Using my Anki flashcards

It’s possible to use these cards as a one-off revision tool or even with a group in a class to refresh a topic. However, you’ll get the most benefit from them if you use them systematically over a length of time. Here’s some advice to help get the maximum benefit from them.

Use Anki regularly. Anki works on the simple principle that if you repeat something many times, with repetitions spread out over a period, you’ll remember it. Consequently, using Anki for 10 minutes a day is better than using it for an hour once a week. I recommend adjusting the settings so that 10-20 new cards are viewed every day.

Be patient. One of the reasons using Anki has improved my confidence learning Russian is the knowledge that if I don’t remember something today, I’ll get another chance tomorrow. All the material is repeated for as long as it takes to remember it. I’ve tried to make my cards as attractive and interesting as possible to make this process of repetition enjoyable, but most people get frustrated by being asked the same question again and again. Students should learn to smile and keep going.

Be attentive. Each Anki card focuses on a particular word or phrase. But I’ve included lots of other useful information on each card to increase the efficiency of learning. While learning one thing, the student can pick up a few others. Continual exposure to correct structures, common collocations, the written forms of words and natural intonation with gently improve the student’s knowledge of these things.

Don’t translate! One of the reasons many language students speak slowly and hesitantly is that they try to translate every word. Learning to be fluent in a language means that you should ‘let go’, understand words directly and focus on the whole phrase instead of the individual words. Although I have put some translations in for cards of a lower level to help learners check their understanding, I’ve tried to design these Anki cards in a way that encourages students to leave out translations and think in English. Students can help themselves by focusing on the pictures, the contexts, the meaning and forgetting the question ‘what’s the word for this in my language?’.

Speak out loud. One of Anki’s big advantages is that it provides a learning tool where the spoken and written words are presented together. This should minimise mispronounced words and unnatural intonation and mean there’s no need to waste time on phonetic alphabets. To get maximum benefit from this it’s good to speak out loud when using Anki. Repeat the target word or phrase or, in cases where part of the sentence is highlighted in bold, read the bold part and see how it compares to the recording. Of course, if you’re using Anki on a smartphone on the bus, you may feel embarrassed to do this, but in this case you can at least imagine yourself speaking the phrase out loud.

Don’t try too hard! Children manage to pick up a lot of words and phrases just by hearing them a lot of times. Although things like mnemonics, associations and other memory techniques can sometimes help, most words and phrases can be remembered just through simple repetition. Memorising information isn’t a highly intellectual process, it’s actually closer to training feelings. Trying hard to remember words and phrase is actually an unnecessary waste of energy. Just relax and enjoy the process.

Anki isn’t everything. Of course, adult learners aren’t children and don’t learn in exactly the same way. There are times when a couple of words or phrases just keep getting mixed up. Anki actually has a function that suspends ‘leeches’ – cards which the student gets wrong too many times and which waste time. In this case, it’s worth using more traditional learning methods: writing out words and examples, translating, making post-it notes or using memory techniques. However, learning every word or phrase like this is unnecessarily time-consuming.

Don’t worry! You don’t need to know everything. Speaking a language is a matter of understanding most of the words, but not all of them. If a learner uses Anki effectively, they will learn 90-95% of the words and phrases. That’s enough! In any context of language usage (a conversation, reading a book, even taking IELTS), a language user doesn’t need to know every word; a few unknown words can probably be guessed from context. So Anki users shouldn’t worry if they can’t remember all the words and phrases, knowing most of them is enough.