|
 |
I don’t like SRS | ||
Tags: Spaced Repetition (SRS) | ||
Share with:
| ||
 Language Learning Forum : Learning Techniques, Methods & Strategies |  | |
 Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6682 days ago 9078 posts - 16473 votes  Speaks: Danish*, French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, Romanian, Catalan Studies: Afrikaans, Greek, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian, Icelandic, Latin, Irish, Lowland Scots, Indonesian, Polish, Croatian Personal Language Map | Message 25 of 46 30 March 2012 at 12:25pm | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
|
I would only put "comida" in a wordlist, but with two translations: "meal, food". I don't need to indicate the gender because words on -a normally are feminine, and there are no irregularities to worry about. Quite generally I prefer cutting my own things down to the bare essentials, but that doesn't mean that I don't like more verbose sources. For instance I really like those dictionaries on the internet where there are a number of example sentences, some of which illustrate idiomatic expressions. However it takes time writing two whole sentences down on a sheet of paper, and when I study words I study words - not sentence formation. If I want to study sentence formation I copy text and read grammars and find examples of construction through Google, but then I don't write wordlists at the same time (nor flashcards, for that matter).
S_allard asks "why would I limit myself to staring at 'comida' all by itself on a card when I can kill a few birds at the same time?". My answer: I also like to kill several birds at the same time, but my birds are named comida, comer, compañero, condimentos, compacte, compactar y compasión. Edited by Iversen on 02 April 2012 at 2:39pm 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||
| s_allard Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5409 days ago 2704 posts - 5425 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish Studies: Polish | Message 26 of 46 30 March 2012 at 1:04pm | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
|
Let's agree on one thing: do whatever works for you. I like what I do because it gives me great results for the four reasons that I've indicated above. There are certainly other ways of arriving at the same end result.
What is the end result? Two things. One, I want to understand what people say. And two, I want to be able to open my mouth and spontaneously emit a string of sounds or words that resemble as much as possible in their construction and sound what a native speaker would say. That's what this all boils down to. My little stack of 500-600 paper cards does wonders for me. If Anki on a smartphone with SRS and one word works better for you, then don't use paper cards. Actually, I have some phrases on my phone that I like very much. But I still prefer the simplicity of a stack of cards on my desk or next to my bed. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||
| luke Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 7184 days ago 3133 posts - 4351 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Esperanto, French | Message 27 of 46 30 March 2012 at 2:46pm | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
2 things. 1) When I use flash cards, which is not often, I include the definite article. E.G. la arena, por ejemplo. 2) I actually learned "arena" from an FSI dialog. "La arena aqui es muy limpia." That says something about the importance of context. So for me, flash cards and SRS are helpful at certain points when trying to stockpile vocabulary. However, for me, they aren't a great tactic as I learn better when information is in bigger chunks. Early on, a word is a big enough chunk. Later, semi-common words that are used in a lot of different ways may be a good target. At the more advanced stage, when I can understand most of a book or article or podcast, doing an SRS on the less well understood vocabulary is helpful. At this advanced stage, the SRS becomes re-reading the whole book or article or podcast or audiobook after having done some lower level SRS with the tricky words. If I can turn a book that was once a bit challenging for a variety of reasons into something easy to comprehend perhaps even with little effort, I know I've made progress on that chunk of the language. This is similar to the "grading" one might give oneself using an SRS method where you grade word X as very easy, easy, a bit challenging, etc. I.E., if I take some work and move it from a bit challenging to easy, I've can see my progress clearly and can often detect its carryover into other areas of my study. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||
| s_allard Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5409 days ago 2704 posts - 5425 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish Studies: Polish | Message 28 of 46 30 March 2012 at 4:13pm | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
|
Although some of us have had this discussion in various forms many times, it's always useful to revisit some core issues. For me the crux of the matter here is really what we are trying to accomplish. Are we interested in learning the word per se or how to use it? I'm obviously of the how to use it school.
I don't buy this argument that if you learn a word with phrases, you are stuck with those phrases in your head and nothing else. This is patently not true. I would argue that it's quite the opposite. If you learn single words, you are stuck with the words dangling in your head until some example comes along. But then again, if that works, fine. So, the point of learning comida or arena with some examples is to make the words come alive and see how they can be related to other words. I don't understand how someone could object to learning "La arena es limpia" at the same time as "arena" and learn a few things all at once. Edited by s_allard on 30 March 2012 at 4:14pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||
| mrwarper Diglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member Spain forum_posts.asp?TID=Registered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5205 days ago 1493 posts - 2500 votes Speaks: Spanish*, EnglishC2 Studies: German, Russian, Japanese | Message 29 of 46 30 March 2012 at 6:18pm | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
|
I think what we want to avoid is that "only way to go"-type of dogmatism (which isn't to say bad ideas, or any kind for that matter, are not to be challenged).
Since we can apparently agree already that software and paper cards are both preferable to different kinds of people (the main advantages being essentially that paper is more flexible and software is weightless), why not dig a bit deeper to see why putting isolated words and chunky bits on flash 'cards' work equally well for different people, or at different stages of language learning? I try to be to-the-point while complete at the same time, so I'd probably have "comida" as "food, meal" PLUS "tres comidas al día" and "comida china"... if I didn't know already what "comida" is. That's as close as it gets to what good dictionaries do to illustrate usage, as it has been pointed out, but a rather interesting question is, when do you need all that information, really? Long story short... I suggest isolated words should work better in the initial stages when trying to cram first-need vocabulary, because 1) too much information will only distract learners, 2) they're not ready to try and distinguish between subtle nuances, and 3) there's a lot of stuff to work on anyway. On the other hand, it is likely that advanced learners only need to stash vocabulary with specific meanings and uses, and the mere view of such items should evoke any context to connect them to. Otherwise, schematic hints should suffice. This would be yet another example of how extremes meet and thus, depending on how much more information one needs (read: not how much one likes to) to put into their SR routine, it is easy to tell how far from them learners are. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||
| Javi Senior Member Spain Joined 5960 days ago 419 posts - 548 votes Speaks: Spanish* | Message 30 of 46 30 March 2012 at 8:12pm | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
I would go like this:
You're being tested on 5 facts: 1) comida is the word we're looking for 2) unlike in English, we don't use the zero article in this kind of sentence 3) comida is feminine 4) in this kind of sentence comida must go in singular 5) china is the singular feminine form of the adjective chino. With very simple sentences like this we could also use bilingual cards:
The problem is that even with this simple ones you can quickly run into the problem of synonyms. You want "me encanta" to come up in Spanish, so should you write in English "I really enjoy", "I love" or simply "I like"? You're wasting your time because that's not even the point of the card, the point is "la comida china". Anyway, in both cases you're testing active production. I'm not convinced that you can come to master weak grammatical words just by reading. Edited by Javi on 30 March 2012 at 8:21pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6576 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 31 of 46 30 March 2012 at 8:53pm | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
edit: I mean like this:
some other possibilities are:
or in a less strong language:
or an entire translation in a still weaker one. I'd also choose a sentence where it's more clear from the context. there are too many possibilities with "me encanta" :) However these are "intensive" cards (apart from the last one). I have more or less extensive ones too, with larger chunks of text and where the aim is to understand every word. Edited by Serpent on 30 March 2012 at 9:18pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||
| Javi Senior Member Spain Joined 5960 days ago 419 posts - 548 votes Speaks: Spanish* | Message 32 of 46 30 March 2012 at 10:20pm | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
|
Both comida and cocina exist in both languages and there's probably strong collocations
that don't have to be symetrical, that's one of the reasons why I'm a bit wary about translations. I use it mostly to translate sentences from my everyday life in Spanish to my TL, because there are things that I just want be able to say now. For example, in my dialect comida equals dinner, so I could use a sentence like:
In Southern Spain "la hora de la comida" = "la hora de comer" = 14:30 p.m. but once again, llámame: phone me, ring me up, call me, call me up, give me a call? Here we say llámame, dame un toque, échame el teléfono, etc. 2 persons have voted this message useful |
|  | 
Printable version
|
| Copyright 2024 FX Micheloud - All rights reserved No part of this website may be copied by any means without my written authorization. |
