JapanesePod101.com

Blog / December 2021

  • 28 December 2021JapanesePod101 Holiday Countdown (December 2021)

    Update: JapanesePod101's December deals ended.

  • 20 December 2021New AGAIN rating added to Flashcard Review

    There is now an Again flashcard rating available in both SRS and "free" review modes.

    I'll quote shintoo who made the original feature request (issue #184) :

    "Again" would put the card into the back of the current review session, and when the user sees it again, they can still select "again" continuously, until they finally select one of No/Hard/Yes/Easy.

    Also, selecting "Again" functions as a "No", i.e. that it fails the card and puts it into box 1. If the user hits "again" for a card, and then when they see it again in the same session, hits "yes", then that card would then move to box 2.

    How the SRS ratings work in more detail :

    • if you select AGAIN, the card will repeat at end of the review pile, cards previously rated AGAIN have a small "repeat" icon next to the keyword
    • selecting AGAIN followed by HARD : same as HARD for a new/failed card -- the card gets a fixed 1 day interval, ie. will be due tomorrow
    • selecting AGAIN followed by YES : same as YES for a new/failed card -- the card gets a 2-4 day interval (base 3 days +- 1 day variance)
    • selecting AGAIN followed by EASY : same as EASY for a new/failed card -- the card gets a 4-6 days interval (base 5 +- 1 day variance)
    • you can also use AGAIN during the non-SRS Kanji Review modes : this lets you effectively repeat a set of kanji by frame number, or lesson, without leaving the review screen
    • if you click END while there are AGAIN cards still in the pile : those cards are rated same as a NO and will be found in the Failed review pile (tip: to review the failed pile directly you can click the big red button in Study > Restudy List)

    Quoting shintoo:

    Anki reviews are simple in that one can finish all of one's review for the day without leaving the review session. I have been using the technique of selecting "hard" instead of "no" for Kanji I have forgotten, to avoid the restudy process, (...)

    With this change today you may want to adjust the "Maximum box for cards marked 'Hard'" SRS setting (if you did change from the default). That feature has some overlap with the new Again rating, since setting Max Hard Box to "1" was kind of a substitute for a "lapsed" rating : resetting the card to a very low interval.

    But now you can get a fixed 1 day interval by rating AGAIN + HARD. So you can for example, set Max Hard Box to 4 instead, so you know a HARD answer will average a maximum of 1 month interval, and for a lapsed review (forgotten card) you can do AGAIN + HARD.

    The main reason you'd still want to use Max Hard Box 1 perhaps is if you don't plan to use AGAIN rating, then you can use HARD as a "lapsed" review rating if you like, with a fixed +1 day interval.

    One gotcha and potential solutions

    The main gotcha for now is that AGAIN cards are added at the end of the review pile. This usually works well for short reviews of say, 10 to 30 cards. If you click the DUE button and you have 100+ due cards, even if you set yourself a daily limit (a good idea), the AGAIN cards won't show up until you rate the 100 cards first.

    For now one thing that can help is remember you can click the due piles in the SRS chart. This can let you review due cards in smaller batches.

    "Review Session" SRS setting idea?

    I am considering adding a new "review session" option, which would by default cut the review pile into smaller chunks. This could be a way also to help users take a break. For example, if the default is 25 cards, then you'll never get more than 25 cards when you click the DUE button. That way, you will also review AGAIN cards sooner. Then, if you want, you could click the DUE button again, until there are no due cards left or you feel you did enough for the day.

    So I'm thinking this could be an improvement for users overall. Think of it like the Pomodoro technique. If the SRS by default "chunks" due cards in smaller batches of say 25 cards (adjustable), then you get a reminder to get a break, there is less pressure to finish a review pile of 50+ cards at once.

    The only downside I can think of to adding this functionality is for those users who just don't want to click the DUE button 2 or 3 times... but I suppose you could go to SRS settings and just disable it or set it to a very high value so you can review 100 cards in one review session if you like.

    So what do you think?

    Discussions are open

    Please note I finally enabled Discussions on Github. I figured this could be less intimidating for many of you who aren't developers, and more used to forums or Q&A sites.

    You just need a free Github account to post there :

    • Feature requests & ideas : if there is anything I can work on, I can directly convert a post there into an "issue" -- which you can then get notified about or provide further feedback
    • Questions & Answers : feel free to ask questions about how the site works, I'll try to answer if someone else didn't already AND this can help me figure out what parts of the site are not easy to understand and/or improve the documentation.
    • Bugs : you can also just pots bugs here, perhaps a more friendly way than going through the "Issues" section

    While this isn't a fully fledged forum I hope I can get a bit more feedback that way, and have a better understanding of what you would like to see me improve on the site.

    I know there is a ISSUES list. One problem is that once an issue is posted there is no activity, and so for me it's not very motivating. Another problem with the "Issues" (aka "tickets") system is that as time goes by chances are some old tickets are of less importance to users while maybe other ones are more.

    You can also add EMOTES and UPVOTE topics in the Koohii Discussions tab on Github -- if you'd like to support an idea someone else has posted.

  • 10 December 2021Small fix to the sorting of the Flashcard List page

    When sorting the Flashcard List table by Box, Pass, Fail, Strokecount etc., there was an issue whereby duplicate rows would show up as you advance through the pages of the table.

    The Flashcard List table now always uses a secondary sort by RTK INDEX (the leftmost column).

    This fixes the issue and also makes a lot more sense : now if you sort by Box, Pass, Fail, etc, within each subset (Box 2, Box 3, ...) you'll see the flashcards are ordered by frame number. Much more useful!

    Thanks to FranticRain for reporting issue #224 on Github.

  • 3 December 2021Holiday Coutdown Deals at JapanesePod101 (December 2021)

    Update: JapanesePod101's December deals ended.

    Whether it is through JapanesePod101, donations and/or Patreon, thank you for supporting this little website! It means a lot to me.

    I wish you all in advance a Happy Christmas and New Year's eve! :)

    PS: work is well underway to add an "Again" rating to the Flashcard Review part of the site. This new rating marks a card as forgotten (similar to Anki's "again" rating) -- while also moving the card to the end of the current review session therefore allowing you to repeat a card indefinitely until you rate it No/Hard/Yes/Easy. I'm trying to get this update finished this December. Issue #184 on Github.

    **Sale Extension**: from 12/16 until 12/28, JapanesePod101 will extend the sale and re-open the top 3 offers: Deal #1, Deal #5 and Deal #8.

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