I’m a fairly long-time Anki user, about 2.5 years now, and my biggest frustration with it is a lack of workflow. I’ve tried to set one up a couple of times, including one point where I was using Anki’s CSV import functionality, but there were always too many steps. Things would get backed up at the bottleneck. So at this point I just use it in maintenance mode and add a new card manually once a month or so.
(My second biggest frustration is that Anki doesn’t really let you learn things as sets, and I can’t figure out how to make cards parameterized. For example, I want to really learn the NATO phonetic alphabet, and I have a card for each letter, but I’m still slow when I spell things out. I want software that creates drill cards and uses spaced repetition scheduling based on how I do on the drills. Same thing for certain types of math problems. I understand Khan Academy is now using spaced repetition to periodically reinforce older subjects, but you’re stuck using their material.)
I looked around for alternatives a week or so ago and discovered memrise, which is actually quite good, in some ways a distinct improvement over Anki (the game-like feel, the UI in general, lots of decent pre-made decks), but has its own share of disadvantages (can’t copy decks or edit decks you didn’t create, all data is stored on their closed, proprietary system, creating decks still feels clunky). (ETA: it occurs to me that creating a LW Concepts deck on memrise might be a good way to raise the sanity waterline. There are similar decks there already, like this list of cognitive biases.)
I don’t really want to spend the gobs of time that would be required to create the ideal SRS system (good workflow, adjustable importance, parameterized sets, etc, etc) especially since so much pretty good stuff already exists. But if someone else feels inspired to take on that task I’d be glad to help out however I can.
I don’t really want to spend the gobs of time that would be required to create the ideal SRS system (good workflow, adjustable importance, parameterized sets, etc, etc) especially since so much pretty good stuff already exists. But if someone else feels inspired to take on that task I’d be glad to help out however I can.
Anki is open source and allows for plugins. If you want to help making Anki a better SRS system the road seem clear.
I looked around for alternatives a week or so ago and discovered memrise, which is actually quite good, in some ways a distinct improvement over Anki (the game-like feel, the UI in general, lots of decent pre-made decks), but has its own share of disadvantages
It doesn’t allow for rating cards as Hard/Good/Easy. As a result it’s going to show some cards way too often. It seems very inefficient.
When I was training to be a 911 operator, in addition to reviewing them in Anki, I would just read aloud all the license plates in our standard alphabet that were in my field of view (provided I was alone). It became second nature in short order.
For example, I want to really learn the NATO phonetic alphabet, and I have a card for each letter, but I’m still slow when I spell things out.
This is one of the things that might benefit from social learning. Find a friend that also wants to learn it and play around with it together. I learned the entire alphabet during an internship with a local police force and it never slipped my mind since. It’s something that you need to use in order to memorize it.
I’m a fairly long-time Anki user, about 2.5 years now, and my biggest frustration with it is a lack of workflow. I’ve tried to set one up a couple of times, including one point where I was using Anki’s CSV import functionality, but there were always too many steps. Things would get backed up at the bottleneck. So at this point I just use it in maintenance mode and add a new card manually once a month or so.
(My second biggest frustration is that Anki doesn’t really let you learn things as sets, and I can’t figure out how to make cards parameterized. For example, I want to really learn the NATO phonetic alphabet, and I have a card for each letter, but I’m still slow when I spell things out. I want software that creates drill cards and uses spaced repetition scheduling based on how I do on the drills. Same thing for certain types of math problems. I understand Khan Academy is now using spaced repetition to periodically reinforce older subjects, but you’re stuck using their material.)
I looked around for alternatives a week or so ago and discovered memrise, which is actually quite good, in some ways a distinct improvement over Anki (the game-like feel, the UI in general, lots of decent pre-made decks), but has its own share of disadvantages (can’t copy decks or edit decks you didn’t create, all data is stored on their closed, proprietary system, creating decks still feels clunky). (ETA: it occurs to me that creating a LW Concepts deck on memrise might be a good way to raise the sanity waterline. There are similar decks there already, like this list of cognitive biases.)
I don’t really want to spend the gobs of time that would be required to create the ideal SRS system (good workflow, adjustable importance, parameterized sets, etc, etc) especially since so much pretty good stuff already exists. But if someone else feels inspired to take on that task I’d be glad to help out however I can.
Anki is open source and allows for plugins. If you want to help making Anki a better SRS system the road seem clear.
It doesn’t allow for rating cards as Hard/Good/Easy. As a result it’s going to show some cards way too often. It seems very inefficient.
When I was training to be a 911 operator, in addition to reviewing them in Anki, I would just read aloud all the license plates in our standard alphabet that were in my field of view (provided I was alone). It became second nature in short order.
This is one of the things that might benefit from social learning. Find a friend that also wants to learn it and play around with it together. I learned the entire alphabet during an internship with a local police force and it never slipped my mind since. It’s something that you need to use in order to memorize it.