Supermemo Adventures

Update (December 2025)

2025-12-08T08:04:00.000-08:00

Someone left a comment regarding when the book will come out, and instead of leaving a long response in the comments section, I figured it warranted a proper post:

I'm really sorry about the delay, but there is one really important hangup. To summarize what has happened over the last many months: I over-invested in a mnemonic technique that was based SOLELY on leveraging the power of AI image generation, and the results were not what I had expected.

The core idea is that I thought that using a good mnemonic system (Image style/vibe = mnemonic meaning), you could use bespoke AI generated images and that ALONE would guarantee strong memory traces. After all, aren't pictures worth a thousand words? I thought so, but it turns out that this probably should not be the CORE of a memory system. I REALLY thought it was the "silver bullet," to be honest. Keeping that in mind, AI images can be a very powerful SUPPLEMENT to a good mnemonic system.

Since I basically rewrote my "global mnemonic system" to accommodate for AI images, after the failure of this system, I had to decide what to do. I had two options: 1. Use the same mnemonic system that I was using previously (Which I had been using for many years) or 2. rewrite the system while making adjustments in light of what I had learned. Although it is time consuming, I opted for option 2. Think of it as when Microsoft failed with Windows Vista or Windows 8 so they course corrected with Windows 7 or Windows 10.

When I first started creating an organized mnemonic system years and years ago (Which at the time was mainly for Japanese character readings), I didn't TRULY know what I was doing, I was just learning as I went along. Essentially this entire blog is an exercise in self-experimentation, and I simply post my results here. Over the years I have learned what mnemonic systems are easier to work with compared to other systems. For example, source material WITH linear scenarios and progression seem to be more effective/faster to associate mnemonic meaning than source material WITHOUT linear scenarios and progression. So for example, a Tarantino movie or a TV show that features many flashbacks will not work as well as something with a straightforward beginning, middle and end. Not that stories with non-linear source material are IMPOSSIBLE to use with an organized mnemonic system, but it seems like it requires more work to create and maintain.

These are the kinds of useful insights I want to articulate and put out onto the internet so others in the same position as me can benefit from my failures. I like to think of myself as a cartographer that is exploring a mostly unexplored and windy cave. Many passages lead to dead ends, but it's still worth it to KNOW that it is a dead end. I don't want to say "This works, I recommend you do this too" unless I know that FOR A CERTAINTY it ACTUALLY works. When I started experimenting with AI images, I thought FOR SURE this was going to change the world of mnemonics, but instead it ended up being a great SUPPLEMENT somewhere in the middle. I have a pattern of doing this with many things, actually. Heck, this same cycle happened to me with SuperMemo itself. I started using it, became WAY too obsessed with it, and eventually found a balance in between the two extremes of NOT using it and using it TOO MUCH. I think I have found this balance when it comes to the application of AI images in mnemonic systems, and I'm in the process of proving this to myself. I'm not sure how much work is remaining until I feel like I can put my "stamp of a approval" on the system, but I don't want to recommend it too early because I don't want to mislead anyone.

I don't want to say "I did this for 2 weeks and it was useful!" I would rather say "having tried system x, y and z thoroughly, I can say absolutely system x is the way to go."

So again, sorry for the delay! But as a famous nerd once said:

Update 2025 (Book is nearing completion, AI is useful, Possibly figured out IR for iPad/iPhone)

2025-04-01T17:34:00.000-07:00

Hello! How are you doing? Hopefully well! Here are some updates on my end:

MY LIFE

My mom is doing great! She recovered physically and her speech is pretty much back to normal! Her ability to enunciate certain syllables was the one thing that was notably lagging behind, but we did daily speech therapy for about 10 minutes over FaceTime.

I used ChatGPT to come up with tongue twister stories that featured syllables that she had a hard time saying. I was also able to choose the direction of the story so that it included family inside jokes! I would recommend using ChatGPT (Or any other compatible AI tool) to come up with sentence exercises, especially for pronunciation. Rather than reading the same stories day after day (Which we did for a couple of weeks), by choosing the subject matter, you can keep the sentences fresh!

Outside of that, I can’t think of much happening in my life. Oh yeah, when I went back to the United States to help out my mom, I was able to go to my first concert in like 10 years! I saw Alvvays, a really happy and catchy indie shoegaze-y rock band. Their discography is small but each album is filled with great songs! Definitely check them out!

BOOK

The book itself is pretty much done, but there are a few holdouts that I want to MAKE SURE work before I say “hey, try this!” I hate when I see people talk about the system they have been using for only a few days, I want to know what system has been working for MONTHS or YEARS.

My two main holdouts are: 1. Various applications of AI in Incremental Reading and visual mnemonics and 2. Incremental Reading substitute / supplement for the iPhone / iPad

AI IS USEFUL FOR LEARNING

AI continues to be a big source of hype; much of it is unfounded, but in terms of learning, it is quite the game changer. For me this has been mainly in two ways:

1. You basically have a tutor that you can contact at any time of the day and can explain things to you that you do not understand. You can also ask if the flashcards you make are accurate (This has been a big help)! There are many various applications of AI with SuperMemo (and specially incremental reading), but I will get into that a bit more in the book.

2. AI Generated visual mnemonics. Although it sounds like I’m beating a dead horse, the quality of images that various AI models can output continues to astound me. Aside from the many real world (And meme) applications that pop up across the internet, highly detailed mnemonic images makes “encoding” memories SO MUCH FUN! For the purposes of SuperMemo, I have made about 7,000 images so far, and I can recall them mostly with very little effort.

IPHONE AND IPAD INCREMENTAL READING

My other project has been trying to figure out a low friction way to make a simple imitation of incremental reading on my iPhone or iPad.

While I would love for there to be an official app that allowed for incremental reading, unfortunately there isn’t one. I have spent the last few weeks playing around with a simple system that imitates the most useful aspects of incremental reading. It is very simple in terms of features (I don’t want to pay a subscription fee for something) and it seems to be working very well. I have incrementally read and analyzed a number of articles and books. I also wanted a way to “capture” my conversations with ChatGPT, since the responses are often dense with useful information that I would like to “break apart” like I would a topic in SuperMemo.

Assuming that it keeps being useful for me, it will occupy another section of the book.

If you have any questions or stuff you want an answer to before the book comes out, let me know and I’ll try to answer it in the comments section!

Enjoy your day, keep on learning!

Update June 2024 (Mother had stroke and MidJourney is really useful)

2024-06-27T10:05:00.000-07:00

Hello! Just to give you a quick update on the state of things:

Two notable things have happened in my life during the past six months.

1. My mother had a stroke. I am 1000% a mama's boy and love my mom VERY much, so when this happened, I was an emotional wreck. Since I live in South America it took me about 36 hours to fly back to the United States after I got the phone call that she was in the process of having a stroke. Lucky for our family, her stroke was minor, she was in extremely good health (minus the stroke, of course) and was determined to recover the use of her right side (Which was the side that was affected). I dropped everything and helped her with walking, taking her to her various physical therapy appointments, doing speech and physical therapy with her at home, running to get prescriptions, all of that fun stuff. After about 6 weeks, she was essentially at the state that she was at prior to the stroke, minus a little bit of her ability to say certain syllables clearly. We do speech therapy over the phone. Fun fact: you can use ChatGPT to create tongue twisters and have those tongue twisters follow a particular story that you outline. My mom quickly got bored with the bland word exercises so I started using ChatGPT to make an ongoing story involving an exaggerated depiction of the lives of various family members filled with various inside jokes; this has been WAY more fun to read with her. She can now drive on her own as well as be home by herself, which is a HUGE relief.

2. MidJourney has changed mnemonics (and images in SuperMemo) forever, for me at least. To remember things that aren't very memorable, I would typically use story mnemonics, or create stories in my head to "encode" the useful information into a memorable mental image that I would recall easier than the information itself. If you can create a SYSTEM of mnemonics for different kinds of information, those systems can be quite powerful. For example, the "Remembering the Kanji" book outlines a mnemonic system that I used to memorize Japanese characters. With MidJourney, rather than relying on your brain to imagine the scenario, you give the ingredients to the program (a prompt), and it spits out a fully baked cake (image)! In past iterations of this technology, the images didn't look so good, but now they are WAY BEYOND "good enough" to serve the purpose of a mnemonic. Up until now, I had a number of extensive mnemonic systems to memorize different kinds of information (numeral and linguistic), but they all relied on story based mnemonics (Stuff I imagined in my head). With MidJourney, the possibilities DRASTICALLY increased: instead of relying on story "vibes" like I had previously, I could rely on VISUAL distinction to differentiate and anchor things. One of the early tests I did was with memorizing number-based information. In my new "number alphabet", 77 relates to the video game "Cyberpunk 2077." Still haven't played it, but I'm familiar enough with the long term hype. I looked up some random things that happened in 1977, and one interesting fact I found was that "Chuck E Cheese was founded in 1977." So I asked MidJourney to create the Chuck E Cheese mouse in the style of Cyberpunk 2077, and it spit out a bunch of totally awesome images you can see on the right!

With images like these, it's hard NOT to remember that Chuck E Cheese has something to do with the number 77!

This experience made me reimagine my "mnemonic alphabet" game, but required many many hours of (1) coming up with a totally new mnemonic alphabet and (2) actually using MidJourney to make the flashcards and (3) memorize the flashcards. This task was completed a few months ago.

The OTHER thing I used MidJourney for extensively was for "concept mascots", which was something I had started doing more than 10 years ago. Basically, I decided that I wanted to use various characters of fiction to represent concepts that could aid in the remembering of information associated with that particular concept. For example: Heavy Weapons Guy from Team Fortress 2 could be used to represent the concept of “heavy”, or a character from the Soul Calibur fighting game could represent the concept of "weird" (Voldo). I did this for more than 1500 different words (and it took FOREVER!). Once I realized how powerful MidJourney was, I saw how much better my system could be improved if I used MidJourney to generate images representing various concepts (since the image could be EXACTLY what I wanted it to be).

Just yesterday evening I FINALLY finished my extensive rework of ALL of my "concept mascots" in SuperMemo. Also I used MidJourney to create images that correspond to all 2,000-ish kanji that I first learned when learning Japanese. Essentially I remade a system in a few months that took many many years prior to put together, and the results I've been seeing so far are VERY promising. Using images that EXTREMELY correspond to information you're trying to remember has made memorizing useful information WAY easier. And if I encounter an idea or concept that I have no image for, I simply ask MidJourney to create it and then add the image in SuperMemo.

So as of now I think that (1) mnemonic alphabet and (2) concept images have been explored to a satisfactory level that I can attest to their usefulness. The third major thing that I've started exploring (And final SUPER USEFUL application of AI image tools relative to spaced repetition that I can think of) has been using MidJourney to actually ENCODE information to memorize (boots on the ground-style). I've only been REALLY getting into this over the last few weeks, so I want to give it a little bit more time before I say definitively "this works" (Although I don't see why it won't, at this point). What I'm referring to is basically the Cyberpunk Chuck E Cheese 2077 example, but on a larger scale and for both numerical and linguistic information. Compared to coming up with mnemonics that you imagine in your head, this new method seems to be MUCH more effective and flexible at making durable memories. Certain "established principles" or habits that I got into when making story-based mnemonics seem to no longer apply, and I've started noticing ways that images can be "tweaked" to be optimized so multiple things can be memorized with just one image.

But this is stuff that ALWAYS happens when you REALLY start to get into a hobby, right? Assumptions are challenged, new connections are made, you learn nifty little tricks, etc. I’m currently at that level with “phase 3” of using AI image generators for remembering stuff.

But if it were not for AI image generators (Which MidJourney seems to be one of the best out there right now), the book that I was writing would probably be done and out. But learning about how powerful these tools can be, it has had a REALLY positive impact on my learning and retention of information, it would be a crime to NOT cover this in relation to Spaced Repetition. I also don’t want to say “this works” until I know for a certainty that it ACTUALLY does.

Feel free to ask any questions! (But this will be covered more extensively in the book, FYI)

2023 Updates

2023-12-04T06:57:00.000-08:00

Hello! Long time no see!

Here are the notable updates for 2023:

ChatGPT and Dall-E: ChatGPT (and other similar AI tools) have been extremely useful at summarizing information and topics that would usually require a great deal of Incremental Reading to arrive at. Asking ChatGPT to summarize a topic and give you single sentences that cover the basics of an idea is SO useful when learning about a new subject, as those sentences can easily be put into SuperMemo. Also, Dall-E has CHANGED THE GAME when it comes to creating mnemonics to remember things. Instead of coming up with elaborate stories, Dall-E can quickly create a visual that sticks SO EASILY in the mind. It has invalidated many many hours of work I have done in the past to come up with a "mnemonic alphabet" of ideas using existing fictitious characters; it works SO MUCH BETTER, so I'm very happy to discard my previous methods.

For the last couple of years I have been working on a book that covers my SuperMemo journey as well as almost every useful productivity "lifehack" that I have found useful for the last 10 years or so. It is mostly completed, but I'm not sure how to release it. Should I record myself reading it and release it as an audio book on YouTube? That is probably how I would like to consume it if I were on the receiving end of it. The only parts of the book that need to be firmed up are about AI (Want to make sure they work long term as well as they seem).

Other than those two things, my life has been pretty unchanged and my SuperMemo habits remain the same. I am on day 6,525 of doing my daily flashcards, and I still love it!

Unrelated note: a game called Bomb Rush Cyberfunk was released, and it's a spiritual successor to Jet Set Radio! I was not a very good student and spent a lot of my time in middle school playing the Sega Dreamcast. Needless to say, this game is fantastic has hit the nostalgia bone HARD! They even use some of the same music samples for their soundtrack (Along with Hideki Naganuma contributing a couple of tracks)! Here is a sample:

Take care!

How to add Sounds to SuperMemo

2022-04-19T07:30:00.001-07:00

There are a number of ways to add sounds to SuperMemo. I found one video that outlines one way to do it: https://supermemopedia.com/wiki/Quickly_Adding_Sounds_to_SuperMemo

In the context of adding a sound for "pass" and "fail," here is how you can change that.

First you need to actually add the sound to SuperMemo by adding it to the Sound Registry. You can do that by clicking "search" on the toolbar on the top and then clicking "sounds." This will show you the list of sounds you have in your registry. Mine is filled with mostly songs.

Next click "add". Now, find the sound file you want to add, then click "OK." Note that after the song is added, you should probably rename it; it is easy for your sound registry to become disorganized. For sound effects, I name sound files "ZZ_xxxx" so I can find them by simply typing ZZ. Most of the sound files are "ring tones" of songs that I like; they are organized by artist and then song.

Now you want to use that sound for "pass" or "fail" in SuperMemo. To do this, click "Toolkit" and then "Options."

Now click the "SuperMemo" tab, and you should see a box that says "Custom Sounds." Now type in the name of the sound that you want to use for each, using THE NAME AS IT IS IN THE SOUND REGISTRY. Click the "play" button just to make sure that the correct sound comes out. If you are even one character off, it might choose the wrong sound file.

That should be it!

Making SuperMemo Addictive - Slot Machines As Inspiration (Pictures, sounds, music)

2022-03-29T14:26:00.004-07:00

One subject of great interest to me is the slot machine. Personally I do not gamble, but the entire casino and specifically the slot machine industry is fascinating.

Generally speaking, using a slot machine will result in a net loss for the user. Statistically, the user WILL lose money, and aside from the immediate stimulation and comfort of the machine, they leave that experience with NOTHING to show for it. Despite this basic fact, many people continue to willfully use these slot machines.

Why does such a contradiction exist? It seems that in order to compensate for the one big negative aspect of the slot machine, the creators do their best to max out every other positive aspect of the machine:

Comfortable chairs, pleasant sounds, fragrant smells, periodic wins (but not too many), buttons that feel good to touch, addictive algorithms, and so on. Basically the creators of slot machines make every possible effort to maximize the comfort level of the user so that these positive aspects outweigh the big negative aspect of it being a money sink.

If you remove the questionable ethics of the gambling industry, the slot machine is a great example of how you can make a negative thing FEEL positive.

I look at slot machines as the “level 100 Pokemon” in terms of making a negative activity addictive. If you want to gain some insight into the world of slot machine psychology, I would highly recommend the book “Addiction By Design.” The book is dense with useful information, very little fluff. Watching any talk given by the author (Natasha Schull) is also worth an hour of your time. I linked one of her talks in the picture of the book.

Specifically in the context of SuperMemo, i like thinking about “what can I do to make SuperMemo less like study hall and more like a slot machine?” Over the years I have experimented with how I use SuperMemo, and it has resulted in a few permanent SuperMemo routines:

Pictures on every card - slot machines are extremely visual, they often have pictures themed around popular IPs. Lesson: my flashcards would benefit greatly if they feature a picture (As long as it doesn’t give away the answer. In this case, the picture should appear when the answer is shown). Of the 110,000 cards in my database, probably less than 3% of them do not have any kind of picture associated with them. Almost every flashcard I have has a “logo picture” that identifies the type of knowledge represented. I have “logo cards” for foreign languages, books, “idea genres”, and so on.
Positive sounds - Slot machines all feature brief but pleasant sound effects that you don’t get tired of hearing repeatedly. Lesson: if possible, associate positive sounds with reviewing flashcards. Even before I got really into slot machine psychology I decided “pass” and “fail” needed their own sounds. Over the years I have used a number of different sound effects for “pass” and “fail,” right now I think I’m using the “menu select” sound from the Persona games. In the past I used the “dialogue done” sound from Ocarina of Time and the “menu select” sound from Pokemon Red/Blue. Video games and specifically RPGs are a good source for sound effects you don’t mind hearing repeatedly over time.
Music - Slot machine creators LOVE it when the machine features music that is nostalgic to the player (One of the reasons that “The Price is Right” slots are so popular). Lesson: Incorporating music into my flashcards will make them more fun to review. This has been more of a mixed bag, so I’m not sure if I would recommend going down the weird rabbit hole I have, but here it goes. Over the last six or seven years, I would daily take 5 songs that I loved and isolate 30 second chunks of the song that give me the most joy (Sometimes the same track contains multiple chunks). Ideally they would be spots in the song that would give me goosebumps. Using audacity I would record those 30 second snippets and use the tools in Audacity to make each chunk fade in and out. By the time you’re done, you basically have a ringtone of your favorite part(s) of a song. Doing this has been a fun little hobby over the years, since it has forced me to decide WHY I like a particular song. Long story short, I have about 4500 of these tracks, and it still grows by 2 or 3 tracks per day. Many of them are in SuperMemo and are played when a flashcard answer is shown. Often times I listen to drone or ambient music lightly while reviewing flashcards so the SuperMemo answer song acts as the “sprinkles” on top of the ambient vanilla ice cream that I’m enjoying. I don't really use SuperMemo as a jukebox, but a side effect of SuperMemo has been that I've tried to become more objective about what stuff I like. I think my weird little ring tone library is a manifestation of that.
Wii Remote - Slot machine creators do their very best to make sure every aspect of the slot machine is enjoyable to touch, ESPECIALLY the aspects of the machine that the player interacts with (Touch screen, handle, buttons, etc.). Lesson: The process of doing SuperMemo should be fun to touch. It’s possible to use a mouse and keyboard to review 400 flashcards, but it’s not extremely fun. Shortly after the Nintendo Wii came out, I remember thinking to myself “I would LOVE to use a Wii Remote to review flashcards”. It wasn’t possible because our family computer didn’t have bluetooth and the dongles that I bought online weren’t compatible with the Wii Remote 😢. Eventually I bought the proper bluetooth adapter and learned some rudimentary programming with GlovePie to get my Wii Remote to do SuperMemo things on the family computer (A button = 4, B button = Enter, + button = Tab, etc.). For more than 15 years I have used the SAME Wii Remote for SuperMemo, a testament to the durability of Nintendo’s hardware design (Switch problems notwithstanding).

I guess those are some of the biggest lessons that have positively impacted my SuperMemo use over the years. If I think of something else, I'll write another post.

Also, I'm reading all of your comments and mail, and I'm trying to respond to them in a post and not just give you a quick sentence or two response. Thanks for your understanding 😅

Little SuperMemo Machines

2022-03-14T12:14:00.002-07:00

Throughout the years I have always been the small audience that Netbooks are aimed at. SuperMemo is a program that runs only on Windows (I’ve never messed with Linux or Mac programs that let you run Windows) and SuperMemo itself is as lightweight as an internet browser or email client.

For as long as I can remember I have purchased a new Netbook or an underpowered, cheap laptop every four years or so, solely for the purpose of doing SuperMemo. My most recent purchase was a Surface Go 1 in 2018. Essentially it is a Surface Mini with not very impressive specs, but it's THE PERFECT little SuperMemo machine for me.

Being able to hold a Windows computer as if it were an iPad makes activities like daily reviews and incremental reading much more fun. When reviewing my daily items, I use a Wii Remote that has the various buttons bound for frequently used SuperMemo actions, so it seldom requires the use of a keyboard or mouse.

Recently I have taken to detaching the keyboard cover and walking around our apartment, a Wii Remote in one hand and the Surface Go in the other. I keep a bluetooth keyboard and mouse on the table in case I need to type anything. This morning I walked 1.5 miles while reviewing about 300 flashcards!

It seems unlikely that we will ever get a fully functional mobile SuperMemo for the iPad, so for now this is the next best thing.

Using SuperMemo for Music?

2022-03-08T07:44:00.000-08:00

Someone sent an email asking if I have ever used SuperMemo for learning music.

As much as I enjoy listening to music, I have never really pursued learning a musical instrument of any sort.

The only possibly similar thing I do is practice writing Chinese characters as part of my flashcards. The flashcard will say “write the Chinese character for xyz” and I have to write that character on a piece of paper (Shoutout to the "hipster pdf"). If I write the character correctly, the card is marked “correct.”

I imagine you could do something similar for practicing music; have a flashcard that asks you to play a particular section of music and depending on how well you can perform the piece, you can mark the flashcard as “correct” or “incorrect.” My only doubt is that I’m not sure if the rate of forgetting a piece of knowledge is the same as losing the muscle memory of performing a piece of music.

How SuperMemo Helped Build Momentum in Other Areas of Life

2022-03-08T04:18:00.002-08:00

Before I started using SuperMemo, I don’t think I was a very studious or motivated person. I didn’t excel very much in school and outside of a few interests, my “character stats” felt pretty average; similar to Doug, the Nickelodeon cartoon character (Who was described as “painfully average” by his creator).

I started using SuperMemo after I finished high school (If only I started while I was in school 🤷🏻‍♂️), and I’m pretty sure it marked a turning point in who I was as a person. I don’t think I owe EVERY positive aspect of my life to SuperMemo, but SuperMemo certainly helped me to cultivate a really productive attitude towards the value of effort.

One thing I love about RPGs is the concept of the experience point. The idea is so appealing; by putting in effort to fight the same monsters over and over, your effort eventually accumulates and makes you into a better person. Even if an action is small, it still is not a waste since you are always progressing forward, towards greater things.

This kind of simple progression system doesn’t exist in real life. Stuff that you learn you eventually forget. Muscles atrophy. Former glory doesn’t guarantee future success. Any excuse for laziness is still just an excuse, but the lack of a meaningful feedback system can easily make learning seem less fun than something like a video game, something that DOES feature a meaningful feedback system. I played Mario 64 for a half an hour and now I have three more stars ⭐️. Can reading a book for 30 minutes give me the same meaningful assessment of my progress?

Anyways, SuperMemo started as a mere tool to memorize foreign language words, but the more I understood how effective it was, I could see exciting implications. If this tool helps me to remember the Japanese word for “one way ticket,” could I also use it to remember other important things?

Long story short: yes. In time i started to notice the entire feedback loop:

“Put forth effort to learn something - make flashcards to remember the things I learned - do my flashcards every day - Success! (Perfect memory)”

This kind of feedback loop is likely present in many other positive habits: exercise, learning to program, playing chess, etc. For me, it was SuperMemo. Once I experienced the long term benefits of this one habit, it becomes more plausible that I could also achieve similarly positive long term benefits in OTHER areas of life.

Eating healthier and exercising, practicing mindfulness, being organized with how I handle household chores, bills or other boring but important things, these are all areas in life that don’t provide immediate positive feedback, but it feels REALLY rewarding when these kinds of things “fall into place.”

Over time SuperMemo became less of a tool for memory and more of a single aspect of a self disciplined lifestyle (Like owning an iPod was the first step into the Apple ecosystem, it becomes easier to buy a Mac, iPhone, iPad, etc.). Eventually I tried to treat other aspects of my life the same way I treated SuperMemo: a thing that is worth doing but doesn’t pay off right away.

I have good days and bad days like anyone else, but having this consistent habit that I always do, it makes it easier to motivate myself to do other stuff even when I’m having an off day.

SuperMemo Ring

2022-03-07T07:03:00.001-08:00

I have many friends that live in Canada. One time while visiting some of those friends in Toronto, at 10:30pm I suddenly realized that I still had about 30 flashcards yet to review in SuperMemo. Luckily I was able to complete them before going to bed, but that close call taught me a lesson: I need a system to catch myself in case I don’t finish my flashcards when I wake up in the morning.

My initial idea was to wear my watch on the opposite hand until I completed SuperMemo. This could have worked because I always wear a watch and normally I wear it on my left hand, so if it were on my right hand, this would feel out of place.

The idea that I ended up settling on was having a “SuperMemo ring.” I went to the local shopping mall and had my index finger measured, and then purchased a tungsten ring on Amazon for $20. I decided to put the ring on my left index finger, and after SuperMemo was done, I would switch it to my right index finger. For the last 12 years I have done the same thing, always switching my ring to my right hand after SuperMemo is done.

It is rarely even on my left hand since 99% of the time SuperMemo is done before I eat breakfast, but the few times that I have not finished SuperMemo in the morning, the ring is a constant reminder that part of my day is incomplete.

Using SuperMemo Daily (The early months)

2022-03-07T06:10:00.000-08:00

When I first started using SuperMemo, I was not motivated to use it daily. Initially I was extremely confused that I would make flashcards one day and NOT be required to review them on that day (or even the next few days). This caused me to be VERY dismissive of SuperMemo early on (“I thought I made flashcards to REVIEW them, not to make them for the program to later say “You’re done!””).

After i used SuperMemo consistently for a few weeks I started to understand the power of spaced repetition based on the results. I was spontaneously remembering vocabulary words I never had actually used in conversations, all because they were in SuperMemo. It honestly felt like magic the first time I remembered the Japanese word for “doorbell” 😂 (呼び鈴, YOBIRIN).

After about two months or so of using SuperMemo daily, I realized that this was now a habit. I’m now “that guy/kid (19 at the time) that does flashcards every day.”

After a few months of daily SuperMemo use, and after it became an ingrained part of my daily routine, I came to realize that doing it early, as soon as I woke up, was the best thing for me. If it didn’t get done in the morning, there was a chance I would forget about it, aside from the fact that the rest of the day felt “off.” At some point it became my daily “main quest objective,” and my typical morning goal became “finish SuperMemo as early as possible.”

This sometimes became a problem when circumstances were abnormal, such as when traveling, staying at a friend’s house or when I sometimes have to work the late night shift. On these occasions I have gotten close to missing days, but after one close call I figured out a good long term solution that I will outline in another post.

The main point is that there was an initial “motivation hump” I had to get over, but after the benefits of SuperMemo “clicked”, SuperMemo became just another part of my life; just as eating, bathing or flossing are. Sometimes it requires some extra effort, but eventually the thought of skipping a day and messing up my multi-year streak is more painful than the effort of doing SuperMemo even when I’ve had a bad night of sleep.

Concentration Music

2022-03-06T08:23:00.000-08:00

During my teenage years, I thought becoming a music nerd would be a cool thing, so I decided to do what I thought music nerds did: listen to a lot of music and keep track of what I really liked. This has carried over into my flashcard habit in many ways, and one of those is that I almost always listen to music while reviewing flashcards. Typically I listen to ambient, drone, or lo-fi music that doesn’t call much attention to itself. There are a number of artists that I really enjoy listening to while doing SuperMemo, here are a few of them:

Eluvium (Every album is very beautiful, some albums are more ambient, some are more melodic)

Stars of The Lid (Their ENTIRE discography is legendary in the world of drone music. If drone music were a video game, Stars of the Lid would be one of the final bosses)

Brian McBride (Side project of one of the guys behind Stars of the Lid)

The Dead Texan (Another side project by the other guy behind Stars of the Lid)

Tycho (Really good chill out music)

Loscil (Firmly in the camp drone music)

Colleen (Her ambient music reminds me of a story book)

Jonsi and Alex (Side project of Jonsi, the singer for Sigur Ros)

Susumu Yokota

Akira Kosemura (Nice piano music, BIG discography)

Serph

Bonobo

Yuki Murata (Beautiful piano music)

Home (Chill wave artist, responsible for the track “Resonance”, a wonderful song)

The Caretaker (Nostalgic and haunting, inspired by the music featured in a short ballroom scene from “The Shining”)

RPG soundtracks also work very well. Many of my flashcards have been done while listening to Skyrim exploration music.

Also of note is the YouTube Lo Fi Study music stream, sometimes I pop in there if I get up extra early (like 4:00am). It makes me feel like I’m in a special “early people only club”.

The single song that I have listened to the most (More than 400 times) is called “Midnight Souls Still Remain” by M83. It is a single track that drones on for 11 minutes. When I really need to “get in the zone” I love to listen to this track on repeat.

Updates 2022

2022-03-06T05:29:00.000-08:00

Hello! Here is an update to my SuperMemo life as of March 2022:

-Recently celebrated my 16th anniversary using SuperMemo, no skipped days.

-Currently I have 107,000+ items in total.

-I am getting close to finishing up a large scale mnemonic system for memorizing vocabulary words that covers multiple languages (This was a BIG fault in my previous system). Once I am confident of the results being solid, I’ll outline them in detail here.

As much as I love making sure that things are “just so”, if I were a SuperMemo beginner and wanted to learn more from a weirdo like me, I would much rather get regular, not-so-polished updates verses “up to standard” updates that are extremely seldom. Consider this a little experiment 😀👍🏻

Incremental Reading 3 - Micro Learning / Save States

2021-06-30T11:48:00.000-07:00

Incremental Reading 2 - Reading with an Emulator

2021-06-30T11:47:00.002-07:00

Incremental Reading 1 - Topics

2021-06-30T11:47:00.000-07:00

Why Does SuperMemo Have So Many Terms?

2021-04-19T08:09:00.001-07:00

YouTube Video: What Is Spaced Repetition?

2021-04-13T10:46:00.002-07:00

(This has to be a record!)

Hello World!

2021-04-05T07:35:00.005-07:00

SuperMemo YouTube channel launching soon

2016-08-10T06:30:00.000-07:00

Hello, long time no see! How are you all doing? In the last few years, my life has changed quite a bit! I have moved to South America (I am working on Spanish). I will be getting married in a couple of months also. I have had the strong urge to talk about what I've been doing with SuperMemo over the past couple of years (I'm almost at 100,000 flashcards!), and I've decided that it will now manifest itself as a YouTube channel. Here's why:

Years ago, my AdSense account was disabled because of someone clicking on the ads on my page too many times. It was likely done just to help, but it was flagged as illegitimate traffic and my account was suspended. I tried appealing it a number of times but I never actually got to talk to a human, and as a result, this blog could not generate any revenue. It's not that this blog was all about the money, but financial incentives are a nice bonus when you're creating content that others consume and derive value from. Thus my motivation to use this blog as my primary mouthpiece went away. I have always enjoyed Podcasts, and it was my secret dream to have a SuperMemo/ Flashcard podcast, even though I knew it wouldn't really fit my busy lifestyle. Nevertheless, I like the idea of an actual human voice explaining flashcard methodology. There aren't really any voices (that I'm aware of) out there that focus on just flashcards, be it on YouTube or in podcast form.

So I decided to create a new Google account (One that didn't have a suspended AdSense account), and make a YouTube channel in which I will answer questions about Supermemo, flashcards, memory shortcuts, etc. 10 minutes ago I found that my AdSense application was approved, which was the only thing potential road block to this whole plan starting.

Once the channel is up and running, I'll post the address here.
Enjoy your day!

Article from Scientific American: Mental Leaps Cued by Memory's Ripples

2014-10-30T10:00:00.000-07:00

This is an interesting article I read in my RSS reader today. One of the notable concepts it discusses is the effect of "memory chains" activated at certain moments can inform future decisions.

They use the analogy of a musical orchestra. When you learn (and recall) individual concepts (in our case, flashcards), it is similar to playing a single musical instrument. At some point when one contemplates a decision, sometimes many disparately learned individual things chain together and shoot off a neurological symphony that can lead to the solution. Although one cannot say for certain how our brain works (It IS the most mysterious object in the universe), this certainly seems likely.

It is said that "chance favors the connected mind." Perhaps this is empirical evidence that supports such a statement.

Scientific American article

Kanji Town + image-concept pairing = easy recall across many languages?

2014-10-23T08:48:00.000-07:00

I was able to memorize about 3,000 Japanese characters and the character readings (ON yomi, the reading based on Chinese. Japanese characters can be read multiple ways, and the ON yomi is the only reading that is consistent and can be grouped). To memorize the reading, each character was "stored" in a location that signaled the reading of the character. For example, everything pronounced "kaku" is stored in Shifting Sand Land from Mario 64. I applied this to every possible reading, creating a fairly robust list of location-reading pairings. This was resoundingly successful at learning Japanese.

When I began learning Chinese I created the same system for that language. At least one hundred locations for at least one hundred possible readings. This time, I had a harder time "pinning" the characters to each location. I toyed with things, but while my overall recall was good, but less than ideal when compared to Japanese, which was almost instantaneous.

Things changed drastically when I tried a different method. I decided to give a few Chinese characters a specific person (Real or fictitious) that became the "mascot" for that character. For example, Tony the Tiger became the mascot for "Great," Anthony Weiner is the mascot for "Remorse" and Method Man is the mascot for "Method." Once the assigned mascots were "stuck" to the desired character (Using initially short-interval flashcards), to remember that the character for "Remorse" is pronounced "ao (4th tone)," I simply imagine Anthony Weiner (Remorse) hanging out in the location for "AO" (The opening level of Banjo Kazooie). To remember "Method" is pronounced "fa" (3rd tone), I simply imagine Method Man in the tech demo I saw for the game "Heavenly Sword."

Creating (a) the link between character "concept" and the desired "mascot image" and (b) the link between a location and the pronunciation took quite a bit of time. But the ease with which I can remember a character, it's reading and concept is astonishingly fast. I speculate that it is because the concept "method" is somewhat abstract, but "Method Man" is very distinct, and will not likely get confused with concepts like "option" or "way." It is also much easier to store a concrete image in a mental location when compared to an abstract one. After my spaced repetition program sent one of my character pronunciation flashcards 20 or 30 days into the future (And it was reviewed 3-5 times), I had very little problems recalling the word. I can almost "feel" when a word I am learning goes from a short term memory to a slightly longer term memory.

Now that I had adequately memorized this concept's pronunciation in Chinese, I was curious to see if I could remember "method" in Greek (A language I am not really learning... yet). In Greek the word is "τρόπος" and pronounced "tropos." After creating a location to correspond to "tro" (ElecTROplankton level from Smash Brothers), I tried to memorize "method (man)" in Greek, using the location to remind me of the beginning syllable; Method Man was hanging out in the Electroplankton level. After a few days and a few flashcard repetitions, I was able to remember it with as much ease as I did "method" in Chinese. Because I knew the Chinese word very well, there was no overlap when I tried to recall the Greek word. I have tried this with other words, and it has worked very well.

Here is what I am doing: Right now I am creating a list of words and images that correspond to each of them, just like "Method Man" corresponds to the concept "method." Over the last month I have been able to link about 1,400 images to 1,400 concepts, most of them based on the Chinese character keyword assigned to them from the book "Remembering the Hanzi." Many Chinese character readings I already know, and there is no reason to re-memorize them using this updated method, but with these characters I have begun memorizing the same concept in other languages (Russian, Turkish, Hebrew, Spanish, etc.). It takes about 10-20 days for the new reading to become automatic, and then I can move on to another language. Over the past month or so I have learned to say "cat" in 6 new languages, for example.

For long-term implementation, I think this method could be used to gobble up important vocabulary words for languages one desires to learn. My long term goal is to speak as many languages as possible (20+), and while this method might be cumbersome for just learning ONE new language, for learning vocabulary over multiple languages over time, this seems to be very effective.

(I was listening to a Let's Play that featured a Russian character that said "harasho!" which I memorized was "good" in Russian a few days before. That felt good.)

Has anyone tried anything similar to this? It is working SUPER well for me, I can learn words as quickly as I can create flashcards for them (At least that's how it feels).

Fluent Forever - Language Learning Book With Pretty Good Advice

2014-10-09T11:11:00.000-07:00

When it comes to language learning, very often books and blogs are overly dogmatic on their recommended methodologies ("This is absolutely the only way you can learn the language"), or they promise more than they can deliver. For example, Tim Ferris is a guy with many interesting things to say, but you must take him with a grain of salt. On his blog and in his books he makes the claim that one can learn a language in only three months using various "language hack" techniques. I am deeply interested in ANY WAY I can make memorization and learning languages easier, so I make sure to at least investigate any article or book that claims to help with this. While many suggestions made by Tim Ferris and others like him are helpful, very often they are not realistic. (Heck, there is a website where "fluent in 3 months" is literally in the URL)

Often a great deal of actual good advice is buried under a mountain of fluffy anecdotes or buzzfeed-style lists of "why being multilingual is good." Often the people writing such advice have the financial freedom to spend a great deal of time learning languages without worrying about a job (Or they are making money selling books about their "secret techniques").

Considering the current landscape of language learning books and internet material, when I saw the book "Fluent Forever," I was fairly skeptical. But after reading the book in its entirety, I was pleasantly surprised at how reasonable the advice of the book is.

Here are some of the most valuable points covered in the book:

-The core message is that Spaced Repetition Systems (SRS) should be used to "save your language mementos" that you gather while studying (Rather than a tool for bulk memorization with no context). This is accurate, because learning is done BEFORE memorizing (Not often recognized or enforced in language courses or schools).

-The internet is the world's biggest picture book. Instead of making flashcards that have things written in your native language ("Cat" or "dog"), flashcards should feature a picture of the thing you are trying to remember.

-Looking up words IN THE TARGET LANGUAGE will yield different results when compared to looking up the same word in your native language. This is because the pictures are filtered through the culture of your target language, and the overall images you see reflect the different thinking of those people. For example, "hot" in English easily includes to "sexually attractive," media that is popular in the cultural zeitgeist, and pictures of Will Ferrill ("So hot right now!").

-Using "Google Image Search Classic" will show sentences that include the word you are looking up on Google. This is helpful in creating full sentence flashcards and can help expand your grammar.

-Using services such as lang-8 allow native speakers to correct your attempts at making sentences, providing quick feedback (Depending on the language you are learning), removing a bit of guesswork in your language acquisition life.

Overall I was happily surprised that it wasn't filled with more fluff and Malcom Gladwell-esque feel-good pieces that point towards vague non-insights (Nothing against Malcom Gladwell, I have read most of his books; not sure what that says about me, haha). This book is worth at least taking a look at.

Although I don't agree with everything he says in the book (I don't think EVERY language flashcard should be only pictures), I have reexamined my learning style in light of the suggestions in the book. If they prove helpful, I will elaborate more on them in the future.

(Picture of Mugatu from keyyys [Deviantart page])

Interview with man that advocates unconventional retention techniques

2014-10-09T10:30:00.003-07:00

Just because something is believed by a large group of people doesn't mean that it is true (At one point the world was believed to be flat, supported by Atlas, etc.). Today the concept of "learning" has been fairly misrepresented on many levels of education. Just as senseless traditions and myths have held mankind back, traditions in teaching (and learning) and myths of human memory retard the overall intellectual progress of the general public. Spaced repetition is not the silver bullet to this problem, but it certainly is a key component (At least I think so). I have started reading the book mentioned in this interview (Make It Stick: The Science of Successful Learning) within SuperMemo, I will post after I finish reading it and what new tidbits I find.

The interview here pretty much echoes the validity of a SRS-centric lifestyle. If you have been doing research on spaced repetition for quite some time, most of the details of this interview should come as no surprise, but it is nice to know that there is hard data to back up claims. At least you aren't believing something just because "it feels right."

The Battle Continues

2014-06-13T17:58:00.001-07:00

This blog is not abandoned, and I have not given up on it. It is surprising how quickly time flies by. I always told myself "I'll post again on the blog," and other things end up getting in the way.

If an alien was watching me like a lab rat or something, he would not notice many changes. I still continue to learn using SuperMemo, continue to experiment on my memory, etc.

A few notable things have happened over the last year:

-SuperMemo 16 is out. Most of the large changes would be noticeable only to fanatics like myself, but I nonetheless embraced SuperMemo 16 from day 1. I hardly ever use Incremental Video (I use other apps to do the same thing), but a few of the changes (Such as quickly being able to use the "find" command, faster importing of large documents, etc.) are more than welcome.

-Touch screen Windows tablets are becoming normal. I purchased a Dell Venue Pro 8 for the purpose of doing SuperMemo on it, and while it isn't perfect, it is certainly a step in the direction I want (Tablet based Incremental Reading is my dream).

-Using SuperMemo to listen to music. I'll cover it in more detail later, but basically it is possible to use SuperMemo to keep track of what music you need to listen to (So you don't forget it). Come to think of it, I've been using SuperMemo to keep track of more and more of my entertainment life.

-My database is now above 70,000 items.

-My search for reliable vocabulary storage solutions (For new languages such as Arabic, Hindi, etc.) continues.

I hope to be more regular with updating you with my progress.

Thanks for your continued patience, keep learning!