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What is Anki?
The Anki Core Decks are compatible with Anki (the decks work on all devices).
What is Anki?
Join millions of successful language learners who have discovered the power of Anki's innovative approach to mastering new languages.
Anki is a powerful flashcard app designed to help you learn and retain information more effectively than ever before. With Anki, you can take your language learning to the next level with scientifically proven techniques.
Customize Your Learning Experience
Tailor your language learning to suit your needs. With Anki, you can create personalized flashcards with text, images, audio, and even video. Enhance your listening skills with audio clips and improve your pronunciation with engaging multimedia content.
Boost Your Memory with Spaced Repetition
Say goodbye to forgetfulness and hello to mastery! Anki's Spaced Repetition System (SRS) is designed to help you remember vocabulary, phrases, and grammar rules by reviewing them at just the right intervals. This method optimizes your memory retention, ensuring that the language sticks with you for the long haul.
The following graph shows your memory without Anki:
And this graph shows your memory when you use Anki:
The only flashcards you'll ever need
Your Anki Core Deck is the only deck you'll ever need to become fluent in your target language. With more than 10,000 flashcards, you'll be fluent by the end.
Take a look at this flashcard from the Anki Core French deck:
Here's what you can expect from each flashcard:
The target word
10,000+ words in total, sorted by frequency. Audio is also included, so you know how to pronounce the word.
Example sentence
Every word has an example sentence. The sentences are easy at first (A1 level) and get harder as you progress through the deck (C1 level). Audio is also included.
Explanation
Every flashcard has an explanation of how the word was used in the example sentence.
Mnemonic
You also get a mnemonic that associates the word in your target language with the word in English. This technique (called the "keyword technique") has 70+ backing up its efficiency.
Word-part analysis
Some flashcards have an analysis of the different components of the word. This is also a technique proven to enhance learning. In the case of words that can't be broken down, you'll get the etymology of the word.
Learn the most frequent vocabulary first
The Anki Core Decks provides curated flashcard decks for language learners. Our decks are designed to optimize language acquisition by focusing on the 10,000 most frequent words in your target language. Here's why frequency matters:
Rapid Vocabulary Mastery: Imagine learning the most useful words right from the start. Our frequency lists focus on the high-frequency words that you'll use every day, making your study time incredibly efficient and practical.
Enhanced Understanding: Struggle with comprehension no more! By mastering these common words, you'll understand conversations and texts with ease, even if you don't know every single word. It's like having a cheat code for instant understanding.
Optimal Use of Your Time: We know your time is precious. The Anki Core Decks ensure you spend it wisely, learning words that you'll encounter most often in real-life situations. Say goodbye to wasting time on obscure vocabulary!
Solid Learning Foundation: Build a strong foundation with high-frequency words. Once you've got these down, expanding your vocabulary becomes a breeze, paving the way for advanced language skills and deeper understanding.
Boost Your Motivation and Confidence: Nothing feels better than making real progress. The Anki Core Decks help you achieve noticeable milestones quickly, boosting your confidence and keeping you motivated to learn more.
Balanced Language Skills Development: Get a well-rounded language education. Our lists expose you to a balanced set of words used across various contexts, helping you develop both your listening and reading skills as well as your speaking and writing abilities.
Word variations included
A lot of decks make the mistake of not including word variations. For example, a word like "creative" may be excluded from these decks, because they already contain "create".
This is not the case for the Anki Core Decks. Here's why we kept word variations:
1. Comprehensive Understanding of Words
Including variations of word families helps you grasp the full scope of a word's meaning and usage. For instance, knowing "create" and "creative" allows you to understand the root word "create" in different contexts and forms, which deepens your comprehension.
2. Improved Morphological Awareness
Exposure to word families aids in the development of morphological awareness, the ability to understand and manipulate the structure of words. This skill is crucial as it enhances your ability to decode new words, infer meanings, and recognize grammatical relationships within sentences.
3. Increased Vocabulary Retention
Learning words in families can improve retention by creating mental associations. When you see how words are related, you can better remember and recall them.
4. Advanced Language Skills
Advanced language skills, such as reading comprehension and essay writing, require a nuanced understanding of word forms and their applications. Knowing word families equips you with the necessary tools to excel in these areas, as they can more accurately and effectively convey complex ideas and comprehend advanced texts.
5. Support for Language Production
In both spoken and written language, being able to produce the correct form of a word is vital. For example, you need to know when to use "decision" versus "decide" or "decisive." Understanding these variations supports more precise and sophisticated language production.
1 million sentences analyzed
How do you REALLY determine the frequency of a word?
You have to count how many times it is used!
To build the Anki Core Decks, 1 million carefully selected sentences were analyzed. All the sentences where provided by the Leipzig University, in Germany. You can learn more about the sentences here.
The result of this computer analysis is a comprehensive list of the 10,000 most used words in the language.
Here's an example of the analysis for French:
Remember words easily using the keyword technique
Mnemonics are underused.
In fact, when I talked with Professor Paul Nation, he said that there currently are 70+ studies showing the power of the keyword technique (a type of mnemonic) for learning languages.
He also said that the keyword technique improves learning by 20 to 25%.
The keyword technique, as explained by Professor Paul Nation, is a mnemonic method used to enhance vocabulary learning. It involves creating a mental link between the new word and an already familiar word (the keyword) that sounds similar.
This technique has two main steps:
1. Acoustic Link
The learner finds a keyword in their native language that sounds like or reminds them of the new word they are trying to learn. This keyword acts as a bridge between the new word and something familiar.
For instance, if the learner is trying to remember the Spanish word "caballo" (horse), they might use the English word "cabin" as a keyword because "caballo" sounds somewhat similar to "cabin."
2. Imagery Link
The learner then creates a vivid mental image that connects the keyword with the meaning of the new word. In our example, the learner might imagine a horse inside a cabin to link "caballo" (horse) with "cabin."
By combining these two links, the keyword technique helps in encoding the new word more effectively in the memory. The technique leverages the power of visualization and association, making it easier for learners to recall the word and its meaning later on.
10,000+ powerful mnemonics
Considering the power of mnemonics for language learning, I decided the Anki Core Decks had to have mnemonic.
As a consequence, each flashcard has a dedicated mnemonic.
Here are a few examples, from the French deck:
Get speaking fast
The Anki Core Decks have 10,000 flashcards. But you don't need to finish your deck to be able to use the language.
And that's the beauty of the Anki Core Decks.
The flashcards are ordered by frequency. By about the 2,000th flashcard, you'll know 85% to 90% of the words in the language.
This is enough to have good conversations with native speakers.
By about 6,000th flashcard, you'll have enough vocabulary to understand 98% of all spoken dialogues in movies.
Deck previews (more to come)
Wondering what's in the decks? Here are video previews showing the content of the decks. Make sure to turn on your audio!
Anki Core Japanese
Bonus: 500 - 1,000 flashcards added
Actually, the Anki Core Decks have more than 10,000 flashcards.
They each have about 10,500 to 11,000 flashcards (depends on the deck).
As such, you can feel free to delete the flashcards you already know, or the ones you don't like.
The only deck you'll ever need
Ready to take your language skills to the next level? Get your Anki Core Deck right now! If vocabulary is holding you back, these decks are your solution.
Refund Policy
Due to the nature of our products and to protect against fraudulent activities, all sales are final. We are unable to offer refunds once a purchase has been completed. We appreciate your understanding and encourage you to contact our customer support team if you have any questions or concerns prior to making your purchase.
Any questions? Contact us at lois.talagrand@gmail.com