Hi,
I’ve been using Anki on and off for years and 99% of the time, I use it for languages.
It’s not the easiest app for beginners, especially nowadays, when most tools focus on user-friendliness to retain users.
I’m not here to explain how Anki works or how to fine-tune the settings. I just want to share a few practical suggestions that helped me stay consistent (those recommendations are transposable to other flashcards apps).
- Test several decks before committing to one. Try them for a few days, even a few weeks, even if they serve the same purpose. They may all look the same at first, but some decks will have this little something that you find more appealing (don't laugh), and vice versa. Better to find out early.
– From a technical perspective, it means: Download a whole deck of cards, but suspend all the cards, and fine-pick by unsuspending only specific ones.
- GO SLOWLY. This is the most important point. Even if you feel motivated at the beginning, resist the urge to "learn more today" if you've already revised your daily quota. Reviews accumulate fast and have inertia. Once you reach 100 or more reviews per day, it can take weeks to bring that number down. Even if you are disciplined, it's quickly demotivating. FYI, 100 cards can take 45 to 60min, which makes staying consistent difficult.
A few additional notes for advanced users:
– It helps to include word frequency on your cards. If your favourite deck doesn’t have it, it’s not that hard to add a « Top500 » or « Top1000 » tag on them. It makes it easier to choose between near-synonyms. Frequency gives perspective. It's not because you've seen the word "neithertheless" once that you should learn this one instead of "however".
– Similarly, do not revise near-synonyms together. Trust me, thinking that you should learn the words "rather, almost, quite, fairly" or "never, rarely, regularly, often, always" together is a big mistake. Stick to one or two, master them, and build around them.
– Specifically for Japanese learners: I only use two separate decks:
— one for kanji (recognition), and
— one for vocabulary (recognition only, but with and without furigana). I don’t use production cards (Eng—>Jap) because synonyms would often make me virtually be wrong.
– When I want to learn a new word, I just activate the word in my vocabulary deck and the corresponding kanji in my kanji deck. This allows me to learn the kanji’s meaning and a real word that uses it at the same time.
– Finally, I think the limit for the daily reviews should be increased up to 9999. Why? Imagine your limit is 100, it means that even if 150 cards would have been due for today, only 100 cards would appear. Those 50 other cards will have to wait until tomorrow, but your brain was supposed to see them today. This limit is a visual comfort that breaks the algorithm.
I’ve been consistent for 6 months. It’s not a lot, but it’s better than I’ve ever done so far.
Feel free to share your little tips too.
EDIT:
Learning is personal until you start measuring yourself against others, I guess. I’m not sure why so many people fixate on comparing their stats. If someone can learn 300 cards in ten minutes, good for them. I can’t. Perhaps I’m slower, or perhaps my cards and study method are simply different.
When I mention spending 45 to 60 minutes on 100 cards, I mean the entire review session, not just the average time per card that Anki reports. It includes moving back and forth between several tools to better understand what I’m learning. I check Jisho, consult my own notes, and take time to work through new kanji mnemonics. That inevitably adds time.
About two thirds of my flashcards are recognition without furigana. As a beginner, I need a moment to process what I’m seeing before I can answer. Speed is not the point. Drilling 350 cards a day just didn’t work for me, at least not on the long run.
Anyway, these are just recommendations based on what helped me stay consistent so stop comparing your deck sizes.
by Ferocious448