10 Anki Tips From 37,000+ Cards & 1,000+ Hours of Review

Every word you learn needs a micro context. Never learn an isolated word–definition pair.

Instead of memorising “to read = anagnosco”, learn the sentence “I read a book.”

It doesn’t matter how small the context is — it makes the word easier to remember. Make the sentence memorable so it doubles as a mnemonic.

Example: “I read Asterix and Obelix in the pool.” (Greek: to biblio anagignosko en te kolumbethra.)

Listen through your sentences before reviewing them in Anki. Three reasons:

1. Cuts review time roughly in half. Learning whole sentences on Anki is time-consuming. Listening is cheap priming: little time, no mind blanks, no daydreaming, low cognitive effort. It smooths out all the friction of active review.
2. Activates the phonological loop. This is your brain’s short-term memory loop — the same mechanism that holds a verification code long enough to switch tabs and type it in. It remembers accurately for a short time, but is hardly activated by reading; you must listen to activate it.
3. Trains your ear. Understanding speech is a separate skill. Practise it on the very sentences you’re already memorising.

Use one English definition per target-language word.

The presenter used to copy five dictionary meanings onto one card. Example: Greek “hos” can mean as, like, when, that, how, about — all crammed onto a single card. That is wasted effort.

Learn one meaning, and let the context in which the word actually occurs shape the rest of the meaning for you.

Nobody remembers abstract ideas well long-term. Mnemonics link the target to something highly memorable. Two types:

a) Cognates (most effective)

Find a word in a language you already know that is related to the target (shared Indo-European root or later borrowing). Cognates make the meaning almost impossible to forget.

Pro tip: ask AI to find cognates for each new word.

b) Sound-based mnemonics (when no cognate exists)

Example: Greek ago sounds like “I go”. ago = to lead, and when you lead you go in front → “ago, I lead, I go in front.”

AI can also generate memorable sound links quickly.

Reversed notes (target→English and English→target) feel good but the target→English direction is a waste of time.

You already know English — why learn an English word? Spend all your time in the target language.

Study English → target, not target → English.

Overlearn: learn the same word through multiple cards, testing it from different angles (e.g. different tenses of the same word).

Custom note types: the presenter uses one called “doubled” — every entry automatically produces two cards. Very useful for longer sentences that need more review.

You can also manually adjust review intensity (see FSRS below).

Don’t obsess over one deck for three years with 3,000 cards in it.

• Switch decks every month — keep a deck for a month, then move to a new one.
• That’s long enough to get long-term spaced-repetition benefits without crowding out time for reading.
• Keep the retired deck around for ~a month, then go through all its cards one more time for extra long-term retention.

Be consistent and strict. If the exact wording isn’t right — even if not strictly necessary — click Again.

Two reasons:

• Consistency: previously the presenter graded inconsistently (sometimes Good, sometimes Again for the same retention), which produced many leeches. Strict grading eliminated them.
• Extra reps can’t hurt, so there’s no downside.

This turns study from drudgery into a fast-paced video game.

If a word takes longer than 2 seconds to recall, click Again.

The biggest time-wasters are mind blanks and daydreaming — pace cuts them out.

For sentences, 2 seconds may be too short; what matters is no breaks. If it takes 5 seconds but you recited the whole sentence fluently with no blanks, that’s fine.

Make it empirical with a timer

1. Deck → Options.
2. Scroll to Timers.
3. Enable “Show timer on screen” and set it, e.g., to 3 seconds.
4. Each card is now limited to that time per review.

Manual review prevents treating Anki as a “click and forget” game. Many people outsource 100% of the cognitive heavy lifting to the software — but engagement equals memory. If you’re not engaged, you forget.

1. At the end of every session (when Anki says you’ve finished the deck for today), give yourself 60 seconds.
2. Think back to the hardest, ugliest cards/sentences you couldn’t remember.
3. Replay them in your mind.
4. Ideally they stick with you through the day, so you revisit them several more times.
5. For particularly difficult words: make a mental note, or write them down physically, and go through that list after your normal session.

This is called manual review because it happens outside the normal study block, and it measurably increases retention.