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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

#101

Post by nullsense »

RootReducer wrote: post #9

I've been using Anki for about 3 years to learn Korean and it's been tremendously successful. In that time I've learned around 3000 new words (both English -> Korean and Korean -> English with reversed cards) and a ton of grammar (using Cloze cards). I couldn't imagine trying to memorize this amount of information any other way now.

I managed to average that volume of new vocab in 3 months with Anki when I learned Japanese a decade ago.

It was a brutal, breakneck pace but the result was nothing short of phenomenal.

Re: How to Use Anki to Improve Your Memory

#102

Post by nullsense »

simbyotic wrote: post #34
nomad225 wrote: post #4

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

Author of the piece here. My number one recommendation is to not get overly excited about it. One of the first things that happen when you start using Anki and realize the superpower that it is being in charge of your memory is that you want to include EVERYTHING in it. You start creating cards with obscure bash one-liners, little-used git commands, or Javascript functions you read about in a random article. You add…

This was exactly my experience when I tried to use it for software engineering. This is after having used it incredibly successfully to learn Japanese a decade prior and being very experienced with it.

Re: How to Use Anki to Improve Your Memory

#103

Post by [deleted] »

simbyotic wrote: post #36
kazinator wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've hardly missed a day since starting AnkiDroid some four or five years ago? The reviews have dwindled down to single digits per day in all decks where I do not add new material. (I don't use the desktop Anki, by the way; I used it briefly for doing some editing on decks.) Tha said, AnkiDroid could use a vacation feature. How vacation mode could work would be simply by rescheduling all cards, delaying them by the v…

Not what you have in mind, but you can use the Load Balanced Scheduler to ease the pain of missing a few days: https://ankiweb.net/shared/info/208879074 But the vacation idea is great, I'm sure someone could make an add-on to implement it.

[deleted]

Re: How to Use Anki to Improve Your Memory

#104

Post by nullsense »

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!

I fought through 1000 card review piles a handful of times.

It happens. Every time it was a slog but I just got through it.

The one thing I can say for certain is given enough time it will happen. But whether you can overcome it or it causes you to quit is down to how intrinsically motivated you are (Anki or no Anki) to achieve the goal you are using Anki to help you accomplish. If you would continue to pursue the goal even without Anki then you will most likely persevere. If the goal is simply to remember everything and not forget stuff and you're only using Anki to use Anki then you will almost certainly quit when you hit this wall.

Re: How to Use Anki to Improve Your Memory

#105

Post by Kelamir »

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!

One solution is using a Vacation add-on. Migaku has already implemented it, and I have it though I find it no use in my position. Migaku will release the vacation add-on for free after a while of beta-testing, I think. He also has days off addon, you can not to do Anki on weekends for example, and have more load during weekdays. Retimement addon too! You can see the uploaded already stuff here https://ankiweb.net/shared/byauthor/1666520655 (retirement only so far, a couple of others) If you want to get the rest, either wait or become Migaku's supporter, his Patreon listed on one of the add-ons.

I will update the post with screenshots or something tomorrow, for credibility.

Re: How to Use Anki to Improve Your Memory

#107

Post by dgs_sgd »

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…

Regarding vocabulary expansion, more than once I've come across the same word during reading, looked up its meaning, and then forgot about it. A quick dictionary lookup in the moment will help me understand it then and there, but the time gap until I encounter the word a second time is large, and I'll likely forget it before then.

A good approach is to use Anki to memorize words but only add words that you've actually encountered in the wild.

Re: How to Use Anki to Improve Your Memory

#108

Post by porknubbins »

Evan_Hellmuth wrote: post #56
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…

I agree with your first paragraph. But if your goal is purely to expand your vocabulary, don’t you think reading is more tangential than drilling words with flash cards?

One thing I found from language learning is not all words are created equal in this respect. Concrete nouns (ie items which you already know in your native language) can be learned by drilling but other words are more context dependent, or have a commonly found inflection, or function more grammatically and should be learned as part of a surrounding context.

Re: How to Use Anki to Improve Your Memory

#109

Post by porknubbins »

bibelo wrote: post #69

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 woul…

Anki is great for learning individual arbitrary facts, ie vocab words that would otherwise be difficult to encounter frequently enough in the wild. Learning to reproduce a list doesn’t fit well as you observed because there is no 1:1 prompt for each author, unless you come up with one like “Author of Madame Bovary”, and 20 things is too much for one card. This is more like memory palace territory which I rarely find useful in real life but fits exactly your task.

Re: How to Use Anki to Improve Your Memory

#110

Post by sharmi »

asab wrote: post #100

Anki was my introduction to spaced repetition and started me down a learning journey that I'm very happy to be taking. That said, Anki didn't end up sticking as the way I do spaced repetition - but it took me a long time to be able to articulate why. These days I am using Roam along with roam-toolkit. Having tried it this way, my biggest realization is that facts are memorable when they have many visceral association…

That is an interesting take on Anki.

I always saw Anki as an implementation of spaced repetition. What is your process?

How do you codify connections and associations into spaced repetition?

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