Anki - Memory Cards

[Ghost!]

http://www.absoluteastronomy.com/topics/Anki

Anki, seems really interesting. Has anyone ever used this program to practice VCE LOTE? I'm Indonesian SL in particular, but any comments anyone has would be really interesting.

Thank you!

[Furbob]

I found it quite good after using it for a while but after x amount of time I began to neglect it
I want to try to get the iPod app for it so I can carry it anywhere I go but it's such a rip ($25-ish) and I cant find it under jailbroken apps either

[IntoTheNewWorld]

I used it throughout VCE and still use it to this day (and hopefully into the future), and I must say it is

the most awesome thing I have ever used.

A few points I've picked up about using it are

• if you do use it, use it every single day, or it will absolutely punish you with review cards. Even missing a few days will mean you can get hit by hundreds of reviews, which will kill your motivation and you will most likely give it up (as I have discovered many times). This means you should not set the number of new cards per day to be too high, or you'll regret it very, very soon. My current setup is 10 new cards a day per deck (2 decks, Korean and Japanese), resulting in 43 cards to review today for Japanese, and 104 cards for Korean, as I do better on Japanese. The default is 20, and I do not recommend going over this as you will die. If you find yourself not keeping up, just drop the new cards down rather than missing days. With 20 new cards a day, this means you're learning 140 words a week
• I also find that adding cards yourself is better than downloading premade decks. There are a lot of premade decks out there, and it is very tempting to just download one, but I don't find it to be as effective. These days I just add cards from whatever I'm reading, i.e I'm currently adding Japanese from a manga, Korean from a Korean textbook.
• An alternative technique to entering single vocabulary words is to enter in whole sentences into Anki. I did this for a while, but I didn't really like it, as it took too long to review, and didn't end up helping too much anyway. I prefer just entering in single words, and then getting context by reading stuff later, rather than force context into my Anki cards. I find that using Anki gives you a sort of "hook" to remembering words, and then when you see it in context again at some point, you notice it more, and it is very likely you will remember it

In other words I endorse Anki I can honestly say that just after using Anki my vocabulary increased significantly, so I didn't have to use a dictionary during the exam, and was essential in getting the score I did. It's just that awesome.

Of course your mileage may vary. I'm the sort of person that forgets things instantly after learning them, so Anki really helped me reinforce vocab.
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[werdna]

Does Anki support Latin?

[IntoTheNewWorld]

Does Anki support Latin?

it supports anything

"Anyone who needs to remember things in their daily life can benefit from Anki. Since it is content-agnostic and supports images, audio, videos and scientific markup (via LaTeX), the possibilities are endless. For example:

learning a language
studying for medical and law exams
memorizing people's names and faces
brushing up on geography
mastering long poems
even practicing guitar chords!"

http://ankisrs.net/

[werdna]

Anki is EPIC! I've only used it for 5 minutes and I've already learnt 10 new Latin words! I also like how it gets you to constantly review what you've learnt.. I get too lazy doing this manually/by myself.

[Ghost!]

IntoTheNewWorld and Furbob, thank you so much for your response. I found it a few nights ago and with some rave reviews, looks great for Indo.

So, you've found using whole sentences less effective NewWorld? I was going to use it for General Conversation skills, for my oral. What if I broke it down into sentence fragments, maybe that would work?

Also, you can shorten your review time all the way down, yeah? I was reading from a Japanese forum were a guy said that he had his Anki sessions timed at 2 minutes so he could do it on the train, or a short car ride (hopefully he wasn't driving) :3

2 minutes a day for a whole year WOULD BE INCREDIBLE.

Thank you so much for your tips!

Oh, and werdna, congratulations with finding success in Anki!

[IntoTheNewWorld]

IntoTheNewWorld and Furbob, thank you so much for your response. I found it a few nights ago and with some rave reviews, looks great for Indo.

So, you've found using whole sentences less effective NewWorld? I was going to use it for General Conversation skills, for my oral. What if I broke it down into sentence fragments, maybe that would work?

Also, you can shorten your review time all the way down, yeah? I was reading from a Japanese forum were a guy said that he had his Anki sessions timed at 2 minutes so he could do it on the train, or a short car ride (hopefully he wasn't driving) :3

2 minutes a day for a whole year WOULD BE INCREDIBLE.

Thank you so much for your tips!

Oh, and werdna, congratulations with finding success in Anki!

I think it's more that the sentences I were using had too many new words at the same time, and got a bit overwhelming. I can see how it would be useful to memorise General Convo though.

Also, I'm pretty sure that 2 minute guy meant that he timeboxed it into 2 minutes so he could do 2 minutes a few times a day, because I really don't see how 2 minutes a day would be very helpful. I would aim for a minimum of 10 minutes a day to be truly awesome.

[werdna]

This beats handwriting flashcards. It's so much more effective and quick... but I will make a few flashcards just for the sake of it. Right now, I'm just downloading as many Latin files as I can from the database - just rehearsing some vocabulary and grammar. No full sentences for me; Latin doesn't have an oral component!

[Ghost!]

IntoTheNewWorld and Furbob, thank you so much for your response. I found it a few nights ago and with some rave reviews, looks great for Indo.

So, you've found using whole sentences less effective NewWorld? I was going to use it for General Conversation skills, for my oral. What if I broke it down into sentence fragments, maybe that would work?

Also, you can shorten your review time all the way down, yeah? I was reading from a Japanese forum were a guy said that he had his Anki sessions timed at 2 minutes so he could do it on the train, or a short car ride (hopefully he wasn't driving) :3

2 minutes a day for a whole year WOULD BE INCREDIBLE.

Thank you so much for your tips!

Oh, and werdna, congratulations with finding success in Anki!

I think it's more that the sentences I were using had too many new words at the same time, and got a bit overwhelming. I can see how it would be useful to memorise General Convo though.

Also, I'm pretty sure that 2 minute guy meant that he timeboxed it into 2 minutes so he could do 2 minutes a few times a day, because I really don't see how 2 minutes a day would be very helpful. I would aim for a minimum of 10 minutes a day to be truly awesome.

Awesome, thank you so much.

[werdna]

I'm using Anki on Mac at the moment - but right now, I'm just clicking any random buttons for the next card to pop up. How do I actually use this program?

On the bottom, there are 4 buttons:

Soon - Again
11 hours - Hard
4 days- Good
8 days - Easy

What does this all mean? And how do I introduce new cards into my sessions? (I keep seeing the same cards over and over only)

[IntoTheNewWorld]

I'm using Anki on Mac at the moment - but right now, I'm just clicking any random buttons for the next card to pop up. How do I actually use this program?

On the bottom, there are 4 buttons:

Soon - Again
11 hours - Hard
4 days- Good
8 days - Easy

What does this all mean? And how do I introduce new cards into my sessions? (I keep seeing the same cards over and over only)

The buttons refer to how easy it was for you to remember the cards, the times indicate how long the program will wait to show you the card again. For example, if you know a card very well, press "8 days - Easy", and it sill show you the card again in 8 days. If you do not know a card at all, Press "Soon - Again" and sure enough, Anki will show you the card again soon (i.e a few minutes). These times are not fixed - Anki uses a "Spaced Repetition" algorithm to determine the best time to show you a card again, so for that card which you clicked "8 days - Easy", 8 days later that card will come up again, and if you click "Easy" again, it won't show you the card 8 days later, it will show you the card even later as it knows you know it well. Eventually the times will be measured in months when you perfect a card. This is the power of Anki as it makes sure no cards fall through the cracks - it will make sure you know everything in your deck, while not wasting your time on cards you know well. If you keep clicking "Soon", it will keep showing the card repeatedly until you know it, and less and less as time goes on.

Each day the program will show you a number of cards (default is 20). That may not seem like much now, but trust me, it will seem like a lot very, very soon. Anki only shows its power over time, if you get overexcited and bump the number of cards shown in a day to something like 60, it will become very, very, very, very painful about a week later when Anki swamps you with reviews. So tommorrow, Anki will review the cards you did today, as well as add 20 new cards, and so on.

I suggest watching these videos http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c0dI2VyLDWw

[Furbob]

I think I will pick up Anki again soon since im doing both Japanese 3/4 and MUEP = twice the vocab quizzes!

but IntoTheOldWorld is right, make your own decks, you'll be more motivated~it's like writing your own notes rather than copy+pasting

*edit*

woo got AnkiMobile on the iPod, time for vocab rape

[shinny]

Hmm, think I might use this too actually for Med study. Use to use stuff like 'Quizlet' but this seems more powerful - especially over long periods of time as IntoTheNewWorld pointed out. Memorising hundreds of drug names is tedious work @_@

[slothpomba]

I actually posted Anki in a thread awhile back, i guess you guys are just discovering it.

I didn't actually use it for a language but i did use it for Biology.

It works really well, in my opinion anyway.

You absolutely must stick to it though or the whole theory its based on just falls to pieces.

It's also a bitch to make all the cards at one time, i made all my cards at the end of the year, 20 cards a chapter... 20 something chapters... it got tedious, the act of making the cards that is. I think it would work a lot better if you actually put in things as you learn them every-night or at the end of a week. I also had a lot of duplicate questions and questions that were very similar, try to weed them out, i guess this would happen a lot less if youre doing a language.

One of the problems i had was my deck of cards got so huge it took awhile to review them all and some of you may encounter this; that said they did take this into consideration. I do think its a very well designed piece of software, especially for the price you pay as well.

Just my 2 Cents.