I see a lot of recommendations here for Anki when using flash cards. I am trying to get faster on my Major System. Right now my Major System is in a memory palace which means I need to walk through it in order to encode or decode. I figure flash cards are the way to get faster.
But in the iOS App Store, there are half a dozen apps that say Anki. Is Anki a brand or is it a technique? Which app is recommended?
Here’s the download page for all the versions:
https://apps.ankiweb.net/
Direct links to the app stores:
My advice is to spend more time learning all the sounds associated with the 10 digits 0 to 9. Convert everything you see. Convert license plates, street signs, mailbox numbers - just practice, don’t memorize. Then take your 100 peg words and create a coherent story and link each peg to the next peg until you reach 100.
If you get stuck at any time just recall the sound(s) for the next number. That will give you a great clue as to what the next peg word is.
For me, in HS back in 1975 it was: A TIE was around the neck of NOAH who was talking to my MA who was eating a piece of RYE. Next to her was the LAW wearing a SHOE made of COW leather. Some IVY was growing on the shoe, and a BEE was buzzing around it and his TOES. Next to him was a TOT playing with a TIN can by a TOMB… etc etc etc.
It was a silly little story, but it made memorizing quick, easy, and painless.
I hope that helps.
Sorry, I messed up. I have a Dominic System, not a Major System. It’s just 100 people.
They are grouped in 10’s, so that helps but I need quicker recall.
Anki is the name of an app that allows you to build all kinds of flashcards in many different configurations. It has the ability to schedule your reviews based on the algorithms of spaced repetition, which is a super efficient and effective way of studying material at critical review intervals to maximize your retention. It can be a little bit daunting to learn at first, but it is really powerful. The links Josh provided are the only official places to get the real app. There are tons of counterfeit ones in both android and ios app stores, so make sure you go through the official links if you end up wanting to use it.
As for flashcard use in general, I’m a huge fan of them, especially for learning number or card systems. Anki is great, probably the best flashcard app that I know of, but there are tons of other free apps available. Before I found out about Anki, I used cram.com and its app. It has a pretty good interface thats easy to build cards in and the app offers randomization, front/back/alt field flipping, and learning mode where it will give extra reps to cards that you have difficulty with. For a starting project of only 100 items, something like that would be worth checking out before jumping into the complexity of Anki building (and the somewhat hefty cost for the ios version of the app.)
@Suthnautr 's advice still applies with learning the associations of each number to its dominic letter and practicing organically with them. It can be a little bit tougher to create a memorable linked story with only people as the mnemonic elements, but still doable.
There’s really no secret to building speed. It takes lots of reps before you are fluent with your reading and automatic with your recognition and visualization. It will take time. Keep at it and you’ll see improvement!
Anki’s official iOS client is the one that costs money to download. The app has the brand pallete (grey and blue) and the screenshots include an image of an elephant (unless they changed them).
All the others just try to capitalize on Anki’s popularity by misleading people with their title. They’re like mockbusters.
Btw, keep in mind that Anki isn’t the only thing that employs a spaced repetition algorithm, meaning you don’t have to restrict yourself to just that one product. If you have the time, check out other flash card apps. Some of them might suit you better than Anki (personally, I really like DuoCards). Also, built-in SRS isn’t really that important, at least for language learning. You can use something more basic and just learn at your own pace.
Thanks. As I said, when you search on anki you get a bunch of different apps. I just didn’t know which one was usually being referred to.
I have my system in a memory palace so it’s not that I need help memorizing them. I just need to go faster. I figure this is the appropriate time for rote memorization with flash cards.
The thing I don’t like about the app that I did download, which was some anki knockoff, was that after each guess I had to rate the card as easy, medium, hard, or miss. I don’t want to waste time with that. I just want to be able to pull my phone out when I’m bored, and run through 10 random items from my PAO system.
That’s how the apps know when to show the card again using spaced repetition.
If you just want to review some random numbers occasionally, you could copy some numbers from the random number generator into a document. Then print and keep a sheet or two in your pocket to “read” from occasionally.
Yeah the rating part is the core feature of Anki as well as its more diligent knockoffs. If you don’t want that, I suggest Quizlet