More on Spaced Reptition Systems

I would be interested to hear which of the many SRS systems are the most popular, and how they are used.  I am particularly interested to hear how different kinds of information are learned using these systems.

I mean there are different bits of information that are learned using these systems. Which are easiest to learn this way? How many do you look at daily?

1) An isolated fact. The capital city of Finland - no understanding, no context required.
2) A mathematical or scientific theory. Understanding required
3) A Chinese character: A major effort required to learn a totally different writing system, in addition to having to learn the language
4) A word (passive knowledge). Some easier than others, to learn, and forget. Depends largely on frequency of exposure in contexts other than SRS system itself.
5) A phrase (passive knowledge), Easier than words because a collection of words some of which are usually known.
6) Sentence (passive knowledge) really just a long phrase, but a more unique collection of words.
7) 4)-6) again but active knowledge

8) A grammar rule or word ending as a rule.

9) A grammar pattern as part of frequently reviewed phrases or sentences

I save about 1000 LingQ per month at LingQ, from my reading and listening. I save words, and I save phrases, which I often tag for grammar or other purposes, for later review.

This would correspond to 1000 cards. When I consider that my Flash Cards in LingQ (we also have a SRS system) can be reversed (English Russian as well as Russian English in my case ), this could be 2000 cards the way Anki counts them.

I know that my deliberate word and phrase review in LingQ is very much on a random sample basis. I cannot review all my saved words. I do not do it on a thorough basis. There is just not enough time, since I spend most of my time listening and reading.

I am happy with that and my word and phrase knowledge is growing. How much time would I have to spend daily on word and phrase review if I were a disciplined SRS user?

Comments

[Max]

Instead of answering your question point by point, here is a random example from today's SRS items:
==Question
我会安排好时间，尽量不影响工作。
==Answer
Wǒ huì ānpái hǎo shíjiān, jǐnliàng bù yǐngxiǎng gōngzuò.​

安排 = plan; arrange; set up
影响 = influence; affect; disturb
响 = sound​

I arrange my time well, and try my best to not let it affect my work.​
---
As you see, it's a phrase/sentence (however you define that), and the 'question' to me is to read out and understand the sentence correctly. To that end, I add pinyin, new words, new characters, grammar rules, and translation to the answer side -- generally everything that'll help me understand the sentence.

I spend maybe one hour daily on my SRS, reviewing old items (avg maybe 80), and learning and adding new ones (around 10, since I'm pretty busy with college). The sentences are exclusively from my reading of authentic material; that is: if I come across a sentence I don't understand, I look up whatever I don't know, make sense of it, and put it into my SRS.

If you're interested in any more details in how I use my SRS, just contact me.
-Max

[Jeremy]

I've been using SRS for the past 2 months every day. It usually takes less than 30 minutes and the program suggests to me about 50 cards a day. I use a modified All Japanese All The Time format. He suggests that you have write out each sentence but I don't do that because writing isn't really my goal. However, I do sometimes write out new kanji as it helps it stick in my memory.

I gather my phrases and sentences with emphasis on a new grammar point or at least one new vocabulary word for each card. If it's a new grammar point, I try to find a sentence or phrase with vocabulary I already know so I can focus my mind completely on the grammar point. On the other hand, I use known grammar points if I'm building vocabulary. In this way I can make the best use of my time and get through my material in the most efficient manner. I was sort of skeptical of Khatz's method at first but the SRS has made so much more stick in my memory.

The programs I like to use are Khatz's web-based program called Khatzumemo and another program called Mnemosyne for my biology information for college.

I don't do from English to Japanese. Only Japanese to English since there is so many ways to translate something. The focus is only understanding and absorbing how natives use language so when I get to the point outputting, I can be confident I'm using native patterns instead of making up my own patterns that may be flawed from a less than perfect understanding of vocabulary and grammar.

[Colin]

I look at SRS as spaced exposure rather than spaced memorization. It's better to just let the items sink in naturally over time. An SRS may help speed up a rote memorization process but ultimately I think it is optimally used, as Steven frequently puts it, as a way to the make brain more attentive. To that end I think if a person uses an SRS in a stress and pressure-free manner (that is, they have no expectations of actually memorizing the item but rather simply hope to understand and internalize it) then it can be a very effective tool.

[Liam R]

I use Anki, and most of my cards are just straight up translating single words. Maybe 10% are colloquial phrases or idioms, and 5% grammar stuff.

[Steve Kaufmann]

Thanks for the feedback and I hope to get more.

I am interested to know how much time people spend on SRS activities, and what percent this represents of total time spent on language learning activities. Anyone?

[Emilio]

I started with Heisig's book, Remembering the Kanji.

So I added 2042 kanji in 3 months, so about ~22 cards/day for 3 months. It gave me 2 hours of review everyday.

The question was a keyword, the answer was a drawing of the kanji. I had to draw it to consider it as success.

After I stopped adding cards the amount of review dramatically dropped, but I still review ~10 cards/day. 10-20 secs/card. So 2-5 minutes.

8 months ago, I started adding phrases or short sentences. For the first ~1000 sentences, they had an English translation. The later ones only have definitions for these words in Japanese.
I have now 3222 cards in this deck. The sentences/phrases are covering at least one reading of 1972 unique Kanji. My anki stats tell me that I can read 92.9% of it.
I don't know for sure, but I think I have at least 2 unique words per card, so this gives me, at least, a passive vocabulary of 6444 words.

This gives me about 15 cards/day. So about 450 cards/month. My reviews do not take more than 20 minutes each day anymore.

Most of my study now consists on listening and reading. I never listen less than 1h/day of Japanese.

So, how am I doing for 11 months of study?

[Chris]

For Chinese I input around 10-25 characters a day into Anki, as production cards.

One card looks like this:

Question:
swallow (bird)

Answer:
燕

So for every character I acquire, I have to write it out by hand. I only started using an SRS in mid-November last year, and I'm on 663 cards as I type, so I usually get around 20-30 cards a day. I've already noticed a dramatic increase in my ability to produce characters (albeit individually and not yet in sentences, but that will come later).

Steve, as to your question (in the previous SRS post) on how Anki would handle large volumes of cards, I asked this very question the other day here:

http://forum.koohii.com/viewtopic.php?pid=46776#p46776

Because the better you learn an item, the further it gets spaced out, eventually the less reviews you would have a day (assuming you add nothing more), so adding more cards shouldn't make the load unbearable, as your older ones will appear less and and less.

[Valina eckley]

I was using Supermemo a few years ago, I spent a LOT of time making cards and saving words... and then I would have to spend an hour a day with all that reviewing. I felt really tied to it... if I didn't do it, then the next day would get worse and worse.

It got to be too much for me, and I don't really know if i remembered some things or not. It was nice to have the listening in it though, and review things that i have listened to before.

But it got to be a BIG hassle for me, and It took a lot of time away from enjoying the language

but if i were to start up a SRS system again, what I would do is simply put in one or two complete articles (with listening) a day. then have it tell me when i should read and listen to the entire article again...

[alain]

I don't use an SRS anymore. I tried using one in the past but didn't get good results. It's been my experience that the most effective and fastest way to learn any language is by reading and listening to interesting native content. I'm currently fluent in 6 languages and making great progress learning another 5 and having fun at it.

[doviende]

I use Anki daily, for about 30 minutes per day. In addition to that, i try to spend an hour reading a chinese novel (lately i'm reading collected short stories from Lu Xun).

Initially, all my Anki work was focused around learning single characters. At the time, i had just completed a year of intensive university courses in chinese, but i was really disappointed that it was still almost impossible for me to read a regular book and understand the story.

Anki totally changed that. I learned over 1000 new characters in 2 months, also using mnemonics in my flashcards. After that, i was able to go to the local library and pick up chinese sci-fi and actually make some headway. It totally changed my outlook on learning chinese because i could actually understand something real.

Nowadays i do a bunch of reading, and as i read i also write down 1 or 2 phrases from each page that have a word that i don't know. I enter these into Anki, and then they get reviewed over the next few days to make sure that new word stays stuck in my head. Eventually the spacing function moves it so i don't see it that often and it just becomes part of the background. I have a few thousand cards in my deck, but most of them only show up once every few weeks just to keep the memory fresh.

I have a limit of 20 new cards per day in Anki. Sometimes i really get keen and i want to do more and more, but i know from experience that if i do more than about 20 every day then the short-term number of reps gets way too high. If i patiently do max 20 per day, then the reps are manageable and i don't burn out.

Anki relieves some stress because i don't have to worry about which things i'll remember. I just patiently plug a few things in, here and there, and i know that whatever i put in there will never ever be forgotten. That way i don't feel obligated to try and put in absolutely everything...i'll get to the other words eventually as i encounter them.

[Katie]

Here are some example "cards" that I've created in SuperMemo for Italian.

I have one "topic" card that includes the transcripts and recording of the dialogue, so I can read and listen along. This card appears every 1 day, 2 days, 3, 4, etc. After awhile, I don't even have to read along to understand.

From that one topic card, I create a number of flashcards for review. They'll be a combination of individual words, phrases, and then words and phrases used in context. Examples:

Q: Tu [stay; remain] alla cassa in fila.

A: rimani

Q: to stay; remain

A: rimanare

Q: Tu rimani alla cassa [in line].

A: in fila

Q: in line

A: in fila

Q: in fila

A: in line

Q: Intanto tu rimani [at the cashiers].

A: alla cassa

Q: at the cashier

A: alla cassa

And so on. Typically, I've got the sound of the text file echoing in my head, so I can mimic by memory.

Now: the above is only an example of how they appear; ideally, they come up randomly, so I have to think a little bit to come up with the answer.

As long as I don't miss a day, and don't bombard myself with too many new cards a day, seems my daily review is about forty cards (I have over 100 right now, because I missed a few days, and used the "Mercy" feature, which spread out the backlogs over a number of days I specify).

Also, don't forget that part of my review is some "topic" card with the text and sound file, so this can add ten minutes or more of listening time. Perhaps that's something I could do later, on my iPod, while doing something else. I'm not saying my system is perfect by any means, but little by little, I'm finding that the language grows in my brain.

I have all of the 26 "Where is she?" dialogues, and I've now been adding in some of the dialogues spoken naturally, which are much more challenging.

[igordesu]

As everybody else said, it basically depends on how much you add on average everyday. I found out the hard way that a steady, yet medium-small amount of additions per day (10-20 cards, depending on what I'm memorizing) is the best way to go. Trust me, random large additions ARE BAD. BAD. BAD. I'm just about to finish Heisig's Remembering the Kanji, and it's taken me about twice as long as it would have if I would have done a set amount per day :(

BTW, with sentences, you should pull most of your sentences from your reading. More reading per day = more sentences per day. Less reading per day = less sentences per day. That sort of thing. This adds an additional context. Any context helps. That's why mnemonic stories for things work. Random numbers and squiggles and stuff are brutal to memorize even with SRS. But with mnemonics + SRS...it's a breeze.

[CL]

I use ANKI every day for about 15-30 mins plus some time to add new material.

All my facts contain: sound, characters, pinyin and translation.

My cards train
1) Audio comprehension:
Q: Sound
A: Characters, Pinyin, English and again Sound.

2) Text comprehension
Q: Characters
A: Characters, Pinyin, English and Sound.

3) Writing
Q: Pinyin, English and Sound with one/two underlined words
A: Characters, Pinyin, English and Sound.

Details can be found on my website http://chinesisch-lernen.blogspot.com/2009/01/wie-ich-momentan-lerne-mit-anki.html (sorry - in German)

This video shows it:
http://www.screencast.com/t/cknMh6qqqYh

[Mairo Vergara]

Steve, here are my Anki statistcs...

Deck Statistics
Deck created: 2.4 months ago
Total number of cards: 1043

Card counts
Mature cards: 853 (81.78%)
Young cards: 172 (16.49%)
Unseen cards: 18 (1.73%)

Correct answers
Mature cards: 97.9% (281 of 287)
Young cards: 91.9% (2227 of 2422)
First-seen cards: 77.0% (802 of 1041)

Averages

Interval 49 days
Average reps 43.2 cards/day
Reps next week 43.6 cards/day
Reps next month 21.8 cards/day
Reps last week 49.3 cards/day
Reps last month 52.1 cards/day
Avg. added 14/day, 429/mon
Added last week 126 (18.0/day)
Added last month 315 (10.5/day)
First last week 118 (16.9/day)
First last month 310 (10.3/day)

About my cards, they are basically like this...

Q: I dress, creep down the hall to the elevator, and descend to the first floor.
A: creep[kri:p] v. crawl; climb; sneak, move along quietly and slowly

Q:I just listened to the audio in snippets
A: snippet['snɪpɪt] n. small cutting, little piece, scrap;

Each card has usually one or two unknown words. Here, in the first card I wanted to learn the word "creep",in the second card I wanted to know "snippets". This is the original idea of how to use cards promoted by "Antimoon" and "All Japanese All The Time" websites. However, since Anki is a very powerful SRS, I have been exploring new ways of using the cards.

One thing I am doing a lot recently is adding cards without any answer. Whenever I see and interesting patter, I copy the phrase/sentence and add ii into Anki. For example the sentence "by any stretch of the imagination". I added it into my deck without any answers, just because I find the pattern "stretch of the imagination" interesting.

Another interesting option is the possibility of writing the answer. You create cards where you have to type the answer. This means a lot of word, by it can be used to learn in a more active way. But I still exploring the possibilities of usage. About your questions..

1) An isolated fact. The capital city of Finland - no understanding, no context required.

I think it will be good. You don't need context to learn this kind of stuff.

2) A mathematical or scientific theory. Understanding required

Maybe you can memorize formulas or some important concepts, but not the theory itself. SRS is a memorization tool, and language learning requires tons of memorization. If a given theory requires memorization, probably a SRS would help.

3) A Chinese character: A major effort required to learn a totally different writing system, in addition to having to learn the language

SRS is perfect. No more drills, no more "write this kanji 9999999 times". Although you still need to learn it into sentences or using a good method like James Heisig's Remembering the Kanji.

4) A word (passive knowledge). Some easier than others, to learn, and forget. Depends largely on frequency of exposure in contexts other than SRS system itself.

Just an isolated word is tough, but it can be done. Context helps a lot, but you have to remember that the SRS itself will give you the exposure you need. If you use a isolated word, you will get the exposure, but without any context. That's why we use sentences :)

5) A phrase (passive knowledge), Easier than words because a collection of words some of which are usually known.

See number 4.

6) Sentence (passive knowledge) really just a long phrase, but a more unique collection of words.

What's the difference between a phrase and a sentence? I thought sentences were shorter than phrases...

7) 4)-6) again but active knowledge

I haven't done it myself, but some people say it's very effective.

8) A grammar rule or word ending as a rule.

You can memorize rules, in fact you memorize anything you want through a SRS. But instead of memorizing a rule, I would memorize 10 phrases/sentences which contain this rule.

9) A grammar pattern as part of frequently reviewed phrases or sentences

Yeah, I do it my self.

See you Steve

[CL]

Steve, here are my Anki statistics for my Chinese deck (see my post above)...

Deck created: 3.2 months ago
Total number of cards: 1109

Card counts
Mature cards: 911 (82.15%)
Young cards: 180 (16.23%)
Unseen cards: 18 (1.62%)

Correct answers
Mature cards: 97.3% (531 of 546)
Young cards: 81.0% (3571 of 4411)
First-seen cards: 68.4% (779 of 1139)

Averages

Interval 52 days
Average reps 46.1 cards/day
Reps next week 35.3 cards/day
Reps next month 20.4 cards/day
Reps last week 55.9 cards/day
Reps last month 54.3 cards/day
Avg. added 11/day, 350/mon
Added last week 34 (4.9/day)
Added last month 100 (3.3/day)
First last week 16 (2.3/day)
First last month 98 (3.3/day)

SRS is indeed a very effective method, you repeat only the difficult stuff.

[Tas]

Hi Steve,

I use Mnemosyne for learning English, I've been doing so for more than two years and I think it is really worth it, but lately, well, I haven't learnt new words for quite some time. I've got 2000 cards ready to be learnt but I just feel to lazy, actually I've been doing the opposite, pruning a lot of cards. I do that when I feel like a card doesn't deserve to be in my collection, because I keep forgetting it or it doesn't make much sense for one reason or another. Like you, I spend most of my time listening and reading.

So, I suppose mine is a good example of how things get in the long run. The good news is that the amount of work becomes amazingly low. You don't even need to run the program every day, it doesn't make any difference if you do it 2 or 3 days per week. It's not that I've got loads of flash cards, just about 6000, but the daily reps aren't huge either, 15 or so, which takes me no more than 20 minutes. It really depends on the type or flash card, I use a mix of 3 different things: single words, long real sentences, and audio/video.

To answer some of your other questions, I would say that over my experience with SRS I've become very picky about what things I add to my database what do not. Just as background let me say that I don't live in a country where my target language is spoken nor I need it for work or anything, so I don't speak it in a regular basis and I've never done. I use English just for the Internet, movies, and so. That said, what I aim to learn through SRS is:

1) A huge amount of words that doesn't appear in my readings frequently enough, because let's face it, when you read for fun you always end up reading about the same subjects. I mean the kind of words you only learn when you live in a country where English is spoken and all natives know, no matter their background or education: house items, furniture, animals, cards, etc.

2) Colloquial expressions that I get from TV series.

And this is what I don't care about: formal language, written language and in general whatever word or sentence that belongs to a rather high register. I prefer to absorb that through reading.

[Will Conner]

Hello. I have used Anki to help with my studying Latin for quiet a while. I can say that it really helps. I usually review about 30-40 minutes a day.

[Steve Kaufmann]

I am impressed by the response here. I have 3 conclusions.

1) I should give Anki or Mnomosyne a try.
2) We should accelerate enabling LingQ members to export their saved LingQs to these systems.
3) We can add some more features to our own SRS system and vocabulary review page.

[Will Conner]

I think that sound awesome! I, personally, do not like SRSs that are too scheduled, though. A little flexibility is nice. I do not want to be on a schedule to learn Russian.

[Jonathan]

Hi Steve,

I have tremendous success with SRS. If you have a mac (I seem to recall that you do), I strongly recommend the program iFlash. It has an SRS option and I use it every morning.

You can find it here: http://www.loopware.com/iflash/

It's the best one I've found.

[Chris]

Just found a really good article on using an SRS:

http://www.glowingfaceman.com/2009/01/spaced-repetition-systems.html

(There's another article by the same guy on sentence mining, that I've posted in the previous blog on the subject)

[Sarah]

Government documents now available on AudioBooks. Keep up with Obama's fast moving government! To download the latest government documents on audio, visit www.ativioaudio.com.

[Miriam]

I recently came across your blog and have been reading along. I thought I would leave my first comment. I don't know what to say except that I have enjoyed reading. Nice blog. I will keep visiting this blog very often.

Miriam

http://www.craigslistposter.info

[Alexei Vinidiktov]

I've been using an SRS of my own making for 4 months now, and so far I like it.

I'm learning Spanish words and I do mutiple sessions a day. During each session I review 50 cards.

My Spanish deck now contains about 5,500 cards, which means I've been adding about 1,500 cards per month. My plan is to have 10,000 cards in the deck by June.

I've been using my SRS for about 30 minutes a day. That's about all I do to learn Spanish. I've been meaning to start listening to Spanish podcasts and reading Spanish books on a regular basis, but so far I've been unable to get around to doing it.

I understand much of written and spoken Spanish, but I'm not as good at speaking it yet.

What I really like about using an SRS is that you can do it almost without disrupting your work flow. My SRS reminds me at regular intervals during the day that I have to review old cards and add new cards.

It's not perfect by any means, but it does the job pretty well.