How Many New Flashcards Should You Do A Day When Learning A Language?

When you first get started with flashcards it can be a little confusing to work out how many new cards you should be doing. The real problem is that today you may be able to do a lot, but what about tomorrow …and the day after that?

You can quickly get overwhelmed by flashcards and the truth is that the number you should be doing depends on you. There is no one right answer, so I will go through some ways you can work out what is actually going to be best for you.

Reviews Are Not The Same As New Cards

Before we even get started trying to work out how many new cards you should be doing, you need to remember that new cards and reviews are not the same thing.

Reviews are when you look at cards that you have already seen before and should hopefully be able to recall. A new card is a card you have not seen before.

The new cards are the words you are learning today, the review cards are the ones you are revising from previous days.

If you are creating your own deck, then the new card will usually be something you are adding there and then and learning it. If you are using a premade deck, then basically a new card is when the system goes through all the cards that are in the deck and shows you one that it has not shown you before, making it “new” to you.

You could actually do this with your own cards. You could make them today and set it so that it just gets added to the list to be shown to you as “new” in a few days time.

Of course the new cards you see today will be the cards you will review in the future, so they are linked, but really reviews are always going to be there and you just have to let Anki do its thing. It will show you what cards it needs to show you to help you remember them.

(You can read more about – Where Can You Get Pre-made Anki Flashcard Decks When Learning A Language?)

You Need to Experiment To Find Out How Many New Cards You Can Handle

The only way you are going to find out how many new cards you should do every day is to experiment. I can tell you X amount and you can look on forums and be told Y amount …but it doesn’t matter, you just have to work out what is best for you.

This means you need to just try some things out for a few days and see how they feel. After a few days, or maybe weeks, you will have a clear idea of what amount you should be doing.

There really is no magic number, everyone is different. You might be amazing and be able to handle a lot, or you may be more like me and struggle. Either way you will be able to find a number that feels right.

Start Out With 10 New Cards A Day

As a rough starting place, aim for 10 new cards a day. If you ask most people they will say this is fairly average. It’s still pretty intense and takes some effort, but most people can handle this.

All you have to do is try and learn 10 new words/cards a day for a while and see how it goes.

After a few days you will be able to assess how you are feeling about this.

Increase It If You Find 10 Too Easy

If you are finding 10 a day too easy, then increase the number. You can do whatever feels right. Add just one, or add a whole lot. Do what feels right and give that a go for a few days.

I would say getting up to about 25 is going to be most people’s real upper limit, but you will often hear about people managing 50 a day. I guess some people’s brains are just wired for remembering large amounts of words.

Just play around with it and see what feels comfortable.  

Decrease It If It’s Too Hard 

If you find 10 too hard, or you have increased past this and are now starting to find things difficult …it’s probably time to take a step back and decrease things.

I would start with just removing one card from your total and see how that goes and work from there. If you still find doing 9 too hard, try 8 for a few days and see how that feels.

I would say 5 is about as low as you should go. Doing 5 is really not a lot and pretty much everyone should be able to learn 5 new words a day.

If you go any longer your progress is going to be painfully slow. I have dropped down to 1 a day, but that was because I wasn’t really learning. I was just sort of maintaining my level …but I also didn’t want to “stop” learning new words …so yeah, I did 1 new card a day.

It was pretty pointless; it was basically no effort, so I got no results. You could set the new cards to zero, but then you really are doing nothing. There can be a time and place for this, but my guess is you are wanting to make progress in the language, so I would really not go below 5 a day, then at least you are still making some small steps forward.

How Do You Know If You Are Doing Too Many New Cards

It sounds stupid …but you will know.

When you start to reach your limit you will find it a struggle. You will find it difficult to remember the words, or you will confuse them and get them mixed up. You might even look at a word and say you’ve not seen it before, only to realise you “learned” it only a few minutes ago.

You will also notice you are really struggling with the reviews over the following days. Words will just not be sticking.

Basically these are all signs that you are struggling and doing too many. You should be able to recall the new words fairly easily. Although, you will always find a few that are tough, but overall it should feel like you are taking the words in and remembering them.

This can change from day to day, but this is exactly why you have to experiment. If you do this for a while you will start to get a feel for what is comfortable for you, or how much you want to push yourself.

You will start to know if you feel like you could learn more or if you have reached your limit and are struggling.

So long as you feel like you are making progress, then you are on the right track and the number you are doing is probably about right.

(You can read more about – What Happens If You Miss A Day Of Anki When Learning A Language?)

More New Cards …Means More Future Reviews

You also need to remember that every new card you learn will be a review, this isn’t so much a problem, but it can be if you learn too many at once.

Let’s say you get really motivated and learn 100 new words today, that is great but the reality is that in 2 days time when these cards need reviewed …there is going to be 100 cards to review, let alone whatever else may be due on that day.

The reviews can quickly compound, so if you are going to have bursts where you learn a lot, it may be more sensible to do this over a number of different days, just so all your reviews are not due all at the same time. 

Think Of The Long Term Sustainability

When it comes to working out how many new cards you should do today, you should think of the long term sustainability of it.

I am sure we could both learn 100 new cards today, but can you can you do that every day. What state will you be in after 2 months of doing this? It might be a lot more realistic to lower this number to something you can handle and to also keep the review numbers under control too.  

Really what I am saying is that it is very easy to burn yourself out by trying to do too many new cards a day.

I think it’s fine if you want to have a crazy sprint for a while. I think everyone is capable of that, but you need to be aware that you will need to lower the number down when you start to struggle with the workload.

For a lot of us it is going to be easier to be steady and consistent with how much we learn, but really it depends on what you like doing.

Flashcards a are a long term thing, so you might be doing these every day for a few years, so I think it’s important to get comfortable with the process and know your limits. 

Find Your Baseline Number, Then Be Dynamic With This

I really think the best thing to do start off with experimenting with how much you can do over a few weeks. You really need to find what you are comfortable with over the long term and also what fits your life and other studying.

Doing this will give you a baseline figure of what you can reasonably handle every day.

I also think that if you end up with a baseline number that is slightly lower than you want, that’s fine. Ideally you want the number to be something you can handle no matter what is going in your life …then if you are feeling full of energy on certain days you can get dynamic and manually add more new cards.

I have set my own baseline to 5. I know that no matter what I can get that done and will always be making progress in my language.

It doesn’t matter how busy or tired I am, 5 is a number I know I can hit. Most days I end up adding a couple more, maybe even pushing to around 10 …and some days I will go crazy and add like 30 new cards.

All that matter is that I know there will always be 5 waiting for me and so long as I do that I am making progress. I have my baseline and then anything extra on top is always a nice bonus.

Remove Your Expectations

Many of you will say that 5 is too low, but that is the point. It’s a number I know I can hit no matter what.

I’m busy and if I try and tell myself I need to do more …it doesn’t happen. It adds too much pressure and too many expectations on myself and then I end up bottling it and not doing anything.

5 is low … but I hit it every day, no matter what. Most days I do go well past it, but there is never any pressure on me to do this. If I get more then it is like a bonus.

Your Baseline Can Change Over Time

I think it is also important to realise that your ability can change over time. When you are brand new to language learning the whole concept of studying can be exhausting.

You may really struggle to learn anything. The whole language can seem very overwhelming and awkward to you and trying to get anything to stick may be very difficult. This is normal, so just keep pushing.

Just keep trying and slowly both the language and the act of studying will become easier. You will find that you can probably take more on board, so your baseline for new cards will go up.

Just reassess your situation every few months. Ask yourself if the number of cards you are doing is enough and if you feel it’s not right, experiment again until you find a number you are more comfortable with.   

Don’t Forget To Immerse

Studying new cards is important …but it’s not as important as immersion. It is easy to get caught up in Anki, especially with the reviews, but we must remember that immersion is the real key to the language.

Anki and learning new cards is only effective if we pair it with immersion, so make sure you are on top of this as well. If you are struggling to find the time for both, I would probably lower the number of cards you doing and focus more of your time on immersion.

(You can read more about – What Is Learning A Language By Immersion?)

Conclusion  

As you can see there is no magic number for how many Anki cards you should be doing. You just need to start learning and experimenting with how many you can do. After a few days you will start to get a feel for what is a comfortable level for you.

I know that’s not what you want to hear, but this is how language learning works. It’s all about trial and error and finding what works for you.

Just put the effort in and be consistent and you will quickly start to understand you own ability and you will know what is the right amount of new cards for you.   

(You can read more about – Is Anki The Best Flashcard App For Learning A Language?)