Tag: Leitner

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5 vs. 2

I’d like to talk a bit about how kanji Flow’s SRS implementation works.

This is going to be boring so I’ll leave the pictures out this time and just focus on the story.

Basically, I use the same SM2 algorithm that many other software programs use. If you look at that SM2 link, you’ll see that it can be kind of complicated. A bit of Googling will show you that there is some debate regarding if it really is good for memorizing or not and what the best implementation is. I’m not really interested in getting involved in that debate as I don’t have enough knowledge to offer any fruitful opinions. Basically, it seems to work pretty well and it makes things less complicated for me.

Of course, my implementation is customized to the way I like to study. I used to use the Leitner System so that basic format is mixed in. I like to review my cards steadily for a couple of days if I miss one and once I’ve memorized it again I want it to get an interval based off of its entire history. So, that’s basically how kanji Flow works. How does that compare to other software?

Anki is probably the most popular SRS software available. Anki uses more complicated intervals and gives you a few different options when you look at a card to determine when it should be scheduled again. I think you really need to understand that part of the documentation if you want to use Anki as effectively as possible. kanji Flow basically only has two choices: unknown or known. You can also pass but that doesn’t do any math on the card’s difficulty.

It may seem like kanji Flow doesn’t give you as many choices but I think it doesn’t really make much difference. Let’s say I gave you the option of choosing a card’s difficulty manually. You could select 1-5 and, for a particular card, selecting a 4 would cause the card to be due for study 17 hours earlier than selecting a 3. Mathematically speaking, it’s different. Practically speaking, it doesn’t matter. You’re still gonna get that card again on Thursday. Or, perhaps, Wednesday.

The problem (is it a problem?) is due to the granularity at which humans tend to schedule their activities. Most people use days to schedule their time and many people seem to like to do things like studying once a day. So those small differences in determining the card’s difficulty probably aren’t going to have much of an effect on when your cards are due. Knowing vs. not knowing the card has a big effect, though. So, that’s the only decision you have to make.

I used to use a time-based system that would set the card’s difficulty and study date based on how long you looked at it versus how long you normally looked at the other cards in the same lesson. A lot of testing showed me that it just really didn’t matter that much, so I took that code out. Just keep it simple: Do I know this or not? Actually, if you have to ask yourself that question, you don’t know it. Swipe it to the left and review it.

Happy studies!

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kanji Flow’s Philosophy

Well, actually, I guess it’s more like my philosophy about kanji Flow. Basically, I’d like to offer a bit of info about my motivations behind kanji Flow, why it looks the way it does, and what I might do with it in the future.

I made kanji Flow because I’m a student of Japanese and I needed a way to automate my memorization of kanji and vocabulary. Originally, I used a program on my old Windows Pocket PDA called Stackz. When I switched over to an iPhone, I wanted to keep using Stackz since I had already put so much time into my Stackz study decks. However, the developer of Stackz, MindDate Software, never made a version for iPhone. I actually communicated with the people (guy?) at MindDate quite a few times about a possible iPhone version but, in the end, they said it wasn’t going to happen. I looked for other options in the App Store but there didn’t seem to be anything good available so I decided to try and make something for myself.

I kind of copied the basic UI from Stackz which was okay for me but actually doesn’t seem to be terribly intuitive for new users. I’ve gotten complaints about it, usually along the lines of, “What am I supposed to do with this?” so I know I should probably try to come up with something better but, basically, it works. Those buttons are Leitner stacks, by the way. Honestly, I wasn’t very good at setting up UI stuff when I was getting started with iOS development and it took a long time to get working so, as long as it keeps working and unless someone sends me a really good idea, I’m probably just going to leave it.

kanji Flow is not a commercial product. It’s just something I do in my spare time, again, because it helps with my Japanese studies. I also include data from some open source or creative commons projects as well as featuring integration with a couple of free or free to use resources so I feel it’s best to make this app available to other users for free as well. If other people find it useful and it helps with their Japanese studies, that’s good enough for me.

I still use the app myself every day and I don’t foresee my Japanese studies ending anytime soon so I intend to keep updating the app to ensure it works with all future version of iOS. If other people have good ideas that aren’t too complicated or beyond my skills or available time resources to implement, I’m happy to add stuff to the app for anyone that asks. However, there are some features I’ve received requests for that I probably won’t ever add to the app. I’m going to address a couple of those features in the next post.

Happy Studies!

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How to Study with kanji Flow

First, watch the Getting Started video:

You can also check out the linked tutorials’ play list on this post you haven’t already.

kanji Flow offers a lot of freedom in how you use it to study. If you like and use the Leitner system, you can probably make your preferred method of study work within the app’s available options. If you don’t know what “the Leitner system” is or you’ve noticed that the amount of kanji and/or vocabulary you’ve got in your study list is starting to get a bit unruly then I’d recommend that you study as outlined in this post.

You should be using the Flow study method. The app will keep track of how well you know each card and determine when you need to study the card again. Basically, it’s an algorithm managed, increasing interval study system. The more you know a card, the less the app will present it to you in study sessions.

It’s important to keep in mind that this algorithm isn’t going to give you perfect memorization. You’ll probably end up needing to review about 10% of your cards from each study session. That’s okay. You shouldn’t feel bad if you didn’t remember the card. If you never get any cards wrong then you have a perfect memory and really don’t need to be studying all that seriously anyway. Expect to forget cards. If you don’t immediately and confidently know the card, you don’t know it. Swipe it to the left and review it.

You should be using context-based study and (almost) everyone of your cards should have examples. This applies especially to verbs and nouns of a disyllabic origin (double kanji words). Download imiwa? (it’s free) and use it to import examples for your card. If imiwa? doesn’t have examples for the word you’re studying then check out the tip in this post. Simple nouns like りんご (apple) probably don’t really need examples.

If you’re studying reading, read the example out loud being sure to use the proper reading for the kanji between the 【】. If you’re studying writing, get out a sheet of paper and pen and write the example down replacing the ○ with the correct kanji. The point of this is to get used to how the word is used by practicing actually using it. Memorizing the whole dictionary isn’t going to do you any good if you don’t know which verb or word is appropriate to whatever situation you happen to find yourself in.

Good luck and please let me know if any of this isn’t clear in anyway. I’ll be happy to talk with you personally about how to get the most out of your study time with kanji Flow.

Happy Studies!