I’m new to using Anki! I’m using a custom deck for Spanish conjugations that has highly-specific instructions (a link to which I’m apparently not allowed to include).
I’ve been studying the same cards for several days and don’t feel like I “added” the correct number of cards. Most of the 72 verbs in the deck have 59 conjugations.
I followed the deck instructions to the letter (excluded link here).
I added the first 7 cards (which are instructions for using the deck), and have since suspended them:
I want to be studying all the cards for the first verb, minus the first 7 cards in the deck (instruction cards) and the others I’ve suspended from that verb. This should be maybe 50 cards. How do I see exactly how many cards I’m currently studying, or that have been currently added? The instructions for the deck are “New cards: on demand, not automatic, not random”.
I guess I don’t really understand how Anki works, especially in terms of how to manually choose which cards I want to study, and later add the next set of cards for the next verb when I’m ready, etc.
There is a difference in functionality between the browser and the reviewer.
The browser is there to let you see your whole collection, or parts of it, and quickly access and modify your collection. If you want to see the cards that you are learning (that is, whose state is either Learning or Review), or that you just added (that is, whose state is New) you can query for is:learning or is:review or is:new.
The reviewer, on the other hand, is where you make your daily reviews. There, you can only see information about cards that are scheduled for the current day. Anki will not make you review your whole collection every day; instead, it will space it out (hence the “spaced repetition”) so that you can keep adding material without increasing the daily workload or, to put it in an other way, if you don’t add any content, and you keep reviewing Anki daily, you should your daily workload go down, while still keeping in memory (almost) all the information. If that’s not the case, tweaking the scheduling options may be needed, but they are sensible defaults so most of the time they are good enough.
new refers to, as you guessed, cards you have never reviewed before. When you start reviewing them, they switch in the learning state. When Anki thinks you have learned the card, it switches in the review state. The difference is mainly how Anki reacts to failing to remember a card (ie. it’s normal to not remember a card if you are still learning it, but you shouldn’t forget cards that you are supposed to know). Anki can decide to revert a card’s state to learning if needed. You can find a more detailed explanation in the manual.
The suspended cards are cards that, for a reason or for an other, you are currently suspending from being scheduled. In other words, for as long as they are suspended, you won’t be able to review them. Often, this is done by hand, but it can also done automatically if the card is considered a leech. This is independent of the learning state of the card (ie. what Anki thinks your current knowledge of that card is).
The buried cards are similar to the suspended ones, in the sense that you can’t review them, and it’s even mutually exclusive: a card can’t be both suspended and buried. The difference is that a buried card will automatically get unburied after a day. This is useful if you don’t want to review a card right now, but still want to review it. It usually happens with the option “bury siblings”, which will make Anki bury a card if you have already reviewed a “similar” card today. Again, being buried is not related to the learning state of the card.
The new, learning and review states partition the deck: they are mutually exclusive, and every card must have one of these states. Besides that, any card can be suspended or buried (but not both). This means that there is no relation between the number of suspended cards and the number of new cards.
Anki has a maximum amount of new cards, and of learning / review cards it will shown you each day, per deck (the details of what that exactly means depends on which version scheduler you have chosen). These are fully configurable in the deck options. If you want to study new cards from a new deck, just study that deck (that is, click on it in the main window).
Again, I very much appreciate your help, but here’s the thing. I’ve followed extremely specific instructions for the single deck I’m studying (which can found by googling, with quotes, “Ultimate Spanish Conjugation Flashcards: the Manual”). Here’s a screenshot of the deck’s recommended options:
As you can see, 0 new cards are automatically added each day. The deck’s creator says new cards should be added manually. I still don’t understand how to add a specific number of new cards manually.
I wish someone would be willing to Zoom/Skype with me for 10-15 minutes. I would pay $$!
I’m just gonna say, the manual provided by the creator can be a bit preachy at times - as much as I appreciate his work, the deck works great for me. If you want to manually add all conjugations of a verb at once, go for it. But having a steady stream of new cards everyday is not going to destroy all of your learning progress.
This is very straightforward once you know where to look.
From your screenshot above, click “Custom Study” → Toggle “Increase today’s new card limit” (should be toggled by default) → Specify how many cards → OK
Let me know if that works!
This is an open source community, we’re allergic to paying for stuff
Thanks! I assume you mean where it says “Daily Limits: New cards/day”? If so, that’s what I thought, but if I change it to say 66 cards (for the next verb or whatever), won’t it add 66 cards every day from then on?
No, this is in the deck options, whereas what @ODeer is talking about is in the Custom Study window, that you can access by clicking the Custom Study button on the deck page (ie. when you click on the deck name). This will increase the new cards limit once.
I was referring to this screenshot. Sorry, I never know what is or isn’t obvious to a new user. As BlackBeans said, click on the deck that you want to study new cards in and follow the video.
