You might be wondering how these cards get created, which brings us to yet another abstract concept: note types. To summarize: a note is a collection of data, and that data is used to generate one or more cards. These are the cards that you review on a day-to-day basis. These values get turned into flashcards (or “cards” in Anki’s terms). So a note is these five pieces of data, bound together (invisibly). A picture that you found on Google Images when searching for the word.The audio of a native speaker saying that word.A rough translation of the word in your native language.A sentence that uses the word in context.The written form of a word in your target language.You can’t touch and hold a note, which makes it all the more perplexing.Ī note is a collection of data that belongs together.Īs an example, you could have the following five pieces of data: The most basic unit of Anki is a “note”, which is an abstract idea. To start using Anki you only need to know that these exist. If it doesn’t make sense at first, don’t worry. The distinction between notes and cards is probably the most confusing aspect of Anki. Since you won’t have these sorts of hints to rely on in real life, it’s best to practice without them. This “hint” would make recalling the answer easier. Splitting your cards up into many decks makes answering cards artificially easier.įor example, if you had a deck just for “animal names”, when reviewing cards in that deck, your brain would automatically know that the answer must be an animal name. In general, we recommend putting all your cards into one or two decks. You can have as many decks as you want, and there is no limit to how many cards can be in a single deck. You can create a new deck by pressing the “Create Deck” button at the bottom. When studying, you study one deck at a time. Initially, you will only have one deck: “Default”.ĭecks are essentially groups of flashcards. When you open up Anki, the first thing you see is your list of decks. The rest of this article will focus on setting up the desktop version of Anki. There is also an official fully-online version of Anki: AnkiWeb.ĪnkiMobile, AnkiDroid, and AnkiWeb are great for reviewing cards, but the interface for creating cards is limited.įor now, we'll focus on how to add new cards on the desktop version. There is a 3rd party Android app, AnkiDroid, which is available for free on Google Play. There is an official iOS app, AnkiMobile, which can be purchased from the app store for $24.99 (price varies per country). The desktop version is completely free and is compatible with Windows, Mac, and Linux. The newest stable version of Anki can be downloaded from the Anki website. Towards the end of the article, we’ll also provide some resources for advanced users who want to understand the behind-the-scenes of Anki more deeply. To help you get things up and running as quickly as possible, we won’t go into exactly what all the settings do or all the logic behind our recommendations. The bulk of this article will focus on explaining the basics of Anki. If you find yourself confused about how Anki works, don’t worry: you’ll get the hang of it after a week or two. The only downside is that it can be difficult to learn how to use. It’s multi-platform, rich with features, and free on most platforms. There are many different SRS programs, but we recommend Anki. As explained in Stage 0: Active Study, we’ll be using a spaced repetition system (SRS) to actively study target language (TL) vocabulary.

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