Anki is great.
Used it when learning/practicing music theory - generated flash cards with notes and chords (python script that generates LilyPond, iirc), been a huge help, much better than 'specialized' apps that basically do the same.
Anki – Powerful, intelligent flash cards
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Re: Anki – Powerful, intelligent flash cards
#52Weird, I was actually thinking of a related AskHN, that comments here are obviously now the place for. Is there anything similar people use for sort of general 'knowledge base' type things - like people use one big text file, or Obsidian, or Logseq, or Notion, or whatever - but with some kind of Anki-like reminder/retrieval rather than just deliberate searching to look something up? Or do people successfully use Anki…
Actually Logseq comes with built-in flash cards. That's why I love it.
https://unofficial-logseq-docs.gitbook.io/unofficial-logseq-...
Re: Anki – Powerful, intelligent flash cards
#53Every 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…
These two things are related: > I can never keep the workload under control, or my habits change, and give it up. > to build up a highly personalised system that doesn't need to work for anyone else. "Anyone else" includes "future you", because humans change over time. A highly personalized system is usually a highly inflexible system.
Hmm. Let me think about your point.
The problem seems not dependent on the specifics of my efforts for me - it seems inherent to Anki for language-learning. That the flash cards have lots of bells and whistles seems unrelated to my giving up because 90 minutes a day wasn't enough to keep things under control.
I haven't had any time that my circumstances have change so much that my accessorising ended up a negative. (And I'm having trouble thinking of situations where that would be the case).
But sure, in general I can think of cases where it's probably more advisable to go with a general purpose solution (stairs rather than a climbing wall for going upstairs) in case personal circumstances change, temporarily or permanently.
Re: Anki – Powerful, intelligent flash cards
#54Weird, I was actually thinking of a related AskHN, that comments here are obviously now the place for. Is there anything similar people use for sort of general 'knowledge base' type things - like people use one big text file, or Obsidian, or Logseq, or Notion, or whatever - but with some kind of Anki-like reminder/retrieval rather than just deliberate searching to look something up? Or do people successfully use Anki…
I think a related, but often overlooked question is: is there really a need for remembering things off the top of one's head? Since there was no need to look it up, perhaps it's not relevant to whatever one is doing at the moment.
There are things I used to understand while studying that I no longer do, but wish I did. I can look them up and understand if I want to intentionally use them, but they're not sort of available in my mind for me to draw on; information that might apply to something without me knowing in order to look it up, if that makes sense?
And also as a sibling comment says, language. In particular vocabulary - I've learnt a decent amount of Hindi grammar by self-study, in fact I think totally sufficient for casual or even professional conversation, but my vocabulary's really lacking, and it holds me back from speaking, which means even when I do have the opportunity to practice speaking with others, I can only say stupid basic things, I lack the vocabulary to say what I want most of the time. (And casual Hindi's way more forgiving than most languages, because 'Hinglish' is so common. But I don't get any better by just using Hindi connectives and ancillary words in an otherwise English sentence!)
Re: Anki – Powerful, intelligent flash cards
#55Every 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 also use anki for german. I use a deck with 1850 cards to learn the nouns' gender.
I just pulled up my stats.I have been studiyng for almost a year and have averaged less than 2 minutes of study a day (with the average review lasting less than 2 seconds). In total it's more or less 10 hours.
It has been insanely effective. I read somewhere on HN that making extremely easy cards helps. It for sure helped me to keep the habit.
Re: Anki – Powerful, intelligent flash cards
#56Anki is unbeatable for acing any test with a bounded number of questions [1]. It's been successfully used by some top TV show contestants to remember thousands of words [2]. I've been using it recently to remember recipes and cooking facts, such as the time it takes to boil X vegetable, or the ingredients for some dish. Apart from language learning and medicine, there's a lack of pre-built decks that you can use to l…
When Anki is the right tool for the job, it is amazing. I used it to study the questions for the FCC radio amateur license. Pre-made decks were available, so I just loaded it and studied on my phone when I had free time. I had around 2 months before the test, so it was very pleasant to slowly go through all the questions.
Re: Anki – Powerful, intelligent flash cards
#57A lot of people seem to like shared card decks but creating your own cards is part of the learning process, you spent time with the material you want to learn, which is the main thing that helps you learning.
shameless self-plug:
On macos and iOS we found Anki a bit out of place so we build a competitor explicitly for language learning (https://wokabulary.com/).
Re: Anki – Powerful, intelligent flash cards
#58I have heard many times of this, I even have it installed. Need to start using this now, seeing the benefits in this thread makes me excited.
Re: Anki – Powerful, intelligent flash cards
#59For all you people who have used Anki or other SRS for many years: how do you get over the problem of being bored by it? Or does that not happen to you? Though I have not used Anki, I used a similar SRS for learning Chinese - the flashcards built in Pleco, but no matter how often I try to use it, I never last longer than 5-10 days, I just get bored by it. Also, no matter how I try to adjust the algo, I have the feeli…
This is quite subjective, but for me being in control of what I learn in SRS means I don't get bored. I am only adding things that I am interested in learning, and if I become bored of something, I just delete it.
It might sound counter-intuitive with the "remember things forever" side of SRS, but it is better to forget boring things than not use SRS at all.
Re: Anki – Powerful, intelligent flash cards
#60For all you people who have used Anki or other SRS for many years: how do you get over the problem of being bored by it? Or does that not happen to you? Though I have not used Anki, I used a similar SRS for learning Chinese - the flashcards built in Pleco, but no matter how often I try to use it, I never last longer than 5-10 days, I just get bored by it. Also, no matter how I try to adjust the algo, I have the feeli…
I’ve used it for 4 years now to learn Japanese. It might be a simple matter of lowering the max # of review cards or the max # of new cards.
Also, given that you mentioned enjoying duolingo more, there are browser extensions/repos out there to enhance the Anki experience. I have some that help me make cards based on material I’m reading for fun.
I was having the same issue as you, and I had to fix it by making it more engaging and personal. Now all of my words concern material I’m interested in, and have some context.