Why Language Learners Hate Anki
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- Опубликовано: 9 июл 2021
- In my opinion Anki or any spaced repetition system is of great benefit to language learners. But many of us hate it and I've worked out why.
All of the things listed below can be of benefit to you as well as helping me make better language learning videos. You're awesome, thank you.
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Language learning videos, tips and techniques!
• How To Learn Languages
Other RUclipsrs whose videos are shown in this video:
Nathaniel Drew (pretends to learn languages in short times... doesn't)
Eric Wen (awesome videos about using your personality well)
The Bliss Bean (productivity and note taking and stuff)
Study Quill (study for stuff... she just has cool notebooks really)
Livakivi (excellent language youtuber)
Matt vs. Japan (this clip was from a Refold Patreon Q&A)
Cluee News (Swedish internet news and infotainment channel)
Clara Henry (Swedish TV celebrity, former RUclipsr)
I don't need to say that last one. But he's Swedish.
OK if you've reached the end of the description then you need something to do. The Swedish for "to reinvent the wheel" appears twice in this video. What is it? (Google translate won't be the answer from the video, I checked.)
How has your experience with the SRS been? Traumatic to the point that get a chest infection and rant about it, like mine? Or gentle and welcome like a breeze on a warm day?
It’s effective for me when beginning, but past that I don’t enjoy it.
I would have to try it first
See how far I get
Anki really helped me to grow my vocabulary in Russian. It was a real game changer. Russian words are very difficult to remember for me and therefore SRS is such an important tool.
I love SRS. I used it to pass maths degree exams with 100%. I just repeated the types of questions going to come up until I could do them without thinking.
Anki is neverending? I guess there must be a point where you get to Level 99 on the language and you see the end credits showing you have reached the end of that language. I haven't got to that point yet, so I will just keep adding cards until I reach that end level.
Worried about not using Anki correctly? Just use it. You will be using it correctly. If you don't use it, you won't be using it correctly.
Anki is hard work? Well, yes it is.
I’m fine with SRS right now, but I feel like as I keep adding more & more cards, it could potentially become overwhelming. Atm I only have a few hundred words I’d say bc I do my own decks so it’s definitely very manageable right now
Native speakers don’t know everything, so if you can reach a point where like a native speaker you don’t understand only a handful of words, then congrats. Even as a native English speaker I have to look things up sometimes.
Yeah, I sometimes get discouraged finding out how much I dont understand about a subject I'm not familiar with in my target language when I have the same problem but in my *native* language. I recently read an article in my native language about gardening and damm, it was as if it was written in a foreign language to me with all the descriptions and vocabulary I've never heard in my life, so yeah. Even in your native language you still have to look things up. You never really stop learning new words, even in your native language.
Not like he's saying - 2 words every page in a book, that's a lot of unknown words: 1000s in the grand scheme of things.
If I'm reading a 300-page general non-fiction book in English I won't have to look up 600 words. There may be a few words I'm not sure of in the book 10 maybe (depending on the subject), but not 600.
@@Paljk299 depends on the work, I’ve read many books and didn’t know every word on each page.
The difference is still significant. In the case of English, for example, an average native speaker knows about 30k words. If you are a REALLY advanced learner, you may reach 15-20k. People who go beyond that are vanishingly rare.
I am an English native speaker and I still don’t understand all the words that are very uncommon for even me. I will always be a lifetime learner of languages and I’m okay with that, just keep reading and filling your brain with the good and keep the bad out.
I love Anki, it's done wonders for my Japanese. And I don't really get the desire to "complete" a deck. I'm at a point in Japanese where I can do all of my Anki reviews in 10 minutes because I simply don't find that that many words I consider worth adding. I'm completely fine doing 10 minutes of Anki until the end of my life to maintain my passive vocabulary. Language learning is a lifelong process and I just consider Anki part of that process.
So do I. I enjoy the process. Even Japanese students did anki at school. If anki is wasting time, learning Japanese itself is wasting time.
@@coconutpineapple2489 tru
Agree with you! in my case I could learn Arabic with it. I think without Anki would be almost impossible to to face such a though language
Same
I have the most crucial 2500 kanji that will allow me 2 read books/mangas etc without much problem and I completed it 100% now I'm doing It again so I can see if I remember them well
"Why do language learners hate Anki"
They aren't learning Japanese.
Up
True, chinese characters work beautifully but are a pain in the ass to learn
@@tantanryuryo5716 sometimes I'm so enthusiastic about learning Chinese characters and sometimes I just want to run.
@@tantanryuryo5716 If your interests lies in the beauty of Chinese characters, why don't you learn Chinese by practicing calligraphy? In my opinion, the calligraphy of Chinese contains a large part of Chinese traditional culture, balance (Zhong Yong), Ying and Yang, Taoism and others.
I would recommend "Learn Japanese to survive" series. It can help you learn first 200
I've tried Anki several times before and every time I was overwhelmed with the amount of cards. It felt more like a punishment than a learning experience. Thank you for your advice. I think I will try it again.
That happened to me too, and I ended up dropping it down to just 1 new card per day while I got a short university program done (not language related). Once that was over, I pushed it back up to 5 to ease back in, but ended up finding out it's probably the highest I want to go. This way, I'm still getting around 20-30 reps most days, so I'm still getting that benefit, but not feeling like it's stealing from my immersion time (or life!) this time. It's not something I dread now, like I did after a few months of 20 new p/day.
Lamont's idea here -- setting a finish line per block/deck -- is gold. I'm gonna start doing it this way too.
Did you make your own deck or use somebody elses?
@@sandwichbreath0 That sounds great! I think I'm trying two cards a day. Maybe then I can actually use Anki in the long term like you.
@@franzneubauer6877 I've used my own cards. But my deck was just too big.
@@christinakatharina At first, like Lamont said here, you'll feel like you're accomplishing nothing, haha, but after a week or two the backlog is there. I currently get between 25-40 reviews a day (still on 5 new per) which is nice and manageable - and that's after about 3-4 weeks on 5. Good luck!
I’m the opposite. I thought I would hate it and used to look down my nose at people that used it, but then I gave it a go and… it’s been one of the best things I’ve done.
Same here lol
Same!! I find it very helpful!
I'm glad you tried it! Quite a lot of people have a negative view on it before properly trying it, or after trying it only very briefly. I think it's unfortunate, given how powerful it can be. Good for you :)
Same here. After a few years of Spanish I have daily use/conversational words 100% down, but had never been able to advance above that. Finally committing to ankh is what broke me through that barrier
This. I found 1000 word Ankideck for german that has audio and example sentences for all of the cards. Im learning vocabulary, language structure AND pronunciation all in one place! Thats a huge win in my books
“If you’re trying to pretend languages you don’t” SENT ME
is the guy he showed matt d’something? he looks so familiar.
@@dianaayt i dont know why hes hating on him. nathaniel acc knows english, spanish, french fluently and is still learning italian and portuguese
@@trips505 I have a video specifically about it. Lies for views, simple as that.
The thing with SRS is it tends to grow and grow, and starts to feel like an end in and of itself. It's so easy to forget it's only a tool for enhancing your performance in something you do _outside_ of SRS (like speaking a foreign language). It's only value is the extent to which it accomplishes that. Everything else is a pointless exercise.
Nah, for me, it stucks. But, it spikes occasionally and stuck at the tip of the spike
Agreed! I do a lot of more direct and helpful things for learning my target language and using it but a daily practice with flashcards on things like memrise is really great for a support
if you do your reviews everyday the amount will not grow
”At this point, it’s not spaced repetition, it’s a spaced waste of time”
Literally me. Dags att göra om, göra rätt
Helt rätt mannen. Keep it up
Lol
@@AEresss is that Swedish
@@quack4800 Yes the first sentence was in Swedish
@@AEresss amazing!
Active recall is hard mental work, we underestimate how taxing that mental work is. I have a college degree but I never worked as hard as learning a new language. However it has to be done, I don’t have 15 years to reach a high school level like I did with my native language. Paired to complement immersion it really works, but it’s like a hard workout every day.
Well said! That's exactly how I feel
Right!!!
I am learning English the hard way ... and the wrong way:) I never use space repetition (anki etc). I listen a lot and read a lot (mostly short texts) but much of that is not of my level. And that is why it feels like a professional sportsman workout for me. A week of exercises like that and I am out for a month:) So in the result: I spent years on that crepy kind of learning. And now I understand that it's a slow way. Need some space repetition, but in contexts that I am gonna use in my life. Maybe better to learn in one day expressions only from one topic?
@@natalienm5445 From my experience and the impression I got from the community is that the input is key and the spaced repetition increases the speed of acquisition. So its some of both everyday and the input should have a lot of things to help understand the context. For example if you're watching a show with native subtitles on you have the visuals and the written language along with the audio to give the subconscious as much as possible. Refold.la lays it out the best in my opinion while migaku.io has the best tools.
@@natalienm5445 how much are you trying to learn in how much time?
Lol imagine not understanding 2 words in a page. In japanese I'm lucky if I can even understand a complete paragraph in a page.
Seriously, two words! Pisses me off! 😀
Yep, starting out in Japanese text you really get used to this. For example I've just got to the point where I can start using Japanese language dictionaries (to add to my Anki cards along with English definitions), and while some definitions are very useful, for others I literally know no words other than particles.
I think that just means whatever you’re reading is too hard for you at this current moment.
@@uamdbro Unfortunately you have to start somewhere and there's a limit on how simple you can go for native content.
Never used Anki, I just go straight each time for the dictionary like a madman of everyword I didn't understand. Can't say that Anki would had been better but my method it's a pain in the ass but at the end I think it was worth it.
lol actually Anki is one of my favorite things. I synced it with my phone and I just do my cards while walking to work or on breaks. Fills the gaps in the day with language learning really nicely
btw I have a 3 years streak on it with 30-90 min a day, learning Japanese and Chinese
How’d you link it to your phone without paying $30 for the app? Would love Anki on my phone… cheers!
@@colealexander-vid Simple, I payed the 30$ haha (btw I think it's free on Android)
I think that price is perfectly reasonable considering how useful it is and the fact that you'll use it for years and years. Supporting the product
@@colealexander-vid Im android user and sync was free for me!
@@colealexander-vid just pay the $30
I legit just checked to see if you had a new video and I see "uploaded 3 min ago". I promise I will use these psychic powers for good
😂
For me Anki was the one thing that DID stick so idk what I'm doing here, but excellent video
Everyone learns differently! For some people Anki is gonna be their saving grace and for others it will never work. You're just being you
Anything that sticks is good.
Same with me. I have no issues doing anki, but I definitely have issues with other methods. I keep anki reviews low by simply not studying any new cards when I think I have too many reviews.
@@misteryA555 not really, we all are humans lol
Same i love anki
Awesome video, dude. Gonna get started back on Anki soon. I know I said I would earlier... kids got in the way :( excuses...
See I think people like you and I are the perfect candidates for this because, we need to have that magnifying effect that a small amount of SRS can give you on the limited immersion we get time for - and we also both want to get better at languages that a) we are quite good at and b) not a lot of resources exist for.
@@daysandwords Yeah, my issue is more I feel I can't do it unless I commit to an obscene amount per day. When I was learning French a few years ago, I did about a year of 200+ card revisions a day. I'm going to try and get organised and give it a whirl as you say, perhaps it's a matter of just making sure it's the minimum that can get done every day and then build on it later.
@@AussieEnglishPodcast make your kids a part of it. Teach it to them, speak it to them, read to them, watch kids shows in french with them. My kids can now speak way better chinese than me and help me. I can read it better than them so help them with reading.
Anki is the exact definition of a "necessary evil." So annoying but so useful lol
True
It's been really important for me to watch videos like yours that remove the sugar and the poetic waxing about the learning process. Your candor is so refreshing and motivates me more to do the 'spinach eating' of language learning. That is, the part where you sit down and actually study the language. Genuinely, thank you Lamont!
I actually LOVE Anki. In the very beginning, I definitely had a lot of angst over “am I doing this right?!” Though that manifesting in me hardly adding any cards because I didn’t want to “accidentally sabotage” myself by adding cards “the wrong way” (i have no idea what I thought that would be!) I got over that pretty quickly because I could see the impact just super basic “Danish Core 100” deck was having so I made my own note template that produced 2 pretty basic cards and I would just throw in whatever I wanted … audio, words, sentence fragments, images, native language definitions, occasionally English translations. Sounds very much like your 3 Ninety deck
I’ve been doing a combination of adding new words in batches in
Yes, exactly.
And yes, it's hard with languages like Swedish and Danish where there aren't heaps of premade decks.
And yeah the title is just like, a theoretical thing... some people hate Anki and I think this might be one of the reasons, though of course it's not for everyone, even once this is addressed.
I always make my own decks with things I am interested in. Not the basic textbook sh... I note them without translation into my native language or English or anything I really know, only other languages I vaguely know. I drilled some alpgabets with it, learned phrases from poems. For the future I also plan a grammar deck which focuses on example sentences with explanations,conjugation tables from excelsheets and things like that. I learn most while planning my learning materials, and least while drilling, but that is okay.
MAnnnnnn your editing was extremely on point this video. I have ADD and I normally have to rewatch bits of videos I am watching or I get distracted by another video and end up forgetting about the one I was initially watching. But somehow your edit and music here kept me ultra focussed!
Oops ADHD and auditory processing Disorder here and I hated it but at least he changed the song unlike some pyscho video editors who want to play the same song for 10 mins to drive me insane.
It works not just for add, this style of editing grabs attention, this video could give you useless info and you will still be hooked, its a double edge sword
@@Lord_Marquaad That's not quite true. It depends on the intelligence of the viewer. Heaps of RUclipsrs have way better production values and editing than mine but when they say something dumb or make some illogical leap I'm like "Yeah, nah bye."
I too have ADD. I go over and over stuff to make sure I've really gotten the concepts. I was undiagnosed most of my life and it would have made me just not think "what's wrong with me?", if I had known "Oh! It's that" and worked with it, as I now do. So a combo of mnemonics and SRS seems to help me build competence and confidence.
I wish you all the best.
Is it a common thing of language learners having add/ADHD?
The hardest part of the srs for me is that the words feel endless. The habit isn’t a problem, but as I’m putting the cards in my deck I’m debating if these words are worth the time.
Well yeah, me too, hence the idea of a small hard limit, being 390. You can't add everything, because you'll fill up your deck too soon.
as someone who learned English all by myself, i think i have a say on this, the vocab was never issue for me, its not about the word and the meaning of it, it was about why it matters, nobody will remember something that is useless, like, its useless to know a bunch of words, but when you put yourself in a position that you NEED to understand the context of something, you actively search and actively understand and imprint those meanings and words into your brain. i never used those repetion methods, i instead started to pick my class books in English so i was obliged to understand that to be able to study, i started to read my books in english, the ones i loved, and i needed to search a word on google to get the sentence meaning, i made friends who speak English i needed to understand them to be able to communicate with them. at the end, language is for a reason, its not for just knowing it, its for communication, it is for one to be able to have accessibility, so you need to insert yourself in those situations and environments to be able to truly learn a language
couldn't be more relevant bro! Your channel is definitely the gritty underbelly of language learning that so often gets brushed aside in the bigger channels. Your struggle with SRS (despite fully believing in SRS) is my exact same struggle. I believe in it. I know it works. But I just don't wanna do it. Thanks for the motivation as always!
Thank you! "The gritty underbelly of language learning" haha, I like it.
Your videos are brilliant. It feels like it’s both pulling me up on my excuses and encouraging. 🙏
I've been using Anki for more than two years. I have almost never missed a day reviewing for one year and a half, but I give myself the leeway to not add new cards if I don't feel like to. Then my mindset goes like if I add something to my deck it'll be guaranteed that I will remember it. Of course my deck became too big very soon and that's when I bumped into Matt vs Japan's video suggesting to delete/suspend cards that you have been correctly identifying for a certain period of time. I guess the idea is don't push yourself too hard using SRS.
I started anki two months ago and just missed 2 days. Its worked sooo well, and it gives me such a good morning feeling. Its like a good workout, so for me, Anki is the best. I think at the end its about how motivated you are. Tbh there is not a solution to “the language learning problem”, you just need sufficient motivation. I just think that’s why motivation focused technics are good, but things like Anki are what actually make you learn
Anki and SRS helped lots with some languages and not as much with others.
Currently I am trying to just write the words down and check them weekly, that takes away the pressure & commitment of always checking Anki for 1 hour+ every time I open it. The idea of making a smaller deck sounds very interesting, thank you for this video!
Honestly, Anki made me more consistent. It's on my phone, and when I keep up, my reps are low.
Edit: Anki + immersion is, in my opinion, the best. Anki builds a dictionary in your brain to be able to recall words from, and immersion will force you to get used to hearing those words and starting to make sense of grammar you've studied. It's basically practicing the language.
Can i add phonetics of the vocabulary on anki from the phone?.
Awesome video! I've always struggled using Anki for the reasons you had highlighted. I should try this method 😁
I like the editing :) Makes the video enjoyable to watch!
I love it and it helped me so much get to a point where i can fluently talk and think in Portuguese
where are you from?
The editing in this video was sick, and now I'm intrigued to try this despite having given up on Anki multiple times
Love this video, love the editing style and ofc the content
i'm just not into the spaced repetition flash card model anymore, over the last year of language learning i've discovered that i like using songs, conversation scripts, and comprehensible input related material as an easier way to learn for myself. I also have learned that there are gems out there on the internet that dont even present themselves as comprehensible input but in a way resemble that way of teaching. but yeah looking at stuff on my level( like childrens songs and childrens books is really enjoyable and i learn a lot from just that rather than using SRS things like anki or flash cards.
Yeah that's fair enough.
I still think it's very tough to get to native speaker level of passive vocab without your own SRS lists, but I like your way too.
You make such a good point in this! I used to be intimidated by Anki but then I started with premade decks and forced myself to use it and kept up with it ever since. I actually like using Anki well into the advanced language levels despite people saying that at that point you should be fine just reading because I don't have the time to read all day to reinforce those words lol and because new words become more complicated and less frequent as you advance, just like in your native language, so it's harder to remember them. And i wanna know the same words i know in my native language at least lol. Doesn't mean you need to remember all the words that exist but there's value in using Anki as an aid, for example I've been C2 in English for a while now and I've used Anki to learn SAT/GRE/TOEFL/etc words and i now use it for politics and science related vocab: no way I would be able to remember it by reading a couple books related to those topics every few months lol
we don't hate it we love it! hahaha I think the hard part is to make a habit out of it, and even after having formed the habit, the tricky part is to stay motivated. Maybe it's ok to stop using Anki for a while and use something else and then retake anki. But for me it's been quite useful
I have never seen your videos before, but I'm glad this was recommended to me. This is a brilliant video
Dude, every video the quality just keeps getting better!
Here is my approach... 1. Tweak the settings (there are many videos on RUclips on how to do this). 2. Use mostly full sentences. 3. Only select "Good" or "Again." 4. I am only strict when learning new cards and do no more than 10. Once a card has moved to mature, I always select "good" unless I really want to review it in depth again - mature cards I mark "good" even if mistakes are made. Mature cards are for quick review only. I have a deck of about 1000, can add 10 to learn, review the rest due once only and am done within 45 minutes. The key is to be strict only on the new cards.
PERFECT TIMING!! I literally just recently got bored with Anki.
I've probably watched this video about 10 times already because it motivates me. I don't know why that is but nevertheless I'm really thankful for the content you create! I've started working with a 390 deck in December but I did 3 new cards per day (in both directions, therefore 6 in total) instead of 2 and today I reviewed my 195th new card so I'm halfway there. ^-^
Excellent video man! Really well produced, brilliant idea and the pretending to speak a language you don’t part was brilliant 😂
I've had a few ideas about language acquisition software recently. It wouldn't be complicated to program a script that automatically took the words in a book and output a list of all the frequencies of each word. Then, that list could be cross-referenced with the vocabulary you learned in Anki, which could allow you to know which vocabulary you would need to know before reading the book.
I have wanted this for a long time. Someone else commenting here has done it but isn't ready to make that script available yet - if you do that and it works, set your price and assuming it's reasonable I will a) buy it and b) plug it on this channel.
Great points. I haven't tried learning long enough to know if I like SRS or not, but I'll definitely keep these in mind!
Brilliant!
Thanks for such an honest, insightful review!
Um, thanks... The reason I'm hesitant is that this isn't really a review haha, but thanks for the comment.
For me Anki changed my life. Before Anki I've been struggling with vocab repetition and retaining my words.
Anki made my life so much easier.
Whenever I come across new words I'll simply save it to my Anki decks (I'm using 3-4 and always try to keep the daily reps as low as possible. I.e. I'm trying to dig myself through a deck of hundreds/thousands of cards until there are only a handful left per day). My daily limit of new cards is set to 10 cards and it works fine for me. My daily Anki session is about 30-40min but I'll split it up into tiny sessions. When I'm brushing my teeth, sitting in the bus, lunch break etc.etc.
Anki is amazing. It might not be suitable to really aquire the words to be used fluently but you'll preactivate these words 😊
Anki just isn't interactive enough for me. Flashcards in general aren't. I'd rather get my exposure through playing a game with pictures and videos, watching a tv show or movie in my target language, or listening to a podcast. I wish Anki worked for me because it works for so many people, but it just doesn't. It just feels so dry.
I like flash cards with audio.
I love your videos, this was super engaging
This is probably one of my fav videos yet! I have a love hate relationship with anki - but treat it like a daily vitamin begrudgingly. Love the humor and attitude in this vid, keep it up!
I used to do a lot of SRS exercises. Until I realised some of the words I added only appeared 3 months later. That’s when I realised I either needed to do more of it (be still my beating heart…) or add fewer words. I went with the latter option. I supplemented the acquisition of new vocabulary with just going through my notes with my language tutors more diligently, since my conversations with them are targeted, interesting (supposedly) and in context.
I try not to spend much time at anki. I spend like 10 minutes everyday, because I only add 3 cards everyday (been doing it for a year now). I don't think I could bear to add more than that. Anki only is useful, or enjoyable if you use it as few as possible. I very intuitively found out it was not worth it to add more than 3 cards everyday, which kinda is your point. English is not my first language, and I didn't even know anki existed before I acquired enough vocabulary to understand pretty much everything in tv and comfortably read some books, even the game of thrones books, which you seem to be reading in swedish. I am now using anki to help me acquire some german vocabulary, but I don't use anki all the time. I like to watch german tv, and read easier stuff in german, since i'm not fluent yet. Your videos are really helpful, even though I don't study swedish or french.
might lower the amount in the future, but right now I can hardly stop myself from doing 10-20 new cards every day lol. maybe I'll lower it to 3-5 when I start noticing my reviews getting too big idk
I never heard of Anki. I make notes, write things down. But for me, i grasp words faster from listening, music, tv shows and talking to people who speak the native language. I'm learning Spanish, 1-2 months in, I'm starting to slowly grasp words and form sentences. I moved to Mexico. So I'm listening to Spanish almost 24/7. When I get overwhelmed, i take breaks and listen to something in English. I stopped giving myself a time period, of how long it should take me to learn the language. 1st month, I had major anxiety from Spanish. Putting way too much pressure on myself. Now I'm trying to give myself time, however long that will take. Now I'm watching a lot more in Spanish. In the beginning, I was just listening to Spanish music, even though I didn't understand what was being said,.so I got used to how the language sounds. Learning Spanish verbs helped alot with learning how to say words and picking up words people say. Thanks for the video. I hope everyone has a wonderful day. Adios! 🌺💗
Thank you so much! I have one question: how do I know that I completed the deck?
One thing that made using Anki easier for me was focusing on recognition cards over production, the production cards just encouraged me to translate in my head and construct sentences in English rather than intuitively within my target language, it really slowed down my production skills and it was painful to watch myself struggle to translate what I wanted to say and taking a whole minute to say a word. It also made it hard for me to recognize words during immersion and i had to remember the translation then connect it to the word then connect it to the translation back again. Not to mention that it made my brain work harder all for nothing lol and doing both types of cards just doubles the time you'd spend on Anki and makes it confusing because of the card order. When doing recognition i connect the word to the English concept and then during immersion i recognize the word and connect it to the concept on the screen, leaving the need for translating behind and then during production i speak about concepts rather than trying to translate. That's how I learned English years ago when I ditched all that translation that I hated so much but somehow I still listened to all the people who say that you need to do production cards because something being harder means it's better or whatever
What are recognition cars and production cards?
@@Groggle7141 recognition would be to read in the target language and translate. Production would be to read something in your language and form a sentence in the target language as a way of practicing. I asked ChatGPT cause I couldn't understand this at first lol
Take it from me .
Use srs only for the words that don't stick in your mind
For a almost a year and a half I used and enjoyed anki every day and got a lot of benefit from it. But then a few things happened and I suddenly found myself not wanting to make new cards, then not wanting to rep what I already had. I officially dropped Anki around a month ago (backed-up then removed the deck) after not using it for at least 2-3 months. I enjoyed not having to worry about it for a while but every now and again I remember just how much I learned from it and how I'd be able to progress a bit faster if I could go back to it. I fell into that 'all or nothing' trap and went with the nothing option.
I think this very moderate approach is something I'll give a go. Now there's just the question of what words to add...
I experienced my biggest gains over the past four months after I decided to focus more on improving my fluency with the vocabulary I already knew and spend less time trying to memorize new words. I dropped Anki altogether and started using the gold list method. I only study vocabulary on the weekends and work almost entirely with phrases instead of isolated words. My vocabulary lists consists primarily of phrases that gave me problems during actual conversations. However I still pick up lots of new vocabulary by simply reading and listening without the need to enter every new word into a vocabulary list.
I don't hate SRS, I'm just too lazy to create my own cards😅
Honestly, the benefit of creating your cards over using premade decks is minimal. I have gotten to a B1 level in Russian only using premade decks.
@@yarno8895 I agree
If you’re worried about the person who made the deck not being a native speaker and getting bits wrong, you can always export the deck to a text file and have a tutor go over it. It would be very quick for a native speaker to scan a list and spot any errors (which you could then correct)
Yeah but at Anita's level, you really have to make your own cards. Premade cards are fine for up to B1 or maybe even B2 but after that, it really depends what you come across in your immersion.
@@yarno8895 What if you already know/understand most of the sentences and words that somebody else has made into anki cards? It is highly unlikely that there is another learner who lacks the same or similar vocabulary that I lack.
I love anki and I feel like it works for me. Specifically, I use it as a nice review to start the day and subsequent reading. My deck is a French monolingual deck thats about a year old with about 800 cards in it. It puts me in the learning mood. Kind of like its telling me "You are a french speaker, see, you understand these words, even though there is no English. And if you see them in the wild today, you will recognize them." But I am also someone who likes organization and small details.
As an English learner, I didn't understand every word. But I understood that you talked about my problem! I used SR for a bit more than a year now. During the first nine months I took in approximately 1500 vocabs in English (not only words - taking in whole phrases and sentences was a good tip...) and approximately 500 in Spanish, which I started to learn last year. The repetitions took more and more time, and I wonder how I managed to keep the system running for so long. It collapsed a few months ago. Now I stopped taking in new vocabulary, but doing only repetitions isn't very motivating... I really loved it for a long time, because it works (I use "My dictionary" instead of Anki). But now... It's summer, and I don't want to sit hours and hours every day learning vocabulary!
I'll try your tip to make only 2 or 3 cards a day, but first I want to "kick" all the old stuff to a level where I don't need to repeat them for at least half a year. I think, "intervall vocabulary learning" might also be a doable solution. Theoretically. Practically it's summer!!! No, I didn't stop language learning, but it has to be something which I can do at an hour in the morning, before work, or watch a video or read a book in the evening. And there's not much space for vocabulary learning because it shouldn't be vocabulary only.
Gah, this video and the comments below have done a good job in convincing me to start using Anki again. I am studying two languages, and so I became burnout after a couple of months. I'm in no real rush to acquire thousands of words, either. But, it would be nice to feel a sense of "quicker" progress. Thank you, for the video!
I think I kinda screwed myself over as I got a 9000 sentence Japanese deck, and learn 25 new a day, so now my reviews every day are insane, and I kinda dread it, almost finished though so it’s all good
You know you can lower the new cards per day though
Dang I just started in the core 2k deck a week and a half ago and I’m at 30 words a day and it takes me about 1-2 hours
What a great video! Thank you always upping the bar in terms of language learning-related videos! Always funny and beautifully made.
I agree.
I started using Anki about seven months ago and have missed only a couple dozen days in that time. I've acquired over 2,300 words just from sentence mining. This is not the first time I've tried to learn a language, but it's the first time I've succeeded. Why? I actually had a good reason to. I was runner up for my dream job. There were two reasons I didn't get the job. One was that I didn't speak the local language. That was about seven months ago.
I really like this idea, I accidently lost my old decks and it killed my motivation. This seems really manageable to start again, in addition I've always tried to make everything too uniform and releasing myself from that might be helpful, so I'll just write whatever I think will be useful in that moment. Cheers.
The solution is to not let Anki control you but for you to control your use of Anki. When I get burned out and just cannot do any more anki review sessions I quit for a couple of weeks. Then when I come back to Anki, I start all over again with a new deck of vocabulary cards. Works for me. I don’t mind not learning all the words in a deck before I quit. I focus on what I’ve learned, not how mmuch there is to still learn.
I tried anki and went completely insane when I found out that I'd been reviewing over and over again a wrong word's definition lol
I have just completed my first 390 deck - what do I do now?
I assume I start making another deck, but do I review the first deck alongside the new deck? I assume the 390 deck's words will fade if I don't review it, but now I'm reviewing two decks? So my reviewing will be twice as long? What do I do? thanks.
Personally I just kept going with that same deck, it's up to 540 now but I keep it fairly low on new cards per day.
@@daysandwords ah okay got it, thank for the quick response!
I used Anki to go through the vocabulary lists of my beginners' grammar book for my target language. Because I was coming across the words during the exercises, as well as from the rudimentary immersion I was doing at the time, the words were getting reinforced through all the activities I was doing. Anki didn't feel like a "closed system" with no benefits, because I was studying highly common words. I think if you use Anki from these early stages and don't have a huge deck, I think the benefits become immediately obvious.
Now I have a much larger deck with less common words, it can be a bit of a slog to get through, but I know that the benefits will come, they just won't be as easily apparent as they were before. If I was starting Anki now at this stage, I would probably hate it.
Listening to, and reading the same content over and over is my Anki. Granted, you need a high tolerance for that, and by staying with the same content for longer, you'll miss out on the beneficial effects on grammar acquisition that interleaving provides, but at least you'll definitely get at least _some_ words to stick, lol.
I used anki a lot when I first started learning French, and actually I still do, way less often, thou. I think anki is quite useful when you make your own decks up over time, throughout lots of reading and listening activities, practicing your ability to noticing each piece of detail of the language you're studying, paying attention not just to words, expressions, idioms or slangs that you didn't know previously, but also to the construction of the phrases that you are already pretty capable of get the meaning, the subtle use of prepositions, so on, in order to get your output level an up. Back in the day I used to review decks everyday, counting more than 100 flashcards. nowadays however I'm not so eager about anki anymore, although I still do some revisions, mainly working on pronunciation and actively building some phrases out of the word which I had bolded for reviewing. therefore, i would say that anki is quite useful, mostly if you use it blending with others activities that allow you to grab new stuff.
Nice to see a video on this with a point a view I sympathize with. I've felt 'torn' about this topic often. I want to do things that help my learning/acquisition, assuming they do, but I've just often hated stuff like that. :)
The last few times I was using Anki, it was OK. I used it with beginner Japanese for the few times I tried to get started with Heisig's RTK (have yet to finish...). With French it was limited: only for review of corrections/feedback/tutor's notes. On top of that, for the French I set a 'deletion date' (similar to Matt versus Japan's discussion of a 'retirement date' for a deck or card). This worked out very well, and I didn't feel the same disgust that I had previously felt. I was going to review those tutor's notes out of context anyways, so it presented the simplest time-saving solution.
I wondered if I could maybe work more back into a routine without re-awakening the 'trapped disgusted' feeling. I remember 'sentence mining' from TV series once feeling OK (review of things already encountered in input activities), until I quickly overdid it. For me, it's important to have limits with something like Anki because I can tend to overdo things like that bit by bit without even realizing.
I like my language acquisition to feel as 'natural' as much as possible, and I know input activities are where I need to focus the most, but since I don't have 18 years to live a life 24/7 in any given second language I try to keep an open mind regarding this topic. I'm also interested in efficient routines, and I often ask myself, "Could I be doing this better?"
Thanks for the video!
Just checking, but do most people make their own anki cards as they go? The only reason I hated using anki is because I have a decent amount of vocab already so trying to start a new deck from someone always just feels like swiping through a bunch of known cards until suddenly I hit a bunch of new cards at once and can't possibly remember them like that.
I've quit, but I still occasionally feel guilty about it, especially when I come across Matt vs Japan's videos. I wonder if I'd be making faster progress if I'd use an SRS system, or if it's enough just to get the 'natural SRS' from books, audiobooks and other types of immersion.
I don't think you have to feel guilty at all. Every person learns differently. There are many polyglots on YT promoting Anki etc. cause it works for them. Great if it is something fun, fullfilling and efficient, good for them! But if yku don't feel motivated by it, I don't see the point of it. The most important factor imo to create progress is emotions. Doing something just out of obligation won't help imo. I personally don't use any official SRS systems and I've became a high B2 or maybe barely low C1 in Portuguese within a bit over a year. The only time I used Anki for portuguese was to learn vocabulary from 1 song and then I stopped. Therefore I can say for a fact it is not a necessity to aquire more vocabulary.
Don't feel guilty. Just as an aside, it might be worth remembering that Matt nearly dropped out of Japanese altogether, even though he had already reached a high level of fluency at the time. I was just visiting an other immersion site where they explicitly talk about "intermediate blues", something I've personally never experienced. Not trying to judge them, to each their own, but the point is just that a lot of the people who focus on "speed" don't focus at all on "resilience". So they're playing a risky game and some of them come very close to burning out or force themselves to go through unnecessary pain in the learning process. In my book you're better off with a slower but more resilient system. As the story goes, the turtle wins the race in the end. :)
i think that you should drop anki at a certain point but it really speeds up progress in the beginning
I love the spiky-haired intensity.
I like Anki a lot. I'm at an Upper Intermediate plateau in French where I can watch most RUclips videos and talk to natives but can't read a novel without a dictionary (monolingual). I've now started using Anki for Hopefully overcoming this plateau.
Also thank you so much for your advise about making a different youtube account for the target language. I can't begin to explain how much that has helped me
Just loved it, thanks from Brazil!
dude, i dunno how, but you give inspiration by demotivating me :L
I think the thing I dislike about Anki is the fact that it's a test - I don't want to take a pop quiz every day and feel frustrated. I felt like despite all the research about how good Anki was, it was all counterproductive if it made language learning a frustrating thing I would avoid! I gave up on it and nowadays, I prefer to just get out a list and read it alongside its definitions, every day. That way, I feel like I'm acquiring words in a much faster, more relaxed fashion, by simply and literally reviewing them. It's better than avoiding vocabulary study altogether, like I did with Anki!
Great video! I think I'm stalled on my deck, because every few weeks that I go back to start learning it again, then I'm hit with 30 minutes of the most BORING words in my target language.
The 390 deck is a GREAT idea to get me out of my "Anki hell" that I'm in. I'm going to start trying it.
Excellent video. I like your style.
Can I do this with something besides Anki? What would you recommend? I can’t configure Anki. Is Drops a better vocabulary learning resource?
Drops is OK... there are some other specific flash card ones that I can't remember right now.
Wait I still don’t understand how the three-90 deck works lol
idk how he came up with the number, but it's essentially a very easy deck that you don't have to put too much effort into, that will get you used to using a system like this consistently. think of it as making a plan to do 3 pushups a day. doesn't take long, and you will eventually get to the point where you might want to do more, or at the very least you will get REALLLY good at doing 3 pushups.
@@deddrz2549 That's exactly it. The number was sent by God.
Spaced repetition is a pretty useful tool. As with any tool, you need to know how to use it properly.
My problem with Anki was that I wasn't given enough context to properly acquire the word. What you have stated is also true: setting a goal that is too high will make the use of the app unbearable for most people (myself included). I may start a 390 deck in French (I'll start learning French in August).
PS: personally, I don't feel the necessity to understand every single word when consuming content; I can guess the meaning out of the context. I do believe that is an integral part of language learning (happens to me in English as well and I've never been unable to communicate with natives)
I'm not an Anki fan (don't like the interface and effort of making your own decks) but I use other SRS systems and genuinely believe it's one of the best ways to keep on top of reviewing vocabulary. As others have said, it's not intended to be your main method of study but instead to supplement other approaches (formal classes, textbooks, comprehensive apps, etc) and is most useful if you just build it into your daily routine. I use Skritter, Memrise and SuperChinese as my main apps at the moment, all of which incorporate spaced repetition practice :)
I used MosaLingua app to learn Italian, after doing 50 new flashcards and about 300 revisions every day for 8 months I can confidently say it works, it’s not perfect and I definitely can’t say I’m advanced at speaking the language, but my overall comprehension is great, tried with a couple of Italian friends and we made intermediate conversations.
I never had problems with Anki and using it became a habit for me almost immediately.
At the beginning of my Japanese learning I was literally scared of kanji and decided to go with Remembering the Kanji method by professor Heisig. I used Anki deck and spent few months learning 10 cards every day - it was tough, but it worked and there is a limited number of kanji in use, so it didn't feel like a bottomless pit.
Then I started using Anki more casually, just adding words I have trouble remembering, and it takes less than 10 minutes to review the cards - it's been almost 3 years since I started using Anki and I use it every day.
i dont hate anki it just doesnt work for me quite frankly. somehow immersing myself does more than flipping thru some anki cards but thats just me :3
@Henry Pinkney yeah thats true. my point is that I felt like my brain wasn't digesting that information, even if i was studying very few cards. also important to mention is that i was using anki when i first started studying Polish from an a1 level and didn't have a solid and effective study routine. i could probably use it now that I've created a concrete routine, and yeah using anki would probably enhance my learning, but i still would rather not use it because I've been successful without it. maybe ill change my mind lol
just kidding i changed my mind!
@peter schwarz i said i changed my mind
I've been using anki to study Chinese every day for a couple of months.
I have 2 decks for it, one for writing the characters, and the other for just reconizing them. It's working wonders for me. Idk if it's because I only know about 300 words, though
Thanks for the video! I use Anki for learning Levantine Arabic. From the beginning I've just used it to review phrases/sentences that I've actually learned from one of my iTalki classes (or from an Arab friend) or found interesting/useful in a RUclips video or my textbook. And 95% of my flashcards are sentence chunks so that I actually know HOW to use the new vocab or express the idea in Arabic. As a result, I'm not only learning words but also grammar and sentence patterns. And because I'm not using pre-made decks, I've just been incrementally adding a manageable amount of new material each week and I've never felt overwhelmed except a couple of times when I haven't gotten behind. I add clipart to make it visually interesting and I try to keep the flashcards short and sweet. I've also found it helpful to attach Anki review to another routine activity, so I review my cards each morning as I walk through my neighborhood either with or without my dog. This system works for me! I've recently added Clozemaster and Quizlet for a little variety as I'm at an intermediate level and really need to work on conjugating a lot of verbs.
I know this is irrelevant, but can genetics determine on how fast you learn a language?
Like anything else: yes.
There is, bizarrely, a school of thought that says that since everyone speaks, no one has more of an advantage when it comes to learning a language. This is absurd.
Everyone thinks, yet some people struggle to follow a game of soccer (true story, I lived with someone who couldn't understand that Australia scoring goals means Australia was more likely to win... like that's a conversation that actually had to happen), and others can write their own calculus at 8 years old.
Generally, people who are intelligent are going to learn languages faster. People who think along certain lines are going to learn exceptions more easily than others. People are going to be able to parse sounds a lot more easily than others (that's me, I'm a very "picky" listener... I can tell when people's guitars are out of tune while they swear they're not and then they use a tuner to check and nod and say "Well, that's freakish..."), others are going to be able to convert sounds in their brain into sounds they can actually make (that's not me so much, hence my Swedish sounds garbage to my own ear).
But ultimately most of this won't make as much difference as time spent on task, because time can be 10x as great whereas aptitude can realistically only be 5x as great and that's in extreme cases.
@@daysandwords I'm sorry for the late response but thanks for the clarification
I can't watch this. I'm just thinking about my old girlfriend Anki.
Edit:
Anki was a redhead cutie with curly hair. Our relation lasted less than a year, short but intense.
Vart tog du vägen, Anki?
This is a great video. I was overwhelmed. I kept adding more cards and the number to review just kept getting larger and larger. I gave up even though I know it works. Your video provided loads of helpful tips. I am going to make a 390 deck and start working with it only.
I'm curious about how long you take to answer each card... I typically have my new cards set at 10 per day and spend about 30 minutes per day reviewing (typically around 150 cards), unless I have to miss a day, in which case it's about 50 minutes the next day. However, I don't necessarily do the full 50 minutes in those cases, so I'll naturally see fewer new cards that day, and it might take a bit longer to catch up. If I've been on holiday for a week or something and I'm really behind (my review limit is capped at 300), it can take several weeks to clear the backlog, but the strategy is just not to let it overwhelm you. Just study for however long you've got. If I've got a really long backlog, I'll also drop the new cards per day down to 5 or 7, but expect that I might actually only see half of them.
I typically deliberately create time every lunchtime for a walk in the park (good, because I don't have to pay attention to traffic), and just do a circular route that takes about 30-40 minutes. Usually I finish my cards before I get back to the start. And once I've returned home, I'll quickly review again for another minute or two to catch the new cards that are on the 30 minutes review.
My cards are all very simple. Chinese characters on the front, pinyin and meaning on the back, usually with audio of an example sentence. Answering these is very quick - good if I got it all right, hard if I got any of the tones wrong and again if I got anything else wrong. Typically I spend only a couple of seconds on each card, and maybe 10-20 seconds on cards if I want to repeat something a few times to help it into my short term memory. But I think it's better to review each card as quickly as possible, but be very happy to fail it and see it again soon. I don't do clozes or anything else that takes a long timer per card, although I think perhaps I should start to do more for context on some words.
Also, against almost everyone's advice, I use SRS for learning new "core" vocab rather than revising. Every time my new cards drops to around 10, I'll stick in all the words from the next chapter of my HSK book and start learning them. I'm actually only half the way through the first HSK4 textbook in terms of general study, but have worked my way through about two thirds of the HSK5 vocab already. I'm happy just to mark these cards as again a few times until I start to remember them. I'm also supplementing new vocab with interesting words from watching TV dramas.
Anki was always considered as helpful service that helps different people with different learning habits. Never it was represented as language learning software that frees you from all other main ways of learning language
The guy intentionally misrepresents the purpose of anki to say it's shit? It helps learn vocab.
@@senanb1 it doesn't. Extensive usage of the target language does.
@@Glkorded Anki helps you to learn vocab. It's an efficient tool to memorize vocab. It's not the only way, but it helps.
@@senanb1 do as you wish
@@Glkorded No one ever says that you can use anki as the only way to learn a language. It just helps with vocab. This guy made up the claim of "only use anki" so he can make a clickbait video.
Anki means "rote memorozation" in japanese.
Explains a ton
ruclips.net/video/qJGK50XEjuE/видео.html
I personally really like anki, I learn mandarin and I downloaded a deck for hsk version 3.0. exam and set up 10 new a day, hsk 1 has 500 words and I'm more then halfway throught after 20 days (some days I learnt more). For the last level you need to know 11092 words but I won't ever plan to go that far. I plan to achieve end of intermediate which is 5456 words at hsk 6. Hope I will get to that point.
I really love SRS but I personally think its the difference in how my learning is laid out. For me, SRS is how I "learn" and input is how I adjust my internal definition of words and get good review of them. If I was more into learning from graded readers or a tutor I might be more hesitant to do SRS due to me having another learning source. But I'm also still at the beginning of learning a difficult language, so when I get conversation practice and read more (right now I can only watch simple shows and easy forum posts), its likely that will change!
But thanks for another amazing video, its always a pleasure to see your realistic take on language learning.
This video is very good but it gives of a bit of an aggro vibe^^
Yeah but that was intentional. It's just a stylistic choice.
EDIT: After an hour of messing around on anki with add ons, changing the background, changing the font, etc... it's still ugly and clunky. I will stick to quizlet lol
I have never used Anki. I opened it and it looked ugly and then I uninstalled it lol. I've used Quizlet for school since at least 2016 and I really love it, but the SRS isn't really helpful.... I didn't know you can make anki look less ugly. Now I might try it lol. I literally only avoided it bc it's ugly af
But Quizlet is not an SRS tool. Quizlet is a cramming tool. To get the same benefit from it as from Anki you'd have to waste infinitely larger amount of time. Anki uses html for the cards, same stuff that the websites are built on.
@@barsykgames2555 I just make lists and then review the lists every day for 10-15 days. Then once a week, then once a month, then never because I know those words. every once in a while I'll go through and just read through lists of words that I made in Quizlet. If it worked for medical terminology and about 30 other college courses so far then I think it will work for languages haha. I use words in there that I get from context (lingq, books, textbooks, videos, etc) and then i will just go back over that to give myself a reminder. The only languages I think I will use anki for because I want SRS badly is Japanese and Mandarin because of the alphabets.
@@haicautrang5304 Oh yeah I agree that it works if you apply those type of SRS principles. But the thing is you'll be doing extra work that could be avoided by using SRS specific app from the start as it would spread the workload in the way that there's no unnecessary repetion. For those 10-15 days you'll be reviewing stuff that is still in your short term memory over and over again while you could be learning something new.
TBH I believe what matters in the end is just sticking to whatever method your using.
I love to cram occasionally when I feel extremely enthusiastic about language learning which comes in bursts, but when that motivation goes retaining that new knowledge requires much more effort then compared to a a steady lightpaced SRS regimen.
@@barsykgames2555 tbh i'm not so good about doing it every day for the first 10-15 days anyways. some sets i don't do more than 3 days in a row until i go to weekly and then some longer. I don't bother keeping track most the time hah. Also I never feel like I can just do 10-20 cards a day. I always like to do a lot, otherwise tbh i just forget about doing it.
Yeah just do what works for u
@@barsykgames2555 well I gave it another shot and it's going smoothly now wish me luck hope I stick w it
OK with the idea of starting with this ‘reduced’ list but which list is relative good to start with ? Or is it better to stay in the limits of own interests, knowledge, study, hobby etc etc ?
Hello, thanks for this interesting video about Anki ! I have a question.. at the beginning of the video, there are some images of a French grammar regarding pronunciation. Could you please tell me the source?
Yep, Lingvist.