Every day I do my RTK1 deck and my Core 2000 deck. They take 1-1.5 hours every day and I am running out of time. Should I be judging "Hard", "Good", "Easy", etc., because I have just been saying "Hard" on all of my cards to save time. I don't really want to do a time or question limit, because many of my cards would end up overdue. I write the word down on a piece of paper, if i know the kanji i will write furigana above it to memorise the pronunciation as well. The Core 2000 deck always seems to take longer. Anyway, do you have any idea how to shorten reviews? ありがとう!

You are adding too many cards per day. Stop adding as many and keep doing the reviews.

I'm adding 10 per day, I didn't think that that was much, but I'll reduce that to 5.

You don't need to write each word unless being able to write by hand is important to you right now. Personally I go through my anki reviews as fast as possible without worrying about completely remembering everything I don't fail. Basically if I see the answer and feel like "oh, I remember now" or my answer was really close then I give it a hard. If I'm way off then I fail it. Just make sure you read a lot.

How can I read if I don't know the words in the first place?

It's really annoying at first, I know, but there are words that you do know and will recognize when you read. Even if you may not understand much, it's important that you practice what you do know and get more familiar with grammar. Yotsubato was the first thing I was able to read and enjoy without a translation, try starting there.

I write only some of the sentances kind of like a random selection. I would also suggest usuing the easy button for sentences you know really well (e.g you just know it without thinking about it. )

I toyed with feedmejapanese a bit, that is geared to no having to do umpteen reviews everyday but I did not like the dictionary on it ( it did not like anthing ending with じゃない、よう、amongst other things). A shame really it seemed to have such potential but I think the developer has abandonded it there has been nothing new for a while.

I would like to know how many reviews you get, While going through RTK at the speed I did I had 300-400 reviews (includes sentences as well) a day but never took 1.5 hours neven with writing down some of the kanji each review.

Pressing Hard too much makes the reviews pile up. It would be better to choose Good most of the time.

bladethecoder Wrote:Pressing Hard too much makes the reviews pile up. It would be better to choose Good most of the time.

This. If you just keep pressing hard, then the interval barely increases at all, and the spacing algorithm doesn't actually get to... you know... space the cards much.

Tbh it would be better to just choose whichever answer fits best, like you're supposed to.

fleet street Wrote:I write the word down on a piece of paper

Here's your problem. Don't do this. Just scribble the shape in the palm of your hand using the index finger of your other hand. I've been doing this for a couple of years and it works fine.

harhol Wrote:Tbh it would be better to just choose whichever answer fits best, like you're supposed to.

Yes. Choosing a different answer than the one that matches how you actually felt reduces the efficiency or the effectiveness of the system, both of which waste your time.

Before reviewing new cards, try out the method in this thread. It might help prevent a sudden pile of reviews after you add new material.

Anyway, here's what I do when it comes to rating the difficulty of cards:

1. First time adding a card that I just learned: Hard. Always.
2. Second time reviewing a card that I've only reviewed once: Hard if it takes me more than about three or four seconds to answer correctly. Good if I can answer it in less time. Never Easy.
3. Three time reviewing a card that I've only reviewed twice: Hard if it takes me more than five seconds to answer correctly. Good if less than five seconds. Easy if I get the answer instantly or almost instantly. I follow this pattern for all subsequent reviews.

Exceptions and further comments:

- I tend to grade leeches Hard until I feel comfortable enough with them (I don't suspend leeches).

- If I make a minor mistake and I feel like I only got it wrong due to carelessness or tiredness, then I rate it Hard. However, if I get it wrong the next time, then I fail it.

- I usually give a rating of Good or Easy to cards that I already know but just recently added for SRSing. This mostly applies for downloaded decks.

- I think of Good as the default answer. Answering Good most of the time means that your reviews are at a level appropriate to your abilities. If everything is Easy, then that means the deck isn't challenging enough. On the other hand, if everything is Hard, then that means the deck is too difficult.

harhol Wrote:Tbh it would be better to just choose whichever answer fits best, like you're supposed to.

It's kind of silly not to take advantage of the buttons; heck, the first letter of SRS stands for 'spaced', and if you give the same answer for all your cards regardless of how you actually feel about them, then the program can't space your reps effectively.

Here's my personal system. I'm really not that far into RtK1 yet, so I don't know how much it will help:

Easy- Near instant recognition, the same as I'd have with an English word/phrase.
Good- Some hesitation; it's taken me a few seconds to remember what the kanji means. This is probably the rating I use most often on a good day.
Hard- A lot of hesitation; my mind has jumped between several possible answers before coming to the right one. Even when I thought of the correct answer, I wasn't sure that it was right.
Again-I either didn't get the kanji right, blanked completely, or spent so long thinking about the answer that I clearly need to see this card again ASAP.

I used to do the "always Hard" thing. It was maddening.

All of my anki decks have a time limit of 10 minutes (8 decks), and I try to answer within 2 seconds. If I take any longer than that it's obvious I don't know the word as well as I hope I could know it.

If I can read English and Korean words within a fraction of a second I expect the same out of Japanese and Spanish as well.

Thank you all, I will answer good for most of my reviews, like vileru said, and maybe try reading yotsubato, like quincy said, as well.

Ah, 10 cards a day is not a lot at all. I was thinking you were adding 50-100 cards a day.

Go back to 10, and like they said, try hitting 'good' more often. If you can do it from memory... why not hit good?

Try to vary your review grades, it allows the SRS to help you. Try to compare to the other cards your grading, if you find it a bit easier then the others then grade it easier. Grading everything the same is actually going to cost you more time. Try to use easy/very easy at least on occasion.

You might need to trust Anki more and not how long you think you will remember it for. In the Anki's preferences you can turn off "Show next time before answer". This might help you learn to use your gut and trust Anki by not getting distracted by the next times.

furrykef Wrote:

fleet street Wrote:I write the word down on a piece of paper

Here's your problem. Don't do this. Just scribble the shape in the palm of your hand using the index finger of your other hand. I've been doing this for a couple of years and it works fine.

Yeah, I agree, ditch the paper trail, this should speed you up. Just write with your finger into the palm of your hand, your lap, your desk or whatever is convenient. I used to write everything down, which isn't a bad idea when you first start. However it's probably slowing you down more than it helps.

Also, how long do you spend on each review? Anything more than 20 seconds is probably overkill. Faster the better. Timebox your sessions.

With Anki, use the Spacebar to answer. If it's new or a re-reviewed missed card, it'll default select hard. If it's a normal review it'll default select good. That means the only time you'll need to choose anything is when you miss something. Makes reviewing less stressful as you're not concerned how well you knew it.

PS: If anyone is like me and learns straight from Anki (ex: importing in bulk ala Core 2k/6k), I've starting "missing" the initial review if I did not know the card. When it comes up in 10 minutes it ensures whether I initially learned the card or not.

@Nuke

I always do the learning straight from Anki thing, it's much easier.

Timebox, don't add if you don't want to/need to. Keep the numbers high/low depending on what you want

In Anki I used to grade all my answers, but now I usually just hit spacebar. The reviews go by faster. (I still hit "hard" if the answer took way too long, if I thought of other answers before settling on one, or if I was in doubt as to whether I was right.)

ocircle Wrote:All of my anki decks have a time limit of 10 minutes (8 decks), and I try to answer within 2 seconds. If I take any longer than that it's obvious I don't know the word as well as I hope I could know it.

If I can read English and Korean words within a fraction of a second I expect the same out of Japanese and Spanish as well.

This is a good idea if you want to walk away from a review session feeling confident that you've mastered everything you covered. However, I'm not sure if it's the best idea for someone worried about long Anki reviews. The failed cards will pile up fast, and I'm not sure if the faster reviews will make up for the lost time.

Anyway, I see Anki reviews as a primer and refresher. I don't expect a complete mastery of vocab from Anki. I just use it to initially memorize words and their uses and to make sure I receive minimal exposure to them. I expect immersion to lead to the mastery of the vocab I acquire. Recognizing a word in the context of Anki is different from encountering it in the context of language.

As of late Ive been finding it easier and easier to read off my sentences in anki (as it should be after many reviews) however the problem I fall into is my production. Even though I have seen the card for the umpteenth time, asking me to produce it in a natural situation or asking me to produce a similar sentence in a natural situation is a whole other ball game.

I guess my quesiton is, are there anyways out there to gear your reviews to favour production and not just reading/ comprehension? I get the whole input before output thing but Im starting to wonder if I've been doing this wrong or something. I havent been writing my reviews down (as per Ajatt) nor have I been closing my eyes and saying the sentence in my head (as per AntiMoon) as I find these too time consuming and frustration prone.

I don't know, it could just be my poor selection of sentences which arent subject to come up that often in day to day life.

Thoughts?

dusmar84 Wrote:Even though I have seen the card for the umpteenth time, asking me to produce it in a natural situation or asking me to produce a similar sentence in a natural situation is a whole other ball game.

I guess my quesiton is, are there anyways out there to gear your reviews to favour production and not just reading/ comprehension?

Thoughts?

Subs2srs helped for me. On some recent threads, there's discussion about MCD (massive clozed deletion) where you cloze delete a part of the sentence such as a phrase or vocabulary word. Then, using the surrounding context (one, two or even more sentences), fill in the blank for your answer.

Basic idea, you can recall that "blank" during a question then you can recall that "blank" during real life situations similar to the context. In addition, by reading the entire sentence out loud, you get guided output which is practice for the unguided variety.