Kuji’s Krazy Log II (Language Learning Log) Language Learning Forum

Kuji’s Krazy Log II
Tags: Anki \| Spaced Repetition (SRS) \| Motivation \| Portuguese \| Total Annihilation Challenge (TAC) \| Japanese
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Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log

706 messages over 89 pages: << Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 ... 18 ... 88 89 Next >>

Serpent
Octoglot
Senior Member
Russian Federation
serpent-849.livejour
Joined 6597 days ago
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4 sounds
Speaks: Russian*, English, Finnish^C1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese
Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish

Message 137 of 706

14 March 2013 at 12:30am | IP Logged

You can simply put random articles into google translate (to get the English translation, obv), and that's a fast way to make parallel texts too...
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kujichagulia
Senior Member
Japan
Joined 4847 days ago
1031 posts - 1571 votes

Speaks: English*
Studies: Japanese, Portuguese

Message 138 of 706

14 March 2013 at 1:40am | IP Logged

Wow, so many replies and helpful advice from you all... I am amazed at how helpful everyone is here at HTLAL. I was feeling bad last night because I thought I embarrassed myself with such a long rant. Seriously, thank you all. I said it before and I'll say it again: you guys are a big part of my motivation. You help me to fight through the tough parts of language learning, and I'm able to recharge, become refreshed, and ready for more.

I probably need one post for each of your replies, so here goes...

Evita wrote:

I think that if you learn a word in one context you will have trouble with the word in other contexts. Maybe it's not true, I know lots of other people use sentence decks successfully but that's how I feel. I imagine all the words as tiny little dots that could be connected to hundreds and thousands of other dots; I prefer to learn the dot by itself first and then the connections.

Oh, and another thing I do with Anki is - I limit the number of new words introduced per day. For example, even if I read a text one day and enter 20 new words I will learn only 6 of them on that day if my limit is 6. I do it to keep the number of reviews in check and it works well. If the number of reviews gets too high I decrease the limit, and the other way around.

If you are going to make both sentence and single word cards, I suggest you put them in different decks. It will help you with organization and also while reviewing. I recently started a sentence deck as well but that's strictly for grammar. All the new words go into my vocabulary deck anyway.

I believe I think like you. I think I learn best when I am learning each dot. I like to learn "bottom-up" instead of "top-down". So I think I would do well with single words, or collocations or short phrases, whereas other people do need sentences to learn words. I think, for me, I don't notice much difference between reviewing sentences and reviewing words (I do have a few single word cards in my deck - usually from when I am too lazy to find an example sentence), so why not make data entry a little easier and just enter the parts I need to learn?

I have a limit on new cards as well: 15. But for me, the problem isn't reviewing; it's adding new cards. That I hate. But I enjoy the reviews. I do a maximum of 100 reviews per deck per day, and it doesn't bother me - especially now that I can take my Anki cards with me on the train.

Thank you for the tip about keeping single words and sentences in separate decks. I was just about to start adding them into the same deck.
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kujichagulia
Senior Member
Japan
Joined 4847 days ago
1031 posts - 1571 votes

Speaks: English*
Studies: Japanese, Portuguese

Message 139 of 706

14 March 2013 at 1:45am | IP Logged

iguanamon wrote:

Kuji, what I mean by using more than one resource is, since you are still a beginner in Portuguese, that in addition to your DLI course, (instead of random articles) you should concentrate on just a couple of "outside the course" resources. My advice may not be relevant to you. You may have to adapt it to your needs as far as material goes. Bilingual parallel text resources really make things easier. You can cover up the English, while you try to figure it out in context, then consult an online dictionary or the English text to verify if you're correct.

iguanamon, your advice is certainly worth trying. I have yet to really work with parallel texts, but I think it's time to give it a try. Your idea about NHK News is very good, and I'm thinking that it won't take me much time to make parallel texts with LibreOffice, so why not? And yeah, I think I was trying to bite off more than I can chew by reading random articles as a beginning Portuguese student. I've come far, but not that far! I'm still crawling; I'm not walking yet.

EDIT: I didn't thank you for the clear step-by-step guide on making parallel texts. I think this will be helpful not just for me, but for anyone here.

Edited by kujichagulia on 14 March 2013 at 1:45am
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kujichagulia
Senior Member
Japan
Joined 4847 days ago
1031 posts - 1571 votes

Speaks: English*
Studies: Japanese, Portuguese

Message 140 of 706

14 March 2013 at 1:49am | IP Logged

Expugnator wrote:

Let me tell you abotu my experience with Anki. I've been very reluctant of using Anki because I believe learning is supposed to be fun. I'm not getting anything from my language learning, so, I don't want to it to be a painful activity.

That said, I started to use Anki a few months ago because I noticed I was having a hard time retaining words, mainly in Chinese. So, now I have 1 or more than 1 anki for each language I'm learning and even for those I'm not learning now, like German, as a way to keep it active. I still find it annoying when I have too many reviews or when I have to translate a word from German or English into Portuguese because it's an unusual word I haven't learned in any of my languages yet. So, Anki isn't the most fun part of the day, but it is important as a supplementary resource.

I like sentences better than words because I get to know words in context and review grammar at the same time. When a deck consists mostly of words, you get hundreds (literally) of words you're already familiar with, and you get to repeat them endless times, until you start getting useful words. In the case of sentences, though, I tend to limit it to 20 or 40 sentences per language each day.

I agree with you that Anki is important as a supplementary resource. That is why I am not going to give up on Anki (yet); I found that I retain much more vocabulary since I started using Anki than pre-Anki. I just need to find a way to make it as painless as possible.

That is my big worry about using mostly words in my Anki deck - some words become repetitive and boring. I'm hoping I can solve that by being more selective about what I put into my deck, and also deleting words/cards that annoy me.
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kujichagulia
Senior Member
Japan
Joined 4847 days ago
1031 posts - 1571 votes

Speaks: English*
Studies: Japanese, Portuguese

Message 141 of 706

14 March 2013 at 1:51am | IP Logged

g-bod wrote:

For flashcards, I found words to be better as a beginner, but sentences to be better at an intermediate level. Entering and reviewing single words is definitely quicker, and as a beginner I didn't have to worry about words for abstract concepts or synonyms, because my vocabulary was so small to begin with anyway. I reached a point where single word definitions were no longer helpful and context became much more important, maybe after the first couple of thousand words or so, and then the switch to sentences made a lot more sense. I just wish it didn't take so much time.

Yeah, I am not going to completely get rid of sentences. For some words, I do believe that you do need sentences, especially at the intermediate level, and especially with Japanese. You need sentences for particles. に doesn't mean the same thing all the time, so a card with only に on the front is useless.

Anyway, from this point on I'm proceeding with a mix of word cards and sentences, with sentences being used when a word needs some context, or with grammar points. We'll see how it goes.
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kujichagulia
Senior Member
Japan
Joined 4847 days ago
1031 posts - 1571 votes

Speaks: English*
Studies: Japanese, Portuguese

Message 142 of 706

14 March 2013 at 1:54am | IP Logged

Serpent wrote:

You can simply put random articles into google translate (to get the English translation, obv), and that's a fast way to make parallel texts too...

Of course! I should try to do that.

I think the way to do it for me is to choose not just any random article, but articles with some "reuse value". I shouldn't make a parallel text out of an article talking about Benfica's win last week, but a parallel text with an article talking about Luisão's career would be interesting to me.
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Serpent
Octoglot
Senior Member
Russian Federation
serpent-849.livejour
Joined 6597 days ago
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Message 143 of 706

14 March 2013 at 2:34pm | IP Logged

Hm, a lot of my anki cards are very random. And it's fun to suddenly remember a match from 2-3 years ago:) The more interesting articles can be too complicated.

But I mostly meant making quick parallel texts for just reading once or twice and not coming back to them later. BTW, do you use a popup dictionary? Should be helpful.
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Hasi
Diglot
Senior Member
Austria
Joined 6116 days ago
120 posts - 133 votes

Speaks: German*, English
Studies: Japanese

Message 144 of 706

14 March 2013 at 5:23pm | IP Logged

I have a similar problem when it comes to adding new cards, I hate it and I also prefer reviewing rather than adding
cards. What I do is this: I time box, I tell myself that I have about 5 minutes to add new cards and then I can take a
break or that I will just have to add one new entry. Just one, and then I can go do something fun. Seeing as adding
one doesn't take that long I often end up adding 5-10 new cards, and sometimes only three, but usually more than
the one I had intended.

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