Left and right are a case in point in Swahili. It’s not always just soundalikes, either, but happens with concepts. For example, in Greek, I leeched out παραδέχομαι (paradéchomai – admit) with αποδέχομαι (apodéchomai – accept), due to their similarity – same root verb, different prefix. Many of mine aren’t words I’ve forgotten, but words I get mixed up – either with other target language words, or with the wrong English translation. Often, it’s not simply failure to remember. But there’s a reason Anki singled it out – something wasn’t working. It’s tempting to just un-suspend by removing that leech tag, and pop the card right back in the deck. Now out in the open, we need to think of a rehabilitation strategy for our annoyingly helpful leeches. You can simply highlight Suspended under Card State in the left-hand menu.Įxposing leeches via tags in the Anki Browse window

Then, there are two ways to list leeches. Once a month or so seems about right if you’re a prolific language learning user – I always have a couple to deal with in that time span. Instead, schedule a review of leeches regularly. It suspends the cards to save you wasting any more time on part of your learning strategy that isn’t quite working. Despite the cold rebuke, Anki means well. Leeches can creep up for a number of reasons, and your memory lapse is the least of them. Catching Leechesįirst of all, fight that feeling. I don’t know about you, but I also get that sinking feeling of failure when “ card was a leech” pops up baldly. It’s an apt description for an item that sucks away your time and motivation. The leeches I’m more concerned with on the day-to-day are those Anki cards you forget so persistently that the app takes charge, suspending them from your deck. I’m not talking about traditional medicine here (not to downplay the modern application of the age-old treatment at all!).

Anki cloze table