Remembering Japanese with Spaced Repetition Systems (SRS)

In my last article I discussed my approach to learning Japanese and mentioned Anki, a Spaced Repetition System.

I've been using Anki for about a month and it's been a huge help. It's cross platform as well as being able to store your cards online. So I can sync my cards between Anki on my PC at work and my iMac at home. You could even use the website via a PDA for mobile learning.

"Anki is a program designed to help you remember facts (such as words and phrases in a foreign language) as easily, quickly and efficiently as possible. To do this, it tracks how well you remember each fact, and uses that information to optimally schedule review times. With a minimal amount of effort, you can greatly increase the amount of material you remember, making study more productive, and more fun."

Here's a few tips I have so far for using Anki:

• If you read or hear anything in Japanese add it to Anki. Everything! Names, places, sentences, signs.
  
• When reviewing your Anki cards read out the word or sentence aloud. Try to visualise the characters in your mind. Then write it down. Once you've tried your best to remember it show the answer in Anki. I find this really helps to stamp it into my mind.
  
• Keep it up. Try not to miss a day or you will begin to forget the cards. You don't want to end up with hundreds of cards to review as it will only demotivate you. Try to practice small amounts but often.
  
• Ensure you use both Production and Recognition cards. Recognition shows you the Japanese and tests your ability to remember the meaning of the expression. Production shows you the english meaning and tests your ability to remember what it looks like in Japanese. If you fill in the details once Anki will make both cards for you.

Please let me know your tips and thoughts on using Anki and other SRS applications.

Thomas (babelhut.com) said on Wed 2008/02/27 00:05 JST:

Good post! Another cool thing about Anki is text formatting, specifically coloring.

When I type in a Japanese sentence (I only do Recognition cards), Anki automatically fills in the hiragana readings for the kanji. For long sentences this big jumble of hiragana can be time-consuming to read, especially when you are searching for the word that you couldn't remember. So I've started putting the readings for kanjis I don't know in bold and in different colors so that I can easily spot my problem words once I hit the "show answer" button. Here is a screenshot

Chris said on Wed 2008/02/27 00:28 JST:

Thomas: Good tip! I haven't moved on to the Kanji yet but I plan to soon and this will help. Thanks for posting the link on JapanSoc too. It's tempting to Soc it myself... haha

GoddessCarlie said on Thu 2008/02/28 21:06 JST:

I only do recognition too, as I try and get my active side of Japanese out in other methods - mainly communicating to other people, writing a journal, etc. I think anki is a great tool to learn new words, kanji, grammar points, etc. I've tried many srs tools, and anki is the greatest.

Jamaipanese said on Fri 2008/02/29 13:17 JST:

thanks for the tips

downloading this software now

Steve said on Thu 2008/04/17 07:41 JST:

Anki looks very functional and at the same time cool with graphcs and stats.

joe nihongo said on Mon 2008/06/30 15:35 JST:

Is it possible to sync Anki decks between a Mac and a PDA?

Chris said on Mon 2008/06/30 16:49 JST:

Joe - Everything is synched back to the website at http://anki.ichi2.net/ I currently sync Anki between a PC and a Mac. There doesn't seem to be a PDA version for download but you could try using the website on your PDA.

eldritch said on Mon 2009/02/09 01:27 JST:

Looks interesting to try