I use it as an accompanying tool in a real language school (learning German).
I started a new Study Set from scratch, and add new words to memorize every lesson.
Liking it so far!
lovestory 2 days ago [-]
This is a few days worth of materials to read. If anyone finds it overwhelming, I recommend you read this comic that teaches you the basics of idea behind spaced repetition https://ncase.me/remember/
2 days ago [-]
vjk800 2 days ago [-]
I've tried spaced repetition systems several times. The problem that I always discover is that I don't really have stuff that's worth memorizing. Things that are actually important I remember without trying and for the rest of the things, doing daily card reviews starts to feel like a pointless chore after a while.
kd5bjo 2 days ago [-]
I use Anki more as a serendipity engine than for memorization: Whenever[1] I have an interesting observation or thought, I'll write a couple of sentences about it and file two copies: One in Obsidian, with links to any adjacent/relevant notes (if any), and another in Anki as a Close deletion.
Anki is set up with a long review cycle (1 day, 1 week, 1 month, then automated) and I sit down to do my reviews about once a week. In that process, I usually end up having new ideas to make notes about based on either the randomized order the notes show up in or spotting a connection between the review note and something I've been working on lately.
[1] In practice, I let many/most of these go unrecorded - I probably average about one new note per day, but in bursts.
frognumber 1 days ago [-]
I'll give a few examples.
* Learning biology, memorize terms like "anabolic reaction" or "reverse transcriptase"
* Learning algebra, memorize major groups like S_n or GL_n
* Learning statistics, memorize the major probability distributions, their means, and standard deviations
* Preparing for math contests, remember things like "Chinese remainder theorem"
That's a tiny part of learning, but it dramatically accelerates the other parts. At that point, when you're working through texts, you'll understand what you're reading without looking things up or thinking about it. And when you're engage in complex problemsolving, you'll have the knowledge ready.
Do this either on or before the first (surface learning) pass, and once they're memorized, use them in more advanced contexts (e.g. reading research papers, teaching, complex problemsolving, etc.).
All this stuff interconnects, and SR gives a fast, cheap way to start building out the simpler parts of the knowledge network.
bizzleDawg 2 days ago [-]
I'm in a similar position of never having found a use where memorising lots of facts would be useful. The main use I keep seeing is vocabulary building when learning a language. I'm sure people are using the system for learning other stuff too though?
Seeing this did make me wonder how I might be able to get better at memorising important parts of iso/iec standards at work, but I can't see how that maps to flashcards
yorwba 2 days ago [-]
In what context do you find yourself wanting to recall a specific part of an iso/iec standard? Distill that context into a short description and put it on the question side of the flashcard. The answer side then has the corresponding information you want to memorize.
But of course it's possible that you almost never need the same information twice, in which case committing it to memory wouldn't be particularly useful.
fauxswede 2 days ago [-]
I have used Anki to memorize cube numbers and roots, recipes, and music theory. If you're interested in other ideas, you can browse public decks here: https://ankiweb.net/shared/decks.
scroogey 1 days ago [-]
Here's Michael Nielsen on using spaced repetition for math:
I've built one for the US Amateur Radio exam pools (which are public) as I'm trying to sit for both my Technician and General in the same volunteer exam session.
Mixing the questions between both pools and studying as a unit I've found has had two great benefits: 1) I'm not focusing on Technician first and then going for General as a "bonus" and 2) it helps me see the connections between the material.
golly_ned 2 days ago [-]
Dropping a product recommendation -- my favorite spaced repetition + notetaking + learning app: https://www.remnote.com/
I'm not affiliated, just a big booster. For those familiar with Anki it follows the same conventions. It has an excellent system for managing cards. Adding cards is as easy as writing a bullet point: [front of card] == [back of card]. They got the ergonomics right and clearly know the space very well; it has the right keyboard accessibility and shortcuts and navigation. It supports the basics you'd expect like cloze deletions (fill-in-the-blank), image occlusion (cover up parts of an image). It manages assets like PDFs and images. It uses FSRS (the best SRS scheduling algorithm atm).
It has the best (optional) AI integration into a product I've seen except for the usual code-generation suspects. I'm learning spanish and can type into a bullet point something like "el vaquero ==< [tab]" and have the translation automatically generated for me into a forward and reverse card. I'm learning math and can cloze-delete parts of latex equations; the AI can very frequently generate excellent and accurate latex equations, which I can make small edits to as I'd like. These kinds of bonuses make taking live flashcard-based notes during my spanish tutoring sessions and math-based parts of classes feasible.
It's less low-level configurable than Anki and more "works out of the box" with a smaller extension system. I've had enough of trying to fiddle with Anki. Overall just excellent -- I'm not affiliated in any way. Development is very fast. Release note videos are incredible, minor updates occur ~weekly. I've run into a few bugs, especially when I was traveling overseas where internet isn't strong, but overall very pleased with it.
theappsecguy 2 days ago [-]
Insanely expensive. 18$ usd per month?? I’m going to guess it’s also an Electron monstrosity
mfranzs 2 days ago [-]
RemNote founder here - the free version has unlimited cards and notes!
You can upgrade to the Pro version for $10/month if you want tables, PDF uploads, and more.
The $18 version is our most expensive plan that includes AI credits as well.
NewsaHackO 2 days ago [-]
It’s amazing how many people try to make an inferior clone of Anki and profit off of it. The only people who ever fall for it are ones with low computer literacy.
velcrovan 1 days ago [-]
What about this is inferior? I'm a software developer (that is to say, not low in computer literacy), and I've bounced off Anki a few times, the UX is terrible. I haven't used RemNote any more than you have, but unlike Anki it seems actually care about reducing UI friction.
collyw 2 days ago [-]
The majority of the population has low computer literacy
toss1 1 days ago [-]
Yup.
As H. L. Mencken observed in 1926 [0]: "Nobody ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the North American public."
Perhaps there should be an event next year to note the centenary of that astute observation, which seems to have aged quite well.
It also appears to require an account even for local-only use. It’s nice to see any kind of local support, but making an account mandatory renders that feature somewhat moot. I understand requiring an account for syncing (Anki does this too), but otherwise there’s not much of a good reason for it.
2 days ago [-]
christiangenco 2 days ago [-]
I'm a big fan of Mochi[1] (also unaffiliated) after getting frustrated with the clunkiness of Anki.
Mochi has great native apps on macOS and iOS (and maybe more?), the cards are formatted in markdown so I can generate them with LLMs with a custom system prompt, and I just found out today they have an API so I might try my hand at getting an LLM to push new cards on its own via. an MCP server.
Mochi is excellent but the apps aren’t native (albeit they are better than many non-native apps)
whereistejas 1 days ago [-]
After using remnote for months, I eventually switched to Mochi (Anki, but prettier). My personal experience was:
- it has a clunky and complicated UI: interactions with blocks/line was clunky on mobile and web.
- The table UI for showing your cards, can also be very limiting.
- Converting blocks to cards by adding `<==>` is an ingenious idea.
- The use of "AI" is really over-rated.
fsargent 2 days ago [-]
Thanks for recommending it! I’ve had the same issues with Anki and am shocked there aren’t more clones considering it’s open source. Excited to try remnote.
_Algernon_ 2 days ago [-]
My astroturfing radar is going into overdrive from this comment chain.
britannio 2 days ago [-]
I used this throughout my computer science degree, and it worked a charm. Now I rely on it as a solid personal knowledgebase.
I'm getting an internal server error on the preview step! But I really like this idea!
pillefitz 5 hours ago [-]
Thanks for letting me know! Haven't used it in a while after losing the initial momentum, day job and all, but will take a look on the weekend and report back in case I can replicate the issue
dmazin 2 days ago [-]
I very highly recommend a blog post by this same author: [How to write good prompts](https://andymatuschak.org/prompts/). This post made spaced repetition click for me.
dpkirchner 1 days ago [-]
One of the barriers to adoption (to my adoption, anyway) not mentioned in the site author's list:
I am one of the least qualified people in the world to write cards for a topic I am learning. I would quite likely create cards that would help me memorize inaccurate information effectively and efficiently. I'd rather not take that risk.
1 days ago [-]
adolph 1 days ago [-]
I typically just copy/paste directly from a sufficiently valid corpus of the domain.
navbaker 1 days ago [-]
Has anybody found a good site with pre-made cards or (ideally) some sort of play-along tracks for memorizing piano chord voicings?
max_ 2 days ago [-]
Is there a good space repetition app on Android that you recommend?
I use a variation of an SRS for storing notes about what I've read (as well as using a regular SRS for regular SRS stuff). I chunk notes I've made from books I've read (things like Psycho-Cybernetics, 7 Habits, Iron John, etc), and review 3-4 a day, and having read them I'll clip anything that's particularly salient into "daily review" and then push back the notes for however many days, weeks, months, I think. This has worked well for me over the last 15 years or so I've been doing it.
Rendered at 22:40:27 GMT+0000 (Coordinated Universal Time) with Vercel.
I use it as an accompanying tool in a real language school (learning German). I started a new Study Set from scratch, and add new words to memorize every lesson. Liking it so far!
Anki is set up with a long review cycle (1 day, 1 week, 1 month, then automated) and I sit down to do my reviews about once a week. In that process, I usually end up having new ideas to make notes about based on either the randomized order the notes show up in or spotting a connection between the review note and something I've been working on lately.
[1] In practice, I let many/most of these go unrecorded - I probably average about one new note per day, but in bursts.
* Learning biology, memorize terms like "anabolic reaction" or "reverse transcriptase"
* Learning algebra, memorize major groups like S_n or GL_n
* Learning statistics, memorize the major probability distributions, their means, and standard deviations
* Preparing for math contests, remember things like "Chinese remainder theorem"
That's a tiny part of learning, but it dramatically accelerates the other parts. At that point, when you're working through texts, you'll understand what you're reading without looking things up or thinking about it. And when you're engage in complex problemsolving, you'll have the knowledge ready.
Do this either on or before the first (surface learning) pass, and once they're memorized, use them in more advanced contexts (e.g. reading research papers, teaching, complex problemsolving, etc.).
All this stuff interconnects, and SR gives a fast, cheap way to start building out the simpler parts of the knowledge network.
Seeing this did make me wonder how I might be able to get better at memorising important parts of iso/iec standards at work, but I can't see how that maps to flashcards
But of course it's possible that you almost never need the same information twice, in which case committing it to memory wouldn't be particularly useful.
https://cognitivemedium.com/srs-mathematics
Mixing the questions between both pools and studying as a unit I've found has had two great benefits: 1) I'm not focusing on Technician first and then going for General as a "bonus" and 2) it helps me see the connections between the material.
I'm not affiliated, just a big booster. For those familiar with Anki it follows the same conventions. It has an excellent system for managing cards. Adding cards is as easy as writing a bullet point: [front of card] == [back of card]. They got the ergonomics right and clearly know the space very well; it has the right keyboard accessibility and shortcuts and navigation. It supports the basics you'd expect like cloze deletions (fill-in-the-blank), image occlusion (cover up parts of an image). It manages assets like PDFs and images. It uses FSRS (the best SRS scheduling algorithm atm).
It has the best (optional) AI integration into a product I've seen except for the usual code-generation suspects. I'm learning spanish and can type into a bullet point something like "el vaquero ==< [tab]" and have the translation automatically generated for me into a forward and reverse card. I'm learning math and can cloze-delete parts of latex equations; the AI can very frequently generate excellent and accurate latex equations, which I can make small edits to as I'd like. These kinds of bonuses make taking live flashcard-based notes during my spanish tutoring sessions and math-based parts of classes feasible.
It's less low-level configurable than Anki and more "works out of the box" with a smaller extension system. I've had enough of trying to fiddle with Anki. Overall just excellent -- I'm not affiliated in any way. Development is very fast. Release note videos are incredible, minor updates occur ~weekly. I've run into a few bugs, especially when I was traveling overseas where internet isn't strong, but overall very pleased with it.
You can upgrade to the Pro version for $10/month if you want tables, PDF uploads, and more.
The $18 version is our most expensive plan that includes AI credits as well.
As H. L. Mencken observed in 1926 [0]: "Nobody ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the North American public."
Perhaps there should be an event next year to note the centenary of that astute observation, which seems to have aged quite well.
[0] https://quoteinvestigator.com/2020/03/01/underestimate/
Mochi has great native apps on macOS and iOS (and maybe more?), the cards are formatted in markdown so I can generate them with LLMs with a custom system prompt, and I just found out today they have an API so I might try my hand at getting an LLM to push new cards on its own via. an MCP server.
1. https://mochi.cards/
- it has a clunky and complicated UI: interactions with blocks/line was clunky on mobile and web.
- The table UI for showing your cards, can also be very limiting.
- Converting blocks to cards by adding `<==>` is an ingenious idea.
- The use of "AI" is really over-rated.
I am one of the least qualified people in the world to write cards for a topic I am learning. I would quite likely create cards that would help me memorize inaccurate information effectively and efficiently. I'd rather not take that risk.
That only does space repetition?
* Open Source
* Cross-platform
* $0 except on iOS
* Popular enough to have a community and ecosystem around it
[1] https://github.com/eyeinsky/org-anki
A lot of it down to the effort this guy has put into making the deck. https://www.asiteaboutnothing.net/w_ultimate_spanish_conjuga...