Spaced repetition apps

Spaced repetition principles

When we want to remember something we generate mnemonics. If we want to be able to remember the mnemonics for a very long time, we use dual coding: create both visual and audio mnemonics for the same content. To remember something forever, we use spaced repetition.

1. We write down both the audio mnemonics (funny story) and the visual mnemonics (a personal image) on a flash card.
2. The flash cards are reviewed from time to time based on some complex algorithm. New information is reviewed more often.
3. We use the content of the flash card actively: trying to answer a question.

The process itself is very simple but its specific implementation may be challenging, and here the apps come to your help.
A word of caution:
This method of flash cards is great for remembering stand-alone facts: words, constants, names and dates, formulas. Do not try to use it with complex and strongly interconnected information, where you need to understand the connections between different factors.

The ever-present Anki

Probably the most popular app for spaced repetition is Anki. Anki is a very simple app, and in simplicity there is power. Here are the most compelling features of Anki:

1. Anki is open source, so there is a community of people dedicated to keep it flexible and adapt to any given scenario.
2. The app works virtually anywhere syncing your progress between Windows, Mac, Linux, iOS, Android, and any device with a web browser.
3. You can generate as many flash cards as you want and in any markup you choose, adding audio, video and scientific markup.

Anki is the go-to app for anything you need to remember. However, creating each card requires significant effort: you need to find the right markup, text, images, and audio, and craft the precise questions you want to answer. The process is so intensive that, often, the mere act of creating the card helps you retain the information for a long time. This is ideal if you have only a few cards to remember and a clear vision of how they should look. But in reality, you often need to memorize thousands of facts or words, devise mnemonics for specific challenges like gender and cases, and tackle the complex task of finding suitable images online for abstract concepts.

Anki is great for building your own flash cards and using your own deck, but for a beginner, there are better options.

Memrise: combining courses and flash cards.

Suppose you want to learn using a mobile device.

For a specific task, like language learning, you can do better than Anki. Memrise is a professional app for language learning that offers a big financial prize for anyone improving the ease of memorization. Memrise is partially preloaded with 200 language combinations and uses an array of robots to help you learn: chatbots to chat with and grammar bots to check your grammar, special modes for video and listening, a wide array of statistics to track your progress and much more. The app is highly gamified and you will want to use it and make progress because it is fun.

With Memrise you can select a course and simply start learning. This article explains the difference between Memrise and Anki in a very simple form and shows how you can benefit from Memrise as a beginner.

If you are more thorough and are interested in supplementing your learning with some grammar, you can combine Memrise and Duolingo as described here and here.

Quizlet: 187 million study sets and counting.

Languages are not the only subject we use flash cards for, and if we want to learn something, maybe somebody already prepared flash cards we can reuse. Quizlet covers all sorts of subjects: geography history, art, law, and much more with card decks of various sizes prepared and curated by different people. Some cards sets are small and connect ten items, other card sets contain thousands of cards.

The site proudly states that 95% of students using it improve their grades. I was not able to find a good scientific basis for this statement. I do believe that the site may be helpful in common classroom situations and I believe that many tutors prepare study sets for their subjects and students.

When you use cards created by the community, you do have some extra responsibility.

1. You need to find the right card set for you: not too simple and not too complex, with the right information.
2. Some cards will be wrong: with all sorts of mistakes. Occasionally the text simply will not work for you.
3. Since you did not actively create the cards, you need to get active when modifying or using them.

Quizlet is very user-friendly and you really should buy a premium account to add images and sounds to your card.

Quizlet and Anki use different spaced repetition algorithms, both are very secret and very efficient.

Why do we need yet another app?