Getting Started With Anki

[Learned]

I've downloaded Anki as I've seen it mentioned here a few times.

Can anyone recommend me some good ones to download?

I am pretty a beginner and learning to speak and read.

Improving my pronunciation of the vowels and recognising which tone is which is definitely something I need to improve if Anki can help with this.

Thanks.

[edwardandtubs]

Anki is total garbage. Instead of wasting time faffing around with that you'd be better off sticking post-it notes in a good textbook, or using a pen and notebook.

Edited March 10, 2012 by edwardandtubs

[makescents]

Anki is total garbage. Instead of wasting time faffing around with that you'd be better off sticking post-it notes in a good textbook, or using a pen and notebook.

Great advice.

Anyway...most language learners swear by Anki and SRS.

If you search Thai and sort by downloads, you'll see the most useful packages.

[cameozo]

Can you read Thai? I suggest getting basic reading down first. I initially started by making cards from the sentences of Teach Yourself Thai, the cards were not in Thai script. But at the same time I started studying the Thai script and made cards to learn that too. After I got the basics down I switched all my cards over to complete Thai.

I have hundreds of sentence cards that could help you get started from Teach Yourself Thai, Thai for Beginners and Speak Thai Volume 1. They also contain the audio from the cds of these books. I think that's the best route to start off with, anki sentences from beginner books and maybe up to intermediate books. At some point you'll then want to switch over to real material, it's a bit hard in Thai as the intermediate stage can be rough / lacking good material. There is a ton of beginner material and then everything just stops, I guess because most people don't make it out of that stage.

Anyway you can message me your email if you're interested in me sending you those cards. If you have the books you can delete the Thai script or something until you learn to read. But at least you'll save a decent amount of time with card creation.

[Learned]

Anki is total garbage. Instead of wasting time faffing around with that you'd be better off sticking post-it notes in a good textbook, or using a pen and notebook.

I had been making my own 'flashcards' with bits of paper but thought Anki might allow me hear sounds and memorise things better. I guess new isn't always best!

[edwardandtubs]

Anki is total garbage. Instead of wasting time faffing around with that you'd be better off sticking post-it notes in a good textbook, or using a pen and notebook.

I had been making my own 'flashcards' with bits of paper but thought Anki might allow me hear sounds and memorise things better. I guess new isn't always best!

The amount of time you would spend faffing around would offset any benefit. Any CD player or MP3 player has skip, FF, RW and repeat functions and you can repeat the audio on online dictionaries till your heart's content. I'm sure you can develop your own notation system to remind you when you need to revise material.

[CaptHaddock]

Anki is total garbage. Instead of wasting time faffing around with that you'd be better off sticking post-it notes in a good textbook, or using a pen and notebook.

I had been making my own 'flashcards' with bits of paper but thought Anki might allow me hear sounds and memorise things better. I guess new isn't always best!

Anki is light years beyond paper flashcards because of the spaced repetition algorithm that allows you to focus on the words that you have yet to master and ignore those you have.

I put my Thai deck up on anki, but what you want to do is create your own cards to accompany the course or book you are following. There is no point in memorizing words that you are not reading and using.

I have found a good way to use Anki for Thai is to get a Thai keyboard and plug it into your computer. Then you turn on the Thai language feature. Then, when you Anki prompts you with English for a Thai word you type the Thai word in response. Anki will flag spelling errors. Spelling is critical in Thai because getting the tone correct requires the correct spelling. So, you will learn to spell Thai correctly and you will learn to type in Thai at the same time.

Of course, Anki is only an adjunct to taking a good course, i.e. a course at a university. You need to work on all the skills at once: speaking, reading, listening, writing, taking dictation, etc.

[AngelofDeath]

What kind of words are you focusing on? Nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, particles etc?

[hiero]

anki is great, i seriously would be lost without it. It's like my own little thailanguageapedia.

[HTWoodson]

Anki is total garbage. Instead of wasting time faffing around with that you'd be better off sticking post-it notes in a good textbook, or using a pen and notebook.

I had been making my own 'flashcards' with bits of paper but thought Anki might allow me hear sounds and memorise things better. I guess new isn't always best!

I think Anki is one of the greatest things that ever came along. My vocabulary learning and my spelling have improved much more rapidly since I started using it. Making paper flash cards is only useful when you are a beginner and only have a few hundred cards. When you start getting into the thousands of cards, that's when you really need an SRS program like Anki to sort the stuff you need from the stuff you already know. I used to use paper flash cards too, but when I started reaching more advanced levels of Thai it just became too burdensome.

One of the other things I love about Anki is that you can throw pictures in the cards too. I find that having a small picture with the accompanying English word helps the translation stick in my brain better. Not really sure why, but it does. I'll usually search for the Thai term on Google Images and then copy and paste the picture thumbnail from the results page directly into Anki. If you only copy the thumbnail it is only a few kilobytes in size.

As for the OP question, I really think it is just better to make your own deck than download the public ones. Not that there is anything wrong with them, I just think you get more out of building your own deck as you go along.

[klons]

For building vocabulary I think iTunes and the iPod is the greatest thing that came along. I used to do ANKI until

the big flood threat. I didn't like going through my decks because it was like studying and I would rush through them

just to get it over with. During the flooding, I didn't do any for a month, and when I went back to it and saw I

had more than 3,000 cards to review, I said the heck with this ( I always push the hard button unless the word

clicked in my head without having to think about it), I'll just use my IPod. What I do is make an audio of the word

followed by a phrase its used in and name it by the word in Thai flowed by an English definition. I don't

have to sit in front of the computer to review, just take the iPod and listen while I'm doing my menial chores or

riding a bike or whatever. If I forgot a word, I can look at the iPod , push back and the definition will scroll across

the IPOD screen while the clip is playing. Thai script doesn't show on my iPod but it does on iTunes. You can

also sort the files a number of ways to play, alphabetically or date or number of plays.

ANKI I think would be good for learning something with a finite number of facts, like the alphabet, tones or common

words. But for vocabulary building the iPod works best for me.

[HTWoodson]

... During the flooding, I didn't do any for a month, and when I went back to it and saw I

had more than 3,000 cards to review, I said the heck with this...

I agree with you about that. I love Anki, but my only big gripe is the lack of a pause feature. I know that it messes us the algorithm or something, but I'd still rather be able to pause it while I'm on vacation and not come back to hundreds or thousands of late cards. Fingers crossed that feature will be in version 2.0, which I think is in beta already.

Edited March 13, 2012 by HTWoodson

[Learned]

What kind of words are you focusing on? Nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, particles etc?

The course I am doing introduces a list of new words each lesson and they are a mixed bag of nouns and verbs for the most part.

At the moment I am just writing those new words down on paper flash cards and going through them until I memorise them which works but I don't think it is helping my pronunciation as I have nothing to copy.

What I do is make an audio of the word followed by a phrase its used in and name it by the word in Thai flowed by an English definition.

I'd like to do this but I don't think the audio I made would be pronounced correctly plus doesn't it take along time to do the audio?

I wonder if I could find a Thai person on Odesk who would be able to make audio of a list of words I gave them each week?

Edited March 14, 2012 by Learned

[klons]

"I'd like to do this but I don't think the audio I made would be pronounced correctly plus doesn't it take along time to do the audio?"

It depends on my source. Newscasts I would record with audacity and clip out words and phrases I wanted. Lastly I've been getting words from soap stories which for the most part are not actually

used in the video dialogue, so I set up my names for the files and the phrases for Narissa my

computer voice to read. She's not perfect but good enough for me.Sometimes fudging is required.

For example after reading a while I will end up with a list like this:

วัดผล evaluate; test

รอดหูรอดตา escape someones notice

น้องใหม freshman; novice; beginner

ลิบ far apart; distant; remote

สุ่มสี่สุ่มห้า blindly; ignorantly

เฉลย answer; solve; reply

เจ้ายศเจ้าอย่าง stand on one’s dignity; put on airs

วัดผล ไม่งั้นสอบวัดผลคราวหน้า

รอดหูรอดตา ไม่มีทางที่จะรอดหูรอดตาฉันไปได้หรอก

น้องใหม เพราะจะแกล้งนมลที่เป็นหนึ่งในน้องใหม่

ลิบ วิ่งต่อไปที่ต้นไม้ใหญ่ซึ่งอยู่ไกลลิบ

สุ่มสี่สุ่มห้า ทีหลังอย่าสุ่มสี่สุ่มห้าให้คนแปลกหน้าเข้ามาในบ้านอีก

เฉลย ทำไมผมต้องขับรถตามเขามา บุรธัชเฉลย

เจ้ายศเจ้าอย่าง คุณหญิงท่านเป็นคนเจ้ายศเจ้าอย่าง ถือเกียรติถือศักดิ์ศรีเป็นที่สุด

I record Narissa reading the words followed by the phrase, then cut them and save them from

the audacity file using the word and definition on top. It takes roughly a minute each.

[HTWoodson]

I'd like to do this but I don't think the audio I made would be pronounced correctly plus doesn't it take along time to do the audio?

You can save the individual audio clips for words from thai-language.com dictionary and put them into your Anki deck.

[weary]

Is there a place where people go to exchange their flashcard collections? I realize that making the flashcards can be a beneficial process in some ways but it would be very convenient if those who are willing to do so could add their flashcard collection to a database of subjects so others would be able to benefit...

[klons]

Is there a place where people go to exchange their flashcard collections? I realize that making the flashcards can be a beneficial process in some ways but it would be very convenient if those who are willing to do so could add their flashcard collection to a database of subjects so others would be able to benefit...

Some people upload their cards to ANKI and then anyone can download them. You set yourself up with ANKI. And on your screen like the one below hit the downloads button and you'll find what's available to dowload.

[weary]

Many thanks for your tip and efforts klons. I downloaded your Thai newscasts cards and found some things I believe to be mistakes. Would you be interested in me sending you feedback about these?

[Learned]

I'd like to do this but I don't think the audio I made would be pronounced correctly plus doesn't it take along time to do the audio?

You can save the individual audio clips for words from thai-language.com dictionary and put them into your Anki deck.

Thanks, that is a good tip.

[ollyKS]

Anki is total garbage. Instead of wasting time faffing around with that you'd be better off sticking post-it notes in a good textbook, or using a pen and notebook.

I could not disagree with this more. I find the more sources you use (friends/teacher/online/textbooks/flash cards) the more you end up learning per day because it does not feel like you are working as hard, and do not get bored. The only thing I stick to is having 1 hour a week one-on-one with a teacher, this way if my studying starts to tail off at all, the day before my lesson I start to feel guilty and start studying again.

-OKS

Edited March 19, 2012 by ollyKS

[Dancali]

I just want to put in another good word for Anki. It really helps and is a key tool I use in my language studies. Though there is an art to it as well, which you'll develop over time, the more you use it. I pretty much just use the Iphone App.

Edited April 5, 2012 by Dancali

[klons]

Many thanks for your tip and efforts klons. I downloaded your Thai newscasts cards and found some things I believe to be mistakes. Would you be interested in me sending you feedback about these?

That's OK thanks. I'm aware of some errors but I won't be going back to correct them.

It should be expected that when cards are done by an amateurs there may be some errors.

[weary]

Please accept my apology if my post came across as expecting perfection. You've done a monumental job on the cards and I am really happy you were willing to share them.

Please see my comment as in a constructive spirit. I am not looking to take your credit.