
Spaced Repetition - tosh
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spaced_repetition
======
a-robinson
With how often I've seen spaced repetition mentioned online recently, I'm
starting to assume there's a grand conspiracy that's trying to use spaced
repetition to trick me into remembering about spaced repetition.

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jsty
[Warning: attempt at taking joke seriously]

Surely if this were so, it would mean you'd see fewer mentions of spaced
repetition over time, rather than more? (assuming your comment implies having
seen more than usual recently)

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asdkhadsj
> [Warning: attempt at taking joke seriously]

As an aside, I love doing this sort of thing. In conversation, someone makes a
joke about X doing something impossible, and then all of us who analyze
everything to death start playing the scenario in our head to understand
ramifications or limitations in the fictional and often impossible scenario.
Drives my wife nuts, but I enjoy it so much :)

~~~
flomble
Sounds like Yes-And
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yes,_and...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yes,_and...)),
accepting the premise and expanding on the joke.

Tell your wife you're using a proven comedic technique.

~~~
hombre_fatal
> Tell your wife you're using a proven comedic technique.

"You see, I'm actually being funny right now. It's comedy, trust me."

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keiferski
I truly believe that spaced repetition is near-magic and it is a tragedy that
it's not integrated into our society and educational system at a fundamental
level. It makes me shudder to think of all the years spent learning things
only to forget them weeks or months later.

In any case, I've recently embarked on a long-term educational plan utilizing
spaced repetition. My goal is to learn dozens of languages, historical events,
philosophical theories, lines of poetry, and various other information.

I'm curious if anyone else has used spaced repetition over a long period of
time with a deliberately ambitious plan. Most people seem to just use it for
dabbling in language-learning or medical school, and not as a way to embed
massive amounts of knowledge in the brain.

~~~
themacguffinman
There isn't much value in memorizing vast amounts of facts like that anymore
(you already mentioned two key areas where that's still needed: language and
medicine). Nowadays it's better to remember where to find facts and learn
quickly than to simply remember facts upfront.

It's fine for you to have a personal goal of using spaced repetition to learn
dozens of languages, historical events, etc, but it's really not a tragedy
that it's not integrated into our society. It's good that we've moved on.

~~~
keiferski
Sorry but I disagree completely. The ability to quickly find information
online doesn’t negate the fact that intellectual progress and creativity often
come from making connections between disparate fields. The only way to make
these deeper connections is to truly know and digest the information, not
simply to google it.

It is probably a consequence of the computer age that we think of information
as a singular piece of data that is either known/nor known, and not as
something that needs to be learned, dwelt upon, and digested over time.

~~~
themacguffinman
Connecting information is orthogonal to remembering it. Same with digesting
information: you don't need to use something like spaced-repetition to commit
knowledge to long term memory in order to digest it, you just need to spend
some time understanding the info. In fact, I'd argue that spaced-repetition
runs somewhat counter to deeply understanding information. It's easy to
repetitively memorize and recall info without actually understanding it.

~~~
sn9
No one's suggesting you memorize information you don't understand....

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jclay
I’ve used Anki pretty consistently throughout my university studies for just
about every course. I plan to continue using it to keep a high level overview
of some of the important maths concepts I want to stay fresh on.

I’ve been enjoying Mochi[0] as an alternative recently. It has a much nicer UI
and the core features I use are all there. I find it much faster to create my
cards in Markdown and with a keyboard driven workflow than what I had with
Anki.

0\. [https://mochi.cards/](https://mochi.cards/)

~~~
nafizh
Is the repetition algorithm superior or inferior than Anki in your experience?

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AlchemistCamp
Anki uses a Super Memo algorithm and Mochi appears to be using a simpler one
that doesn't take card difficulty into account.

I can see how using markdown to create cards would be a big draw, though.

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s9w
I often feel like learning things with Anki puts memories into the wrong part
of the brain. It happens way too often that I can perfectly recall something
from Anki (on a PC or phone), but have a lot of trouble recalling it 'in
action'.

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DeusExMachina
It might be becasue you are just training recognition and not production.

I use Anki to study Russian, with great results, following Gabriel Werner's
Fluent Forever.

In the book, he teaches how to learn the words and the grammar of a language
using Anki. One of the fundamental ideas is to both create recognition and
production cards.

The recognition cards are the ones with a word in your target language, of
which you have to remember the meaning. This is what most people use SRSs for.

The production cards instead show you an image, or a sentence with blanks, and
you have to come up with the correct word by yourself.

Before reading the book, I have never seen anyone using the latter, but it
makes sense. You have to train your brain not only to recognize the
information, but also to take it out when needed, and those are two separate
paths.

[Update: fixed the book's author name]

~~~
cpursley
I'm also studying Russian. Are you using the Fluent Forever app along with the
book? How are you storing your anki cards (anki app or something else).

~~~
scottlocklin
What I'd really like isn't "I am studying Y using X" -I'd like "I am fluent to
level Z in Y from using X."

I've used some spaced repetition/Anki stuff to put an initial dent in
Portuguese. Compared to learning French the old fashioned way of practice with
humans and repetition; it's a huge basket of fail for me. Virtually no useful
results. Stopped with Anki, moved to Portugal; zero lessons, but making some
attempts with the locals with a shitty phrasebook and dictionary -I actually
got decent results. Maybe you can call that "spaced repetition." In which case
everything is spaced repetition.

I believe people can remember lots of facts via flashcards, as I've done this
myself in the past. I'm not so sure it works on languages.

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jarboot
Check out gwern's fantastic article about this: [https://www.gwern.net/Spaced-
repetition](https://www.gwern.net/Spaced-repetition)

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trymas
Recommend using Anki for this:
[https://apps.ankiweb.net/](https://apps.ankiweb.net/)

I try to add new words/concepts/things etc. I learn into Anki.

IMO, it greatly helps me with memorising various and more obscure terms, that
I used to always forget.

~~~
mkagenius
Could be difficult to put in lot of latex or even diagrams. We need something
which can auto-generate the notes for us.

~~~
asdkhadsj
I'm actually working on a knowledge base / memory retention application. I'm
not yet sure what I'll do for the "best UX", as I want to avoid UI work _(not
my area)_ , so I expect I'll export to something like Mochi[1] or Anki.

Can you describe your format and processing a bit more? I'd like to have some
understanding for potential future use cases. Eg, what are the sources
(format/etc), and how would you envision them generating the Anki cards from
them? Does your source currently have enough data to generate cards from? Or
would someone need to go through and separate larger documents into Anki
cards?

Appreciate any detail you can give :)

[1]: [https://mochi.cards](https://mochi.cards)

~~~
cmnzs
Not familiar with Mochi, but it looks uncannily like
[https://www.notion.so/product](https://www.notion.so/product)

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sandyarmstrong
A very fun and interactive introduction to spaced repetition by the amazing
Nicky Case: [https://ncase.me/remember/](https://ncase.me/remember/)

~~~
drivers99
Very cool site! I always wondered how you were supposed to schedule Leitner
boxes manually.

Somewhat related, [https://kanji.koohii.com/](https://kanji.koohii.com/) uses
online Leitner boxes to learn how to write all the 2000+ official commonly-
used Kanji in Japanese. But I believe the timing of when the cards come due is
based on when they go into a box + a certain amount of time, instead of
reviewing an entire box in one day (which it can do easily since it's
software). It's nice to see the stacks in each (virtual) box progress over
time.

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ausjke
I wish anki supports better import-from-text-files, i.e. I can write the cards
in a text editor(e.g. vim), then import it to anki easily with syntax
highlighting etc just works, I failed to find one does that, use anki's own
interface to input a large amount of info is difficult for me. it will be nice
if anki has a pre-defined format/template so we can edit(add/delete/change)
the cards using better editors.

~~~
knubie
I'm not sure if this is exactly what you're looking for, but I've been working
on a spaced repetition app[0] recently that supports markdown for cards, as
well as the ability to convert markdown notes into cards.

[0] [https://mochi.cards](https://mochi.cards)

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jacobush
I have noticed in myself, that it helps a lot with things which are conducive
to route learning - that is, it is either something which has no innate
meaning, like a random sequence, or something I understand, such as a table of
values.

But it helps very little (not surprisingly) when I need to learn a concept and
a model. I thought maybe I can learn the model faster, if I have all the terms
and their definitions down - but in fact I found it painful and probably
distracting.

~~~
yjftsjthsd-h
I find it less useful for learning complex things, but more useful for
retaining them. So I learn something, but then I make cards for key points so
that I'll be able to remember the whole thing later. Otherwise I find that
after a while I don't always recall the whole concept.

~~~
asdkhadsj
Yea, in my _(limited)_ experience Spaced Repetition can bring larger items
into memory even if the card itself is not asking a big complex question. I
_think_ if you can phrase a question in such a way that to answer it you need
to draw a larger model in your head you'll gain similar benefits to more
traditional micro-spaced-repetition.

Eg, you could add cards to individually remember family members, or you could
add a card to remember all of the family members of X household. The latter is
more vague but I think still effectively pulls the dependencies _(individual
family members)_ into your mind.

This is speculation, so take it with a grain of salt.

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earllee
I built an app earlier last year to help with spaced repetition on web
content: [https://retaino.com](https://retaino.com)

It's been interesting to see a lot of interested over the past year around the
concept, though it may just be the Badder-Meinhof effect at play (which I'm
now able to recall the name of thanks to Retaino!)

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knownhoot
This is exactly what i've been looking for for a while now. signing up! have
been using readwise for books, but this will be great for things beyond books!
thanks!

~~~
mariushn
Would love to hear your feedback on
[https://booxia.wensia.com](https://booxia.wensia.com) , which handles both
books and web content.

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gringoDan
I've found that one of the best ways to learn is to combine spaced repetition
with shorter, yet higher-frequency study sessions (think two daily 30-minute
blocks, rather than one 1-hour block). This allows you to also take advantage
of the primacy & recency effects.

~~~
mr_crankypants
Wow, that's a lot of flashcard time.

According to Anki, I'm averaging 10 minutes a day on my language vocabulary
deck. It does happen in a series of short, 1-2 minute bursts when I'm sitting
on the toilet or whatever.

To that end, another useful thing I've discovered: Reviewing flashcards (and,
spaced repetition) is _not_ a good way to learn. It's a good way to reinforce
your memory of things you've already learned. The real learning happens when
you make the flashcards. The time spent focused on each concept so that you
can decide how to break it into a series of smaller factoids that are right-
sized for a flashcard, and coming up with whatever mnemonic devices you'll be
using to help you remember this concept, is where the learning happens,
because that whole process involves a fair amount of turning it over in your
head.

Meaning you really shouldn't ever use a pre-made deck. It may not seem like it
at first, but it really is normally more efficient to make your own from
scratch.

~~~
hombre_fatal
> Meaning you really shouldn't ever use a pre-made deck.

Agreed. The process of making your own deck is too important.

Not to mention, I've never found a deck that was more than 25% applicable to
me. Even "advanced" Spanish decks had a bunch of chaff and beginner-content to
wade through. And you start realizing you should've just invested the time
making your own starting one year ago.

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jsdevtom
I built splearn.io to learn faster myself through spaced repetition learning.
Anyone can log in and use it 100% free though. It has offline sync and text to
speech for spelling. It only uses active recall (actually tests you) for
maximum efficiency.

~~~
tashi
It might be helpful to put in some sample questions so people can try it out
without having to enter their own data.

~~~
jsdevtom
Thanks tashi. Great point!

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dang
From a couple months ago:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19827910](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19827910).

Other threads:
[https://hn.algolia.com/?query=Spaced%20Repetition%20comments...](https://hn.algolia.com/?query=Spaced%20Repetition%20comments%3E10&sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=story&storyText=false&prefix=false&page=0)

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morley
I'm not in school and aren't actively trying to learn one particular thing.
But I've always wanted a flashcard phone app where I can browse topics,
install the flashcards, and learn at my leisure. Is there a good product like
that? All the apps I've seen seem to trend towards making your own cards.

~~~
yjftsjthsd-h
While ex. Anki supports community decks (I assume others support such
features, of course), part of the resistance is that making your own cards
significantly contributes to learning; using premade cards is convenient, but
impedes learning them.

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cmlynars
Spaced repetition is essential to learning Chinese characters because the
language doesn't contain an alphabet. Glad to see it getting some love.

I recently created an SRS app specific to learning Chinese vocabulary. You can
check it out at:

[https://www.dailychinese.app](https://www.dailychinese.app)

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kaycebasques
How We Learn [1] has a chapter on this.

[1] [https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/221559/how-we-
learn...](https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/221559/how-we-learn-by-
benedict-carey/9780812984293/)

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erva
I have been patiently waiting on the Soffos[1] product from Fountech to be
released to give it a try. I am assuming that there is a repetition algo in
there as well.

[1] [https://www.fountech.ai/work](https://www.fountech.ai/work)

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nikki93
Been using Chessable (chessable.com) for chess improvement and it really works
wonders. The format is great for chess, especially for learning openings or
for tactical situations where there is a clear best move.

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sausla
Seems like spaced repetition works great for language learning and remembering
new terms. I wonder how it could help to get better as a programmer. Any tips?

~~~
cle
It can absolutely help here! I've been using Anki for about 7 years, and most
of my cards (~9000) are CS-related.

I've found that focusing on the fundamentals helps for me. E.g. most
programming languages have a few fundamental ideas that they're built around--
memorizing those is usually good enough to quickly hop around programming
languages and be productive. Algorithms, operating systems, networks,
compilers, machine learning, math, etc...I grabbed some textbooks for those
and just focused on the first few chapters, which lay out the fundamentals,
and being able to recall and think about those in my head has helped me
immensely.

Trivia is occasionally useful but it's hard to transfer to real life: e.g.
even though I can answer questions about CLI command arguments when studying,
I still have a hard time recalling them when sitting at a computer. Memorizing
_how to find_ the answers I need is way more useful (and a lot of this is
knowing the right terminology and fundamental concepts...which are easier to
recall out-of-context).

I also focus on different formulations of the same concept. Backwards and
forwards retrieval: recognizing the concept from its description, and being
able to describe the concept. I make separate cards for those. I also put
"generative" cards for the same concept, which force me to practice _using_
the concepts, and recognizing when to use them. And also recognizing concepts
from code or other contexts. Usually just having one card for a concept isn't
enough for me, unless it's really simple or is just trivia. For a hard
concept, I might create 5-10 cards to help me practice recalling and using the
concept in different contexts.

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afandian
I was hoping to see one of dang's lists of times over the past we previously
discussed this...

~~~
yorwba
That's what the "past" link below the submission title is for.

~~~
afandian
(it was a lame joke)

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Balgair
Related: Dual-n-back training:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N-back](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N-back)

