Anki - iPhone app

-I've been using Anki for 6 months and it's iPhone app for 3 months to primarily improve my pronunciation. I will write about the detail of how I use Anki to achieve this goal in later posts.

Anki is Japanese for "memorization", it's a common word for students.
Even now this word brings back the memory of my school days back when studying was not so fun (the most important thing we ever learned at school is the fact the most important things can't be learned at school :P). How many times my teachers (ESP at cram schools) told me "you must Anki this and never forget!!" (uhmm... this pretty much explains why I don't like the name of this app..)

But this App called Anki makes "Anki" a lot easier and more efficient (and even addictive!) than simple rote learning!
This basically is flash-card app employs "spaced-based repetition", so that older, better memorized cards are shown with longer intervals, and newer, not well memorized cards with shorter intervals.

As its name suggests Anki is esp common among learners of Japanese, and when you look at shared deck, collection of cards shared with public, vast majority of them are Japanese.
But fit is also extremely helpful for the learners of other languages unless you don't bother to create cards on you own.

One drawback of this app is that this isn't fully functional without desktop version of Anki (which is available for PC, Mac, etc,).
With desktop Anki you can change fonts, add photos and audios easily. So if you want to use Anki for listening and pronunciation practice in addition to memorizing words, you must have desktop version, and need to sync it with your iPhone app.

4 buttons to determine interval
By default there are 4 answer options, and by selecting a right button, Anki will introduce a card again at right time to it will stick to your memory.

*Is there a way to change a deck name?
plz tell me if you know..

So Anki makes "reviewing" a lot more efficient, it's basically serving you cards automatically. What's left you to do is create better cards suitable for your learning purpose.

Why use Anki on smartphones
It seems many people already have explained the merits of using Anki mobile.
Spaced repetition: Never forget vocabulary ever again
Anki: Bringing Flashcards Out Of The Stone Age
Anki - 文字巻 - Moji Maki

What these people say in common is basically Anki is designed for serious learners who are trying to memorize a lot of stuff, and even though Anki is an efficient system, it of course requires a great deal of time. And with this mobile app you can change a lot of spare time, waiting at stations, in the train, toilet, bath, while watching tv, when eating alone, into learning time. So aggregated study time would increase and you would be able to learn as mush as possible just having this app.

Online backup
There is nothing more horrible than losing your flash cards which you put a lot of time to build.
Anki sync your local data of flash cards with Anki server every time you open and close your decks, the collection of cards, so as long as Anki server is working fine, you can just download your lost data from the server.
But,
It's current interface is very or too simple that can be confusing. You'd better be careful when you sync your data so that not to write old data over modified data. I wish this sync function would be more user friendly.

Purchasing process
Since the limitation of iPhone version of Anki, it's better to consider it as a optional feature of desktop version. By the way this app is 25 USD, which is quite expensive, so  I think you'd better take steps like this.

1. Download desktop version of Anki
2. Understand it's function
3. If want to "review" on mobile..
4. Buy iPhone or android apps

I guess most people buy mobile app for Anki not for editing and creating cards but for reviewing. And I can definitely say this Anki app for iPhone never disappoint you for that purpose.

So guys or girls, let's start learning everywhere with iPhone, you just need a few seconds to pick the phone up and launch the app!!!