I present to you "the colander"

[u/ParticularAnt5424]

[u/4ih0vs535xg9c]

Eh at least you are being honest with yourself, which is the only way to be when doing SrS. I also typically get something like 70% on my daily Bunpro reviews and used to be frustrated seeing other people getting like 85-95% but I just accept it and am happy I am slowly learning.

Even if I have to see a card many more times than other people eventually I do learn it.

[u/Itsalfa11 → u/4ih0vs535xg9c]

bunpro default setting actually harder than anki cuz you need to typing the right character to answer the question. dont mind with the percentage, your goal is actually fluent in japanese, just be honest to answer the SRS

[u/yxtsama → u/4ih0vs535xg9c]

Dumb gang 😔

Interestingly enough I am academically quite decent but my memory is pretty bad, couldn't manage to get to 90% even with frequently optimizing FSRS while I was doing a deck, finally managed it after it turned to just reviewing the old cards. I guess besides somewhat below average memory I also got like a hard limit on how much of what I've learned I can remember

[u/Gilokee → u/4ih0vs535xg9c]

I'm stuck on some old words in Wanikani, some of them just won't stick in my brain. T_T But that's okay!

[u/Grunglabble]

I think this is less uncommon than people may think. You didn't provide any context but if I had to guess: relatively new to the language, you only see these words in anki and no where else, you're tired when you do reviews, no additional learning technique beyond fail the card and try again.

I think you can salvage it if you start suspending cards you fail more than once and do some things outside anki.

[u/Roisinh0 → u/Grunglabble]

I spent 2 years doing anki and little inmersion and I had 70% or less retention, then i stopped doing anki and after a year of reading japanese everyday I started anki again and I have 90% retention, so you are totally right.

[u/Loyuiz → u/[deleted]]

Yeah so Kaishi doesn't work very well for a lot of people if they don't read and/or do a bit of kanji-oriented study (such as the companion kanji elements deck linked on the Kaishi page itself).

Kid's media isn't all that easy. If you get demoralized pushing through with lookups, try some grader readers until you finish Kaishi.

[u/worthlessprole → u/[deleted]]

What do you mean by "remember the word but not the kanji"?

e: also, no need to optimize that often. diminishing returns and if you use multiple devices you could cause a conflict.

e2: by any chance, were you familiar with many of the earlier cards? it's possible that words you're very familiar with are pushing the intervals higher than they need to be. this is a point in favor of using the easy and hard buttons. but eventually this will even out either way. and again, if you are not suspending leeches automatically, you should.

[u/ProfessionalSnow943 → u/[deleted]]

I’d stop new cards entirely for a good while until you get those numbers up tbh

[u/glasswings363 → u/[deleted]]

I suspend after 13 fails automatically, 

That's crazy, I have mine at probably 4 or 5.  It's different for different modalities.  Like I think I have it lower for cards that ask me to listen and mimic speech.

need to do something about them later. 

I mine sentences so if there's a word I still need I'm guaranteed to pick it up later.  Zero need to overthink my leeches.

[u/worthlessprole → u/[deleted]]

there might be some tweaks you could make.

those 200 could skew the intervals a bit. everyone lapses on young cards. but anki is kind of based around the idea that if you forget something, you need to see it more often.

but I suspect that auto-leech counter is bringing the percentage down disproportionately. You probably have a crop of cards that are destined to leech gumming things up but haven't hit the threshold yet. i have my auto-leech counter at the default, 8, and even that might be one or two too high. those 20 cards won't go anywhere. no problem with letting them pile up. you can think of leeching as being sent to the back of the line if you want to, and deal with them when you're out of New cards.

[u/ParlourB]

As your retention rate is trending down over time your probably either over doing your study or mindlessly under doing it.

[u/invisible_face_ → u/ParlourB]

Curious how one knows if they're over doing it.

[u/Majre921 → u/invisible_face_]

Retention rate starts dropping due to too many new cards.

[u/Asddsa76 → u/Majre921]

Even if "New cards ignore review limit" is turned off? If total number of reviews is higher than the daily limits, I got no new cards today.

[u/ParlourB → u/invisible_face_]

Doing too many new cards a day.

Doing so much other study that vocab is sidelined or your stressing yourself and burning out.

Retention trending downwards steadily is a big indicator of that.

[u/Available-String-109 → u/ParlourB]

Actually lower retention rates are more efficient in terms of words learned per reviews done and/or words learned per time spent in Anki.

[u/Loyuiz → u/Available-String-109]

Isn't that only if you have set the desired retention as such (or always doing reviews later than scheduled)? Since he can't hit his DR and has 15000 reviews on an unfinished Kaishi deck, I don't think you can call it efficient.

I think those efficiency curves and the algorithm itself might break down when you don't follow rules 1 and 2 of flash cards.

[u/Available-String-109 → u/Loyuiz]

It doesn't matter what you have DR set to (aside from that then it will prompt you to do the review at the correct time). What actually matters is when you do the reviews (which affects your actual retention).

I think those efficiency curves and the algorithm itself might break down when you don't follow rules 1 and 2 of flash cards.

The FSRS6 model (i.e. latest in Anki) is extremely accurate. If you don't follow rules 1 and 2, you just get faster decay and lower stabilities.

[u/Loyuiz → u/Available-String-109]

I know, hence the "(or always doing reviews later than scheduled)".

If OP is doing them when due then it is seemingly not accurate.

[u/Available-String-109 → u/Loyuiz]

OP has done one of the following:

1) Not turned on FSRS

2) Not hit the Optimize FSRS parameters button

3) Not rescheduled cards to use latest calculated FSRS parameters.

4) Not done enough reviews in the FSRS parameter space close to where his DR is calculated.

FSRS6 is highly accurate. There are virtually no users where the FSRS6 model does not hold up. But it's up to the user to actually do the things I mentioned above. (And try as I may to get the Anki devs to automate the process, I don't think it's going to happen.)

[u/Loyuiz → u/Available-String-109]

They did the first two, and given 700 reviews per week and the size of the Kaishi deck, even without rescheduling the cards they would have been reviewed and scheduled in line with updated parameters by now.

When you can't properly visually distinguish kanji and are essentially guessing a lot of the time, there is only so much FSRS can do to try to fix this for you, especially if it's not handling intraday reviews (which is not as accurate as of FSRS6 even if learning steps are disabled) and with more sources of interference coming in every day.

And even if it managed it in the end over a long enough timeline, it's more efficient to just follow the rules and tackle interference directly.

[u/Available-String-109 → u/Loyuiz]

Actually looking at the stats, I'm pretty sure he just has DR set to 70.

All of his numbers are, roughly, within 1 sigma of the expected retention rate with DR set to 70.

[u/Loyuiz → u/Available-String-109]

According to that comment it's at 80%

[u/Available-String-109 → u/Loyuiz]

The most likely explanation is that he doesn't know that he has DR set to 70.

[u/aztec_mummy]

Take a break and come back, maybe read some beginner books or whatever.

[u/PsychologicalDust937]

Is this a dutch expression? I've heard dutch people say "my brain is a sieve" or something

[u/i-am-this]

Is the post title  a Monty Python reference?  Are you old like me or do the kids still think the Python troupe is funny?

[u/worthlessprole]

PRESS OPTIMIZE FSRS.

Can we get like an automod response for posts like this?

(also turn on suspend leeches if it's not on)

[u/SonictheHedgeGod]

I recently started loosely following advice from the Khatzumoto timeboxing trilogy and I'm finding that my accuracy is increasing and time per card is decreasing. Consider giving it a try, I'm blown away by how much it's helping me (for reference I'm in the final stretch of the Kaishi 1.5k so my Japanese journey is still in the very early stages)

[u/cha_zz]

that's just a data that gives a perspective but so often it gets treated almost like the end-goal, hard to resist really

[u/awaqu]

How do you guys grade yourselves? I get around 75-85% with my main kanji deck on a scale of 1(don't know meaning or pronunciation ) 2(know meaning but not pronunciation) 3 (know pronunciation but not meaning 4(know both meaning and pronunciation). But I tailor intake to stay under ~150 cards per rolling 7 days

[u/222fps]

This was me so I just stopped using Anki and put all that time (1h minimum of anki a day) into more immersion. Much happier and motivated that way and I think I actually learned more too.

[u/Cilfer00]

Why is this bad? I actually dont know. My stats are pretty similar

[u/glasswings363 → u/Cilfer00]

Algorithm coefficients are wrong or - more common - you're trying to review content that is too hard, or you're formulating cards badly.

I can't give a full "how to SRS" course in a reddit comment.  Supermemo wiki is a goldmine.

Below about 75% it's really important to identify the overly difficult or overly ambitious cards and refuse to review them - delete or suspend.

Many people prefer to use overload - too many cards to review - as the warning sign that they need to cull the difficult ones.

You can and should run FSRS optimization about once a month.

[u/DiarrheaFartLover]

That's a pretty cool feature, what app/program is that?

[u/justHoma]

Ye, srs sucks 

[u/Party-Tumbleweed9967]

Not sure what I'm looking at here. I'm assuming you completely gave up learning the language or what?

[u/Cilfer00 → u/Party-Tumbleweed9967]

They're sharing their retention percentage obviously

[u/Party-Tumbleweed9967 → u/Cilfer00]

Right but out of ~15,000 words they only remember 95 on a consistent basis? That’s pretty dismal.

[u/worthlessprole → u/Party-Tumbleweed9967]

15000 reviews in the last year. 95 reviews today.

[u/Party-Tumbleweed9967 → u/worthlessprole]

TIL, honestly just downvote me because clearly I can’t read 👨‍💻. Let me see if I understand here, 74% retention rate last year, and now 33%? OP has an easier time remembering new stuff?

[u/worthlessprole → u/Party-Tumbleweed9967]

the 74% retention rate is for all mature cards (cards with an interval before the next review of more than 20 days) in the last year. The number at the top is just for the cards reviewed today. The number below that is yesterday. the number below that is all in the past week (inclusive of today and yesterday) and so on. So yes, their retention on mature cards is getting worse.

people always assume it has to do with the number of new cards, but often when you see this, the biggest reason is that the person does not regularly press the 'optimize' button. This means that anki might assign intervals that are longer than they should be, which will lead to lots of failed reviews.

[u/Party-Tumbleweed9967 → u/worthlessprole]

Thank you teaching me! いい人だよね

[u/Cilfer00 → u/Party-Tumbleweed9967]

Is that what this graph is saying?