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A love letter to flashcards

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Re: A love letter to flashcards

#31

Post by stets »

deviation wrote: post #15

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…

Really curious exactly how you learn things like chess with flash cards. French makes sense as I would guess you just have a word or phrase in both languages.

What do you do for topics like chess?

Re: A love letter to flashcards

#32

Post by Jtarii »

SpaceManNabs wrote: post #11
jambalaya8 wrote: post #6

Used to use Anki for foreign language learning. Guessing it would have been useful to memorise calc, chem and physics equations if it had existed when I was young.

it is less useful for physics, math, and music since fluency is so much important. It is important for language acquisition too, but the language involves a lot more rote memorization than the above.

>it is less useful for physics, math, and music since fluency is so much important.

I mean, you can put whatever you want on a flashcard. e.g "Derive the fundamental theorem of whatever", "Prove this theorem" etc.

Also music has a extreme level of "stuff you just need to memorise".

Re: A love letter to flashcards

#33

Post by Jtarii »

PandaRider wrote: post #2

> 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.

Just put every definition, theorem, and exercise in a textbook into a card in an anki deck.

There are no "rules" for how flashcards should work.

Re: A love letter to flashcards

#34

Post by apparent »

> prefer your own flashcards to other people’s flashcards, at least for fields that require deep understanding

For me, much of the value of flashcards comes in the making of them. Part of it is thinking about what each flashcard will say, and part of it is the action of writing it down in handwriting.

Re: A love letter to flashcards

#35

Post by deviation »

stets wrote: post #31
deviation wrote: post #15

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…

Really curious exactly how you learn things like chess with flash cards. French makes sense as I would guess you just have a word or phrase in both languages. What do you do for topics like chess?

Sure, I can explain - it's a little complicated, but I maintain a small-ish catalogue of ~1000 positions for the following topics:

- Checkmates-in-one - Checkmates-in-two - Defensive technique (avoid checkmate/material loss) - Winning material - Endgame patterns - etc (~5 more)

... That I got by scraping the Lichess database, favoring common patterns that appear within +- 600 of my current Elo.

From there, I have Claude build me a script to convert each of those positions into a .png, then create me a deck with all the cards, et voilà. The front of the card is the position, the back is the best move in that position with a small explanation.

Every ~2-3 months when I see that most of the cards have matured (according the the Anki spaced repetition scheduler, I build a new deck around my new Elo.

I also play a lot. Prior to ~1000 rating I got away with spending 90% of my time in Anki and 10% playing online games, but lately it's been pretty 50/50. In higher ratings, playing real games tends to translate into wins more effectively for me.

For studying openings, it's almost the same thing, but the back of each card is the book move for my opening + the name of the opening the opponent chose.

Re: A love letter to flashcards

#36

Post by lacedeconstruct »

wordpad wrote: post #23
deviation wrote: post #15

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 think deliberate practice is what's really core to improving any skill, including memory. Spaced repetition is an effective way to review things but its biggest benefit is a process that's easy to be consistent with. Somebody else can have equal or better performance with other technique but just like dieting, it doesnt matter as much what method you use as long as you stick with it.

I feel like the actual core mechanic at improving is the actual act of "recall", it doesnt matter what you do if its a form of recall it is effective and very awkward in practice because you just sit there waiting for your brain to do a mysterious thing

Re: A love letter to flashcards

#38

Post by iamanllm »

The best advice I've ever read about flash cards is if you are dreading to review, because you are forgetting your cards or they are too complicated, you are writing cards wrong. Learning is supposed to be fun! Also, Common Core should ship Anki decks. I seriously think so many problems with education stem from students not realizing that memorizing is actually very easy with FSRS, and thus struggling and hating learning.

Re: A love letter to flashcards

#39

Post by flakiness »

> How do I actually use flashcards? My software of choice is Anki. I am not completely satisfied with it. The UI looks dated, the WYSIWYG HTML editor is clunky, and the undocumented file format makes potential porting and interoperability tricky.

And we still love it. I'm on the same page. This phenomena feels oddly satisfying.

Re: A love letter to flashcards

#40

Post by paytonjjones »

iamanllm wrote: post #38

The best advice I've ever read about flash cards is if you are dreading to review, because you are forgetting your cards or they are too complicated, you are writing cards wrong. Learning is supposed to be fun! Also, Common Core should ship Anki decks. I seriously think so many problems with education stem from students not realizing that memorizing is actually very easy with FSRS, and thus struggling and hating lear…

I feel like...that's terrible advice?

Voluntary retrieval (the memory "mode" of flashcards), even for simple pairs, is perceived as highly effortful by almost everyone, on a similar tier to doing mental math.

It's incredibly efficient for learning, and achieving your goals quickly can be very rewarding, but I don't think "learning flashcards should be fun!" is a reasonable expectation for the vast majority of people.

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