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Spaced repetition systems have gotten better

domenic.me

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Re: Spaced repetition systems have gotten better

#71

Post by chjj »

petesergeant wrote: post #12
bearjaws wrote: post #6

Spaced repetition has been all the rage for 20 years now. Dozens of apps, thousands of lectures, and it turns out its not really a silver bullet. There's nothing really wrong with it, it's just that people tend to fall off the same way they do on any other education pattern. A couple years ago I was thinking "If Google and Apple really cared about kids they would make a spaced repetition unlock system", where by you…

> There's nothing really wrong with it And a gigantic amount right with it. This is a strange comment because it shrugs off something that has been transformative and hugely useful to a lot of people because it doesn’t fix all conceivable problems.

I don't think it's a strange comment. He's mostly right (and so are you, but I think you're talking past each other). There's nothing wrong with SRS, and I agree with you that it's basically like cheat codes for memorization, but there is a limit to what most people can do. i.e. most people do tend to drop off.

I remember reading some stats from WaniKani (Japanese SRS app) a while back...

WaniKani has 60 "levels" to learn 2000+ kanji. Each level takes about a week (there's no skipping ahead), so the material takes about a year of study to complete -- that's if you're going at breakneck pace, which most people aren't.

According to the numbers I saw on the WK forums, ~8% of users reach level 30 and less than 1% reach level 60... and that's just to learn as much kanji as a 9th grader. That's to say nothing of the grammar and the 20,000+ vocab words you'll need to SRS to truly learn the language, or the thousands of hours you'll have to spend speaking/listening/reading, immersing yourself in native content, etc.

People give up very easily. The language learning community often gives year estimates to reach "near-native level" in a language based on frequency of study. In reality, the process takes a lifetime. I don't know if people truly know what they're signing up for when install those apps and begin studying. It's a lifelong commitment. It's just something you do now, every day.

You can stop at any time of course, and most people do (more than 99% of them apparently).

Re: Spaced repetition systems have gotten better

#72

Post by federicotdn »

arrowsmith wrote: post #15
keiferski wrote: post #8

I’ve been using Anki for about a decade now, and as far as I’m concerned, the only real improvements needed are design/UI based. It is functionally irrelevant if the algorithm is optimized or not when the actual user interface seems boring to potential users. While I do like that Anki has power user options, it’s also very unintuitive to the average person just looking into it. Which is really a shame, as the spacing…

I love Anki but it’s an archetypal example of “designed by an engineer”. It’s powerful, with a lot of depth to its features - but it’s also hideous, clunky and unintuitive, and it takes a long time to figure out how to use it effectively. An HN-reading tech nerd can probably figure it out, but your average Duolingomaxxing normie? No chance.

Reminds me of how I'm using Anki on iOS to learn German, and my phone's configured language is German, except for the Anki app, which is ironically the only app I've configured to be in English because I couldn't understand what 80% of the buttons meant.

Re: Spaced repetition systems have gotten better

#73

Post by jwrallie »

montebicyclelo wrote: post #10

Language vocab seems a good use case. What other things are people here using spaced repition for?

I used it to get my Amateur Radio license, since a superset of the questions that can be in the test are public.

I downloaded an existing deck and modified it so that only the correct answer is shown instead of multiple choices.

I still can remember some of the content even though I deleted the deck short after receiving my license.

Re: Spaced repetition systems have gotten better

#74

Post by Alex-Programs »

iandanforth wrote: post #63

I wrote "Why Anki Doesn't Work for Me" ( https://medium.com/@iandanforth/why-anki-doesnt-work-for-me-... ) six years ago, which means it was before the new algorithm was implemented. While Anki likely still suffers from all the other issues I mentioned, this directly addresses my point (3). I'm going to have to give it another try and see if the other points are still too much friction, or if the frustration caused b…

I switched to FSRS via the extension partway through my A levels. I also used the little google collab notebook to custom fit it to my learning patterns - I'm not sure if that's in the version that was merged into the main version.

It about halved the amount of reviews I needed to do, and they didn't come up in bursts, so they were a lot more pleasant. I didn't quite believe it at first, and worried that it would be less effective, but it worked just as well if not better.

I really recommend giving it another try!

Re: Spaced repetition systems have gotten better

#75

Post by felipeerias »

cenamus wrote: post #20
arrowsmith wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love Anki but it’s an archetypal example of “designed by an engineer”. It’s powerful, with a lot of depth to its features - but it’s also hideous, clunky and unintuitive, and it takes a long time to figure out how to use it effectively. An HN-reading tech nerd can probably figure it out, but your average Duolingomaxxing normie? No chance.

Sorry, but what's clunky about it? All buttons in reach of your thumb on the mobile app and usable keybindings on desktop? Is there not enough useless whitespace around every button?

I have been trying to use Anki for years. Every time it is the same story: I keep it up for a few months until I miss a couple days, then due cards accumulate far beyond what can be reasonably managed, and I end up spending more time trying to fix the app than actually learning anything.

Re: Spaced repetition systems have gotten better

#76

Post by bawolff »

SirHumphrey wrote: post #39

I find with spaced repetition that it works really well for some well-known things like vocabulary (EDIT: well-known meant as "spaced repetition is well-known to work for this use-case, not well-known as "the subject is well understood"), medical etc. but for everything else it becomes a struggle for a long time. I have been trying for years to fined a way to use it for mathematics and physics - with the former being…

I feel like its asking a lot to use flash cards to learn things that aren't about memorization.

Re: Spaced repetition systems have gotten better

#77

Post by Pooge »

cjauvin wrote: post #37
Pooge wrote: post #13

I'm sorry, I didn't read the article but I thought my experience would be a good anecdote. I've used Anki for multiple years and learned around 18'000 Japanese words. It's difficult to say but I'd say I've learned how to read around 5'000 kanji. When I studied in Japan, my kanji reading—don't mix that up with comprehension !—was way above everyone else's. And most of my classmates were either Korean or Chinese. That'…

There's a surprising gulf between word recognition and overall sentence comprehension. I'm learning Farsi with a combination of Anki and Youtube videos and sometimes I find myself in the weird state where I recognize every word in a sentence, but yet cannot assemble its overall meaning.

I completely get what you mean and I had the same trouble. But keep at it, it will click.

Re: Spaced repetition systems have gotten better

#78

Post by brightball »

keiferski wrote: post #8

I’ve been using Anki for about a decade now, and as far as I’m concerned, the only real improvements needed are design/UI based. It is functionally irrelevant if the algorithm is optimized or not when the actual user interface seems boring to potential users. While I do like that Anki has power user options, it’s also very unintuitive to the average person just looking into it. Which is really a shame, as the spacing…

I’ve been reading about spaced repetition and Anki for years. Never got around to actually trying it on anything.

I wonder if there are any good recommendations for something to try it on?

Re: Spaced repetition systems have gotten better

#79

Post by nanoxide »

montebicyclelo wrote: post #10

Language vocab seems a good use case. What other things are people here using spaced repition for?

Used to use it in university (CS) for cramming before tests, mostly when there were lots of definitions to memorize. Also summarizing stuff and writing your own cards for it helps already with learning itself.

Re: Spaced repetition systems have gotten better

#80

Post by Alex-Programs »

FranzFerdiNaN wrote: post #51
Pooge wrote: post #13

I'm sorry, I didn't read the article but I thought my experience would be a good anecdote. I've used Anki for multiple years and learned around 18'000 Japanese words. It's difficult to say but I'd say I've learned how to read around 5'000 kanji. When I studied in Japan, my kanji reading—don't mix that up with comprehension !—was way above everyone else's. And most of my classmates were either Korean or Chinese. That'…

Not buying at all that you learned 18000 words and 5000 kanji in ten minutes per day. Thats 60 hours a year for say five year, or 300 hours. Thats leaves you with about 70 words and/or kanji per hour or less than a minute per word/kanji. A rate which far surpasses native speakers. Anki works, it doesnt need these unrealistic takes.

That isn't terribly far off. I used Anki throughout my A levels, spending about 250 hours on it in total according to its statistics, and had something like 10k cards that I reviewed 50k times.

Now, those cards weren't alone - they were reinforcing content that I'd learnt in lessons. But if they were doing it for 10 minutes a day a few times a day, it seems quite plausible to me.

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