[siddbudd]

For all you people who have used Anki or other SRS for many years: how do you get over the problem of being bored by it? Or does that not happen to you?

Though I have not used Anki, I used a similar SRS for learning Chinese - the flashcards built in Pleco, but no matter how often I try to use it, I never last longer than 5-10 days, I just get bored by it. Also, no matter how I try to adjust the algo, I have the feeling that I am constantly over- or underwhelmed, no flow for me.

In the meanwhile I love learning, no matter if flashy (e.g. Duolingo) or traditional (from books) or something in between (a class), but I just never got the hang of SRS, though so many people recommend it.

[biophysboy]

I’ve used it for 4 years now to learn Japanese. It might be a simple matter of lowering the max # of review cards or the max # of new cards.

Also, given that you mentioned enjoying duolingo more, there are browser extensions/repos out there to enhance the Anki experience. I have some that help me make cards based on material I’m reading for fun.

I was having the same issue as you, and I had to fix it by making it more engaging and personal. Now all of my words concern material I’m interested in, and have some context.

[TheArcane]

> there are browser extensions/repos out there to enhance the Anki experience

Any specific ones you wanna give a shout out to?

[biophysboy]

I use yomichan and mokuro for my system, which I believe are Japanese focused. But I’m sure there are equivalents for other popular languages

[guytv]

I've noticed that sticking exclusively to words I already know results in boredom, leading me to skip several days. This typically ends with me needing to catch up in a lengthy session (40 minutes to an hour), which seems less effective for memory retention.

Now, I make it a point to introduce new words at least weekly, which maintains my interest and reduces boredom. The challenge of new words, balanced with the familiarity of known ones, creates an engaging experience, much like a well-designed game with a mix of easy and challenging elements. This approach keeps me motivated.

Additionally, actively using the language by conversing with native speakers greatly enhances my motivation. The positive feedback and tangible understanding of its value significantly boost my commitment to learning.

[Version467]

So I have never actually used Anki for languages specifically, but I use it heavily for almost everything I deem important enough that I want to remember.

There are two very common reasons why people lose interest/motivation after trying out Anki. The first one is creating too many cards when you first start out. People get excited by SRS and then start creating cards for a lot of things, especially for stuff they don't actually care to remember. This is understandable, since you can't do SRS when you have nothing to repeat. But that gets overwhelming quickly, because it's hard to be motivated if you don't actually care about the material.

The solution for this is to only create flashcards when an opportunity arises organically. This has the additional benefit of your review sessions being extremely short in the beginning, which makes it easier to establish the habit of reviewing.

The second problem that often leads to people quickly giving up is not knowing what makes a good card. It's actually not as easy as one might think. Especially not when you want to get more out of SRS than just rote memorization of trivia. There's an excellent article from Andy Matuschak on this topic that explains it way better than I ever could https://andymatuschak.org/prompts/

If you specifically want to do language learning, then you might be tempted to download premade decks. This might work a little bit better than for everything that's not languages, but in my experience making a card is at least as important as the repetition itself. It forces you to distill the knowledge down into good cards, which is only possible if you engage with the material and also helps you find gaps in your knowledge. So I'd recommend against it.

Regarding your comment on adjusting the repetition algorithm... don't. It's highly unlikely that you'd be able to improve on the defaults if you don't have a good feel for how slow/fast you forget things. Even then, it's pretty difficult to make good adjustments. It's much more likely that the flow you're missing is just from not doing it long enough.

Hope that helps :)

[jwrallie]

This is quite subjective, but for me being in control of what I learn in SRS means I don't get bored. I am only adding things that I am interested in learning, and if I become bored of something, I just delete it.

It might sound counter-intuitive with the "remember things forever" side of SRS, but it is better to forget boring things than not use SRS at all.

[queuebert]

I love Pleco, especially the OCR, but I had the same experience. Learning from flash cards is boring to me and, no matter how well I drill it, I eventually forget the material. Probably it works better for people who will be using Mandarin/HSK vocabulary in the near future and for a long duration.

[hiAndrewQuinn]

User of Supermemo, then Mnemosyne, then Anki for about 11 years. I use them for all kinds of stuff, language learning (Finnish) being one of them over the last few years.

If I'm bored by it one day, I just don't do it that day. Or week, like this one, where I was too entrancee by playing FTL.

Then I let myself get back into it. It comes and goes in waves. That's fine. The only person keeping score is yourself.