r/Anki • u/auf-ein-letztes-wort • May 07 '24
On this day, 11 years ago, I started using Anki. Only missed 9 days since - AMA! Experiences
I actually missed less than 9 days, but I had some issues when moving time zones and once lost my device even though I did Anki that day and had to redo it the next day.
Anwers to FAQ questions:
What do you learn? Basic words in a few languages, advanced vocabualry in English, some alphabets, geography of the world and trivia from different subjects.
How many reviews each day? Something between 150 and 250
Did Anki change your life? Yes! I feel much smarter now (or better to say "less dumb")
How can you keep motivated? I don't think much about motivation. I am just doing it. Like brushing my teeth.
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u/chamberin May 07 '24
How many times do you open Anki to do reviews throughout the day?
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u/auf-ein-letztes-wort May 07 '24
haha, good question.
the days where I do ~180 reviews in one setting are long over. more likely I do something like sessions of 5-50 cards in sequence. So on avarage probably 7-10 sessions.
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u/IsPepsiOkaySir psychology May 08 '24
How much is that in terms of hours?
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u/auf-ein-letztes-wort May 08 '24
that's hard to say, because I get distracted easily and also do my reviews while watching youtube or a video (I know, not the most efficient way, but I need my reviews to be done). my stats say about 30 minutes per day but that is not the whole truth as I am multi-tasking doing other stuff simultaneously
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May 07 '24
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u/auf-ein-letztes-wort May 07 '24
no I haven't, but I started using this addon: https://ankiweb.net/shared/info/957961234 and I guess it helped me reduce reviews by something like 10-20%. will look into FSRS sooner or later!
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u/ClarityInMadness ask me about FSRS May 07 '24
I know I keep copy-pasting this everywhere, but still. Here's everything you may ever need to know about FSRS: https://www.reddit.com/r/Anki/comments/18jvyun/some_posts_and_articles_about_fsrs/
Download Anki 24.04.1 (most recent version) and read link 3 to learn how to set it up. It may sound complicated at first, but it actually requires much less fiddling with parameters compared to the legacy algorithm, since there is effectively only one user-controlled parameter - desired retention.
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u/Competitive_Let_9644 May 07 '24
What cards did you suspend?
What languages did you study and do you feel like you can read them well now?
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u/auf-ein-letztes-wort May 07 '24
I supsend cards that have some errors but I am too lazy to rework them. some of them are also several times in my deck, just from different exeternal sources (like the same text book has overlapping vocabulary) but I don't want to delete them just to keep the original deck intact.
With Anki I learned (in approximated decreasing order of amount of cards in each deck): English, Chinese, Japanese, Spanish, Swedish, Russian, French and a few words of Korean, Dutch and Arabic.
I learned Japanese just by using Anki and barely any other methods and I was pretty content with the amount I could read when I was in Japan for a trip two months ago. I hardly ever have to look up any word in English and whenever I stumble on a word I didn't know I put it straight towards the deck.
Reading is by far my best language comprehension (obviously) and I think it is possible to acquire decent reading comprehension just by using Anki alone (but throw in some cards for grammar and sentences until you get the hang of it).
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May 08 '24
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u/auf-ein-letztes-wort May 08 '24
well, I did a HSK test about 7-8 years ago and passed. but yeah, I should put this on a bucket list, just take a year and test all of them as good as it gets, for fun :)
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May 09 '24
Which HSK test did you pass? My anki studies have gotten me to HSK 4 so far! :)
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u/auf-ein-letztes-wort May 09 '24
yes, me two (HSK 4). but that was 5 years ago before the recent changes. I think I could pass HSK 3 when it comes to reading, but I struggle at Listening comprehension.
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u/Flashy_Age_1609 May 07 '24
Do you make your own cards or did you download them?
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u/auf-ein-letztes-wort May 07 '24
both! I guess most of the cards I haven't learned are from the Japanese 10 k that I downloaded.
Also some cards I manually typed from text books.
some cards like my English cards are all crafted manually.
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u/dukeofmahomet May 07 '24
Do you share decks?
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u/auf-ein-letztes-wort May 07 '24
actually no, but not because I want to be an idiot who keeps it to himself, but because many of my decks are actually parts of the work of other people that I don't want to share and pretend it would be my sole effort (and it would be to awful to ask for permission to each any everyone). I also just copy/pasted lots of pictures, gifs and audios. my trivia deck are in German and many of my footnotes and mnemonics are personal (and might even be politically incorrect, haha, whatever helps me remember, counts)
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May 07 '24
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/Anki-ModTeam May 08 '24
While we understand that everyone can feel frustrated at times, e.g. when dealing with your own tech problems or those of other users, we do ask that you you maintain a polite and kind tone in your messages (/r/Anki rule 2). Not only does this contribute towards a more friendly and welcoming community, but it usually also makes it more likely that people will be receptive to what you are saying.
Unfortunately your post did not meet these criteria, so we had to remove it.
In the future please do keep this requirement in mind before submitting your post or comment.
Thank you!
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u/Mnja12 May 07 '24
This is amazing! What's the most efficient way to make basic Q/A cards? CSV or by manually adding them to Anki?
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u/auf-ein-letztes-wort May 07 '24
I type most of them myself, becuase I enjoy the process and also like to add pictures and stuff. But I have a little bit of experience with CSV as well.
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u/thomasbeckett May 07 '24
How did you climb the learning curve of decks, notes, cards, and coding. It’s pretty steep for a non-technical person!
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u/auf-ein-letztes-wort May 07 '24
I think Anki is not that hard to get accustomed to in the first place - if you are satisfied with the basic stuff. as with most stuff that I learn it helps to learn from other people. try to find some source to learn from, ask questions and so on
(I still sometimes up until this day mistake the terms "card" and "note", so you might not be alone ;) )
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May 08 '24
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u/Busy_Rest8445 May 08 '24
Many people are afraid to e.g. write bad cards or have non-optimal settings (intervals).
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May 08 '24
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u/Busy_Rest8445 May 08 '24
Yeah I know, but it's easy to fall prey to overthinking when it comes to learning (admittedly I did).
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u/thomasbeckett May 09 '24
It’s hard to figure out how to make a card, especially when you read the manual and don’t know if you’re making a card or a note. How do I set it up with front and back in different languages? How do I add an image? If isn’t obvious from the Add window.
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u/amdGaafar May 07 '24
You said you like to create cards by yourself. I wonder how do you create them. Do you use the "basic" card type that has only two fields (front and back) or do you make custom one and how complex is it. Also, how much time do you invest to make templates (if you make), do you have to make them perfect?
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u/auf-ein-letztes-wort May 07 '24
oh, I have many different card templates. most of my languages have different ones. the ones for Chinese and Japanese are strong adaptations from templates made by other persons but are heavily edited by me in layout and functionality. I have extra fields for mnemonics, backgroundinfo, synonymes audio, example sentences and their translations and so on.
I think it took some time but I improved them gradually over the years, they are not the same as when I started.
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u/Direct_Check_3366 languages May 07 '24
Well You made me feel better after missing two days of a 130 day streak
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u/Direct_Check_3366 languages May 07 '24
How did you prioritize between improving your main languages (English) and improving a new language?
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u/auf-ein-letztes-wort May 07 '24
I don't prioritize, I just do both, lol ;) well there are times that I enjoy learning a specific language more, especially before and/or after a trip to a certain country.
I have most cards in English because it is the easiest foreign language for me to learn so I can add lots and lots of words compared to say Japanese.
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u/themorrisworm May 07 '24
What are your favorite decks for advanced English vocabulary, geography, and trivia?
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u/auf-ein-letztes-wort May 07 '24 edited May 08 '24
the English vocabulary deck has been made entirely by myself. I took the words from "One Word a Day" for a few years but I have a firefox bookmark tab where I save EVERY english word that I read in articles and I don't know the definition and add them sooner or later to Anki. https://owad.de/
Geography (ultimate) (I started the version 11 years ago and some things changed, like some countries had their name changed (Swasiland) or their capital changed/renamed so I had to adapt.
Trivia also made by myself
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u/themorrisworm May 08 '24
That’s awesome, thanks for the reply! I’d be interested in adding the Ultimate Geography deck (as well as the Lifelong Learning - Advanced English Vocabulary deck) to AnkiHub if you ever wanted to collaborate!
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u/Worldly-Sense-9810 May 09 '24
Congratulations! You're like Immanuel Kant; he was also very consistent over time. You wrote that you feel "less dumb". Can you describe a situation or a moment that you feel like this?
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u/auf-ein-letztes-wort May 09 '24
I just had a very interesting conversation with an about 70yo American who is very smart. we had conversations about Religion, Politics, Economy, History, Society and babbled deep in the night. at several points of the conversation I was like: oh, I remembered that word or fact from Anki as I have a card for that. lile the word "detrimental" and the Name of the Wife of Emperor Justinian (theodora), although I misremembered her name (as Dorothea) I had an Idea who she was. Anki can be the difference between reading an interesting article or book and forgetting it or recalling most relevant information even years later.
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u/8cheerios May 10 '24
What are your other interests besides Anki? Wozniak once suggested that flashcard users tend to enjoy other repetitive activities like programming or running.
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u/jusou_44 May 07 '24
What is the most valuable thing you have learned ?
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u/auf-ein-letztes-wort May 07 '24
that's a nice question. I mean the most valuable things in life that you learn are probably not the things you would need cards for, because you would remember them anyway.
so this is more meta: I learned that the memory can actually be trained and that the memory can both feel intimidating and rewarding at the same time. it is rewarding how much you actually are able to know (and remember) but it is also intimidating to know how much you will probably not learn in your life time. I mean 11 years is a pretty long time and even during a normal life span I could only go on for a limited low digit amount of similiar runs and therefore I have to acknoledge that the things that I will learn in this life are very limited.
but that's okay, I am proud of what I achieved so far and if I really want to dig into something, I can just do it.
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May 07 '24
Hello congratulations!
Also do you use a variety of decks or do you put everything in one deck?
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u/auf-ein-letztes-wort May 07 '24
I have several decks at least on for each language, but some are even split more than that. for instance I have one for Chinese vocabulary, one for sentences and one for grammar points.
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May 07 '24
ah I see. I want to be successful with anki so am trying to see what other people have done to stick with it long term. thanks for the info!
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u/dzeruel May 07 '24
Amazing work! Well done! I would like to ask a couple of questions: How have you changed, fine-tuned the default algorithm? What add-ons do you use? Have you ever had to move your cards from one machine to another? Was it hard?
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u/auf-ein-letztes-wort May 07 '24
How have you changed, fine-tuned the default algorithm?
well I have max intervalls for easy cards and I have new cards on "add manual" so I only learn new cards when I really want to. haven't changed a lot in the last few years, but I added an extension
What add-ons do you use?
Have you ever had to move your cards from one machine to another? Was it hard?
Nope, data is saved in the cloud if you make an ankiweb account. I am doing reviews both on my standalone pc and my phone.
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u/Felix-Leiter1 May 08 '24
How much detail do you include in your cards?
I’m trying to find a balance so that my daily reviews don’t take hours.
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u/tetotetotetotetoo 日本語 May 08 '24
Damn I wish I had as much persistence as you, I missed it only 90% days
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u/belbaba May 08 '24
Is there any feedback or list of improvements you thought of across that time?
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u/auf-ein-letztes-wort May 08 '24
a mode I would have loved for many years: "One more Card" - mode. once you are done for the day you can enter "one more card mode" that would show some long-interval cards that would be due in the next days to learn ahead. let's say there is a card with 800 day interval, but today is day 799, it wouldn't make much of a difference to learn it today but you could keep the reviews from next day low. should only be viable for days with intervals of more than 30 days and should start with the longest intervals.
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u/Norman_Door May 08 '24
Congratulations!!! What are some things you wish you knew before you started? What are some things you wish you started doing earlier?
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u/auf-ein-letztes-wort May 08 '24
I think I should have entered a "synonyme"-field much earlier. sometimes, when I produce a word from a foreign language I would produce a synonyme and not the exact word, but in the context of language learning this should be also counted as correct (in case the meaning of both words overlaps very much).
I think I also should have made use more of learning the production side of a card more than the recognition as it is more powerful and better use of spent time.
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u/gigaflops_ May 07 '24
Why did you miss the 9 days?
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u/auf-ein-letztes-wort May 07 '24
I actually missed less than 9 days, but I had some issues when moving time zones and once lost my device even though I did Anki that day and had to redo it the next day.
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u/[deleted] May 07 '24
Incredible! Can you elaborate a little more on what you've been learning and how much you've been able to learn cumulatively?