Why I Don't Use Anki to Learn Vocabulary (And Why You Shouldn't Either)

[@LucaLampariello]

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[@jonallen7619]

@@WWHFPSFLUENCY lol i bet you arent even fluent in ONE foreign language.

[@norabalogh5910]

I disagree with you and agree with Luca. In addition to being the most disconnected from reality and boring language-learning activity one can engage in, spaced repetition/flashcard learning of vocabulary results in a superficial, poor-quality kind of “learning”. What I mean is that outside of the flashcard context, one will have much greater difficulty finding and using the word or expression than if one had learned it in a more holistic way. Creating and practicing flashcards can feel reassuring because it gives the illusion of having an organized way of “catching” those thousands of slippery eels of unknown words and expressions in a new language, but one is far better off if one resists the temptation and boring waste of time. As Luca says, there are far better ways that are more fun, more natural and require far less time-wasting “overhead”!!!!

[@Sherman350]

Luca - you are pronouncing the english words "software program" wrong at 7:53 in this video... you say "as a softer program" ... the word is "soft-ware" ... grazie per i video !

[@vaxrvaxr]

I have been using Anki for the last 10 years, and I'm glad I did. All of your criticisms are valid in my experience, but none of them are game breakers. It is important to understand Anki as one tool in the toolbox, with certain strengths and limits just like any other. Your bidirectional translation method seems solid, but I'm sure it comes with its own pros and cons.

[@seriekekomo]

True that

[@Idiomas-gz1ce]

My native language is Spanish. Anki is great for passive vocabulary. With reading and videos, you can turn it into active vocabulary. Anki is wonderful, people criticize it because they took cards from others instead of the ones they needed or added unnecessary words. You should study a maximum of 20 useful words per day, and your learning will at least triple just by dedicating 20-30 minutes to Anki

[@seriekekomo]

@@Idiomas-gz1ce True that also... most criticism toward Anki comes from people who don't know how to use Anki properly or simply find it boring.

[@MaxEnglishCoach]

I'm all in for HACKING your memory retention in an "artificial way" (as with Anki). However, counteracting the "forgetting curve" in an organic way should also be at play in your learning. In my language learning experience, 80% of my retention was facilitated by my organic use/exposure of the language. I cannot imagine learning a language by just hacking your way into it.

[@Limemill]

There's a way around all of his criticisms, sure, but it will take up a lot of your time. Luca is right in saying that by attacking your new vocab from different angles while spacing said activities in time is a lot more fun and looks to be very efficient in terms of actually being able to automatically use it in the future. Some very famous language learners like Matt from Matt vs Japan used Anki until a certain point, where they began to feel it was taking more and more of their time for ever diminishing returns, at which point passive (but massive) immersion becomes a better and much more enjoyable strategy. But it all depends on one's personality, I guess

[@chadvader974]

Wow.. your method sounds like an absolute chore... I would bore myself to tears in a few days.

[@SpeedyGwen]

anki was like that for me at first but after burning out after a few weeks, I changed a lot of the settings when comming back and limited by a lot the amount of new cards I get every days and now its fine

[@eduardoguerrero9876]

I've been using Anki for 1 year on and off and 4 months, non stop, and it's boosted my vocabulary in a way that I couldn't have ever imagined. learning a language takes effort and time there's no way to skip this part of the process. I recommend to use Anki to anyone who wants to speed up the process of learning a language

[@tullochgorum6323]

Hmm - let's take the most common 2000 words that will take you to around B1. Do you really need them in an SRS? If you interact with real native inputs and create your own outputs, you'll come across that vocab pretty much daily anyway. But you're learning it in many different and interesting contexts, along with all kinds of useful idioms and colocations... Once you become advanced, there's the issue of learning rare words that you might need for your specialised interests. I suspect that there's a stronger case for SRS then - but I don't have enough experience at that level to have an opinion...

[@JohnnyLynnLee]

@@tullochgorum6323 All the negative points listed are absolutely true but as I have commented here: All well and good but, with all due respect, you yourself have said before you have trouble learning Asian languages like JAPANESE. Your method is cool and all, and I use a version of it (to make ANKI cards, no less) but this is a method ONLY seem to work for SIMILAR languages. I didn't use ANKI at all to learn ITALIAN, since I'm Brazilian, nor English. But sure as hell I needed it to learn Japanese before and Vietnamese now. And all languages that I intend to maybe learn one day (Russian, Cantonese, Mandarin, Thai, Burmese, Filipino, Khmer, etc) seem to require this extra time of repeating and efficiency. One thing is learning a similar language that comes with what I call 'free words' (You never saw it, but when you see it you understand it, at last in the written form and in context). But learning a language where nothing looks like to anything else you know is a whole 'nother beast. You sure don't need in similar languages. Like Europeans learning most Europeans languages. But when it comes to, say, Vietnamese, where to me I couldn't even understand the SOUNDS I was listening to (and I'm not even talking about only the tones). As I started learning Italian and Japanese at the SAME time I have discovered those so called "free words" make ALL the difference in the word. They at least break a sentence and a text for you. And believe me, that means EVERYTHING. It took me a year to be functional in Italian, it took me FIVE in Japanese. And although I've studied BOTH everyday I devoted WAY more hours a day to Japanese, while only devoting up to one hour to Italian, because I knew Japanese would take much more.

[@tullochgorum6323]

@@JohnnyLynnLee You make a fair point - all my experience is with relatively similar languages to English with a bunch of cognates. Given that amassing vocab is the #1 hurdle to overcome on the road to C1/C2, learning a related language gives you a huge head start for sure. Italian, for example, has at least 5000 closely related words that are often guessable. Learning that number of words in a remote language would take years, as you point out. And it must be very difficult to react with any kind of meaningful material until you have at least 500 words or so. I guess that a lot depends on your temperament. Personally I find working through decks crushingly boring and demotivating so I'd never stay the course. I need something that's more interactive and creative. My current approach to output involves building scenarios, writing scripts and acting them out. I use this to drill grammar patterns as well. This is actual fun - even learning those damned romance verb systems is tolerable. If I ever tackle a remote language I'll have to find another way. I'm pretty sure it could be done. What I've learned is that people have very different learning styles and there is no "One True Way". I lot of the KZbin gurus seem very dogmatic and assume that what works for them must be optimal for everyone else - they can get positively abusive if you dare to question their dogmatic assertions (translation is damaging, grammar is a waste of time etc etc). What Luca is doing here is pointing out that you don't have to follow the crowd, and that if you don't get on with Anki, there are viable alternatives. I think that's valuable, even if he is overstating the case a bit.

[@eduardoguerrero9876]

@@tullochgorum6323 1. I want my vocabulary to be good in a short period of time, hence, I need all the words I can possibly learn in Anki 2. if I were advanced there wouldn't be any reason for me to use Anki anymore If you want to speed up learning a language use Anki

[@tullochgorum6323]

@@eduardoguerrero9876 Fair enough - if it works for you why should anyone argue? But it doesn't work for me, and so it's good to know that efficient alternatives exist.

[@NP-yc1tw]

1. Making flashcard wastes time - Dude, making flashcards is PART of the studying. Just the process of making the flashcard itself helps you to remember the word. 2. Adding new cards can become addictive - Good! You SHOULD be adding new vocab to your stack all the time. 3. Reviewing old cards cam become a chore - That's the point of studying. it's hard work. That's why language learning is rewarding. You overcome your own resistance to doing work. 4. Flashcards take language out of context - So what? You still NEED to know what a word means. No amount of context is going to help you if you don't know what a crucial verb means. 5. Brain friendly learning strategies make Anki irrelevant - Not everyone has access to these mysterious "brain-friendly" strategies. Language learning is a wholistic endeavor. No one-part is going to help you. See, listen, write, do, say etc. etc. They're all important. You still have to listen to native speakers, you still have to write down sentences, you still have to speak. No one is taking that away. But Anki and memorization allows you to earn building blocks of a puzzle you're yet to complete.

[@lucassantossj]

Really. Funny enough the most boring parts of studying are the parts I learn the most. With immersion I just apply what I learned. And for BT, I prefer to consume something that I already know what's going on, like I watch some episodes of a TV show with subtitles on a week, and the next week I watch the same episodes, but without subtitles.

[@Panico747II]

He knows all about this. For language KZbinrs, apps are enemy number one because they make their paid and expensive content useless. They sell the idea of learning a language easily and cheaply, but always with their own content, their "secret," and so on. I use Babbel; it has more than 4,460 words and phrases in Italian, with images and audio for everything, and it's free as a bonus from my phone operator. I pay separately for my wife ($6/m), and it also includes grammar organized by levels, podcasts, etc. Apps like this are the real terror for guys like him.

[@サミュエル先生です]

@@lucassantossj just keep the subtitles off from the start to save yourself a week

[@サミュエル先生です]

w response

[@mjmr70]

4. Review: u can put a good sentence to have the word in content

[@ruedigernassauer]

He has just tried Anki and now he boasts how bad it is. I use Anki for about two years now to learn Vietnamese words. I make those cards of new words taken from original stories I read. I also have a book for the very reduced grammar of Vietnamese, of course. I am proceeding as I have to translate less and less to understand. Some sentences I understand at once completely. I have so far about 4,000 cards often bearing several entries, even entire phrases (there you have context). Before Anki learning this nuanced tonal language seemed impossible to me. Anki is free and without advertisements. It is easily adjustable to your needs. I could be questioned 200 cards a day, but usually am questioned about 100. Yes, it can be a chore. By the way as I usually just hear him talk easy English, how extended are his vocabularies in his professed 16 languages? The way to enter new vocabulary to Anki is fast and easy if you skip videos or images. Instead Lampariello suggests a six-day learning program. One last thing: Don´t use prefabricated Anki cards! The learning process is in reading original texts and making your own cards.

[@andreassteinbacheren9931]

"By the way as I usually just hear him talk easy English, how extended are his vocabularies in his professed 16 languages?" I'm German, so out of curiosity I looked up a video of him speaking German. His German is very good, he sound as if he lived in German for many years, in some sentences there is no accent at all. I'm very impressed.

[@sammartin2860]

Hey there I am also using anki to learn Vietnamese I'm at an intermediate level. I have started a really great deck, and I wonder if you would be interested in collaborating at all?

[@ruedigernassauer]

@@sammartin2860 Sorry, no. Making these cards is part of my learning process. I have shortly tried pre-made decks and have quickly skipped them. I read stories and enter new words into Anki. This way I sometimes associate them with the stories read. I now read a book with 100 fairy tales from Vietnam. The hardest part about Vietnamese is for me to remember these reduced syllables with the right tone and their meaning(s). I have learnt that the meaning can depend on the position in the sentence, a thing no pre-made Anki deck or dictionary will tell. It is also important to identify words stemming from Chinese as they are often positioned differently. Greetings from Germany!

[@younesalgerian4179]

@@ruedigernassauer HI, did you use anky every day or once a week?

[@ruedigernassauer]

@@younesalgerian4179 I use Anki (that´s the correct spelling) daily. Maybe it is due to my age of 57 that I consistently have to look up the same cards. The vocabulary of Vietnamese is so hard to me. So far I have made about 7,500 cards (most cards with several items) and are shown about 140 cards (between 90 and 170) each day. It is the first thing I do early in the morning and without interruption. You have to bring up time for lecture and other activities. Anki alone doesn´t help. I can already read and understand fairy tales flying over some unknown words, that I will note in Anki later. It took me four years to achieve that level. The Vietnamese dictionary I use explains single syllables wheras Langescheidt´s dictionary is to be shunned as it mostly consists of compounds words. Vietnamese is a mixed language that can regionally use different words for the same thing. Syllables often have different meanings. The tonal system adds up to the difficulties.

[@Kalymnah]

As a polyglot who can speak 11 language and who has more than 30 years of experience in language learning, I DO recommend Anki. I’ve only been using it for the past 8 years and was totally fine without it before. But now that it exists, I definitely use it once a day. I wouldn’t recommend it as a primary language learning source, but as one of the many tools people need to learn a language. It’s useless if you don’t combine it with other tools for sure. But I really love this new tool. And it doesn’t take more time to add new vocabulary to Anki than to write it down on a notebook, so the waste of time argument is not the best one.

[@rolandcucicea6006]

Second that. From what I can see this guy is mainly poking at anki because he thinks it takes too long to create flashcards and that time can be spent on active learning. I think anyone who's used anki for more than a month knows that there are methods to make the process faster. For example, adding an audio file can be done with AwesomeTTS. Usually people get decks of cards already made to learn basic vocabulary so that they can then spend time on active input. Starting to read or watch content in a language you have 0 familiarity with will take longer than getting a 500 words deck and then progress from kids shows to movies, music and whatever media you're interested in. Also, I would like to emphasize that I'm speaking English as my 3rd language but I'm fluent. Yes, I did live in the UK for a number of years and was fluent before that, but even then I don't actively use a rich vocabulary. I would not pass the Cambridge C1 test (as neither would most British people I know) but if you overlooked my accent you'd swear I was a native speaker. I do understand complex vocabulary, certain slangs but I haven't trained myself on lesser used words or academic writing, altough I am able to comprehend it.) However, I would not be able to talk like that (let's say like Dr Jordan Peterson, who's vocabulary is just jaw dropping, he can clearly state what he thinks and if you simplify it to more accessible vocabulary you lose meaning of the broad idea or need to use more words to express yourself) unless I would memorise words rather than rely fully on acquisition. ANKI FTW

[@pavel9652]

Author mentioned more problems with Anki. While it is an useful tool for space repetition, the gamification and statistics can be rewarding, addictive and distracting from the primary goal. I used it for about two months, but had to focus on other things for a moment. I changed the phone in the mean time, and now I don't even want to install the app, because I don't want to get dragged into churning heaps of cards every day. I had difficulty deciding which deck to use because there were few suitable, but all had things I didn't like, so I ended up flooded with cards, as expected. I think it is better to translate interesting texts paragraph after paragraph with g translate, and play with texts, words and pronunciation. Frequent words are frequent for a reason. There are a lot of things that can be done that are better than Anki. Peterson is known for word salads, and while I believe he is perfectly capable to express himself in clear fashion, I wish he used the skill more frequently. He is also hedging all the time, which is hardly impressive.

[@PeronJames]

4 out of 5 of your problems are completely irrelevant if you're actually using anki effectively. 1. With popup dictionaries you can have 1 click cards with meaning and pronunciation, and 2 click cards that also add the context sentence, audio and image 2. It's true that it can become addicting, that's why it's important to not add every single new word you see, but only add those that are important/common enough or relevant to you. Just use common sense and frequency dictionaries. 3. If you enable hiding leeches this pretty much goes away. If a card becomes a chore it automatically hides itself and you can add it again the next time you see it in context (if you want). If for some reason reviews are getting too much for you, you can simply turn off new cards for a couple days and get that number down. 4. This would be true, except that the most effective method of using anki is sentence mining. Like I mentioned above, you can literally have an anki card with all the context you found it in (sentence, audio and image) in two clicks, without even needing to pause the video.

[@harrisonboyt7060]

1. I solely download pre-made decks 2. The language decks I use are so big I don't add cards, I just find a new already-made deck. 3. Yes, agreed. Learning is a grind. 4. Most language decks I've seen available use the words in a sentence. Some of mine even have audio from native speakers and the conjugations. 5. The reason I like Anki is it takes the work out of scheduling spaced repetition into my study time.

[@cristianhcm1914]

Thank you I was looking for clarification. 👍

[@CelineMontessoriTeacher]

For the first time, I don't share your opinion. I hope we'll have a chance to talk about it.

[@CentroSelenium]

If the cards are out of context depends on you. I write just words that I saw in series. Then I'll write the phrase which I heard that word. I also write various definitions and its examples (in the same language I'm learning). And also I take a picture of the scene that I heard that word. And this isn't such a slow process, because I just copy the definitions. furthermore the process helps me to pay attention to details (which I was lacking) Anki has been really helpful for me. It helps me with words and phrases that are less frequent.

[@iagonoah6974]

Exactly! It's funny that when I review a flashcard I added from a movie, I can remember the exact scene and what was going on and that moment. I can even remember the actor (actress)'s voice in my head, so pronunciation comes naturally as well

[@CentroSelenium]

@@iagonoah6974 It also happens to me!! good to know I'm not the only one.

[@brianmitchell2202]

There's also a lot of low friction tooling to make high quality cards from your immersion like vocabsieve, migaku, yomichan (for japanese learners), etc. This seems to me to largely be a solved problem. In some cases, they even track the words you know and can find sentences in your immersion where you know all but 1 word to increase comprehension. It's certainly possible to create cards without context, but you'd need to be intentionally trying to make awful cards instead of using one of the good card formats (sentence cards, animecards, targeted sentence cards, etc).

[@imtrying-_-3431]

Same here, and I don’t even have to put a picture. My brain just knows. I also do an activity where I record myself speaking, then make flashcards out of what I didn’t know how to say. Not only is there context but also I get to learn Spanish that I would actually use.

[@historiasemingles123]

Make cards with sentences, not isolated words.

[@gracemix1656]

The goal of all his videos boils down to just one thing: Selling the BDT Method

[@LucaLampariello]

Only the BDT Method?! :-D

[@matheusmacedo6214]

I remember when I was studying English by attending formal classes once a week. One day the lesson was about items you can find in the kitchen. There were like 20 or 30 itens and I challenged myself to memorize them all, so I created a flashcard for each item. One week later the teacher challenged the students to name the items as he described them and I remembered them all 100% and I didn't have to make much effort during the week to memorize them, so I highly recommend using Anki. But of course, there are pros and cons of using it and Luca is a living proof you can learn a language with other methods. Do what's best for you.

[@alynalin]

I am learning english right now and i am struggling with vocabulary Can u tell how u use anki ?

[@RodriHernandez-x1w]

The problem is when you have a vocabulary of 20,000 or more

[@zeljkothegreekserb]

I used Anki wrongly before (word to word cards or premade sentences by others) and barely learned 1/3 of the words, I gave up afterwards, but I tried again and once I 1. started creating MY own sentences (for encoding purposes), 2. with the target word being written in the native language and the answer being in the foreign one (to evade the false-knowledge trap of knowing what a "bicicleta" is, even though I'd never remember it going from English to Spanish) and 3. creating a new sentence and thus more context whenever I forget something, I have come to the point where I can easily learn over 50 words a day even if I don't put much effort in, with only

[@anastasif]

50 words a day is a genius level claim. I would like to perform this test: you read 10-20 pages of a book in the language you want to learn, and you write down 50 new words you think are usefull, interesting, or important for you to learn. You create a deck based on those words (how much time to do it?). Then you play the deck as usually (for how much time?). The next day you do exactly the same (read, pick up words, add to the deck, playing the deck). You do this for 2 weeks, then you analyze your stats. How many words you can recall?

[@rhezer]

You mean front card English, back card target lenguage? I find translating like that to be a downside sometimes bc you tend to always try to translate instead of thinking in the target lenguage

[@stephenmontague6930]

@@rhezer Yeah, ideally, do both.

[@thought2007]

The fundamental problem is that people seem to get into a "must put everything into Anki" mindset and think you have to do ALL your due cards every day. It's simply not true. If you configure Anki to show "new" cards after reviews, and if you configure Anki to limit your time per session (e,g. 2 sessions per day, 5 minutes each) then most of the problems mentioned here (e.g. addiction, all valid points) go away on their own. Personally I use Anki not to "learn" vocabuly but to build confidence in learned vocabulary from proper material with context.

[@belphegor_dev]

Anki is just a memorization tool, and it's the best one out there. If you expect it do to more than helping you memorize things, then you're gonna have a bad time.

[@anillo.english]

1. Anki provides 1000s of downloadable pre-made decks with 10s of 1000s of cards in them. 2. See #1 3. Fair point. 4. Use full sentences and phrases when creating cards instead of just one word per card. Besides, Anki is meant to be a supplement, not a one and done learning tool. 5. Another fair point but it seems both can be effective. I'm going to use Anki and the bidirectional method! 😁

[@altralinguamusica]

Still watching the video but I have to say THANK YOU SO MUCH for giving all five points at the start and then elaborating. I can't tell you how many times I've had to watch a video at 2x speed just so I could get to the good stuff quicker!

[@BreathYoga]

I'm studying Japanese kanji and have used anki flashcards for the past two years. It has helped me so much and as a result of my daily dedication to it, my reading skill has become the strongest skill out of speaking and listening.

[@HM-hu4hu]

Yeah, I think it can help a lot when learning how to read a language using a completely different script than your native language.

[@paulwalther5237]

Japanese is what got me to use Anki. I studied German/French/Spanish to varying degrees just by reading and listening before Anki (back in the day) but Japanese immersion with the horrible writing system was too hard. Anki was a life saver. But a slow one (at least for me) because I relied on it completely for the first few years. I absolutely recommend SRS to people learning Japanese but maybe not so strongly for other languages. Although I'm happy with my Japanese I hope your studies proceed more quickly than mine did ;).

[@julioferr]

It likely could have gotten stronger faster without it is his point

[@franciscotorres3823]

For me anki didn’t help me , find it boring create flashcards , what I did is read a lot and consume English, just the natural way to learn . Estoy de acuerdo contigo

[@ChandlerBing-t3k]

I'm addictive to anki! when you see a word you don't know as you reading you look up on the dictionary to see the meaning? please help me I what to stop using anki I feel bad if I don't add something new everyday.!

[@nfrankiksa4596]

You found it boring and that's it. That doesn't take away from the fact that it's indeed effective. Yeah you can learn without it too people have been doing it for decades but it's slower, that's the whole point lol. Yo igual he estado aprendiendo ingles con Anki asi que se de lo que hablo :)

[@kitaMyWifi]

I don't agree make card wasting time. there are many browser extensions help to add card with one click. Including: vocabs, explanation, sentence, image and TTS voice file.

[@RubyDuran]

Honestly, I have used Anki for a few months now specifically with German learning, and my personal experience is quite similar to what you're talking about. At this point in my learning journey, it has become boring and does not feel as effective when it comes to really learning and internalizing the German language. At this point, I haven't been using it for a few weeks and I don't think I see myself going back to it anytime soon, possibly at all. Who knows, I may dabble with it from time to time, but it definitely won't be my main source for learning. For myself, I find it more helpful actually learning things and writing it down or just immersing myself in the language and being aware of vocabulary I have learned and how it's used in context. Again, this is my personal experience, but I'm sure everyone has their own unique experience regarding these type of apps! I know people who have had success with it, but for me I don't think it's 100% right for me.

[@stevetarzon9154]

I think Anki is a good way for beginning language learning. I think it has been a great way for me as a beginner to learn my first 1000 words and starter phrases. I found it useful for learning common verbs and tenses. But after this beginning phase of language learning, I think one would be better off to use other techniques like Luca presents in the video.

[@sandwichbreath0]

I was similar. I had a pre-made deck, so setup/maintenance was fine, but after a few months it felt too much like schoolwork and I started hating it. Like you guys, I think I also was just ready to switch to all-native content. So Anki is probably fine as a primer, but should be seen as a quick-start tool only, like any other app, Duolingo, etc. While watching Luca's video, I opened Anki out of curiosity to see how many reviews I have pending: 948 😂

[@glennkelly4058]

German has so many great resources for the learner such as graded readers, books of dialogues, DW/Goethe Institute courses for any level that Anki learning seems redundant.

[@nfrankiksa4596]

But you finding it boring doesn't mean anything about it being ineffective. You need to be disciplined and stick with it

[@mrtoast244]

I'm learning German because I like German rap and covers of songs. I have a lot of fun breaking down songs and finding articles to explain the grammar. Anki is just a means to an end to build my vocab to the point where I don't need to search up verbs so often. It lets me listen to more TJ BEASTBOY lol. I actually like using Anki since it takes the load off of remembering words I already see everywhere in lyrics, I wouldn't recommend it if you're goal is just to learn it for the sake of learning German, since that isn't fun.

[@crasheba1533]

Anki is a tool, if you don't know how to use it then yeah... it's useless. Anki is not a method to learn a language per se, it's just one of the tools you could use to learn a language. You won't learn any language only using one tool. Your "method" seems fine and I don't see any reason why you couldn't integrate Anki in it.

[@Goooogle]

As an Anki user, these are valid criticisms, here are my two cents: -Adding cards can be done faster as you get used to the software and all of its quirks. -Reviewing cards shouldn't take a long time. If a flashcard is properly formulated, then it shouldn't take you more than 5 seconds to review a card. Making properly good flashcards is a skill that you Willa acquire with time. I use Anki to study programming

[@marivsMR]

I got my advanced in English thanks to anki

[@sanin3213]

Man I use anki and it has been insanely helpful. I passed the german B2 exam less than 5 months after starting to learn the language. I'm gonna say no to this advice.

[@xdxd8447]

Great progress, i want to hear more about your method since im studying 10+ hours a day for my Korean exam 😂😂

[@Issy-lalülala]

Gratulation :)

[@Rebecca-bz6ph]

I have been learning languages through Anki and other methods for over 15 years. I have a love-hate relationship with the app. As another user pointed out there is certainly such a thing as Anki abuse. I think the problem starts when you start trying to learn too much at once and then you miss a few days and you come back to tons of cards that take hours to review which can cause burn out. Anki does work but you have to pace yourself and show up for your reps. If you can do that Anki is a great tool, but if not there’s other ways. I’m back to anki at the moment after being away from it for like half a year during which time I did other things to help with my current language learning. It’s like an ex I keep coming back to even though he hurts me. 😂

[@maximpobihun5469]

1) When you making a card, you learn as well. 2) You can add the cards with context. Make the whole sentences, not the isolated words.

[@ginabisaillon2894]

Without realizing it I have been using your recommended method for learning Hebrew. But I'm also doing flashcards because of the different alphabet. I find that I need to look at the word over and over in order for my mind to take a photograph of it, because in fact the word makes no sense. And even though I'm 82 years old, I find that the memory, the photographic memory is still working pretty well. Oh and I don't just look at the flash card I write the word over and over as well

[@coffeemachtspass]

With due respect to your views, Luca, I wouldn’t advise using Anki the way you describe it, either. I do bidirectional translation with simple cards (there is an Anki option that automatically creates a mirror image of a card you put in, so that is half the work done for you). Sure, Anki can’t substitute for a real interaction, or for richer content, but it has its place in my repertoire of activities.

[@catherine1004]

Listening and reading extensively are my ways to memorize vocabulary

[@walterk14]

I have been in Japan for about 16 years and after several attempts to learn the language I gave up and abandoned it... and as a last resort I tried Anki and it has been a total change, thanks to the application plus immersion today I can talk and joke with the Japanese an intermediate level Anki fue lo único que me ayudó a aprender el idioma japonés .. intenté varias veces estudiarlo sin éxito . Crear tarjetas es fácil … 1.- puede usar Yomichan 2. Puede usar chat gpt para ayudar a crear nuevas tarjetas … por ejm frases originales de japonés las copio al chat gpt y le digo que lo ponga en formato csv … luego lo pego a Excel y de ahí con dos clics tengo muchas tarjetas etc,etc

[@k.5425]

Qué es formato csv?

[@lucassantossj]

​@@k.5425es un formato de excel, pero utiliza TABs para separar colunas

[@BluetheNerd]

I just wanted to say thank you for making this video, it has made me feel slightly less insane. I get anki works for a lot of people, see the comments below, but for me it JUST DOESN'T. And that's not for lack of trying, I mean I have been using anki religiously for months and haven't missed a single day, but it honestly feels like a severe uphill battle, maybe 1 in 5 words actually sticks after a few reviews, everything else just ends up repeating over and over and over and I have to brute force it every time it comes back up. It's gotten to a point where in my dedicated study time, Anki takes up more time than anything else I do. In every other aspect of language learning I've been enjoying learing, but I've gotten to a point where I dread having to do anki every day, and every session only seems to take longer as less and less info actually sinks in. But the worst part is not finding anyone who shares my opinion as just about every person on the internet seems to sing its praises. I just want to find people who learn like me to get advice on how I can improve my learning without ending up spending more time using anki than any other of my study methods.

[@alexartamonov2010]

When ppl are trying to convince you showing a lot of reasons why (not) to do something, it makes me suspicious. One good reason is often enough. You don't have to overcomplicate making Anki card. One phrase on the front, the equivalent in the back is good enough for me. As for audio files "if you find one" - there's an extension to Anki that lets you add an audio by a click of a button.

[@chrolka6255]

Or you can use IPA. That way you don't ever have to listen to the word because you'll see the phonetic transcription and you'll instantly know how it should be pronounced ;)

[@alexartamonov2010]

@@chrolka6255 obviously it's not the same. It's the difference between actually hearing and reading - well actually deciphering. Two different channels of information.

[@Tenahio]

I agree that Anki can be difficult to use in a smart way. Almost all my Anki cards are key phrases from texts which I listen to many times so that I get both passive exposure and can retrieve useful parts, while remembering the context. It's true that the cards in a deck tend to pile up if you miss reviewing for some time, but the neat thing with Anki is that it takes into account the time you didn't review, so if you review a card a year after it was due, and you remember it, the intervals will increase automatically. I was taking up Spanish again recently after years not using it actively, had 800 cards on Spanish in Anki, which took 3 hours to review, but I remembered almost 500 of those and won't need to review those again for a long time, and the 300 or so which I failed are much easier to remember again than fresh cards and their intervals increase much more rapidly.

[@israelsilva5427]

I couldn't disagree more. Anki has helped me a lot learn a bunch of things. Provided you know how to learn things and understand that Anki is one tool among many others you can and should use to learn, it is fascinating. I can't think of one point you mentioned that makes sense.

[@anmathunach]

How can't you think of one point that makes sense? Surely they all make sense, you just don't find they apply to you. I don't use anki anymore because I find it boring. I prefer to use other methods.

[@renzoenglish6527]

How many language you know? please tell me guru. Poor thing

[@israelsilva5427]

@@renzoenglish6527 I didn't say I was anything, let alone a guru. Maybe text interpretation is not your best feature. But as you have brought the subject up, I speak 9, how about you, genius?

[@tedc9682]

ANKI isn't a method for learning. It's a method for remembering things AFTER you've learned them, by repeatedly testing you. It also isn't good if your target and native languages aren't similar: you don't WANT to memorize a one-word translation.

[@historiasemingles123]

Bidirectional Translation Method could result in more waste of time and inefficiency. Anki is faster and easier.

[@HM-hu4hu]

Luca: "Adding new cards takes too long!" Also Luca: "Using tools to generate cards will let you make too many cards in a short period of time!" 😅

[@paulwalther5237]

I've been there for both situations more than once so I think both points remain valid even years later - there's always new tools, new resources, new thinks to try. It does seem like he's contradicting himself though.

[@pavel9652]

He isn't contradicting himself. Adding precise cards take time, but adding stuff wholesale like every sentence from subtitles text file can be automated and done with a single command.

[@desexplicando]

You're method sounds way more overwhelming than reviewing flashcards hahaha

[@paulwalther5237]

Right? I agree with every criticism he has but his alternative doesn't appeal.

[@Limemill]

It probably really is a matter of preference. To me, it sounds a lot more fun. Like incomparably more fun :)

[@matt92hun]

More effective too.

[@stefanhansen5882]

This didn't tell much about the problem with Anki, only about the problem with using Anki incorrectly. In short: 1. Making a card in Anki typically takes about 10 seconds, while it takes about 2 minutes to learn a card, so making the card is less than 10 % of the learning time with Anki. 2. Yes, it CAN become an addiction, like reading authentic content and so many others things. It doesn't have to become an addiction. 3. Yes, reviewing old cards can before a chore, if you don't know how to adjust the settings appropriately. 4. Flashcards do not, in themselves take language out of context. The user of Anki can do this, or not. 5. Yes, if used incorrectly.

[@kiran0511]

what settings should I change to review old cards effectively ? please let me know .

[@RafaMoruja]

As a potential translator or interpreter I'm expected to fare in a native level when it comes to listening or reading in my target language, this points to the need to know every single word because time is everything when it comes to translation or interpreting. I believe that when you learn how to use it can become an easy way to not forget vocabulary, but this is up to you. Everyone has it's own method that works for them in their own way. You should pay heed to others' and decide whether it is good for you or not, but do not take everything seriously, I'd say be choosy on which advises you decide to follow. Btw my mother tongues are Spanish and Galician and I wrote this text using vocabulary that anki helped me to remember, ain't that cool. Happy language learning to everyone :)

[@adriantepesut]

I can relate. I’m currently studying to be a court interpreter between English and Spanish and while I ideally would love to learn all these legal terms through natural comprehensible input there’s just no way so I have to grind Anki for a large percentage of them

[@tedcrowley6080]

ANKI is just a tool for helping you not forget (after you know something). A translator needs to know ALL the common meanings of a word in the target language (not just one), and how to know which meaning is intended. ANKI can't do any of that. But perhaps there are other things that ANKI can do. If it does something useful for you, terrific!

[@paulwalther5237]

I don't think you quite need native level for interpreting but obviously a very high level. Good luck. I wouldn't trust myself to learn a language well enough to be an interpreter.

[@tomate3391]

I stopped using Anki as soon I reached a level where I could read well enough in my target language. The idea behind was that the repitition throughout the book should sufficient. Apart from this: an Anki deck with 2000 words, phrases or expressions makes no sense because you are always behind the optimal repitition time. Maybe in the beginning to learn the most important words it is not a bad idea using Anki. But again, keep the deck small.

[@Alexander-dh3uk]

I remember a video where you talked about your struggles with learning Japanese. I am fluent in Japanese and ANKI has been a great help! If you don't stay in touch with the phrases you've learned, I don't know how you can memorize a lot of kanji. But do you also speak Chinese? I going to look for videos where you talk about learning Chinese. Besides ANKI, I use other methods, including some of the methods you've mentioned. I think that as long as you know how to use ANKI effectively, it can be efficient.

[@Carurosu]

I also have been using Anki for Japanese, and if you use it for training but also do some other important things I think it totally helps. For me it has not been boring or a chore. The important thing is to use it properly.

[@TheHakon98]

I also speak Japanese, and I have never used Anki. I have no problems recalling kanji. After looking words up a couple of times they just start to stick when seeing them in context

[@Alexander-dh3uk]

@@TheHakon98 In Brazil, it's challenging to find time for learning due to work and college commitments. However, I make use of the ANKI app effectively during unproductive moments, such as when I'm on the bus commuting to work or college. I also follow Steve Kaufmann's method, which involves texts with audios. I'm fluent in Japanese, and ANKI helps a lot in achieving this. While Lucas may be right, I can't dedicate my entire day to language learning like he does.

[@jpnpod8277]

I've been using Anki for about a year and a half now. To anyone serious about learning a language, please read on. Lucas, I respect you and I think you are a reasonably intelligent guy, which is why it saddens me to inform you (and anyone else reading this comment) that pretty much every single one of these "reasons" you listed is completely and objectively wrong. "How so?" you may be wondering. Well, it mostly stems from general ignorance of Anki's various functionalities and applications, but let's go through them one by one (Skip to the "TLDR" for a shorter explanation): 1. Oddly enough, your 2nd reason directly contradicts your first one already, as you even provide an example of a way to auto-generate cards and not waste any time. But even beyond Subs2SRS and Voracious, there's plenty of other software out there that help to automate the process of creating individual cards in a far more efficient and regulated manner (more on that in a minute). But regardless, the main point I want to make here is that making cards nowadays does not (and should not) take much time to do at all (which you, yourself, even acknowledge later) so this "reason" is clearly invalid. - TLDR; There's plenty of card-generating software to avoid the time and energy of manually creating cards. You literally even mention one in the next "problem". 2. This "addiction" issue you mention is not even a problem with with Anki itself, but rather the person using it. Nothing in the program itself forces or even encourages you to review each and every single word/phrase you come across. Blaming this habit on Anki is like blaming video games for making kids violent or lazy or whatever. If you argue is that it's "too easy" to get overloaded with terms, well, frequency/usefulness lists are a thing. It's just as easy nowadays to look up any term in pretty much any language, see how generally often it gets used, and determine for yourself whether it's worth reviewing or not. And again, it doesn't take much time to do, and some auto-card generating software even helps you with this as well. - TLDR; Overuse of software comes from the learner, not the software. There's frequency/usefulness lists and things like that to easily regulate this and avoid getting overwhelmed with cards. 3. Reviews don't simply pile-up infinitely; that's not how spaced-repetition works at all. As you continue adding words to your deck, your old words will be getting spread out over time and show up less and less, so your review time stays roughly the same. In my and most people's experiences, it eventually levels out at around 7-9 times your daily intake. Meaning, if you're adding 10 words a day, your daily review session should be about 70-90 cards or so, which is extremely do-able (most people finish that in little over half-an-hour). As for your other comment about missing days, there are add-ons you can install to Anki that will postpone your reviews for you when you need it to, so you still shouldn't have to worry about it piling up in any circumstance. - TLDR; You misunderstand how SRS works. Old words appear less over time and are replaced with new words, so review flow stays constant. Also, there are add-ons to help prevent pile-up from things like missed days. 4. This is probably the biggest non-issue in this entire list. Dude, not only are there tons of pre-made decks in many languages with endless example sentences in them, but once again, plenty of software and resources help with this as well. Programs like Migaku and Subs2SRS can auto-generate cards from subtitles of shows you watch with literally everything you need on them, including the sentences you find words in and even audio/video clips directly from those scenes. There's literally no reason whatsoever why any card shouldn't come with context already. I don't mean to sound brash, but did you even bother to look in to any of this before making this video? - TLDR; If you're getting cards properly, they will always have context. Considering that you even mentioned a program that does this for you earlier, this argument is nothing less than absurd. 5. I personally haven't tried the method you're suggesting here, but I will say that, based on how you're describing it, in no way can it be considered "spaced repetition". It doesn't structure the timings of word encounters in a precise and algorithmic way like Anki does. And it honestly sounds like it would take significantly more time and effort to do all that re-reading, analyzing, translating, etc. than a simple 30-minute Anki review. Now, I'm not saying that your method is ineffective or inferior to Anki in any way. In fact, I don't even see the two as comparable in the first place. Anki is a tool, not a method, and I don't see why someone couldn't use it along with your or any other method and ultimately advance their learning even further. This really shouldn't be a question of "either-or". - TLDR; What you're proposing here isn't "spaced repetition" in any sense of the phrase. But it's a method, not a tool like Anki, so why are you even comparing the two? One could use them in conjunction and improve their learning even further, couldn't they? This is not a logical reason to discourage the use of Anki at all. None of this is. I would strongly consider anyone else framing Anki in a similar way try to learn a bit more about what it can do and how it can be used before making such bold and clearly ill-informed claims about it, and also reconsider the narrative being made here.

[@LucaLampariello]

Thanks for the very articulate answer! Appreciate it :-)

[@MRez-kl5fe]

It's fine to keep using Anki, but avoid spending excessive time on reviews focused on deliberate memorization. Instead, utilize it mainly for exposure and memory refreshmnt, so you won't completely forget the word. Through immersion and exposure to the language, the words will naturally stick over time. Spending more than 10 secs trying to remember a word during reviews isn't efficient and a waste of time imo.

[@sarac178]

ad point (4) 'Flashcards take language out of context... Not necessarily. I use flashcards just only with whole sentences. In these flashcards I do consider the typical use of words, I combine words and i can also integrate declinations and conjugations. You see it depends on how you use flashcards,

[@tullochgorum6323]

There's another drawback of using Anki - and a dealbreaker for me. It's crushingly repetitive and boring - and boredom is death when it comes to memory and recall. Add that to the time wasted physically building decks and you have a very inefficient process. Working with real langauge in context is simply much more stimulating - and the brain remembers stimulating input. But I do think that there's a legitimate use for any SRS app with a decent spacing algo. When I'm working with some input I'm studying in depth, I'll enter the title into the system for future review. But I'm not reviewing isolated phrases - I'm reviewing a whole passage that I chose because it's interesting and useful. Using an SRS spares me from having to use a spreadsheet to manually schedule the review.

[@ErnieV76]

Exactly! Boring! 😅 Even if it takes me longer , No flashcards for me. 👍🏼

[@tullochgorum6323]

@@ErnieV76 I'm not convinced that it does take longer - with a bit of imagination you can be working intensively with new patterns and vocab in much more enjoyable and stimulating ways. I'm very far from an expert on language learning, but I am something of an expert on academic study technique - and in that scenario flashcards are a pretty woeful method, despite their popularity. Learning random atomic facts out of context goes against everything we know about how the brain learns. FAR better to use mind-maps to work with networks of facts embedded in a rich and meaningful context. I can't see why the same principles shouldn't apply to language learning. With the techniques I've picked up over the years even grammar become fun and productive. I guess we shouldn't be dogmatic - some people seem to enjoy working with flashcards and do pretty well. But many, many people fail, so it's good that people like Luca are offering alternatives.

[@ErnieV76]

@@tullochgorum6323 I’ve been learning Italian over two years, not one flashcard. Instead, I dissect a video of a conversation and learn the vocabulary there. When I can grasp the gist I move on to another. Words repeat often and makes for a wonderful SRS. It’s not perfect, my Italian is not perfect but I learned my way, a fun way for me and get have a wonderful conversation. Long way to go. 👍🏼

[@sandwichbreath0]

@@ErnieV76 I find novels take care of the SRS to an extent too. I'm learning Russian, and I'm currently working my way through a full-length classic novel. The words I learn tend to then be repeated over and over, especially in recurring scenes, etc, so I'm getting that SRS effect on most new words I learn, but not getting annoyed at having to do my Anki reps each day first -- I'm not even worrying about it because I'm focused on working my way through the story. Like you say, it might not be as 'fast' as if I did it with Anki, but my dislike of the Anki process probably reduces its benefits on me anyway. That said, as both of you guys have said already, others do get benefit from it -- so it's probably a case of what works for the individual, whatever keeps you coming back to do the work!

[@norabalogh5910]

I’m an experienced language learner with 3 languages aside from my mother tongue at the C1/C2 level and one at the B1 level so far, and I agree with Luca and am pleased to see this video! In addition to being the most disconnected from reality and boring language-learning activity one can engage in, spaced repetition/flashcard learning of vocabulary results in a superficial, poor-quality kind of “learning”. What I mean is that outside of the flashcard context, one will have much greater difficulty finding and using the word or expression than if one had learned it in a more holistic way. Creating and practicing flashcards can feel reassuring because it gives the illusion of having an organized way of “catching” those thousands of slippery eels of unknown words and expressions in a new language, but one is far better off if one resists the temptation and boring waste of time. As Luca says, there are far better ways that are more fun, more nstural and require far less time-wasting “overhead”!!!!

[@フィンランド語学習教室]

I speak fluent English and Japanese (not my native languages). However, I've never really used Anki and probably never will. I tried using it a few times in the past but was bored out of my mind and didn't even last two days, haha. However, some people seem to enjoy it, idk why, but nothing wrong with that. :) You can become fluent in a language by using or not using Anki, so rest assured and do what feels good to you!

[@chrolka6255]

When I was learning English as a little girl, my private teacher would start every lesson by reviewing the vocab from the previous one. If I didn't remember a word, she would put a little minus next to it and she would ask me about it in the next lesson. Back then I didn't even know that it was a form of spaced repetition, but it definitely helped me, as I was so lazy that without this method I wouldn't have reviewed vocab at all. Now that I discovered Anki, I use it all the time for French, and I plan to keep using it until I get to B2, upon which I will move on to books, films and series - exactly like I did with English.

[@bernhardrulla]

That's a great video, Luca. The many, also controversial, answers prove that you touched a very interesting topic and in the end we all need to find our path through the jungle of a new language. Mille grazie! 😊

[@AdamYLM]

I did an experiment on Anki while researching language learning. I memorized 700 most common words from it. It took a month for me. They were all super easily identifiable in Anki app, but then I decided to make new sentences from these words, and I could not even string together a single sentence, as if I don't even know these words exist. Ever since then I use reading method to learn new vocabulary, like you said, learning with context is very important. I never used Anki after that.

[@maxchen2402]

I've used Anki for years, and I can't quit it. Your opinions are right, but I have a different view. Making new cards does waste learning time, but forgetting words is worse. Adding cards does addict, but as time goes on, the frequency will reduce and approach exhaustivity a little bit. Reviewing does become a chore, but they say no pain no gain. Without context, it is really a severe problem, there's no way to make the card dynamic now, I solve it with a dictionary or browser aside. Anki is a primitive app, all things need to be created yourself, I treat it as a note app, which makes notes able to be remembered. I think the best way to learn a language is to use it frequently, but most don't have the condition, either no chance or can't afford it.

[@ChandlerBing-t3k]

I agree with you.

[@ChandlerBing-t3k]

I'm so addictive to anki if I don't add something new everyday I feel bad! From now on when I come acroos words that I don't know I'm gonna just look up the meaning write down a sentece then do alot of reading and listening.

[@hoangkimviet8545]

I admit the first disadvantage. It is the real hazzle for anyone trying to learn a foreign language. The problem is if you learn a tailored flashcard list, you may not actually find it useful or essential. But if you create a list by yourself, it is really time-wasting.

[@josemanuelochoacardona7058]

I think the same way, something inside myself told me anki isn't very effective as we belief it is, I learn more english through exposition of the language, watching tv shows and reading.

[@skippychurch2965]

I'm a Japanese learner using anki. He gave up on Japanese. Maybe should have used anki.

[@ErnieV76]

I don’t use Anki/flashcards because It feels like homework to me. Pass. I want to learn languages doing things I enjoy. And I don’t enjoy reviewing flashcards.

[@OmniKoneko]

All of your points go void once you think about it for even a second, since they can be solved through self awareness, different decisions or by changing the settings. 1. Making flash cards don't waste learning time because it gives you more time with the language within an activity. It allows you to sentence mine on your own which gives you autonomy in the language. As well you don't have to make your own cards, there are plenty of good community made decks you can download and modify specific cards that you want to be different. 2. Anything can become an addiction, all you have to do is be self aware of what you're doing like with anything like eating candy for example, you wouldn't say to someone that they shouldn't eat candy because there's a possiblity to become addicted, you would tell them to eat it in moderation and have other food that offloads the negative parts of eating said candy. Also it's funny how in the first point you said that using anki is bad because it takes so much time then you say that it's easy for it to become an addiction because it's so easy to create cards through your phone and such... You can't just pick and choose. 3. Reviewing old cards can be a chore, but just because it's a hard thing or annoying thing to do, doesn't mean it's bad for you or that you shouldn't do it, plenty of people work at jobs they don't like but they gain lots of great benefits at the end like going on vacation, doing activities with friends, having a place to sleep, etc. I'm sure most people especially beginners would say that learning a langauge in general is a chore, so if it already is then why not choose the way that gives them progress the fastest. 4. Flashcards take context out of language, not true, because if you looked at how people utilize Anki and the creation of cards then you would know that it's not true and you even touch a bit on it with how people create cards from shows and people also have screenshots/videos that play along with their cards. Also through sentence mining instead of just learning straight vocabulary you'll gain the context, plenty of people learn vocabulary through this way and you can highlight specific words in a sentence when creating cards so you know which one you're learning. And again there are plenty of pre-made decks you can use to save time or services to use to automatically create cards from a scene of a show with one click of a button. You said that your method is better but I would argue that it's much easier, faster and more convient to be able to go straight to your deck where you are on your phone, computer, tablet, etc. and be able to study and see the number of reviews/new-cards go down in comparison to learning phrases deeply, learning all of the intonation/pronunciation/word-stress, and translate it a hundred different ways while in your example "having a family to take care of". And it's especially not beginner friendly because most people would agree that when starting a new skill they want to ease into it not learn all of this very academic parts of a language. You should not be pushing people to use or not use a particular way of learning, the most important thing for anyone is for them to spend time with the language and make progress, if a person has a way they enjoy doing it then that's the most important thing they should do becuase it will keep them interested in the language and not give up.

[@merricmercer778]

Easy to use tools let me add dozens of cards to Anki in seconds along with the audio. I ask chatgpt to create a table that provides 50 example sentences, on an area of interest or a grammatical point and then just I import this into Anki in seconds . Text to Audio tools then also automatically add the audio. This way you get context and spaced repetition.

[@lucassantossj]

My mining deck is basically the audiobook or show I'm currently watching, so I get natural sentences and I'm very familiar with the context. I just can't consult words while I'm enjoying the media, I can do it later.

[@artugert]

I downloaded Anki, used it for a few minutes, and then never used it again. Never used flashcards of any kind. It just seems like a boring way to learn a language. When I come across a word I want to learn, I just write down a sentence or two containing that word. Then I occasionally look at my list of sentences. Honestly, the majority of the time, I don't find review to even be necessary. Real life is already a natural way of spaced repetition. You will naturally come across the word again in conversation, or in whatever you are reading, watching, or listening to. Isn't that the main way you learned your native language?

[@braulioacosta6816]

"I just write down a sentence or two containing that word. Then I occasionally look at my list of sentences." That's literally what Anki does.

[@artugert]

@@braulioacosta6816 Exactly! That's what I do too. Much simpler.

[@ChandlerBing-t3k]

I think I'm gonna do that I'm so addictive to anki if I don't add something new everyday I feel bad! when I come across a word that I Don't know I'm gonna do what you said just look up the meaning then write down a sentence and then do alot of reading and listening. And if I see the word again and don't remember as reading or listening just look up the meaning again.

[@urso3000]

I love ANKI, the process of creating letters, makes you have contact with the phrase, its translation and meaning, several times, when looking for audio, image etc, it increases even more the contact with the phrase, then revise and revise. Now I doubt that anyone picks up a book, reads it and then rereads it several times, nobody has the patience for this. Now Anki is revised every day with great pleasure, I wouldn't change anki for anything.😊

[@chrolka6255]

Same here. I even have a whole system: 1. when reading, underline the words and phrases I don't know 2. look up the meaning and write it next to the word/phrase 3. transfer the words/phrases into a separate piece of paper 4. transfer the words/phrases into Anki ^by the time I get to Anki, I have already seen the word 4 times. This strengthens memorisation even more. And since the words and phrases are taken from a text, I know how they are used in the context, so I remember them even better.

[@andrzejkulinski1886]

High Luca, it's probably the first time I disagree with what you say to some extent, so I would like to pinpoint some advantages of Anki that give it some edge over other tools and techniques. I started my journey with Swedish using bidirectional translation method. Unfortunately, I didn't balance it out with enough listening and ended up with developing fake prosody (which in turn harmed my listening abilities and led to a funny situation. Being on holidays in Sweden I was able to speak quite freely without any prior speaking practice, but couldn't understand what people were saying back). I managed to "heal" it with doing microdictations with anki - on the front card I put an audio sentence from a TV series I was currently watching. The task was to write it down. 3 months of 2 new cards a day burnt the right prosody into my brain. Also, it can work well to augment your biderectional translation method - you can create a flashcard type where you need to translate from your L1 to L2 or vice versa, but you can add L2 audio to the L2 side so as not to develop fake prosody. What is more, I see benefits of anki for the category of learners who have a tendency to rely too much on reading and distort the original sounds of a given language (i'm one of these people). You can create a deck where on the front side you have only audio in L2, on the backside only a definition/translation in L1. This way you bypass reading and teach your brain to rely on aural stimulus more. Such a deck would be used at the very first stage of learning a new language. Of course, the drawback is that it would have to be pre-made by another person. These are my two cents or more. Hope it was worth reading for you and other subscribers. Regards!

[@SuperMeatyhead]

I totally agree Learning with flash cards is as hit way I use LingQ and I go through authentic French podcasts and breakdown every single sentence for understanding. Move on do another then eventually return right back to the first one and repeat. I do this until I’m blue in the face. I’ve done this for about a year and I now understand everything I want in the language. I do it alone and don’t really like chat rooms and the like they piss me off. I have conversations with myself and often at work I speak in French and directly repeat in English. I wasted years doing Duolingo and others and didn’t learn anything. I know a French speaker in town who I feel at ease with and I try Various things. I try out some Argo and speak as fast as I can even messing the words like francophones seem to do. Yeah she understands me. There you go my method similar to yours Luca. Tommy

[@russodazonasul]

I learned Portuguese, Spanish and French with Lingq in three years. Now I live in Brazil and read classics in these languages. Bofore that I wasted 6+ years learning German and Japanese with Anki, Duolingo and alike. I still don't know those languages.

[@diogoabib]

Parabéns. Estou usando o Anki para minerar frases em inglês, mas não gasto mais do que 30 minutos de revisão. Faço mais listening e reading. Para gerar os cards uso o ChatGPT, assim não gasto muito tempo nessa tarefa.

[@pedrobellato]

Oohh! I was looking for this video at this morning!! Great!

[@alrisan71]

In my experience, I strongly recommend using Anki. Cheers

[@galahadthreepwood]

It takes less than a minute to add a card; usually less than 10 seconds.

[@rashidah9307]

Luca, you decided to stir up the pot with this video! Lol. I've been using Anki for 2+ years, and I think most of your critiques can be avoided or at least mitigated (but not, of course, for everyone). Getting started on the phone app was super easy for me. I never understand when people complain about it being complicated to get started with Anki, and I'm not particularly tech savvy. I always take my cards from context (such as sentences that my tutor wrote down for me in Skype that I cut and paste), I almost never use single words, and I think it's pretty easy to understand the algorithm and not overwhelm yourself with too big of a deck. I only add about 15 cards per week, which doesn't take a huge chunk of time. I know my limits! Lol. I've heard it said by Scott Young, I believe, that the process of creating flashcards IS studying. It's not a waste of time. I'm reviewing my notes from my lesson or a reading passage when I'm adding cards, and I am typing in a different alphabet--all good things to practice. But, most importantly, once I've created that flashcard, it is stored in the most convenient place for me, which is on my phone. I can review my flashcards anywhere, even on a busy day when I don't have time to sit down to study anything. I believe the biggest drawback of the bidirectional approach is that I need to have time to sit down and study every day. . . which is not the reality of my life right now with a husband, teenager, pets, and multiple professional hats. So, for me, the convenience, the way Anki organizes my study time for me, and the ability to actually get it done are the reasons why I've stuck with it. And it works for me.

[@fulvia1454]

Very good point 👍🏼

[@chrolka6255]

Good points. I even use Anki at the gym between my lifting sets :D I use it when brushing my teeth or sitting on the toilet. I use it while commuting and in waiting rooms. Otherwise this time would be wasted :)

[@МарияКоврова-о9в]

Now I understand why I've never liked learning words with Anki or apps like this. I think everyone should choose what works better for them. I love listening to dialogs, then analyze them and memorize the things which are necessary personally for my life. In this way I practice listening comprehension, pronunciation (I can repeat after the speaker), spelling (I can look through the text after the first listening) and I learn words naturally. They just jump in my head without a special effort as I have a context and can imagine the situation. Sure, I have to repeat, without it one can't remember for a long time. But that's the way that works for me

[@KnightOfEternity13]

Anki, basically, works against the neural network in our brains, splitting information on unrelated little chunks. All texts you read, all dialogs you hear is a SRS itself, you meet words again and again, not random ones, but the ones that are actually useful for you. So we don't need another, artificial one above it.

[@DEUTSCH-kurzundknackig]

Exactly. Same for me.

[@DEUTSCH-kurzundknackig]

@@KnightOfEternity13 Well said!

[@danielbackesbcc]

​@@KnightOfEternity13I have the exact same idea. I used Anki to learn words using phrases, but I spent time with words that I don't really need at that point, so by defining the words that I would study I end up in an artificial process wasting my energy to do it. So I noticed that reading a book, the most important words that I really need, appear natural with more frequency.

[@kama3034]

This feels like just a way to criticize something popular to sell your 400 euros course, that probably won't work for most people. Nah, I'd rather stay with Anki and SRS, it's been working pretty well so far, and from the comments it sounds like it's been working for many other people. SRS is the only way I was able to stick to language learning and progress at it.

[@JeremyGo-GoYears]

Hey Luca, thanks for your thoughts on this. I'm just sorry you built in so many assumptions about how people use Anki. Yes, if people use it how you describe it might be a burdensome and wasteful tool, but it just doesn't line up with my experience. Anki can be valuable when used properly, especially at the outset of beginning to learn a new language. Cards with significant context take only a few seconds to make, and for me have been very effective at building an initial vocabulary and then I happily retire the deck when it loses effectiveness. Seems like this video was more of a strawman for pitching BDT, which you have every right to do of course. Btw, I took your BDT course and have tried it extensively without success so have stuck with other tools. I know it works for you, but of course it may not work for others. Cheers.

[@patchy642]

Please use the words instead of the acronyms. I've no idea what BTD is, and I don't want to learn more acronyms when now it's free to write the full words. Just a thought.

[@JeremyGo-GoYears]

@@patchy642 sorry, Bi-directional translation, which is Luca's method

[@tschewm1353]

Luca is wrong in the very 1st reason. I do not type words in. I just cut out a phrase from the ebook, put it into Google translator, receive the translation, cut out the sound of the phrase from audiobook (using the Audacity) and copy all three items into an Anki card E.g. per vedere di dove mai poteva essere uscita quella vocina // uscire [sound:Pinocchio Cap 01-31.mp3] to see where that little voice could have come from // come out Then I hear the whole phrase while space-repeating (any times I want) and pronounce it aloud once or twice by myself The Google fuctions pretty well чтобы увидеть, откуда же мог исходить(быть исходящим) этот голосок // выходить, исходить um zu sehen, woher diese kleine Stimme herauskommen könnte // herauskommen pour voir d'où pourrait venir cette petite voix // sortir ...and so on To create a card, I spend 3-4 minutes, And I can use garbage time to repeat the cards, using Ankidroid, While waiting in some queue,

[@patchy642]

@@tschewm1353 Interesting! Would you be willing to do a video response explaining all that in a digestible way, including calling out Luke's evaluation of it? I'm sure many of us would find it useful.

[@tschewm1353]

@@patchy642 Sorry. I did answer here, but my answer disappeared in some way. It is hard for me to type my answer again.

[@thedog5k]

1. I mean, if you are making a flashcard you will use. How? Doing it by hand takes WAYYY to long, but on a computer? Bruh. EDIT: Dude.... thats too much 2. fluff 3. Isn't this literally the point? 4. Make a cloze flashcard, sonnet plugin. There is no reason to seperate learning a language into ONLY natural, or ONLY flashcards. Flashcards to remember words, and then practicing applying them is a legit strategy 5. How the fuck is this less time consuming than making a flashcard

[@tschewm1353]

One more aspect why I do like using Anki. After certain period of time, say 8-10 months, I do not space-repeat Anki cards, but I continue to CREATE them, A separate deck for a separate story (novel). And if I have a suspition concerning some word, that is - did I encountered that word earlier or not, I can filter all decks in a second. E.g. let's take a Turkish word muazzam (huge) Anki founds in my collection all cards with this word: Petunia Teyze muazzam oğluna sisli gözlerle baktı Bin tırnağın muazzam bir karatahtayı tırmalamasından çıkıyora benzeyen bir ses duydu Eski stil ve muazzam malikânenin kapısı önünde durduk. Herkesin aklında hâlâ filanca bayramda falancaların yaptığı muazzam eğlence yaşardı Yusuf kendini de bu muazzam ve yekpare geceye yapışık sandı ve korkuyla ürperdi. Of course, I do not type them, but Ctrl-C -- Ctrl-V.

[@mybestideas1]

Sorry Luca on this one. I progressed the most with Anki. However do not learn a word for word but learn whole sentences.

[@jeremybuckets]

IMO Anki is best for 1. brand new learners, to bootstrap their vocabulary with the most commonly used words in a language 2. advanced learners, to learn phrases and idioms that don't show up frequently but are important for enriching vocabulary and understanding. In the former case, if the language is remotely popular there is already a high quality 1k word deck for it so the initial effort is zero. In the latter case, you have enough of a scaffolding of the language that you really don't need much to the card-a sentence that puts the phrase in context and the meaning on the back. You're at the stage where you don't need pictures or audio files for every single thing, you just need some text to prompt your brain to make connections to related things it already knows. Those cards take mere seconds to create. Where people get stuck is trying to learn every single individual word they come across in the intermediate stage. You need a passive vocabulary of something like 40,000 words to reach native-level comprehension. Learning this via flashcards would take decades-it's literally just too inefficient and too much work. The only way to achieve this is mass consumption of native media. Stick to using flash cards as a tool to learn complex phrases that stick out as being important to you, and rely on lots and lots of immersion to fill in the gaps.

[@AnimeProfessorZ]

I'm using ANKI since years and it's great.

[@MarioARada]

Hahahaha the first reason you mentioned is the one why I quitted using Anki when starting my journey with English, I thought this is to much work to create a desk of this. I'll jus going to use material already created. Love your mindset Luka!

[@sherlockhomeless7138]

I can't trust something that learners have created for me.

[@poohoff]

I hate the idea of learning vocab from lists or cards, sounds like the most boring thing one can think of

[@Alex-cs6en]

Luca, I have a question for you. I'm learning now my fourth language, from the very beginning. I've observed that during this process I lose a bit of language fluency in the other languages I speak (except my mother tongue) and I'd love to see the reason. The same thing happened when I was learning the third one. Don't know if there's some biology there and it's natural or I simply neglect the other languages and that's why it happens. Maybe both? 😉 anyone here having such problems?

[@tschewm1353]

It is normal. Steve Kaufmann said many times that previous languages tend to get forgotten, but one can restore them very quickly. Steve restores his Polish now. www.youtube.com/@Thelinguist/videos

[@Alex-cs6en]

@@tschewm1353 still, the first, the second or both reasons? 😉

[@Luiseut59]

I've learned English to a high level and I've been teaching for over ten years and Anki has worked wonders. But you can't learn a language using anki alone. You have to complement it with other methods to "soften the blow" of its shortcomings.

[@nochu9753]

When I first heard about Anki I gave it a try, but it felt dull to me and not effective at all.

[@elainer8288]

What I really didn't like about Anki was having to waste a lot of time evaluating and marking if the card was difficult, easy or whatever. This bored me to death! I guess it is better to use each dialogue as a big flashcard in your memory and in paper like Lucca does and use Anki only to reinforce the most difficult sentences from each dialogue; the ones we keep saying incorrectly every time we review the dialogues with bidirectional translation. This way, we would use Anki only to complement Lucca's method.

[@Maidaseu]

By making sentence cards taken from real life sentence there will always be learning with context. I was able to acquire 1k most common phrases in both Spanish and French in 4 months. Which had accompanied audio by native speakers (got it from Refold) and my comprehension has improved significantly. I do however agree that anki is only for a minority of learners.

[@paulwalther5237]

I think Luca has a valid point even if you include a sentence on the card because even if you're learning from context technically it's the repeated same context over and over and the brain needs a variety of contexts to really absorb something.

[@cOcOmOo92]

I use it like this: 1. Open Excel and write down all kinds of things you would talk about in an fictive conversation you'd have with a friend or family memeber. Also write about what happend to you that day (especially emotional things). 2. After about 50 sentences, I'll just paste them into ChatGPT. To help Chat GPT I also would sometimes help by explaining the context of the sentence in brackets. Of couse: Don't post anything too personal! 3. Then I copy the translation and post it to another column next to the old one in Excel. Copy the old (native language) and the new column (foreign language) into a text file to import them all in one shot into Anki. 4. Depending on the language I then let Awesome TTS create a voice example for all of the imported sentences. Also evenlabs is very good for this but it's a pain in the ass because you have to do it sentence by sentence.

[@petrosstefanidis6396]

Solid critique. I should say thought that after 3 years of using it (in 4 languages including my native language!) it's still working like a charm😄 1. It's true that it consumes time to learn how to use and it's labourious to make the cards themselves, let aside reviewing them. That is indeed something to keep in mind. As you said in a previous video, it's useful to review how much time you spend on each language learning activity compared to how much it helps you learn and time spent on Anki should indeed be limited to the minimum. Those are problems you deal with in the beginning though. After a certain amount of time you just become "fluent" in using the app and everything is almost effortless. 2. It can be addictive, absolutely. I've been there and it's important to not make a habit of stopping every couple of minutes to add another new world. That can ruin the experience of both reading and using Anki. Personally I ended up using it when it feels important and compelling to learn an unknown word. 3. Missing a day can be a pain in the ass. The most important thing to remember here though, is that the amount of cards depends solely on your input! If it feels like too much, just reduce the amount you add. If you want to set targets, challenge yourself and plough on, add more. Simple as that. It doesn't have to be always the same amount of input. For example, despite of having hundreds upon hundreds of cards in Spanish, at this point I only get 10-12 cards per day to review. That's 4-5 minutes. The more time passes, the bigger the interims become and the less time you have to spend. A lot of times though I feel myself it would be great to be able to pause the app (when I'm sick for example). 4. It always makes sense for me to use Anki as a tool in combination with whatever else I'm doing to learn. So I don't just download random decks to learn. On the contrary I add new cards with context that I find interesting and compelling while reading, listening to music or watching a video or a movie. This way there's a good - imo - balance between focusing on the world/phrase and context. 5. Sounds interesting. Why not combine it with Anki thought? Could be fun 😊 Keep it up Lucca! Pretty good video even if we disagree.

[@Daveaaaaa]

I agree with everything you said. I came to this realisation after a year of using Anki. My Anki practice felt like a chore after a while but I didn't want to give up at risk of forgetting my learnt vocab. I just bit the bullet half a year ago and pressed 'delete'! My golden rule now is make sure your learning is fun.

[@krzysztof-tys]

Thanks! I finally undarstand why all the flashcard apps are so annoying. Seems I need to make one for myself. I only I could have a free month for that :/

[@RestingKitten]

Hi, I just stumbled upon this video but find your strategy really interesting. I’m wondering where you tend to find content that is both written and has audio? Also what is the rough length of the text you tend to use? …perhaps you have another video explaining this process in more detail? I have to say, I have never gelled with Anki. I find the interface itself to be too boring. But I have enjoyed using Memrise for Japanese- perhaps Kanji necessitates the use of flash card learning more so than Latin alphabet languages.

[@TheFiestyhick]

Fuck , fuck, Fuck, Luca....this is very EXCELLENT, bro. Yeah, I know there are many people that swear by Anki, for example, the Matt vs Japan crowd places big emphasis on Anki, and yes, they DO get results. However, for those that can grasp what you are teaching here, they will grasp that the Anki isn't needed to keep absorbing interesting text. Probably because I am a little older than you and lean towards old school methods, I have had a strong resistance to Anki, so I never fucked with it. My method isn't as fancy as yours. I simply get interesting content like dialogues, short stories or text from books and review and review and rotate the study materials until it sinks in then move forward. I don't need to mess with Anki decks and the content has meaning since it's part of a story or subject. I see youre getting resistance from people. They are not totally wrong since they got decent results, but if they fully understand what you are suggesting and if they TRY it, they'll see that Anki is not needed. Great subject Monsieur Luca!

[@brianpenttila5511]

It sounds like you have some good thoughts about language learning. That's great, but your criticisms of Anki seem quite exaggerated. 1) it doesn't take minutes to create a card, 2) you can apply context to any vocabulary word through using simple sentences (your example of different meanings of "light" are easily overcome this way), 3) as concepts are memorized, the frequency of review "burden" lessens; of course if you are learning thousands of words and phrases you may find this a burden, but you can remove review of cards very easily as they become unnecessary (assuming you are exposed through regular reading, listening and speaking in the new language), 4) in your method, more context means more time/effort and likely with diminishing returns. I don't know how you can confidently say that Anki doesn't work "for the majority of learners." Given it's widespread popularity, I would say that clearly it does work. And I don't think anyone suggests that Anki ALONE can make you a fluent speaker; it's just a tool, and a very useful one for me.

[@learninglanguagesinput1590]

The actual creation of the Anki cards is what I hated back when I started with Anki. The adding of sound/images/translation or description. It quickly exhausted me and I had a hard time finding time to do it. It was much easier to just watch a KZbin video with subtitles or Netflix. I prefer the things easy to set up. If some sort of long set-up or complex steps are required for anything, I become demotivated. So ultimately, I prefer something that takes a few clicks to play and I don't have to worry about. I have Language reactor, which does't require any complex tweaking to run. I tried to introduce Anki to my students and again, most of them didn't wanna deal with the setup and adding the cards. Laborious is a good way to describe it.

[@LauraBCReyna]

I've tried both Anki & regular paper note cards & find them both incredibly boring to use. My brain just shut off whenever I tried to use them. To learn vocabulary in a new language I read text in the target lang that has already been translated into Eng (my native lang) in order to make it "comprehensible"-- books, videos, apps, etc... If the material is not already translated I use Google Translation & do it myself. I'm at the point in my Italian learning that I'm reading a novel in Italian with the help of an English translation. I hope to be reading just in Italian soon. I also want to try writing & reciting personal MONOLOGUES bc I've heard this method is v effective in helping learners to speak.

[@fuglsnef]

Same here, I started dreading the process. The choice for me was between switching to a more engaging method or giving up.

[@Shibby27ify]

One problem with the original theory that led to anki, is that it doesn't measure meaningful information. It uses information as if all information has the same strength in memory. I may use Refold's anki cards in the future if I begin a new language just as a beginner As I approach a more advanced level in Spanish right now, I found LingQ is the only intensive study tool I need anymore. Everything else is a waste of time. I could just read random pages in books I've already read though and I feel that would be just as effective too.

[@TobiasMaximus1]

What you're failing to focus on however is this : There are many ways to learn a language, some may be more powerful in theory, due to X & Y reasons .... but ultimately what matters is what you enjoy and find effortless. Despite the labour of setting up cards, I enjoy Anki & find it satisfying whereas your "bi directional" method thing sounds overly complex and boring to me. Not trying to shit on your method, because your method works for you and whoever else should use it. My point is that Anki Suits me and I enjoy it more, and that's all that counts. HIIT Exercize might be theoretically the most powerful way to lose weight, but if Bob doesn't like HIIT but he loves basketball, it's more sustainable for him to just do that and he'll still get to this goal in an enjoyable way. I'd rather just learn the words like that before going into immersion, than go through some complex multistep method.

[@jesusguaita3305]

"No questions about it, I'm ready to get hurt again". Michael Scott.

[@khalefh66]

Good video, l learned new vocabularies from it and I'm going to add them to Anki

[@rainbowchild63]

Yes,Luca, I completely agree with you!My small experience with tough soft has confirm your experience! I left this work ! May be it is not for me,but can fit for others! Thank you!

[@alejandroparedes2500]

I think this guy thinks that all he says is the best opinion ever, cringe

[@RobotYashka]

1. You can import cards ) Or use ankii to memorize difficult words.

[@fellowsidiomas]

How to use SRS effectively: 1.TAKE A SHORT PIECE O CONTENT 2.LEARN IT DEEPLY. 3. REVIEW IT IN A VARIETY OF WAYS (OVER THE COURSE OS A SINGLE WEEK). DAY 1: READ the content and listen to the audio file, using the translation in my mother tongue to try to understand the text as deeply as possible. DAY 2: ANALYZE the phonetic patterns of the text: -pronunciation, -intonation, -word stress. DAY 3: REVIEW the content in a brand-new way: -listening to the audio, -reading the text, -or something else entirely! DAY 4: MAKE A PERSONALIZED translation of the text in my native language. DAY 5: TAKE my native translation from the previous day, and try to verbally translate it back into my target language. DAY 6: TAKE my native-language translation and re-translating it in writing back into the original language. Then, I make note of any errors, forgotten words, or mistranslations.