Live data from Hacker News

Spaced repetition systems have gotten better

domenic.me

441–450 of 538 posts

Re: Spaced repetition systems have gotten better

#441
post #429

I am the creator of Trane ( https://github.com/trane-project/trane/ ) which can replace Anki and similar systems for domains that have a well-defined hierarchy between subskills (turns out that's most of them, including learning vocabulary). There are several unresolved issues with Anki, SuperMemo, at al. 1. Emphasis on memorization. I wanted something that could be applied to domains (music) whose scoring is not bas…

> For complicated skills, you need to be a domain expert to really know how to do this. (...) I have used it to teach myself music. It sounds like you must have had some interesting difficulties with that, not having been a domain expert in music. What were they and how did you overcome them?

I have been mostly working on a set of courses based around backing tracks I got from a course called “improvise for real”. So I only had to make the structure of those backing tracks explicit, which only required knowing the circle of fifths.

Re: Spaced repetition systems have gotten better

#442

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

My "Daily Life" deck is pretty small. But I fill it with things whenever I try to recall something and am embarrassed to not know it. Now I know them!

- Population of Tokyo / Tokyo metro area / Japan (where I live)

- Japan emergency numbers (like 911/411 in the US)

- kg lb and km mi conversion ratios

- My Japanese phone number (and my wife's)

- Number of neurons / synapses in a typical human brain

- Number of parameters in SOTA language models

- How many people work in my office

- Last 4 digits of a couple important credit cards, so I can identify them when UIs present me a choice of pre-saved CCs.

Re: Spaced repetition systems have gotten better

#444

The current version of the supermemo algorithm is SM-18. The author thinks SRS has gotten way better since the author was previously using an out of date version of the algorithm, SM-2.

SM-17 is linked from the benchmark repo: https://github.com/open-spaced-repetition/fsrs-vs-sm17 , though I get the impression those numbers come with a dash of subjectivity. It seems fair to compare to older versions of the algorithm though because SM-17 is only used in the SuperMemo software (and Anki) and isn't widespread.

Note that SM-17 is only used in proprietary SuperMemo software. Anki was stuck on SM-2, the latest version that was open.

Re: Spaced repetition systems have gotten better

#445

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I created a python script that checks my anki deck for the cards that I'm scheduled to review the next day and asks an LLM to generate new sentences for the cards, so that every time I see them, I see them in a new context. I did this because I realized I was hitting an issue where I theoretically "knew" a word (would get it always correct on the card), but wouldn't always recognize it in a novel context. I'm hoping…

> ”I realized I was hitting an issue where I theoretically "knew" a word (would get it always correct on the card), but wouldn't always recognize it in a novel context.” Some of the problem is due to the specificity of the training effect. I.e., if you mostly practice something through flash cards then you’re going to be training your ability to work with that on flash cards. With language, there’s an additional chal…

Shameless plug of my language app, dangerous.

Our language app is largely based on using LLMs and spaced-repetition. We explain the context behind every word and phrase, provide additional usage examples and cultural notes, and also use speech recognition to test recall and pronunciation.

We're invite-only at the moment, but happy to pass along invite codes to anybody who may find it useful.

https://apps.apple.com/us/app/dangerous-language-skills/id67...

Re: Spaced repetition systems have gotten better

#446
I'm building a language app based on using LLMs and spaced-repetition.

We generate cards that respond to speech to evaluate card recall and pronounciation (via speech recognition). We don't market it as AI but behind the scenes we use LLMs to explain the context behind every word and phrase, offer additional usage examples and cultural notes, and also generate roleplays based on specific topics & scenarios.

Happy to pass along invite codes to anybody who wants to check it out. https://getdangerous.app

Re: Spaced repetition systems have gotten better

#447
post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mine has all sorts of shit in it. Mac keyboard shortcuts. Nautical terms. Cyrillic characters. Credit card verification codes. Phone numbers. Airport codes. Ionic component names. Names of my friends’ kids. A surprising amount of Z Specification. Anything I think it would be useful to remember.

How do you manage the data? Multiple decks or just one with everything? Do you directly use the app to add new phrases, or do you have some sort of automation / tooling on your phone or laptop?

Multiple decks, although honestly I could probably get away with just one and tags. Almost always just use the app although I’ve used CSV import once or twice, and I grab the occasional pre-made deck too.

Re: Spaced repetition systems have gotten better

#448
post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So I haven't integrated FSRS, and of these two, I've only used Wanikani, and have been playing with a reimplemention for Chinese hanzi: https://hanzi.bpev.me But seeing how it's implemented, I think they could totally integrate something like FSRS to at least just replace their scheduling (how long until an item is next shown). The unlocking system can be implemented as a separate gatekeeping mechanism, and the bucke…

I dream of building a WaniKani competitor that uses FSRS. Unfortunately it's one of those projects where 10% of the work is building, and 90% of the work is marketing/community building/evangelism. (And the 10% is not trivial work either!)

Sooooo.... ehe... I got a little inspired yesterday, and got a head start on that 10%:

https://github.com/inro-digital/simple-tools/tree/main/packa...

YMMV though, since I haven't user-tested it in my app yet haha.

TBH though, I think for a true WaniKani competitor, need to reserve a decent % of work for building the dataset. Putting together all those mnemonics, cleaning up definitions, defining the order of introduction of characters and choosing words... is a lot of effort. There's a reason that WaniKani's so generous with pretty much their entire platform, but specifically states in their docs that the mnemonics/hints data doesn't belong to you... it's a large part of the effort.

Although, I guess could be integrated into the 90% work if you make sharing mnemonics into a community effort.

Re: Spaced repetition systems have gotten better

#450
I haven't seen it mentioned yet with CTRL-f and I haven't used Anki in a while, but has there been work put into modifications in Anki or other programs using spaced repetition along with interleaved practice to also see if that improves studying.

Interleaved practice explainer: https://openlearning.mit.edu/mit-faculty/research-based-lear...

Post reply on HN