71–80 of 124 posts
Flashcards are brilliant. Anki is finally usable after they ditched the hot garbage algorithm they were using. Previously I've used the Leitner method and I stil think that's the best one for me.
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You know you can just…create Anki cards with sentences, right? Anki doesn’t force you to make cards with vocab words in isolation.
It doesn't but it also will not create a different sentence to you to practice a word. I tried this (use sentences instead of words), it sucks: you spend more time per card, but you learn less efficient, as you learn not just a word but all the hints coming from the same sentence. I wrote my own program 2 years ago, that generates new sentence on each review using AI (at that time I used Anki as scheduler). That was…
I use Anki to learn French, Chess openings/tactics/techniques, to unscramble letters for scrabble, for Pub Trivia... The options are kind of limitless. As a mid-30s guy who has well passed the neuroplasticity of his teen years, it's a godsend for me. To echo the author's thoughts though, I can't prove empirically that I learn more effectively using Anki (or spaced repetition) than other methods... Only anecdotally. I…
>now I'm B2 certified in French Did you get there using only Anki? If yes, I need to persevere.
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>now I'm B2 certified in French Did you get there using only Anki? If yes, I need to persevere.
I used a lot of Anki for spanish on top of classes. I'd say (anecdotally) it can bump you up a half to full letter in the A-C system depending on where you start. I learned far more living in Mexico though. You really need to talk to real humans to learn another language. If you don't, you can have a decent rating in A-C system but not actually converse that well.
I use Anki to learn French, Chess openings/tactics/techniques, to unscramble letters for scrabble, for Pub Trivia... The options are kind of limitless. As a mid-30s guy who has well passed the neuroplasticity of his teen years, it's a godsend for me. To echo the author's thoughts though, I can't prove empirically that I learn more effectively using Anki (or spaced repetition) than other methods... Only anecdotally. I…
I find that very difficult to achieve with any other method of studying, with exception to content immersion in the case of language acquisition.
It also has me a bit spoiled, because now when I have no other option but to pore over typical painfully dry, unnecessarily fluffed up instructional materials I groan to myself. It's so much easier and more time-efficient to memorize a deck with the actually-important bits over a 2-3 week period.
> From this perspective, fields that require deep understanding, like math, require memory just as fields with a breadth of shallow knowledge do, though in different ways. I'm interested in understanding how others use Anki for conceptual subjects like pure math or physics. I believe many fundamental rules in Spaced Repetition (e.g. like keeping cards concise) are thrown out the window for conceptual subjects.
I took my first real analysis course last semester, and I made flashcards with pen and paper for every single non trivial definition, theorem, lemma, and corollary that we covered in lecture. Analysis definitions and theorems get really complicated with intricate and difficult to follow logical chains, and there are a lot to remember. These definitions and results don’t mean much on their own without exploring their…
I feel ya. I memorised definitions for my algorithms course as well and also experienced diminishing rewards of using SRS flashcards (especially when the conceptual questions get more novel).
Like what you say, we have to practice using the factual knowledge enough by writing proofs.
The next generation of flashcards would probably use AI to generate concise questions on writing proofs.
[1] A Little Randomness May Not Be Enough - https://www.scotthyoung.com/blog/2014/11/07/srs-for-concepts...
Thank you for sharing your experiences!
> Most of my cards are handwritten by me and accommodate my brain. I'm guessing from all the talk about Anki that people are missing this part. I think these frictionless, digital replacements for note cards are solving the wrong problem. You're never going to spend more time on a given flashcard, and better absorb the information on it, than the first time, when you're sitting there making the thing. Making this ste…
> Some people also use LLMs to generate flashcards. And of course, the result will be those impersonal, mediocre cards. > I won’t say LLMs are useless for this. But from my trials, I get about 1 card that’s useful to me out of 10, and even that 1 card still needs rewriting. I don't know the specifics of how the author tried to do so, but from what I've seen the majority of attempts are, let me drop a chapter of a tex…
I’ve had a lot of success using AI to generate memorable images to show alongside vocabulary cards.