I am wondering about the differences between these two flashcard systems.
So far I think the following is true:
LingQ is only available on the web and the iPhone whereas Anki can be used offline on your computer or phone?
In Anki you can grade your answer “1 - 4” and this determines how soon you will see that item again (it is an SRS). LingQ will advance the status of your answer when you get a card correct twice in a session.
Do I have this right? Are there other differences?
Pretty much at this point that’s right. Eventually they will update the flashcard usability at lingq for now though it isn’t difficult to import your lingq words into anki.
We are looking at improving our Flash Cards right now. But there will always be differences between systems and therefore personal preferences. The biggest advantage with LingQ Flash Cards is how they integrate with the rest of the LingQ system. I often LingQ rather simple and common words that I have trouble with, even certain endings of forms of words, so that I will see them often highlighted in yellow in my texts., Then I check the captured phrase as well as the new context where I find it.
One example is “meu” " meus" in Portuguese where the usage is different from the “mi” of Spanish. By saving these, I get them in Flash Cards, and see them often highlighted in yellow and slowly my brain starts to notice.
The most fundamental difference is that LingQ flashcards only really support comprehensible input while Anki flashcards support comprehensible input, and allow the user to feel like they can “nail down” a sound or a collocation as output. I have my doubts that this is possible, which is why I feel LingQ flashcards are more than adequate.
Ed, We will be adding sound to our Flash Cards and are looking at other improvements, stay tuned. I think that sound will help people. I think that paying attention to the new words and phrases, editing the captured phrase,looking at examples, tracking them highlighted in future texts, all of these things help us learn, little by little.
That’s great. Thanks for your work on it. Flexibility in the flashcards will make many people more likely to stick to it, which is only a good thing.
On the other hand, I am fine with the flashcards the way they are. I think emphasizing flashcarding at the expense of listening and reading is a mistake some people make. THis is pure speculation but I feel that some people seem to procrastinate in worrying if their techniques are exactly right rather than just getting more input.
Hello:
Another question. If I did export the vocabulary to Anki or to the iPhone LingQ application, they could be stored there permanently, right? And could be added to anytime later in the future?
I ask as I am thinking of subscribing but there may be months when I would prefer to not subscribe. I wouldn’t want to lose my already garnered vocabulary.
As long as you make sure that everything you save at LingQ also exists in our Anki deck, it’s yours “forever”, since you can setup an online account for Anki.
I can work well with the LingQ flashcard system and this is the only electronic flashcard sytem I have tried out so far. I am not familiar with Anki and for normal usage of vocabulary learning I still use my A 5 handwritten vocabulary books and carry them everywhere around in my backpack. I already spend enough time browsing through fora so it would be too much computer dependency for me to learn my vocabulary online as well. Fasulye
What I don’t like about Anki is that there is no simple way to reverse the deck (what is the front and what is the back of the card) on a mobile device: you have to generate a new deck on the computer and it wouldn’t sync with the original one. Extremely inconvenient!
It could be great to have a possibility to review your own decks on the LingQ App, not just the cards from the lessons.