would be useful to remember.
- pcl 1y agoHow do you manage the data? Multiple decks or just one with everything? Do you directly use the app to add new phrases, or do you have some sort of automation / tooling on your phone or laptop?
- petesergeant 1y agoMultiple decks, although honestly I could probably get away with just one and tags. Almost always just use the app although I’ve used CSV import once or twice, and I grab the occasional pre-made deck too.
- Pooge 1y agoI'm sorry, I didn't read the article but I thought my experience would be a good anecdote. I've used Anki for multiple years and learned around 18'000 Japanese words. It's difficult to say but I'd say I've learned how to read around 5'000 kanji. When I studied in Japan, my kanji reading—don't mix that up with comprehension!—was way above everyone else's. And most of my classmates were either Korean or Chinese. That's what 10 minutes of free time—I did that during my daily train rides—can get you! Keep practicing. Being ignorant is the first step towards becoming more knowledgeable.
- cjauvin 1y agoThere's a surprising gulf between word recognition and overall sentence comprehension. I'm learning Farsi with a combination of Anki and Youtube videos and sometimes I find myself in the weird state where I recognize every word in a sentence, but yet cannot assemble its overall meaning.
- Pooge 1y agoI completely get what you mean and I had the same trouble. But keep at it, it will click.
- 55555 1y agoYeah there’s a few different levels. 1) not knowing the words 2) knowing all the words but not what they mean together 3) not being able to keep up with the speed at which the sentence is spoken…
- FranzFerdiNaN 1y agoNot buying at all that you learned 18000 words and 5000 kanji in ten minutes per day. Thats 60 hours a year for say five year, or 300 hours. Thats leaves you with about 70 words and/or kanji per hour or less than a minute per word/kanji. A rate which far surpasses native speakers. Anki works, it doesnt need these unrealistic takes.
- iamben 1y ago
- charcircuit 1y agoThe current version of the supermemo algorithm is SM-18. The author thinks SRS has gotten way better since the author was previously using an out of date version of the algorithm, SM-2.
- npinsker 1y agoSM-17 is linked from the benchmark repo: https://github.com/open-spaced-repetition/fsrs-vs-sm17 https://github.com/open-spaced-repetition/fsrs-vs-sm17, though I get the impression those numbers come with a dash of subjectivity. It seems fair to compare to older versions of the algorithm though because SM-17 is only used in the SuperMemo software (and Anki) and isn't widespread.
- mark38848 1y agoWhy does everybody want to learn Japanese? What makes Japanese so enticing? Why not Mandarin or at lead Spanish?
- Pooge 1y agoI'd say it's confirmation bias. In my personal circle, not a lot of people are interested in the Japanese language, but I know a few who took at least a few lessons on Mandarin or Spanish. I've learned Japanese and part of the reason is that I thought kanji were attractive. I remember watching anime on TV when I was a kid and seeing the opening credits with Japanese characters looked soo cool.
- wccrawford 1y agoFor me, it's about the media. I'm interested in Japanese anime and manga, and now light novels. I'm not at all interested in anything I've seen in other non-English languages, except possibly Korean now, since they seem to be producing a lot of stuff. However, almost everything that I'd enjoy gets translated to English for both Japanese and Korean now, so there's a lot less incentive to learn them.
- jwrallie 1y agoWhen I was a kid, most of the foreign culture I was exposed from came from the US, and then Japan followed with a small amount. No wonder my second language was English and third language Japanese. Never heard a single word of Mandarin in any media I was exposed to. I can understand Spanish very well but I do not count it as a learned language as it is too close to Portuguese (my first language).
- FranzFerdiNaN 1y agoOnline everyone learns Japanese, in real life i have never encountered anyone learning it, while i know multiple people learning French.
- dagw 1y agoJapanese media is quite popular, and many fans want to watch/read their favourite thing in its original language. This is probably the reason most people learn a language, and a huge reason why so many kids around the world speak English. Chinese culture doesn't have the same impact, yet. As to Spanish, most kids who want to learn Spanish can do so at school so there is no need to go above and beyond to learn Spanish on your own.
- OuterVale 1y agoFor anyone looking to read more about spaced repetition, Gwern's Spaced Repetition for Efficient Learning is worth checking out. https://gwern.net/spaced-repetition https://gwern.net/spaced-repetition
- SirHumphrey 1y agoI find with spaced repetition that it works really well for some well-known things like vocabulary (EDIT: well-known meant as "spaced repetition is well-known to work for this use-case, not well-known as "the subject is well understood"), medical etc. but for everything else it becomes a struggle for a long time. I have been trying for years to fined a way to use it for mathematics and physics - with the former being more of a focus and didn't really get anywhere. For definitions it works, but it's quite hard to write proofs in a way where there is a short obvious memorization based answer. Either you spend far too much time on a card or the card gives you too much information so you don't really test the knowledge. I also tried it for computer shortcuts - it seems to me that they are really useful only when part of the muscle memory - so practicing them works better then memorization.
- Muvasa 1y agoi've learned entire math topics calc 1, calc2, calc3, statistics, linear algebra with anki. It's really easy. Just add the parctice problems at the end of the chapter to the front and the answer on the back.
- sn9 1y agoYeah you're basically just using the algorithm to schedule review, just like going through old problem sets. It's the next best thing to getting an infinite stream of new problems of a type of problem.
- bawolff 1y agoI feel like its asking a lot to use flash cards to learn things that aren't about memorization.
- raincole 1y ago> it works really well for some well-known things like vocabulary And mathematics and physics, which are (at undergraduate level) even more well-understood than vocabulary.
- InkCanon 1y ago
- on_the_train 1y agoAnki is a good piece of software. But I couldn't come up with a worse scheduling algorithm if I tried (old and new one). It's like "here's the thing you just added one second ago. Here it's again immediately after. Ok you got it, you'll see it once again in a month or so lol". It makes it unusable and every time I tried I went back to my own self written program that just lets me set/adjust the intervals myself.
- dark_mode 1y agoWhen was the last time you tried? Anki used a static algorithm (SuperMemo 2) before the new FSRS - which is dramatically different. In the short term (first day), I think it's still better to set your own intervals (typicall 1 minute, then 5, then 10). But after that, the algorithm optimizes for reminding you just before forgetting. Highly recommend giving it a try.
- on_the_train 1y agoI try Anki every couple of years because it has an app and can sync. I also tried fsrs and rage quitted after a few tests. These people can get high and mighty on their algos and research. If they'd just add a manual interval mode they'd contribute a lot more to humanity.
- jarrett-ye 1y agoI guess what you need is Set Due Date, which allows you manually schedule cards in Anki.
- on_the_train 1y agoIn my own tool I can do "+10%" or "+2 days"
- jarrett-ye 1y agoGood feature! I guess someone could implement it via an add-on of Anki.
- cjauvin 1y agoWhat I find interesting about spaced repetition is the underlying thesis that raw memorization, in certain contexts, is playing a more important role for learning than what some modern education ideas would make you assume. In mathematics or programming, for instance, there is this idea that understanding a concept is better than memorizing algorithms or recipes (derivation methods for instance). But spaced repetition challenges that, in a sense.
- keiferski 1y agoIf you zoom out and look and the shift in educational systems from pre-industrial revolution to modernity, memorization is a key topic. Basically educational reformers wanted a switch from memorization-heavy classics-based education with lots of Latin and Greek – to one with less emphasis on memorizing and more technical focus, more “understanding” and so on. Like other big cultural shifts from the time, the correction was necessary but also probably went too far in the opposite direction. Which is a long way of saying that memorization is underrated and it mostly has a bad reputation from anti-Victorian reformers.
- wongarsu 1y agoMost modern programming lives by the idea that you don't need to remember something as long as you remember where to look it up. Of course that's only true for some things: I can look up an API call, but I need a reasonably complete working knowledge of the concepts offered by my chosen programming language and its idiomatic design patterns. In most cases this is maintained through application (practice is unstructured spaced repetition), but if I wanted to get into say C++-based driver development then spaced repetition would definitely help build and maintain the necessary knowledge
- InkCanon 1y agoI think the difference in recall- knowledgeable and logical-model-knowledge will be really interesting. LLMs appear to strongly be the first. But this is very hopeless on mathematics.
- Barrin92 1y ago>But spaced repetition challenges that, in a sense. Common sense challenges this honestly. Education systems that traditionally have put a strong focus on repetition, memorization and what you could call neuromuscular training (e.g China, the USSR, France) in particluar in STEM far outperform anyone else. Vietnam outperforms most rich countries. In programming circles it's a cultural cliche because our profession is full of people who go by: "I am a genius, I work smart, not hard", probably the most damaging idea ever uttered in education, and in the humanities it's seen as culturally unsophisticated. In reality, 95% of everything is mechanics. Starcraft, math, even literature and acting. Creative freedom is enabled only by a large body of effortless recollection.
- c7b 1y agoAre there any algorithms/plugins that are optimized for an on-/off-review style (ie, potentially months-long gaps between sessions)? I know that the ideal would be to do reviews every day, but I'm doing this for pleasure and I'd rather tweak the algorithm to what works for me than the other way round.
- Ey7NFZ3P0nzAe 1y agoI made this a long time ago, it uses embeddings to prioritize diversity: https://github.com/thiswillbeyourgithub/AnnA_Anki_neuronal_Appendix https://github.com/thiswillbeyourgithub/AnnA_Anki_neuronal_A...
- iandanforth 1y agoI wrote "Why Anki Doesn't Work for Me" (https://medium.com/@iandanforth/why-anki-doesnt-work-for-me-69ef1944943b https://medium.com/@iandanforth/why-anki-doesnt-work-for-me-...) six years ago, which means it was before the new algorithm was implemented. While Anki likely still suffers from all the other issues I mentioned, this directly addresses my point (3). I'm going to have to give it another try and see if the other points are still too much friction, or if the frustration caused by the algorithm was a majority of my pain.
- Alex-Programs 1y agoI switched to FSRS via the extension partway through my A levels. I also used the little google collab notebook to custom fit it to my learning patterns - I'm not sure if that's in the version that was merged into the main version. It about halved the amount of reviews I needed to do, and they didn't come up in bursts, so they were a lot more pleasant. I didn't quite believe it at first, and worried that it would be less effective, but it worked just as well if not better. I really recommend giving it another try!
- scalingpilled 1y agoI’m doing my A-levels at the moment with economics and geography still to go, do you have any tips or advice for leveraging FSRS / tailoring it to my learning style that is more specific to A-levels, based on your experience?
- Alex-Programs 1y agoGood luck! I personally used Anki the whole time, so if you're currently doing your exams some of my advice might not be super useful. I did maths, physics, and computer science. I didn't use flashcards much for maths - just for the irritating stats equations - but used it extensively for physics, and a little for compsci (I barely studied for compsci). During my GCSEs I extensively used them for history, which is probably the closest analogue to the wordy questions you'll get in geography. I used it for facts, order of events, etc. I found that the process of organising history into a well-organised Obsidian database, then distilling it into flashcards, was as useful as the flashcard reviews itself. I recommend separating your rough working during class (e.g. the short essays you write at the end of a lesson) and your organised notes, which I split into separate, interlinked concepts with flashcards at the bottom of the file synced with Anki via an extension. I suppose the advice I'd have is - Cloze cards are excellent, and you should use them - You can't flashcard your way to mental models. Absolutely don't rely on them alone, and you need to do practice questions for every separate question type you'll get until you're confident with the mental model itself. - That said, it's easy to get into the trap of remembering the answers to flashcards as words. While this lets you "learn" quicker, and speed up reviews, I found that I had much better real-world results when I tried to actually "load in" the mental model into my head. So for example, if I had a flashcard about refraction behaviour, I'd not just answer the question, I'd also visualise a laser going from air into water and how the behaviour of the light changed as the angle changed. For history, it's been a while, but if I had a question about one factor in a broader crisis (e.g. the Berlin Airlift) I'd try to think about the broader context of the question - not in my internal monologue, but just vaguely considering the various factors involved, the period of history, personally I instinctively visualise a map, etc, for a second or two before clicking for the answer. Edit: Oh, and the heatmap extension is great. It gives you streaks and a heat map that you really don't want to break!
- b0ringdeveloper 1y agoI like WaniKani because it forces me to type the right answer. When I tried Anki, it was too easy for me to "cheat" and press space for something I "kinda" remembered. I do agree with the author's phrase of "...a daily ritual of feeling bad about what you’ve forgotten..." though, and would like to try the new algorithm. Is there a way to configure Anki to force you to type the correct answer?
- david_allison 1y agoYou can set up Anki to force you to type answers; use Basic (type in the answer) when creating cards. 20 second video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mxEqRe1Pp1w https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mxEqRe1Pp1w It's possible to batch convert your cards to this format using Anki's "Card Templates" feature. https://docs.ankiweb.net/templates/fields.html#checking-your-answer https://docs.ankiweb.net/templates/fields.html#checking-your...
- amluto 1y agoMy personal peeve about Anki: I don’t like its data model. It seems to me that there ought to be collections of notes (which might be things one would download or generate with an LLM or make yourself or share with friends or students). On top of one or more collections of notes are the sets of cards to want to learn, and they can derive from the notes. This includes, roughly, templates plus some concept of which cards are enabled. On top of that is the spaced repetition history and model. There also ought to be a way to constrain what cards should be studied in a given session. (For example, if learning Chinese or Japanese, one might want to have a pencil and paper when practicing writing but not reading. When practicing without paper, one might want to skip the writing cards.) Anki doesn’t seem to separate these layers at all. Everything is a monolithic database. Import is unpleasant. Export is unpleasant. Sharing is unpleasant. Doing anything other than practicing and editing in the UI is unpleasant. And, every time I try Anki, I get stuck when I can’t manipulate my own data outside Anki. Is there any system out there that doesn’t have this issue?
- ape4 1y agoYeah, if you're learning a language, have a group of restaurant words and another group about air travel, etc. Then then user will associate them.
- runarberg 1y agoFor that I buy a vocabulary book, or a phrase book. As I read through it, and if I don‘t know a word or understand a sentence, I try to learn it using various methods, and create an Anki card to keep it in memory. Anki is just to retain the word. On a plus side, you can buy specialized vocab/phrase books, I have one just for onomonopias. Also my beginner vocab books come with recordings from actual native speaker voice actors, which I add to the deck. Much better quality than anything an LLM or speech synthesizers can give you.
- echelon 1y agoSeems like a YC business in the making. There's demand for improvements, and you already have your pitch. Sprinkle in AI and you'd be a shoe-in.
- the_arun 1y agoMakes sense. But is it same as “by heart”? If not, what is the difference?
- jwrallie 1y agoI wonder how it compares with the current SuperMemo. I experimented with SuperMemo around 18 months ago, and it made me fall in love with SRS again. The main reason being the algorithm is less punishing when I skip a day. Maybe it has better defaults? I once skipped a whole week and could get back on track in the next week, in Anki that feels unbearable. Another thing I really liked about it is that you can edit a card as you are studying without having to open a separate window, helps me stay in the flow when studying. But… With a better algorithm I might give it a try in the future… Being FOSS is the real advantage here.
- david_allison 1y agoCurrently under debate. FSRS is likely better than SM-17. No data on SM-18 Q&A/discussion: https://supermemopedia.com/wiki/SuperMemo_dethroned_by_FSRS https://supermemopedia.com/wiki/SuperMemo_dethroned_by_FSRS Repo: https://github.com/open-spaced-repetition/fsrs-vs-sm17 https://github.com/open-spaced-repetition/fsrs-vs-sm17 Discussion: https://discord.gg/qjzcRTx https://discord.gg/qjzcRTx => https://discord.com/channels/368267295601983490/1368952167179747428 https://discord.com/channels/368267295601983490/136895216717...
- dpkirchner 1y agoAm I reading this right, did users go through >10k repetitions on average?
- david_allison 1y agoGiven users were self-selected SuperMemo users who needed to use GitHub to upload exported stats, it feels a low (FSRS benchmarks average ~70k per user, filtered to a random selection of users with > 10k reps). I wasn't involved in the benchmark, and don't know whether `SM16-v-SM17.csv` is a full export. Didn't see any reviews before 2020, and it may only be an export of a subset of reviews. https://github.com/open-spaced-repetition/srs-benchmark/#dataset https://github.com/open-spaced-repetition/srs-benchmark/#dat...
- Llamamoe 1y ago
- JackDanMeier 1y agoI was working on a product which has FSRS implemented, and is heavily inspired by anki. The change we made was that rather than rate yourself, you have to type your answer and its graded by an LLM. It also has a button to explain the concept to you as if you are 5 (eli5) and you get feedback on your answer. You can also create the flashcards by uploading a pdf and then generate them from it. I've stopped working on it and am now building something highly similar aimed towards high school students, but any feedback is welcome. This version was built for uni students mimair.com - I never got around to adding any payment option so its completely free
- TheDong 1y ago> graded by an LLM This seems impossible to me. In anki, there's "hard", "good", and "easy" which are all for "I got this right". For my usage, "hard" is "I got it right, but I was only like 60% sure", "good" is "I had to actively think", and "easy" is "effortlessly correct, no real thought required". There's no way for an AI to tell if my identical input is the result of a 50/50 guess, or a little thought, or effortless recall. "delay to answer" also isn't a good approximation, I have a habit of alt-tabbing and chatting with a friend on random cards of any difficulty. I find distinguishing those levels of easy for totally identical answers ends up making SRS more effective, and AI just can't know my inner thoughts. Maybe once we have brain implants.
- JackDanMeier 1y agoYes, this is also something I have been thinking about, can an LLM really know how well I know something. There is the issue with the grading with again, hard, good and easy that I can cut myself some slack and say "I knew that" even when I didn't(and I have a strong memory of having done this myself). And there is the possibility of bullshitting the LLM and just all you know about the subject rather than the exact definition of the flashcard. I'm leaning towards any knowledge rather than specifying that the exact answer should be graded. Whats your take?
- TheDong 1y ago
- Hardwired8976 1y agoHow are people using Anki for maths? Any nice decks you could share?
- Expertium 1y ago[dead]
- theodorewiles 1y agoHas anyone tried to use an LLM to test questions / concepts in a broader way via spaced repetition instead of just memorization? Just wondering.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- covertcorvid 1y agoRemNote (https://www.remnote.com/ https://www.remnote.com/) solves the problems people are mentioning about 1) The time it takes to make cards. RemNote allows you to take Notion-style block notes and quickly turn bullet points into flashcards using symbols. For example, you might be in class and make a bullet point in the format - The quick brown fox jumps over >> the lazy dog which you can later review as a flashcard that is automatically separated front/back by the >>. 2) The old and unintuitive UI - again, basically just Notion with flashcards. You can easily view all your notes in a bullet hierarchy and then switch over to SR flashcard practice. Even has rich code blocks, image occlusion, tables etc. A much better implementation of Anki's notes/cards metaphor in my opinion. I am not sponsored by RemNote, just a university student who has bounced off Anki and really likes the app.
- golly_ned 1y agoRemNote is incredible.
- _1tem 1y agoAs a longtime Anki user I just want to say THANK YOU! Just downloaded RemNote for the first time and gave it a spin. I’ve been using Anki for years for language learning (Ukrainian and Russian and Arabic), but also for poetry memorization. Weird coincidence: a few days ago I was looking for an AI-powered flashcard creator: I get regular emails from curated sources that have lots of useful information, but I am too lazy to create the cards to remember the points. I just downloaded RemNote and tried the AI-generation feature: fed it an article from UkrainianLessons.com and I was amazed at how it gave me a list of useful flashcards instantly. This is a game changer. The ability to study and create “in context” is also amazing since not all information needs to be a flashcard. The Notion-like/Workflowy/Roam interface also looks like a joy to work with. Really hope this is not a fly-by-night startup, as I am really looking forward to a decade of learning with this thing after a previous decade with Anki.
- mfranzs 1y agoRemNote founder here - been building RemNote for the past 8 years (4 in private for myself, 4 in public), and we're not going anywhere! SRS is the future.
- sunkcapital 1y agoThis is something I’ve been tackling myself in the language app I’m making https://store.steampowered.com/app/3220820/Bilingual_Crosswords https://store.steampowered.com/app/3220820/Bilingual_Crosswo.... Right now, I’ve added a set of front loaded intervals: 2M, 5M, 10M, 20M, 40M, 2H, 6H, 1D, 2D, 4D, 8D, and so on eventually stretching to a full year. I’ve always felt this setup was a bit arbitrary and considered it a temporary solution. Thanks for saving me some time on research!
- david_allison 1y agoTake a look at https://github.com/open-spaced-repetition/ https://github.com/open-spaced-repetition/ As a quick hack, increase the factor to 2.5 once you reach 1 day. That's what Anki's SM-2 used to use (if only pressing 'good')
- ix101 1y agoThis looks like a fun app!
- linux2647 1y agoThe folks at SaySomethingIn, that originally started with Welsh and other Celtic languages, have recently expanded to Japanese. I haven’t tried it myself, but I’ve found some decent success with one of their other courses. It’s all about spaced repetition and focuses exclusively on listening and speaking. https://www.saysomethingin.com/en/ https://www.saysomethingin.com/en/
- neuroelectron 1y agoInteresting. Learning a language means speaking it.
- heroku 1y ago[dead]
- Knork-and-Fife 1y agoI used basically this algorithm in college with the following setup: Make a word document that lists all the keys to memorize vertically. Save as PDF Open the PDF in a viewer with annotation tools. Make a clickable note in the margin just next to each key. Write out the value to memorize in the note field. Cycle through the clickable notes. When you get one right easily, drag the note more to the left in the margin. As you cycle, focus on the ones furthest to the right. If you get one wrong, move it a bit further to the right. In general the notes will move to the left until you're comfortable with all of them. And the balancing of which ones you need to see and focus on plays out very naturally and you feel in control the whole time. There are many downsides with this compared to a tool like anki (e.g. I only used it on a laptop), but there was also something about it that just worked really well for me, so I never ended up switching to a different tool. But this was before anki had the similar algorithm described here. Maybe my experience would be different today
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- mandmandam 1y agoThis sounds interesting, but I'm not sure I'm picturing it right .. You wouldn't have an example file handy?
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- clircle 1y agoDoes anyone have tips for how to use space repetition to be a better knowledge worker? I feel like i could use it to have a better memory of business processes, but i dont know how to get started.
- broast 1y agoI just let chatgpt quiz me anki style on topics I'm learning
- latentsea 1y agoChatGPT isn't a spaced repetition system, so... it's missing the fundamental aspect that makes it "Anki style". This comment doesn't make sense.
- broast 1y agoAs I understand, anki's use of spaced repetition comes from how it presents you cards in increasing or decreasing frequency based on how you have answered it previously. In this way, I prompt chatgpt to ask me questions, and it revisits previous questions or topics for me based on how I've answered previously. I continue the same conversation periodically prompting it for questions to ask me.
- latentsea 1y agoIt's an LLM, not an SRS.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- 300hoogen 1y agohow to ace any uni theory course > download all pdfs > merge pdfs into one > compress > write a very specific prompt for gemini to turn these into anki cards separated by a semicolon > do 50 anki cards a day for 3/4 weeks before exam not a single lecture attended top of my class (ku leuven). feels like cheating honestly
- andy12_ 1y agoYou are so right. I just began doing this today for my exams, and it really feels like cheating with how easy it is. That, and also creating a podcast with NotebookLM with all the pdfs as source and using as a prompt "Make this a long summary for studying".
- joshdavham 1y agoIf anyone's interested in experimenting with FSRS, we at Open Spaced Repetition provide official packages in Python, Typescript and Rust PY: https://github.com/open-spaced-repetition/py-fsrs https://github.com/open-spaced-repetition/py-fsrs TS: https://github.com/open-spaced-repetition/ts-fsrs https://github.com/open-spaced-repetition/ts-fsrs RS: https://github.com/open-spaced-repetition/fsrs-rs https://github.com/open-spaced-repetition/fsrs-rs Currently ts-fsrs and rs-fsrs support FSRS 6 and py-fsrs should also support FSRS 6 in the next day or so. Also, both py-fsrs and fsrs-rs include the ability to optimize the FSRS model from your past reviews!
- marcusbuffett 1y agoI used this for spaced repetition for opening training on Chessbook, can vouch that the Rust package is excellent. Easy to use and immediately lowered the training load on our users while keeping retention high. FSRS is awesome.
- Oreb 1y agoI use Chessbook and mostly like it, but I wish there was a way to configure the spaced repetition parameters. In particular, I find the frequency of reviews too low to retain well, especially for recently added moves.
- adangit 1y agoFor Ruby folks — I’ve forked the FSRS gem to fix an issue where new cards were being spaced 60 days apart instead of 60 seconds: https://github.com/arvindang/rb-fsrs https://github.com/arvindang/rb-fsrs Originally adapted from the Python version linked here.
- Expertium 1y ago[dead]
- kazinator 1y agosystemS? There is only one program out there that is viable: AnkiDroid. Anki runs on desktop: you have to be chained to a desk rather than taking advantage of idle moments when you are on-the-go. Even if you have it on a laptop, you still need a place to sit; SRS on mobile can be used anywhere, like standing-room-only public transit. The AnkiMobile companion app for iOS is a paid app that is somehow chained to the desktop version, whereas AnkiDroid is a full-featured clone of Anki that you could use air gapped without ever syncing anything to or from another device. It has integrated management of decks and note creation/editing. Every other SRS app out there is just playing very distant catch-up to Anki/AnkiDroid. They usually mention Anki in their pitch, trying desperately to explain why some very minor and very subjective negative point about Anki is worth switching to their massively inconvenient solution.
- collyw 1y agoAnki works well in my opinion, but the initial setup isn't at all intuitive.
- maxdarapper 1y agoJust added FSRS to my free mac flashcard app. If interested, check it out https://apps.apple.com/us/app/flashcard-max/id1430950704 https://apps.apple.com/us/app/flashcard-max/id1430950704
- cubefox 1y ago> If we step back, we realize that this scheduling system (called “SuperMemo-2”) is pretty arbitrary. Where does the rule of 1, 6, 2.5times correct + 1, reset back on failure come from? It turns out it was developed by a college student in 1987 based on his personal experiments. Can’t we do better? Note that Anki uses (used) such an old algorithm because it derived it from an ancient open source version of SuperMemo, a software which started the spaced repetition trend. Anki just added a usable GUI instead of the convoluted mess that is SuperMemo. Newer versions of SuperMemo improved the algorithm, but they are no longer open source. I wonder how FSRS compares to current iterations of the SuperMemo algorithm.
- Expertium 1y agoThere is an ongoing discussion with the creator of SuperMemo about the comparison: https://supermemopedia.com/wiki/SuperMemo_dethroned_by_FSRS https://supermemopedia.com/wiki/SuperMemo_dethroned_by_FSRS
- celltalk 1y agoSuper nice, thank you for this post! Based on this I've updated the vocabulary learning scheduling in DuoBook (https://duobook.co https://duobook.co) to FSRS based. We should be up to date with the science based learning :)
- LVB 1y ago> Thankfully, the leading spaced repetition software, Anki, has incorporated FSRS as its default scheduling algorithm since version 23.10, released in 2023-11 I've used Anki for a long time and apply updates, but I don't closely track changes. Based on the above, I figured I'd be using FSRS, but I'm not. All of my decks have that setting turned off. Fair enough (no silent updates to existing data), but even when I create a new deck, I have to turn the FSRS setting on manually. I found the same even with a whole new profile. What aspect of this is "default"? Is there a global setting I'm missing? I'm glad it's available, though, without any plugins!
- Expertium 1y agoFSRS is not the default, idk why the author phrased it that way. But it will likely become the default this year or next year.
- david_allison 1y agoFSRS is not a default yet: https://github.com/ankitects/anki/issues/3616 https://github.com/ankitects/anki/issues/3616
- domenicd 1y agoThis was a mistake in the article. Sorry about that, and I've fixed it now!
- TechDebtDevin 1y agoPro Tip , if you're using LLMs to learn, create an MCP tool for them to insert Anki cards on topics you're discussing in a csv on google drive, then sync that with you anki decks on your phone. This was a game changer for me and working with LLMS, while I still think they make you dumb, and we essentially use them to offload critical thinking (almost only find myself using them when tired lazy, and just cant), if you must use them use them as a study tool.
- maxwellg 1y agoChatGPT 4o's voice mode has been mindblowing for me for learning basic Mandarin. I'm sure I will hit the limits of the model sooner or later, but it has been so much fun bouncing around my apartment and asking what various objects are called / if words are related to other words. It is phenomenal for putting together short little sentences and getting immediate validation on grammar too. No MCP on ChatGPT yet, but I can ask chat to generate an output of what we reviewed in a structured format.
- MostlyStable 1y agoI created a python script that checks my anki deck for the cards that I'm scheduled to review the next day and asks an LLM to generate new sentences for the cards, so that every time I see them, I see them in a new context. I did this because I realized I was hitting an issue where I theoretically "knew" a word (would get it always correct on the card), but wouldn't always recognize it in a novel context. I'm hoping that having the context be variable when I'm learning it will help fix this issue.
- AlchemistCamp 1y ago> ”I realized I was hitting an issue where I theoretically "knew" a word (would get it always correct on the card), but wouldn't always recognize it in a novel context.” Some of the problem is due to the specificity of the training effect. I.e., if you mostly practice something through flash cards then you’re going to be training your ability to work with that on flash cards. With language, there’s an additional challenge—many if not most words have different meanings in different contexts.
- ouija 1y agoInteresting. I was never really happy with any spaced repetition algorithm, so I recently implemented my own dumb system which simply asks you for the number of days after which the card shall be shown again: https://github.com/kldtz/vmn https://github.com/kldtz/vmn Usually my intuition about how well I know something is not too far off. If you don't specify anything, it doubles the time since the last review.
- qrobit 1y agoI had a similar problem where I can't remember the answer to the card, but after revealing it, it seemed too easy to make it due in a few days, so I would lie to the program and press Hard/Good. Later I removed scheduling times on top of buttons and decided to trust the algorithm. I believe it helped me to stop caring about schedule times and loosing progress on a certain card. After all, these algorithms were made for ordinary people with ordinary memory behavior.
- ouija 1y agoI think my problem is that I'm not using the system as intended. I learn new vocabulary mainly by reading texts or watching videos in the target language and use spaced repetition to keep track of my progress. If I can't remember a word (as indicated by SR), I'll reread the text/rewatch the video where I've first encountered it. I don't want to keep reviewing the same word in my spaced repetition program, especially not in the same session.
- tootyskooty 1y agoThey have gotten better and I think it's clear they'll continue to get better :). FSRS is already good (I use it both in Anki and for periplus.app), but looking at the benchmarks [1] there's a lot of room left for improvement. One direction could be to incorporate semantics, which afair FSRS doesn't do at all yet. A good flashcard deck will have a lot of semantic overlap, e.g., a card for the vocab word itself, that word in a sentence, etc. Struggling with one component is a strong signal you'll struggle with another. The same thing could be done for just better spacing, so you don't "cheat" by having too closely-related cards next to eachother in a review (the review signal will be less noisy). [1] https://github.com/open-spaced-repetition/srs-benchmark https://github.com/open-spaced-repetition/srs-benchmark
- Expertium 1y agoUnfortunately, the 10k dataset for the benchmark does not include any text/media files, as sharing that publicly would violate Anki's privacy policy. Regarding accuracy, FSRS-6 is pretty good: https://imgur.com/a/calibration-of-different-fsrs-versions-KfJ32EV https://imgur.com/a/calibration-of-different-fsrs-versions-K...
- jarrett-ye 1y agoYes, we can improve FSRS in that way. But it requires to collect a lot of review data with cards' content, which breaks Anki's privacy policy. And FSRS is my side project which has squeezed all my free time... I'm not very motivated to improve it now.
- aaldrick 1y agoI see a lot of discussion about SRS, and I think most can agree they have improved. What I would like to see covered is a more vague area, but almost more important: It’s the space in between reading/understanding something and the SRS. There are almost no standalone tools dedicated to creating flashcards easily from existing programs (web browser, PDF readers etc.) into popular SRS (Anki, Mochi etc.). They should work almost as OS additions to make everything feel native and frictionless; I don’t need another standalone tool that does X Y and Z, I just need some sort of pipe into an SRS that is Mac friendly and does the job whilst not being in the way. If someone knows of such a tool, I would love to hear about it.
- _1tem 1y agoJust tried RemNote with their AI-generated cards features and so far looks amazing. They can generate cards from PDFs, webpages and notes.
- aaldrick 1y agoThank you - I'll give it a try!
- aaldrick 1y agoOkay on first try, this seems promising, I'll try the pro sub tomorrow properly and take it for a proper spin, but: - I read a lot of PDFs. I can click a sentence and have it suggest cards, or fill my own. That's already a great start on the "space in between".
- prezjordan 1y agoI just loaded Hacker News after a WaniKani session. Any recs for moving this into Anki? I already use Anki for cards I created while going through Genki with my tutor, and world capitals.
- domenicd 1y agoI've thought about this problem myself a lot. I don't have a great answer. The easiest thing I can think of is just grab https://ankiweb.net/shared/info/369908962 https://ankiweb.net/shared/info/369908962 , and schedule everything you've already seen in WaniKani for immediate review, heavily relying on pressing easy to try to get things into a longer interval if you already feel you know them. This probably works best if you're relatively low-level on WaniKani. You might be able to use the WaniKani and Anki APIs to automate this to some extent. Googling around, it seems others have run into this, e.g. https://community.wanikani.com/t/export-wanikani-srs-progress-to-anki-guide/33530 https://community.wanikani.com/t/export-wanikani-srs-progres... and https://community.wanikani.com/t/userscript-wani-kani-export-anki/61177 https://community.wanikani.com/t/userscript-wani-kani-export... look promising. https://www.reddit.com/r/LearnJapanese/comments/n1pihp/why_you_should_study_wanikani_through_anki/ https://www.reddit.com/r/LearnJapanese/comments/n1pihp/why_y... also seems good.
- caturopath 1y agoWhat is everyone using spaced repetition to memorize?
- Gys 1y agoI found it a little annoying that SRS is immediately explained to mean Spaced Repetition System, but then the F is added without explaining what it stands for. Most references of the article do neither. Except https://github.com/open-spaced-repetition/fsrs4anki/wiki/The-Algorithm https://github.com/open-spaced-repetition/fsrs4anki/wiki/The... which says the F means Free. Seems a little too easy? I found nothing else. Chatgpt says it means Flexible, which actually makes more sense? Anybody else can chip in?
- jarrett-ye 1y agoWhat does the 'Free' mean in the name? The algorithm (FSRS) supports reviewing in advance or delay. It's free for users to decide the time of review. And it will adapt to the user's memory. Meanwhile, spaced repetition is one essential technology to achieve free learning. FSRS runs entirely locally and has no risk under others' control. source: https://github.com/open-spaced-repetition/free-spaced-repetition-scheduler https://github.com/open-spaced-repetition/free-spaced-repeti...
- Expertium 1y agoSRS usually means "spaced repetition system", but FSRS stands for "Free Spaced Repetition Scheduler". https://github.com/open-spaced-repetition/fsrs4anki/wiki/ABC-of-FSRS https://github.com/open-spaced-repetition/fsrs4anki/wiki/ABC...
- ayrtondesozzla 1y agoWhen "FSRS" is first used it's a clickable link, and the first sentence on that link is: > FSRS (Free Spaced Repetition Scheduler) is a modern spaced repetition algorithm that was developed by Jarrett Ye. If I do a search of "flexible spaced repetition software" I get no results, which strongly suggests the dumb guesser you're using guessed something plausible to placate its user. This is common behaviour for this type of software. In summary, I politely suggest you critically review how you interact with knowledge on the internet.
- candrewlee 1y agoDo any of these algorithms use vector embeddings to determine the semantic similarity between cards? Seems like that might be a useful parameter for tuning the algorithm, since you’re likely to forget something similar on a topic you’ve forgotten things about.
- Ey7NFZ3P0nzAe 1y agoThat was actually my very first python project, I made this to go through medical school: https://github.com/thiswillbeyourgithub/AnnA_Anki_neuronal_Appendix https://github.com/thiswillbeyourgithub/AnnA_Anki_neuronal_A...
- candrewlee 1y agoVery cool, same wavelength!
- Expertium 1y ago[dead]
- babush 1y agoI wish there was some SRS-like tool but for learning music.
- henning 1y agoSM-2 is very easy to implement and is still an effective memorization tool. A lot of the difference in that graph seems to come from 70% vs. 90% retention.
- colinnordin 1y agoI’m sure the algorithm can play a huge role in the effectiveness of learning but for me the difficult part was always creating the cards and actually opening the app to practice. I've built Komihåg [1] to try and combat this: Select any text on your iOS device and a flashcard is automatically created for you, and the app is then showing you the cards on the Home Screen / Lock Screen / Apple Watch Face. I haven't gotten to implement any sophisticated scheduling algorithm yet but will definitely do that eventually. [1] : https://komihag.com https://komihag.com
- wintermutestwin 1y agoCool idea. I’ll check it out. It would be cool to do something like this for single word highlights on an e reader. If I have highlighted a singe word it is because I want to add it to my vocabulary.
- durkie 1y agoI was looking to use this with the iOS Books app, but I can’t share text to your app from there (but something like safari works). Any idea why?
- colinnordin 1y agoI found this: https://developer.apple.com/forums/thread/762784 https://developer.apple.com/forums/thread/762784 Looks like share extensions are not generally available inside the Books app, which is why my app is not showing up. Thank you for making me aware of the issue!
- appleaday1 1y agoHi Duolingo.
- matt-attack 1y agoThis should be a first class feature in iOS. Hey Siri teach me what elide means.
- justinator 1y agoWhat's the go-to SRS app now (I'm still on Anki)
- ralferoo 1y agoI'm not ready to share a link to my actual implementation yet, but I've been working on an SRS system for Chinese and been using it as my daily driver for about 3-4 years now, after previously using Anki and getting frustrated with how reviews pile up after a couple of days off. I've done lots of tweaking to the algorithm over the years to make it feel like I'm less surprised by the scheduling, and less like a slave to it. One very stark difference between mine and Anki is that I have a large number of "overdue" cards, but the system still prioritises when to show me the overdue cards with quite a few different metrics based on how overdue it is, how new it is, how long the current interval is, etc. So, like Anki, I still just double the interval for correct cards, but for incorrect cards, the reviews are repeated same day until they're correct, and then the interval is reduced a lot more than Anki. So, the cards then become overdue sooner, but because the scheduling of overdue cards is better, they get pushed later if your overdue queue is too large, and sooner if you've not got anything more useful to review. FWIW, my typical session is 40 minutes per day during my daily lunchtime walk, and I'll get through about 150 cards in that time. If I'm on a long train journey, I'll often clear out double that or more, but the disaster situation of being on holiday for a month might leave the queue with a couple of thousand extra cards, but they never seem unmanageable. Even after a 2 month break when I was travelling last year, and only doing reviews on flights and trains, I'd definitely forgotten some words from not reviewing at the appropriate time, but the percentage of totally forgotten cards felt better than I used to experience after just missing a few days with Anki. One thing the article mentions that I don't massively concern myself with is desired retention. I'm not sure I'd want to express it as a target percentage, but I've definitely been thinking about how I want to change things to deprioritise stubborn words without just suspending them or deleting them. I definitely find that having them keep showing up, so I might see a pattern of them wrong twice each day before finally getting them right, after a few days of that they do usually suddenly stick for good. But sometimes I look at the word and think I don't really care if I remember it or not.
- clarity8 1y agoI've used Anki on and off for a few years and I've had exactly the same problem. I would love to see your implementation, even if it's not finished yet! It sounds like it would be very useful to many people.
- scotty79 1y agoI'd love to have a system that shows me what I already know well as rarely as possible, because that's the most frustrating part.
- adangit 1y agoI’m solo-building a free Anki alternative using the Ruby FSRS gem: http://cadence.cards/welcome http://cadence.cards/welcome Would love any feedback—I’m aiming for a more focused, restful take on what I like most about Anki. Styling is done with Tailwind.
- collyw 1y agoThe benefit of Anki for me has been the decks that I have downloaded more than the app (I have downloaded 3 or 4 for learning Spainsh and some are a lot better thought out than others). If you are going to gain any traction I would suggest trying to convert some popular Anki decks to your app.Otherwise it will be like the Ubuntu phone I bought a few years ago. Nice product, but next to no content / apps, making it a lot less useful than it could have been.
- milst 1y agoWhat’s a good way to learn to understand concepts in a spaced-repetition way? I’ve used anki before for remembering facts or answers to specific questions, but is there a standard way to setup spaced repetition flashcards to learn, for example, when to apply a certain software pattern or something?
- pillefitz 1y agoA while back I built https://readboost.io/ https://readboost.io/ but so far never advertised for it. The idea: Embed Q&A into your ePubs and optionally download Anki cards for your book. Probably gets buried here, but maybe someone finds some value in it.
- BlimpSpike 1y agoThe author bashes other algorithms for being "arbitrary", but I don't see how FSRS is any less arbitrary.
- phendrenad2 1y agoI gave up on spaced repetition systems, even my paid memrise subscription, because I couldn't find good flashcard sets. To create good flashcards, you need some domain knowledge. An AI can pick facts from wikipedia and quiz you on them, but it takes a real human to identify what knowledge is relevant and worth learning.
- Buttons840 1y agoI would pay for an e-ink tablet dedicated to notes and spaced repetition. (I know there are e-ink note taking tablets, but none of them have spaced repetition.) I'd like to be able to take freehand notes, and then be able to block out, or blur, certain sections and each blocked or blurred area becomes a spaced repetition entry. Or, in more detail. I'd like to look at a page of notes and loop select a certain area. That selected area becomes a spaced repetition item. After the initial loop selection I can do another loop selection to blur one or more areas that would be blurred. Etc, etc.
- david_allison 1y agoThere's a number of happy Onyx Boox users using AnkiDroid. You can probably do what you want with the in-built image occlusion feature. Might be worth downloading an Android emulator and seeing if we meet your workflow requirements.
- windowshopping 1y agoHmm, I have Anki and I don't see an option for this algorithm. Anyone know how to enable it? The preferences say I'm on the "V3 scheduler" but have no option for an algorithm. I don't think I'm on the algorithm described in the blog post because whenever I don't know a card it goes back to 1 day as if it was new. Or maybe I am on it and I'm just misunderstanding how this works? I'm on Mac, Version 2.1.66 (70506aeb).
- david_allison 1y agoYou're on an old version of Anki. Once you upgrade, FSRS is available under the deck options.
- _Algernon_ 1y agoGo into the deck preset options (any deck is fine). Look for the FSRS section and check if the toggle is enabled. If it's not there you probably are on an old version. https://docs.ankiweb.net/deck-options.html#fsrs https://docs.ankiweb.net/deck-options.html#fsrs
- yearesadpeople 1y agoThat tutorial guy on YouTube, Derek Banas, swears by Anki. He's quite the voracious learner as well as being a pretty good contractor. I've used it myself (sparingly, when taking on new projects with new technology stacks), and never really committed to it because of the somewhat static and predictable nature of the learning session (as described in the article; the algorithm). However, from learning about the upgrade (well, 2023 upgrade), I will try it out again: high hopes.
- toomanyreps 1y agoI have been using Supermemo daily (except for when I miss a day or two, vacations with no desktop, etc) since about 2010. I have found the newer algos to be pretty good. I have not had any bugs or a messed up collection. Its one of the pieces of software that is keeping me on Windows. There is still no foss replacement for incremental reading/writing [1]. Also, Supermemo has two modes that lets you skip a few days without being overloaded [2][3]. So you don't go from 20-30 cards to 200 if you skip a day. That being said, its just another tool in the toolkit for learning stuff. I don't think I'm that much smarter or better at anything just because I have used Supermemo often for awhile. Honestly, I just like making cards and throwing articles I want to read later into Supermemo for processing. Most of what I use Supermemo for is incremental reading, which I have never been able to find a good replacement for. I like being reminded of cool stuff I have read and ideas that I have had. I would recommend also learning and practicing various mnemonic techniques alongside spaced repetition. Most of the other algos/apps I have tried have been okay, I have not tried FSRS because I don't really use Anki anymore. I used Anki when I was in college for about 2-3 years because I would do flashcards using the mobile app. I was still using Supermemo daily during the same time period though. I also use Clozemaster for language vocab with Supermemo. I put the sentences and some explanations into Supermemo after I do them in Clozemaster. I do not really consider myself to be a language learner or learning a language. I pick up new vocab very slowly and do not do anything else to practice the languages I am learning vocab from. I have also been using Math Academy almost daily for about seven months which is nice, but definitely not a full replacement for learning math. Using Math Academy actually made me start working with math textbooks and online resources again. [1] https://www.help.supermemo.org/wiki/Incremental_reading https://www.help.supermemo.org/wiki/Incremental_reading [2] https://www.help.supermemo.org/wiki/Postpone https://www.help.supermemo.org/wiki/Postpone [3] https://www.help.supermemo.org/wiki/Mercy https://www.help.supermemo.org/wiki/Mercy
- smeeger 1y agolanguage learning is 100% memorization. eventually your brain memorizes all the phrases that click into “situation-space,” for every possible situation there is a memorized response. language can be broken down into situational meta-phonemes. using flash cards and grammar is just a way to bootstrap yourself into memorizing all the appropriate responses for any given kind of situation.
- trane_project 1y agoI am the creator of Trane (https://github.com/trane-project/trane/ https://github.com/trane-project/trane/) which can replace Anki and similar systems for domains that have a well-defined hierarchy between subskills (turns out that's most of them, including learning vocabulary). There are several unresolved issues with Anki, SuperMemo, at al. 1. Emphasis on memorization. I wanted something that could be applied to domains (music) whose scoring is not based on memorization, but mastery. 2. Lack of any hierarchical information limits how well it works to learn much larger skills. It's trivial to replicate the functionality of Anki with Trane: just have one lesson where you put all your exercises. Anki cannot replicate what Trane does, which is to use the dependencies of the many sub-skills to track and limit progress until mastery is achieved. 3. Emphasis on creating your own exercises. You are expected to come up with your own decks, which takes a lot of time. For complicated skills, you need to be a domain expert to really know how to do this. Trane is pretty much done, and I have used it to teach myself music. It does not have a UI at the moment, so I am pretty sure I am the only user. Not that I mind, because I rather not work for free. Currently working on a literacy tutor that will be built on top of it. When it's complete, it will be able to guide all students from learning their A-B-Cs to reading and writing at college level, backed by the most up-to-date research on reading and writing acquisition. Hopefully I will be able to release an MVP in the middle of the year.
- kragen 1y ago> For complicated skills, you need to be a domain expert to really know how to do this. (...) I have used it to teach myself music. It sounds like you must have had some interesting difficulties with that, not having been a domain expert in music. What were they and how did you overcome them?
- trane_project 1y agoI have been mostly working on a set of courses based around backing tracks I got from a course called “improvise for real”. So I only had to make the structure of those backing tracks explicit, which only required knowing the circle of fifths.
- socalgal2 1y agoI probably need to go read the studies but of SRS is so great, why aren't all schools just SRS farms (or are they?) Especially for language study, as a friend put it, speaking a language is like learning a musical instrument, no amount of book studying will teach you how to play the instrument. The way you learn to play is to play. And similarly, the way you learn to speak is to speak. Sure, you can fill your vocabulary, but I question a little how much it helps in context. Obviously it's not zero. I'm sure curious, if there are better methods than SRS for language learning given that hearing, creating, understanding, and speaking whole sentences is the goal, not individual words. I can generally learn a new word in my native language with one exposure, no SRS needed.
- melagonster 1y agoThis is why they added more and more exams into class. Basically, a test for content from the last class is a type of SRS.
- nmca 1y agoOne could train a language model to predict task difficulty (and other parameters) here, which would be great for the initialisation of new cards
- pawanjswal 1y agoSuper insightful. FSRS sounds like the upgrade I didn’t know I needed for my Anki habit!
- echan00 1y agoI'm building a language app based on using LLMs and spaced-repetition. We generate cards that respond to speech to evaluate card recall and pronounciation (via speech recognition). We don't market it as AI but behind the scenes we use LLMs to explain the context behind every word and phrase, offer additional usage examples and cultural notes, and also generate roleplays based on specific topics & scenarios. Happy to pass along invite codes to anybody who wants to check it out. https://getdangerous.app https://getdangerous.app
- kkarich 1y ago[dead]
- vintermann 1y agoYeah, my immediate thought when reading this was that it's great they've replaced a formula with a better formula, but couldn't it be replaced by something smart? An LLM could in theory be content-aware, taking into account that this card reinforces these associations, which makes this other card easier to recall but this third card harder to recall. And it may even be able to say, this card is related to a more central concept, it should get priority because that will help in the longer run. In the long run, the appeal of machine learning to me is that we can move up the stack of what we optimize for, so instead of targeting a proxy metric, say a certain recall ratio, we might actually be able to target directly the thing we care about, say ability to use these things in practice. Moving upwards in the teleological hierarchy.
- john01dav 1y agoLLMs should only be used where hallucinations can be tolerated (either low stakes, like a video game; or where competent human review exists). What you describe is neither of these scenarios. You may be trying to memorize something that's not low stakes (and if it's low stakes why bother memorizing? Just make it up as you go), and if you're using study tools you're probably not (yet) competent enough to check for mistakes.
- Herodotus38 1y agoI haven't seen it mentioned yet with CTRL-f and I haven't used Anki in a while, but has there been work put into modifications in Anki or other programs using spaced repetition along with interleaved practice to also see if that improves studying. Interleaved practice explainer: https://openlearning.mit.edu/mit-faculty/research-based-learning-findings/spaced-and-interleaved-practice https://openlearning.mit.edu/mit-faculty/research-based-lear...
- wodenokoto 1y agoI think it’s important to note that the original SRS algorithms are not for learning. They or for remembering or “not forgetting”. The system assumes you have already learned the fact (for some unclear to me definition of learned) Most users inserts new words in the hope that repeating them in anki will help them learn. It does to some extend, but it is not quite the right tool. So for example, in Japanese, simply remembering how to read a word out loud is a task in and of itself. If you put words in context (which in language learning makes sense) the learner will quickly start to recall the meaning of the word based on the look of a sentence. For a learning system this open up a lot of issues to solve. The best attempt I’ve seen was a web app that gave you full sentences and you clicked the characters word you didn’t understand and based on that it would give you different sentences. There are two problems with that website: I don’t remember what it was called and it used google translate from 10 years ago. The second could be improved by expanding the corpus and use LLM to form sentences for the learner.
- fauxswede 1y ago[dead]
- LordDragonfang 1y agoPoint of feedback: I know it says it in the link, but it would be nice if an article almost entirely about FSRS actually spelled out what it stood for even once in the body of the article. (Free Spaced Repetition Scheduler, in case anyone was wondering)
- kebsup 1y agoI've been looking into FSRS since I'm building a language learning app[1], but I haven't implemented it yet. Can FSRS work if I don't want to have 4 choices - bad, good, hard...? I have found myself to get into a decision paralysis so just bad/good works better for me. Plus I can swipe the cards tinder style! :D My second reason is that I'm worried about the complexity - both from non-nerdy users perspective and me having to debug it. [1] https://vocabuo.com https://vocabuo.com
- prennaidd 1y agoYes. Some months ago, I forget whether it was v5 or maybe before, the 2 button grading approach meant that it actually performed better for users (ie. it performed better for users that explicitly only used two grading buttons). I don't know if this is replicable with v6, or not. I would be interested to find out!
- Expertium 1y ago[dead]
- farresito 1y agoAccording to the FSRS author [1], it will adapt to two buttons. [1] https://www.reddit.com/r/Anki/comments/16t2lva/comment/k2corgj/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Anki/comments/16t2lva/comment/k2cor...
- Expertium 1y ago[dead]
- NiloCK 1y agoSRS is wonderful. The improvements in the linked article are real and laudable. But they are comparatively narrow and technical compared to the improvements that need to be made in usability and scalability (of content dissemination and navigation). Shameless: I am working on a FOSS SRS platform / toolkit that I believe can take some substantive steps forward here. Can read some at http://patched.network http://patched.network, or poke around http://github.com/patched-network/vue-skuilder http://github.com/patched-network/vue-skuilder
- dyeray 1y ago> And the idea that you’ll literally never see a card again after the last interval is terrifying, as it means you’re constantly losing knowledge. This and other stuff I read on the article makes me thing that this person is maybe over-using the SRS. In my opinion, although OP is clearly way smarter than me, at some point we need to graduate from SRS, read native material, in Wanikani probably at first 100% of time needs to be dedicated to SRS and gradually time on SRS needs to be reduced and increased on reading native material, once on a reading level which is good enough so new vocabulary appears sparsely enough, what is the point on grinding an SRS? Most people don't even reach level 60, I don't see the point on being on lvl60 and still stay there grinding leeches. In the end SRS is not an end, it just gives you a mapping, an automatic translation from A to B without context. It is just a temporary bootstrap so you end up fixing it through real material afterwards. However, I think Wanikani should allow to suspend leeches, for sure. Regarding Bunpro, I bought it, but I'm more convinced with time that SRSing grammar is probably not the best idea, and I think they could do a lot better if they had better exercises, like "not exactly an SRS", just selecting varied exercises for you every day. PS: I remember seeing an expert in languages recommending that all cards you add to Anki need to be deleted after 2 months. If you didn't learn it by that time and it is important it will come up again and you will re-add it. Not sure if I agree with this either, but between this, and having a word forever there must be an intermediate point.
- anotherpaulg 1y agoI wish Anki could dynamically adjust the new cards introduced each day, based on whether you get them right or wrong on first viewing. Getting 10 new cards that I happen to already know is easy. That's very different than getting 10 new cards that I get wrong, and therefore need to memorize. I'd love to have 2 settings like: - Max number of new card fails, say 4 - Max number of new cards, say 20 After 4 fails on new cards, Anki would stop showing new cards for the day. But if they're all easy, I might get up to 20 new cards in a day. Fancier versions could use a decaying average of new card fails from the last few days. Those recently memorized cards are more challenging during review.
- Sharon886 1y ago[dead]