Using Anki for Learning Stenography

1. What is Anki
2. Setting up Anki
3. Making your own deck
   1. Custom Fields
   2. Custom Cards
4. Pre-made Decks
5. Useful Anki Add-ons
6. Useful Plover Extensions

What is Anki

Anki is a flashcard program that uses spaced repetition. The basic idea is that if the card is easy you will see it less often, and if the card is hard you will see it more often. Anki does not grade you automatically — you have full control.

It can be useful for learning many things, and for steno people have used it for memorising briefs and theory rules.

Setting up Anki

1. Download from here: https://apps.ankiweb.net/
2. Make your own deck or use a pre-made deck

Making your own deck

Making your own deck allows you to have greater control over the cards (e.g. what briefs)

The most basic way is to use the default deck and add cards to it. "Front" and "Back" can be whatever you want, though most people put the translation on the front and the steno stroke on the back.

Custom Fields

Instead of just "Front" and "Back", you might want more fields like "Pseudo Steno", "Stroke Diagram", "Notes" etc.

1. Add a new note type so that it won't interfere with anything else you might use Anki for
2. Customise the fields and add whatever you want
3. Add the new fields to the card template (see custom cards)

Custom Cards

The default cards have the "Front" field, and when you answer it shows the "Back" field, as well as a reverse card. If you want to show more fields, you'll have to customise your card.

See the anki docs here, including the next few pages, for how to do this.

Particular things that are useful for steno are:

link to docs	example code	description
Text to speech	{{tts en_US:Front}}	Read out the text of the card, which is useful if you want to practice from dictation.
Typing input	{{type:Back}}	Type out the field and when you turn the card over it will check for any differences. Some people like to check the translation field, some people like to turn off their dictionaries and check for the strokes. You might want a separate field for checking, since you may want prefix/suffix cards like "{^ing}" but what you type out is actually "ing".
Field Styling	in the card: <span class="diagram">{{Strokes}}</span> in the styling: .diagram {font-family: "Stenodisplay Font"}	There are lots of ways you can style your fields, like making the notes smaller or colour coding your fields. The example here uses Kaoffie's Steno Font, which uses a font for the steno strokes to make it into a stroke diagram.

Pre-made Decks

• rchern/steno-anki
  • Words from Learn Plover! lessons
  • Scripts to generate cards
• jladdjr/anki-decks
  • Top 10,000 Project Gutenberg words
  • Basic sounds
• Steno order and Phonetic strokes
  • A small deck with cards on steno order and phonetic strokes

Useful Anki Add-ons

Anki Add-ons are third party extensions that add features to anki. To install them, go to Tools -> Add-ons -> Get Add-ons.

• Automatic Scoring
  • Automatically selects the difficulty of the card based on how long it took to answer it
  • You still have to press "enter" to confirm, so you still have full control
  • You will want to adjust the default time to something lower (around 1.5 seconds, depending on your current speed and reading time)
  • Pairs well with Advanced Review Bottom Bar which makes it easier to see which button has been pre-selected.
• Anki Connect
  • Needed for some useful plover extensions
• Find Missing Words
  • Paste in a block of text and this will help you find words you don't have cards for
• Anki Simulator
  • Simulates your reviews over time. Useful for choosing settings (e.g. number of new cards a day) that won't overwhelm you. (around 200-300 review cards will take around half an hour, depending on your speed)
• Persistent Editor
  • Keeps the editing window open while reviewing (but hides the current card until you've answered it). Useful if you are using a pre-made deck and prefer different briefs to the ones that are there.
• Mini Format Pack
  • Gives you more formatting options in the menu. Useful for making lists of alternative strokes, or other formatting

Useful Plover Extensions

• Plover cards
  • See previously typed words/phrases, sorted by various properties (e.g. last used, most used), choose your preferred stroke and add them into Anki.
  • Requires Anki Connect