How do you use Anki for learning words?

1. What type of card do use?
I setup my own card type with the information I found most valuable in the past.
Sentence, Sentence with furigana, Translation, Word, Meaning
Translation, Meaning are in English
When reviewing I have the card display the sentence without furigana initially, the rest of the fields are to check myself after I read the sentence.

2. How many words you can learn in one our counting reviews?
I found 8 was the sweet spot for me but I also change it based on how many reviews Iā€™m getting daily and motivation. I donā€™t want to spend a lot of time on anki reviews every day to avoid burning out so if the review count is increasing, I might stop learning new words for a week or so.

3. How much seconds/card you go while doing reviews?
My average answer time is 17.89 seconds but sometimes I do reviews while doing other things and just leave it open and answer as I go so itā€™s not really a very reliable metric in my case.

4. How much seconds/card you spend on cards you learning?
I canā€™t find this metric at the moment but Iā€™d imagine itā€™s about the same. I usually just mix the learning cards in with the reviews so they are randomly dispersed. But I also make all my own anki cards, so my learning cards are always something Iā€™ve seen before (because I made the card)

5. Have you tried using Anki when you knew only 50-200 words? Was it bad? Have your ability to learn new words increased drastically since then?
I did not try anki back then but I would have if I knew about it. I like it alot and have used anki for learning other things in my life as well. I definitely feel the difference when I use anki compared to when I donā€™t as far as my ability to learn.

On a side note: I did use anki to learn kanji using RTK (remember the kanji) method. I spent about 300 days doing 15 kanji a day every day. I was doing about 150-200 reviews a day. I never missed a day. I started out knowing maybe 300ish kanji. I got through the entire deck of 3007 kanji cards and wrote stories for each one to remember them. That was like 2 years ago and I stopped reviewing the deck after about 6 months of reviews with no new cards. Iā€™m not a kanji expert. But I still think it was really helpful. Whenever I see new words now, it is rare to see a kanji I havenā€™t seen before. Even if I donā€™t remember the meaning or the reading, Iā€™m not as overwhelmed. It has made learning new words much easier.

6. Maybe you use some kind of memory palaces to remember wordsā€™ readings (for when you know the meaning and need to extract how word sounds from head)? Or maybe you use other techniques?
I donā€™t use any techniques. I made stories from the radicals to help with my kanji study while doing RTK, but with new words I just brute force it. It was hard to accept that some words just donā€™t stick and I felt really bad when a card would get marked as a leech and suspended but if you are adding cards regularly, the one word is insignificant amongst the many others youā€™ll be studying. You can always make a new card for the leeches later and maybe then youā€™ll be in a better position to memorize it. If you spend too much time worrying about leeches youā€™ll waste time working on a single word when you couldā€™ve learned 2-5 other words that stick easier.

Sorry I wrote so much, thanks for reading if you did. My only tip for anki is when I was doing 15 new kanji every day for 300 days, 150-200 reviews per day felt miserable at times. It made it worse when I would add a new card and kept getting it wrong repeatedly. However, I found a pattern emerged. When I would push through despite failing the same card repeatedly. Around day 3 I felt really bad. It felt hopeless. But around day 4 or 5, it would randomly click. Iā€™d suddenly start getting it right every time. Consistency is really the only thing that matters. Even if youā€™re struggling and it feels hopeless. It gets easier. Then thatā€™s when you make it hard again :sweat_smile:

Thanks for the detailed response, it was nice to read it)
Iā€™m also using Anki for kanji! Iā€™m not writing stories but I make my own in my head. The problem is it has become so easy that itā€™s not challenging now and is just boring -_- Iā€™m 1500 after 40 days (and last week I added only 100)

So you are using n+1 template for your cards, as I understood :thinking:

@Liras348 and @CursedKitsune

Nice to know :smiley: Explains the weird phrasing.
Thanks you two