What is an SRS?
SRS is short for “spaced repetition system”. Generally speaking, it’s a piece of electronic flashcard-like software that helps you to long-term-memorize large quantities of information by effectively working on only a small subset of the information each day, using spaced repetitions.
The idea of spaced repetitions is painfully simple: when you first learn something, you (need to) review it very frequently in order to keep remembering it. Later, you can review it less frequently — apparently this is a property of human memory regardless of age or “intelligence”. The ever-increasing space of time between repetitions allows you to keep reviewing (and thereby remembering) old material even as you learn new material. The SRS takes care of that constant “leaking bucket” problem where you only remember things learned recently. In this sense, it could be said that SRS basically solve the problem of long-term memory: as they say at SuperMemo, you can forget about forgetting.
SRS aren’t perfect, but if used correctly (i.e. daily and with well-formed question-answer pairs), then they promise retention in the range of 90-95%, and in my experience, they do deliver. It’s interesting to think that actually “letting go” — allowing that you will forget 5-10% of what you learn, rather than being obsessed with 100% retention, has the counter-intuitive effect of leading you to actually learn more. To put it in numerical terms, I have so far learned 4500 kanji with a retention rate of about 90%+; 90% of 4500 is a much better statistic than 100% of only, say, 1000. Also, the 5-10% that I forget generally aren’t the ones I’ve been reviewing for a long time; they are the more recently learned characters.
There are many SRS available for varying platforms. Whatever SRS you choose, remember that the key is not which SRS you use, but that you actually use one and use it every day.
For more on SRS and kanji study, check here and here.
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All Japanese All The Time Dot Com: How to Learn Japanese. On your own, having fun and to fluency » Practice: Don’t Beat Yourself Up said,
November 26, 2006 @ 7:14 pm
[…] The problem here is slipping up on your practicing. Of course you’ve surrounded yourself with Japanese music, movies, TV and books. But that needs to be backed up by good old low-level practice of kanji and sentences, in the form of practicing electronic flashcards (or, in the lingo, “doing repetitions”) in your SRS. […]
Oisín said,
March 5, 2007 @ 11:03 am
Slipping up isn’t really a big deal once you actual return to it. You come back and find that you have a big pile of flashcards to review and either do them in one sitting (100) or deal with them over the course of a few days or a week (500….). The SRS will catch those that you forgot - that’s the whole point. Our brains are pretty good at dealing with it, too.
As long as you bite the bullet and load up your flashcards, rather than telling yourself “argh, there’s going to be LOADS to do…” every day and not doing it. If you feel like that, then just allocate a 5 minute (set a countdown timer on your phone) session each day until you’ve gotten over it.
Michael DiStefano said,
March 25, 2007 @ 4:42 am
I’ve gotten mnemosyne to compile on OSX and wrote my instructions here .
It is a bit cumbersome though and must run in X11. I personally like using iFlash on the mac, it’s interval learning mode is not an algorithm per-se, but is close to a SRS.
Duran said,
April 8, 2007 @ 10:06 am
Very interesting. I don’t see how this technique can fail, if you apply it to your everyday life.
uberstuber said,
May 24, 2007 @ 2:00 pm
For Mac OS/Linux users who are too lazy to get all of the dependencies mnemosyne needs, jmemorize (http://jmemorize.org/) is a good java based (and thus cross platform) alternative. There’s no scaling system (you can only answer yes/no instead of 0-5) but it’s still very effective.
Michael DiStefano said,
May 31, 2007 @ 10:34 am
Just thought I would write that I’ve updated the guide to installing Mnemosyne on OSX. It’s completely rewritten and updated.
Mnemosyne no longer needs to be run in X11 and the problems with getting the window in focus no longer exist. I now use it exclusively for reviewing Japanese material aside from kanji.koohi.com (which is only for RTK).
Anyway, the new guide is here
Brody said,
July 13, 2007 @ 12:18 am
First things first, thanks so much for this information. I was beginning to think Japanese was an impossible feat. The SRS system is really helping out, as well as all the other information on the site.
I was wondering if there was any possible way to add audio to say, a program like Mnemosyne. I’m getting decent at reading, but I still have great trouble catching spoken Japanese. I figured if it helps to read sentences over and over, it ought to help to hear certain Japanese spoken over and over (and an SRS system would be the best way to do it). I have sources for good Japanese audio, and I know how to “grab” the audio from movies and shows; if there were some way I could make that audio the “question” in Mnemosyne and the “answer” could be the transcripted phrase, I don’t know, maybe it will help my listening skills.
Thoughts on if this might be a good idea (and if it’s possible?)
Thanks.
khatzumoto said,
July 13, 2007 @ 12:01 pm
Hmm…I don’t know about Mnemosyne. But perhaps another of the programs out there (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spaced_repetition) might support audio.
It would definitely be a cool idea to have the audio there (although, if it takes too too much effort to sort out, then it might be best to forge ahead without it).
Jim said,
July 14, 2007 @ 3:06 am
I can confirm that Mnemosyne supports audio, as of version 0.9.8.
http://mnemosyne-proj.sourceforge.net/news.php
The tag is used like this (but use angle brackets instead of parens):
(sound src=”file.ogg”/)
You can put that tag either on the question or answer side, and the sound will play when it is shown. Hit ‘R’ to replay the sound.
I just found that out last week, because I was wondering if audio might be a neat addition to the flashcard review. It seemed like hearing the audio confirmation would be fun, rather than just reading the phonetic spelling. However, I agree that the effort required to prepare the audio is a big concern!
Brody said,
July 15, 2007 @ 11:11 am
Great, thanks for the info.
Mario G said,
August 1, 2007 @ 11:52 am
Ok, so I just made an account in KhatzuMemo. I understand how to use it what I don’t understand is what I should input in it. What am I supposed to be learning in the SRS phase? Or was that phase just to introduce what an SRS is and once I have the SRS I’m supposed to go to the Kanji phase and input Kanji to the SRS?
I’m sorry, I’m a little confused.
khatzumoto said,
August 1, 2007 @ 11:58 am
>was that phase just to introduce what an SRS
Yes
>I’m supposed to go to the Kanji phase and input Kanji to the SRS?
Yes :D.
Mario G said,
August 2, 2007 @ 3:19 am
Ok, thanks for your reply khatzumoto! =)
Mario G said,
August 2, 2007 @ 6:37 am
Uhmmm just some more things. I got “Remembering the Kanji”. In the SRS, the question would be the kanji and the answer the meaning in english? And how can I type the kanji in my computer? Do I look for the word in a translator then type in my mac how you would say it and select the kanji? That’s how I’ve thought of doing it…
Thanks,
Mario.
Mighty Matt said,
August 2, 2007 @ 9:59 am
Mario,
Actually you should have the English keyword as the question and the kanji as the answer. That way, when you review you can look at the keyword and then try and write down the kanji.
As for inputting them into your computer, I have three suggestions:
1. I know in windows there is an option in the Japanese IME for ‘writing’ the kanji with your mouse in a box. The computer then tries to work out which kanji you meant.
2. Look on this website (http://www.ziggr.com/heisig/) and there is a file you can download with a list of all the kanji and keywords. You could use this to copy/paste the kanji into your SRS.
3. Save yourself a ton of time and use http://kanji.koohii.com Everything is already set up for you and it’s a great site for later in the book as people have shared stores for all the kanji, when Heisig just gives you primatives.
Mario G said,
August 3, 2007 @ 6:01 am
Thanks a lot Matt! This site is great! It makes it so easy to learn.
Name_(required) said,
August 25, 2007 @ 6:35 am
iFlash can support audio and pictures…
Charles said,
August 27, 2007 @ 7:36 am
Name_(required),
I used iFlash for quite a while. I really enjoy it, however it doesn’t have an SRS algorithm attached to it. So I had to stop using it. If it did have an SRS algorithm, I would jump on it immediately. It is a great program, just not exactly what Khatz is advocating here. If you or anyone has figured out a way to make it work like an SRS, please let me know.
One more thing, I can’t really find an SRS that I’m fully comfortable with for the Macintosh. I couldn’t get mnemosyne to work, Genius and J-memorize didn’t do it for me and Anki seems a bit too buggy yet (although, it appears to be shaping up fast). Any suggestions? (I’m using a moldy ibook G3).
Thanks,
Charles
Jim said,
August 27, 2007 @ 9:00 am
Charles,
You might want to try Pauker. It’s Java so it should just work everywhere. I used it for quite a while, and I think it’s scheduling algorithm should be fine. The UI isn’t quite as ‘minimalist’ as Mnemosyne.
-Jim
Syg said,
August 29, 2007 @ 9:53 am
Thanks for the information. I got “Remembering the Kanji” and an SRS. I was just wondering, do I just remember the kanji and their keywords and learn their pronunciations at the same time or worry about pronunciation later? And where would I find the pronunciations?
khatzumoto said,
August 29, 2007 @ 9:55 am
Syg:
http://www.alljapaneseallthetime.com/blog/faqs-frequently-asked-questions/
http://www.alljapaneseallthetime.com/blog/about/overview-page/
¡Mnemosyne Al Rescate! | babelhut.com said,
November 6, 2007 @ 2:30 pm
[…] recommend that anyone who is learning a new language use a Spaced Repitition System like Mnemosyne, Anki, SuperMemo, or […]
¡Mnemosyne Al Rescate! | babelhut.com said,
November 6, 2007 @ 2:30 pm
[…] recommend that anyone who is learning a new language use a Spaced Repitition System like Mnemosyne, Anki, SuperMemo, or […]
Stay True said,
November 20, 2007 @ 11:27 pm
[…] Review as much as possible using an SRS program […]
Luke Frohling said,
December 30, 2007 @ 3:06 pm
Hello All. I’m looking for a SRS which works on my mobile phone (Docomo, FOMA, n903i- I have sim cards of 1,2 and 4Gb in size) which can connect to an internet database so I can use the same info at home on my computer as well. Yes I live in Japan
I tried the “Khatzumemo” on my phone (after creating an account using my PCs and heres what happened…I surfed using Docomo’s proprietry iMode software (which supports HTML and Java (I think)
1) The picture on the login screen was missing (no problem-saves on time/money)
2) the password defaults to accepting numbers (no problems- I changed my password)
3) Once logged in the screen simply goes blank, white, nothing at all happened…
I havetried logging in an manyh different times too…
Any help would be appreciated…
khatzumoto said,
January 3, 2008 @ 11:39 am
@Luke Frohling
Yeah, that’s kind of a known bug on Khatzumemo that appears on certain phones. I’ll start trying to fix it again at some point soon. But for now it’s kind of “on hold”.
Kevin said,
January 12, 2008 @ 9:33 am
Hey All
I’ve just recently began using Anki, and I was wondering how big people make their SRS decks - I have one deck at 220 words, and have started a second now as the first one started to feel a bit big. Both decks are a mixture of vocab: BJT, JLPT 1/2, slang. Anyone got any idea as to how to optimally organize my (future) decks?
Cheers
PS: Special thanks to Khatz for this awesome site!
Meshi said,
February 1, 2008 @ 8:19 am
Kevin, there’s no need to make separate decks when they get big. Just put all related items in the same one, e.g. one deck for Heisig kanji, and one for sentences (AJATT style).
Nihongo Notes » A method for learning Japanese said,
February 19, 2008 @ 11:37 pm
[…] and the pile was getting unmanageable. So I went looking for a computer based solution and found two posts about Spaced Repetition Systems. I gave Anki a try and that’s when things really took […]
querido said,
March 7, 2008 @ 11:45 pm
Mnemosyne 1.0 no longer requires the manual tagging with the angle brackets, etc.
In the edit cards screen, just right click and choose “Insert sound” or “Insert image”.
BakaGaijun said,
March 30, 2008 @ 3:37 am
I must be dumb or something… how do you get the actual cards? Are there any starter packs, because I’m a beginner and have no clue where to start o_O
All Japanese All The Time Dot Com » What Is An SRS? 2 said,
May 18, 2008 @ 3:41 pm
[…] What Is An SRS? 2 […]
Patrick's Spanish Study Methods | babelhut.com said,
May 20, 2008 @ 3:10 pm
[…] than I have and I found his description of his study habits interesting. He doesn’t use an SRS program like myself or Thomas, but through his use of Rosetta Stone he has had some similar results to what […]
Christeph in Japan » Blog Archive » The JLPT and JPop said,
June 9, 2008 @ 9:37 pm
[…] details of my day-to-day studies, how I’m mining the WWWJDIC for sentences to put into my SRS, and slogging through gobi and particles and keigo. An extra 3+ hours of this kind of work every […]
DaNn0 said,
June 11, 2008 @ 2:55 pm
Hey is there an SRS that will work well on a WIndows mobile device? I know there is supermemo for pocket pcs, but I keep hearing bad stuff about it. I’ve got mnemosyne on my laptop, and am building a dictionary for my PDA using ebpocket, but I would really love an SRS on that PDA. Then it will be the lamborgini of language tools.
If I have to stick with supermemo for pocket pc, can it synch with its desktop buddy? Or would I have to make my cards twice? As it is Im going with th ecutting and pasting from the PDF file I found containing the whole of RTK1. If anyone wants to know, you need Adobe reader 7 to be able to cut and paste into word and then from there into your SRS. Im trying to be lazy/ efficient, but the srs developers seem determined to make us double up all my efforts..><