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Damien Elmes <anki@ichi2.net>
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Anki is a program which makes remembering things easy. Because it is a lot
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more efficient than traditional study methods, you can either greatly decrease your
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time spent studying, or greatly increase the amount you remember in a given
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Anyone who needs to remember things in their daily life can benefit from Anki.
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Since it is content-agnostic and supports images, audio, videos and scientific
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markup (via LaTeX), the possibilities are endless. For example:
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- studying for medical and law exams
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- memorizing people's names and faces
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- brushing up on geography
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- practicing guitar cord recognition
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There are two simple concepts behind Anki: 'active recall testing' and 'spaced
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repetition'. They are not known to most learners, despite having been written
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about in the scientific literature for many years. Understanding how they work
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will make you a more effective learner.
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'Active recall testing' means being asked a question and trying to remember
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the answer. This is in contrast to 'passive' study, where we read, watch or
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listen to something without any output. Studies have shown that active recall
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testing is far more effective at building strong memories than passive study.
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There are two reasons for this:
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- The act of recalling something 'consolidates' the memory, increasing the
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chances we'll be able to remember it again
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- When we're unable to answer a question, it tells us we need to return to
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the material to review or relearn it
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You have probably encountered active recall testing in your school years
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without even realizing it. When good teachers give you a series of questions
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to answer after reading an article, or make you take weekly progress-check
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tests, they are not doing it simply to see if you understood the material or
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not. By testing you, they are increasing the chances you will be able to
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remember the material in the future.
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You don't need to leave it up to teachers, however. Consider a language
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learner who wants to memorize the following Indonesian words:
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Many students will look at each line in turn, concentrating on it for a few
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seconds before moving on. This is passive learning, and so the results will
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not be great. However, if you cover the right-hand side and check if you
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recall each word, you'll find your initial memories are stronger.
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Active recall testing can make for stronger initial memories, but it's only
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part of the solution to learning efficiently.
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The importance of review
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------------------------
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Even with active recall testing, if you wait too long before testing again,
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you'll find you've forgotten most of the material you tried to learn. This can
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be very demotivating, as it can feel like no progress is being made towards
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your goals. In order to avoid this disappointment, it's essential to review
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previously learnt material.
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Despite the importance of review, it is often overlooked by learners. Part of
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the reason for this is that reviewing was traditionally difficult. If you have
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a page with 50 new words on it and you learn them in one day, some words will
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fall from your memory the next day, others a few days after that, and others
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may last a few weeks or more. It is difficult to return to the page and review
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only the words you're about to forget.
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Traditional paper flashcards make it easier to acquire material than a single
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page with a list of words, since you can separate the cards into "known" and
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"not-known" piles. They don't make it very easy to review the material in the
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following weeks, however.
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The 'spacing effect' was reported by a German psychologist in 1885. He
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observed that we tend to remember things more effectively if we spread reviews
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out over time, instead of studying multiple times in one session. Since the
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1930s there have been a number of proposals for utilizing the spacing effect
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to improve learning, in what come to be called 'spaced repetition'.
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One example is in 1972, when a German scientist called Sebastian Leitner
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popularized a method of spaced repetition with paper flashcards. By separating
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the paper cards up into a series of boxes, and moving the cards to a different
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box on each successful or unsuccessful review, it was possible to see at a
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glance a rough estimate of how well a card was known and when it should be
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reviewed again. This was a great improvement over a single box of cards, and
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it has been widely adopted by computerized flashcard software. It is a rather
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rough approach however, as it can't give you an exact date on which you should
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review something again, and it doesn't cope very well with material of varying
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The biggest developments in the last 30 years have come from the authors of
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SuperMemo, a commercial flashcard program that implements spaced repetition.
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SuperMemo pioneered the concept of a system that keeps track of the ideal time
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to review material and optimizes itself based on the performance of
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In SuperMemo's spaced repetition system, every time you answer a question, you
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tell the program how well you were able to remember it - whether you forgot
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completely, made a small mistake, remembered with trouble, remembered
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easily, etc. The program uses this feedback to decide when to show you the
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question again. Assuming you don't forget a given question, the delay between
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reviews gets bigger and bigger - so you may see a question for the first time,
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then 3 days later, 15 days later, 45 days later, and so on. Because each
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successive repetition results in a higher interval, the number of reviews
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necessary on a given day is quite small, so this method can scale to hundreds
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of thousands of cards entered in over a decade or more. And because the next
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interval is adjusted depending on your previous performance for a given
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question, it ensures you do the absolute minimum number of reviews necessary
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to continue to remember the material.
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While there is no denying the huge impact SuperMemo has had on the field, it
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is not without its problems. The program is often criticized for being buggy
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and difficult to navigate. It only runs on Windows computers. It's proprietary
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software, meaning end-users can't extend it or access the raw data. And while
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very old versions are made available for free, they suffer from a number of
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Anki addresses these issues. You are not forced to pay for it, so stuggling
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students and teachers with budgetary constraints are not left out. It's open
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source, with an already flourishing library of plugins contributed by
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end-users. It's multi-platform, running on Windows, Mac OSX, Linux/FreeBSD, and
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some mobile devices. And it's considerably easier to use than SuperMemo.
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Internally, Anki's spaced repetition system is based on an older version of
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the SuperMemo algorithm called SM2. Subsequent versions have managed to
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squeeze out a little more learning efficiency, but they come at the cost of
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greatly increased complexity, and they are more susceptible to scheduling
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errors in real-world use. For a more in-depth discussion of this and the
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differences in scheduling algorithms, see the bottom of
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http://ichi2.net/anki/wiki/FrequentlyAskedQuestions[the Anki FAQ].
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Installing & upgrading
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======================
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- Download the installer from http://ichi2.net/anki/download/index.html[the
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- Double click on it to run it.
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- If you are upgrading, there is no need to uninstall the existing version of
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Anki, but please close your current copy of Anki before trying to install the
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- If you want to run Anki from a USB stick, follow the instructions on
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http://ichi2.net/anki/wiki/FrequentlyAskedQuestions[the Anki FAQ].
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- Download the DMG from http://ichi2.net/anki/download/index.html[the
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- Open it and drag the icon into your Applications folder.
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- If you want to run Anki from a USB stick, simply drag it to the USB stick
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- Follow the same steps to upgrade to the latest version, but make sure
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you've closed any running version of Anki first.
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The currently recommend method is to install Anki from source, or use the deb
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on http://ichi2.net/anki/download/index.html[the download page] if you are a
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Debian/Ubuntu user. You may find a version of Anki is included with your
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distribution, but at the time of writing a number of distros include a very
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old version of Anki that has a number of known bugs.
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To install Anki from source, download the tarball from
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http://ichi2.net/anki/download/index.html[the download page], extract it, and
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read the README file.
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Anki is basically a intelligent flashcard program. First, you add a series of
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questions and answer pairs (called 'cards'). These cards are stored in a file
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called a 'deck' (as in "deck of cards"). You can add cards by typing them in
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yourself, importing them from a text file, or you can use a deck someone else
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has shared. Once you have a deck with some cards in it, you can start
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reviewing and improving your memory.
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[[creating-own-deck]]
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Creating your own deck
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----------------------
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The most effective way to use Anki is to create your own deck, by typing in
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questions and answers yourself. For example, you hear a new word on TV and
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decide you want to memorize it? Jot it down and add it to Anki when you have a
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chance. You learnt the chemical formula for Sodium Hydroxide in your text book
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and don't want to forget it? Type it into Anki. When Anki later shows you the
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idea again, you will probably remember the context you learnt it in, leading
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to a stronger memory.
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*To create your own deck*:
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*To add a new card to your deck*:
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1. Click image:images/list-add.png[] on the toolbar.
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2. Enter the question on the 'Front' area and the answer on the 'Back'.
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3. Click 'Add', or press Ctrl+Enter (Command+Enter on a Mac).
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You'll see a screen like the following:
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image:images/addcards.png[]
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'Front', 'Back' and 'Add' are the important elements for now - the rest we'll
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return to later. Front is a required field, so it is marked yellow until you
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input something. The back can be left blank, so it is not drawn in yellow.
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Turning a given idea into a question and answer pair is simple once you know
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For general knowledge
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~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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Imagine you've just heard the following sentence:
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Canberra was founded in 1913.
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The easiest way to test this is to make a 'cloze deletion'.
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1. Type the above sentence into the 'Front'.
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3. Click the >> button to reveal more options.
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4. Click the [...] button.
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As an alternative to steps 3 & 4, you can just press F9.
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image:images/cloze2.png[]
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Imagine you're learning learning German and you hear the word 'bitte', meaning
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"please". There are a number of ways to add this to Anki.
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*As a word recognition card*:
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Put 'bitte' on the front of the card, and 'please' on the back. When this card
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appears later, you'll need to read the German word and decide if you knew the
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meaning or not. Recognition cards are easy to answer and will ensure you can
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recognize the word when it pops up in the future.
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*As a word recall card*:
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Put 'please' on the front of the card, and 'bitte' on the back. When this card
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appears later, you'll need to think of how to say please in German. Recall
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cards are more difficult to answer, but will ensure you can produce the given
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word yourself, rather than just recognize it. They are best used in the early
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stages of learning, to reinforce basic grammar and core vocabularly. As your
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knowledge of the language grows, recall cards become less practical, as
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synonyms complicate matters.
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*As a sentence recognition card*:
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You can also add the full sentence you encountered to the front of the card,
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optionally underlining the new word. On the back you can place a translation
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of the full sentence, or just the target word. Adding the full sentence takes
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more time, but means you're exposed to the word in actual use.
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*As a sentence recall card*:
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Sentence recall cards should be limited to core grammar or essential
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phrases, as they are very difficult to answer correctly.
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*As a combination of the above*:
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It's possible to add more than one card at once by clicking on the button at
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the top right of the 'Add Items' screen. This can be useful if you're learning a
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language where reading a word is non-trivial, and you want to practice both
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reading and producing the word.
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If you want to input audio, pictures, movies or scientific markup, please see
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the dedicated section below about adding content.
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Using a shared deck saves you from having to type in information yourself.
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This is more convenient, but is not always the optimal way to learn. Consider
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the user in <<creating-own-deck>> who enters new words they hear on TV. To
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them, simply looking at the word should be enough to remember the context it
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was used in and the meaning, naunce, etc. But to a different person using this
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shared deck, it is just a single word with no context or personal
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That is not to say shared decks are useless. Shared decks that are used in
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conjunction with third party material such as a textbook can be quite useful.
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If you and the original sharer are studying the same textbook, then you both
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has the same exposure to the original idea in context.
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Shared decks that include some context on the cards (such as full sentences)
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can also be quite useful.
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To browse shared decks:
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1. Click File->Download->Shared Deck.
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2. Type in a string to search for, or scroll through the list.
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3. Select a deck you're interested in, and click OK. The deck will be
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downloaded and will open up.
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When you have found a deck you like or entered some cards in, it's time to
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start reviewing. If the 'Add Items' screen is still open, close it by clicking
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on close or pressing Esc. You should see a screen entitled 'Study Options':
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image:images/studyoptions-basic.png[]
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In the above example, it says there are 6 new cards today, and 6 new cards
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total. If you've downloaded a shared deck, there will probably be more than 20
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new cards, but Anki will only show you 20 per day by default. You can adjust
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this number by changing 'new cards per day', but be wary of setting it too
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high or you'll have many reviews to do over the next few days.
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When you're ready, click 'Start Reviewing'. You'll then see a screen like
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image:images/review1.png[]
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Here you need to look at the question and think about the answer. It can help
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to say the answer out loud, but that is not necessary. It's ok if it takes you
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a little while to recall the answer, but as a general rule if you can't answer
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within 10 seconds, you should give up.
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When you're ready, click 'Show Answer' or press the spacebar. You'll see
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something like the following:
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image:images/review2.png[]
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Now you need to decide how well you remembered. Anki gives you four options.
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Adding material via anki
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========================
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- all buttons / shortcuts
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- adding text to every card
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Reviewing / main window
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=======================
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- what you see on the main screen
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- what buttons to press (see next section)
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Importing & Exporting data
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==========================
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text files, mnemosyne, etc
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- japanese/chinese/german etc
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Sharing decks/plugins
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=====================
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Running from a usb driver
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=========================
added
removed
docs/manual.txt
