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Do you do flashcards in both directions?

  Tags: Flash cards
 Language Learning Forum : Learning Techniques, Methods & Strategies Post Reply
30 messages over 4 pages: 1 2 3
Crush
Tetraglot
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Speaks: English*, Spanish, Mandarin, Esperanto
Studies: Basque

 
 Message 25 of 30
16 October 2013 at 5:48am | IP Logged 
I realize that those words have different shades of meaning, it was just an example. It's hard to use the L1->L2 method for synonyms. Another example might be alzar/levantar: Me levantó/alzó en sus hombros, no me levantes/alces la voz, etc. No me molestes/jorobes/fastidies. Lo hizo otra vez/de nuevo. Estamos de vuelta/de regreso. Or worse yet, slang/insults/body parts: "Ese tonto/imbécil/gili(pollas)/subnormal/retrasado/majadero/bob o/lerdo/estúpido/etc. no sabe lo que dice." An English translation just doesn't always make clear which word you're asking for.

I try to give context for words, too, but i'm also not afraid of finding that context later through extensive reading. But i'd like to use flashcards as a way to activate vocabulary, i've just always stumbled across these things and not knowing which word exactly i'm looking for (and things like "not tonto, bobo, estúpido or lerdo" getting to be too much), i generally just go L2->L1 and look for other ways to activate the words.
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Avid Learner
Diglot
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Canada
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Speaks: French*, English
Studies: German

 
 Message 26 of 30
16 October 2013 at 6:54am | IP Logged 
Crush wrote:
The problem i've always found when going native->target is that a lot of times one (for me) English word can have several (let's say) Spanish translations. If i see "happy", how do i know if the response is "feliz", "alegre", or even "contento"? Translating from target->native tends to avoid that problem, especially when placed in context.

In such a case, I would put the word that fits the context I've just encountered on the first line and then add the other meanings on the next line(s). When I review the cards, I ask myself to recall only the first line, but upon seeing the answer, I read all the words. It's surprising how many of them you end up memorising without trying.

I found out by accident that it also solved the problem of cards that would otherwise be too similar, because, for example, they would happened to be used in a similar context in L1. It also sometimes gives me an indication of what the context is when a word in L1 can be used in several contexts.

I don't think there is a perfect solution, but it's the "less bad" one I found.

Durazno wrote:
I want to start creating a flashcard database via Anki, and this is an area of confusion for me. Would most people agree that doing them NL>TL is best? I've already made my first 60 TL>NL. :\
   Do you think someone should do it a certain way if they are just starting out in the language? Or should it be the same for all learners? I consider myself just below an intermediate level.
Thanks. Love this forum.

BTW, in case you didn't know it yet, you can generate both directions automatically with Anki. Personally, I do them in both directions from the start. I find each side reinforces the other side. If I tell Anki that I want to learn 20 cards, Anki is intelligent enough to present me with both sides of the same 10 cards.
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Crush
Tetraglot
Senior Member
ChinaRegistered users can see my Skype Name
Joined 5864 days ago

1622 posts - 2299 votes 
Speaks: English*, Spanish, Mandarin, Esperanto
Studies: Basque

 
 Message 27 of 30
16 October 2013 at 3:54pm | IP Logged 
That sounds better, but i feel like it still isn't that great when you're adding new words later. You've got to update all the other cards, etc. But i think i'm going to carry this topic over in Ari's thread.
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languagenerd09
Triglot
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United Kingdom
youtube.com/user/Lan
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Speaks: English*, Spanish, Portuguese
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 Message 28 of 30
16 October 2013 at 9:10pm | IP Logged 
I sometimes go vice versa when using English.

Then if I really want to challenge myself, I use the target language with Spanish or
Portuguese.
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Avid Learner
Diglot
Senior Member
Canada
Joined 4661 days ago

100 posts - 156 votes 
Speaks: French*, English
Studies: German

 
 Message 29 of 30
17 October 2013 at 3:46am | IP Logged 
Crush wrote:
That sounds better, but i feel like it still isn't that great when you're adding new words later. You've got to update all the other cards, etc. But i think i'm going to carry this topic over in Ari's thread.

I don't understand what you mean by updating all the other cards. I'm not updating anything.
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shk00design
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Speaks: Cantonese*, English, Mandarin
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 Message 30 of 30
21 October 2013 at 3:22am | IP Logged 
Flash cards you can go both directions. I also find it useful learning a language from videos can go the reverse
direction as well. Suppose I am learning Mandarin as an English speaker, instead of finding only videos in English
that teach me how to speak Chinese, I would find videos online for the Chinese to learn English and pick up
Chinese vocabulary that way. Going 1 way you expect the teacher to be doing more than half of the video lesson
in English with Chinese phrases in between. Going the other way, the teacher would be using more Chinese with
English phrases to fill up the video.


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