Farewell, SuperMemo; Hello, Anki.

I use Anki for my Japanese vocabulary and it works great since it automatically changes the kanji to hiragana for the reading field. For Pali, I’ve been using Mnemosyne and I like it a lot better. Anki does have good analysis tools though with all their graphs.

@Thomas: I tried Mnemosyne, and I liked it well enough, except for the fact that in its current incarnation, there’s no easy way to format your cards. I like to highlight what it is in a card that I’m wanting to remember, and for that, I like to use bold / underline formatting. Mnemosyne supports HTML formatting (as I understand it), but typing in HTML code by hand for every card? Not going to happen.

Other than that, it seemed a fine program.

You mentioning Pali lead me to poking around some more on your site. Do I gather correctly from the About page that you’re Buddhist? Or are you simply interested in it in a non-religious sort of way?

I’m Buddhist, which is what draws me to asking.

Good point on the formatting. I didn’t use that feature too often, so that could be why I don’t mind its absence in Mnemosyne. Anki is a great program, but it started to annoy me when my card list got really big (1300 sentences). My wife and I had a baby and I had to miss a bunch of days and I came back to Anki and it said I had 1000 cards due that day. Mnemosyne is a little nicer when it comes to missed days. Still, I am in no way discouraging the use of Anki. It’s awesome.

And yes, I’m Buddhist

My first spaced repetition software was Supermemo, and I felt a lot the same way that you did, Josh — pretty powerful software, but a hopelessly inept implementation. If they’d license out the engine to competent interface designers there’d be no stopping it.

I’ve been using iFlash on my Mac for a while, and I like it a lot, though the lack of a true per-card spacing algorithm is annoying (the cards tend to stay together in packs based on when they were entered), but the seamless integration of images and audio is really nice.

I’ve played around with Anki but I wasn’t grabbed by it. I think its still installed… maybe I should give it another shot.

Thomas: Yeah, I really rely on formatting to make certain aspects of sentences stick out. Without easy formatting in a flashcard program, I basically won’t touch it.

To be fair, when I used SuperMemo, it was equally brutal when it came to missed days. How does Mnemosyne handle missed days?

Hitsu: Yeah, if they’d let SuperMemo out into the wild, it’d quickly turn into an awesome application. However, I think it’s safe to say that sadly, that won’t be happening.

iFlash isn’t an option for me; I don’t have a Mac. I just checked out the website for it, and it sounds like a pretty nice app. Too bad there isn’t a PC version.

Regarding Anki, after using it for a few weeks, I’m still liking it just fine. It works, and it’s simple - and after using SuperMemo, I prize simplicity in my SRS. The ability to study my cards via the Anki website, with synchronization, has proven to be quite nice.

Greetings,

Would you consider supplying me with your Anki German deck? I’m going to start my own, of course, however, it may be useful to see how another organises their own.

Peace and Regards,

Clayton

Clayton: I can give you my deck, but it’s not just German; there are some French and Russian cards mixed in as well. I’m also not sure that my deck is a good example of how to set up things; a lot of my items are sentence items, with no information on the “reverse side.” However, I’ll send it your way.

I’m sure I’ll find it to be of some use, and it can’t hurt to be exposed to other languages, especially those which I’m interested in learning. I had an impression that you used sentence items and that’s what sparked my interest. I’d like to use sentence examples, in conjunction with an individual translation of single words on the other side, perhaps.

claytanic@gmail.com

Thanks

Hi Josh,

Do you know if it’s possible to import SuperMemo collections to Anki? That’s what generally keeps me from switching. My collections are too vast!

I am really enjoying your blog.

Katie

By chance does anyone know of a spaced interval flashcard program “for dummies”. As a complete computer illiterate I’m way over my head trying to integrate anki into my english curriculum for Chinese students. Most of my decks have cards that simply never show up….whats with that?
And is their a audio tutorial? Sorry if this sounds so lame.

I have used Supermemo for Palm OS (PDA) for several years. It is super simple, just the opposite from the desktop version. You would love it. Only bad thing is that it doesn’t support images.

Josh, thank you for posting this.

I found your site on Google while looking for information about using SuperMemo to learn German, and boy am I glad I did.

Thanks - you’ve made a subscriber out of me!

~James

I just started today with Mnemosyne, and I absolutely love it. If you haven’t already, check out the WIRED article that explains how they made the algorithm for these programs. Really neat stuff.

In the past couple hours, I have made 228 cards myself in the past 3 hours in the categories of:
periodic table
elementary particles, and
greek alphabet

this summer is going to be REALLY fun in terms of memorization/ learning

I saw the Wired article on Supermemo, and downloaded the Win98 and 2004 versions of it to try. Since the 2006 version was only $45, I said “what the heck,” and was all set to buy it, and pay through PayPal. The guy in Poland insisted on getting a shipping address and phone number, for software that I’m going to be downloading, so I ended up not buying it. I did buy the “Perl” collection for $2, and went through it one time with the 2004 demo. I decided to manually transfer the questions/answers from the 2004 demo to the free ‘98 version, and got through about 3 questions and answers before I was googling “supermemo alternatives,” and here I am.

Honestly, it would be hard for me to imagine a more brain-dead user interface. I’m not trying to do anything fancy, just enter a plain-text question and answer pair. The problem comes in when I want to increase the font size. I can increase the font size of the question with no problem, but when I attempt to increase the font size of the answer, it pops up a “registry reference” window, asks me to confirm a “unique item name,” and delete an “unused member” from the font registry, then doesn’t change the font size of the text I’ve highlighted. If that’s anyone’s idea of useful software, I’d be very surprised. I’d also be surprised if the guy who wrote and released something like that could write something that would be useful on balance, so rather than invest a lot of time twisting myself into pretzels to master its interface, I’m packing it in.

Many years ago, when I was learning Japanese with physical flash cards, I practiced a form of “spaced repetition” myself. If I knew the answer easily, the card went to the back of the stack. If I didn’t know it, or struggled to recall it, the card went somewhere in the middle (closer to the front for those I didn’t know at all, closer to the back for those I knew somewhat).

Sorry to ramble. Anyway, I’m off to check out Mnemosyne and Anki. Thanks to Wired for getting me moving on using a computerized flashcard system (I definitely need one), and to this blog for nudging me toward something that will, I’m confident, be both useful and usable.

I’ve been playing with Mnemosyne today, and it’s much easier to use, while still doing everything I want it to do. I’ve only created about 30 cards, based on the Perl stack I got for SM, but changing the font was straightforward and worked the first time. The only problem I’ve run into is that some of the regular expressions I entered with “” pairs in them didn’t display correctly, because they were being “interpreted” as HTML tags. Using “<” and “>” instead took care of that problem, but I guess people who balk at HTML formatting will still prefer Anki to Mnemosyne. I haven’t tried Anki yet, because the website seems to be pushing the PalmPilot version now, and I didn’t spend any time looking for the desktop version. I’ll probably check it out before I’ve entered 100 cards in MS though, because I have a feeling that the HTML formatting will make translating from one system to the other problematic, even though I’ve read it shouldn’t be.

Anyway, thanks again to those who have developed and publicized these systems. They’re very useful, some moreso than others.

Ha ha, the blog has the same problem with the less than/greater than pairs. I trust the original entries are still clear from the context…

One final note, I downloaded and began using Anki this evening, and I think it’s going to be my software of choice for the time being too. It doesn’t have the “angle brackets” problem, and it does have a couple of other useful features which I don’t see in Mnemosyne. This is the application I wish I had back when I was attempting to learn Japanese. I kind of feel sorry for anyone who is introduced to Super “pain is good” Memo via the same Wired article I read without learning that there are much better alternatives available.

Thousands of submenus but thousands of options.

While in SuperMemo try File > Level > Basic or Middle, for a better GUI.
There is no point in using Advanced level if you are starting with it.

I tried Mnemosyne, too simplistic for me. But yes, it’s a good software.

It all depends on what for features do you want, and how much you care about the scheduling algorithm. For most people really any simple flashcard software will do.

I’m on Supermemo and Fullrecall myself, running both alongside. Just that I like both (despite of any shortcomings) and can’t part with any.

Looks like I’m one of many. Read the Wired article and thought wouldn’t this be a great way to study my Chinese characters.

Thing is, I created an Access Database years ago that essentially does the same thing. Actually it was more like what David describes above with Physical cards. If I got a character right I sent it up a level, wrong down a level. Every time I started over I’d be shown the ones I missed first.

But SuperMemo seemed like one step beyond with it’s clever spacing algorithm. But like the others here I got really frustrated with the interface and the absurd templates. Took me about two days to figure out how to import my 1500 Chinese cards from Access to Supermemo via Excel (and some quickly learned Visual Basic). But once they were in I was driven crazy by what should have been the simple task of changing the font size. Now, undertaking the next task of adding a third component for pinyin scares the hell out of me!

So I’m off to check out these other options you people have mentioned. Do any of these software come with the option of the questions popping up on the day they’re due without having to go into the program? One of the issues I’ve always had with my database was that it was easy too easy to forget about or ignore. Wouldn’t it be nice to have questions pop up at random intervals throughout the day. OK, of course, sometimes that could be annoying, but that could be alleviated with a Do not disturb button or something.

I’m a very happy user of Anki too. It’s updated very often, so users who abandoned it a while ago should really check it out again.

My first exposure to a SRS learning program was Pauker, which is really a pretty decent system, although unforgiving if you make a minor mistake (card goes back to unlearned pile).
Then I used Mnemosyne for a while until I got a Mac and the source (well, pyqt iiirc) wouldn’t compile on Leopard, so I moved to Anki which was very nice, if ridiculously large for some reason at over 100 megs. I just checked out the sync functionality after reading your post and am really impressed! I had been emailing myself exported decks, but this is much better!

I’ve downloaded and started using Anki, and indeed it is excellent. Within 10 minutes I was able to take the Chinese from my database, import it into Anki, and start using it. And that includes the time it took to look up and read the directions.

Even better, you can actually choose a setup for Mandarin, so that when you paste in the characters it fills in the pinyin (romanization) for you. It uses numbers for the tones instead of diacriticals, which isn’t my preferred method, but still…wow! One issue I’ve noticed, when I do paste in the real pinyin, letters with third tones get corrupted.

The synching feature is awesome!I’ve already synched home and work. I was wondering if you can synch different decks with separate accounts. I teach a boy Chinese on the weekends and I’d like to create a separate deck for him which I can synch from my computer to his.

I tried the “RLC Blitzer Plugin” and there are some nice choices, including the option to mix in more new cards with your failed cards. The icon in the tray doesn’t seem to quite do what I had hoped. It just tells you there’s a question being displayed when you mouse-over, but at least it allows you to leave Anki on without ti getting in the way.

I just now discovered something interesting. Anki doesn’t display my Chinese correctly when my operating language is set to Hebrew. I work in translations and needed to work with some Hebrew text. Funny, it worked when I was in Serbian. Anyway, Hebrew speakers studying Chinese, be warned!

(Just occurred to me, the issue I had with the 3rd tone happened when I was in Serbian. I better switch my OS back to Chinese before making assumptions.)

Update: The Serbian was to blame! Now that I’ve assigned Windows to Chinese I can paste in words with 3rd tones. The font looks a little funky but it’s fine.

The good thing about SuperMemo is that it’s a complete knowledge manager - you don’t just add the Q/A-pairs, but everything you want to know and can proceed it later (scheduled). Did you check out incremental reading?

If you like an easy flashcard software, try FullRecall (fullrecall.com).

With SuperMemo, you can export selected items or the ones that are due today to a PPC version of it. FullRecall even saves your whole knowledge database as an XML file which you can transfer to your PPC and proceed with learning on the PPC version …

I think I’ve tried every flashcard software on the market over the last six years - I’m always coming back to SuperMemo because I miss some features in the new software. If you use it in a simple mode, SM looks like this: http://supermemo.com/images/abc.jpg - but you can do so much more with it: http://www.supermemo.com/images/tree.jpg

Hm, I should get paid for this …

I use Supermemo 2006. I have yet to fully understand all of its features and I’m pondering if I ever will put in the effort.

I know Anki uses the SM2 algorithm or something along those lines but is it as up to date with the SM2006 one? If so I may switch to Anki because I’m finding a few bugs here and there that are rather annoying. I always remain in fear I’m going to mess up my collection because I don’t fully understand all the options within options.

So, is there a difference in the algorithms?

-Cheers.

Ek01, check out this explanation of the algorithm from the Anki FAQ

http://ichi2.net/anki/wiki/FrequentlyAskedQuestions#head-400e02a93844d826a8e09e3aca983f82854026bd

Hope it helps.

Joe

Thanks Joe, that definitely answered my inquiries.

Hi from Germany!
I’ve been using Anki for learning Japanese Kanji. Now I am looking for a Spanish deck for Anki. Does anybody know where I can get one from? Or do you know anyone who has started one? I don’t really want to start off scratch… Thanks for helping =)