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To remember everything you learn, surrender to this algorithm (2008)

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Re: To remember everything you learn, surrender to this algorithm (2008)

#81

Post by ru-lai »

reactspa wrote: post #10
djoldman wrote: post #5

Free app based on the same idea: https://apps.ankiweb.net/ https://github.com/ankitects/anki-manual/

Anki is great... however: ... having used it for the last 4 years to try to memorize vocabulary in certain languages (Spanish & French, recently started Chinese), I think it's a base layer ... (much like how Bitcoiners like to talk about BTC's Blockchain). Reasons: 1. I've tired of it. I need a layer that makes me excited to use it. 2. I've found it far-far less useful for learning other things than rote vocabulary m…

It's much more fun to watch native video / read native materials and put in whole sentences that are just on the tip of your foreign language understanding (i + 1 theory from stephen krashen).

Instead of just 1 to 1 vocab mapping, look for chinese tv shows that you enjoy and start to slowly build up vocabulary by mining sentences.

Then when you do reviews, not only will you remember the vocabulary, you will also remember when it occurred in the story and have a cool memory of some of your favorite tv shows / books / etc.

Re: To remember everything you learn, surrender to this algorithm (2008)

#82

Post by ru-lai »

Jtsummers wrote: post #21
dgs_sgd wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've used Anki every day for almost a year now for Spanish vocabulary. My deck has over 4000 cards. Most are one-to-one translations of nouns and verbs, but some are phrases and Spanish idioms. To your first point, it has basically become a habit for me. The key is to really commit to it for the first several weeks and establish the habit, then you won't feel tired of it as reviewing your cards daily becomes somethin…

> I believe Anki memorization + regular conversational practice is second only to full immersion as the best learning strategy. I'd extend this: Memory + Synthesis = Useful learning strategy Blindly learning facts with no intent to synthesize them into something else will help you win at trivia contests. Learning to integrate those facts into something else (like conversation, with languages) is how you effectively l…

Nice man. Yes, why not use both immersion and spaced repetition?

Re: To remember everything you learn, surrender to this algorithm (2008)

#83

Post by ru-lai »

BeetleB wrote: post #69
dls2016 wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used Mnemosyne to memorize baby Rudin, Munkres’ Topology and large swaths of Dummit and Foote. Perfect scores on analysis and topology qualifying exams… good enough on algebra haha. I had always been reluctant to use memorization but I found it helped immensely. Especially as a returning graduate student.

I've often heard it's not very effective for topics like math. I would love to read a write-up on how you did this - perhaps your technique is better than most people's attempts? Also, do you continue to use it for math-like subjects?

Someone else already posted this, not sure if you will pinged from them.

Please read this article about learning math with spaced repetition. http://augmentingcognition.com/ltm.html

Re: To remember everything you learn, surrender to this algorithm (2008)

#85

Post by adrianN »

epa wrote: post #79
Buttons840 wrote: post #68

You know. I've never been interested in these e-ink notebooks where you can write on a digital screen that acts like paper. I've always felt that actual pen and paper were superior. However, if you add some good spaced repetition software to one of these e-notebooks then I think you will have finally surpassed pen and paper for note taking. I'm thinking of something like, you take a note on a page and then save it. A…

A key for when tablets will replace paper is when refresh rates get so fast drawing mimics ink on paper. Until the lag is eliminated it won't be replaced.

I haven't used them myself, but I've heard that the Remarkable tablets have pretty good lag.

Re: To remember everything you learn, surrender to this algorithm (2008)

#86

Post by adrianN »

wsinks wrote: post #30
david-gpu wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my opinion people often make the mistake of using Anki to memorize one-to-one translations of foreign words. It is more effective to use it to learn the mapping of whole sentences. For every word you want to learn, add a few idiomatic and representative sentences in Anki. You can do the same for every new grammatical concept you want to learn. And don't forget to use Anki's text-to-speech tools to practice listeni…

Any chance you've studied either Spanish or Russian and have decks to share? I've never fully gotten started with Anki, but would love to get back into it to use it to expand my vocab with full sentences. I'll also be checking online now that you've spurred my curiosity, just curious if you have ones that you like too.

There is this guy who turned the Tatoeba database into Anki decks: https://digitalwords.net/anki/tatoeba-audio/index.eng.html

Re: To remember everything you learn, surrender to this algorithm (2008)

#87

Post by kouteiheika »

tempestn wrote: post #52

Does there exist an app/website/program that implements this technique for learning languages, combined with actual lesson plans? I understand you can use the SuperMemo software or something like Anki to learn languages, but you need to decide what you want to learn and put it into the program. What I'd like is something like Duolingo with an existing set of lessons and a progression, but that makes use of this remin…

I'm making an app like this for Japanese, however it doesn't have preset lessons yet. (I'm planning to add more structured lessons in the future.) For now what I have are a bunch of vocabulary lists for various shows/novels/etc. which you can pick and learn the vocabulary from, and then you can use the app to find the next show/novel/etc. where you'll have to learn the least amount of new vocabulary to be able to consume it.

Re: To remember everything you learn, surrender to this algorithm (2008)

#88

Post by ramblerman »

Buttons840 wrote: post #68

You know. I've never been interested in these e-ink notebooks where you can write on a digital screen that acts like paper. I've always felt that actual pen and paper were superior. However, if you add some good spaced repetition software to one of these e-notebooks then I think you will have finally surpassed pen and paper for note taking. I'm thinking of something like, you take a note on a page and then save it. A…

It's a good idea. I think the problem with being presented the whole page is that we fool ourselves into thinking we know something. I.e recognition feels like remembering.

So it might be better to draw the boxes up front, but I like the concept.

https://www.remnote.io/ tries to do something like this but with textual notes.

Re: To remember everything you learn, surrender to this algorithm (2008)

#89

Post by ramblerman »

SirensOfTitan wrote: post #31

The SuperMemo scheduling algorithm is a lot easier for me to deal with than Anki: if I miss a couple days, it doesn't overwhelm me with a punishing review schedule. With that, I really wish Woz would open source the SM18 algorithm, dealing with the SM UI is really painful. I don't love the Anki UI either, but it's streets ahead of SM in that dimension. Also, tangentially related: I really love Woz's wiki, which is fi…

Do you have some evidence that this particular algorithm is so effective?

I have some doubts that there is a 'perfect' forgetting curve that maps over all items equally that this would matter to such a degree.

I.e. if it comes back after 3 days then 9 in Anki, or 2 days and 10 in SM18.

What matters is showing up and spending the time with your SR tool, as well as adding high quality cards.

Re: To remember everything you learn, surrender to this algorithm (2008)

#90

Post by hobo_mark »

solarmist wrote: post #51
hobo_mark wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's exactly what I do. From videos I use losslesscut [1] to isolate the sentences I want to practice on and then turn those into anki flashcards with some custom tools I wrote. [1] https://github.com/mifi/lossless-cut

What else do your tools/scripts do? Does losslesscut work with streaming video or only downloaded files?

Speech to text (via google cloud speech) and dictionary lookups (via a custom gui). Only downloaded files, luckily the sources I use make their content available online for free (and I wrote some python to automatically download new episodes).
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