‘How can I remember all this?’ is a question that everyone asks when learning a language. More than most other subjects, skills or hobbies, learning a language requires remembering a large amount of information: not just words and phrases, but collocations, grammatical forms, appropriate usage, pronunciation, spelling and so on. Furthermore, this information needs to be available at any moment; in the course of a conversation it’s impossible to know exactly what words you’re going to need next.
Using the electronic flashcard programme Anki, I’ve tried to design flashcards which maximise the effectiveness of the powerful system of spaced-repetition which Anki uses. The idea is that using these flashcards will help English language learners increase and strengthen their knowledge, while training them to use that knowledge in a direct and effective way.
My cards work with the software Anki, which can be downloaded for free here: http://www.ankisrs.net/
My decks are no longer available on the Anki website. They can be downloaded from Google Drive here:
I’ve spent a long time making and developing these cards. So if they’re useful for you, please consider making a donation to allow me to continue the project. I hope you enjoy using the cards!
I’d like to thank John Aiton for introducing me to Anki and for his advice on making Anki flashcards. Have a look at John’s excellent resources here: http://aitonenglish.com/
englishwithsage 
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Help! I’m looking on the Ankidroid site and I can’t find your cards…
Hi, my decks are no longer available for download from the Anki website. However, I’ve included a link so that you can download them from my webpage: https://englishwithsage.wordpress.com
Hey, the links to the Russian anki decks seem to be down and the ones on the main page seem to be only english. Is there any possibility of getting the russian anki decks?
Hi Ian, sorry for the delay. I’ve now shared my Russian decks – you can download them from my website.
Hello, are there any advanced decks?
Hi, I’m afraid not. These are the decks that I’ve made so far and I don’t have any plans to make more (unless someone wants to pay me!).
Hello from Australia, Sage!
I’m learning Russian, and I’ve downloaded your Russian cards. Your easiest cards are still a bit advanced for me, though, and I would love to know what your learning strategies were for the beginning and elementary stages of Russian. I’m using Assimil Russian, and making Anki cards based on it, and I find what you say about Anki cards very useful indeed. Where can I find your post ‘Using translation with Anki’, please?
Rgds, Ian Pearson
Hi Ian, I’m glad to hear that you find the cards somewhat useful, although I can understand that my easiest cards are too advanced (I only started making them after a couple of years studying Russian and a moderately intensive pace). I got frustrated making cards just by myself because (1) I wanted to be sure the cards were good quality given the amount of time I spent with them and (2) I wanted audio for the cards. So I paid a Russian friend to help me out. Perhaps you could do the same? It does cost a little, but I figure it turned out cheaper than hiring a private tutor. That said, it’s pretty much unavoidable that you’ll be using mostly translation for the first stage of learning a language, so making your own simple translation cards wouldn’t be a bad move. If you’re aiming to speak Russian (rather than just read it), then I’d encourage you to spend as much time speaking. This could be either reading aloud, repeating phrases, or copying audio files. I found Rosetta Stone quite useful for this when learning French, as they have lots of short phrases with audio (although I don’t rate the pedagogy of that software and the voice recognition element is a gimmick). I haven’t heard of Assimil. I never got round to writing my post about using translation with Anki!