I agree that hiding the remaining cards indicator is helpful. Also, if you are backlogged and have a bunch of reviews due, just set a certain amount of time to work on them every day; 10 minute intervals are good if you do 2 or 3 a day.

@vanandrew: But it’s so easy to :P The feeling that the number of due cards keeps increasing the longer you leave it is too much to bear XD Plus, if you keep leaving cards undone, doesn’t it mess with the SRS algorithm process?

I’ve actually stopped using Anki in favor of the dictionary app “Japanese” for iOS. It has fewer settings to play around with and I think Anki has a better SRS algorithm, but with the Japanese app, it’s really easy to add cards to study lists (flashcard decks) since I can do it directly from the dictionary. Also, the cards are interactive; you can tap on pretty much anything to get more info. It’s a bit like being on Wikipedia where reading one article leads you to another and another; each card has links to the kanji in the word, and the kanji pages have links to common compounds which have example sentences which have other words with have other kanji, and so on. And you can easily generate flashcards for any of them right there on the spot.

It has it’s flaws, mainly that there is no way to customize the cards (although you can add notes to them), but it’s an amazing app. If you are in it for the long haul, it might be worth buying an iPod touch just for this app.

Make the right deck and you will put words into practice when using anki. Cloze deletion, monolingual decks etc.. If you didn’t just download everything and actually put in some effort you would know what I mean.

@Vanandrew: The SRS algorithm is, I’m afraid :S I’ve been using it so long that I’ve been conditioned to think “If I don’t do it, I won’t get better at Japanese” – I know that’s bullshit but my subconscious doesn’t and it compels me to do them XD That, and my irrational fear of increasing numbers.

It’s like how you can not actually *have* OCD but if a picture frame is squint, you can’t just leave it, you have to fix it :D Or how you might be compelled to watch “just one more YouTube video, then I’ll go to bed, I swear!”. A major factor in it too is that if you’ve spent so much time and effort on something, it’s difficult to give it up and cut your losses cause that just seems like a waste. I’m over halfway through the Core 6k list, and I don’t really want to give it up till I’m done.

@Jason: Bang on the money there. Lots and lots of input is much more important; I really want to switch to a system more like that but, as mentioned above, I have trouble letting go of flash cards (or at least, reducing time spent on them).

I think pretty much everyone can agree that you can’t become fluent in Japanese only from drilling cards, but what you were saying about anki not putting things to use is entirely up to how you chose to use anki.

good luck not being in Japan and becoming fluent without being a slave of anki. As pointet out here, it will take 6.8 years to reach basic fluency if you learn 5 words a day and over 20 years to reach native proficiency(when it comes to vocab). A retention rate of 80% is a bit low, but changing it to 90% won’t make a huge difference in the time it takes.

I set a 2 minute timer on my iPhone and just do Anki for that amount of time, many times per day. Two minutes does not allow me to start suffering, yet I find that I can get a surprising amount done, especially reviews, since many of them don’t take much time/thought. And since I quit while it’s still fun (or at least not painful), I don’t mind doing it in between checking my email (which I do like a thousand times a day) or reading billions of blog posts. I actually finish earlier in the day because it’s kind of a fun little game, instead of putting it off forever until I can concentrate for one big, agonizing chunk of time.

I also used to hate having music or other immersion media playing (passive listening) while doing Anki or trying to study actively, but one day I realized that if I want to achieve native fluency and actually be able to read/write/talk Japanese with other people around, I can’t just study in a bubble forever. So now I combine Anki with passive listening/immersion, and do it in short, frequent bursts (mostly on my laptop, sometimes on my iPhone). Sometimes my concentration is impaired, but I consider it preparation for less-than-perfect real life conditions (trying to carry on a conversation in a crowded coffee shop, a city street, or over a bad Skype connection, for instance).