.

Well, you don't have to use spaced repetition or even flash cards for that matter. Many people don't. But if you plan to study using flash cards, I think its incredibly inefficient not to utilize spaced repetition.
So you worked out a system where you can review all 2042 kanji in a manageable way. Is that the only thing you plan to ever study using flash cards? What about actual Japanese vocabulary? When you get up to 10,000 flash cards how are you going to do it?

I don't think you understand the method fully based on your description.

The Leitner method originally was done manually. Now, when we say SRS we mean it's a automated system where the computer program tracks the review time for each card individually and shows it to you when the proper amount of time has passed. You don't have to worry about forgetting to review a set of cards because the computer remembers to do it for you.

The "spaced" part is what you're not getting. This idea is that you don't remember all your flash cards equally. For each and every card, you're shown it the next day, those you get correct you're shown in three days. Those for three days you're shown in week, then 2 weeks, then a month, then 2 months, then 4 months, etc. With that, you're testing whether each and every card you review has stayed in your long term memory for whatever reason.

The method you set out will not do that in respect to long term memory. You're testing whether you can remember data for one month at the latest. That's not a bad system in itself, but your taking time reviewing cards after one month rest that perhaps you could remember 90% of them for two months. Perhaps 90% of those you could remember for 4 months. Again, 90% of those for 8 months.

With spacing, those 500 cards a week could dwindle down to 5 cards a weeks. You could then spend that free time from reviewing older cards to instead learn new cards such as grammar sentences or vocabulary words.

If you don't use spaced repetition, recall will be very difficult, time-consuming, and monotonous. If you do, it'll be as easy as it can be, and use the minimum amount of time.

You should try it and understand what it gives you before you say you "don't bother with it".

People I suggest it to almost always seem to dismiss it as being too much of an effort to set up and get into, deciding for themselves that whatever they're doing (or not doing) is more simple and better. They'd think it looks great when I'm doing reps on the phone, asking what app I'm using, but when I tell them that you have to manually put in the content (or at least spend time configuring pre-made decks) they'd lose interest fast.

Yes it's a bit of work, but it saves you that precious effort in the long run.

vgambit Wrote:If you don't use spaced repetition, recall will be very difficult, time-consuming, and monotonous.

Really? Because I *did* use an SRS and it still felt really monotonous and time-consuming... So not using one doesn't sound all that different from using one.

What especially annoyed me was constantly having to regurgitate Kanji in every detail that felt like I had already done at least twice before over the past week. It finally got to a point where SRS was slowing me down because of the mindless "repeat what you already know" approach.

So I adopted a fly-through approach, and now I basically skip to the Kanji immediately after seeing the key word instead of trying to draw it first (be it in my mind or on paper). And then I'm really honest with myself: could I or could I not have reproduced this one accurately, had I tried? And based on the answer to that question I either click "no", "yes" or "easy". Since there's no point in dishonesty, it yields the same result als slogging through every line and dash of the Kanji before comparing to the other side of the card. But it's so much faster and feels like such a relief compared to the old way, which I kept up fo 3.5 months!

If you had to do the same kanji twice in a week you obviously aren't remember them, or srs wouldn't show it to you in the first place.

Whatever works for you, man. I'm not a huge srs nerd but the main reason I use it is because I can't imagine keeping a stack of 2,000 flash cards somewhere. I'd never forgive myself if I lost a stack.

I do the same as you do.

I still use a SRS, though, but only as a database of cards.

I shut down the SRS scheduler and instead just cram all
cards in rotation. In my experience, the SRS algorithm did
not review cards sufficiently often, especially after
they mature.

If you don't use an SRS approach, you'll do more reviews and spend more time on them for the same level of proficiency. I don't think review is going to be interesting for very many people, no matter how you do it, but spending less time on it is useful, IMO.

While I'm convinced you can learn vocab without SRS (or rather, that it's better to learn vocab without SRS), I think that it works pretty well for Kanji. At some point you'll abandon that old "English keyword to Kanji" deck anyways, by gradually switching to Japanese keywords as a second step, and this works perfectly. It's minimum time consuming (even though it it), and it's accurate.

So, the recurring complaint is that the SRS software either doesn't schedule cards often enough, or it schedules them too often.

You guys realize that, in Anki for instance, you can set your intervals for as long as you like? Not only that, but you can set each individual card to show up again after an appropriate time, based on difficulty?

Using Anki doesn't bind you to any kind of automatic schedule. That's a misconception. Using the interval settings and the ability to organize cards into different decks, you are in full control of both when and how often you review any card.

There is a set of settings that are default, because a. there has to be a default setting and b. the developer of Anki deemed that to be the setting best suited for the kinds of material Anki is most often used for. But you can change them, and in fact the developer himself recommends that you change them when appropriate.

Eminem2 Wrote:Really? Because I *did* use an SRS and it still felt really monotonous and time-consuming... So not using one doesn't sound all that different from using one.

Have you considered the possibility that perhaps you haven't used it properly? It's very easy to have a frustrating and/or ineffective experience with Anki, by using the wrong settings, or choosing the wrong material to learn.

But there is overwhelming testimony on this site that Anki CAN be a useful too for learning both the Kanji and vocab. Your "I tried and didn't like it" doesn't warrant questioning that.

At least not unless you're confident that you fully understand Anki's functionality and you have used it to its full potential. Then, sure, your experience would matter. But misusing a tool you don't understand doesn't prove that tool to be worthless.

My Anki use has dropped quite a bit, though I haven't 'officially' quit using it for Japanese yet.
However, in no way does that mean that I didn't find it useful; in fact, I found it very useful for cramming a large amount of vocabulary and kanji into my brain over a short period of time. With Anki, I went through RTK in about four months and got through Core 6k in about seven months.

Honestly, the only reason I'm not bothering with it now is that I'm burnt out and can read without looking up every word (in many cases).

I'll probably get back into using Anki for Japanese at some point, but even if I don't, I can see myself using it for other subjects.

Also, I learned the kana with flashcards. Even after two weeks of multiple sessions per day, I still had to reference my notes when reading them in the wild. I don't know if Anki would have helped much with that, but considering I could review hundreds of words a day in Anki and get most of them right after only a couple of instances, I'd think it would have.

All this time spent on deciding if SRS is or isn't right for you is time spent away from learning Japanese.

TLDR: Study More Japanese.

[RawToast]

TwoMoreCharacters Wrote:People I suggest it to almost always seem to dismiss it as being too much of an effort to set up and get into, deciding for themselves that whatever they're doing (or not doing) is more simple and better. They'd think it looks great when I'm doing reps on the phone, asking what app I'm using, but when I tell them that you have to manually put in the content (or at least spend time configuring pre-made decks) they'd lose interest fast.

I had the same experience. My brother in law was very enthusiastic about using Anki until I installed it and told him he had to set up the application.

Next time I'll just have to set up Anki for them...

Quote:Not only that, but you can set each individual card to show up again after an appropriate time, based on difficulty?

I know how to play with the intervals, but which setting does this? Or are you talking about how the general algorithm works?

I've seen some rather interesting ways to 'shake up' your time with Anki on the official Anki support forum. Such as cards that randomly change between closed production, listening, sentences, or single item recognition on each review(or day).

Quote:What especially annoyed me was constantly having to regurgitate Kanji in every detail that felt like I had already done at least twice before over the past week.

That would've been very easy to fix by increasing your interval modifier, many people do increase it from 100% to 150-200%.

RawToast Wrote:I know how to play with the intervals, but which setting does this? Or are you talking about how the general algorithm works?

It's a complex system, but, basically, by manipulating the various settings, you can set each answer button to delay your cards by any interval you'd like.

It's not just the interval modifier that you can change, there's also:
1. steps, graduating interval, starting ease, easy interval for new cards; with these, the options for new cards are virtually endless. You can choose to make cards show up ten times in a day, or don't show up again for 100 years. Not only that, but you can set it up so that you can make that choice for each card individually, as you're adding them.

2. another set of those settings for failed cards (in the Lapses tab). Same story.

3. The interval modifier and easy bonus for regular reviews. While slightly less flexible, you still have more options than you'll ever need. You can set up cards to show up 5 times in a week, or once in a decade.

So it's absurd to complain that cards show up too often or too rarely.

P.S. The only settings I ever actually change is steps and easy interval, for new cards. For everything else, even just leaving the default settings gives you enough flexibility that you can review cards as often as you'd like (by pressing the again or hard buttons), or very rarely (by pressing the easy button).

Here are some memory tips. (Chapter 1-11 related to memory / remembering)
http://memorizethebible.com/#chapter-4

The author's medium is, obviously, the bible, but the advice can be applied to any book or study.

Supermemo has similar advice, here
http://www.supermemo.com/articles/20rules.htm