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Anki-fy your life

abouttolearn.substack.com

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Re: Anki-fy your life

#31

Post by Kokouane »

nohaydeprobleme wrote: post #18

A major limitation exists for spaced repetition software (e.g. Anki, SuperMemo, or other flashcard-style systems), in my experience using them for several years for long-term memory: it's neither necessary nor sufficient to use this software to learn certain topics. Several excellent physics and math students I worked with have never used spaced repetition software, but were excellent at their studies because they co…

> I learned mathematics more effectively by focusing primarily on textbook problems (reviewing older material through new problems)

As a caveat, sometimes it can be hard to do this. If I randomly pick textbook problems, I have no guarantee that the new material will review the old.

Re: Anki-fy your life

#32

Post by crazygringo »

nohaydeprobleme wrote: post #18

A major limitation exists for spaced repetition software (e.g. Anki, SuperMemo, or other flashcard-style systems), in my experience using them for several years for long-term memory: it's neither necessary nor sufficient to use this software to learn certain topics. Several excellent physics and math students I worked with have never used spaced repetition software, but were excellent at their studies because they co…

Right, there's a big distiction to be made here.

Knowledge that is primarily conceptual (like almost all of math) generally does not benefit from spaced repetition. The learning involved is understanding -- a new concept may be hard to understand in the first place, but once you get it, you don't really forget it. Or you just need a super-quick refresher if you haven't touched it for a few months.

While knowledge that is primarily arbitrary-factual is the perfect candidate for spaced repetition -- mainly things like vocabulary, medical terms, and so forth. Just associating a largely arbitrary name for something. And indeed they are mostly useful for learning for exams. E.g. I used it to learn Chinese characters and could never have passed Chinese class otherwise. But on the other hand when I actually lived in another country that speaks a different language, spaced repetition isn't much of a help -- you learn vocab just by absorbing it day-to-day, like a kid does.

Re: Anki-fy your life

#35

Post by Jtsummers »

shostack wrote: post #10
LastTrain wrote: post #4

[flagged]

Uh, I'm on Windows and Android and never once paid for it. Not at what you're seeing. iOS pricing?

The Anki dev sells the app on iOS and iPadOS (his only revenue stream for Anki other than donations), but it's a one time cost, not a subscription. GP just failed to read or comprehend what they read. Or possibly they found one of the other apps also called Anki which try to capitalize on the name and confusion.

Re: Anki-fy your life

#36

Post by Jensson »

zora_goron wrote: post #15

I also had a similar thought process regarding understanding vs memorizing facts while transitioning from studying CS (where I emphasized understanding the underlying concepts rather than trying to memorize atomic facts that I could derive) to medicine (where having facts memorized is also a key component). Interestingly, I found that committing to memorizing facts actually helped me gain a deeper understanding of th…

> Interestingly, I found that committing to memorizing facts actually helped me gain a deeper understanding of the topics themselves, which was not what I originally expected

Be careful with this, perceived self understanding doesn't reflect real understanding.

Re: Anki-fy your life

#37

Post by JCharante »

1024core wrote: post #16

I'm trying to get into Anki, but it's difficult to get started. Here's what I'd like: while I'm reading a (PDF) book, I want to highlight some text (and maybe manually tweak it a little) and have it converted into some "Anki card" format so when I want to review the contents of the book later, I can use Anki for it. Any ideas?

Highlight the text in your dedicated PDF reading program and then after each lesson/chapter, when you sit down to review the lesson (you should be doing this even if you don't use Anki!) you can create the Anki cards manually. Creating Anki cards is really helpful for learning. I used to study at a langauge school and whenever I came across a word I didn't know, I'd quickly write it down in a notebook in the middle of class and then later in the day go back and create Anki cards for the words I had written down.

Re: Anki-fy your life

#39

Post by Jtsummers »

palmy wrote: post #14
LastTrain wrote: post #4

[flagged]

Anki is free on anything but iOS. Don't know why the iOS app is the only one with a fee.

https://faqs.ankiweb.net/why-does-ankimobile-cost-more-than-...

Here's the FAQ entry for why it costs as much as it does for iOS/iPadOS with some explanation for why he only charges on those platforms.

Re: Anki-fy your life

#40

Post by miklosz »

triyambakam wrote: post #6

Anki (or a Leitner box) is the recommended method from the book "Fluent Forever" After learning one language in school and a few others ad hoc on my own I gave this method a try. I quickly gave up, though, once I discovered Dr Krashen's work on comprehensible input, and how boring and time consuming creating and studying Anki is. Dr Krashen's work says that we learn language when we understand it. I.e. when we receiv…

I find Anki essential for language learning. Did it for French, starting from 0 and finishing at B2 (except for writing) in two years (also taking a 3h / week course).

Especially at the very beginning, I find learning the first 500 words as described in "Fluent Forever" very helpful. Going through that before starting with the course makes the experience much easier.

I totally agree with Krashen's theories, but using Anki is a secret weapon here that puts the process on overdrive (e.g. reading on Kindle and then later going through words that I checked in the Kindle dictionary and adding them into Anki).

Also, it's essential to retain the knowledge, e.g. if it's a language that you don't use daily.

5 years and 30'000+ cards later, I find Anki indispensable in learning anything which requires memorisation. Thinks I have to learn for work, for hobbies, certificates, improving my vocabulary in languages I care about. Basically, every fact I care about strongly enough, goes into Anki. If not enough, goes into Obsidian.

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