Please watch this video

Anki Desktop
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. and please, please write comments!
(Sorry, haven’t done it myself yet as my English is pretty rusty).

In my search to familiarize myself with Anki, I came across the following youtube video.
“Why Language Learners Hate Anki”.

Sorry, maybe I’m a bit stupid, but I had thought this video would show me which mistakes I should avoid with Anki.

Honestly, I’m a bit pissed off about the nonsense this person is spreading in his video.

Even though I am “only” a craftsman, I have been involved with e-learning for years.
I have tried out many e-learning programs.
Unfortunately, I have to admit:
Many learning programs are simply rubbish! Not worth the money.

I have at least 30 apps on my mobile phone and computer, mainly to demonstrate to teachers the advantages and disadvantages of these apps.
As far as not only language acquisition is concerned, my favorite so far has been “Flaschcard Delux.” (No desktop version!)

A few weeks ago I came across Anki.
I’m excited about the potential Anki offers, even though unfortunately as a beginner I haven’t understood a lot of things yet, especially when it comes to modifying downloaded decks.
I don’t know any app that implements the “Leitner principle” so consistently und improofed like Anki.
Thumbs up!

I had a quick look at Speakly.
Sorry, absolute rubbish! TTS an imposition!
From a didactic/methodological point of view, an imposition!
Even “babble” is much better, even if I don’t think much of this app.

By the way,
I’m sure there are not only a lot of nerds in this forum, but also people who can create Anki learning videos.
My plea: have the courage.

Greetings from El Salvador Peter

Fight poverty through education!

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I mostly don’t agree with this fellow in his video, but I don’t have a problem with the video. It speaks to his experience, and that is fair enough. I think mostly it boils down to why Anki did not work for him, as he said:

“You never go more than a week using the thing every day, so at this point it is not spaced repetition. … [These kinds of apps] need to be used frequently for an extended period of time in order to work.”

There’s the problem. If you can’t or won’t use Anki regularly, then it won’t work.

I don’t know this fellow, but I have the impression that he is trying to learn multiple foreign languages, and then expecting to be able to pleasure read novels without frequently looking up words (which apparently he defines as two unknown words per page). Language learning for proficiency takes a lot of time for each language, and learning multiple languages at once is not something I would recommend for someone who is seeking proficiency in a language.

The author of the video seems to get a feeling of being overwhelmed by Anki. I think trying to learn multiple languages is very much a part of the feeling, because that does not come easily, no matter what methods of study you choose.

However, I also think the author was trying to be helpful. He recognizes that Anki has value and that the problem lies in not using it regularly, so he came up with a method that helps him use it in a reasonable way.

I would not worry too much about implementing his method. I do think there is something to be learned from the video: there really is a very real possibility that you could end up adding more material than you can reasonably handle, and then you risk giving up entirely. Instead, you should focus on trying to keep the study load at a manageable level. You might not learn the material as fast as you hoped, but if you keep it manageable, you will reap the benefits from the amount of time that you put into it.

He also complains about add-ons and the way Anki should work but doesn’t. For my part, I don’t have any add-ons at all. This is just my opinion: I think they complicate things, particularly with every update to Anki, and I do all of my study with AnkiMobile where none of them work anyway. If you find they help, then great: use them. But you can get an excellent Anki experience without them, so don’t let them overwhelm you as though you have to use them.

And finally, the new version 3 scheduler in Anki has done a great job at keeping the work load manageable. Like in the earlier versions, you can set a maximum number of reviews per day to manage your study load. But in the earlier versions, new cards would still be introduced independently, so they could pile up and become unmanageable. In the new v3 scheduler, new cards are also limited by the maximum daily review as well. If you have fewer review cards than the maximum, then Anki will introduce new cards, but if not, you only see review cards. In this way, the workload is really smoothed out. You can set the number of reviews per deck that you think you have the time to commit to, and you let Anki worry about when the time is right to introduce new cards.

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Daer Garrettm30,

thank you very much for your answer and advice.

When I saw the first few minutes of the video, my first thought was:
The Man is right!
The fact that the number of cards to be repeated increases to 1000 records in the course of a few weeks is nonsensical from a learning psychology point of view.
But then I immediately asked myself:
What nonsense is he talking about!

Because what I did after the first few attempts with Anki:
reduced the number of cards to be learned daily to 10 and the number of cards to be repeated to 20.
With settings like that, you’ll never get to values of 1,000 in a short time.

Unfortunately, it is no longer possible to see on Youtube when the video went online.
I probably wouldn’t have posted my comment here in the forum if I had known, what you wrote about earlier versions of Anki that in the past you couldn’t determine the number of cards to be repeated yourself by making the appropriate settings.

By the way, I’m not currently using Anki to learn content, that’s not my intention at all!
I just want to find out whether Anki is a suitable e-learning medium to support the acquisition of foreign languages, for example.
My first impression is:
Anki is from my current point of view one of the best, if not the best app I have come across in recent years. (I am a beginner in Anki).

To stay with the topic of the “repetition rate”.
What is possible in Anki version 2.1.49:
To set the repetition rate and the cards to be learned individually.

Irritating for the user (example):
If 5 new cards are added every day, then the threshold for repetitions should be at least 50.
Thank goodness, Anki accepts that you can ignore the suggested value and also enter a value of, for example, 10.

Which is not so nice from my point of view:
All existing decks are then unfortunately adjusted to the same set value.

My wish to the Anki developers:
individual decks should be able to be set to different “learning speeds”.

As for the add-on you mentioned, I will open another post.

Once again, many thanks for your comments,
Peter El Salvador

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This is already possible with deck option groups. See Deck Options - Anki Manual

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Hola abdo,
thanks for your advice.
I don’t know why, your hint:
“This is already possible with deck option groups,”
doesn’t work with my German Anki version 2.1.49
Changing one Deck all other Decks are updated to the new value.

Peter

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It’s all about the presets. If two decks share the same preset, then editing the settings for one deck will affect the other, since you are actually editing their shared preset. See the link Abdo shared above.

1 Like