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Effective Spaced Repetition

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Re: Effective Spaced Repetition

#241

Post by michaelcampbell »

> Rule: Understand First

Good in theory. Sometimes time crunches don't allow that, and to be honest after having used Anki for many years there are quite a lot of times where I rote-memorized a card and as I learned more about the subject the understanding came later.

Usually this is when there are several cards hitting different aspects of a given topic; as I gain understanding in one area, it comes in another.

So this is very much a "nice to have" rule of thumb.

For me, people vary. But I'd rather have the card and come to understanding than not have it.

Re: Effective Spaced Repetition

#242

Post by saeranv »

Slightly off topic, but am I the only one that dislikes the GUI-based method for adding and reviewing anki cards? Anyone find a decent terminal-based plugin for anki? I've actively looked in the past, and surprisingly there are some partial solutions (can review on terminal but can't add), or hacks, but no complete terminal based SRS...

Re: Effective Spaced Repetition

#244

Post by zs234465234165 »

eska wrote: post #227
laurieg wrote: post #212

When people start using spaced repetition and flashcard software they often end up throwing a big list of "Most common 1000 French words" into it and then promptly being swamped by reviews and giving up. This is a bad idea for two reasons: When it comes to spaced repetition, quality beats quantity. Only put in the perfect nuggets of knowledge. You're walking through an orchard and grabbing a single apple, not a whole…

Strong disagree. I learned multiple languages this way. I think you’re better served by turning off the counter for cards remaining, and studying more often. Otherwise you’re not doing SRS at all. One can’t remember 2300 Kanji as an aha-moment each. Drilling all the possible combinations of Hangeul characters for recognition speed is very effective, but most cards won’t be an aha-moment. One can use premade lists of…

Agree.

There is no right or wrong way to srs. You have to put in mental effort, whether thats creating elaborate cards, or grinding through thousands of premades. Once you stop putting in the mental effort, it will stop working to improve your recall

Re: Effective Spaced Repetition

#245

Post by jbstack »

thombles wrote: post #198
Avijit_Thawani wrote: post #124

Other software which have nailed spaced repetition (and a much better UI than Anki): - https://www.duolingo.com/ (language learninig) - https://www.chessable.com/ (chess) - https://readwise.io/ (book highlights) - https://examarly.com/ (test prep) - https://app.bestudious.io/login (certifications - CFA) - https://magoosh.com/ (vocabulary)

For language, I can vouch for both Clozemaster and Lingvist as very polished tools that put the spaced repetition front-and-centre unlike Duolingo.

I've tried Clozemaster several times and always uninstalled it within a few days despite really wanting to like it. I could happily ignore the bad UI if the functionality were good, but I've found that the pacing lacks structure and a sensible learning curve. You'll straight away be given bizarre sentences with complex grammer which is unsuitable for your level (in my case, beginner to beginner / intermediate depending on what language I've tried). For all Duolingo's faults, the learning curve is at least well suited to beginners - the first few lessons are always very basic and it builds from there. I felt like Clozemaster was only suitable for someone who has already learned the language and simply wants to build vocabulary.

My experience with Lingvist was the opposite. The UI feels polished and the sentences feel natural and comfortable to learn even for a beginner. It's a shame that it's so expensive - I'd quite happily pay $100 or so for a lifetime membership but sadly they don't offer that.

Re: Effective Spaced Repetition

#246

Post by jbstack »

michaelcampbell wrote: post #240
tiagod wrote: post #91

>A common failure mode (and I did this more than once, before I got the hang of it) is to use Anki for two weeks, then drop it, and pick it back up six months later only to find you have 600 cards due for review. This is not encouraging, and it defeats the point of spaced repetition, which is to review the cards on the intervals the algorithm chooses. >I don’t have much advice in this area, except that if you have pe…

(IMO, non scientific blathering follows) Two big things that people seem to forget, or not realize: 1. Anki (etc) isn't really there to help you remember, it's there to schedule and optimize your time so you can do more in less time; to avoid the (ad absurdum) case of studying every card, every day. That's effective, but wasteful. To help you remember you use other tricks like the Major system, the Loci system, mnemo…

> Then, set your max cards per day setting to that. Then do those. And stop sweating it.

I agree with this, but I'd argue that this alone isn't sufficient. You should also try (as best as possible) to keep the number of new cards per day at a level where you will hit your max total cards per day on average in the long run. It's no good setting a cap of 150 cards per day if Anki wants you to review 1000 per day - you'll be severely interfering with the SRS algorithm if you do that. On the other hand, having a cap of 150 per day and an average of 150 a day is fine for those days where the review count is higher than average because it will work out roughly correctly in the long run.

Re: Effective Spaced Repetition

#247

Post by j45 »

MaxwellM wrote: post #165
j45 wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As an aside, LogSeq is quite good at creating cards for spaced repetition with just a hashtage and a cloze as you write your notes. I would expect other tools like it (Obsidian, etc, can do this as well)

Agreed. Logseq changed the game for me. Because SRS is closely coupled with note-taking and is as simple as adding "#card", it eliminates any friction and excuses I had for not using SRS. I look forward to adding new cards as much as I do reviewing old ones.

Another use I'm discovering is using logseq in this way for both cards, and annotating explanations of things that can be put back into other learning content.

Re: Effective Spaced Repetition

#248

Post by j45 »

jayro wrote: post #133
Avijit_Thawani wrote: post #124

Other software which have nailed spaced repetition (and a much better UI than Anki): - https://www.duolingo.com/ (language learninig) - https://www.chessable.com/ (chess) - https://readwise.io/ (book highlights) - https://examarly.com/ (test prep) - https://app.bestudious.io/login (certifications - CFA) - https://magoosh.com/ (vocabulary)

At Math Academy ( https://mathacademy.com ), we implement spaced repetition in combination with a knowledge graph consisting of several thousand math topics and tens of thousands of connections (and growing). We're working on a post that explains how this all works technically. We have a Linear Algebra course ( https://mathacademy.com/courses/linear-algebra ) that some of you might find interesting given how often th…

That would be a fun post to read - is there a link to your blog?

Re: Effective Spaced Repetition

#249

Post by michaelcampbell »

jbstack wrote: post #246
michaelcampbell wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(IMO, non scientific blathering follows) Two big things that people seem to forget, or not realize: 1. Anki (etc) isn't really there to help you remember, it's there to schedule and optimize your time so you can do more in less time; to avoid the (ad absurdum) case of studying every card, every day. That's effective, but wasteful. To help you remember you use other tricks like the Major system, the Loci system, mnemo…

> Then, set your max cards per day setting to that. Then do those. And stop sweating it. I agree with this, but I'd argue that this alone isn't sufficient. You should also try (as best as possible) to keep the number of new cards per day at a level where you will hit your max total cards per day on average in the long run. It's no good setting a cap of 150 cards per day if Anki wants you to review 1000 per day - you'…

> you'll be severely interfering with the SRS algorithm if you do that

My assertion is that "no, you won't", from a practical standpoint. One of the reasons people lapse on these things is the "overwhelming" issue. If you keep the max to what you can ACTUALLY DO, you'll be more likely to actually do them.

What you're referring to is an optimization issue; although doing less than what it thinks isn't "optimal" FOR ANKI, its way, WAY better than getting overwhelmed and not doing them at all.

And 150 vs 1000, if done regularly, WILL calm down and you'll chip away at that backlog.

And I also firmly believe that people focus way, WAY too much on "the card has to be done on this day or it's lost". No, it isn't. There is no "proper" time for a card because our brains and memory is SO variable that Anki just is a VERY crude guess at proper. Miss it by a day, or 10, or 90 isn't (IMO) that much a difference in the long run.

I see this over and over in /r/anki; people are getting WAY overtuned in trying to keep the software happy rather than the goal of remembering more things in less time.

Re: Effective Spaced Repetition

#250

Post by jbstack »

mderazon wrote: post #180
zetalyrae wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For language you might be interested in the Clozemaster[0] approach. Basically, you are shown a sentence, both in English and the language you want to learn, and one of the words in either one is a cloze deletion, e.g.: English: there are thirty days in April. French: il y a trente ___ en avril And you have to complete the cloze with "jours". The sentences are compiled automatically from Tatoeba[1], the cloze deletio…

This is very nice. For language I've always used the sentence in target language (the one i want to learn) in the front of the card and the translated sentence in the back of the card but I've always wondered if it should actually be the other way around. Your suggestion with the cloze is another good approach

> I've always wondered if it should actually be the other way around

It should be both ways round. This is especially true for languages (where your brain needs e.g. French -> English for reading/listening and English -> French for writing/speaking). It's also useful even where you only need one direction because learning both directions actually strengthens the memory for the direction you need.

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