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Anki as Learning Superpower: Computer Science Edition

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Re: Anki as Learning Superpower: Computer Science Edition

#171

Post by asdasdasdas5453 »

patresh wrote: post #135
marta_morena_28 wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah that works for the first 1000 words perhaps. Then you run out of images to show. Many of the more complicated words simply can't be disambiguated by images. Learning words by translation is totally fine. The point is not to use this as your ONLY learning method. You use it to SEED words. Once you know like 5000 words, you will be able to read books and also look up words in same-language dictionaries. But still…

Learning words by translation is fine but what the book argues is that it's very inefficient, because you seed them with respect to your original language so you build a habit of going back and forth between the languages when trying to come up with a word instead of staying immersed. The advantage of images is first of all that visual cues are very powerful for memory, the more senses you associate with a memory the…

I tried to define Japanese words from the ground up starting using emojis and then using the word already defined to define more complex words.

https://drdru.github.io/stories/intro.html

It is doable. There is a book called Lingua Latina per se Illustrata that does it for Latin. I have to admit that it has some limits. At some point you want to go back to using your mother tongue. English is not my first language. I live in the UK everything I read is in English. There are some words I have seen a thousand times and I sort of know what they mean but they become mine only after I look up for their translation.

Re: Anki as Learning Superpower: Computer Science Edition

#172

Post by sn9 »

m3kw9 wrote: post #37

Isn't Anki good only for memorization? Spaced repetition doesn't seem to help learning how something relates to another logically like how to determine when to use what programming patterns.

Yes you don't use Anki for understanding.

First you understand something, then you convert that understanding into flashcards so it sticks in your long-term memory.

Re: Anki as Learning Superpower: Computer Science Edition

#174

Post by a-dub »

Normal_gaussian wrote: post #157
a-dub wrote: post #154

Tried anki in college, found that creating the cards took too much time and doing them was boring. What did work for me was really simple. A single 8 1/2 by 11 double sided sheet of paper could usually fit everything I needed to memorize at one given time. I'd write out a cheat sheet (a very valuable exercise in condensing and distilling while reviewing) and then reproduce it from memory before and after bed three da…

and many years later? As I understand it the benefit is to have strong recall over longer than just an exam or university course; more like for an entire career stage. How far into your career are you, and how much of the material you learned in this way have you retained? Have you fairly tested the retention?

like anything it's use it or lose it. memorization works for short term, continued application in different settings is what makes it stick.

Re: Anki as Learning Superpower: Computer Science Edition

#175

Post by [deleted] »

ablekh wrote: post #124

I have just installed Anki on my Windows 10 computer and was disappointed to find that it has no ability to scale the application's UI or, better yet, configure font size (and, maybe even font family) on a per-component basis. If any Anki developers are reading this thread, please consider this comment as a relevant feature request.

[deleted]

Re: Anki as Learning Superpower: Computer Science Edition

#176

Post by sn9 »

HaoZeke wrote: post #11
barry-cotter wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rote learning absolutely does help with comprehension. If you understand all of the words in “ Tod mach’s mir leicht, wenn du kommst vor deiner Zeit” reading it and understanding it is trivial. If you have to look up each word individually your comprehension will at best be enormously slowed. The same principle applies if what you’re reading is a chemical formula, a logical proof or a description of a historical even…

Probably for languages, but even still I would assert memorizing a dictionary is less informative than reading 50 books.

No one memorizes dictionaries for language learning.

There are frequency lists of vocabulary words for languages: basically some words are used more frequently than others so memorizing the most common 1000-3000 words is enough to get very high comprehension rates for everyday conversation and reading.

https://blog.fluent-forever.com/vocabulary/

Re: Anki as Learning Superpower: Computer Science Edition

#177

Post by BeetleB »

wendyshu wrote: post #148
BeetleB wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's common for me to read something, and forgot it even existed. I can't look it up unless I know it exists. With flash cards, I am reminded that it exists every once in a while. As an example, here's a simple card: What is the recommended way to traverse all the files (including subdirectories) in Python? Answer: scandir and not os.walk os.walk is my standard goto. Then I learned about scandir, but kept forgetting…

Thanks for providing these details. For your Python example I'd just use a snippet. On the other hand, Google's pretty fast and always updated. It's all a personal trade-off I guess. I wouldn't say it's common for me to forget I knew something. But maybe the cost of creating, maintaining, and reviewing card decks is worth it for you.

What use is a snippet if I forget it exists and that there is a better way?

Re: Anki as Learning Superpower: Computer Science Edition

#178

Post by BeetleB »

sah55 wrote: post #164
a-dub wrote: post #154

Tried anki in college, found that creating the cards took too much time and doing them was boring. What did work for me was really simple. A single 8 1/2 by 11 double sided sheet of paper could usually fit everything I needed to memorize at one given time. I'd write out a cheat sheet (a very valuable exercise in condensing and distilling while reviewing) and then reproduce it from memory before and after bed three da…

This is just memorization through brute repetition without the SRS optimization. Less efficient, and more time consuming.

That's a bit harsh. As someone who regularly uses flash cards, creating them really is a bottleneck. It's a lot quicker to handwrite something on a paper. It's not as effective, but it definitely is faster.

Re: Anki as Learning Superpower: Computer Science Edition

#179

Post by BeetleB »

a-dub wrote: post #174
Normal_gaussian wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

and many years later? As I understand it the benefit is to have strong recall over longer than just an exam or university course; more like for an entire career stage. How far into your career are you, and how much of the material you learned in this way have you retained? Have you fairly tested the retention?

like anything it's use it or lose it. memorization works for short term, continued application in different settings is what makes it stick.

Memorization works well in the long term if you use flash cards, which was the point of the question.

Re: Anki as Learning Superpower: Computer Science Edition

#180

Post by BeetleB »

galfarragem wrote: post #128

I have mixed feelings on Anki: - It worked great to memorize cyrillic alphabet. - It's working not so well to memorize Polish words (I have around 500 in a custom-made deck). Reading Polish news simply works better for me but I don't know why.

Application of knowledge frequently (e.g. reading Polish news regularly) works on somewhat the same principle as Anki (repeated exposure is the key), but is likely a bit better as its more interesting and with context.
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