Contents
Getting started
What is a 'fact'? A 'card'? A 'model'?
Adding material
How do I enter data into Anki? Are there any premade decks?
Anki comes with some pre-made decks, which you can access by going to the Deck menu and selecting "Open Sample Deck". This includes the full Japanese language proficiency test 4 vocabulary, subsections of JLPT2&3, and all of Heisig's Remembering the Kanji.
You can also import a text list of vocabulary into Anki. See Importing_material_into_Anki.
However, in most cases it is recommended that you add material yourself. The primary reason is that memorizing things is rarely useful without context. For example, if you're learning a language, memorizing a foreign equivalent for the word "dog" may be easy. But once you start learning verbs and grammar, it's important not just to know the individual words, but how to use them in the context of a sentence, too. Thus a common way to use Anki is to 'mine' material from your textbooks, TV shows, etc. Whenever you see something new around you and decide you want to remember it, add it to Anki.
Should I add words? Sentences? Words with examples?
For simple nouns that are easy to learn without context, adding single words can be efficient. But for more complicated words, it is recommended that you add material in the context of a phrase or a sentence. These example sentences can be found online and in good dictionaries. For example, the Japanese word "評価" translates to "valuation/estimate/appraisal". The fact that multiple English words are necessary to define it reflects the fact that this word doesn't correspond 1:1 with an English word. If we were to try and memorize it just from that English definition, we would find ourselves having a general idea of what it means if we saw it in context, but we wouldn't be able to use it ourselves as we don't know how it's used.
So have a look in your dictionaries or on websites to see how the word is used. If it has different meanings depending on the context, try and find a phrase for each usage case. In the above example, we might choose a sentence like the one below, taken from one of Kenkyusha's dictionaries:
彼の新作は評価が分かれている People disagree about how good his new work is
and another from the same dictionary, showing a different use case:
その車は 60 万円に評価された. The car was valued at 600,000yen
By adding phrases and sentences in this manner, the words you add to Anki immediately become part of your active vocabulary, and come out easily in a conversation.
Can I add previously studied material? Can I boost the initial interval?
Sure. If your previous material is in a supported SRS, you can use Anki's import feature and the previous scheduling info should be preserved.
If you're starting from scratch, you probably want to space the material out over a period of time, and make the initial intervals longer. Currently the best way to do this is to select "Edit -> Deck properties", choose the "Scheduling" section, and change the minimum and maximum interval for "easy" cards. For example, if you choose "min 60 max 120", any cards you answer '(4) remembered easily' for, will be scheduled for a random time between 60 and 120 days in the future. You can then go through your material hitting '4' for any previously known cards. Make sure to change the interval back after you've finished, so that any new material isn't scheduled too far into the future!
Reviewing
Why am I only seeing cards in one direction?
By default, the different sides of a card are separated from each other. This is called card spacing. The order cards are displayed in is defined by the order of the card models - if it says "Production, Recognition" on the "Add cards" dialog, the production card will appear first.
Say you have two cards, "front - back" and "back - front". If you answer "front - back", "back - front" will appear 10 minutes later.
This ensures that:
- the two sides of the card are never spaced too far apart - this makes it easier to remember and handle a deck with lots of new cards
- you can guarantee production before recognition, which allows osmotic learning of kanji characters, etc.
If you want to learn the cards more quickly, you can reduce the spacing interval in the model properties dialog.
How can I review only one category or tag? I don't want to have to suspend everything!
The suspend feature is designed to remove old material from review when you no longer have a need for it. It's not a good idea to suspend stuff you actually want to learn. Instead, use the priorities feature in the deck properties to define which tags you would like to come before others. That way you can answer the important stuff first, and the rest when you have time for it.
How can I 'undo' a scheduling? I made a mistake when answering.
Go to Edit => Undo last answer
I answered a card with '0' or '1', but it showed up again before 10 minutes!
By default, Anki will show failed cards again when either:
- the maximum number of failed cards is reached (default 20)
- there are no other cards to show, and the failed card is within the "collapse time" (default 5 hours)
You can configure both values in the deck preferences under the scheduling tab.
Collapse time controls the amount of time Anki should look into the future when you run out of things to do. Currently it only looks for failed cards due soon, and does not show non-failed cards that are due soon. If you set it to zero, Anki will never look into the future.
Managing your deck
How can I set up the username and password in order to sync?
First, visit the Anki website, click "study online", and enter a username and password. Register the user as prompted. Then enter the same username and password in the preferences window.
I made my own model with 3 example fields, but I don't always have 3 examples. Can I conditionally add cards?
There is no need to try and associate various sentences with the 'key' word, since there may be multiple 'key' words in a given sentence. Instead, add each example sentence as a separate fact and use the default model.
Help! I've lost or can't open my deck
If you use Anki's online synchronization features, then there should be a copy on the server. You can access it by going:
Deck -> New -> An existing online deck
If you didn't have an online account, then you still may be able to recover your deck from a local backup taken by Anki. The backups are stored in a hidden '.anki/backups' directory. On Linux, this is in your home directory (~/.anki/backups). On a Mac, you can access this folder by choosing "open location" in the finder, and typing '~/.anki/backups'. On Windows, you can find the folder in either 'c:\documents and settings\<username>\.anki\backups' or in 'c:\anki' (depending on your Windows installation).
Please note that while Anki takes regular backups, you are encouraged to back up your data yourself.
Using Anki on the move
Can I run Anki from a flashdrive?
Sure. Start Anki with a command-line argument pointing to a directory you want to use for configuration files. It doesn't have to exist.
To do this in windows, copy and paste the entire anki program directory to your flashdrive. Then, right click on "anki.exe" and create a shortcut. Right click on the shortcut to access its properties. Finally, change "target" field from " '\Anki\Anki.exe" to " '\Anki\Anki.exe -c \ankiconfig", apply your changes, and hit ok.
Now you're ready to go, just click on the shortcut that you created.
Contributing
How do I translate Anki's interface?
Download the source from the download page, and then read README.translating
How can I help with documentation?
This page, and the other pages on this wiki are editable by anyone. Please change and add anything you feel is appropriate.
Where can I get the latest development code?
See the download page.
Japanese
Why isn't Anki automatically generating Japanese readings?
If you have a PowerPC Mac, you'll have to build the 'kakasi' program yourself: Download at http://kakasi.namazu.org/stable/kakasi-2.3.4.tar.gz Untar by double-clicking. Read the README and INSTALL files for instructions on how to install.
You will need to use the Terminal (/Applications/Utilities/Terminal.app) to install Kakasi because there is no "easy install" available. If you are not accustomed to using the terminal, it is likely that you will have to first go through the following steps in order to be able to install Kakasi:
0) Read the instructions for installing Macports here: http://www.macports.org/install.php
The most important prerequisite to installing Macports and Kakasi is that you will need to install the Xcode developer tools that were supplied on one of the CDs that came with your computer.
1) From the macports.org home page, follow the link to the downloads section.
2) Download the DMG file corresponding to your version of Mac OS. If the installer program doesn't open automatically, open up the white disk folder which should be on your desktop and double-click the PKG file.
3) Follow the prompts to complete the installation.
4) In your Applications -> Utilities folder, open the Terminal app. A terminal/command prompt will open up. Do not be alarmed.
5) Type "sudo port install kakasi". You will then need to enter the root password. This is probably the same password you use to log on to your computer or install other applications.
6) The packages will be downloaded and installed.
7) You can test the install by opening up another terminal window and typing kakasi. Nothing much will happen, but if you don't get an error message then the program was installed corrected.
Technical questions
What spaced repetition algorithm does Anki use?
The spaced repetition algorithm is based on the Supermemo SM2 algorithm. The key differences are:
- SM2 defines an initial interval of 1 day then 6 days. With Anki, you have the choice of 1, 3-5 and 7-9 days depending on your initial answer. After that, the intervals are increased in largely the same way.
- Anki uses 5 choices for answering, not 6. There are only two 'fail' choices, not 3.
- The new interval is based on the real previous interval (the amount of time it was delayed + the time it took you to answer the card), rather than the prescribed interval. Thus breaks in your study will result in higher intervals upon answering.
- SM2 does not define a specific order to show the cards in. Anki has support for different priorities, and cards of a given priority are shown in order of relative urgency - cards that you're likely to forget are shown first.
- SM2 states that any failure resets the interval to its original state, changing the ease factor. You can do the same thing with Anki by choosing '0', but '1' takes you two steps rather than taking you all the way back to the first review.
- Failed cards are shown again at a preset review period. By default, this is 10 minutes for relatively new cards, and 8 hours (effectively, the next day), for cards which have an interval over 21 days.
- 'Remembered easily' not only increments the ease factor, but adds an extra bonus to the current interval calculation. Thus, answering 'remembered easily' is a little more aggressive than the standard SM2 algorithm.
- Successive failures while cards are 'young' (under 21 days) do not result in further decreases to the card's ease. A common complaint with the standard SM algorithms is that repeated failings of a card cause the card to get stuck in "low interval hell". In Anki, only failures after a successful answer result in a decrease of the ease factor.
- Ease factors start off at 2.5 for the very first new card, but subsequent new cards are based on the average ease factor of the deck.
Anki was originally based on SM5, but Anki's default behaviour of revealing the next interval when answering cards revealed some fundamental problems with the SM5 algorithm - namely that a card answered as 'easy' could be scheduled for a shorter time than a card answered as 'ok'. Thus the SM5 algorithm was abandoned in favour of something simpler.