I’m pretty new to Anki, so I’m still trying to figure out the settings. I’m wondering if there’s a way to edit the New/Review Order so that it mixes with reviews but groups them toward the beginning of the study session.
My deck is pretty big, so I have about 250 reviews per day + 20 new cards. Right now, I have the New/Review Order set to “Mix With Reviews.” The problem with this is that it spaces the cards out evenly across the 250 review cards. So, my last new card is only introduced when there are like 40 review cards left. That means there aren’t enough review cards to fill the gaps in my learning steps on this card, so I basically have to just relearn it the next day.
I tried changing New/Review Order to “show before reviews,” but that just became overwhelming. Learning 20+ new cards all at once was just a lot, and I felt like I was wasting time.
Is there a better way to set the New/Review Order so that learning and reviewing actually make sense?
The middle path is to use “show before reviews” – but introduce your New cards in smaller batches. Set your daily New card limit to 5 instead. You’ll get 5 New cards and then start on your Review cards. When you think you’re far enough through for another batch, change to the “Today Only” daily limit and increase it by 5. Repeat that a few times during your study session.
Your post suggests a few other potential issues. Solving them might help make your workload more manageable, but since they aren’t what you’re asking about, I’m just noting them for you. Feel free to ask if you’re interested.
You’re introducing brand new material when you see a card in Anki for the first time, which isn’t recommended.
You’ve got a lot of and/or long learning steps. One short step is usually enough.
You’re trying to introduce too many New cards each day.
Wouldn’t this be a really good idea for a new feature?
I have the same exact problem with vocab cards. New cards get introduced basically at the end of my study session which causes me to remember them worse coming into the next study session compared to the ones at the beginning of the session. This is especially annoying with logographic languages like chinese, japanese etc. where you have to beat the readings and meanings into your brain. You are basically learning brand new material every time and not reinforcing compared to something like a history exam. Learning “brand new” material in this context is a totally legitimate way to use Anki.
I basically use your solution daily but it does get quite tedious. I think a way to group your new cards towards the first two thirds or three fourths of the study session would help out a ton of Anki users. Obviously Anki is free and you guys don’t owe the users anything but it would be a good idea to consider none the less.
I can’t tell you whether there’s enough interest/need to change how New-mix-with-Review works (or introduce a separate front-loaded version of the sort).
But I can tell you that if you decide to introduce completely new material in Anki (which many language learners do), then you need to actually introduce it. That means doing what is necessary to learn the vocab the first time you see it. Brute force/rote approaches to learn new material hardly ever work in the long-run.
Whenever you get an answer wrong, you should stop, figure out why, and do whatever it takes to make sure you have a better chance of getting it right the next time you see it. If you just click Again and hope for the best, you’re skipping the part where you learn/relearn the information.
My process is I basically encounter words in the wild in context and if necessary I look up alternative or idiomatic meanings with dictionaries or AI. I note my findings and everything relevant in the card so in that sense it’s not completely brand new. I would be cocky enough to say that my cards are truly high quality.
Readings however often are ambiguous especially with obscure words though. Even native speakers basically have to guess which reading of the possible options applies. So a certain degree of the brute “again” routine is necessary.
I have seen two threads about this issue today but I guess you guys have to judge whether this is worth your time.
You should point me to the other thread(s) as well. If there’s an open suggestion/discussion about this, connecting this thread to that is the best way for devs to understand how the issue is manifesting for users.
I have exactly the same problem when studying vocabulary with Anki.
For example, with 50 review cards and 10 new cards, “Mix with reviews” often introduces the last new cards so late in the session that there are hardly any review cards left to fill the 10-minute learning steps. As a result, difficult new cards may come up again too soon, or I have to leave them until the next day.
Showing all new cards before reviews isn’t ideal either, because I prefer to alternate between new material and reviews.
It would be very useful to have an additional option such as “Mix with reviews, but introduce all new cards within the first 2/3 (or 3/4) of the review session.” This would leave enough review cards at the end to fill the learning intervals, without forcing us to learn all new cards at once.
A configurable percentage would be even better. I would definitely use this feature.
I’m uncomfortable with the suggestion that all these posts come from the same person. I had exactly this problem, was glad to find a thread about it, and added my comment to show that others have the same question.
If this is difficult to implement, I can live with the workaround, but I’d still prefer a better solution.
Both your account and the one by bleyman are new. The title of this topic isn’t clear and it was 3 days old when you posted (i.e. buried under many other topics). It’s suspicious that you found it. Same for bleyman who posted a day after the topic was made.
In addition, the problem described here is quite niche and there’s only one other “related” post below that matches it (How new cards are distributed in reviews), which is from 2022, so it’s highly unlikely that someone would show up asking for the same thing and finding this post, let alone two people.
@minit1@bleyman@Nora-B –
I’m not going to merge this into the existing thread that’s been mentioned – How new cards are distributed in reviews – because it is 4+ years old and was really more of a v2-scheduler vs. v3-scheduler question. If there’s another thread, you’ll have to tell me what it is.
However, I will update the title of this thread to (hopefully) better capture what you’re asking for, and move it to the Suggestions category.
@ZornHadNoChoice There have certainly been users in the past who have used sock-puppet accounts to boost their issue, so I appreciate you keeping an eye out for that. In this case, let’s just err on the side of believing there are 2 or 3 folks interested in this.