MaruMori Knowledge Base

SRS (1) - What is SRS?

What is an SRS? (spaced repetition system)

SRS, or "spaced repetition" systems, are essentially designed to help you remember information by prompting you to review it at the correct intervals . And as it turns out, the "right interval" is actually right when you're about to forget something!

So, for instance, let's say you just learned the word 「こんにちは」 (konichiwa), or "hello". Right now, the word is fresh in your mind; you remember it.

However, in a few hours, your brain will start to lose grip on the info. Check in again tomorrow, and it's a toss-up as to whether you remember it or not.

An SRS system will prompt you to review 「こんにちは」 (konichiwa) juuuust as you're starting to forget it (usually, a few hours after you first learn it). This will reinforce it in your brain and extend your memory a bit further. The next review interval will generally be in 8 hours, then the next day, then in two days, then in several days, a week, etc.

How does SRS work on MaruMori?

On MaruMori, you can unlock items to study in various ways, but we'll assume you're going through the main Adventure track. Via Adventure, you'll unlock big batches of kanji and vocabulary to study via our SRS system! Unlock them by hitting this button at the bottom:

Note : the introduction island does not have any SRS unlocks until after you've learned all of the hiragana and katakana, and grammar SRS only starts on the N5 (elementary) island.

First, you'll do the "lesson" of a given item, whether it be kanji, vocabulary, or grammar, and after that, it will move into your "review queue".

Access your lessons and reviews from these buttons on your home page:

From the review queue, you can, well, review what you've learned. The key is that with SRS, items will only show up here when it's time to review them , so you can rest assured that you won't be wasting time, and will only be reviewing each item when needed.

Most resources that use SRS have flashcard-type items for their lessons/reviews, and MaruMori is no exception. In the next onboarding article, we'll take a look at these so-called "items"!