Things to avoid with Anki

There are some common mistakes people make when getting into flash cards and spaced repetition for the first time. Considering that Anki is generally used for years, correcting bad habits ends up paying large dividends.

For those unaware, Anki is a free and open source app that implements Active Recall with Spaced Repetition. If you’re new to Anki, the very first thing I recommend doing is reading the manual, or at least the “Getting Started” section.

So with that said, let’s get into it!

Not syncing all the time

You should always sync after every session, especially if you edit anything.

Did you know y is the sync shortcut?

Studying too many new words

This is a classic mistake. Don’t go over 20 words per day unless you are studying at least 1-2 hours every day. Initially it’s doable but if you miss a day or two, it piles up so fast it’s scary.

If you have less time, I strongly recommend doing 10 or 5 words per day. Some progress is better than no progress due to burnout.

5 words per day, per year	1,825
10 words per day, per year	3,650
20 words per day, per year	7,300

For most, if not all, languages, 3-5k words will let you have basic conversations. Around 8k words is the threshold for more advanced conversations and reading.

Don’t understimate the power of slow and steady practice.

Mixing reviews and new words

This is Anki’s default behavior. I personally recommend against this as sometimes you don’t have the time or energy in a day to sit down and learn the new cards. It’s okay if you don’t learn new words, but missing reviews is really bad.

But you can’t only do the reviews, since they’re mixed in with the new cards! So guess what ends up happening? Both the reviews and new cards get skipped…

By changing Anki preferences to Show new cards after reviews, you can always do reviews without worry. After you wake up, while you commute, et cetera.

Having too many concepts per card

A good anki card should have one concept. Avoid memorizing lists if possible. If you do have to memorize a list, turn it into an enumeration (1. 2. 3…). It’s much better to make split concepts into multiple cards.

When memorizing foreign words it’s really tempting to put every definition into one card. Don’t do this. Putting related definitions together is fine, but if a word has multiple different meanings, it needs different cards.

Note

One exception I make is for words that have a figurative meaning that’s related to the literal meaning. There’s no sense in making a separate card for that.

I see this a lot in premade decks, with 1 card having 4 or 5 totally unrelated usages of a word–and no sentence samples either, of course.

Only using premade decks

If you’re a beginner to studying a language, using a premade deck is fine due to the sheer amount of time it takes to add words to a deck. However the longer you study, the more you need your own personal deck.

If you use someone else’s deck, it’s basically a random collection of words that you lack the context for. For your own personal deck you have to see the word somewhere first, giving you more of a feeling for the context.

If you’re trying to mass-memorize words (say, for a language test), I recommend using Anki’s parent/subdecks feature. That way you can use a premade deck and your personal deck at the same time. Spiffy.

I explain subdecks a bit more in my Better Anki Usage post.

Not making use of reverse cards

If you always have your native language on the front, and target language on the back, then you’re training yourself to think in your language, then recall the equivalent in your target language… If you always have your target language on the front, and your native language on the back, then you’re training recognition more than recall…

I don’t know which way is better. (Please send research if you do know). But I do know that Anki supports automatically making decks with both options!

You can also make automatically make cards that go both ways if you use the Basic (and reversed card) template. So adding a card with [library, la biblioteca] will make another card that’s [la biblioteca, library]. If you only want -some- cards to have a reverse, you can use the provided Basic (optional reversed card) template. This one only makes a reverse if you put something in the Add Reverse field (it can be any input, it doesn’t show anywhere).

See the manual for more information on reverse cards.

Not including sample sentences

A lot of language learning decks just have the word and its translation. For very basic words this can be fine, but for most words you really do need sample sentences so you can see the context as well.

I include 2-3 sample sentences in all the cards I make, as well as notes, common word pairings, and the grammar type.

Pressing ‘easy’ too easily

It’s can be tempting to give a review card the ‘Easy’ grade, quickly giving it large intervals. Don’t do this unless you know the word quite well (in which case, why even have the card at all?). Otherwise the interval will increase rapidly, and you’ll have forgotten it by then.

Actually, due to how Anki works, pressing Easy (or Hard) permanently modifies that card, giving it way longer intervals than what it should be. I go over this in detail in my Better Anki Usage post. Almost all long-term Anki users that I talk to do not press Easy often, or ever.

Not doing Anki daily

If you take away only one tip from this post, let it be this one. Nothing else here matters if you don’t consistently review cards daily.

The entire point of Anki is spaced repetition. Every time you skip a day’s reviews, the following session will become more difficult. For non-mature words (less than 30 day intervals) it’s crucial that you review. If you don’t review for a long time, you will soon have hundreds of reviews stacked up, which is super demotivating.

I used to do Anki before bed, but this sometimes led to me skipping it due to work, friends, or life just taking up more time and energy than expected. Now I consistently do anki either in the morning after I’ve fully woken up, or around lunch.

If you change your study time, make sure to update your Anki Preferences, under Basic > Next day starts at. This tip goes hand in hand with the next one.

Not memorizing keyboard shortcuts

Last but not least, learning a few shortcuts is useful since Anki is used so much.

When reviewing a card:

• ctrl/cmd-z -> undo
• spacebar -> flip the card
• 1,2,3,4 -> the numbers follow the order of the grading buttons. So for a review, which has [Again, Hard, Good, Easy], those are 1,2,3,4 respectively. A new card has [Again, Good, Easy] by default, which are 1, 2, 3.
• e -> edit card

Other shortcuts:

• r -> replay audio
• @ -> suspend a card
• m -> mark a card (adds a marked tag so you can find it easily later)
• ctrl/cmd-1,2,3,4 -> flag a card with red, orange, green, or blue, respectively
• - -> bury a card (hide it until tomorrow)

Window/tool shortcuts:

• y -> sync
• d -> go to decks overview
• b -> browse cards
• a -> add card
• t -> stats
• / -> custom study session
• f -> create filter deck

Overkill, you say? Well.. yeah, probably. Aside from spacebar, 1,2,3,4, r, and y, you don’t really need to know the rest unless you like being super duper efficient.

Conclusion

These are some of the problems I’ve encountered while using Anki. Are there other ones you think I should talk about? Let me know.

If you’re interested in Anki, I recommend reading my companion Better Anki Usage post to fix some of Anki’s wonky defaults and unintuitive behavior.