After discovering Anki >3 years ago, I've have IMO successfully used it to teach me how to read Kanji, memorize short facts, but that's pretty it. I think Anki works best when used to remember short, quickly digestible bits/facts. For example, I can't use it to study grammar. I did try a few times in the past, but it just didn't click. I learned my grammar from tons of reading and exposure instead.

But what about studying more efficiently in general, how do you use Anki for this? Like every time I read something in a textbook, manual, reference book, tutorial, etc., I can't help feeling hopeless to the fact that I will probably forget most of it if I don't find an effective SRS-like way to review it.

I love Anki, most peoples problems are they spend too much time doing reviews. You should be able to do 100 reviews in 10 minutes, if not faster.

I found it best for grammar actually because I could just add 5/6 sentences all using some pattern, I found it impossible to forget them after.

But, still, its not for everyone.

youasuki Wrote:...Like every time I read something in a textbook, manual, reference book, tutorial, etc., I can't help feeling hopeless to the fact that I will probably forget most of it if I don't find an effective SRS-like way to review it.

Maybe you could read about how people use incremental reading with SuperMemo? I think there's an Anki plugin for it too. Sorry, I don't know much else about it.

Oh, *I* love Anki, don't get me wrong. I meant it ruined my study habits as in it made me realize the power of SRS and now I just can't go back to whatever I was doing before.

I tried the incremental reading thing too, but it was more overhead than anything, insane. I can't do it.

NightSky Wrote:I love Anki, most peoples problems are they spend too much time doing reviews. You should be able to do 100 reviews in 10 minutes, if not faster.

Wow, that fast? Tips please! : D
That's exactly my problem, heh, it takes me forever to do my reviews. Partly it's my own fault since I always watch anime while doing them, and can wind up getting distracted by the show. So I end up not finishing them pretty often, and while either way I end up doing stuff in Japanese, I still feel bad because without Anki, it's hard to really quantify my studying, and I've become a bit overly reliant on that.

Still really love Anki though, I'd struggle much more without it, I'm sure I'd have given up trying to learn kanji. For grammar, I'd just add sentences, with the grammar point on the back (and sometimes vice versa). It seems to work as far as picking up the pattern so as to be able to understand it goes, for being able to actually use it myself, not so much. I suspect cloze-deletions might help there, but haven't tried it yet.

There doesn't seem to be anything I can really do about the fact that, no matter how much I might want to learn something or know it'd be useful, if I'm not actually that interested in it, I'm not going to remember it. Anki does help to overcome that, but it applies even there. So with a grammar pattern, if I can find a sentence I like that uses it, or modify one (ie. by changing a noun), or even just add a picture, that's a lot better than just using a boring one from a textbook as-is. So if you find a sentence while you're reading, that you like, that uses a grammar pattern you're having trouble with, throw it into Anki for some extra exposure to it.

Quote:Wow, that fast? Tips please! : D

I don't think there's much more to it than "don't get stuck on the words you don't remember".

If it takes you more than 5 seconds to remember a word, fail it. Think about why you didn't remember and make adjustments if necessary, then move on. The five second rule is very effective for keeping the review times at minimum, regardless of how many cards you end up failing in the process.

If you learn 20 words a day and it takes you more than 30 minutes to finish your reviews there is much improvement to be done. Anki only deserves half an hour of our time at best...

Betelgeuzah Wrote:

Quote:Wow, that fast? Tips please! : D

I don't think there's much more to it than "don't get stuck on the words you don't remember".

If it takes you more than 5 seconds to remember a word, fail it. Think about why you didn't remember and make adjustments if necessary, then move on.

Hmm, 'k, I was just about to go do my reviews now so I'll try it, thanks. : ) I think I've just been a bit reluctant to end up having to fail a card that I feel I ought to know, because I know if I do, the interval will go down and I'll have to see it again repeatedly for weeks, till I'm sick of the thing. So, that had been slowing me down.

Interesting. Supermemo 16 recently came marking a huge two year update. The only version I've tried (2008 version) was terribly buggy with a garbage UI, but the updates (and bug fix/stability work) in the last two releases looks promising. Not to mention it was rewritten.

I wonder if the UI is finally polished enough for me to switch from Anki. It destroys Anki in about everything else (well more accurately I'm more interested in how SM-15 performs considering Anki is using the version of the algorithm from 1987; 6 answer choices also seems much better considering I've always thought the decision gap between "hard", "good", "easy" was too large).

That price though.

Most of the suggestions in SuperMemo's 20 rules apply to writing Anki cards,
http://www.supermemo.com/articles/20rules.htm

Ampharos64 Wrote:

Betelgeuzah Wrote:

Quote:Wow, that fast? Tips please! : D

I don't think there's much more to it than "don't get stuck on the words you don't remember".

If it takes you more than 5 seconds to remember a word, fail it. Think about why you didn't remember and make adjustments if necessary, then move on.

Hmm, 'k, I was just about to go do my reviews now so I'll try it, thanks. : ) I think I've just been a bit reluctant to end up having to fail a card that I feel I ought to know, because I know if I do, the interval will go down and I'll have to see it again repeatedly for weeks, till I'm sick of the thing. So, that had been slowing me down.

Sounds like you aren't aggressive enough using either the "Fail" answer or the "Easy" answer. Before I was the same and seemed to click the options that meant the card never went away, if you click easy each time it takes a while to come back

This thread is really more about how to effectively study anything that is *not* Kanji, which up until now is the only one thing that I have very much successfully used Anki for.

Ampharos64 Wrote:

Betelgeuzah Wrote:

Quote:Wow, that fast? Tips please! : D

I don't think there's much more to it than "don't get stuck on the words you don't remember".

If it takes you more than 5 seconds to remember a word, fail it. Think about why you didn't remember and make adjustments if necessary, then move on.

Hmm, 'k, I was just about to go do my reviews now so I'll try it, thanks. : ) I think I've just been a bit reluctant to end up having to fail a card that I feel I ought to know, because I know if I do, the interval will go down and I'll have to see it again repeatedly for weeks, till I'm sick of the thing. So, that had been slowing me down.

I know what you mean. The thing is that if it takes you 5+ seconds to know a card then you don't really know it well enough to justify a pass in the first place. You aren't learning the cards for the purpose of having a good success rate in Anki.

I also suggest using a re-learn multiplier (mine is 0.10) so that if you fail a card with, say, a 5 months interval you don't necessarily have to start from the very beginning again (so in my case if you fail once the interval becomes 0.10x5 months instead of one day, and grows from there).

Even if it ends up lowering your success % if the gains are much bigger (less time spent reviewing, faster completion of the deck) then to hell with the success %.

Hmm, well, one thing I've found useful, is if I'm having trouble remembering a reading, to make a vocab card for the word, kanji on front, picture on the back. Since there's already a sentence including the word in the deck, seeing it out of context isn't really a problem (can always put the sentence on the back, too), and for concrete nouns it's not really an issue anyway.

Tae Kim highlights the relevant part of the sentence in orange when introducing a new grammar point, so I do that as well on the back of the card. You could do it with sentences you find while reading, too.

NightSky Wrote:Sounds like you aren't aggressive enough using either the "Fail" answer or the "Easy" answer. Before I was the same and seemed to click the options that meant the card never went away, if you click easy each time it takes a while to come back

Hee, yeah, I hardly ever click 'Easy', and the card just stays around forever. Guess maybe I should be a bit bolder there...

Betelgeuzah Wrote:I know what you mean. The thing is that if it takes you 5+ seconds to know a card then you don't really know it well enough to justify a pass in the first place. You aren't learning the cards for the purpose of having a good success rate in Anki.

I also suggest using a re-learn multiplier (mine is 0.10) so that if you fail a card with, say, a 5 months interval you don't necessarily have to start from the very beginning again (so in my case if you fail once the interval becomes 0.10x5 months instead of one day, and grows from there).

Even if it ends up lowering your success % if the gains are much bigger (less time spent reviewing, faster completion of the deck) then to hell with the success %.

Yeah, trouble is I think that my concentration is a mess (sleep very badly due to nerve pain), and Anki in particular tends to cause me to phase out - especially when it keeps showing me cards I'm bored of. So I can end up failing a card I'd most likely have been fine with if I'd just happened to come across the kanji normally. I should probably have switched to Japanese keywords, really. Still.

Oh, that sounds handy, how do you set that?

I think problems only arise once you start thinking "Oh, I'll just anki that later" so key learning processes shut down.

And yes, where is this relearn multiplier? Quite a few options in settings about intervals.

KanjiMood Wrote:And yes, where is this relearn multiplier? Quite a few options in settings about intervals.

Options->Lapses->New interval.