Using the Anki Again/Hard/Normal/Easy?

20 comments

1. I always use again when I don’t know and easy when I know the word. Can’t remember spelling or meaning? I click again.

2. Again

   For me, a miss is a miss

   There has to be consequences

3. “Again” if you didn’t know it for sure. I really like the hard/easy options, makes it more nuanced. sometimes I really have to think for 10 seconds, then I hit hard. and sometimes it just feels easy, like when the word has come up a lot in exercises, or if i have a mnemonic for it, so then I hit easy. But when in doubt, I just stick with good/again.

   You can actually play around with how anki deals with the “again” cards. Under “Lapses” in the deck options. A friend of mine set the “New Interval” from 0% to 20%, so that way the cards don’t get completely reset. I don’t recommend that, but it’s possible.

   Read through the Anki documentation if you haven’t yet to understand how you can tailor it to your needs.

   You can also check this out to understand how the “ease” system works: https://readbroca.com/anki/ease-hell/

   Edit: I want to revise my answer after reading about ease hell

   Again: didnt know it

   Hard: had to think hard about it, or just guessed it right

   Good: had to think about it a bit

   Easy: didn’t have to think about it at all

   Hitting “again” resets the interval, but not the ease. so if the card was previously easy and you actually hit “easy”, the ease is still high and the interval will grow faster.

4. The hard button actually increases the interval, just not as much as ‘good’ does. It would be stupid to press it if you didn’t remember the meaning or reading.

5. Again – if I don’t know either the meaning or pronunciation.

   Hard – if I was hesitating with my answer but still got it right.

   Good – is what I use mostly when I get it right.

   Easy – only for words that I knew really well from other decks already.

6. Again if you don’t know
   Normal if you know

   Never use Hard or Easy, just thinking if this card is Hard or Easy is already wasting time

7. I would not use the hard button very often because of ease hell (just look it up). Essentially after pressing hard on a card you are forever going to see that card more frequently, which will lead to reviewing too much if you press the hard button on too many cards constantly. It can make sense for really hard to remember words, as you then want to see those cards more frequently, but **use it very very sparingly**. In doubt, I would always default to “good” because there are essentially two scenarious, either you know it the next time you see it after pressing good in which case you made the right choice as you saved yourself unnecessary reviews, or you don’t know it in which case you can just fail the card then, no harm was done really as it’s never too late to fail a card. If you defaulted to “again” in case of doubt you just risc making too many reviews. If a card is really very easy, press easy, but keep in mind that this button also changes the ease, so you will forever see that card less frequent (which might be fine for really easy to remember stuff).

8. miss or easy, no in between…is what I used to do but now if Im too lazy to again it I just used hard and leave it for the future me. Fuck that guy idc about him.

9. Honestly install the addon for pass/fail only. If that’s not possible, only use again and good.

10. i just use easy if i get it right hard if i get it wrong and if i feel like i struggled a bit too much for it to be easy i just use the ones inbetween

11. Sorry for hijacking the thread, but when using the core deck do you try to comprehend the sentences too or is that not the point? A lot of them have words that I don’t know yet.

12. I am probably the is one out in how I use the buttons (and it sometimes depends on the deck and on my mood, whether I’ll be strict in my use of the again button).

    As well as the usual reasons for choice of button that other people give I’m also influenced by the actual times displayed on them, so even if I got one right if good is 6 months away and I think I might forget it by then but really don’t want to I’ll hit hard. And I’m heavily influenced by how useful I think the words is and also whether it’s something I just want to recognise If I hear/see it or something I think I’ll need to recall for output myself. If it’s a premade deck with a word I don’t think I’ll have much use for I’m more likely to press hard rather than again, perhaps even good if I’ve seen it a few times and still don’t think I’m going to have much use for it, again influenced by the times displayed on the buttons.

13. Again and normal. Don’t bother with the other two, except for maybe using easy on decks you have already done before and studying from a new blank slate.

14. I see people mention these buttons, but I only have Again or Good. Do you need to enable these?

15. * Again – I don’t know the answer. I’ve heard some people give themselves passes on things like お vs おう, す vs つ, or じ vs ぎ, but personally to me that kind of mixup is still a wrong answer.
    * Hard – I got the answer, but slowly. Maybe I had to weight alternative readings for one of the kanji before selecting, or my confidence in the answer was “I guess it’s this one” (even though it was ultimately the right answer)
    * Good – Default correct answer
    * Easy – I literally knew the answer the second the card flipped up.

    I also use suspend when the answer comes for it. Like, do you need これ, 私 or 家 showing up every couple of months?

16. Again – I looked at the word and either felt no recognition at all or if I could remember one aspect (pronunciation or meaning) but not the other. I use again most stringently if it’s a more mature word, so anything with a reappearance delay of more than a couple weeks I’ll do again for if I’m not 100% sure on it.

    Hard – Either I got the word right but with a small pronunciation issue (e.g. keikou vs kaikou), I got confused on the conjugation of a common shared base word (e.g. mitsukaru vs mitsukeru), or because I had to context clue the example sentence before I arrived at the definition. I also use hard if a word took me more than a few seconds to arrive at, generally.

    Normal – Anything that doesn’t fall into the above, i.e. anything I get right quickly and accurately.

    Easy – Anything that I don’t even have to consciously recall. I only use this if I feel I know a word well enough that I could go a year without studying and still remember its meaning and pronounciation. This is stuff like “mizu” and “takusan”.

17. Hard, Good, and Easy are for if you got it correct only. If you didn’t get it right, you always have to do Again.

18. Ignore hard and easy ([or get this add on](https://ankiweb.net/shared/info/876946123)) they are traps, only need to use again and good.

    Also doesn’t need to be binary 100% pass/fail either, for instance if you get the reading right but only kind of got the meaning then its still fine to hit good. Ultimately though rely on your intuition, if you think you need to hit again then its best to do so.

19. Just use again and good hard and easy cause problems

20. I highly recommend that add-on that someone linked that changes the buttons to just pass or fail. It makes reviewing a lot faster and less stressful because you don’t have to take that extra step of grading “how well” you got the card right