I have spent the last several days working feverishly on this blog. I have had a sudden burst of creativity, and I have learned the hard way that I need to act on those bursts when they come, even if they seem to come at inconvenient times. If I hold them off while I do other things that seem more important at the time, when I try to sit down and write later, I no longer have anything to say. Articles come when they come, and if I do not seize the opportunity when it comes, it is usually lost. So, this time when inspiration came, I followed its lead.

The problem is that in doing so, I fell behind in my Anki. For those of you who are not familiar with Anki, it is a Spaced Repetition Software (SRS) program to help a person memorize information. In other words, it is a fancy, electronic version of old-school flashcards. I believe that Anki was one of the first SRS programs developed for large scale use. The name Anki is a Japanese word, 暗記 (あんき), which literally means, rote memoriziation.  It is extremely useful for language learning. I have used it for years to learn Japanese, and I am now using it to learn Latin. I also use it a little for Swedish, although for Swedish, I primarily use Duolingo. These type of programs are called Spaced Repetition Software because they repeat the cards at various intervals based on how well you do on the card. These intervals are supposedly set using algorithms based on scientific studies of how the brain remembers things. I honestly have no idea how these algorithms work, but it is nice to have the software decide how often I should see a card, and electronic flashcards do not make a mess in my house like paper ones do.

This is all well and good, and I know that Anki is useful. I do not think I would have learned Japanese without it. I certainly would not have learned to write kanji without it. It is also the only way I am able to learn all of the ridiculously complicated endings in Latin. By the way, learning Latin is making me appreciate Japanese more than ever. Still, despite its usefulness, I find Anki incredibly boring. What is worse, due to the nature of Spaced Repetition Software, if you fall behind on Anki, your reviews start building up, just like laundry and dishes. In just a few days of neglecting my Anki, I woke up this morning with about 380 cards due. Sigh.

I have considered abandoning Anki altogether in order to free up more time for immersion. That is actually a constant temptation, but I have found that my Anki repetitions do make my immersion more effective and useful, because I do better at recognizing vocabulary in my immersion if I have reviewed the words in Anki. Just like exercise, I would love for Anki to be ineffective, but sigh, I know it works. So, as I would say in Japanese, しょうがない, shou ga nai (it can’t be helped).

I have also tried breaking up my Anki in smaller chunks throughout the day rather than doing it all at once. That is actually what I am doing today. That does work to a certain extent, and even if I do not get them all done during the day, it still helps with the problem of build-up.

I have tried making my cards pretty by changing the background to pink, and I have added pictures, particularly to words that I have found hard. I am currently ruthlessly deleting “leeches,” to cut down my number of daily reviews. A friend of mine had the best definition for “leeches” that I have heard, which are “cards that you get wrong so many times, the program takes them away before you hurt yourself.” I used to revive and reschedule them, but now I am deleting most of them, and I am only reviving the ones that are truly important.

I considered trying different software. Anki was one of the first programs, but there are now many others that supposedly have more bells and whistles, like Quizlet and TinyCards. In consulting with another friend of mine about switching software, she responded “SRS is boring period.” She has a point. I use Duolingo for Swedish, and it has lots of bells and whistles to make it as game-like as possible, but I have to admit, I still find it boring. So, I doubt that switching programs would really help, and I dread the idea of trying to move years of progress to a new program.

So, here we are. I do not really have any solution. Today, I am coping by complaining here on my blog.

So, how about you? Do you use Anki? Do you find it boring? Has anyone found a way to make it more interesting?