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Anki – Powerful, intelligent flash cards

apps.ankiweb.net

71–80 of 438 posts

Re: Anki – Powerful, intelligent flash cards

#71

I'm using a competitor on Android since both Anki apps (AnkiMobile and AnkiDroid) really aren't good enough for my language learning activity. They aren't as good as the desktop Anki app. I'm actually thinking of building my own app for a while since the all the flashcard apps on mobile don't really work for me. Not sure I'll find the motivation to do it though, I'm just using the least bad option I've found. Specifi…

That would be a cool extension of the project.

I’ve always wanted a hands free version of Dualingo because if I’m driving or walking somewhere I don’t want to use my hands for obvious reasons.

Re: Anki – Powerful, intelligent flash cards

#72
post #32
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 swear I have read this exact same comment before Edit: oh good I’m not crazy - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38428309

You can put that card at the end of the deck now ;)

Re: Anki – Powerful, intelligent flash cards

#73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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. (…

Inessential complexity increases the workload of maintaining a system (like the climbing wall vs. stairs: can't maintain an upstairs floor unless you maintain the ability to use the climbing wall).

Bells and whistles, especially when it comes to making things perfectly tidy, tend to introduce a lot of rules for using and maintaining a system. For example, a color-coding system with too many colors to reasonably recall without daily practice from using the system: any interruption, such as a vacation or even a weekend, will disrupt in some way the ability to use and maintain the color-coding system.

Informal rules also accumulate over time, adding to the complexity of any given action. It doesn't take a major change to topple your flashcard system, but slow, accumulated changes have been enough to do so.

Re: Anki – Powerful, intelligent flash cards

#74
Like many people, I started using Anki for language learning, and it has been wildly useful for that. I'm always told that I have a good vocabulary, which was precisely my problem last time I tried to learn a language.

Since then, I've branched into many other topics. The latest one that I've started building out is all of the Paris métro lines and stops. The most useful thing ever? No, but I feel happy knowing that I have a better understanding of the system I'm using ever day.

Re: Anki – Powerful, intelligent flash cards

#75
SSR tools and flashcards are amazing for knowledge retention. When I started learning new language, my google sheet with words I wanted memorize grew to hundreds pretty quickly. I wanted the simplest possible app that would let me to import and repeat words from my list anytime I have even a few minutes to spare. And being a developer, of course I decided to write one myself. It’s a bit different than anki and obviously has less features (it’s a pet project after all) but the concept is pretty similar: https://byheart.io/

Re: Anki – Powerful, intelligent flash cards

#76

Anyone have suggestions for the lowest friction / best UX way to generate and study Anki cards? (my smartphone is Android, if that matters.) I know spaced repetition is super helpful and I should be making and study cards to help with language learning and other topics I'm studying, but it always feels like a slog to try to find a deck (which won't end up being what you want) or manually make a bunch of cards, the UI…

I take notes on paper while studying the subject, then when I'm done I put the essential concepts or whatever I want to memorize into cards in Anki via my computer (I usually avoid adding them on my phone, it's slower).

It is a slow process, but for getting new ideas to stick, I'm not sure that's a bad thing.

I don't usually bother with preexisting decks. If you’re building your own from your own study, it almost guarantees you actually understand what you're trying to memorize.

Re: Anki – Powerful, intelligent flash cards

#77
post #2

I LOVE anki!! I’m a heavy user. Everything goes in my morning flash cards. Knots, geography, language, tar commandline flags, papers, statistics homework. Fill them with things you like, is my advice - it’s fun to say hello to hobbies on the verge of your memory in the morning. Bird calls! I’m learning sounds of bird calls since I can’t see very well so I can’t learn by sight. I listed eBird’s set of common birds nea…

Bird calls is a great idea! I never thought of it, but it really does align with the medium.

Re: Anki – Powerful, intelligent flash cards

#78
post #15
post #12

I used Anki to learn to recognize the top 300 plant species (and top mushroom species) in my area by sight. Totally changed my perception of nature.

How did you find out what the top species in your area are? Did you start by taking pictures of random plants and then researching what they could be, or did you use something like a guidebook? And what did your Anki cards look like?

I used iNaturalist website to list 500 most observed plant species in Eastern USA and Canada, and used a script to scrape the species names (scientific and common) and the URL of the title photo.

I used another script to download the images and build the anki deck.

My decks have just the photo on the front, then scientific name + common name + notes on back.

I’ve made many notes in my decks, mostly about the etymology of the scientific names to help remember them.

I’ve also added extra photos to the front to show other parts of the plant needed to distinguish from look-alikes, with notes on these features.

My reference is usually The Flora of Virginia and/or Sam Thayer’s recent field guide (which is a major new contribution through all his field observations).

I have not shared because the photos are mostly ALL RIGHTS RESERVED, but I’ve been considering redoing the photos using CC0/CC-BY (and asking some authors for permission but this is hard as iNat is pseudonymous).

Re: Anki – Powerful, intelligent flash cards

#79

I've been using Anki a bit to supplement my language learning. I built an Anki deck generator that makes emoji/tts/word flashcards! It's worked pretty well for me to get some better word recognition. https://flashcards.bpev.me

Just to note: Anki supports `{{tts}}`, using the system TTS providers

https://docs.ankiweb.net/templates/fields.html#text-to-speec...

Re: Anki – Powerful, intelligent flash cards

#80

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 have issues keeping up with large language decks, too. In my case the problem usually lies not with Anki but all the other stuff going on in my life — stressors, work, etc. There’s just a cap on what I can be juggling at any point in time and if things aren’t flowing smoothly it’s going to be more difficult to stick to working through a long deck. If I could just hit pause on everything else there would be no problems.

Retention is high so that helps keep progress between periods of deck usage at least.

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