In this lesson, you're going to learn my recommended Anki settings and how settings work in general.
That's because I don't only want you to have 'ready-made' templates, but also a complete understanding of how the advice I'm giving you works.
Touted as a simple study solution for those striving to learn a subject, this app effectively delivers a memorization system. A clean layout makes Anki for Android attractive, but some features. I love Anki, but I have some suggestions! I love how the app emphasizes studying on new cards or cards you have difficulty with, using spaced repetition. However, I also think there should be an option to do 'randomized' reviews, so I don't end up forgetting older cards or cards I have an A on.
Why is that? Because I want you to be able to think for yourself so you can build your most optimal system using the power of principles.
- Best Japanese Anki Decks. Language Learning Goals Template (AJATT) How to Make SRS Sentence Flashcards Quickly and Efficiently. Matt's take on 10,000 Sentences in a Month 5 Comments Categories Advice and Resources for Learning Anything Tags anki, german, how to learn language, japanese, language learning, srs, subs2srs, tools.
- Best Anki Settings: My Recommended Values. Al Khan October 10, 2020 June 26, 2020. Hi, this is Lesson 4 of 5 in the Anki Fundamentals free course. I hope you like it!
It's not easy mentally to use principles, for sure, but nothing worth having comes easy — I can tell you that for sure.
Now, before anything else, I want to make you aware that the Anki default settings do work.
However, in my experience, I found the default learning steps (more on this later) gives a really poor review experience for both newer and older cards.
The problem is newer cards don't get reviewed as frequently, and that older cards start back to zero when you've lapsed even partially. (i.e. Tip-of-the-tongue moments)
Once you use these settings I'm going to give you, you'll be able to avoid these two problems right away so you'll have a smooth review experience every single time.
They're made-for-you settings that I found the most optimal in my learning process. Again, I will also share with you the underlying concepts (and provided supplementary materials) so you can tweak them on your own.
That being said, do note that my recommended settings are more geared for continuous learning of hard concepts than for memorizing vocabulary or isolated facts.
The Made-For-You Settings
For the New Cards tab, I recommend these settings:
'10 1440 4320' means pressing Again shows the card in 10 minutes and pressing Good would show the card after 1 day, then after that — 3 days.
Put generally, the first number is the number of minutes the card will show up again if you pressed 'Again'.
The next two numbers determine the intervals when you press 'Good'.
And like the tab says, all of these only apply to New Cards.
Now, I don't recommend you pressing 'Easy' right away because that tends to skip the 'learning steps.'
You don't want that.
Just because a card is easy to remember now doesn't mean it's going to be remembered in the future — yet, we have a bias to believe otherwise. (cf. Stability Bias)
So, just to be on the safe side, going through all of your learning steps is the best thing you can do for your new cards.
Thus, I recommend you use only the 'Good' button for NEW cards. (Obviously, this doesn't apply to graduated cards — more on that in a sec.)
So how do you know if the card has surpassed the 'learning steps,' anyway?
You'll know it when the 'Hard' option appears. When you see that option, it means that specific card has graduated. (Think of the steps as a 'grade' in grade school — you have to go through all of them, right?)
When a card has graduated, the ease of retrieval (i.e. what buttons you press after answering that card) will then determine how often that card will show up in the future.
Also, the settings that will apply to a graduated card can be found in the Reviews tab, which I recommend you set like this:
Now, in case you want to learn more about these settings you can do that here (longer version) and here. (shorter)
Regarding your reviews with graduated cards, you should press whatever option in the 'Easy' 'Good' 'Hard' suits your judgement.
That's because from that point on, you want the Anki algorithm to do its magic for you.
To recap:
- The New Cards tab settings apply to, well, new cards that haven't yet graduated
- Press 'Good' only for the newer cards to go through all your learning steps and avoid Stability Bias
- A specific card has 'graduated' when you see the 'Hard' option in your reviews
- The Reviews tab setting applies to graduated cards only
- Press whatever review difficulty option (i.e. Easy, Good, or Hard) for graduated cards
Now, for the Lapses tab:
Also, this Lapses tab only applies to graduated cards.
The 'Steps (in minutes)' works similar to the one in the New Cards tab, except it's for cards you've pressed 'Again' on.
In case you're wondering about the lapses tab, the magic of these settings comes when you experience a 'tip of the tongue' attempt.
You see, the 'New interval' setting defaults to 0% — but seriously, think about it:
If you forgot something you've been recalling for 3 years, do you really have to test yourself as if it's a new card?
CLEARLY NOT.
That's why we concede by turning the new interval to 60%.
It's arbitrary, of course. But I wouldn't recommend going below 50%.
Settings Aren't an Exact Science
If you've noticed already, these intervals are simple to tweak. That's because they aren't exact science.
If your goal is to just use Anki more effectively and more efficiently in a practical way…
Then do you really have time to overthink about the exact data instead of actually spending that time creating new cards that will improve your knowledge base?
Even if a study or a tool knew what the 'most effective & efficient Anki setting' is…
It HIGHLY likely that it fails to take into account:
- The context of what you're learning
- How specific your card is
- How future-proof it is
- How they relate to your previous knowledge
- …and so on.
Simply because these can't be quantified.
In short, even if there's available exact science out there, it likely fails to account the big picture.
So I argue it's better to keep this simple.
One caveat, though, is when you're not using Anki as a tool for learning concepts, but rather just to memorize facts.
I can't speak for that — perhaps the most efficient intervals do exist for it.
(But hey, I doubt you're even gonna make it this far if you're not gonna use Anki for learning!)
Anki designers were actually criticized for not having 'optimal intervals', but in defense of Anki, Nielsen argued:
I've heard this used as a criticism of the designers of systems such as Anki, that they make too many ad hoc guesses, not backed by a systematic scientific understanding.
But what are they supposed to do? Wait 50 or 100 years, until those answers are in?
Give up design, and become memory scientists for the next 30 years, so they can give properly 'scientific' answers to all the questions they need answered in the design of their systems?
We get that exact science is good for increasing the chance success, but every action doesn't have to wait for exact data, especially if you want to make progress immediately.
Instead of waiting for memory scientists to somehow find the data for us, we follow the first principle of spaced repetition and learn the nuances for ourselves.
That is, to set increasing intervals for reviews.
Simple, and practical.
One might ask, 'What if I'm overtesting/undertesting?'
You'd often hear this from other 'advanced beginners', but frankly, it's impractical to stress yourself over them. The raid dubbed.
In case you're asking the same question, here's the solution:
Adjust the settings accordingly.
Plain simple.
Of course, it's easy to say that the overall review time can be sped up when you use setting X or Y…
Anki Language App
But frankly, there are more important things to address in the grand scheme of things.
Next Lesson: How to Survive Big Exams
At this point, you have everything you need to know about Anki itself.
If you're not using Anki to prepare for exams and just want the settings, you can definitely close this tab right now.
But listen, if you're preparing for a big exam right now, have you ever wondered how all of this fits into the greater whole?
Then do you really have time to overthink about the exact data instead of actually spending that time creating new cards that will improve your knowledge base?
Even if a study or a tool knew what the 'most effective & efficient Anki setting' is…
It HIGHLY likely that it fails to take into account:
- The context of what you're learning
- How specific your card is
- How future-proof it is
- How they relate to your previous knowledge
- …and so on.
Simply because these can't be quantified.
In short, even if there's available exact science out there, it likely fails to account the big picture.
So I argue it's better to keep this simple.
One caveat, though, is when you're not using Anki as a tool for learning concepts, but rather just to memorize facts.
I can't speak for that — perhaps the most efficient intervals do exist for it.
(But hey, I doubt you're even gonna make it this far if you're not gonna use Anki for learning!)
Anki designers were actually criticized for not having 'optimal intervals', but in defense of Anki, Nielsen argued:
I've heard this used as a criticism of the designers of systems such as Anki, that they make too many ad hoc guesses, not backed by a systematic scientific understanding.
But what are they supposed to do? Wait 50 or 100 years, until those answers are in?
Give up design, and become memory scientists for the next 30 years, so they can give properly 'scientific' answers to all the questions they need answered in the design of their systems?
We get that exact science is good for increasing the chance success, but every action doesn't have to wait for exact data, especially if you want to make progress immediately.
Instead of waiting for memory scientists to somehow find the data for us, we follow the first principle of spaced repetition and learn the nuances for ourselves.
That is, to set increasing intervals for reviews.
Simple, and practical.
One might ask, 'What if I'm overtesting/undertesting?'
You'd often hear this from other 'advanced beginners', but frankly, it's impractical to stress yourself over them. The raid dubbed.
In case you're asking the same question, here's the solution:
Adjust the settings accordingly.
Plain simple.
Of course, it's easy to say that the overall review time can be sped up when you use setting X or Y…
Anki Language App
But frankly, there are more important things to address in the grand scheme of things.
Next Lesson: How to Survive Big Exams
At this point, you have everything you need to know about Anki itself.
If you're not using Anki to prepare for exams and just want the settings, you can definitely close this tab right now.
But listen, if you're preparing for a big exam right now, have you ever wondered how all of this fits into the greater whole?
Specifically, how do you fit Anki learning into a process that already makes you feel like there's 'too much to learn and too little time'? Www grass valley com account products registered.
If you're interested in that, you can find it out in the final lesson of the course.
Since the beginning of the year, I have been trying various flashcard applications to learn French, Mandarin, and Spanish vocabulary. These included Anki, Quizlet, and Tinycards by Duolingo. Anki is probably the oldest of the three applications with Tinycards being the newest, and all of them were recommended to me by friends actually using them.
Being a huge Duolingo fan, I fully expected to like Tinycards the most. But after using all three systems extensively, there was one app that completely won me over, and it was not Tinycards.
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Best Anki App
Below is a quick summary of the three apps, their advantages and disadvantages, and the 'winner.'
Anki
Pros
- Has an app for iOS, Android, and Windows 10 (including Windows 10 Mobile), and a desktop application for any version of Windows. These can be used offline. There's also a web app that can be used for practice on any platform with a web browser.
- After each flashcard, you can file it into one of three review decks: Soon (<1 minute), Good (<10 minutes), or Easy (4 days). These decks allow you to practice the hardest words (Soon) most frequently.
- Allows you to add images to words.
- Allows you to add voice recording of words.
- Has flashcard decks that other people have created, that you can practice.
- Allows you to import and export data.
Cons
- All of Anki's apps look very dated.
- The web app has limited editing functionality.
- Synchronization of the apps is slow and seemingly the least robust.
- If you want to add images to words, you have to manually search for images first and then upload. There is no functionality to help you find the images in the first place.
- While you can record audio to the words, it has to be something you have recorded (like your voice, or audio pronunciations you find on, say, Google Translate) yourself. I.e., Anki cannot read words you type out loud using some sort of voice robot.
Quizlet
Pros
- Modern interface.
- Apps for iOS and Android that can be used offline. There's even an app for Windows 10 Mobile, but I have not tried it.
- Allows you to add images to words, and helps you find the images in the first place.
- Has optional test modes: multiple choice, or type the answers.
- Can read the words out loud to you in a pleasing voice with good pronunciation and accent.
- You can even type in Pinyin, and it will read the Mandarin words out loud perfectly!
- You can 'star' words that are most difficult to you, and review only those.
- Has flashcard decks that other people have created, that you can practice.
- Allows you to import and export data.
- Resumes where you left off in flashcard sets when you go back to review them.
Cons
Tinycards
Pros
- Modern interface.
- Allows you to add images to words, and helps you find the images in the first place.
- Has optional test modes: written questions, multiple choice, matching, spelling, etc.
- Has optional game modes, like matching and 'gravity.'
- Can read the words out loud to you in a pleasing voice with good pronunciation and accent.
- It tells you how recently card decks has been reviewed, which can encourage you to practice flashcards more frequently.
- Has flashcard decks that other people have created, that you can practice.
Cons
- There's only an app for iOS. For Android and Windows, there's only a web app that cannot be used offline.
- When there are more than, say, 50 flashcards in a set, entering new ones is painfully slow, even on my super fast workstation computer. It seems like the editing interface uses Javascript. Whatever the case, the UI cannot keep up with your typing.
- You cannot 'star' words or file them into 'Soon' decks like you can with Quizlet or Anki, respectively. You are basically leaving it up to Tinycards' algorithm to determine which cards to review first.
- Supports primarily Western languages. Does not support languages like Mandarin.
- Cannot import CSV files or export data.
The Best: Quizlet
Quizlet was the winner by a longshot. It has virtually all the functionality of Anki and Tinycards plus a lot more, including games and testing modes. It is the most modern and allows importation of word lists. It works offline (at least on mobile platforms) and can read Mandarin out loud. Quizlet is also the most fun to use.
Tinycards had too many 'fatal flaws,' including painfully slow flashcard creation, no offline support for Windows or Android (so you cannot use it on most flights, which is a perfect time for reviewing flashcards), or Mandarin support.
Anki was great in its day but adding voice pronunciations and images is very tedious. It looks very dated.
How to Migrate Tinycards to Quizlet
While there is no native export functionality for Tinycards, I came up with a quick (but non-intuitive) method on how to do so using the Chrome web browser and Notepad++. See this article.
Migrating data from Anki to Quizlet is easy because they both have functionality to import and export CSV files.
