How to get off Anki

[MacFinch]

I got a “little” problem with my strategy, and I would be grateful for any input.

I am taking more less “immersing route”. I want to be able to read for pleasure ASAP. But I use Anki a lot to make sure I do remember kanji and words I encounter. But it starting to be more and more problematic. Anki slowly but surely is reaching the point when I almost don’t do anything else, and my motivation is drowning as well…

Kanji:

Vocab:

It was ok at the begging since it was part of the plan to invest a lot of effort upfront to make it easier later. It may look as well that is is better now (and it is kind of true I guess?) but the truth is I may spent less on Anki itself but I finish it later anyway (I need more and more break between short session since it is so demotivating that I am no able to force myself to spent more than 15 minutes without a break). Last two days I didn’t even do all of the reviews for the first time…

I put into my anki only kanji (english meaning first, then I write down the kanji and check answer) and words (Japanese word in kanji if it has it, and then reading, meanings and sample sentence as answer). I tried to make a deck for kanji reading as well but I already opt out. Same with grammar (Bunpro better )

Do you have any opinions how to reduce the use Anki for my vocab (I am happy with kanji)? I would like to spent maximum 2 hours for reviews and focus my time on reading. But the more I read the less time I have for reading because of review…

Thank you for your help in advance. And if you see something stupid in my approach then please go forward and say it without worrying about my feelings. In worst case scenario we just agree to disagree having wider view.

Edit: That was typo. I didn’t mean “with worrying”

[The_Snowman]

Hi, I’ve had a similar problem of spending to much time in Anki as well (and I also can’t bring my self to abandon it). I don’t have a proper solution but here are some mitigation steps I found helpful. It brought me to a point where I spend less than 20 minutes every day, maybe some of it will be helpful for you.

1. Train yourself to try to answer cards in a few seconds even if it causes you to make more mistakes. If you don’t recognize a card after 7-8 seconds just immediately fail it. Try to be at a pace of at least 10 cards per minute.
2. Start using the easy button as the default answer button. I used to press the normal button as default for any word that is not trivial. Now I use the easy button as a default, the normal button is used if I was thinking over a couple of options and then decided on the right one. I use hard if it felt completely like a wild guess or if I had an almost correct answer that I felt was close enough.
3. I used to hear a lot of music while reviewing. Sometimes it felt helpful and some times it felt detrimental. Recently I’ve started focusing on songs that got me the “zone” and helped me focus. Instead of trying to hear random music, I’m hearing the same playlist that works everyday when reviewing. It sounds mad but it works for me and helps me complete the reviews in one go as fast as I can.

[MacFinch]

That’s seems helpful, thank you! I was using basically only normal button and again button (computer science background: world is more binary to me ).

That should help a lot.

Actually I made even bigger mistake I guess. I always put new material for 1 day interval to check if I will remember it tomorrow. That could make it harder as well… Anki is then registering easy once as harder than they are and keeps that in her calculation.

How do you deal with failed cards? I have Purgatory deck for failed kanji, which I use to queue failed kanji and add them the same way I add new ones (first learn and practice, then add to the deck).

[The_Snowman]

I don’t have a system for failed cards. I used to go over my leeches once in a while but I’ve stopped doing it. I guess I just let the SRS bully me for weeks or months until I finally get them.

[HotAirGun]

I was using basically only normal button and again button

It’s a good way to use Anki. If you setup Anki as described here, you’ll be fine with only normal and again buttons.
This guide assumes you never have used Anki before. To change ease and interval modifier in existing deck, use RefoldEase add-on.

[MacFinch]

Great! I will for sure change my setup.

I think I will do Purgatory deck for vocab as well for now just to unbury myself. But long term I intend to do the same as you did. I only put more effort with kanji at the moment since I believe solid foundation with about 1900-2500 kanji will help a lot later.

It is great to have somebody that familiar with Anki in the community I failed my last 2 attempts at Japanese within 2 weeks in since I didn’t trust that technology. I believed paper flashcard will be for sure better since there more personal and nonsense like that xD

If you have more tips or suggestion with Anki (or anything else for that matter) then carry on, please

Edit: I took 2 people for 1 because you both are green xD but it does not change much so I will leave it as it is. Both of you are welcome to provides us with more insight XD

[narfi]

There is already a lot in this thread. I think most end up experimenting with changes in these factors to improve their experience with Anki:

1. The “Steps” setting. The default of 1 and 10 minutes usually interacts badly with the anki scheduling if you are trying to learn the material you enter into anki.
2. The card contents. Committing random, disconnected facts to memory is possible, but it feels like banging your head against the wall.
3. The study habits surrounding the use of Anki.

If you’re interested, I recommend Barbara Oakley’s class “Learning how to learn” as that influenced my habits quite a bit. Anyway, in reverse order:
3) Studying in the same environment will help you with recall, but you condition your brain to only be able to recall the information in that specific environment. If your goal is long-term recall, change your environment regularly. Study in the library, on the bus, the train, with music, without music, …
2) The brain is set up to recall memories that can be connected in multiple hierarchies. Q: Where are my keys? A: No idea. Q: Where are the keys that I held in … my left hand… last night … in the bedroom … when I was … Ah, now I remember.
Memory castles use this mechanism. Wanikani with its memonics does as well. Bunpro does this with its hints. Anything that helps connect memories and information together helps.

1. The default Anki steps and scheduling can quickly lead one to seeing the same cards again and again. You can find multiple videos on YouTube showing how to change the Anki deck options to avoid these problems.

What do I do?

1. My new card steps are currently 1 min, 20 min, 5 hours, 24 hours and 6 days. The graduating interval is 12 days. This is simply my acknowledgement that it takes me a while to learn a new thing and avoid some of the problems with the scheduling algorithm.
2. I don’t hesitate putting hints on my cards or having multiple cards for a note (to use the Anki terms). Design your cards so they work for your memory. For example, my Jp to En vocabulary cards have a hint (hidden by default) with a Japanese sentence. Right now, I have one card for Jp hiragana + kanji to En, one for Jp kanji only to En, one for En to Jp. I always learn these in order of easiest to hardest. If my needs change, I’ll simply create new cards from existing notes.
3. This is a marathon, not a sprint, so I make sure not to overload myself with new cards. Of course, I am not taking classes for school or work, …

[MacFinch]

My new card steps are currently 1 min, 20 min, 5 hours, 24 hours and 6 days. The graduating interval is 12 days. This is simply my acknowledgement that it takes me a while to learn a new thing and avoid some of the problems with the scheduling algorithm.

how you set up that?

[narfi]

See, for example, https://forums.ankiweb.net/t/deck-options-explained/213

Look for “new cards” and in there “steps” and “graduating interval”.
Also look for “lapses” and within there “steps” (which I set to the same values as I do for new cards) and “new interval” (which I set at 50%).

[MacFinch]

By looking at you guys I am impressed with myself I managed to last that long with knowing close to nothing about Anki 0_o (narcissism lvl God: praising others by praising myself xD).

Even if I will opt to not use it you have my gratitude anyway. I introduced my wife (she is studying medicine) to anki and that is her biggest complaint.

I will look into it for sure

[MacFinch]

Your suggestion really helped. Most of the time I spent on Kanji (which is as it should be according to my plan) and I had vocab from yesterday to deal with (in total 376 cards of vocab). I believe tomorrow I will manage to finish review of vocab within 20 min and then I will think how to reintroduce Purgatory vocab and how to manage new cards. I am shocked it was possible to sort it out so quickly.

I didn’t add new material today but it is fine. Fixing this problem was more important.

Thank you all for input. If anybody have more suggestion then please share it. It really makes a difference

Edit:
And now I am back at the game. And even fail rate is not so high (1/3). It should be ok if I reintroduce 30-50 words a day.

It is looking like for words that went to Purgatory I spent 4 minutes in total per card. When for the rest of the words it is just 2 min. So I was basically jamming myself up with badly learned words…

[solaero]

このスレが本当に助かっています。ありがとう皆んなさん！

Rough translation

Thanks everyone, very helpful thread.

@s1212z — 訳すの方法を教えたことがありがとうございます！

[mrnoone]

@solaero
Fast fix:
このスレには本当に助けられています。ありがとう皆さん！
訳し方を教えてくれたことありがとうございます！

The みんなさん is a very common error We use みなさん or みんな.

Some reference:

Bunpro Log in | Japanese Grammar SRS

Bunpro Log in | Japanese Grammar SRS

I hope it helps,
Cheers!

[solaero]

Helps a lot! ありがとうございます！

I’m going to try to link to grammar points when helping people in the future — nice way to add some reference to the flow.

[Flavyouu]

I recommend watching a video on youtube about Anki settings

[MacFinch]

To be honest I want to get rid of Anki ASAP (probably over a year…) so I don’t feel like investing too much time into it. It is a tool only after all.

I am happy I got a few simple ideas how to solve my problem and it works. It looks like most of my problem was a mindset only, not poor setting. I didn’t change a thing except adding one more deck for Purgatory vocab

[Accendino]

Jesus if you can keep up that amount of reviews for more than 3 months you have my respect. I burned out and now Im trying to keep the daily reviews under 25 cards with a few gimmicks, but I started reading way more.

[solaero]

現在毎日で100カードぐらい。でも少しずつ減らしています。文法と日本語の没入を段々増えています。またよろしくお願いします。

[Moyga]

A lot of people don’t realise that while learning ‘x’ amount of new cards per day might not seem very difficult at first, your review time will increase exponentially and that is compounded by the fact that if you try to learn too much too fast, you will start forgetting more cards, which increases the reviews even more and it can easily spiral out of control. Basically what I am saying is, just because you feel like you can learn 40 new cards a day in the beginning, doesn’t mean its a good idea long term. I tried to power through content too and the reviews became brutal (while working full time, gym etc.) so I ended up having to stop adding new cards for a while and now I try to keep the new card amount lower.

[MacFinch]

Is there any utility in using Anki at your level?

I would understand adding technical terms and stuff like that but 40k cards look likes overkill. I would much rather spent that 72 minutes on reading and “reviewing” words in that way.

Any special reason why you opted to do it this way?

I personally believe it is impossible to learn a word in anki anyway. Meeting that word in hundreds of different situations seems to be the key to success. Anki is good to kick start that process, nothing else.

I add a lot now for two reasons:

1. There is too many brand words to allow me read even with help of yomichan. Some core 4-6k word will speed up the process.
2. I think about it in terms of kanji reading practices. Kanji has to be well remembered so there is no other choice really.

I will for sure suspend any word with interval longer than 6 month. Probably I will go with just 3 and if necessary I will just re-add it.