#Is it normal to not remember anything?

28 messages · Page 1 of 1 (latest)

bleak wagon
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I just started using Anki to learn Japanese words (specifically the Kalshi 1.5k deck) and it's only been three days but I feel like I'm not studying enough.

Sure, the cards only get moved to tomorrow if I can get them correct multiple times in a row, but by the end there are only three cards left so my brain can forget about all the other ones and only focus on remembering the ones I have left. At that point I feel like I'm cheating, since if one of the old cards came up I probably wouldn't get them.

Then the next day I will only remember like 5% of the cards, instead of the 90% retention I set in FSRS (obviously I'm not going to be at 90% yet, but it still seems weird). I've attached the difficulties of my cards, which seem to be incredibly high.

Should I start doing custom studies to re-learn the cards that I immediately forget after pressing "Good"? I read somewhere that FSRS doesn't work well with custom studies.

I should note that I am not using 'Hard' incorrectly. In fact, I don't use 'Easy' and 'Hard' that much at all, which seems to be what's supposed to happen. However, the information I read says that I should be using 'Good' way more than 'Again', which isn't the case (I've attached my Answer Buttons stats).

Am I doing something wrong? Is this normal? Will it go away at some point? Am I just bad at memorization? I know FSRS is supposed to compensate for different rates of learning.

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flint salmon
# bleak wagon I just started using Anki to learn Japanese words (specifically the Kalshi 1.5k ...

Hey! Don't panic! Japanese is hard, it's expected that you'll struggle in the beginning.

Don't worry about clicking Again a lot, it's important so that Anki will learn from your behaviour. You're only 3 days in so all the cards you've seen so far are still in the learning phase. It's normal for you to fail the cards a lot in the learning phase - after all that's why it's called that.

The 90% retention rate that you set is what Anki wants you to have for when the cards are learned and you are reviewing them. You're not there yet.

How many new cards are you introducing per day? Is it perhaps too high? It may be best to start low and slow and work your way up as you gain more confidence and experience with the cards.

What are your FSRS learning and relearning step(s)? It's recommended to have one short (5-20m) interval. Personally, mine is at 10m.

Just out curiosity, what is your average time per card? There's no right answer, I'm just curious.

I wouldn't worry about it at this stage. It may feel like cheating but I promise it's not. So long as you do your best to remember the card, say by reading it out and reading the meaning a couple of times, you will eventually learn it.

Japanese is a such a foreign language (forgive the pun) that it would surprise me if you were not struggling. Give it a few of weeks and if you are still really struggling then, we can work together to figure out what the issue is.

Perhaps there are ways to improve your study habits but without knowing how you study I can't advise you and to be honest this early it's really not that important.

Also, you don't have to do all your reviews at the same time. So long as you do them all before the new Anki day starts (4am by default), all is well.

Relax, concentrate when you study and trust the algorithm and everything will be fine!

bleak wagon
magic frost
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DR is 90% but super-young (introduced yesterday) cards have a lower DR
That's totally normal! Don't worry too much about trying to match R = DR. The algorithm might predict you getting 80%, but because the minimum interval is 1 day, it shows them to you in 1 day, not like 0.5 days. It might cause your true retention to drop, but don't panic.

custom study
Yeah sure, why not. There are a couple reasons why this might be bad which I will explain, if you understand how to break it, you will understand how to not break it / use it properly.

  1. Clicking the "reschedule cards on change" button. On paper it's good, but the FSRS-6 algorithm is not designed for this. If you do this your interval can blow up like crazy, like 1 day -> 3 day -> 10 day -> 100 day, etc, by just reviewing the same card multiple times in 1 day. Don't click the reschedule cards based on my answers button.
  2. Different answering/studying patterns. FSRS is an algorithm that attempts to predict the future based on your past behaviors. If you change the way you study, the algorithm will take a while to adjust to your new method, but it's normal really. For example, you use custom study for 3 months to review your failed cards before the end of the day. Then, you use Anki for another 3 months without using custom study. Your performance might drop, but it will take a while before the algorithm "notices". (but actually this is fine anyways)

So how to custom study? It depends on what cards you want to catch. You can use different filters, depending on what you want to target.

  • rated:1:1 = Cards failed today
  • introduced:1 rated:1:1 = Cards failed today that were introduced today

The general idea is if you use custom study to add an extra review for the cards you reviewed in the same day, it's fine. However, note this case that might and WILL break Anki:

prop:due=1 : review cards that will be seen tomorrow, today. If you use this, you might as well click the "reschedule cards based on my answer".

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because if you have a card scheduled from last month that FSRS predicts you have a 90% chance of remembering tomorrow, then it might spike up to 99% if you review it today. this will cause FSRS to over-estimate your ability.

Refer to this for searching in Anki to make your custom study: https://docs.ankiweb.net/searching.html#added

Searching - Anki Manual

Anki's user manual. Anki is a flashcard program that makes learning easier.

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For your specific use case, it's probably good to do introduced:1 rated:1:1 like one extra sweep at night before you sleep. You're only reviewing the cards you seen today, which will be ok

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Ah, prop:due=1 is NOT ok, but actually it's ok if you search "rated:1:1 prop:due=1", i.e. cards you failed today that will be shown tomorrow.

In general,

  • don't reschedule cards you've seen today and scheduled today
  • you should reschedule cards that are not due today
  • don't reschedule the same card multiple times
bleak wagon
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because if you have a card scheduled from last month that FSRS predicts you have a 90% chance of remembering tomorrow, then it might spike up to 99% if you review it today. this will cause FSRS to over-estimate your ability.

This makes it sound like reviewing the cards even without rescheduling might be a bad idea. I thought that being ahead of where FSRS thought I was would be good (since right now I'm always behind 😬), but it seems like it tracks me even during custom studies? Should I just study the cards myself outside of Anki so I don't get tracked?

magic frost
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it won't track you during custom study if you tell it not to btw

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maybe you will like the "Advance" cards feature of this add-on

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maybe u can think of it this way: yes, it's good for you, but fsrs will over-estimate you and make the intervals longer and longer

So u might as well tell FSRS when you fail the cards

clear spoke
bleak wagon
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Thank you

bleak wagon
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Maybe a few glimpses from anime but I only started watching that last summer

full jewel
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making anki your first interaction with a word is usually asking for suffering

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anki is better for remembering things you've already been exposed to in other places

clear spoke
# bleak wagon Yes, I haven't been exposed to Japanese until I started

I would strongly recommend you do some formal study of Kanji before just trying to memorize words using them and hoping they stick.

Right now, to your brain, they just look like scribbles. Your brain is a pattern recognition machine, not a scribble recognition machine.

Even though I'm not a huge fan of WaniKani, I think that spending a month doing the free trial before trying to brute force Japanese into your head via Anki will pay massive dividends. It will help train you to break apart and see patterns in Kanji, which will help you remember them.

Honestly, if I were instructing a self studier on how to start Japanese, here would be my points:

  1. Learn Hiragana / Katakana
  2. Do some formal study of Kanji (e.g. WaniKani or RTK) for AT LEAST a couple hundred Kanji.
  3. Work your way through a textbook (e.g. Tae Kim or Genki), using Anki to memorize the words in the textbook and actually grinding out the exercises.

After a few months of that, when you have a sense of how Japanese works and how Kanji works and you know 1000+ curated words, you can start trying to bruteforce words into your head from someone else's Anki deck.

bleak wagon
bleak wagon
clear spoke
bleak wagon
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Thanks for the input

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No wonder it seems so hard

clear spoke
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And just to harp on the textbook point:

In a textbook you'll learn words that are meant to be useful, they'll show up a lot in real life and more importantly for a beginner they'll be used throughout the book again and again.

Going through a book and learning those words and seeing them in context over and over again will give you a very strong understanding of very important words.

The more words you know, the easier it'll be to learn more words. Especially when you know basic things like, "This looks like this so it's an adjective."

So, I know people don't like textbooks, but even only from the point of acquiring vocab as a beginner, it's really the best bang for your buck.

magic frost
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(best part is u can ||pirate|| textbooks)