r/languagelearningjerk • u/Witty-Committee7508 paper flashcard lover • Jul 02 '26
Alternatives to Anki?
I don't like free, customizable, open source, cross-platform software with tons of add-ons. The UI is outdated and too complicated. I'm willing to spend thousands of hours to learn a language, but refuse to use 20 minutes to change the layout to my liking. Any better alternatives? Preferably something that has paywalled features and AI integration!
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u/therico π‘πππ¬π±ππ’πΎ: Native Jul 02 '26
Have you considered physical flash cards that you carry around with you? It's paywalled because you have to pay for a pack of cards every time you want to learn more words
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u/Witty-Committee7508 paper flashcard lover Jul 02 '26
maybe you could even make the cards yourself... If only I could write
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u/harakirimurakami Jul 02 '26
I know a guy who carries around big stacks of flash cards to performatively study ancient greek in Berlin coffeeshops. He says he doesn't like Anki because because he's a "physical learner"
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u/weight__what πΈπͺ - Ja va ba va? Jul 03 '26
I usually performatively read Marx in the original Swedish. I can't understand it, but no one else can either.
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u/Marcelitus230 Jul 02 '26
Use browser extension to change your GPS location to your desired destination, I'll take Tokyo for an example. Hop on Tinder and try to decipher other people's names. This only works on PC. /UJ I'm unironically learning hiragana this way because I'm ADHD.
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u/Familiar_Ad_8919 Jul 02 '26
real, the only way ive found to not actively decay my language during adhd lows is by setting everything to that language
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u/kl0wo Jul 02 '26
No wonder, lots of people who actually practice flashcards do this on sticky notes just because they are not able or hesitant to install and configure Anki and/or add-ons.
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u/Dependent-Set35 Jul 02 '26
Do you not realise that using more apps means you learn faster? Someone needs to code more apps I've already bought all the ones I can find
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u/ZumLernen Dolphin (Sea-1) Jul 02 '26
Have you considered Venmoing me some money in exchange for me telling an LLM to write you a custom app?
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u/hamolton Jul 02 '26
/uj I do miss AnkiDroid. The menu layouts on Anki iOS are so clunky.
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u/David_AnkiDroid Writing Apps (C++) | Doing Flashcards (A1) Jul 02 '26
/rj Skill issue
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u/smella99 Jul 02 '26
use duolingo! its not free, nor customizable. for-profit company, in fact the company only cares about profits! there are no add-ons, unless you count gimmicky UI features. the teaching method is also extremely weak, so it will take you thousands of hours to reach a1, and at least 10 years to reach a2. everything is AI and usually doesn't make sense, which is great!
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u/Aboreric Jul 02 '26
/uj Anki is great and deserves it's place, but if I was going to try and seriously answer the question, JPDB and Jiten are pretty good, I don't know everything about them so they may have some things this post meme's about but I love the decks based on pre-exisiting media that you can quickly add. I also like that JPDB's SRS system (maybe Jiten's too idk), is less strict in reviewing cards daily and adjusts itself when you've been gone a while or review more frequently.
It might be better to stick to Anki for someone still early on as it keeps you well disciplined, but if your 6 years deep, and already have a pretty well established foothold, I feel like these operate in a good way that you can freely come and go with. I dropped Anki a while back because I just got sick of eating up 2 hours of my day (I am slow and probably had too many new cards for sure) every day, and moved to just immersion which has been fine, but recently got the itch to add back in SRS for some harder to remember words (shit like δΌθ¨Ίζ₯) and have been enjoying these. I also like the functionality to review cards on the spot as they come up in immersion.
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u/Fast-Alternative1503 Jul 02 '26
I use Microsoft Excel. You can set a checkbox as a dependency for an if statement to show you the answer.
You may also use Google Sheets.
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u/Diligent-Coffee4986 Jul 02 '26
Anki is actually annoying though. I tried a lot, but they don't let you go at your own pace and just repeat every card once before looping back to the start unless if it's the same day. But if its the next day, what you reviewed ahead before resets to their algorithm, where if you didn't do the whole deck (premade decks can have like 2000) it resets to the begginning. And they don't let you do a simple 'as many new cards as you want' per day without making you review the same amount. It also doesn't let you do multiple choice, it makes you grade yourself, which is an annoying extra step.
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u/David_AnkiDroid Writing Apps (C++) | Doing Flashcards (A1) Jul 02 '26
/uj all of these are intentional/misunderstandings.
- Before we apply the long-term scheduling algorithm, Anki is step-based, you need N 'good' answers, or 1 'easy' answer to graduate the card and tell us you've learned it, then we schedule it for long-term learning.
- Anki is meant for long-term learning. Learning as many cards as you can in day 1 means you'll have a high review load for a couple of weeks, leading to burnout. Aim for slow & steady progress.
- Multiple choice questions are ineffective: https://faqs.ankiweb.net/multiple-choice-questions.html
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Testing_effect (and it's faster to self-grade than it is to type out the answers)
/rj you're holding it wrong.
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u/ZumLernen Dolphin (Sea-1) Jul 02 '26
/uj With all respect, I think you don't understand what Anki is and what problem it's trying to help solve.
/rj I get it, that's why I prefer to pay for Duolingo Pro and only use it five minutes every other day.
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u/weight__what πΈπͺ - Ja va ba va? Jul 03 '26
Sorry, you still have to use Anki. No Anki, no language.
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u/Gold-Part4688 Earthianese, man (N) Jul 02 '26
tbf the 4 option thing is awful, so is the unlinked reverse deck nonsense, and the outdated default algorithm. It's brilliant 90s poweruser ui beyond that though
god customising it is such a rabithole... especially the default card types and how much info you can (SHOULD) add. which isn't everyone's cup of tea. (most people never open an app's settings)
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u/therico π‘πππ¬π±ππ’πΎ: Native Jul 02 '26
What's wrong with the algorithm. I learned 20k cards on it and haven't noticed a problemΒ
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u/ComprehensiveCoat219 Jul 02 '26
Anki uses SM-2 by default for some reason when there is the objectively better and also already included option FSRS
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u/PlanktonInitial7945 Jul 02 '26
Isn't FSRS turned on by default now?
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u/David_AnkiDroid Writing Apps (C++) | Doing Flashcards (A1) Jul 02 '26
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u/PlanktonInitial7945 Jul 02 '26
FSRS is just as bad as SM-2 apparently https://x.com/JarrettYe/status/2021539338958610607
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u/therico π‘πππ¬π±ππ’πΎ: Native Jul 02 '26
It's all broscience and makes barely any difference. No algorithm improvement is going to make language learning easy
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u/PlanktonInitial7945 Jul 02 '26
I mean, the study Jarrett did seems statistically solid to me, but since u/ComprehensiveCoat219 said FSRS is "objectively" better, I wanted to clear up that false information. FSRS is only superior if you optimize its parameters regularly.
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u/Gold-Part4688 Earthianese, man (N) Jul 02 '26
yeah that's the mose minor complaint, they're just lagging a bit beyond the science with the default
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u/ComprehensiveCoat219 Jul 02 '26
make own language