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Flashcards - good or bad? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Learning Techniques, Methods & Strategies |  | |
| William Camden Hexaglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 6262 days ago 1936 posts - 2333 votes  Speaks: English*, German, Spanish, Russian, Turkish, French | Message 25 of 45 30 August 2012 at 8:44pm | IP Logged | ||
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I have happy memories of sweeping ahead in the German class after a summer holiday in which I extensively used Vis-Ed German vocabulary cards. Of course, this was well back in the 20th century.
Nowadays the Internet offers electronic alternatives, like Quizlet, but I still use paper cards, though not of course just them. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Oxman Newbie United States tottorijet.wordpressRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4459 days ago 3 posts - 4 votes Speaks: Japanese Studies: German | Message 26 of 45 24 September 2012 at 2:27am | IP Logged | ||
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It's been a while, but here is another tidbit I have to offer. I feel what you PUT on the card is also very important.
Sure you could just have the word of the target language on one side and the definition on the other. But that won't help you USE the word. I use Anki now, and when I make work cards, I don't settle with single words I make cards with whole sentences. This teaches you how the word is used and what words naturally go with it. For example: 裁断を下す Means to pass judgement. But you don't PASS judgment in Japanese. You LOWER it. I get most of my sentences from my electronic dictionary, books, or the internet. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| jontam Newbie Italy Joined 4454 days ago 2 posts - 2 votes | Message 27 of 45 28 September 2012 at 3:28pm | IP Logged | ||
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I've built (and actually am still building, it's a never-ending task) my flash cards using a smartphone app called
Stickystudy. Every time when I read an article, a novel or any written materials and come across a word of which I don't know the meaning, I make a card. There is a very good chance the same word will surface again in my reading materials so I am learning each one of them through "living" examples. I review the cards whenever I am idle like waiting in line or commuting, and make an effort to spend at least 30 minutes on them when I am in bed, ready to go to sleep. The app is good in a way that it's completely up to you in making flashcards in whichever language preferred and has many functions that a flash card program should have (except for sound). Not to mention it comes very handy, thanks to smartphones. Edited by jontam on 28 September 2012 at 3:29pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Spinchäeb Ape Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 4460 days ago 146 posts - 180 votes Speaks: English*, German | Message 28 of 45 29 September 2012 at 9:42am | IP Logged | ||
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I find using flashcards useful, especially if combined with context. When learning German, I would read an article or story and pencil underline any word I didn't know. Then I made flashcards for all those words and drilled myself until I knew them all. Then I went back to that same article or story and read it again to experience my newly learned vocab in context.
Sometimes I would also write sample context sentences on the flashcard itself. This was pre-internet. Today, I might Google some more sample uses of the word to get additional context. The bottom line is I would never use just flashcards by rote by themselves. It works much, much better if you use it in combination with seeing the words in context. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| WillFuqua Newbie United States willfuqua.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4678 days ago 11 posts - 17 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 29 of 45 30 September 2012 at 1:42pm | IP Logged | ||
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I personally find flashcards a good tool but just one of many. Good audio programs (I use 'Learn Spanish Like
Crazy'), books on your level, and conversing on Skype and with the local language club members are great. With flashcards I build them on FlashcardExchange.com to make the flashcards, then export them to Anki. I use Anki daily but I also use the iOS app called Flashcards++ that pronounces the words as I go through them like the Anki program does with the Google text to speech plug-in. With 'Flashcards++' i download the same cards i made for Anki on the FlashcardsExchange site so I only make the cards once but both programs can use them. it also service as a backup. Also there's two apps on the iOS that invaluable for reading books and websites with the built-in dictionary and translator. 'iReader for Study' for reading books and 'Spanish Safari' for websites. With both you can look up or translate specific words or whole sections of text. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Spinchäeb Ape Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 4460 days ago 146 posts - 180 votes Speaks: English*, German | Message 30 of 45 30 September 2012 at 11:23pm | IP Logged | ||
Great info. Thanks. I'm intrigued by the idea of conversing with a language club via Skype. When I learned German it was pre-internet and I went to the German conversation hour that the university I was attending had. Now I'm learning French on my own -- no class room, no university. How would I go about finding a French Skype club? Would they even want me. I'm so new to the language, I cannot yet hold a conversation in it. I can just say certain things, but I'm studying it every day. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| montmorency Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4818 days ago 2371 posts - 3676 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Danish, Welsh | Message 31 of 45 30 September 2012 at 11:57pm | IP Logged | ||
Someone with more specific knowledge will probably reply regarding Skype, but in the meantime, if you are fairly new to the language and learning on your own, try to listen as much as possible to native speakers, be it podcasts, radio or TV via the internet, DVDs/movies, audiobooks, or course/textbook audio, or any other source you can think of. Edited by montmorency on 30 September 2012 at 11:58pm 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| mahasiswa Pentaglot Groupie Canada Joined 4422 days ago 91 posts - 142 votes Speaks: English*, French, Spanish, German, Malay Studies: Arabic (Egyptian), Persian, Russian, Turkish, Mandarin, Hindi | Message 32 of 45 11 October 2012 at 4:29am | IP Logged | ||
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I agree that flashcards are awesome, but I decided to do some number work recently while memorizing
Arabic roots. Out of 50 cards, after having just created them, I tested myself and got 5/50 correct. I did it again soon after in the same day and got 9/50, then once again later, 12/50. When I woke up in the morning and tested myself again, 30/50. Not studying beyond that with the set of 50 until the next day, I was able to score 30/50 again. So, retention is easy to expand and quite strong seeming just from this recording. Another batch of 50, I tried studying just once in the same day. I got 6/50. The next morning, after a full night's rest, I woke up and scored 17/50. Finally, another batch of 50, I was able to score 13/50 on my first day. So it's evident to me that studying is incremental but that study in the same day approaches a limit of efficacy. It's evident that sleep produces great jumps in memorization in combination with flash cards. It's also evident that as I continue studying Arabic, I am capable of comprehending more roots without prior study, just from remembering other exercises (written) and videos and music (audio). I plan to have 400 roots memorized by next week! Of course, the memory sticks best when I witness an experience with the roots studied. Some of the roots should be obvious to me having already studied Hebrew for a year or via frequently transliterated words such as taliban and mosque, however, sometimes I only learn these by heart in Arabic once I've seen them for the first time on the flashcard. Other times, I try to make visual hints for myself or multilingual folk etymologies (false etymologies), so the root H.b.b which is the equivalent of aimer in French or to like/love in English, I memorized by the word 'hubba- bubba', although perhaps that's where the phrase originated from, I don't know for sure. Other times, a root such as w.q.f I visualize a body at rest, a body in motion (the two dots on the qaf becoming a single line in handwriting), then the two dots of qaf becoming a single dot as if some particle was slowed down. The meaning is (transative) stop. I expect that as my Arabic develops, I will stop using visualizations as much as I do now, which is comparatively little still; I see them as a crutch but totally helpful in the short term. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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