Some quick advice on using Anki

So, I just got Anki and started messing around with it (it’s SRS for those not familiar, and quite popular with language learners), it’s awesome and does precisely what I would want it to do but I’ve just got a quick tip for those thinking about using it:

If you’re going to use Anki, if at all possible, start doing it right when you begin learning a new language, because if you do you can likely download a premade deck of words/verbs/idioms/whatever to memorize and you won’t have to make your own initially if you don’t want to.

I can’t do this. Why? Because I’ve been working on Spanish for a couple years now and I’m well into the intermediate stage and the pre-made Spanish decks you can download all start off with really, really simple stuff like “el” = “the”, “de” = “of”, “si” = “yes”, etc. I’m not going to waste time wading through all of those (probably at least a few hundred) to get to the ones I don’t know yet. I’m at the point where I just need to make my own based on any words, expressions, or grammar rules I encounter while in the process of reading actual Spanish material that I don’t already know.

Just a tip, in case you’re just starting in on Spanish, or any other language, and you’re thinking “Meh, I’ll get around to trying that Anki thing in a few months or something…”: you probably shouldn’t, you’d be best off starting right now because those pre-made decks they’ve got start at the very beginning which is perfect for you now but not something you’re going to want to mess with once you’re a few months into the language.

Edited to add: There’s a really good series of videos on how to use Anki made by the founder starting with Part 1 of 7 here that you should absolutely watch if you’ve just downloaded Anki.

How I learned Spanish on my own, from home, using free online resources in 6 months despite failing Spanish AND Russian in school

I've just put a very long post up on the front page with the whole sorted story about how I taught myself Spanish in 6 months using free online resources like music videos and TV shows, despite hating every language class I ever took and even failing two of them, and I tell you exactly how you can do the same, be sure to check it out HERE.

Also, if you like what you see here PLEASE SUBSCRIBE to my Twitter feed and/or RSS feed so you can be updated any time there’s a new post.

Cheers,

Andrew

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