What to do with a “Leech” in Anki?

7 comments

1. **Anki desktop interface**: Click on the cog icon next to the name of the deck. Then select ‘options’. The pop up has a section called ‘Lapses’. In there you’ll find ‘Leech threshold’ and ‘Leech action’.

   ‘Leech threshold’ is how many times you get it worng before it is marked as a ‘leech’. If you set this to a high number then you won’t get leeches. The ‘Leech action’ lets you choose to either suspend the card (i.e. ignore it and not show it again) or just tag it as a leech. The leeches will keep coming up in your reviews, but you should also be able to see them if you filter on the ‘leech’ tag.

   What you do is up to you. Personally I set my ‘Leech threshold’ to 99 and choose just to tag leeches – in the belief that the word will eventually sink in. An alternative strategy is the idea that your time is better spent learning new words you can remember, so suspending the leech is reasonable. If it’s an important word then it’ll come up in your immersion where you’ll have more context to figure it out.

2. To [address ](https://www.mypeoplenews.com/2023/06/unlocking-fluency-15-essential-japanese.html) leeches (problematic words) in Anki, you can enable the “Leech Threshold” add-on to identify and review these cards more frequently, and you can also create a filtered deck to specifically target and focus on reviewing the leeches.

3. what I do is let some of them just be leeches, and reset their history (to unleech them) later as needed

   after 6 months or a year, some of the leeches will not be leeches anymore

4. I’d set your leach threshold to something like 3-5 and set it to suspend.

   Reason being that if you fail to remember a word multiple times in a row the effort to learn it is just wasted when you can be learning words that will stick.

   You’ll have other chances to learn leeched words in better contexts or when you’ve noticed it enough for it to stick easily but your time is better spent with words that will stick

   You can also make a filtered deck for leeches so you can study them and add back in any that you feel comfortable adding back in

5. I dont do anything, if anything the leech tag is telling me I really need to review this card more because its not sticking. Make a mnemonic for it, try and use the word in a sentence. Let anki do its thing, thats what its designed for, to show you words that youre likley to have forgotten and need to review again.

6. I tell anki to do nothing with leeches. Let them pop up was many times as necessary. I study then until I know them

7. >however I never noticed the leech pop up until now and was wondering if the application will do something or is there advice that I should do something outside of it with these words.

   If you check out your deck ‘Options’ and scroll till ‘Lapses’ you could see some settings related to ‘Leeches’ and also an advice if you navigate your cursor on ‘i’ which is positioned next to Leech threshold [https://imgur.com/a/Z4LNI7P](https://imgur.com/a/Z4LNI7P)

   So what can you do with Leeches?

   * You can set them on Tag only – which in result will give a tag to your cards
   * Or you can also set them on Suspend card – which in result will remove that card from your deck until you unsuspend it ([https://imgur.com/G8VF5cJ](https://imgur.com/G8VF5cJ))
   * ALSO it is worth to note if you set number on ‘Leech threshold’ higher there is a low chance of your cards ever getting a leech tag

   >Also, could i check a specific tab where they list the “leeches”!

   You can check your leeches in the ‘Browse’ under 2 sections usually

   * If your cards get Tagged only you can check ‘leech’ in tags [https://imgur.com/ZmpqbGs](https://imgur.com/ZmpqbGs)
   * Or if you set it to ‘Suspend card’ you can check it under tags BUT also under ‘suspended’ [https://imgur.com/FmU9G9e](https://imgur.com/FmU9G9e)

   Hope this mini walkthrough is useful