Infinite Flashcards

Infinite Flashcards is an app I made to solve the problems I had with other popular SRS study apps like Anki, so studying vocab could be a simple, unintimidating part of my everyday routine.

As an avid language learner who mostly studies just for fun, I'm picky about my flashcards. I'm constantly switching between languages and setting new goals, but I don't want to lose all the knowledge I've worked so hard to gain every time. So I'm constantly looking for ways to make reviewing vocab easier, and improvements to make this repetitive part of learning a language into less of a chore, and more of an effortless little accomplishment.

It's hard to explain how difficult it is to rate how well you remembered a word until you've tried it yourself...

_Was that "easy" or just "good"? Does it count if I mostly got it but I messed up the ending? I took a while to answer, but was it "hard" or am I just not focused?_

_That's close enough... right?_

Infinite Flashcards takes away all the tiny extra mental steps required by other flashcard apps and makes the decisions for you, so you can just focus on studying.

These are some of the fundamental decisions I made after years of reflecting on my own experience:

1) Using a spaced repetition sequence (SRS) is the most efficient way to memorize vocabulary.

2) Production is the most important way to learn -- you can train recognition by training production but not the other way around.

Infinite Flashcards will always prompt you to produce the target word and never waste time checking whether you can recognize it.

3) You can't just learn a word by looking at it once.

Trying to go from never having heard a word to producing it perfectly is frustrating. Infinite Flashcards will hold your hand as the questions get harder during the "Learn" phase. Adding mnemonics (mems for short) keeps that word in your short-term memory until you've really nailed it and can move on to the "Review" phase. And don't worry, you won't always need to remember that mem in order to recall the target word. The more you review, the less you'll remember the mem, because just remembering the word is easier.

4) Your brain will automatically take shortcuts to do things as efficiently as possible.

This means that if you get a word kind of right (but not really), your brain will autocorrect it to the right answer when you see it, no matter how diligent you try to be. The only way to catch your mistakes is to see them! Infinite Flashcards will always make you type out the whole word. While it might seem tedious at first, you'll make a much stronger memory if you can't cheat the system with "good enough."

5) Streaks are discouraging!

A streak may seem like it's giving you the extra motivation you need -- until the first day you miss it. A good study strategy is a long-term term study strategy, that won't be scrapped by life's many little disruptions.

Start by creating a new deck of flashcards, or importing one you've been using in Anki (your study progress will also transfer, so you don't have to start over)! You can also download and import shared Anki decks.

Infinite Flashcards will use the text to speech function on your phone to automatically add audio if none was uploaded. To study words in your own native language (e.g. for a standardized test or highly technical course), just select your native language from the language dropdown. To make flashcards in an unsupported language, select "other" in the language dropdown.