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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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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!" 😅

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

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!

Okay, after scrolling the comments here, I found most people who have a beef with this video are those who are learning Japanese....

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! 😊

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.

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.

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.

Yo amo Anki porque además de ayudarme a aprender palabras, me ayuda a aprender estructuras gramáticales que me están resultando complejas. Creo (sin ofender) que la mayoría de los que se quejan de Anki, no son muy buenos con la tecnología y no lo saben configurar ni usar bien. Anki es una maravillosa herramienta, pero todo depende de tu curiosidad, imaginación y el uso que le des

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.

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

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.

I got my advanced in English thanks to anki

I like the idea presented here and I think it is fair...and probably the right time for me to stumble upon it, because I did some translating of a piece of text last week to challenge myself and looked up words I couldn't figure out and found the experience rewarding. But remembering vocabulary is one of my weaknesses because I struggle to stick with any of the flash card methods and honestly hate learning out of context and my best learning has been with things in context and where everything makes sense. So maybe the push I need is to work in a level of spaced repetition. And you are right about words having different meanings and also sometimes multiple words have the same basic meaning and I generally didn't like creating cards for those words and I figure it'd be easy to get wrong and I have.

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.

very good video, thank you for such indepth explanation

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.

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

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.

Great video, as always! Still, I think you could employ the BDT or similar methods (e.g., Goldlist) through Anki. It's just a matter of how to structure the cards.

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

Now that I've seen the video. I agree with you Luca. Using a notebook in my opinion is way better than using Anki. I had used Anki in the past and it didn't work for me either! Thanks for the awesome content !!

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 :)

So interesting and I agree 💯 thank you so much!!

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

Luca! Thank you for this video… You are so right!

Thank you for your videos, which I usually like very much. But I have to admit I'm a bit surprised: I use the Mosalingua app, and I'm always exposed to your videos in which you say that the spaced repetition system is the best when it comes to learning vocabulary... which of the two Lucas is right?

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.

Thank you for this, Luca. I always give up on Anki. I can't get myself to like it. Could you clarify day #1 and Day #3 please? You mentioned on Day 1, you use the translation in your mother tongue, and on Day 4, you make a personalized translation of the text in your native tongue (mother tongue). How does the translation from Day 1 differ from Day 4?

Fair points! I've gotten a lot out of Anki, specially with my Japanese studies, since the writing system is a tough one to get used to. To each their own, but I think these are well-structured and fair criticisms anyways, and I'm sure they'll help people decide what they want to do.

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.

What do you think of Fluent Forever? Hi Luca! Thanks for making this video and your thoughts on Anki. I completely agree with you and had never put into words like you did but I have experienced these negative things while using Anki and sometimes Fluent Forever.

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!

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!

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

Your video arrived just in time. I've been thinking about using Anki lately. So far I've been using Notes on my phone to jot down new vocab and expressions. But now I'm looking for something more advanced as use my notes for many other things and the Notes app tend to become laggy and freeze when filled up. Now let's give it a watch.

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!

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! 😁

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.😊

I think it‘s all good points, it‘s definitely easy to feel productive through these without making any progress whatsovere . Although I‘m still greatful for these spaced repitition Softwares as it makes the first stage of vocabulary learning not seem impossible. I‘m starting Russian and it seems like Mission Impossible at times. With the flashcards I get used to reading the most important words and am memorizing them. yes they are out of context but with these really basic words like the personal pronouns and basic verbs it‘ll be easy adapting to using them in context. You have to start somewhere and working out methods of learning a language without these methods, just from input and output of the language itself, is too big of a hurdle for me while also having my day to day life. I‘m all for doing mostly natural Input and lots of talking at an a little more advaced stage.

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”!!!!

Listening and reading extensively are my ways to memorize vocabulary

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.

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.

*I agree 💯%* *Thank you for the video!* The strategy of using your target language in authentic ways is the shortest way to fluency

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,

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!

You make a very valid point Luca and funny enough, I came across this video because of something with which you mentioned; context. The word από in Greek I noticed has 4 different meanings, and although in one particular sentence within a short story it uses it in the context of 'from', it then makes it more difficult using Anki. I do have Duolingo, Mondly, Memrise and I still feel they're good, but I have recently started the story learning method and incorporated that into my routine. I just need to find an efficient way that'll help me memorise words from stories.

Hello Luca, I'm Alexandre, and Im from Brazil. I am an Anki user, and I appreciate your perspective about this app. I use a method that takes me a few minutes per day to add and study cards. I also guarantee that I will add more than one meaning to a word. From my perspective, there are ways to use this software in a proper manner. But your arguments are valid as well. Good video, Luca.

Super!

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

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

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?

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.

Also there is ways to facilitate the process, I use lingq and from there its easy to import in to anki and then there is addons that make audio on seconds. So you can make 1000s of flashcards in mins. But the point is to use it as a supplement and not spend all day on them

I find I remember vocabulary a d phrases better when I write them down, so for me typing ad hoc Anki cards is not a bad thing. Writing by hand is even better, and I have to do that for scripts I don't know how to type, but they are bulky and not that convenient to carry around, and they can quickly wear out. I think your method is best suited to someone who already has a grasp for the basics and is at least at lower-intermediate level or at least has a good grasp on similar language structure or the ability to analyse language constructions. Anki can be useful tool for beginners and more advanced learners. Learning phrases (including common idiomatic expressions) as chunks of language was very helpful for me as a beginner as anchors in between unknown content....Now that I understand enough English to follow podcasts and read articles etc, it makes sense to do that. But to come across new vocabulary in this way feels like wasting time, so I still use flashcards now and then to learn new vocabulary or review words that I don't come across very often, to move them from passive to active memory I used something else than Anki to learn English vocab, and it allowed me to define how many words and from which set I wanted to review per day. (Does Anki do that? It should!) I could obviously reset the target vocabulary at any time. The app allowed to read definition (including alternative meanings) and a few phrases and clips where the word was used in context. The downside was that if fetched the resources from around different websites and sometimes that failed, particularly when the website had removed the content...

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

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.

I have been using Anki for about a year and I have to say that you make some really good points. At a certain point (anything longer than 30 minutes of reviewing cards), it becomes a CHORE. Also, I can type the answers without even reading the entire question on the card, which tells me that I am simply repeating the answer from muscle memory rather than contemplating the actual meaning of the sentence. Anki has been a great help in terms of vocabulary and I don't regret using it. However I don't always use what I have learned in every day conversations with natives which tells me that my brain hasn't fully associated what I've been learning in Anki with real life scenarios, rather, it is simply repeating a patter to provide the correct answer. Anki could be good if you want to focus on a specific topic or only a few new words a week rather than adding new words frequently and reviewing the older ones as it can take an excessively long time.

I use Anki for Japanese learning reading and listening to vocab. It was been very helpful. But I also pair it with Japanese subtitles with Japanese tv/movies and games. I dont think anyone can learn language from just flashcards, but flashcards paired with much much much more input has been a game changer for me. Also I find making a flashcard of a sentence with grammar or vocab i dont understand with audio and a screenshot(all of which can be done programmatically thus only taking a button press) does wonders. Audio, context, and visuals all give the appropriate foundations of language. Also if just starting out, you can easily grab premade decks. Something I have also done to learn reading music, which is pure memory based. While your criticisms are valid, using anki appropriately would have you avoiding them in the first place. Anki is support, not the main method.

Hey Luca, thanks for the video! In my case Anki didn't work at all, it didn't help to boost my vocabulary. Repetitions were like a chore and I forced myself many times to reach the day's goal. For me the best way to memorize new vocabulary is to write short stories using the words I want to learn. Then memorising happens in a more active way. On the other hand I understand that such apps are usefull tools for many. We are different and it's cool that we can share our experiences.

Can you do a review on your thoughts of Glossika?

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.

Do you have an app for your method? If not, I'm going to make one. My problem has always been getting bored doing the same thing repeatedly which is obviously a problem since repetition is key, but this method seems like a much less boring way of returning material. It would be pretty easy to make, not that I'd do anything fancy. I'll send it to you when I'm done if you want to sell it, otherwise I'll open source it.

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.

Ciao Luca, ho già imparato 5 lingue, ma penso di non poterne imparare altre sono bloccato. Tuttavia ho tanta voglia di imparare il tedesco e il tagalog, ma sento che non posso andare fino in fondo come ho già fatto in passato, ¿qualche consiglio? tysm I adore your videos, i think i've been watching any single video of yours like more than 30 times. Merci bcp.

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 :/

Por fin, alguien tenía que decirlo, gracias Luca

I am going to give Anki a try. Ive come a fairly long way in Spanish--at about B1--and I want to concentrate on just getting more words in my vocabulary. Of course, I agree about the context problem, and it is the one that seems the most important. On that score, I'm going to try to incorporate a lot of reading this year, about 50/50 with vocabulary building. The other thing I plan to do is include at least one sentence in Spanish for each word I'm trying to memorize. I'm hoping that this will help. I'm not going to go to the trouble of including images--that really does seem over the top to me. I'll go with the most obvious English translation. I can't imagine trying to build sentences using Anki,, although I'd love to hear from people who have done it. Here we get to the "network" problem. And of course, there's lingq, which I need to get into also. Love what you have to say about spaced repetition. For sure will try that. Thanks!

I was longing for this video for a long time. I wish you make a similar one about Duolingo which I don't consider a course but something like cross words.

Salve Luca, Ti sto seguendo da molto e sono molto impressionato. Comunque da tanto tempo che avrei voluto chiederti una cosa che mi h molto incuriosito. In un video parlavi di un sistema molto valido. Imparare con le traduzioni. Come funziona veramente? Io , par esempio, imparo il tedesco e l'inglese. Sto traducendo un libro col aiuto di Google translate. Scrivo a mano il testo in tedesco, o l'inglese, su un quaderno. Poi lo traduco con Google, ripeto a voce, e poi scrivo le parole sconosciute in una lista. Va bene , oppure posso fare di meglio? Qualche idea, per favore? Con rispetto, Alex

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

Professor Luca.....eu adoraria comprar os seus cursos.....porque voce nao disponibiliza uma amostra deles para que possamos avaliar o material? Comprar algo para depois devolver é trabalhoso e boring.....faça isso e vera suas vendas aumentarem muito....

Valid arguments you pointed out however it takes me few seconds to add a new card since I mostly only add the front one without translation or image or audio or anything. I force myself to remember the new word while I'm reviewing and it's true that I have lots of cards not reviewed that I just put aside cuz I'm focused on a different language. I'm focused on Greek and Japanese now so all my English, German, French cards are SO ACCUMULATED!!!! I have decks with over 200 cards just hanging there waiting to be reviewed one day hasuhaushauhduahsdu it's interesting that when I review old cards I can do it very quickly cuz I have reviewed them several times and the spaced repetition system set it to be reviewed only after some months or even years.

I think the biggest struggle when doing a method that requires finding your own material that you want to understand is the finding part, how do you go about finding material that you think is both interesting and also will be able to understand after listening to and translating for only a week?

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.

I tried to use Anki for a few days and stopped because of reasons 1 and 2. But there are variants like Lingvist that gets rid of the tedious aspects. Nevertheless, the usefulness of this type of app depends on how concrete the word is. I think it's great for teaching you parts of the body, food items, and so on. Perhaps it's not that efficient once you are solidly B1. There are many words and phrases where the lack of a larger memorable context makes what is supposedly learned (even memorized) somewhat useless. I am a big fan of translation repeated translation as well because you can't pretend to "sort of know" a word or grammatical construct. I now spend most of time either just ingesting content (written or audio), translating (read/write/read out loud), or talking to a tutor. The other exercise I've found useful is just taking a list of vocabulary words and writing a new narrative using as many as I can. I find production to be more effective at creating long-term retention.

As a long time Anki user (studying japanese) the only critique here I agree with is that its easy to take the language out of context in the flashcard format. Everything else comes down to finding a balance related to implementation and have more to do with personal study structuring than the tool itself. The tool is so open-ended that its easy to make a mess of the process. I'm also a computer nerd so I like the tinkering and systemizing, while someone else may not. I think the translation technique you mentioned is very interesting though and I will try that.

When you say a short piece of content, how short are we talking? A paragrpah? 2, 3, 4? I'm really curious about how long. I really want to give this a try, it could be very useful! Thank you so much for sharing!

Hola , soy cubano, hablo 4 idiomas, ahora eprendo el ruso pero me cuesta mucho trabajo , me puede ayudar?

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.

I do agree with most of the things u mentioned, but i do not know what i can do instead. u know, i work all day long and when i'm done i have zero motivation to review a anki deck, but i still dont know how i can learn a new word and don't forget it. Sometimes i think about just listening the stuff i like in the language im learning but i think it's not that effective.

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.

Good video

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

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. 😂

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.

Finally...We have your opinion about anki! |o/ Luca, ti prego, making a video speaking about 'Rosetta Stones" and what you think about it Tante grazie!