Three things I like about Anki compared to more conventional SRS systems:
Why has nobody posted a link to @hinekidori’s Anki thread yet? This is an outrage. Not only are they beautiful, they have audio, pretty pictures, lots of kana and so much vocab that I don’t know where to start.
The Wanikani to Anki Exporter also makes pretty cards for WaniKani content only.
Finally, @DiMono shared a very attractive Anki deck for revising Grammar.
My own cards, based on the Anki default don’t look as nice as these. All my decks are now based on the above templates. I can’t compare these with Quizlet and Memrise because I don’t use them.
Jus want to mention one more feature I regularly use: it is very easy to add furigana in Anki.
Anki is the reason why I don’t use TextFugu. When I tried the first season and it said that it uses Anki a lot, I immediately gave up on TextFugu.
Also, I use WaniKani exactly because it’s not Anki.
Personally I think the best feature is the ability to find decks for most of the popular learning resources. Without them, I wouldn’t know most of the words I know. It comes down to personal preference, but personally I love the ability to get though hundreds of words in a week.
Again, I think the best analogy is:
Memrise = Apple
Anki = Linux
If you just want a clean interface, that’s fine, but for power users that love the ability to precisely tailor their learning, Anki is the way to go.
They are little different and serve different uses. Memrise is maybe better for learning new things and Anki for reviewing fast.
I liked memrise first way more. Anki looked like crap. To review kanji it is way faster. I don’t know about mobile version but endless typing in memrise is too much after while and web version has time limit for answers. I didn’t really understand what audio issue means. Both programs have decks with and without audio and quality varies. Now i prefer Anki.
Memrise satisfies me for non WK vocab and clozemaster is fine for sentence context. I’ve used anki before with some of the nicer premade formats and decks, but overall, the extra work for it, somewhat lower QoL with interface and notifications, and the fact that it doesn’t offer enough benefit for the extra trouble mean that it’s not worth using anymore for me.
There are plenty of good memrise decks out there, and I have my own deck that I periodically add random words to. And Clozemaster feels decent for sentences.
There is an extension to disable the timer.
I used Anki a few years ago, spent a lot of time adding things like voice and pics, making them look nice, and yes it is extremely customizable. But it was too much work for me, and I found I put off my language studies because of all the time I spent on Anki. So Anki stalled my studies, but that is a personal thing, haha.
I enjoy WaniKani and iKnow and Memrise, the entire interface experience is polished and smooth for these sites. I like how they show my progress. I love motivational tools like Study Streaks, they make me want to use it even for a little bit a day. I love community - like WaniKani forums or even adding friends and getting community input on mnemonics. Things like that make these feel exciting and vibrant for me.
I’d rather spend my time learning than perfecting an Anki deck. And I need something to not put me to sleep. I don’t mind paying a bit more for things that I will enjoy using.
Having said all I did in my previous post, this deck is pretty awesome. Although I’m looking for other things that I mentioned in my previous post, this does alleviate the work in making a deck all by yourself and looks and performs fantastic!
Definitely not user friendly, but I love Anki. I remember spending 4 hours reading a long-ass instructional pdf before finally understanding how to use it xD
Hello! I really like anki,but it is quite complicated to fiqure out. I worked Really hard and I set a font that I really like and added audio,too! It really helps me keep up with Genki 1 & 2 vocalbuary.
Anki is pretty awesome, I used it for a year in college to memorize textbook vocabulary, but I prefer using a paid service like iKnow because I’m just too lazy and busy to make my own cards to my satisfaction, and I simply don’t trust myself to be honest when doing reviews. But I definitely don’t think Anki is overrated; it’s free, customizable, you can share the decks, etc. It deserves all the love and recommendations it gets.
My opinion - Anki is one of the greatest pieces of software ever produced. My entire degree relies on Anki. Sure, Memrise is flashier, but Anki is more powerful, more flexible, and faster. If you only use flashcards for a few minutes a day and you’re not too bothered about streamlining your workflow and customisability then I’d agree, Memrise is probably fine. But I use Anki for around an hour a day and it’s what I base my revision around, both for Japanese and my degree. There’s no other software that could do the job as well as Anki.
It does take time and understanding for the initial setup.
But once it is setup, you can import 100’s of items in a matter of seconds and they are instantly ready to go. It is very optimal for me to get the vocab words I have taken down into an srs system.
Overrated? I would easily pay $1,000 for Anki if that was the only way to keep it.
I’ve been using Anki for nearly ten years now, it’s helped me immensely both professionally and personally. There were a couple years while I was working on my masters that I didn’t really use it much because the stuff I was working on didn’t really require rote memorization, but after that I got back into Anki for studying. I review mainly Japanese, but also professional material, math and random other phrases in languages for places I will visit again.
4,262 mature cards, 82.74% recall over the course of 125,753 reviews. My goal for the next year is to do 100,000 reviews between Anki and Wanikani and to get as far as I can.
It’s more powerful than most flashcard programs, but most people don’t need a crazy powerful program for their flashcard uses. And if they just want to jump in and make simple flashcards without any hassle, there are much better options. If you’re one of the people that makes Anki decks that mimic the UI of WaniKani, with animations and whatnot, obviously you don’t have many choices outside of Anki. For everything else, there’s easier-to-work-with options.
I am the type that doesn’t need that UI… but I want:
Only if there is a more bug-free program…
I’ve tried Anki and found it difficult to get into, but surely it works for others. I’m just terrible at managing my own SRS routines, and my wants for flashcards and reminders are so relatively simple that Anki seemed like somewhat high overhead in terms of setup.
For people who are better at managing self-guided study routines or enjoy the customization and options, I’m sure it’s great.
But I’m personally happy to pay for a service like Wanikani that takes most of the management out of my hands.
Basically, if you can write HTML via coding, then Anki is for you.