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Learning with Anki (not just review) | ||
Tags: Anki | Spaced Repetition (SRS) | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Learning Techniques, Methods & Strategies |  | |
| Jeffers Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4690 days ago 2151 posts - 3960 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: Hindi, Ancient Greek, French, Sanskrit, German | Message 9 of 14 14 May 2015 at 7:40pm | IP Logged | ||
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One of the things I don't like about SRS programs is that the software controls the SRS, whereas I'd rather take a bit more control. I really like the old-fashioned SRS box idea in which the learner decides when it's time to move a card to the next level. However, the convenience of having access to my cards anytime/anywhere means I keep using Anki.
Anki has a "learning mode" which is what happens automatically when you start a new card. One thing that happens is that you will see the card several times on the same day. The way I utilize Anki for new information is to increase the learning mode "steps". To do this go into a deck, click Deck options then click New cards and add steps. For most new material I use the following steps: 1 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 15 20. That means I will be passing a card 13 times before it will become mature and enter the general SRS process. The reason I use a series is that I have an idea how many passes I've given a card and how many more I'll have, and it is of course a spaced interval which is useful for learning as well as for reviewing. Using the learning mode like this allows me to visit and revisit a new set of cards at several intervals over a couple of days. (Note: the reason there are two "1"s at the beginning is because the first is for what happens when you click "again" and the second is for what happens the first time you click "good"). At any time in the process you can click "Easy" which gives a 3 day interval and moves the card from learning into SRS mode. When I first did this I only included the steps 1-10, but I have found having two more spaced a bit further out helps prevent me from passing a card I still have trouble with into SRS mode. If I get to the 15 minute review and feel like I need more practice to really get the word, I have the option to fail it so I can keep repeating it. Better to fail a card on the first day or two and try to learn it again than for that card to keep coming up as a difficult one. Using this method, new cards usually remain in learning mode for 2-3 days by which time I hope I've learned them. After I press "good" on the 20 minute interval the card enters general SRS mode. I actually got the idea for doing this from thinking about how Pimsleur lessons work. I used to complain about Anki that it expected you to wait a whole day before you see a new card again. Yet in a Pimsleur lesson you will hear a word 15 times in the first half hour, and then several times again the next day. 5 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Rozzie Senior Member United States Joined 3193 days ago 136 posts - 149 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 10 of 14 25 July 2015 at 7:57am | IP Logged | ||
I like your idea I just started Anki a couple of days ago and I am still trying to figure the system out. I will have to play with it some more and try and use your idea. Thanks. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| ScottScheule Diglot Senior Member United States scheule.blogspot.com Joined 5009 days ago 645 posts - 1176 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Latin, Hungarian, Biblical Hebrew, Old English, Russian, Swedish, German, Italian, French | Message 11 of 14 27 July 2015 at 7:23pm | IP Logged | ||
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Hmm, I use Anki for all my learning as well as memorization (so far as that distinction's a real one). Which is to say, many of my flashcards, particularly initially, are drilling grammar rules. Something like the following would be typical:
Swedish: Front: "What are the three basic parts of the Swedish verb?" Back: "Supine, preterite, and imperative." Typically, I learn the fact first while I'm typing it up. Essentially, I take a text and I Anki it: that is, turn all the facts in the text into flashcards. Works well for me, and if you need any other advice about doing this, let me know. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| YnEoS Senior Member United States Joined 4035 days ago 472 posts - 893 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Russian, Cantonese, Japanese, French, Hungarian, Czech, Swedish, Mandarin, Italian, Spanish | Message 12 of 14 27 July 2015 at 11:37pm | IP Logged | ||
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For languages that are in a different family than any you already know and have no transparency, I've found that a good Anki deck is by far the fastest way to learn the basics. If you can get a deck with a few thousand sentences with audio, where each sentence has only 1 new item to learn in it, you can learn at a much faster rate than any traditional course I've seen on market. The major roadblock to this is that there are relatively few great anki decks available.
The main problem with most courses is that they can't know you're learning pace and can never perfectly match up to the progress fo your brain, and often a lesson is big enough, that it's difficult to review the old ones regularly. Pretty much any course could have its content converted into a much more efficient Anki deck. Look at Pimsleur for example, its a great setup, each word is built up syllable by syllable and then added into sentence patterns you already know, so that you're reinforcing you're existing body of knowledge as you learn more. But each lesson is stuck in a 30 minute audio file, and despite the claims, there isn't enough review built into Pimsleur, and often its just 1 or 2 words that've been forgotten in a 30 minute lesson. So if you want to review it means sitting through lots of easy material which quickly go from automaticity to mind numbing boredom. If you don't review and the next lesson introduces a new word into a sentence pattern you've partially forgotten, you'll slowly start to fall behind the expected learning pace. If the same sentences were put in an Anki deck, and you only had to review the ones you got, you could complete the same material at a much faster rate. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| tangleweeds Groupie United States Joined 3356 days ago 70 posts - 105 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Irish, French | Message 13 of 14 28 July 2015 at 5:34am | IP Logged | ||
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It's interesting to revisit my own thread after a few months, and I can't help noticing
that my learning rate has decreased significantly after a few months of without Anki. Interestingly, I still remember most of what I learned via Anki, despite not having SRSed it in months. But the new stuff I tried learning without Anki just hasn't stuck anywhere near as well. Part of why I stopped Anki-ing was the time spent creating cards, but in retrospect I think the work done to create the cards was actually a meaningful part of my learning process. Even the audio editing helps, as I loop each phrase or sentence as I'm typing it into the audio file label or into a card, which helps to "earworm" it into my auditory memory. My Anki "notes" have several fields, including audio, and 5-6 different cards are created from each note, so that I need to recognize phrases by hearing them, or type them in without errors, or pronounce them accurately, as well as having the standard LI -> L2, L2 - > L1 translation cards. Because each word, phrase, or sentence generates several cards, I spread out the repetition timing to compensate. Anyway, in retrospect it's interesting how well I still remember the stuff I learned via Anki, even though I completely neglected the recommended spaced reviews that SRS is all about. I just used Anki to flashcard drill stuff into my brain to learn it in the first place, and it stayed learned quite nicely. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| cathrynm Senior Member United States junglevision.co Joined 5906 days ago 910 posts - 1232 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese, Finnish | Message 14 of 14 29 July 2015 at 6:42am | IP Logged | ||
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I keep trying to advance to using more natural methods, just listening and reading, but, really, I find that most of what I actually still know has come from flash card programs. Also I've had exactly the same experience, I go back to an old flash card deck and find I still know most of it. Those words are hammered in well, I think. For me, it always comes back to flash cards eventually.
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