I only use one deck, the main reason being that I'm too lazy to switch back and forth between multiple ones. Another reason is that I like to have my total number of "expired" cards readily visible.

We had a thread like this a few days back. Anyway, I say keep them separate, that way you won't have to suspend etc when you don't feel like reviewing something. It also lets you focus on what you're doing, you shouldn't have korean questions jump up in the middle of reviewing Japanese.

There's also the problem with syncing. I have audio with every fact in my Chinese deck, I use no media what so ever in my Japanese deck (I use the Japanese deck every day on different computers and since it won't let you sync media, it's not a good idea to include it. Chinese on the other hand I keep to one computer and I don't review that deck every day.)

Like hknamida says, all together. I've got RtK, sentences, topology, abstract algebra, MIPS architecture, chemistry, and assorted other miscellany mixed together.

I am considering starting a second deck, but that would only be to separate out items that I can't always do (so, for instance, items that require audio, or where the answer involves selecting a fret on a musical instrument); nevertheless, the issues of having to actively switch decks gives me serious pause as to whether that would work.

~J

I recently made the decision to combine my RTK and sentences decks, and I'm quite pleased with how well it's worked out. I tend to ignore my RTK deck for days at a time, so this kinda forces me to review everything at once. I was worried that consolidating would negatively impact my concentration by having two different models, but rather, I find that it's a refreshing change of pace to see a sentence or two after a dozen kanji or vice versa.

There is the issue of keeping things more organized in separate decks, but proper tagging can easily take care of this, so again, not a big deal.

Nope. You can have varios "models" in the same deck.

Delina wrote:

Can you have different spacing in the same deck? I have a ridiculous memory for sentences but not so much for single vocabulary words, so I want to have a larger spacing (on the order of a week to start with) for my sentences. So far the only way I've found to do this is to start a second deck.

I've not tried this yet myself, but in deck properties it looks like you can attribute priorities to specific tagged cards. So for example, assuming your vocab cards are labeled, let's say, "vocab", you could put that in the Very High Priority form to (theoretically) get them to appear at a higher frequency (or alternatively, the same deal with sentences in Low Priority). I'm sure someone else can verify and elaborate.

Edit: I was wrong! Thanks for the clarification, woodwojr.

Last edited by Burritolingus (2009 January 29, 5:39 pm)

I don't just separate decks, I even separate SRS's.  My Japanese stuff is Mnemosyne and my French stuff is Anki.  Eventually I'll probably make another deck entirely of some other language or topic on KhatzuMemo, and whatever other SRS's are big.  By improving my knowledge of more mediums, I improve my knowledge in each individual medium by extension.  Also since I often write about SRS's, I feel like I should do whatever is in my power to increase my authority about them.

One of the reasons to use multiple decks instead of only one is that the RTK1 cards mess up your kanjis stats. You'll get 100% everywhere but of course that does not reflect your real kanji ability at all...however, with the next version, this will be fixed:

Done. In the next version, the kanji stats will only check fields with
a model tag 'Japanese'

http://groups.google.com/group/ankisrs/ … 030a?tvc=2

Delina wrote:

Can you have different spacing in the same deck? I have a ridiculous memory for sentences but not so much for single vocabulary words, so I want to have a larger spacing (on the order of a week to start with) for my sentences. So far the only way I've found to do this is to start a second deck.

Just set your #4 button to have really high spacing, and keep everything else the same.  That way, you can use 1-3 for vocab and 4 for anything super-easy (your sentences). 

Set the "4: initial easy interval" to 8.0000 min -> 10.0000 max, and that should do the trick

woodwojr wrote:

Depends on your definition of "mess up". Anyway, since I think the goal ought ultimately to be to nuke the Heisig cards, it lets you keep an eye on what holes you're reintroducing as you delete Heisig cards.

~J

I don't plan on nuking my Heisig reviews. Granted, I've always put off importing my progress from RevTK to Anki.

My main reasoning for not getting rid of Heisig? An SRS eventually spaces it out to nothingness anyway, right? Ok, RevTK doesn't do that (stops at 240 days), but that's just an initial design flaw.

You can store multiple categories in a deck, or use multiple decks.

If you want to switch between multiple decks, use

File->Recent decks

Note you should use a single deck for similar material, and a different deck for widely different material (eg, two different languages).

You can keep it all in the same deck if you wish. The only reasons not to are because you want separate statistics, you want to be able to share some portion, or because you like the separation.