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How to Use Anki to Improve Your Memory

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Re: How to Use Anki to Improve Your Memory

#61

Post by dmart »

RootReducer wrote: post #57
jacobsenscott wrote: post #54

I don't find doing things tangential to the thing you want to learn all that effective compared to just doing the thing you want to get better at. Maybe it is just me. If you want to improve your vocabulary read more books. If you want to improve in a programming language program more in that language. If you want to learn chess openings - play more chess. Actually doing things you want to learn is way more fun than…

How do you remember the new words you look up when reading books? Making an Anki card for each will make sure those words are permanently etched into your memory.

Words tend to come up again with varied enough reading. It's built-in spaced repetition!

Re: How to Use Anki to Improve Your Memory

#62

Post by Buttons840 »

johnny_b wrote: post #11

I feel like Anki is not designed to help you succeed. Eventually, you'll start missing your reviews. One day you'll open Anki, see that you have hundreds of cards scheduled, and just quit the app. The author of this article mentions he'll post an article tackling this issue, looking forward to that!

The best way to deal with having hundreds of cards to review after a break is to shrug your shoulders and say "who cares".

Maybe you only review a few of those hundreds of cards that are due. So what? The algorithm still achieves its purpose. You are still focused on cards you are least likely to have permanently learned. No matter how you use or abuse space repetition algorithms they ensure your study time is well spent (assuming flashcards are the right thing to be studying at all).

I learned this from experience. I have some math concepts I'd like to have memorized. I made some flashcards in a space repetition program. I haven't review them for about 6 months. It is what it is -- at least I know all my progress wont be gone when I finally do return to those flashcards. I will have forgotten some cards, those cards will be shown to me frequently. I will have remembered some cards, those cards will get a boost because I've remembered them for 6-months without review, and will rarely be shown to me. The spaced repetition algorithms still work; they are robust.

Re: How to Use Anki to Improve Your Memory

#63

Post by kazinator »

ApolloFortyNine wrote: post #58
kazinator wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is not a given. Just several days ago I lapsed on a 4.5 year card. The interval went down to 2.2 years or so; hopefully I will get it that time around. You will forget stuff over time. What was the leading actor's name in that movie? Aaargh, it was practically a household word in the early 90's .... > You could also just do it every day. Even people who stick with it 7 days a week for 50 weeks could use a 2 week…

Well yea, no program, no method of learning, will make it impossible to forget something. You should have >90% retention on mature cards however (it's what the default settings are configured for). There's plenty of charts that show the diminishing returns of aiming for higher retentions, and surprisingly aiming for 75% retention is actually much more efficient, however your sanity would likely take a hit from missin…

> Then you'll need the discipline to do ~10x your normal daily volume when you get back

I've seen curious comments like this in various past forum discussions on the topic of Anki vacation ideas.

A vacation is not a period of rest followed by double the amount of work to catch up.

A vacation is a pause in work, which delays all subsequent work by that much time.

> not doing new cards ever day makes it not a clean 14x

You can't do new cards everyday; eventually you will have seen all new cards of a deck. I'm still working decks whose new cards ran out years ago. The presence and scheduling of new cards is a temporary condition with little long-term significance.

Re: How to Use Anki to Improve Your Memory

#64

Post by tra3 »

simbyotic wrote: post #49
kd5bjo wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. At the moment, I’m working through Frankenstein, Alice in Wonderland, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations, and the Rust book. This is still a fairly new strategy for me, so I don’t yet know how many parallel threads I can keep straight at the same time— So far, it doesn’t feel like I’m anywhere near the limit.

You should definitely write something about this, seems very interesting.

Agreed. In particular, how do you order these? And how does it fit within spaced repetition paradigm?.. I've been struggling with reading classics. I wonder if it would help.

Re: How to Use Anki to Improve Your Memory

#65

Post by iamwil »

nomad225 wrote: post #4

Any suggestions for what to use Anki to remember in everyday life as a software engineer?

I've been using them to remember specific things I look up commonly. The rule is if I look things up 3 times, I add a card. If I can remember these things, I won't have to break my flow to look things up on Stackoverflow.

It's usually simple things, like what's the method signature for slice? Or how do I run bash inside of a docker container?

The tough part for me is sticking to reviewing. There, I'm trying to figure out where to attach it to something I often already do.

Re: How to Use Anki to Improve Your Memory

#66

Post by yowlingcat »

jacobsenscott wrote: post #54

I don't find doing things tangential to the thing you want to learn all that effective compared to just doing the thing you want to get better at. Maybe it is just me. If you want to improve your vocabulary read more books. If you want to improve in a programming language program more in that language. If you want to learn chess openings - play more chess. Actually doing things you want to learn is way more fun than…

Yeah I agree. That's not to say that tools like Anki don't have a use -- they do! Use of Anki and memory palace type techniques is really useful for when rote memorization is a /required/ foundation for further progression -- language learning and so on.

But I do agree with you that it takes you there and no further. Moreover, I find the branding of this site (and others of its ilk, these seem to pop up every now and then over the years) to be really disingenuous. I don't think it's on purpose, more out of naievete.

An implicit assumption with these kinds of things is that it's cognitive fitness getting in the way of whatever it is you want to do. That's deeply presumptuous, IMO. The truth is more likely to be as you say -- it's not a lack of "cognitive fitness" -- it's a lack of experience doing the thing you want to do! And so if you want to get better at doing that thing, the difference between success and failure is figuring out a way to practice it consistently and slowly pick more challenging things to do. Not look at it like a leetcode problem with a trick that must be found which magically makes the problem tractable.

Re: How to Use Anki to Improve Your Memory

#67

Post by iamwil »

I kinda wish there was spaced repetition for interview practice. So that everyday, I have a set number of questions to try, and I don't have to make that decision. And if I don't get it the first time, no problem, I know it'll come up again. And if I do get it, the goal is to get faster.

Anyone else study this way, like an Anki for interview questions? If not, how do you pick what questions to practice and what order do them in when studying for interviews?

Re: How to Use Anki to Improve Your Memory

#68

Post by Xophmeister »

iamwil wrote: post #67

I kinda wish there was spaced repetition for interview practice. So that everyday, I have a set number of questions to try, and I don't have to make that decision. And if I don't get it the first time, no problem, I know it'll come up again. And if I do get it, the goal is to get faster. Anyone else study this way, like an Anki for interview questions? If not, how do you pick what questions to practice and what order…

An interview that sings from a hymn sheet of blessed questions is not a good interview. Anki is good for learning cold hard facts, but applying those or synthesising something new from them — which is what a good interview should be establishing — is not its goal.

Re: How to Use Anki to Improve Your Memory

#69

Post by bibelo »

Thanks for the article, I've read though.

I've been using Anki quite successfully to learn things about wines in french, especially about the wine domains in Bordeaux and Bourgogne. It's easy to create, as a flash card. One side shows the map, the other shows the name.

Now, I'm keen on learning the list of the main french authors of each century, but I don't know how to proceed.

Let's say a list of 20 names, how would you do it?

You would not create one flash card with 19th century on one side, and the 20 names on the other side. I've been struggling with that issue.

Maybe using the cloze type?

Re: How to Use Anki to Improve Your Memory

#70

Post by hinkley »

RootReducer wrote: post #57
jacobsenscott wrote: post #54

I don't find doing things tangential to the thing you want to learn all that effective compared to just doing the thing you want to get better at. Maybe it is just me. If you want to improve your vocabulary read more books. If you want to improve in a programming language program more in that language. If you want to learn chess openings - play more chess. Actually doing things you want to learn is way more fun than…

How do you remember the new words you look up when reading books? Making an Anki card for each will make sure those words are permanently etched into your memory.

I think that depends on your learning style, doesn’t it? In school they always want us to use the word in a sentence, and from my own experiences learning foreign languages and eastern philosophy, some words just don’t translate.

It’s a big reason why when you ask your friend what the two foreign characters in the movie are muttering they may pause and say, “this character is really mad at that character.” Because translating their swearing just does not make any sense in English, or sounds even harsher than it really is (according to screenplay writers, the French like to slip the word “whore” into any exclamation, from jovial mocking to impotent rage. Or perhaps more illustrative, there’s a “dang it” that refers to either a cow, or a dog’s name.)

Or going the other way, you want to explain “Bob’s your uncle” to a Swede? There’s a political history lesson in that explanation. They’re so weird you just learn them in context and go on, mostly.

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