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8 Ways to Create Better Flashcards | ||
Tags: Flash cards | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Learning Techniques, Methods & Strategies |  | |
| gwyner Pentaglot Newbie United States Joined 5949 days ago 23 posts - 75 votes  Speaks: English*, FrenchC1, GermanC1, ItalianB1, Russian Studies: Hungarian | Message 1 of 12 14 May 2013 at 3:34am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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A guide I just wrote up on flashcard design for language learning.
Enjoy! Edited by gwyner on 14 May 2013 at 3:34am 10 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| montmorency Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4827 days ago 2371 posts - 3676 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Danish, Welsh | Message 2 of 12 14 May 2013 at 11:41am | IP Logged | ||||||||
Thanks. Even if I don't use Anki at all, or even physical flashcards all that much, your tips brought out some useful ideas and concepts. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6596 days ago 9753 posts - 15779 votes 4 sounds Speaks: Russian*, English, FinnishC1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish | Message 3 of 12 14 May 2013 at 3:59pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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You generalize too much. I'm very verbal, I love wordswordswords. (oops, when words turn into swords) Even while reading I mostly enjoy the flow of words rather than images. So while the pictures work well for you, they are less important for me. I've had a deck of cards with pictures for Esperanto prepositions, and although they were all very clear and made specifically to illustrate the usage, I found them to be a nuisance. I might use a truly EPIC picture, but finding epic pictures for everything takes too much time.
I recommend everyone to read a post or two by LaughingChimp to balance it out :) 6 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Cavesa Triglot Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 5008 days ago 3277 posts - 6779 votes Speaks: Czech*, FrenchC2, EnglishC1 Studies: Spanish, German, Italian | Message 4 of 12 14 May 2013 at 8:02pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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In the basics, the ideas are nice but I agree with Serpent about the generalizations.
For example, I have sometimes better time remembering words than pictures (and it tends to be a trouble when learning some subjects) so why bother finding thousands of them when they are not necessary. And it is difficult to find good picture ideas for some more abstract words. The point about one concept per card is a good one but there are exceptions where it doesn't matter much or I just feel better about having both words together. What I don't like much about your article is that you mostly use the comprehension cards and nearly no translation into the target language. I don't use comprehension cards (basically any with the L2 on the front) as I find them useless. What I really like are points 6,7 and 8. Keeping it short, memorising after having some context and not showing yourself mistakes are surely rules worth holding to. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| kujichagulia Senior Member Japan Joined 4846 days ago 1031 posts - 1571 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese, Portuguese | Message 5 of 12 15 May 2013 at 2:44am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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I spent a good amount of time yesterday fiddling with my Anki decks, adding a few images to some of my cards, to see if this method would work for me. I didn't get that far, because I was distracted by the amount of additional time it took to search for an image to put into an Anki note.
Not that using pictures doesn't work, but for me an English description works just as well (or even better, an L2 description). Any issues with translating go away once I've internalized the word, and eventually I never refer to the English when reviewing a card. That means for me the issue is one of time, and it is much quicker to type up a word or two in English than it is to hunt for an image that conveys the meaning well. My online time is very limited (even more so because I'm often at HTLAL!), and even when I'm offline making Anki cards I can use dictionary software to find the meaning in English, but I can't do that with images, unless I take my own pictures. That said - and Cavesa pointed this out as well - most people using Anki or another SRS can get something useful out of the article. Personally, I could use all of the Principles except Principle 1. I think they could possibly help me make better Anki cards, which would lead to better Anki reviews. I do want to add that I think comprehension cards are useful for languages that do not use the Latin alphabet. It is especially useful for a language like Japanese, which use Chinese characters that have various readings depending on the context. Comprehension cards are a good way to learn more obscure words that you may come across when reading, but will likely not need in everyday conversation, therefore there is no need to practice recalling them. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Medulin Tetraglot Senior Member Croatia Joined 4667 days ago 1199 posts - 2192 votes Speaks: Croatian*, English, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Norwegian, Hindi, Nepali | Message 6 of 12 15 May 2013 at 4:53am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Pictures are nice, but a bit overwhelming.
I've never used flashcards, but I'm planning to: 1st step: enter your entries in a dictionary-making software, as if you were making or dictionary 2export them as excel files 3import these files into Ankidroid that's it. So, you can have your personal user dictionary and flashcards. Edited by Medulin on 15 May 2013 at 4:54am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| schoenewaelder Diglot Senior Member Germany Joined 5559 days ago 759 posts - 1197 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: German, Spanish, Dutch | Message 7 of 12 15 May 2013 at 4:58pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
What is this "dictionary making software" of which you speak, and why can't you just enter the words directly in excel? P:S: Is there a simple way to export anki cards to a spreadsheet? I have downloaded a dutch shared deck, and I was wondering if I could split the articles into a different field, so to be able to practice the genders. As far as I can tell, anki just exports as a binary file. Edited by schoenewaelder on 15 May 2013 at 5:05pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| montmorency Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4827 days ago 2371 posts - 3676 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Danish, Welsh | Message 8 of 12 15 May 2013 at 5:08pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
Never done it, but here is a google groups posting about it: using Excel with Anki (you may need a google account to see that)....It's not very long, so I'll post the whole thing:
4 persons have voted this message useful |
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