Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Anki – Powerful, intelligent flash cards

apps.ankiweb.net

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

371–380 of 438 posts

Re: Anki – Powerful, intelligent flash cards

#371

Post by poirot2 »

atahanacar wrote: post #191
SamPatt wrote: post #70

One tip for working with Anki: you will likely learn better - and review cards more regularly - if you write the cards yourself instead of using a preexisting deck. Going through a course / textbook -> taking notes on paper -> adding key concepts as Anki flashcards -> reviewing them daily: extremely effective Preexisting decks can work - I used one to successfully study for my Amateur Radio License - but that assumes…

>if you write the cards yourself instead of using a preexisting deck I disagree with this. Anki's power comes from spaced repetition. Spending your time creating cards instead of actually reviewing the material is very inefficient. If high quality decks exist for the topic you're learning, use them instead. I've learned this the hard way. Fields like medicine and language learning (you will still need to create your…

I disagree with this strongly. Isolated individual facts don’t give you an overview or macro-structure to place the facts within. It’s very inefficient. Can only speak for medicine but using another persons deck is ‘quicker’ but performance is so much worse. Even in just learning how to summarise the info for yourself you gain a lot.

Re: Anki – Powerful, intelligent flash cards

#372

Post by offices »

hintymad wrote: post #246

Flash card may be good for memorizing lots of stuff in a short time, but I find using flash card is incredibly boring. If we manage to learn things in long term, and we always should, there's always a more fun, more effective, and more efficient way to remember than paced reminder with flash card. For instance, - A new language: Comprehensive Input. Basically immersive studying with tons of reading, watching, and int…

>Language is all about the right intuition in the right context

Huh? How about the tens of thousands of words you need to be able to recall and recognise in both directions in text and speech? You can't reason past irregular verbs and inconsistent rules about gender.

If you're learning a language like Chinese, you need to memorise the characters. If you're learning a romance language, you need to memorise the conjugation and genders.

Immersion doesn't replace dedicated study. The words that appear the least - which you're most likely to miss - are the ones with the highest entropy.

Re: Anki – Powerful, intelligent flash cards

#373

Post by jamager »

atahanacar wrote: post #191
SamPatt wrote: post #70

One tip for working with Anki: you will likely learn better - and review cards more regularly - if you write the cards yourself instead of using a preexisting deck. Going through a course / textbook -> taking notes on paper -> adding key concepts as Anki flashcards -> reviewing them daily: extremely effective Preexisting decks can work - I used one to successfully study for my Amateur Radio License - but that assumes…

>if you write the cards yourself instead of using a preexisting deck I disagree with this. Anki's power comes from spaced repetition. Spending your time creating cards instead of actually reviewing the material is very inefficient. If high quality decks exist for the topic you're learning, use them instead. I've learned this the hard way. Fields like medicine and language learning (you will still need to create your…

Not at all, see f. ex.: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generation_effect

Re: Anki – Powerful, intelligent flash cards

#374

Post by jamager »

pavelboyko wrote: post #36

Spaced repetition, especially when using tools like Anki, is effective for memorizing facts. However, memorization represents the most basic level of learning objectives, see e.g. [1] and [2]. Are there any recommended tools for practicing more advanced levels of knowledge, such as relational analysis, synthesis, and critical evaluation? [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloom%27s_taxonomy [2] https://en.m.wikipedi…

techniques >> tools

Work on encoding information, understand things deeply, relate concepts, and then create your cards.

For language learning, for instance, this means that if you have 10 new words you want to learn, you create f.ex. 15 sentences so that each sentence contains 2 of those words, and each words appears in 3 sentences. Then you run them eg. by your a tutor to validate them, and add it to your Anki deck.

Now you will only review each sentence 5-8 times, and you can do it very fast.

Doesn't need to be exactly like that, but you get the idea

Re: Anki – Powerful, intelligent flash cards

#375

Post by jamager »

jwrallie wrote: post #39
jan_Inkepa wrote: post #3

Every few years I use Anki heavily for language stuff (German, more recently Latin and Classical Chinese), up to 90 minutes a day, but I can never keep the workload under control, or my habits change, and give it up. I still benefit from a year of training, but it seems the long-tail of spaced repetition doesn't work for me at all. But so long as I get to the point where I can read or watch TV, the considerable effor…

I had the same experience. I invested a lot of time on Anki and it paid back, but I could never stick to it. There is always a point where I have to skip 2 or 3 days because of life and the huge backlog is too much that I give up. I recently started to use Supermemo because of some comments on HN, and so far it have been going quite well. I feel less overwhelmed when I have to take a break, I think the algorithm (or…

Anki algorithm's is extremely punishing, which is awful for language learning.

I think SRS needs to be only a small part of the learning routine, the cherry on the cake. For me that is ~15 minutes / day, and backlog is manageable even if I occasionally take 2-3 days off.

Re: Anki – Powerful, intelligent flash cards

#376

Post by hayd »

alberth wrote: post #306
sivers wrote: post #18

My boy is 11 now. We've used Anki with him every day since he was about 5. Examples of things he's memorized, for fun: * every country, recognized by unlabeled shape on the map * spelling * many body parts, names of bones and organs, from illustration * chemical elements, by symbol (Na, Fe, Zn, etc) * unix filesystem commands * numeracy references (km from here to Japan, earth to sun, meters from home to school) * re…

Genuine question, how will memorizing this info help him? I’m a parent too, and have prioritized activities that teach my child critical thinking (so they can self-solve problems). I’m curious if I should be layering in some memorization activities like this, which is why I ask. (Please don’t take my question as judging, I’m genuinely curious how it’s helped because I might replicate. And I’ve got huge respect for al…

Often to solve problems you need to have multiple pieces of knowledge at your fingertips (without having to lookup each piece up or reason about it from first principles).

In mathematics that might be related theorems/lemmas. In programming it might be existing functionality of libraries. Problem solving is often chaining a few things together, which you already know.

Children should understand how to derive the quadractic formula but memorizing makes solving equations a lot faster.

https://tabularasaeducation.wordpress.com/2015/06/27/knowled...

Re: Anki – Powerful, intelligent flash cards

#377

Post by matthewfelgate »

sivers wrote: post #18

My boy is 11 now. We've used Anki with him every day since he was about 5. Examples of things he's memorized, for fun: * every country, recognized by unlabeled shape on the map * spelling * many body parts, names of bones and organs, from illustration * chemical elements, by symbol (Na, Fe, Zn, etc) * unix filesystem commands * numeracy references (km from here to Japan, earth to sun, meters from home to school) * re…

I would also recommend sporcle quizzes as a good way of learning and practicing information. Eg flags and countries.

Re: Anki – Powerful, intelligent flash cards

#378

Post by dirkc »

alberth wrote: post #306
sivers wrote: post #18

My boy is 11 now. We've used Anki with him every day since he was about 5. Examples of things he's memorized, for fun: * every country, recognized by unlabeled shape on the map * spelling * many body parts, names of bones and organs, from illustration * chemical elements, by symbol (Na, Fe, Zn, etc) * unix filesystem commands * numeracy references (km from here to Japan, earth to sun, meters from home to school) * re…

Genuine question, how will memorizing this info help him? I’m a parent too, and have prioritized activities that teach my child critical thinking (so they can self-solve problems). I’m curious if I should be layering in some memorization activities like this, which is why I ask. (Please don’t take my question as judging, I’m genuinely curious how it’s helped because I might replicate. And I’ve got huge respect for al…

During the great internet blackout of 2032 he will be the one that remembers things!

Re: Anki – Powerful, intelligent flash cards

#379

Post by rvba »

sivers wrote: post #18

My boy is 11 now. We've used Anki with him every day since he was about 5. Examples of things he's memorized, for fun: * every country, recognized by unlabeled shape on the map * spelling * many body parts, names of bones and organs, from illustration * chemical elements, by symbol (Na, Fe, Zn, etc) * unix filesystem commands * numeracy references (km from here to Japan, earth to sun, meters from home to school) * re…

Hope that the kid has time to have fun with friends as well, otherwise will become just a well educated sucker used by others.

Re: Anki – Powerful, intelligent flash cards

#380

Post by bob_theslob646 »

mumblemumble wrote: post #226
pavelboyko wrote: post #36

Spaced repetition, especially when using tools like Anki, is effective for memorizing facts. However, memorization represents the most basic level of learning objectives, see e.g. [1] and [2]. Are there any recommended tools for practicing more advanced levels of knowledge, such as relational analysis, synthesis, and critical evaluation? [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloom%27s_taxonomy [2] https://en.m.wikipedi…

The best tool for that kind of thing is developing good note-taking skills. When I'm doing language study, for example, the backbone of my memory reinforcement strategy is a plain old pen-and-paper notebook. Anki is only used for specific, targeted reinforcement. Most my time with Anki these days is learning Chinese characters. That's arguably an ideal use case for brute-forcing with SRS, and that is indeed a very po…

Is there something that you would personally recommend in order to develop better note taking skills?
Post reply on HN