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Anki: Memorization with Spaced Learning

apps.ankiweb.net

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Re: Anki: Memorization with Spaced Learning

#91

Post by jameshart »

I'm always a little confused when I see articles on the internet extolling the virtues of spaced repetition learning. I don't doubt that it's a good way to memorize things; it's just that I have never really found that memorization was ever an obstacle to my ability to learn something. I've always found that retention proceeds from understanding.

Time spent flicking through flashcards for vocabulary or formulae or chemical paths or whatever seems like a poor substitute for time spent reading material that uses the vocabulary, explains the derivation of the formulae, or describes the chemical process, or whatever...

Is this just about passing tests, or is this genuinely how other people approach learning?

Re: Anki: Memorization with Spaced Learning

#92

Post by graeme »

irq11 wrote: post #68
graeme wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks. So, I'm actually doing it as a side thing while learning German. I have found I can't do two languages at once, but that learning the characters doesn't interfere. I should finish them by April or so, and be advanced enough in German at that point that I can switch to Japanese. At which point I'll do Pimsleur and Assimil. I think having the character base will accelerate that process. I previously tried Pimsl…

Someone who fails. The usual pattern is: new learner goes all-in on RtK, makes it a month or two, then gives up after realizing that they’re making no discernible progress, even though they “know” lots of kanji. There are useful parts of RtK, but they’re the parts Heisig didn’t invent: radicals and mnemonics. You can (and should) employ both, but in the context of words. As you learn words, the “meanings” of kanji wi…

Yeah, I could see that happening. I'm not expecting it to be a panacea, just a mild accelerant I can actually do while waiting to finish with German.

What do you think of that plan? My assumption is that I'll better be able to learn the words in the Pimsleur course the second time around when I can see the writing, and that this will make the overall process easier. It felt like too much, cognitively, the last time.

And at my current pace, the Kanji are about 30 min per day, so it mostly feels fun. If I were doing more I don't think it would be worthwhile, it would be stressful.

Re: Anki: Memorization with Spaced Learning

#93

Post by aasasd »

xkfm wrote: post #86
aasasd wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a plugin for Anki for incremental reading: https://github.com/luoliyan/incremental-reading (Though I'm not sure how the internal database structure works with that, I think you can't save the whole text along with a deck instead of individual notes―but maybe addons can change that.)

I tried it awhile ago, and it didn't work well, but I'll try it again. Incremental reading is kind of finicky to get right. Incremental reading is the real draw of these programs for me, and Supermemo (despite it's flaws) is kind of the only one that has a decent implementation of it.

Ah, then the plugin likely won't work for you, as Alki is already not a paragon of usability for editing, and since the plugin is bolted on the existing app, it probably results in an inferior experience for such an interface-sensitive task, compared to a specialized app.

I just thought that it might be of interest for people already using Anki and curious about incremental reading.

Re: Anki: Memorization with Spaced Learning

#94

Post by josephst18 »

jameshart wrote: post #91

I'm always a little confused when I see articles on the internet extolling the virtues of spaced repetition learning. I don't doubt that it's a good way to memorize things; it's just that I have never really found that memorization was ever an obstacle to my ability to learn something. I've always found that retention proceeds from understanding . Time spent flicking through flashcards for vocabulary or formulae or c…

I’ve found it to be immensely helpful in medical school. I only add cards after I understand a particular concept—read about a concept first, then add cards to make sure I retain it. The most popular decks on r/medicalschoolAnki have many thousands of premade cards; with additional cards for microbiology and pharmacology, people may have as many as 20K Anki cards by the time they take Step 1 (standardized national exam of basic medical knowledge) after 2 years of medical school.

With this approach, Anki is much more about retention than learning. Books and lectures are good for learning, but Anki is ideal for ensuring I can remember side effects of a particular heart medication months or years after cardiovascular lectures ended.

It’s certainly useful for passing tests too, but the main value is in retaining knowledge long after a particular test has been taken.

Re: Anki: Memorization with Spaced Learning

#95

Post by theonemind »

jameshart wrote: post #91

I'm always a little confused when I see articles on the internet extolling the virtues of spaced repetition learning. I don't doubt that it's a good way to memorize things; it's just that I have never really found that memorization was ever an obstacle to my ability to learn something. I've always found that retention proceeds from understanding . Time spent flicking through flashcards for vocabulary or formulae or c…

General guidelines for spaced repetition tell you not to memorize things you don't understand anyway, and say that you only waste your time by doing so.

In general, it helps with indefinite retention. And if you don't do something often, or regularly, any permanent footholds offer some scaffolding to get back up to speed quicker the next time you need to do it.

As a problem approaches looking like learning a language, spaced repetition gets more useful. If you learn a second language, you will probably hit a plateau if you never try to memorize anything, because language has a large set of symbols, some infrequently used, but still critical in some situations.

It probably helps anywhere that "deliberate practice" and "memorization" almost overlap in how they work or in effectiveness, say, in memorizing program hot-keys.

Re: Anki: Memorization with Spaced Learning

#96

Post by drivers99 »

baxtr wrote: post #57
AlphaWeaver wrote: post #2

I started using Anki a few weeks ago when the SuperMemo article popped up on HN. I really like it, and it has helped me remember key terms and learn a new language, all in a really short time... Feel free to ask me questions if you're confused about how it works! I'm fairly experienced now.

I want to learn Spanish. I have a basic vocabulary and understanding. What’s the fastest way forward in your opinion?

"Fluent Forever" has a suggestion of putting a picture (from, say, google image search) on the front of the card, and the foreign word as the answer. That way you test yourself by producing the correct word without translating it from language 1 to language 2.

Example for Spanish:

Front: picture of a "gatito" from google image search. Back: gatito

The word "kitten" is not used at all. No translations!

The reason you search images in the foreign language is that sometimes the foreign word has a different connotation, and isn't a direct translation. (The example he used was for "girl" in Russian. девушка supposedly means "girl" and yet when you search it, it's (mostly) seemingly a certain type, not "girl" in general.)

Re: Anki: Memorization with Spaced Learning

#97

Post by swaggyBoatswain »

dylanbyte wrote: post #87
Sirupsen wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This article is the best summarization of real, everyday usage of Anki outside of language learning and medical studies which are common uses of Anki. Reviewing flash cards is the highest leverage 10-15 minute habit I have besides planning my day. There's a certain joy and relief from having a reasonable confidence new information will be readily available to you for years to come. Much knowledge is better absorbed t…

Is there a convenient workflow for kindle highlights - > flashcards?

To my knowledge, there's no kindle API

https://forums.developer.amazon.com/questions/68355/regardin...

Upon research, there's a few tools like https://readwise.io/ and clipping.io which are chrome extensions.

They webscrape your homepage highlights here:

https://read.amazon.com/notebook

https://read.amazon.com/kp/notebook?ft

Readwise is like evernote for kindle highlights. It sends 10 or so highlights as a daily message email.

Re: Anki: Memorization with Spaced Learning

#98

Post by kristofferR »

dylanbyte wrote: post #87
Sirupsen wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This article is the best summarization of real, everyday usage of Anki outside of language learning and medical studies which are common uses of Anki. Reviewing flash cards is the highest leverage 10-15 minute habit I have besides planning my day. There's a certain joy and relief from having a reasonable confidence new information will be readily available to you for years to come. Much knowledge is better absorbed t…

Is there a convenient workflow for kindle highlights - > flashcards?

https://github.com/neingeist/kindle-to-anki

Re: Anki: Memorization with Spaced Learning

#99

Post by irq11 »

graeme wrote: post #92
irq11 wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Someone who fails. The usual pattern is: new learner goes all-in on RtK, makes it a month or two, then gives up after realizing that they’re making no discernible progress, even though they “know” lots of kanji. There are useful parts of RtK, but they’re the parts Heisig didn’t invent: radicals and mnemonics. You can (and should) employ both, but in the context of words. As you learn words, the “meanings” of kanji wi…

Yeah, I could see that happening. I'm not expecting it to be a panacea, just a mild accelerant I can actually do while waiting to finish with German. What do you think of that plan? My assumption is that I'll better be able to learn the words in the Pimsleur course the second time around when I can see the writing, and that this will make the overall process easier. It felt like too much, cognitively, the last time.…

To be honest, I think you’d be better off just studying words. Studying kanji really doesn’t help you.

Re: Anki: Memorization with Spaced Learning

#100

Post by axiomek »

About a week ago I developed a browser plugin for chrome and firefox which replaces the new tab page with anki flashcards to review. The idea is that with it, each time I open a new tab I will review a few cards, thus making it more lightweight than an hour-long anki session. If anyone is interested the code (licensed under The Unlicense) and links to the web stores can be found at https://github.com/corollari/ankiTab Note: In order for it to work you need to be logged in ankiweb.net
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