SRS- maximum amount of cards per day

[Cavesa]

Hi SRS users,

what is your experience, please? I have recently started using Anki for my medicine studies and got some huge and superawesome decks. My first impressions are very good.

However, I have little time to learn it (the usually recommended kinds of pace would take 20 years or so). But similarily, I have started some huge and superuseful language courses on Memrise, and don't feel like spending a decade on them. (but of course those are on the hold now)

With new cards and reviews, how much time per day are you usually able to put in maximally? Is there a limit, after which your brain simply refuses to continue? How long can you keep such such a pace for?

This question is one of those that appear to be black gaps between the available information sources, with mostly people repeating the (true) advice like "slowly but steadily" and "too many reviews will make you burn out".

I have not changed the original algorhytm in any way, the review times are the same, should I make some changes to be more efficient?

After how many reviews are you quite sure that you know the card?

My SRS goal is something like 20000 cards, but many of them are similar, so the amount of "new information cards" would be something like 6000-8000. The similar yet not entirely the same cards are much easier, but very valuable, considering what I am studying for.

I have approximately ten months before me, so I am considering my plan, eventually cutting some stuff out, and setting a schedule that won't betray me.

Relevant previous experience: 2000-2500 cards in a weekend, two or three view were sufficient, but approximately half of it was very easy and closely related to a known language.

So, what would you recommend to a desperate learner?

Have you ever tried pace like 50 or 100 new cards a day?

[rdearman]

Have you ever tried pace like 50 or 100 new cards a day?

Yes, and this is a very bad idea! It is going to turn anki into a torture machine. Personally I would recommend not more than 20 new cards per day across all decks. I am breaking this slightly at the moment, because I have 5 decks and I'm doing 5 new cards in each, so 25 cards per day. However, today I have to review 500 cards. This is because I have a backlog of cards to review, but typically I would expect after 30-60 days of use, with 20 new cards per day you'll end up with something like 250 cards per day to review. So beware of charging in because the reviews build up quick enough.

With new cards and reviews, how much time per day are you usually able to put in maximally? Is there a limit, after which your brain simply refuses to continue? How long can you keep such such a pace for?

I can only speak for me, but if I try to do more than 250 total cards in a day, then I'll start to fall behind, miss a day or two and then return to 400-500 to review, then trying to catch up makes you weary and burned out.

The 200-250 per day normally isn't a problem for me. I do as many as I can during the day, mostly these need to be the ones which have no sound. I do these anytime I'm waiting in a queue, breaks, toilet, walking down the street, etc. When I get home I walk my dogs and then walk them again before bed. This is actually when the majority of my cards are done, because in total it is about 20-30 minutes, the dogs don't care if I've got my headsets in, or I'm speaking in another language, it's all human to them!

I have not changed the original algorhytm in any way, the review times are the same, should I make some changes to be more efficient?

The only thing I would suggest is that if you're using your smartphone for this, turn on "guestures" and make one of the guestures suspend the card. I personally use only one guesture, which is a swipe right. This suspends the card and I never see it again. I suspend rather than delete, because delete is a two click process, while suspend gets rid of it with a simple swipe.

Suspending cards helps a lot with getting rid of the torture part. If you know a card, or you're just sick of it and cannot remember it, suspend it and move on with your life.

One other change I've made to my decks is to mark cards as leeches, but don't automatically suspend them. My wifes phone number was a leech card, I just couldn't get it right, but I needed to know it, so leech or not, it stayed in the deck and enabled until I'd finally powered through and learned it. (She susbequently changed her phone number a couple of months later. sigh)

approximately half of it was very easy and closely related to a known language.

Anki will automatically push the easy ones further and further out. So the problem becomes (or at least the reason people start to think of it as a torture machine) is once you've told it what the hard ones are, or the ones you keep forgetting those are the ones you keep seeing. But human beings just seem to naturally thing, "Darn, when I started all these cards were really easy, but now it is just really hard and it makes me tired and I don't like it anymore!"

One other I use is if there is something I want to see more often, even if it is easy, I mark it as hard. It will show up more often.

One last thing is that I personally have a couple of kinds of cards which I like to think of as "Information only" and "Memorisation" cards. Information only cards are like a deck of quotations I've gathered over the years. I want to see them, but I'm not trying to memorise them. Or a set of grammar cards I have which prompt me to do something. This little trick I picked up at the Polygloth Gathering. I have some cards, which say somthing like "Write 10 sentences in French using the past tense."

The other are cards I need to memorise, or think about. So vocabulary cards, or audio sentence cards which I need to listen to and translate. These ones are harder and take longer. I can't just flip through them.

[zenmonkey]

I tried 100 cards a day and that was just not possible for me. I try to keep it to around 30 minutes a day, but I slow down my review to use the time to consider what I am learning and create contextual hooks. Rather than speed review. I find it works better and then the next time I get the card I can push it to "easy" rather than "just right".

So, unless I'm going though a very intense period with short term objectives I try to stay in the 20-30 new cards a day max.

I picked up the same Grammar trick at the polyglot gathering.

And yes, suspend or delete cards quickly or they become mind blocks.

[Ezy Ryder]

Have you ever tried pace like 50 or 100 new cards a day?

I have. You can read about it on my old log (click). I have learnt about ~8k words in Mandarin, in less than 4 months IIRC (if you include guessable words, it was closer to 13k).

After how many reviews are you quite sure that you know the card?

I think it's more the interval, than the number of reviews, that represents my confidence in remembering a card.

With new cards and reviews, how much time per day are you usually able to put in maximally? Is there a limit, after which your brain simply refuses to continue? How long can you keep such such a pace for?

Between one and two hours, or 1k-1.5k reviews a day. But that depends on how difficult the cards are for you, how dedicated you are, and how much time and energy you have.

Good luck! Can't wait to read how it goes

[Cavesa]

Thank you for great responses with very useful points for consideration!

EzyRyder, you log is extremely inspirative, thank you. Both when it comes to SRS and what to expect from heavy doses of it, but as well your views on vocab learning. I especially loved this bit that perfectly summs up the main problem with discussions about vocabulary and some views that appear there every single time:

You hear people saying 2k words is enough (like what an average Assimil teaches), others say 7-8k. Others say the number isn’t important, you won’t learn a language only learning words, etc… The problem with that is that it leads some people (like me), to stop too early, stooping to understanding merely the gist.And of course they’re right saying only learning words won’t teach you the language. But I doubt many people asking how many words they need to know for their goals, actually plan to just study vocabulary. Kinda like, if someone asked you “how many eggs do I need for this cake,” you wouldn’t really answer “you can’t bake a cake with eggs only.”
I admit vocabulary isn’t the only thing holding me back, but not only is it my biggest problem, but also having enough vocabulary makes extensive activities more pleasant, and quicker, which in turn makes it even more enjoyable. So this time around, I’ll try to keep learning vocab until I’m sure it's not hindering my comprehension excessively.

Your hyperspeed is extremely inspirating, even though it looks very tough. Which is ok, I am not looking for an easy way, I am looking for an efficient and manageable way to complete my goals.

2013-~8k new words-380h; 2014-~16k new words-303h in Anki;
Mandarin: 8,000 words in total - 21 words a day.

That is awesome and scary at the same time. It gives me an idea of what to expect, even though I'll be learning a different kind of stuff.

I’ve been getting tired of SRS’ing recently. 140-200 character reviews, plus learning 30 new ones can take over two hours, and I didn’t even count how much time LWT takes. I’m not sure I can say SRS isn’t the best for me, vocabulary-wise, but it certainly can be tiring if you’re going faster than a few words a day. Over the last 806 days, I used Anki on 641 days, spending over 711 hours on it, and doing 286,731 reviews. I’ve studied some 13k words in Mandarin, 9k in Japanese, 1800 in Na’vi, 1234 Hanzi and ~600 Kanji’s writing, and 161 signs in JSL.

I’m starting to notice a pattern, or cycle:
1.: Fear of failure.
2.: Doing Anki religiously.
3.: Not completing the daily quota.
4.: Missing days.
5.: Being overwhelmed by the backlog and/or wanting to make up for the missed days.
6.: Burning out.
7.: Not noticing fast enough progress.
In other words: Fear->Overambition->Fatigue->Guilt->Fear. To break the cycle, I’d have to take at least one of these elements out of the equation.
Fear: I could try to ignore the thoughts suggesting the current methods are not sufficient.
Overambition and Guilt: I could set overly low goals at first, and then ease into a more demanding habit.
Fatigue: I could look for a new method which would be both effective, and less tiring. I recently thought about writing an SRS simulation, to approximate the interval modifier which would be more suiting for me personally. I could try an Iversen-like wordlist approach or give another try to the Goldlist method.
Motivation might also play a part in the process (duh). Apparently wanting to study in the country is not enough for me.

This is so precise, I have this with all my study methods. Your ideas on deactivating at least one of the phases to break the wheel are very good. I'll give it some thought.

Rdearman, Zenmonkey, can the suspended cards be easily added back later on, when I get rid of the bulk of hard cards they originally came with? or do you simply give up on those?

I already turned leeches in just a tag, not suspension, because those are usually the cards I need to learn the most.

"Information only" cards are an interesting idea. I am not using it now, but it is a good thing to ponder in my future SRS uses.

[rdearman]

Yes, you just un-suspend them. But it is easier to do that in the desktop program than the smartphone version. You can do it on the smartphone, but it is a pain to browse the deck and find them. You can also reset individual cards, so they appear as "new" with no previous history, so you can reset leech cards for example.

[zenmonkey]

Yes, suspended cards are easy to add back in, as rdearman writes. However, I tend to look them over and just delete many of them - often because I figure if I need it it will come otherwise or that I already have a word to say xxx. I can present the concept of 'contract/negotiation' in German only so many ways in my active vocabulary (Vertrag, Abwicklung, Pakt, Deal, Entente, Konkordat, Vereinbarung, Protokoll, Konvention, Verhandlung...) - so if I understand what a word means but I really have a hard time producing it and can't build a hook for it, out it goes ('Auftrag' can kiss my ..., I keep failing to produce it.).

[Sayonaroo]

I do clozed deletion cards so 100 cards feel like 20 cards. I'm assuming you guys are discussing the traditional format of word or sentence on the front and definition/explanation on the back. I choose to cloze delete whatever I feel will benefit me the most. I usually go for the format of the word/sentence and definition on the front with a part of the word/sentence or definition or both blanked out and the answer to the blanked out part(s) on the back. I find this format to be a godsend for intermediate/advanced level and way too taxing for beginner level. In fact I personally don't use anki in the beginner level. For me after a while the traditional format does nothing for me because I get really good at ignoring/not actually reading/engaging with stuff or if I do somehow manage to pay attention and do the cards I still don't retain stuff.

I've actually done 50 cards a day for Japanese at one point when I had a lot of time and it was fine (I read books/watched tv shows/dramas etc etc). I felt more burdened because I'm spending that much more time on anki but it was doable because at that I had a propensity to remember Japanese words because I spent all this time doing stuff in Japanese and getting used to Japanese and knew all these Japanese words.

[Cavesa]

I am not discussing any particular format in particular, as I am using a different one, since the most important Anki decks right now are not foreign language vocabulary. I am basically trying to guess, based on experience of others, how much can I reasonably take on without collapsing.

(The format most cards have: Q:What are the three major symptome of this disease? A: This, than, and that.)

[klvik]

I am not discussing any particular format in particular, as I am using a different one, since the most important Anki decks right now are not foreign language vocabulary. I am basically trying to guess, based on experience of others, how much can I reasonably take on without collapsing.

(The format most cards have: Q:What are the three major symptome of this disease? A: This, than, and that.)

My two cents:
For your medical school decks, I think the most important thing is to distinguish the information that you know very well (for which SRSing is a waste of time) from the information you understand but have more trouble remembering (perfect for SRSing). You could use cram mode to do a first pass through sections of the deck (I hope that decks have useful tags) and suspend any card that you don't need to see again. If you run into information that you have never seen before, put that card aside until you have learned the information from a more detailed source. If you triage your cards intelligently and suspend cards once you no longer need to seen them, you should be able to add 50-100 new cards per card. Good luck.