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Anki – Powerful, intelligent flash cards

• dmarchand90 3y ago
  In the most bizarre of coincidences I just installed anki now before seeing it on the front page of hackernews
  • subtra3t 3y ago
    A piece of advice: stick with it. The usefulness of Anki lies in its ability to efficiently schedule flashcards, so it will be of little use if you review cards only occasionally. Review most/all of your due cards everyday. If you find that your workload is too much stop creating new cards or perhaps increase the base multiplier for flashcard intervals (not recommended unless you're really exhausted).
• gcr 3y ago
  I LOVE anki!! I’m a heavy user. Everything goes in my morning flash cards. Knots, geography, language, tar commandline flags, papers, statistics homework. Fill them with things you like, is my advice - it’s fun to say hello to hobbies on the verge of your memory in the morning. Bird calls! I’m learning sounds of bird calls since I can’t see very well so I can’t learn by sight. I listed eBird’s set of common birds near me and downloaded their calls as mp3s from the Macaulay Library and batch-imported them into my flash cards (for my personal use). It’s always rewarding to hear a bird outside and go “hey I think I know what that is!” Pairs well with Merlin Sound ID. Another great use is as a mnemonic Rolodex: I frequently forget to reach out and catch up with friends in my life, so I have a deck with just names of people to say hi to. Every time somebody comes up, I say hello, and then answer the card for whichever interval feels appropriate. This way, the SRS itself will make sure that I never forget someone for too long.
  • Arisaka1 3y ago
    Wait a moment. "tar commandline flags"? When I was still learning how to program, the general advice was to avoid memorizing things you can easily look up, like language syntax, framework functionality or commandline flags, and just let it happen. In fact, I recently caught myself skimming Nest.js docs to make cards to learn how to use Nest.js BEFORE I even start working on my project, and almost felt like I'm procrastinating instead of being productive. I don't disagree with how Anki is effective at memorization, because that would be like disagreeing with the effectiveness of space repetition as a principle. I'm just wondering if it's worth putting stuff like "vim keybinds" in - John Carmack reportedly did that to check what's the fuss about Vim.
    • jpalomaki 3y ago
      At least for me this often means, that I just keep on lookin up the stuff over and over again. Takes some deliberate effort to actually store some obscure things in my memory. When I was still active with Anki, I was mostly picking up some random things I knew I would need fairly often and included those in my deck.
      • OJFord 3y ago
        But that means you're doing tar flag flashcards more often than you're using those tar flags? Because otherwise, and for me, the CLI usage is the flashcard? Using them is what teaches me and keeps fresh the commands and flags that I most often use.
        • Version467 3y ago
          Not necessarily. Hypothetical example, but let's say I use some obscure tar command twice a month. That's too far apart for me to remember it, but often enough that it would annoy me to look it up every time. Chuck it into anki and I have a short time where I repeat it often enough so that it sticks and after that the time between repetitions quickly becomes far longer than the 14 day interval where I actually use the command. And now I never have to look it up again :)
          • Arisaka1 3y ago
            I think that's the original claim: That you're memorizing something that you use 12-20 times per year. Why not turn that into a script, or make it a memorable alias?
            • Version467 3y ago
              Because I perceive the cost of memorizing it to be almost zero. There's of course a need for nuance here. I do write scripts to automate stuff and I do have aliases configured for certain commands, directories, etc. I don't try to remember all the things, just so that I never have to look something up again. If I wasn't a heavy anki user already, then I certainly wouldn't set it up just to remember some commandline stuff. But that's not the situation I'm in. I use it for lots of things already and I have an established habit to review the cards every day. Adding a card to remember specific flags has incredibly low overhead for me. A different, but similar example is using Anki for learning library/framework syntax. I made heavy use of it when I first learned Pytorch. There are so many different commands to wrangle your data into the shape you need it to be. I frequently mixed them up and got frustrated because it doesn't necessarily result in runtime errors and then it's hard to debug (because I didn't know what I was doing). So everyday I chucked a couple of the new commands I encountered into Anki and by the end of the week I was comfortable doing all kinds transformations. Would I have learned to do that without Anki? Probably. Did it give me an additional opportunity to consolidate that knowledge for very little cost? Also yes.
  • dustincoates 3y ago
    Bird calls is a great idea! I never thought of it, but it really does align with the medium.
  • AstroJetson 3y ago
    Where did you find a decent flash cards about knots?
  • grep_name 3y ago
    As someone who has a had some false starts with SRS, this seems like an interesting approach. Do you add all these disparate topics into one huge deck? What does adding a new topic domain look like? I think a bit of the problem (for me) when I tried anki before was friction from the overhead of 1.) deciding how to split time among decks and 2.) having to assign a 1-5 value for 'how well I remembered the info'. That second point is huge, I find that kind of task to be incredibly exhausting. Do you have any tips for getting over that?
• jan_Inkepa 3y ago
  Every few years I use Anki heavily for language stuff (German, more recently Latin and Classical Chinese), up to 90 minutes a day, but I can never keep the workload under control, or my habits change, and give it up. I still benefit from a year of training, but it seems the long-tail of spaced repetition doesn't work for me at all. But so long as I get to the point where I can read or watch TV, the considerable effort I've invested in making cards (not to mention reviewing them) was worthwhile. It's also fun to have an extended/time-intensive personal task where it can be worth it to build up a highly personalised system that doesn't need to work for anyone else. It allows for a selfishness that's the polar opposite of accessibility design, but can end up resulting in quite novel/pleasing design decisions. (There've been some other posts about making software just for yourself on hacker news before). They have a lot of shared decks hosted online, but I guess for hosting costs or copyright reasons delete any decks that aren't regularly downloaded, which results in many niche decks getting deleted. I've uploaded several German-language decks that get deleted because of course they don't get the same traffic as English ones. Bit of a pity - I wonder what the ecosystem would look like if things were otherwise.
  • kashunstva 3y ago
    > They have a lot of shared decks hosted online I have mixed feelings about shared decks. I’ve tried many, yet always find something about them that irritates me - aesthetics, content accuracy, etc. Or more likely that just doesn’t fit contextually with what I’m learning. However, the low startup energy with shared decks is certainly a selling point. I can’t even begin to estimate how much time I’ve spent over the years creating 50K+ cards… > highly personalised system that doesn't need to work for anyone else. My experience exactly.
  • clbrmbr 3y ago
    > what the ecosystem would look like There is a third-party paid exchange here: https://www.ankihub.net/ https://www.ankihub.net/ (I’ve had a few exchanges with the founder, and wish him luck.)
  • growingkittens 3y ago
    These two things are related: > I can never keep the workload under control, or my habits change, and give it up. > to build up a highly personalised system that doesn't need to work for anyone else. "Anyone else" includes "future you", because humans change over time. A highly personalized system is usually a highly inflexible system.
• cwales95 3y ago
  Used Anki quite a bit in my final years of university. Using it now as well for AWS certification prep. Can’t recommend enough!
• kashunstva 3y ago
  Long-term user of Anki ~ 13-14 yrs, with mostly language learning focus. It’s good; but out of the box, I find that most users barely tap into its utility. It’s templating engine, ability to shape card content and formatting via JS and CSS put it in a league above most other SRS applications. (With the caveat that it’s easy to waste a lot of time on inconsequential card-tweaking…) A lot of people complain that it uses an inferior SRS algorithm. Other algorithms can be patched in; but I’ve never bothered because it seems like a hyper-optimization without known real-world outcomes. (i.e. Will I speak better {L2} if I use alternate SRS algorithm?)
  • subtra3t 3y ago
    I think the issue of inferior SRS algorithm is at least partly alleviated by the existence of FSRS.
    • OJFord 3y ago
      ... https://github.com/open-spaced-repetition/fsrs4anki/wiki/The-Algorithm https://github.com/open-spaced-repetition/fsrs4anki/wiki/The... ... I'm not sure I believe we understand our own learning/memory anything like enough for this not to be total pseudoscience? Reminds me of A Beautiful Mind.
      • g-w1 3y ago
        I'm not really sure what you mean? It's been empirically validated to predict how you remember better than alternatives (or equal to SM-17) (essentially when it predicts that your % recall is below a certain threshold, it just shows you the card)
      • kouteiheika 3y ago
        It doesn't matter whether this actually models how memory works in reality, as long as it has actual predictive capabilities which correlate to how it works in practice. And this can be easily verified with data and simulations. The algorithm predicts how likely it is that you'll remember a given piece of information (e.g. in three days you'll remember this card with 80% probability), so if you can get a big dataset of reviews and run it through the algorithm you can easily check how accurate it is, e.g by calculating a brier score, or by comparing predicted vs actual recall curves. Source: I've developed an even better algorithm than FSRS (I've directly compared them in the past, although that was quite a while ago so it might have been for one of the older versions of FSRS, so I'm not sure how the newest one compares), and now I'm working on an even better one.
• hiAndrewQuinn 3y ago
  Sitting down with Michael W. Lucas's Networking for System Administrators and making Anki flashcards out of them was probably the highest impact thing I did for my career last spring. It's an incredible tool, truly. Anyone else who wants to learn just enough networking to never be 100% stumped by it again, I recommend both tools.
  • n3t 3y ago
    Can you share what your typical flashcard for the book looks like?
    • hiAndrewQuinn 3y ago
      There's a bunch of different subtypes I've used. But one surprisingly high ROI example has been private vs public IP flashcard examples. E.g. "10.1.0.0 - private or public?" "Private - everything in 10.0.0.0/8 is considered private". "192.169.0.0?" "Public".
• clbrmbr 3y ago
  I used Anki to learn to recognize the top 300 plant species (and top mushroom species) in my area by sight. Totally changed my perception of nature.
  • yorwba 3y ago
    How did you find out what the top species in your area are? Did you start by taking pictures of random plants and then researching what they could be, or did you use something like a guidebook? And what did your Anki cards look like?
    • clbrmbr 3y ago
      I used iNaturalist website to list 500 most observed plant species in Eastern USA and Canada, and used a script to scrape the species names (scientific and common) and the URL of the title photo. I used another script to download the images and build the anki deck. My decks have just the photo on the front, then scientific name + common name + notes on back. I’ve made many notes in my decks, mostly about the etymology of the scientific names to help remember them. I’ve also added extra photos to the front to show other parts of the plant needed to distinguish from look-alikes, with notes on these features. My reference is usually The Flora of Virginia and/or Sam Thayer’s recent field guide (which is a major new contribution through all his field observations). I have not shared because the photos are mostly ALL RIGHTS RESERVED, but I’ve been considering redoing the photos using CC0/CC-BY (and asking some authors for permission but this is hard as iNat is pseudonymous).
      • jcul 3y ago
        What did you use for creating the deck? I've done something similar in the past, scraping images + info and then used genanki I think to make the deck. Works fine for my basic cards at least. Though I'd prefer to be able to use normal bash tools to manipulate markdown cards. I think there are solutions to generate anki decks from markdown or anki alternatives that use markdown cards directly, but using genanki ended up being sufficient and giving me enough flexibility, considering I wouldn't be editing the deck much after.
• realusername 3y ago
  I'm using a competitor on Android since both Anki apps (AnkiMobile and AnkiDroid) really aren't good enough for my language learning activity. They aren't as good as the desktop Anki app. I'm actually thinking of building my own app for a while since the all the flashcard apps on mobile don't really work for me. Not sure I'll find the motivation to do it though, I'm just using the least bad option I've found. Specifically, I want to always auto-play cards with TTS and there doesn't seem to be an option with the apps to do that.
  • gessha 3y ago
    That would be a cool extension of the project. I’ve always wanted a hands free version of Dualingo because if I’m driving or walking somewhere I don’t want to use my hands for obvious reasons.
  • kebsup 3y ago
    Hi, my app which I've mentioned in my previous comment does that. Is there anything else that you're looking for in a flashcards language learning app that Anki misses?
    • realusername 3y ago
      It seems pretty good but your app is only targetting German right? I'm learning another language. Right now I'm using this one : https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=flashcards.words.words https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=flashcards.wor... Which seems the only one I found supporting auto-TTS in lots of languages which you can toggle in the settings. The UI is truly awful though and the space repetition algorithm is kind of borked.
      • kebsup 3y ago
        Ah, unfortunate. I will be adding more languages, but it will take some time. I prefer to have really figured out how to make the app great for German and then expanding, rather then doing everything at once.
• throw_pm23 3y ago
  I tried to make it work for me many times. Several people in my circle recommend it, I understand the concept of spaced repetition, I wanted it to be useful. Still, it always feels off somehow, and mechanical, and never seems to click for me. I guess memorization is just not the bottleneck in anything I do.
  • james-bcn 3y ago
    Yes. I've tried it various times too. But there is something that just doesn't seem right about it. It's memorisation for the sake of it. I've found that writing about the things that interest me, giving presentations, and talking about stuff with people with similar interests, is much more effective.
• 1f60c 3y ago
  Is there a good iOS app to create or review Anki flash cards?
  • lbotos 3y ago
    I was hesitant to pay $25 for an iOS app but after doing reviews for 180 days I’m at $0.14 a day and it will only get cheaper… one of the best investments I’ve made for sure
  • subtra3t 3y ago
    There is an official app, made by the same devs. https://apps.apple.com/us/app/ankimobile-flashcards/id373493387 https://apps.apple.com/us/app/ankimobile-flashcards/id373493...
  • itsrajju 3y ago
    Yup -- https://apps.apple.com/in/app/ankimobile-flashcards/id373493387 https://apps.apple.com/in/app/ankimobile-flashcards/id373493... It's expensive, but it's the only paid app by the creator of ankiweb (web, android, and desktop versions made by them are all free).
  • gessha 3y ago
    I recommend the iOS app by the original app develop for reviewing but the desktop version for creation.
    • ssd532 3y ago
      That’s what I do. Creation is difficult on mobile, easy on desktop and review is easy on mobile but difficult on desktop.
• sivers 3y ago
  My boy is 11 now. We've used Anki with him every day since he was about 5. Examples of things he's memorized, for fun: * every country, recognized by unlabeled shape on the map * spelling * many body parts, names of bones and organs, from illustration * chemical elements, by symbol (Na, Fe, Zn, etc) * unix filesystem commands * numeracy references (km from here to Japan, earth to sun, meters from home to school) * recognizing/naming photos of places we've been since he was born * recognizing musical instruments or musical pieces by listening * notes on a piano * religious facts (when Judaism began & who started it, when Muslims pray & towards what, where Jesus was born & died, etc) * names of characters in books he's read * wise aphorisms He enjoys it, and dances around while answering, proud of himself. Sometimes when learning something new on YouTube, on his own, he'll say, "Dad can we add this to Anki? I want to remember this."
  • l3x4ur1n 3y ago
    Do you have any particular system in place for creating decks?
  • itsrajju 3y ago
    Your boy is precious! He's on his way to becoming a highly intelligent adult. I've seen a lot of people going like... why remember stuff when you can easily google it? But it doesn't work that way. The more facts reside in your brain, the more avenues it has to connect them together and generate insights (after all, that thing is the OG "neural network"). I highly admire your parenting in this aspect, and I hope to do the same when I have kids of my own. Edit: I noticed after publishing my comment that you're Derek Sivers! I've been a long time reader of your blog :)
    • exe34 3y ago
      Yep! This kid has a super power! I don't understand why this sort of learning to learn isn't taught in schools - I only discovered anki and even spaced repetition at age 35, and I could really have used it at school! I think the workaround that I came up with myself was to work through a large amount of derivations (maths, physics and chemistry) and try to note the common stuff and prepared shorter and shorter versions of the notes from which I could rapidly reconstruct everything else. In hindsight, I was training an autoencoder.
• Player6225 3y ago
  I've been using Anki a bit to supplement my language learning. I built an Anki deck generator that makes emoji/tts/word flashcards! It's worked pretty well for me to get some better word recognition. https://flashcards.bpev.me https://flashcards.bpev.me
  • OJFord 3y ago
    Nice! My feedback was going to be that I don't even know some of them in English (my native language) because it's just not clear to me what the emoji mix is supposed to mean, but I see that 'from emoji' is sort of the whole point, so that's not really helpful. I've been wanting to use something like Anki as a general purpose 'knowledge base'/reminder/learning system; if I do use Anki I'll certainly add this, cheers.
    • Player6225 3y ago
      Thanks! Yaya... selecting what emojis to show has been challenging, trying to balance clarity with word usefullness. Also cuz sometimes I miss how different some specific emojis look on different OS; it can muddy the intended meaning for some platforms.
  • david_allison 3y ago
    Just to note: Anki supports `{{tts}}`, using the system TTS providers https://docs.ankiweb.net/templates/fields.html#text-to-speech-for-individual-fields https://docs.ankiweb.net/templates/fields.html#text-to-speec...
• francoismassot 3y ago
  I used it with my 10 years old boy for spelling. I like the method. I found the app is still rough on the edges, and now I want to code a small one dedicated to science fields for him :)
• Tarrosion 3y ago
  Anyone have suggestions for the lowest friction / best UX way to generate and study Anki cards? (my smartphone is Android, if that matters.) I know spaced repetition is super helpful and I should be making and study cards to help with language learning and other topics I'm studying, but it always feels like a slog to try to find a deck (which won't end up being what you want) or manually make a bunch of cards, the UI is a little meh, etc.
  • SamPatt 3y ago
    I take notes on paper while studying the subject, then when I'm done I put the essential concepts or whatever I want to memorize into cards in Anki via my computer (I usually avoid adding them on my phone, it's slower). It is a slow process, but for getting new ideas to stick, I'm not sure that's a bad thing. I don't usually bother with preexisting decks. If you’re building your own from your own study, it almost guarantees you actually understand what you're trying to memorize.
  • exe34 3y ago
    For language learning, I tend to watch TV with subtitles, type the new words into a text file, run that through Google translate (and edit a little bit), save as CSV, and import via the desktop app.
  • igloopan 3y ago
    To generate: if you're trying to learn Japanese, you can use the Yomichan [1] (or Yomitan now that Yomichan [2] has been sunset) extension for Chrome or Firefox which integrates with Anki so you can create a card for a word you don't know with two key presses. [1] https://foosoft.net/projects/yomichan/ https://foosoft.net/projects/yomichan/ [2] https://github.com/themoeway/yomitan https://github.com/themoeway/yomitan
• g-w1 3y ago
  Anki has literally changed the way I think. It's insane how I can just choose to remember anything and how I have gotten really good at creating flashcards to the point where I predict how I'm going to learn when making flashcards. It is the one thing that has easily changed my life.
  • exe34 3y ago
    I see it as a commitment, this is something I will remember for as long as I choose to. If it becomes irrelevant, I can delete the card. If it's too hard, I'll break it down into simpler things, or sometimes I even just write stuff out on paper cards that I review throughout the day. But once it's in anki, I'm committing to remembering it.
• OJFord 3y ago
  Weird, I was actually thinking of a related AskHN, that comments here are obviously now the place for. Is there anything similar people use for sort of general 'knowledge base' type things - like people use one big text file, or Obsidian, or Logseq, or Notion, or whatever - but with some kind of Anki-like reminder/retrieval rather than just deliberate searching to look something up? Or do people successfully use Anki itself in that way? (Maybe I'm wrong to associate it with focussed studying/cramming on a specific topic for an exam say?) The closest I could think of was a Zettlekasten system, where though you wouldn't have the automated reminder prompts, you would (if you'd done a good job linking things) have a rabbit hole to fall down once you opened something.
  • itsrajju 3y ago
    There's an Obsidian plugin for Anki -- https://github.com/reuseman/flashcards-obsidian https://github.com/reuseman/flashcards-obsidian It connects with your Anki desktop app. You create notes in Obsidian in a specific format, and they get converted to Anki flashcards. This way your flashcard creation process becomes much easier if you already use Obsidian for note-taking.
    • nairboon 3y ago
      Unfortunately, while super useful, that plugin is quite out-of-date. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't depending on what Obsidian/Anki version combination you use. If one of them updates, it breaks. I think I had to pin Obsidian to some older version to keep it working.
  • naitgacem 3y ago
    I think a related, but often overlooked question is: is there really a need for remembering things off the top of one's head? Since there was no need to look it up, perhaps it's not relevant to whatever one is doing at the moment.
    • nanna 3y ago
      When learning a language, yes!
• pavelboyko 3y ago
  Spaced repetition, especially when using tools like Anki, is effective for memorizing facts. However, memorization represents the most basic level of learning objectives, see e.g. [1] and [2]. Are there any recommended tools for practicing more advanced levels of knowledge, such as relational analysis, synthesis, and critical evaluation? [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloom%27s_taxonomy https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloom%27s_taxonomy [2] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Structure_of_observed_learning_outcome https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Structure_of_observed_learni...
  • ehnto 3y ago
    Immersion is the only "tool" I know that tries to make the next leap formalized. For language learning at least, saturating yourself with input lets the brain build the deep relational maps it needs to use language, and no amount of rote learning of arbitrary grammar and vocab can replace that process.
  • spencerchubb 3y ago
    I think the closest thing would be concept mapping software or knowledgebase software like Obsidian. But that's more about storing concepts and not so much about learning concepts. If that software existed, it would be incredible.
    • ckbishop 3y ago
      Obsidian has a spaced repetition community plugin that I use when I write documentation. I add a flashcard for everything that I want to learn. So you just put #flashcards inline (or whatever you tell it to look for) at the bottom if your file. And then: This is a question::this is the answer. This is another question::this is another answer. I run through my cards about 30 minutes before I start work. It works very well.
  • xbar 3y ago
    I think you are minimizing something that is very important. Understanding deeply and completely any topic is much easier when you understand deeply and completely the fundamental components and concepts--which starts with memorization.
• siddbudd 3y ago
  For all you people who have used Anki or other SRS for many years: how do you get over the problem of being bored by it? Or does that not happen to you? Though I have not used Anki, I used a similar SRS for learning Chinese - the flashcards built in Pleco, but no matter how often I try to use it, I never last longer than 5-10 days, I just get bored by it. Also, no matter how I try to adjust the algo, I have the feeling that I am constantly over- or underwhelmed, no flow for me. In the meanwhile I love learning, no matter if flashy (e.g. Duolingo) or traditional (from books) or something in between (a class), but I just never got the hang of SRS, though so many people recommend it.
  • jwrallie 3y ago
    This is quite subjective, but for me being in control of what I learn in SRS means I don't get bored. I am only adding things that I am interested in learning, and if I become bored of something, I just delete it. It might sound counter-intuitive with the "remember things forever" side of SRS, but it is better to forget boring things than not use SRS at all.
  • biophysboy 3y ago
    I’ve used it for 4 years now to learn Japanese. It might be a simple matter of lowering the max # of review cards or the max # of new cards. Also, given that you mentioned enjoying duolingo more, there are browser extensions/repos out there to enhance the Anki experience. I have some that help me make cards based on material I’m reading for fun. I was having the same issue as you, and I had to fix it by making it more engaging and personal. Now all of my words concern material I’m interested in, and have some context.
    • TheArcane 3y ago
      > there are browser extensions/repos out there to enhance the Anki experience Any specific ones you wanna give a shout out to?
      • biophysboy 3y ago
        I use yomichan and mokuro for my system, which I believe are Japanese focused. But I’m sure there are equivalents for other popular languages
• nairboon 3y ago
  Anki is a great software, but unfortunately it is quite difficult to install on Linux systems. Almost all packages on major distros are by now years out of date or kicked out, because Anki changed its build systems so many times, that the existing package maintainers simply dropped it: https://github.com/ankitects/anki/issues/1378 https://github.com/ankitects/anki/issues/1378 Nowadays, the Anki version in Ubuntu is from 2019! The snaps are also hopelessly outdated.
  • red_trumpet 3y ago
    The package on Flathub[1] seems to incorporate the most recent version. [1] https://flathub.org/apps/net.ankiweb.Anki https://flathub.org/apps/net.ankiweb.Anki
  • mu53 3y ago
    Just to add another perspective, I use the anki package on apt/ubuntu and yum/fedora, and both repos work for me. I ran into one small issue on fedora that was really annoying, but it was fixable. The sync from the cloud worked on both
  • tuna74 3y ago
    I just installed the Flathub version on Fedora. No problem at all! Some addons seem to be not installable due to obsolete deps (like PyQt5), but a lot of stuff work without any problems.
  • jwells89 3y ago
    It’s also a pain to get working right with fractional scaling on non-GTK desktops. I had been using GNOME on my little “study pod” ThinkPad X1 Nano (which has a screen that requires 1.5x UI scale) but Anki was a real pain under that and so started using KDE instead. Anki runs well there but KDE isn’t quite my cup of tea. Wish it were more DE-agnostic.
  • userabchn 3y ago
    There is no Anki package for Debian 12, and the binaries on the Anki website are only 64bit, so on my 32bit system I use the online version on ankiweb.net, which actually works pretty well.
• syngrog66 3y ago
  This is like the 20th time the Anki-promoting mafia have posted it on HN yes, kids: we know Anki exists
  • gessha 3y ago
    I see value in different HN-“mafias” posting about their favorite niches from time to time. It’s a reminder of sorts that the niche exists and that people find value in it. In this case, I like following the spaced repetition algorithm development and integrations into tools like Obsidian and Logseq. I’m trying to get back into using the tool every now and then to see if it works for the current me.
  • exe34 3y ago
    So you're saying "easy, 4 days" for the next repetition?
  • Swalden123 3y ago
    The fact I didn’t know about SRS till I was 30, is a sad one. School and university would have been much easier for me had I known about it. I am very happy for it to be posted constantly!
• aldanor 3y ago
  Anki is great. Used it when learning/practicing music theory - generated flash cards with notes and chords (python script that generates LilyPond, iirc), been a huge help, much better than 'specialized' apps that basically do the same.
  • guiltygods 3y ago
    How did you do it? Can you share an example?
    • aldanor 3y ago
      Don't have the link anymore but it's pretty simple, I'm sure you can even do it with a bash script. Generate .ly files with scores whichever way you want, convert them to png via lilypond cli, then generate flash cards containing references to those images
• victorlf 3y ago
  Anki is unbeatable for acing any test with a bounded number of questions [1]. It's been successfully used by some top TV show contestants to remember thousands of words [2]. I've been using it recently to remember recipes and cooking facts, such as the time it takes to boil X vegetable, or the ingredients for some dish. Apart from language learning and medicine, there's a lack of pre-built decks that you can use to learn topics. I'm building Python.cards [3] to apply spaced repetition to learn Python with pre-built decks, daily reminders, etc. to make it the most convenient. [1] https://www.thediligentdeveloper.com/spaced-repetition-really-works https://www.thediligentdeveloper.com/spaced-repetition-reall... [2] https://www.esquire.com/es/tecnologia/a36913467/pasapalabra-anki-programa-memorizar-vocabulario/ https://www.esquire.com/es/tecnologia/a36913467/pasapalabra-... [3] https://python.cards https://python.cards
  • jwrallie 3y ago
    When Anki is the right tool for the job, it is amazing. I used it to study the questions for the FCC radio amateur license. Pre-made decks were available, so I just loaded it and studied on my phone when I had free time. I had around 2 months before the test, so it was very pleasant to slowly go through all the questions.
    • victorlf 3y ago
      It seems the tricky part is motivation. Very few people get excited by card-reviewing itself. The method shines when there is external pressure, such as exams. I think a sense of community can help provide this motivation (like a group of people all learning at the same time), but it's still tricky.
  • saintradon 3y ago
    Definitely interested in the Python cards - subscribed
• tonyjstark 3y ago
  A lot of people seem to like shared card decks but creating your own cards is part of the learning process, you spent time with the material you want to learn, which is the main thing that helps you learning. shameless self-plug: On macos and iOS we found Anki a bit out of place so we build a competitor explicitly for language learning (https://wokabulary.com/ https://wokabulary.com/).
  • tempaccount1234 3y ago
    Looks like a cool app, but a monthly subscription for a content free flash card App is asking too much. (Personally I prefer my learning tools to stay around without monthly payments)
    • tonyjstark 3y ago
      We plan to introduce a lifetime purchase. Initially, and for many years, we also tried to not have a subscription but steady development needs to paid somehow, same goes for customer support. If Apple would allow for paid upgrades…
  • nmfisher 3y ago
    Were conservative pundits outraged that you were pushing wokabulary?
    • tonyjstark 3y ago
      Haha, at least it hurts our Google score. When we came up with the name it was just an innocent wordplay.
• lordwiz 3y ago
  I have heard many times of this, I even have it installed. Need to start using this now, seeing the benefits in this thread makes me excited.
• SamPatt 3y ago
  One tip for working with Anki: you will likely learn better - and review cards more regularly - if you write the cards yourself instead of using a preexisting deck. Going through a course / textbook -> taking notes on paper -> adding key concepts as Anki flashcards -> reviewing them daily: extremely effective Preexisting decks can work - I used one to successfully study for my Amateur Radio License - but that assumes a specific pool of questions you're memorizing, which isn’t how learning a subject typically works.
  • tussa 3y ago
    > if you write the cards yourself I'd go so far to say it's almost an requirement. Unless you have a high quality deck made specifically for the book/course/material you have. Sadly most of the publicly available Anki are IMHO not of that quality.
    • Version467 3y ago
      Even if they were, writing cards yourself forces you to engage with the material in a way that's highly conducive to learning it. It makes knowledge gaps more visible and forces you to understand it if you want to have any chance breaking the material down into pieces that make good cards. The positive effects of SRS rely just as much on the repetition as they do on the creation of the cards. I know that not everyone agrees with this, it's certainly been true for me. Premade decks might work for language learning, but even then I'd be wary.
      • romeros 3y ago
        writing your own cards is very tedious.
        • SamPatt 3y ago
          True, but I suspect that's due to learning being tedious. Memorization isn't the same as learning. Using a preexisting deck is memorizing someone else's learning.
        • 3y ago
• dustincoates 3y ago
  Like many people, I started using Anki for language learning, and it has been wildly useful for that. I'm always told that I have a good vocabulary, which was precisely my problem last time I tried to learn a language. Since then, I've branched into many other topics. The latest one that I've started building out is all of the Paris métro lines and stops. The most useful thing ever? No, but I feel happy knowing that I have a better understanding of the system I'm using ever day.
• lenartowski 3y ago
  SSR tools and flashcards are amazing for knowledge retention. When I started learning new language, my google sheet with words I wanted memorize grew to hundreds pretty quickly. I wanted the simplest possible app that would let me to import and repeat words from my list anytime I have even a few minutes to spare. And being a developer, of course I decided to write one myself. It’s a bit different than anki and obviously has less features (it’s a pet project after all) but the concept is pretty similar: https://byheart.io/ https://byheart.io/
  • alabhyajindal 3y ago
    This looks amazing! Love the design.
    • lenartowski 3y ago
      Thanks, appreciate feedback! Let me know if you have any questions
• kebsup 3y ago
  (Shameless plug at the end) During my Erasmus in Germany, I've tried almost all of the top language learning apps (Duolingo, Babel, Seedlang, Anki...) and none of them have really worked me. What I wanted was: * Learning in context --> A lot of German words do not have direct English/Czech translation, so learning the 1:1 word translation did not work well * Having audio for each card * Intensive pace --> Going through a lot of cards in one session. Duolingo is the worst in this as you spend a lot of time doing super easy childish exercises. If I want to learn let's say 30 min a day, I want to pack as much content as I can into it. * Skipping ahead --> My level is around B1/B2, I don't want to do placement tests and then re-learning the words I already know * Learning from my content --> I like to consume German podcast/youtube videos/websites and in some apps, it was quite difficult or impossible to add words I've just encountered "in the wild". Anki has worked the best, but generating cards with sentences and audio was quite cumbersome and (a seemingly minor detail) I was loosing flow while thinking whether I knew the card "well", "good", "easy" or whatever the options are. What I like better is a simple knew/didnt know, while still using spaced-repetition. So for the past year, I'm on-off working on a language learning app, currently only supports German, which helps you extract words from content (youtube, web, text), handles different word forms, and then generates cards with infinitely many sentence examples through GPT4, with a nice audio (latest GCP model). The project website with Android and iOS links: https://vokabeln.io/ https://vokabeln.io/ (web design is old, app looks very different now)
  • clbrmbr 3y ago
    Dude. You rock at UX design. This is amazing… Only trouble I have tbh is figuring out what I want to read in German! But I’ve signed up and will give this a spin, and send what feedback I can.
    • kebsup 3y ago
      Thanks! My design is the one on the website. The neo-brutalism was done by a junior designer who was looking for her first project and she did extremely good job!
      • 3y ago
• tuna74 3y ago
  Ankidroid question here: On Android systems, if you use the free Japanese dictionary Japanese Kanji Study (by Chase Colburn) it can generate Anki flash cards directly from the app, so everytime you look up a word you can also generate the card for Ankidroid/Anki. Is there similar functionality in any Chinese dictionary app for Android?
  • deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  • david_allison 3y ago
    Pleco: Settings - Flashcards - Flashcard System - select AnkiDroid I believe the wiki[0] lists most of the apps which use our API https://github.com/ankidroid/Anki-Android/wiki/Third-Party-Apps https://github.com/ankidroid/Anki-Android/wiki/Third-Party-A...
    • tuna74 3y ago
      I could never get Pleco to work. What settings do you use?
      • david_allison 3y ago
        What do you mean 'not work': not adding cards, or AnkiDroid not appearing as an option? I'm limited in time now, and HN isn't the best place for user support. If you post a reddit thread/on our Discord, I'll likely be able to help further. Links to Discord/Reddit are inside AnkiDroid: Help - Community
• bbno4 3y ago
  love anki! i use it for japanese. although i wish i could donate to the devs at least, they dont take donations
  • david_allison 3y ago
    If you really want, buy AnkiMobile [0] as a gift for someone (the only monetisation for the dev) AnkiDroid has an Open Collective [1] https://opencollective.com/ankidroid https://opencollective.com/ankidroid [0] https://apps.apple.com/us/app/ankimobile-flashcards/id373493387 https://apps.apple.com/us/app/ankimobile-flashcards/id373493... [1] https://opencollective.com/ankidroid https://opencollective.com/ankidroid https://faqs.ankiweb.net/how-can-i-donate.html https://faqs.ankiweb.net/how-can-i-donate.html
• jwells89 3y ago
  Been using Anki on and off for years for learning Japanese and more recently, have been using it for studying for university courses. It’s a great tool, but it’s definitely got some oddities, like how its editor has every formatting and templating tool under the sun but is somehow missing spell check, how some features can only be had through fragile extensions, or how for some reason it’s one of the few programs one shouldn’t install from their distro’s package manager. One of these days I’d like to take a crack at building my own cross-platform subject-agnostic SRS card app. There’s a number of things I’d do differently.
  • knubie 3y ago
    Check out Mochi if you’re looking for an alternative. It probably ticks most of your boxes already. https://mochi.cards/ https://mochi.cards/
• saintradon 3y ago
  I love anki, I've used it from everything to Japanese to my college lectures, but my only issue is that it's UI/UX is a bit subpar, there's quite a learning curve to figure out all the little bits and details of the program, and it's easy to waste your time tweaking flashcard layout settings instead of actually studying. Then again, for me, I found often times for college lectures I rarely actually used the flashcards in traditional anki format - I found the act of cultivating all my notes, homework, organizing questions, creating layouts, creating the flashcards - that alone was 50% of the review that I needed to study the material.
• alabhyajindal 3y ago
  Can anyone comment on why most people want software like Anki to be a native application? Most people who implemented their own SRS have done so in the form of a mobile app. Why? I would think that having a web app would be much easier from a single developer point of view: maintain one application that can be accessed from any device. I am biased because I'm a web developer but I'd like to be corrected.
  • Jtsummers 3y ago
    I want a native app for Anki (and similar things) because I don't always have an internet connection. It's pretty much as simple as that. Anki does have a web version which I have used, though.
    • lenartowski 3y ago
      Progressive web apps[0] are one solution to that. I’m not saying it’s perfect but it is possible to have both I think [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progressive_web_app https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progressive_web_app
  • kazinator 3y ago
    With a mobile app like AnkiDroid, you can do SRS where you have no coverage. E.g. waiting in a car, while parked several levels underground.
• vsizov 3y ago
  Anki is awesome. I used it for a couple of years to improve my English vocabulary but I ended up using spreadsheets like airtable because of few reasons: 1) Import/export is limited when I want to create a batch of flashcards from the list (from ChatGPT for example) 2) It's hard to stick to it and do it everyday. I wish it showed some progress in motivating way. This is why we use TODO lists after all. We human beings love to see the progress. I wish it also included some sticky effect of Pop It Game or Bubble Wrap. So I just created an Airtable table with few fields: Word, Translation, Days, Repeat (function field "DATEADD(Edited, Days, 'days')"), - used for filtering, Attachment, Edited_at (automatic field). "Days" is "Single select": 1, 4, 10, 25, 55, 90, 200 days. I set this field with number of days I want to repeat flashcard in. Sounds cumbersome but it's not. I see the progress - less rows in the table after every click. It's far from ideal anyway and it's not an actual SSR of course but it works for me. And because of some reason it's easier to stick to. Anyway, Anki is great for most of the cases.
  • heap_perms 3y ago
    > I wish it showed some progress in motivating way. There is a very popular plugin called Heatmap which essentially shows you a github-style graph in anki. Instead of commit frequency it counts reviews.
• 99catmaster 3y ago
  Any Anki power users here have any anecdotes with FSRS?
• spencerchubb 3y ago
  Anki is commonly used by Rubik's Cube enthusiasts who want to memorize lots of algorithms. You can do basic methods with just a few algorithms, but people use Anki when you want to memorize hundreds.
• AlbertCory 3y ago
  I actually looked into Anki recently, my idea being: instead of mindlessly scrolling through social media during downtime, why not memorize poems and great song lyrics? The issue is: I'm sick and tired of apps that want your web credentials. I want an app that doesn't share anything about me. Completely local. I have to admit, I haven't searched on Play Store for one.
  • rpearl 3y ago
    > The issue is: I'm sick and tired of apps that want your web credentials. I want an app that doesn't share anything about me. Completely local. Anki does not require your web credentials, so it's very well suited for you! You can create an account if you want to sync your decks between computers or to your phone. It is not necessary or required.
    • AlbertCory 3y ago
      Excellent. Thanks.
    • Jtsummers 3y ago
      You can also run your own sync server so you can get the benefit of multi-device syncing without needing to use the free provided service. https://docs.ankiweb.net/sync-server.html https://docs.ankiweb.net/sync-server.html
  • david_allison 3y ago
    AnkiDroid: https://f-droid.org/packages/com.ichi2.anki/ https://f-droid.org/packages/com.ichi2.anki/ Privacy Policy: https://github.com/ankidroid/Anki-Android/wiki/Privacy-Policy https://github.com/ankidroid/Anki-Android/wiki/Privacy-Polic... From the F-Droid description: Opt-in synchronization uses the non-free AnkiWeb service by default, but this can be changed in the settings to use, for example, an instance of the unofficial Anki Sync Server). Opt-in / off-by-default crash reporting will send data to a private / AnkiDroid open source team controlled crash reporting server if enabled. This data is only used to help fix crash bugs. Opt-in / off-by-default analytics will send data to Google Analytics via an an open-source implementation of the analytics API if enabled. This data is only used to focus developer efforts on popular features.
• zora_goron 3y ago
  I used Anki quite a bit in med school, where it’s extremely popular. Admittedly, it took me a couple years to fully buy in to it as a tool for cramming hundreds of facts, especially coming from an academic background (computer science) where memorizing facts at a high rate was not a huge emphasis at all. After using it for a while though, I began to value how the quick recall encouraged by the system actually seemed to /enhance/ my deeper understanding of concepts, rather than replace it (I wrote a short post about this a couple years ago [0]). [0] https://samrawal.substack.com/p/on-the-relationship-between-memorizing https://samrawal.substack.com/p/on-the-relationship-between-...
  • xbar 3y ago
    Thank you for sharing your experience. This confirms my bias in the deep value of anki.
• colordrops 3y ago
  I've put cards into Anki on several occasions and somehow when I come back after a few months they've disappeared in one way or another. Fool me once.
• watwut 3y ago
  I tried to use Anki a while ago, but stopped. I felt like Anki is trying to control my life while I could not control it. It was too easy to make strategic mistake that would affect your workload in an uncontrollable way a week or month later. For example, if you have time or are bored today and do some extra cards, your workload month later goes up. Except that month later you might be tired and not have time. And if you skip a day or dont do everything, the next day your workload goes up by twice ... and a week later too and a month later too for the same batch of cards.
• kylegalbraith 3y ago
  Been using Anki for years for more advanced language learning. I usually keep notes of words or phrases that come up during my day to day living in France that are new to me (or used a way I’m less familiar with). I research their construction/uses and throw them in an ongoing study deck I review every morning. It’s really helped me gain a deeper understanding of the language and feel more confident in conversations.
• thinkingofthing 3y ago
  Shameless plug: I'm working on www.flashka.ai , a platform that solves a bunch of painpoints I and many others have had with flashcards. I've used Anki and found it amazing, but it got to the point where making flashcards was too time consuming and couldn't keep up with them. Mid-last year I found my brother having the same problem and realised after playing with GPT how effective it was at generating flashcards. Not perfect, but good enough to save many hours of writing them. Now with Flashka we have started re-thinking the medium a bit more and try to make a great study-tool out of it
• kazinator 3y ago
  I've only ever used Anki for some heavy editing of decks for use with AnkiDroid. AnkiDroid is a separate, compatible implementation of Anki, for Android only, which uses local data.
• jjjjj55555 3y ago
  I'm an Anki fanatic. I use it about 1.5-2 hours per day. It has completely changed how I approach the topic of learning. I've used it to study Spanish, Italian, Network engineering, AI, Art history, world history, and US history. It's made me much smarter than I was before using it. Unfortunately it can be time consuming. A big part of it is not just studying cards, but creating cards that are actually well-crafted. It's also key to understand that it isn't for learning things that you don't know, but rather for memorizing things that you've already learned.
• mderazon 3y ago
  I have weekly Portuguese classes in Skype. During the lesson, when there's a word I don't know, the teacher explains and writes it in the chat. After each class, I take these words and put them in Anki. However, I feel that this is not a great system, a lot of times I need the context of the conversation, the word needs to be in a sentence or sometimes I would prefer the reverse card (English and Portuguese on the back) Any recommendations for using Anki for learning languages that is not the basic word-translation pair ? I thought about incorporating Chatgpt in the process, and dump the chat history but I am not sure what would be a good system.
  • marvel_boy 3y ago
    Yes, just writing down the word-translation pair is not useful at all. To add a little context helps, for example use app , like Linguee or similar ,that adds phrases when then context makes sense.
    • mderazon 3y ago
      Nice site, I will try and see if I can integrate it into my flow somehow and give it words and get back sentences to put in Anki
  • wodenokoto 3y ago
    You can ask Anki to also generate reverse cards. But yes, word only cards are good in the beginning when you are learning only the most basic nouns and verbs but you quickly need sentences. I’m sure there are plenty of online dictionary services which can do some sort of Portuguese sentence search for you.
  • ikesau 3y ago
    Cloze cards also work well for this sort of thing, I think. Though they're easy to mass produce and create an overwhelming amount of revision, so be careful. You may not have noticed, but there's also a reverse card type that only requires one note but adds two cards to your deck. There are lots of people who have a similar intuition on the ChatGPT thing but none that I've seen create cards as good as the ones you could make yourself. Using ChatGPT as a dynamic pen pal is probably the better way to incorporate it into your language learning.
• studley 3y ago
  I've found Anki useful for focusing piano practice. Each piece of music I have worked on over the years has a few tricky bars in it. Before Anki, I was really bad at remembering which bars I was bad at in each piece, and would tend to practice the bars I already know how to play, which is pleasant to do. Today, I have one deck, which has a flashcard for each set of tricky bars from all the pieces I've worked on. Now when I sit down to practice the piano, I just load up that deck, and those bars are what I practice, and I grade myself on each flashcard to indicate how quickly I need to re-practise those particular tricky bars. I've done this 5+ year now, and I'm impressed at how good the default algorithm seems to be at effectively ordering my piano practice sessions.
  • rossant 3y ago
    Wow nice, thanks for the tip! I'd never have thought of using spaced repetition for piano practice, sounds like great advice.
  • fudged71 3y ago
    I saw someone saying the exact same thing for practicing tying knots. There’s something there. Physical skills learned with spaced repetition.
  • degosuke 3y ago
    I was just wondering how to apply anki for learning guitar tabs. Can you please share a sample of one of your piano cards?
    • studley 3y ago
      For the "front", I give a title like "Sonata K.545 - The turn". And then the "back" is a screenshot of a few bars (usually between 2 and 5 bars). If those bars happen to be towards the end of a line, I'll also include a screen shot of the clef (left-hand side), so I know the key! When I am using the deck, on each card, I immediately hit the "space" key to show the back (because I am not using the deck to "memorize"). I practice the few bars on the screenshot, and then when I am bored (usually after a minute or two), I grade myself, by hitting the most relevant button (Again, Hard, Good, Easy), which gives the algorithm the info it needs to know when it should show me those bars to me again. The deck works great on a PC, iPad or phone. Piano Practice in your pocket at all times!
• sodality2 3y ago
  No one has mentioned it yet, so I'll drop this alternative: https://mochi.cards/ https://mochi.cards/ Much prettier than Anki, has a simpler algorithm that doesn't require rating difficulty, and has lots of the same features. I'm a subscriber just because of the cloud sync - wish I could self-host but I'm happy to support the developer.
  • KingMob 3y ago
    I use Mochi too. It's much nicer-looking.
  • markusl2ll 3y ago
    Anki has AnkiWeb for cross device sync and (supposedly, haven't tried) has self-hosting.
• peter_d_sherman 3y ago
  Looks really cool! You know what I would like to see? First, I'd love Anki / Anki Flashcards to work as a smartphone Android app. Second, I'd love to see some way to for users to globally share their flash card decks with other users. Third, I'd love to see a site where someone could search for the decks created by other users. Forth, it should be permissible for users to charge very smallish amounts of money for their flash decks, and/or share them for free. Their choice! Anyway, looks really cool and I wish Anki a lot of luck!
  • bbno4 3y ago
    hi bestie... (1) there are multiple apps on all phones (2) this is already a thing https://ankiweb.net/shared/decks https://ankiweb.net/shared/decks (3) this is the same as (2), are you an AI? (4) it is permissible.
  • Jtsummers 3y ago
    AnkiDroid for Android works well, I used it for a while when I didn't have an iPad (old one had died, had an Android tablet collecting dust so switched to it). bbno4 already pointed you to the shared decks. Some people do sell decks. The main issue with that business model is it's entirely trust-based. The decks have no form of DRM or anything, they're just sets of cards and media that get imported so can be freely passed around once purchased. But some people do sell them.
• graypegg 3y ago
  I have Anki to thank for helping me study a language I now speak in every day. What an insanely well scoped, well made, simple tool.
• ListeningPie 3y ago
  Anki deck is one of the first if not the first spaced repetition tool. What do they do to remain relevant after all these years, ain't broke don't fix it, or is there more?
  • School-Cotton 3y ago
    It’s not the first; it’s basically an open-source clone of Supermemo.
  • Tomte 3y ago
    Not even close. Anki came out 2006, SuperMemo's first version came out 1987!
• wirrbel 3y ago
  Everyone should be aware that someone hijacked the Anki name, so there is the genuine anki project and some copycat SaaS anki service with mobile apps in the app stores using the same name
  • dtornabene 3y ago
    I did not know this, and recommended someone recently install from the app store and it was $25. Makes a lot more sense now.
    • david_allison 3y ago
      AnkiMobile is legit and is a $25 one-time purchase on iOS. All other platforms are free, including AnkiWeb, which can be used on iDevices
    • Jtsummers 3y ago
      The $25 one on the app store is probably the actual one. The creator of Anki has only monetized on iOS/iPadOS (one app, works on both) with a $25 one-time purchase. It's free on all other platforms it's available on (AnkiDroid is not his project, but is compatible and is also free), including on the web. His syncing service is free to use. https://apps.apple.com/us/app/ankimobile-flashcards/id373493387 https://apps.apple.com/us/app/ankimobile-flashcards/id373493... <- the legitimate one
  • nequo 3y ago
    This is confusing to me. The GitHub repo[1] links to the AnkiWeb website[2] which offers the $25 iOS app as one of the download options. In what way was Anki hijacked here? [1] https://github.com/ankitects/anki https://github.com/ankitects/anki [2] https://apps.ankiweb.net/ https://apps.ankiweb.net/
• afiodorov 3y ago
  I'm a big fan of spaced repetition, though I've hung up my hat with it for now. My journey with spaced repetition is a bit of a throwback - think pre-smartphone days, armed with SuperMemo on my trusty iPAQ hx4700. Picture this: a 19-year-old me, fresh in England for university studies, diligently working through English lessons on the Tube to and from work. Back then, I was convinced I'd settled in England for good, despite my English being a bit of a work in progress. In hindsight, I'd tell my younger self to chill out and remember that learning a language is a marathon, not a sprint. SuperMemo was a game-changer for me, boosting my memory like nothing else. It's like when you're coding in a language you haven't used in ages – things are on the tip of your tongue, but you're not quite sure. Is it len(arr), arr.length, arr.length(), or... darn it, is it size? sizeof? Space repetition solves this problem for good! For my graduate math exams, SuperMemo was my secret weapon. I'd jot down all the proofs I needed to memorize and challenge myself to write them out. It worked wonders – I aced those exams. But interestingly, it wasn't about memorizing the proofs word for word; it was more about getting the structure and the key tricks down pat. In my practice runs, I'd often take shortcuts because who has the time to write everything out in full detail? Then came Anki for my Spanish adventures. Nowadays, I'm dabbling in Portuguese but have given Anki and spaced repetition the cold shoulder. Why, you ask? Well, I'm a firm believer that if rapid recall is your goal, spaced repetition is your best friend. But most language learners don't use it. Are they missing a trick, or do they just not fancy efficiency? What stops them from optimizing their learning? I can only guess. As for myself, I've ditched it because, let's face it, reviewing cards over and over can be a snooze-fest. The most fun part about spaced repetition was creating the decks. Now, I'm learning Portuguese purely for the joy of it and don't mind how long it takes. I immerse myself in interesting content in Portuguese, occasionally revisiting something I've learned with a quick Google search. I'm perfectly fine with not reaching fluency quickly. After all, there's more to life than optimizing every bit of it!
• guytv 3y ago
  I've been using Anki for around two years to learn Arabic vocabulary. It's an excellent tool that has helped me remember and continuously recall thousands of words. Some strategies I've found particularly effective are: - Focusing on memorizing short sentences or phrases instead of isolated words. - Regularly adding new words, at least weekly, to keep the learning process engaging and not monotonous. - Including only words that I actually come across and learn in my daily life, which significantly aids in retention—possibly because I can recall the context in which I first heard them. - Installing AnkiDroid on my phone to make the most of idle times like commuting or waiting in lines for practice.
  • EasyMark 3y ago
    if you want to make a list you need to add an empty line between each "-" - line 1 - line 2 - line 3
• hintymad 3y ago
  Flash card may be good for memorizing lots of stuff in a short time, but I find using flash card is incredibly boring. If we manage to learn things in long term, and we always should, there's always a more fun, more effective, and more efficient way to remember than paced reminder with flash card. For instance, - A new language: Comprehensive Input. Basically immersive studying with tons of reading, watching, and interaction. Given youtube and streaming services and low-cost online tutoring, immersive studying is so affordable now. Language is all about the right intuition in the right context, which flash card can't offer any way. - STEM. This is an easy one. God forbid one should rely on flash card to memorize any STEM topic. STEM is all about intuition and understanding why and making connections. Solving problems, real or designed, is the most effective way. - History and etc. Reading novels and biographies to learn a great deal of historical context, reading engaging books written by scholars to get accessible yet rigorous treatment of a specific topic. Anecdotally, I find alternative-history novels particularly engaging
  • dvfjsdhgfv 3y ago
    Yeah I agree. Apart from very specific situations like learning for tests[0] flashcards are not the optimal method. [0] And even then I'd risk saying that you can probably get better results creating a personalized ChatGPT-4 tutoring/examination session on any topic except arithmetic/anything involving computation.
    • hintymad 3y ago
      Yeah, even for a test that I need to cram, I’d use Feynman’s method, focus on core concepts, plus solve representative problem sets
  • offices 3y ago
    >Language is all about the right intuition in the right context Huh? How about the tens of thousands of words you need to be able to recall and recognise in both directions in text and speech? You can't reason past irregular verbs and inconsistent rules about gender. If you're learning a language like Chinese, you need to memorise the characters. If you're learning a romance language, you need to memorise the conjugation and genders. Immersion doesn't replace dedicated study. The words that appear the least - which you're most likely to miss - are the ones with the highest entropy.
• kamaraju 3y ago
  How to create "community curated" Anki decks? For example, is it possible to create Anki decks and make them available on github so that if there are any mistakes, others might raise a merge request and once merged, everyone else can "pull" the latest deck?
  • edanm 3y ago
    I've seen a community-managed Anki Shared deck, I think the "Ultimate Geography" deck is community-shared.
• rickcarlino 3y ago
  I love how much attention spaced repetition gets on HN. Does anyone know if there are any communities for researchers or engineers working on spaces repetition and adjacent problems? /r/spacedRepetition is basicly dead. I really wish there was a place where I could discuss space repetition research with technical peers. if such a place does not yet exist and there is interest in creating one, please reach out I am easy to find. Maybe we could start a Discord server.
  • llelouch 3y ago
    Maybe try the supermemo discord.
    • rickcarlino 3y ago
      That answers my question. Thank you!
  • Andrew1024 3y ago
    You can check out https://old.reddit.com/r/Anki/ https://old.reddit.com/r/Anki/ As much as I don’t like Reddit, I still find it better than Discord. Purely because it’s discoverable by the search engine
• 1024core 3y ago
  I wanted to fire up the AnkiDroid app on my Android device (which I installed a couple of years ago), and all I get is an error saying: "Please grant AnkiDroid storage permission to continue" and there's no way forward.
  • Jtsummers 3y ago
    I suspect that's because it needs to store the cards and media. Are you unable to grant it storage permissions for some reason?
    • 1024core 3y ago
      I don't see any "storage permissions" option. Android 14.
      • Jtsummers 3y ago
        https://github.com/ankidroid/Anki-Android/issues/14423 https://github.com/ankidroid/Anki-Android/issues/14423 Looks like a bug with AnkiDroid and different Android versions (if the app was installed on a prior version of Android and Android was upgraded). Some workarounds in that thread.
        • 1024core 3y ago
          Deleting the old app and all storage associated with it cleared the error.
• onewheeltom 3y ago
  Anki is a great tool for learning.
• toss1 3y ago
  Does anyone know of a card set for FAA pilot's license? Seems like a near-ideal use...
  • Jtsummers 3y ago
    https://ankiweb.net/shared/decks?search=faa https://ankiweb.net/shared/decks?search=faa No clue on quality.
• ashconnor 3y ago
  I've always been too lazy to compose flashcards. I ended up using Clozemaster for Spanish studying.
• nsonha 3y ago
  Does good memory actually helps you advance in life? Or does it only make life more fun/interesting. I feel like remmbering things has never been an obstacle to my professional growth.
  • deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  • vwkd 3y ago
    Interesting question. Good memory seems certainly beneficial. To me an even more interesting question is "memory of what?". What things are worth remembering? Is it worth to remember all 300 local plant species? Maybe biology had good reasons to not evolve us with perfect memory. I found that over time I only remember the big picture and forget the details that make it up. And mostly that's fine! Usually, I only need the big picture. Like a math theorem, where once you understood it it's fine to forget the details of the proof since going forward you'll only need the big picture of the theorem. Of course, sometimes life is not a simple straight line and might circle back to ask again for previous details. But then, how many details, how often does it happen? Maybe it's fine to forget and look it up again in those few cases? Personally, I found little need for active memorization in real life. If something is worth remembering, it usually comes up multiple times, and after looking it up repeatedly, it tends to get remembered automatically. Sure, sometimes real life poses constraints in time or exposure that hinder natural memorization (e.g. educational exams, remembering names, etc.) in which case active memorization may be useful. But these occasions seem to happen rather rarely over the whole course of a life. For these reasons, I don't use Anki personally. Instead, I try to accept having to look things up again when it happens, if necessary repeatedly. No, it's not easy to not be disappointed at myself that I forgot again. But we can't avoid the pain - it's always there in some form. Either in the forgetting, or in the work to not forget. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39172246 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39172246
• hamish-b 3y ago
  This is massively popular in the medical student scene. They can't get enough of it, but also complain about it's restrictiveness at the same time. I wonder if there are any other platforms / if this is a space for disruption...
  • rmbyrro 3y ago
    What's restrictive about Anki?
• martin82 3y ago
  We are probably just a few years away until everyone carries some LLM on their body that sees and hears everything and it will give us contextual information about everything via some AR glasses. Humans will forget how to memorize things, most likely. I already have lost this till a long time ago. It got replaced with a skill of vaguely remembering where I can find that information again (A book? Google? Some social media platform? Somewhere on my disk? Some USB stick?)
  • rmbyrro 3y ago
    You will be unproductive (including when using an LLM as an assistant) and less capable of solving complex problems if you don't memorize stuff in a technical field like SWE.
• jkl5xx 3y ago
  Is there an SRS app or Anki feature that takes into account your reaction time when answering a card? I've wanted to use Anki for things like speeding up mental arithmetic but Anki doesn't seem to have a feature for measuring and plotting progress on response times.
• markusl2ll 3y ago
  Shamelessly plugging my org-mode extension to sync org entries as Anki notes https://github.com/eyeinsky/org-anki https://github.com/eyeinsky/org-anki ;)
• coldtea 3y ago
  Is there an Anki alternative with better UI/UX?
• jagaerglad 3y ago
  I have used anki for 4-5 years now, ~50% of days. I have a tiny worry that there is a "google effect"¹ of sorts associated with Anki. Before, in high school, I used to just read the chapter in the course book and then do well enough on the exam. In university, I also do well enough on the exams, however, I feel like I'm not learning the material/the bigger picture as well. For one, reading the book chapters takes so much more time when you're adding cards in between, watching a lecture video takes about twice the time of the video length. It's easy that the task becomes "creating cards" instead of "learning". I might be doing it wrong, adding too many cards, not reading the chapter and then summarizing it by adding cards. Still, the thought has struck me a couple of times, if I was braver I would stop using Anki and just do a lot of the practical stuff the knowledge would be useful for and let my brain do the filtering ¹ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_effect
• jefurii 3y ago
  How does this app compare to Mnemosyne?
• owenpalmer 3y ago
  Anki journaling is a cool concept. You write your journal entry as the front of the card and the date on the back. I tried it a few years back, it was really cool to be able to think of an arbitrary date and recite what happened that day. I've since forgotten most of the events since I abandoned the review, but it was cool while it lasted.
• PeterStuer 3y ago
  Used it recently to create a neuropsychology cram set. I liked it overall. Some things need work. The import function is very fickle. Took me a long time to find a format that worked. By default it will update existing cards when you import a new card with the same front-side text, even when they are in different sets. I feel the default there should be just creating the new card and leave the existing untouched, or else promt for an explicit disambiguating contextualization on both cards.