Using Anki for Effective Learning

Spaced Repetition and You

Language learners need to learn a lot of small pieces of information. Especially for those studying Japanese, with a mountain of Kanji characters to learn and recognize, many students look to flashcards to start learning vocabulary and kanji. Flash cards can be a wonderful tool for studying, but are most effective when paired with a strategy called spaced repetition. Spaced repetition is hard to implement manually, but luckily there is software to do it for you! Anki is an open source tool for custom flash cards that makes spaced repetition easy. It’s commonly recommended to Japanese learners because it’s free, easy to set up, and is flexible enough to support readings, stroke order, meaning, etc. Let’s talk about why spaced repetition is so beneficial, and how you can get started with Anki yourself!

Spaced Repetition refers to adjusting the time between reviews of a given piece of knowledge based on how new or difficult it is. Newly introduced items and items that are more difficult are reviewed more frequently, while those that are easier are spaced out to be reviewed less and less frequently. There have been numerous studies showing the impact of spaced repetition on recall, even among patients with Alzheimer’s or Dementia. Many platforms for flash cards implement a spaced repetition system (SRS) because it is so effective in improving recall. WaniKani and Quizlet for example both have their own SRS implementations that work for Kanji or general flashcards respectively.

Introducing Anki

Anki is a spaced repetition flashcard tool available for MacOS, Windows, and Linux that is open source and highly configurable. The name Anki comes from 暗記 (あんき) which means memorization. The tool has become popular among the Japanese learning community because it easy to access and customize for your own study plan. You can download decks of flashcards from others or make your own, and start using it for spaced repetition right away. With a little bit of HTML, you can also customize every aspect of how the cards are displayed, choosing to show furigana, stroke order, etc. There are even iOS, android, and web apps so that you can study on the go.

To get started with Anki, you will have to download a version of the desktop application which is available for MacOS, Windows, or Linux. This is required to use community-created decks, which need to be imported on the desktop application before they can be used on the mobile apps. You can download the app for your specific platform here. You install the application as you would any other application downloaded from the internet. Typically, you click the download button for your platform on the Anki website, then open the downloaded file to begin the install process. Anki also has a comprehensive installation and troubleshooting document on the website, which can be found here if you encounter problems during installation.

Anki Mobile Apps

After you’ve installed the desktop application, you can also install the mobile applications and set up a web account to ensure your progress is always synced. If you just want to use it on desktop, you can skip down to the next section to start setting up your own decks! If you want to use the mobile or web platforms, let’s set up an AnkiWeb account first. Click the Sign Up button in the top-right corner of the AnkiWeb website here and begin the account creation process. Once your account is set up, make sure you can log in to your account on Anki web. If you can successfully log in, you’re ready to install the mobile apps. The Anki apps are available on iOS and Android respectively. On iOS the app is called AnkiMobile Flashcards, and costs $24.99 one time to download. On Android, the app is called AnkiDroid Flashcards and is free to download. There is no subscription fee on either platform, and both platforms allow you to sync your progress across Anki on desktop, web, and mobile apps. The last step to get set up on mobile is to tap the “Synchronize” button in the app. On Android, this looks like two arrows in a circle at the top right of the deck list. On iOS, this is a button that says “Synchronize” at the bottom right of the screen. In either case, you will be prompted to enter your credentials. If you already have decks on AnkiWeb, you’ll be asked to overwrite your empty app with the decks from AnkiWeb. Now you’re ready to go! As you use Anki more can synchronize your progress with the same button after studying on a different platform to refresh the app with the latest status.

The Heart of the Cards

There are a lot of guides on how Anki works and how to create your own decks, but I will keep this high level so you can get started quickly. I’ll go into more detail on Anki and how to take advantage of the deep customization in a later post. For now, let’s cover how to get a community-created deck, and get started with learning. I recently took the JLPT, and used the Shin Kanzen Master series of books to help in my studies. So, I started by looking up “Shin Kanzen Master N3 Anki” on google. Luckily, the first result was a great deck for the Shin Kanzen Master vocabulary book. You can also search for shared decks directly here. People rate them and comment on them, so you can tell how commonly used they are or if they have any issues. I’ll use that N3 vocabulary set as an example. First, scroll past the deck description (in this example, there was a lot of documentation on customizing the deck) to find the download button. You can find comments and ratings below the download button as well. After downloading the file on your computer, you should be able to double-click to open the file in Anki. If that doesn’t work, you can open Anki and click File > Import. On Windows this will be in the top right of the window, while on MacOS this is likely to be on menu across the top of your screen, next to the apple logo and application name. This will open an import dialog and prompt you for some options you can customize while importing. Sometimes you might only want to import some cards, or you might want to change some settings. In this case, you can just click through and confirm without changing anything. After the import finishes, you should be able to see a new deck in your deck list! It will probably show 20 unlearned cards, 0 learning cards, and 0 due cards (more on that below). If so, you’re ready to study!

You only need to know a few things to start using Anki for studying. Anki has 4 core statuses for cards: new, learning, review, and relearn. New cards, shown in blue on the deck summary, are cards you haven’t yet seen! By default, Anki introduces 20 new cards per day as long as there are new cards to bring in. Learning cards, shown in red on the deck summary screen (not shown on the deck summary on iOS), are cards that you have seen for the first time recently and are still being learned. Review cards are cards that you have already learned, but need to be reviewed. Finally, relearning cards are cards that were failed in review and had to be moved back to learning. When you see a card, you will see the front side only. You should think of the answer, then tap the spacebar (or tap the card on mobile) to reveal the back side. Then, you will have four ratings to give the card, which impact spacing interval until the card is shown to you again. The first option, again, sets the card back to the first spacing interval and should be used if you really don’t know an answer. The second option, hard, leaves the card on the same spacing interval. For example, if the card is currently on an interval of 1 day between reviews, clicking “hard” will leave it on 1 day. The third option, good, advances the card by one spacing interval. By default, the progression is one minute, 10 minutes, 1 day, and so on. Usually, I will have to see a card multiple times in one day and answer good in order for it to be moved to review. The final option, easy, immediately graduates a card to review, and will advance the spacing interval in reviews by larger amounts. This is great if there are terms you had already learned somewhere else and don’t need to spend as much time reviewing.

Final Thoughts

That’s all there is to it! Anki works better the more regularly you can use it. I try to use Anki once per day. If you wait too many days, especially after you’ve learned a lot of terms, the reviews build up and can feel overwhelming. It’s also important to remember Anki is just a small part of your learning journey. You will always need to learn new words and Kanji, but you also will need to practice listening, speaking, and reading. Don’t let Anki become your only study method!

Many people have developed tools that work with Anki to fit with their more comprehensive study plan. For example, there’s a browser extension that can function like an on-demand Japanese dictionary for any Japanese text you see on the web, and then you can immediately save the term to an Anki deck. This is great for reading Japanese content online, and pulling out terms to learn over time. Others have also paired this with tools for scanning Japanese text on your screen so that you can read Manga or play games in Japanese—and count it as study time! Personally, I am reading NHK articles and stories, while saving terms in Anki for review. This post is already getting pretty long, though, so I’ll save these extras for another time. Until then, happy studying!