I just saw this guy's Anki settings:

http://globalmaverick.org/archives/533-s...i-settings

I'm thinking it seems like a good idea and might try it with a vocab deck... Does anyone have any opinion/is anyone doing anything like this already??

Also

For those of us that dabble with AJATT, you might find some encouragement here:

http://natural-language-acquisition.blog...ethod.html

and a description of the course here:

http://www.bangkokpost.com/education/sit...oc0907.htm

Very interesting!
I think I will try that.

I'm new to anki but I just downloaded "Core 2000 and 6000 vocabularyand sentences"
I am still looking for a premade deck of pretty much any kind that goes from the sentence in full 漢字 --> 振り仮名 (audio would be divine but not necessary).

What do you guys recommend?

No real comments on the bottom two other than I don't really respect the first one's (natural acquisition or whatever) views on language learning, nor that ALG thingy, like at all. Author seems like good people, though. But as for Anki settings, it really just depends.

I have some ridiculously large number for the # of cards, timebox between 1-30 minutes to not at all depending on the day's strategies... I don't bother randomizing new cards because I know they'll get sorted on their own through grading them.

I stick new cards at the end depending on whether I have a lot of expired cards and want to prioritize new cards instead, for various reasons. But usually I leave them at the end, since I can finish expired cards quickly enough.

Failed cards I leave at the end so I can set them aside during a session and restudy at the end of it or at the end of the day.

Oh, and the largest interval thing seems like useless micromanaging to me. I just review them as they're due.

I never timebox/set deadlines for 'studying' new cards/'restudying' failed ones. They're always untimed/set aside rather than mixed in with due cards. It's all about tha flow. When you got the flow you got the glow *raps The Last Dragon theme song* ...

I have basically the same settings as from that first link. Except I review cards in random order because it made it more interesting when I was working through my backlog of 4000+ due cards. It was more interesting to review a mix of sentences, grammar and kanji than have to slog through all of the kanji first because they were the ones with the longest intervals, or most due or whatever.

That's pretty well the exact structure I use Once upon a time, in a quest for quantity rather than quality, I used to put a set number of new cards first, then review the entirety of the ever-growing pile (even if it took hours). It was insanity, and a recipe for burnout.

Once I switched to the 'review shortest to longest intervals --> add new cards if time and energy permits' with 5-15 minute timeboxes (depending on what kind of cards they were - recognition/production), SRSing stopped being a chore that I needed to avoid. The line in his 'repetition hell' post about Doritos and 24 was deadly accurate (though for me it was a block of chocolate and The Biggest Loser - why does that show make me so hungry?).

Re the ALG thing, I've been looking around for detailed student reviews on this (they're thin on the ground), so thanks for the link. Those are some cool results! They run a Japanese program, too, but iirc the running hours per week are pretty limited I would totally do it if they offered it in Japan or Australia.

Here's a link to an ALG Japanese demo class, in case anyone's interested:

Normally, I leave my settings on "Review cards in random order"

When I'm behind on my reviews, and have limited time, I set it to "Review cards from smallest interval" That way, I get the cards I'm most likely to forget out of the way.

When my focus sucks, like real late at night, or when I don't feel like doing work, I set it to "Review cards from the largest interval" I get all the easy ones done, and save the tougher ones for when I'm more focused.

I don't believe in one set of settings being perfect for everyone, but if they work for you, then great. Those settings don't do it for me. For example:

Timeboxing: I just do what I can when I can, and don't worry about it. If I have Anki set to close the session at 10 minutes, and I have 15 free, well, then that doesn't work. I'm also not afraid to see what's in my pile. I turn timeboxing and other such whatnot off, and leave it to self-discipline.

Show oldest first: I still think this is a horrible idea. (I argued with Resolve over this when he first put this in Anki a year or two ago, and we couldn't change it at first.) I also think showing the youngest first is a horrible idea, too. I believe you should review what's due as it comes due, whether it be a young card or an old card. If you review a bunch of old easy cards at the expense of your young cards, then the young cards with very short intervals suffer. Meanwhile, the old cards you'll probably sail through can sit for an extra day or two can be ignored for a bit, but you can't ignore them forever... but really *the* most important cards that get ditched are the ones in the middle, the 1.2-3 month cards that you juuuust forget. Those tend to wind up somewhere in the void and you wind up back at square one again. I hate that.

So I set to review as they come due.

Adding new cards: I only add new cards at the end of the day (so I forget them overnight), and space them out throughout reviews. I also only add new cards if my pile is small (under 100) or 0. If it's too big, I just don't add them until I work the pile down. (Again, I'm not afraid of the pile. I've cleared a 1500 card pile, so I've stared it down before. Now I'm not afraid of anything. It's another self-discipline issue.)

If I chunk all new cards together at once, then I set bad associations and pass them too easily. If I space them out with older material, I force my brain to work harder to remember them without any tricks or shortcuts. (This is why I'll use Word Lists to learn harder stuff before it goes into Anki-- Anki is not for learning, it's for remembering. Two different functions. That's a mistake I try not to make anymore.)

Failed cards pop up after 20 minutes. That seems to work for me. No logic there. Just tweaking.

Since my decks are ordered for ease of learning, I don't randomize cards.

And since cards are supposedly time-sensitive, it makes sense to show them by order due. I've never understood why anyone would want to mess with Anki's ordering, since that's all Anki really brings to the table over flash cards.

Those settings would obviously not work for those of us who add cards manually, unless you had a massive bunch added before hand.

And personally, I actually find 10 minute timeboxes way too long. I already think 5 is hard to keep concentration through ^^.