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Changing the way you use anki | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Learning Techniques, Methods & Strategies |  | |
| dongsen Newbie Taiwan Joined 4744 days ago 30 posts - 44 votes Speaks: English | Message 1 of 23 16 October 2011 at 2:11am | IP Logged | |||||
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This may be a "duh, of course!" for some people but it is new to me. Last week I wrote a mostly
misunderstood post about how the length of my anki review que was getting in the way of me studying new words. My course I am taking requires me to learn about 40 words per day. However I found that I barely have enough time to complete my entire review queue when I am doing 20-30 words per day, so I had decided that if I want to use anki (and I do) I had to to limit myself to study 20 words per day to prevent my review queue from getting too large. Obviously only learning half of the words I needed to learn was creating a huge problem! So this week I have setup anki to force me to study only the first 40 words FIRST, to the detriment of the review queue. As result I have had to let my review queue backlog grow out really large. But as a result it means, for this week, I have started to catch up on all the words I need to know, and so far there seem to be no hugely negative consequences of letting my review queue spin out of control. I will just review whatever I can when I have time. Considering that I am already reading and listening to chinese content, the fact my entire anki queue is not all getting reviewed, is looking like it might not be such a bad thing. Anyway I just wanted to share this in case it helps anyone else in their progress as well. I will update again in a few weeks with any conclusions I have regarding this newly found concept of ignoring the length of your review queue, Especially given that I have the sort of personality who finds letting the queue grow out very stressful (: Edited by dongsen on 16 October 2011 at 2:15am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Bao Diglot Senior Member Germany tinyurl.com/pe4kqe5 Joined 5701 days ago 2256 posts - 4046 votes  Speaks: German*, English Studies: French, Spanish, Japanese, Mandarin | Message 2 of 23 16 October 2011 at 3:02am | IP Logged | |||||
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If you wait it out for long enough and then answer correctly, the word will get a much better rating and you'll soon have a lot of words that appear only after two weeks or a month even though you've seen them only two or three times. If you actually know them, of course. I think that's not a bad way to filter out the words one already knows, even though I'm too lazy to use anki.
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| tibbles Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5126 days ago 245 posts - 422 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Korean | Message 3 of 23 16 October 2011 at 8:12am | IP Logged | |||||
But the problem is these words do eventually come back and will rain down like a ton of bricks when you have to wade through 500+ reviews in one sitting. The only thing I have seen that could combat this is deleting the words from the deck before they come up for review. I still think this aspect of Anki is a serious shortcoming; it simply doesn't scale well for large word counts. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| aokoye Diglot Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5476 days ago 235 posts - 453 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Dutch, Norwegian, Japanese | Message 4 of 23 16 October 2011 at 5:22pm | IP Logged | |||||
This is one of the main reasons I don't like using Anki. Right now I have to learn around 30-40 words a day for the class that I'm in. That alone, for me, is a bit of a daunting task, then add on the fact that there will be massive review sessions...it's just not how I learn. That said Anki also just doesn't work well for how I first learn a word in regards to putting it into my short term memory. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Bao Diglot Senior Member Germany tinyurl.com/pe4kqe5 Joined 5701 days ago 2256 posts - 4046 votes Speaks: German*, English Studies: French, Spanish, Japanese, Mandarin | Message 5 of 23 16 October 2011 at 10:08pm | IP Logged | |||||
As I said, wait it out, or better: adjust the intervals until they work for you. Anki is a tool for reviewing, not for initial learning. It's only logical that when you start out, you have only few reviews scheduled, and when you keep on adding many new cards everyday the number of reviews will skyrocket. But if you choose to show your new cards first, and then the cards from the longest interval and set a limit to the time you use for reviews every day, the program offers you the cards you need to review most urgently and you can sort the wheat from the chaff because every card you answer correctly after it was due will end up with an even longer interval; and if your interval settings work, you won't run up too much of a backlog. Oh, and you do need to take note of the words you fail and figure out why you failed them, of course. Failing after an interval that works for most words means that you didn't actually learn them from the start, that is, that the neural pathways weren't stabilized or were dismantled when you didn't use them. So you do need to find a way to actually learn that word, or the same will happen again. I didn't think of mentioning that because to me, it's a given. Edited by Bao on 16 October 2011 at 10:47pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| jimbo Tetraglot Senior Member Canada Joined 6229 days ago 469 posts - 642 votes Speaks: English*, Mandarin, Korean, French Studies: Japanese, Latin | Message 6 of 23 17 October 2011 at 12:33am | IP Logged | |||||
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How about making a new deck every now and then?
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| slymie Tetraglot Groupie China Joined 5163 days ago 81 posts - 154 votes Speaks: English, Macedonian Studies: French, Mandarin, Greek Studies: Shanghainese, Uyghur, Russian | Message 7 of 23 17 October 2011 at 4:23pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I use Anki as a review tool and nothing more. At the end of the week I enter all my
learned words and review when I have time on the subway or waiting for friends. I can understand how some words can easily be learned by just seeing the word and its English translation (i.e. 海马 = Seahorse) but a really bad method for something like 应酬 = Social intercourse. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| leosmith Senior Member United States Joined 6485 days ago 2365 posts - 3804 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Tagalog | Message 8 of 23 20 October 2011 at 5:20pm | IP Logged | |||||
That's a lot; how long are you expected to keep up that pace? Anyway, here are my recommendations. Sorry if I repeat what some others have said. Don't try to use anki to initially memorize the words; it's very inefficient. Use lists for 1-4 days in a row. After that Method 1) Stick them in anki for about a month, then delete them. Hopefully it's like you said - you're getting enough reinforcement through reading to make it work. You may not even need anki at all. To state the obvious, the more reading you do, the less important anki is. or Method 2) When you forget a word, stick it in anki deck. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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