How to study with flashcards: write it, say it, rate it honestly

Learning is allowed to feel hard

Minki won't make learning easy. That's on purpose.

When you see a card and think "wait... what was it again?", that's exactly the right moment. Your brain is searching. And every time it finds something again, it holds on to it a little better.

Researchers call this a desirable difficulty. Learning that feels like effort often sticks longer than learning that feels smooth (Bjork & Bjork, 2011). Re-reading feels nice. Testing yourself feels harder. Testing still wins, especially after a few days (Roediger & Karpicke, 2006).

Minki plans when a card comes back. No app can do the remembering for you. That part is yours.

Two ways to practise

In Minki, you can choose for each deck how you want to practise. Open the deck's actions menu (…), choose Learning defaults, and look for How to practise:

• Recall the answer (the default): you see the question, think of the answer, tap Show answer, and rate yourself with Again, Good or Easy.
• Type the answer: you type into the box and Minki checks it. Upper and lower case and extra spaces don't matter, but every letter and punctuation mark does. If the answer is wrong, Minki shows you the differences and rates the card Again automatically. If it's right, you choose between Good and Easy.

Many people think "Recall the answer" is the lazy option, because nobody checks. We see it the other way round. Done right, it's the stronger one. Here's how.

How to study with Minki in 4 steps

Put a sheet of paper and a pen next to your tablet or phone. Then, for each card:

1. Look. Read the question. Don't reveal the answer yet.
2. Write it down. Write your answer on the paper by hand. Even if you're unsure. A guess beats a blank.
3. Say it out loud. Speak the answer. Quietly is fine, as long as you can hear it.
4. Flip and rate honestly. Tap Show answer and compare it with your paper. Then choose:

• Again if it was wrong or didn't come to you.
• Good if you knew it.
• Easy if it came without any effort.

That takes a few extra seconds per card. Those seconds are what make the difference.

Why paper?

You commit. In your head, an answer is easily "sort of right". On paper it's there in black and white. When you flip the card, you see straight away whether "necessary" really has one c and two s's.

You rate more honestly. Learners who overrate themselves stop practising too early and remember less (Dunlosky & Rawson, 2012). With the paper next to you, it's much harder to fool yourself.

Your hand learns too. The brain is measurably more active, in a different way, when writing by hand than when typing (Van der Weel & Van der Meer, 2024). And when learning new letters and characters, handwriting beat typing in studies (Longcamp et al., 2005; Wiley & Rapp, 2021). The research isn't one-sided though: in a spelling study with second graders, kids who practised with a pen and kids who practised on a keyboard learned equally well (Ouellette & Tims, 2014). Our take: paper never hurts, and it helps most with committing to an answer and checking it honestly.

Why say it out loud?

Words you say out loud are remembered better than words you only read silently. This is called the production effect (MacLeod et al., 2010). It works for children aged 7 to 10 too (Pritchard et al., 2020). Writing helps as well, but in studies saying it aloud usually helped a bit more (Forrin et al., 2012).

For languages there's a bonus: you practise pronunciation at the same time. Some Minki decks come with audio, like the English–German Starter Words. Play it after you flip the card and repeat after it.

Rate honestly: Again isn't failing

Again doesn't mean "bad". It means "I want to see this card again soon."

Minki follows your rating. Cards you find hard come back sooner. Cards you know well come back less often. If you press Good when you were wrong, the card waits much longer before it returns. And then it's missing when the test comes.

A few rules of thumb:

• Half right is Again.
• Right, but only after a long think, is Good.
• Easy only if the answer was there instantly.
• Tapped the wrong button? Use Undo last review. It works as long as you're in the same session.

When "Type the answer" makes sense

Typing isn't wrong. It's a good fit when:

• you want to practise exact spelling and want a strict check,
• there's no paper around, for example on the bus,
• someone is just starting out and still getting used to rating themselves honestly.

Keep in mind: when typing, every character counts. "the dog" instead of "dog" is wrong for Minki. For long answers or full sentences, "Recall the answer" with paper is usually more pleasant.

Cards with a picture as the answer, like maps, always use "Recall the answer".

A little every day

Ten minutes a day beats an hour the night before the test. A large review of more than 300 experiments found that practice spread out with breaks beats cramming it all at once (Cepeda et al., 2006).

Minki helps here: new learner profiles get up to 20 new cards per deck per day. Due reviews are always available on top of that. A study day starts at 4 am.

For parents

You don't have to sit next to your kid and quiz them. What helps more:

• Set up a spot. Paper and pen always live next to the tablet. An old notebook is perfect.
• Find a fixed moment. After homework, before dinner. Ten minutes.
• Loud is good. If you hear vocabulary coming from the kids' room, everything is going right.
• Praise the Again. Instead of "How many did you get right?", ask "Which card was tricky today?" Honest rating matters more than a high score.
• Effort is normal. If your kid says "this is hard work", that's a good sign. It gets easier on its own over time.

In the end, it's your kid who decides to lean into the effort. You can build the frame. The brain does the rest.

For teachers

Here's how you can introduce Minki in class:

• Model it once together. Put one card on the board. Everyone writes the answer on their paper, everyone says it quietly, then reveal. Then ask: "Who would press Again now?" That makes honest rating normal.
• Use a practice sheet. One sheet per week for the answers. It shows that practice happened, without you having to check scores.
• Homework: short and daily. "10 minutes of Minki every day" works better than "the whole unit by Friday".
• Pick the mode on purpose. "Recall the answer" with paper for everyday practice. "Type the answer" when spelling is the goal.
• One deck per unit. How to create a deck is explained in Create your own decks.

Minki runs in the browser, without an account, and works offline once downloaded.

In short

Look. Write it. Say it. Rate it honestly.

A little every day. The effort is part of it.

The short version is in the guide Study in four steps.