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Sick and tired of SRS | ||
Tags: Spaced Repetition (SRS) | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Learning Techniques, Methods & Strategies |  | |
| cod2 Groupie United Kingdom Joined 4552 days ago 48 posts - 69 votes  | Message 1 of 52 20 February 2014 at 10:34am | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
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I have 5,000 German sentence cards on my Anki. I am probably a B1 or a B2. I am sick and tired of the sight of Anki and the hundreds of cards waiting for me to review. When I go on holiday I dread coming back and opening Anki. It can’t be right. Language learning should be fun.
I owe a lot to SRS. Anki has helped me enormously so far. But I think the time has come to say goodbye to it and spend my time in more enjoyable activities like immersing myself in native contents and stop worrying about what I remember or don’t remember. Please tell me it can be done – i.e. one doesn’t need SRS to become good in a language. In fact I am past the point of worrying anyway. Even if everybody says I need SRS, I am not going back. Edited by cod2 on 21 February 2014 at 12:49am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4705 days ago 5310 posts - 9399 votes Speaks: Dutch*, English, Swedish, French, Russian, German, Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Afrikaans Studies: Greek, Modern Hebrew, Spanish, Portuguese, Czech, Korean, Esperanto, Finnish | Message 2 of 52 20 February 2014 at 11:02am | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
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If you can more or less speak already you don't need Anki - at that level I don't use it
either. Anki is a tool, not a must. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||
| kanewai Triglot Senior Member United States justpaste.it/kanewai Joined 4887 days ago 1386 posts - 3054 votes Speaks: English*, French, Marshallese Studies: Italian, Spanish | Message 3 of 52 20 February 2014 at 11:27am | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
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I think you can set Anki so that you never have more than 'x' amount of cards to review.
Even if you skip days it won't add cards that are over the limit. But also: what Tarvos said. You don't "need" anything. I've always found that just populating and maintaining an Anki deck was consuming too much time, and never stick with it - even though I do find it very useful. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||
| luke Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 7203 days ago 3133 posts - 4351 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Esperanto, French | Message 4 of 52 20 February 2014 at 11:41am | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
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I think you can drop SRS and still retain much of the benefit of what you've already learned. Because of the
science behind SRS, certain words should be more firmly embedded in your memory. I have done various forays into SRS and think they were beneficial. I have dropped every one of them, but did feel and find that those words remained more accessible in memory down the road. My point is, you didn't waste your time and you never have to do SRS again. Edited by luke on 20 February 2014 at 11:44am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||
 emk Diglot Moderator United States Joined 5530 days ago 2615 posts - 8806 votes Speaks: English*, FrenchB2 Studies: Spanish, Ancient Egyptian Personal Language Map | Message 5 of 52 20 February 2014 at 12:25pm | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
Khatzumoto, he of SRS fame, sells a small kit of SRS and MCD advice. (It's a little on the expensive side, and there's nothing in there you couldn't figure out yourself, but it might be useful to somebody with extra money who does lots of SRS. Be sure to cancel the free AJATT+ subscription before it renews.) Anyway, in this kit, there's a section of 60 SRS tips. Out of the 60, I think 23 of them are some variation on: Delete. Cull. My favorite tip: "Delete by accident." Khatzumoto has another article in which he compares SRS decks without deletion to trash houses:
I know I've tried to explain this over and over again, but I'm not sure whether the message gets through: SRS can turn your life into a living misery. People get so attached to the number of sentences, to review each individual sentence, that they let the numbers in Anki dictate their learning plans. Sanity-saving SRS tip #1: If you groan inside when you see a card, delete that card immediately. And just to keep yourself honest, keep your leech count really low: I personally like 4. I've configured AnkiDroid so I can suspend a card by swiping my finger to the right. It is literally easier for me to suspend than to answer a card. Again, more advice from SRS fanatic Khatzumoto:
In your case, at the absolute minimum, I'd recommend two things: 1. Stop adding cards immediately. 2. Start deleting cards with a vengeance. Don't even feel obliged to read them first, unless they catch your eye. At a minimum, if you keep doing SRS, you should delete thousands of cards. Maybe even 4,900 out of 5,000, if that's what it takes to save your sanity. And this advice is backed up by the guy who invented the phrase "10,000 sentences." I admit, this advice almost certainly comes to late for you. But maybe it will help save the next SRS victim from what you just went through.
If you don't want to do SRS, your best alternative is to read and watch a lot. Join the upcoming Super Challenge, if you can. By reading and watching, you'll naturally reinforce the vocabulary and grammar. Put yourself on a mandatory SRS vacation until you've read your first 2,500 to 7,500 pages, then reconsider if it might help with specific problems that you're facing.
I agree you can get by just fine without Anki. But I do need to write up how much my latest Anki round paid off: I had just finished the Super Challenge, I was reading 40 pages/hour with less than 1 unknown word per page, and I did a month of intensive Anki. This had a dramatic positive effect on my vocabulary, the sort of thing which paid off 5 times/day in immersion, and dozens of time per hour when reading. At my passive skills level, it's really amazing to see that kind of payoff in exchange for less than 30 hours of study time. Used right—and used occasionally—Anki can be amazingly powerful even at fairly advanced levels. But first you've got to learn how to make your Anki deck a happy and enjoyable place, and not a torture chamber. The first step is getting good at deletion. 21 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||
| cod2 Groupie United Kingdom Joined 4552 days ago 48 posts - 69 votes | Message 6 of 52 20 February 2014 at 12:28pm | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
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Thank you for all the responses.
Thinking about it, I learned English primarily through reading, listening and watching. BY the time I attempted speaking I had already had a very strong command of the language (well I attempted a few times before but the embarrassment was unbearable). I never used anything like an SRS, whether manual or computerised. Yes, it took me a hell of a long time to have native-like fluency – but I know it’s possible. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4705 days ago 5310 posts - 9399 votes Speaks: Dutch*, English, Swedish, French, Russian, German, Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Afrikaans Studies: Greek, Modern Hebrew, Spanish, Portuguese, Czech, Korean, Esperanto, Finnish | Message 7 of 52 20 February 2014 at 12:29pm | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
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The point is though, if people want to use Anki and get mileage out of it - more power to
them. But it's not like someone decreed from above that every good language learner has used Anki. I have, and it's helped, but I prefer to just speak and learn from natural contexts. I have no need to be the very best like no one ever was, I just need to speak French (or Russian or...) every once in a while and then I find exposure and no-stress good enough. I do like Anki as a brute force method of gaining the first 2000-3000 words so you can actually say something, and tend to use it in that capacity. Once I can string sentences together and not sound like a complete weirdo (hard, but you get the idea) is when I drop Anki because at that point worrying about single vocab items isn't worth the mental pain. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||
| cod2 Groupie United Kingdom Joined 4552 days ago 48 posts - 69 votes | Message 8 of 52 20 February 2014 at 12:40pm | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
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OK emk, I'll have a think about your post. It's a serious post and deserves serious consideration. I saw your post only after I posted mine.
1 person has voted this message useful |
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