How do you use Anki?
Install Anki, create a deck, add cards with a question on the front and the answer on the back, then press Study. Anki shows each card and asks you to rate your recall: Again, Hard, Good or Easy. It uses your rating to schedule the next review, so cards you know come back later and cards you miss come back sooner.
Anki is a free flashcard program built on spaced repetition. It runs on Windows, Mac and Linux, on Android as AnkiDroid, on iPhone and iPad as AnkiMobile (a paid app, so check the current price), and in the browser through AnkiWeb, which syncs your decks between devices.
The slow part is making the cards. You pick a note type, such as Basic for a plain question and answer or Cloze for a sentence with a hidden word, and you type every card yourself. A good rule is one fact per card, written as a question you can answer from memory.
Two habits decide whether Anki works. Do your reviews every day, even if it is only ten minutes, because skipped days pile up into a wall of due cards. And rate yourself honestly. By default Anki adds up to 20 new cards a day, which is plenty.
| Button | Press it when | What Anki does |
|---|---|---|
| Again | You forgot it or got it wrong | Shows the card again soon |
| Hard | You got it, but it took effort | Adds a short gap |
| Good | You got it without trouble | Adds the normal gap |
| Easy | You knew it instantly | Adds a longer gap |
- 1Download Anki for your computer from the official site and open it. Make a free AnkiWeb account if you want to sync to your phone.
- 2Click Create Deck and name it after the course or the exam.
- 3Click Add, pick the note type (Basic is fine to start) and the deck, then type the question in Front and the answer in Back. Repeat for each fact.
- 4Open the deck and click Study Now. Read the front, say the answer out loud or in your head, then show the answer.
- 5Rate the card: Again, Hard, Good or Easy. The schedule is only as good as your honesty.
- 6Come back every day and clear the cards that are due. Add a few new cards in the same sitting, not a hundred.
- 7Sync with AnkiWeb so the same deck is on your phone.