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Effective use of SRS

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dampingwire
Bilingual Triglot
Senior Member
United Kingdom
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1185 posts - 1513 votes 
Speaks: English*, Italian*, French
Studies: Japanese

 
 Message 1 of 14
14 March 2012 at 11:50pm | IP Logged 
I've been using memrise for about three weeks now and I have about 80 words that I've
picked up through using it. (Truth be told, some of those I knew anyway thanks to
listening to CDs whilst commuting, watching youtube videos and leafing through a
textbook).

That doesn't seem to be much compared to the various posts I read here, where people
seem to be adding maybe 50 words per day. Obviously one size doesn't fit all, so I'm
not too worried that I'm too slow, but I do wonder whether I'm using the SRS software
properly.

I'm quite consciously keeping the number of "greenhouse" (short term memory) words down
to 10-20 at most and not adding further words until those have been "harvested" (i.e.
moved to the "garden" (long term memory).

That way I can remember most of the words most of the time (or at least I can once I'm
past the initial day or two with a word: I'm embarrassed to say that γŠγΌγˆγ‚‹ - to
memorise - took quite a while to sink in!).

Is this how an SRS system is intended to work? Or should I throw caution to the winds,
plant (say) 20 new words a day and see what happens?

I realise that the number of new words per day is likely to vary a good deal between
people, but what I'm looking for is advice on whether I should turn the fire hose up a
little?

Thanks.

1 person has voted this message useful



Serpent
Octoglot
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Russian Federation
serpent-849.livejour
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 Message 2 of 14
15 March 2012 at 12:36am | IP Logged 
Imo the power of SRS is being able to relive your best experiences in your target languages. I do only sentences/phrases. Have a look at ajatt.com.
2 persons have voted this message useful



dampingwire
Bilingual Triglot
Senior Member
United Kingdom
Joined 4693 days ago

1185 posts - 1513 votes 
Speaks: English*, Italian*, French
Studies: Japanese

 
 Message 3 of 14
15 March 2012 at 8:27am | IP Logged 
Serpent wrote:
Imo the power of SRS is being able to relive your best experiences in
your target languages. I do only sentences/phrases. Have a look at ajatt.com.


I'm using an existing "course" rather building my own, so it is what it is. I've thought
about the sentences-vs-words thing but I don't have the time to go mining right now.

Even if I did, my original question would still stand: is it generally better to "know"
most of the items being learnt before adding another batch or should one keep topping up
at a fairly constant daily rate regardless and just let the SRS mechanism sort things
out?

1 person has voted this message useful



Majka
Triglot
Senior Member
Czech Republic
kofoholici.wordpress
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307 posts - 755 votes 
Speaks: Czech*, German, English
Studies: French
Studies: Russian

 
 Message 4 of 14
15 March 2012 at 10:13am | IP Logged 
One tip for SRS.
In Anki, you can set the order in which reviews and new words are presented to you. No idea if Memrise can do it too.

For very intense periods of work I set following order:
Reviews - new to old (shortest intervals to the longest ones)
New cards - mixed among the reviews, but 10 repeated new cards maximum (you have to learn one of them before another one gets presented).

Then I did set the new cards number (all the new cards that would be presented) very high - 200 or so.

This way, I could go through my most needed reviews every day. For longer review intervals (10-15 days or so), it doesn't matter as much if you review it on time or one day later.
The amount of new cards has this way no upper limit, but no new ones are presented when you really cannot remember another one.

I did run several such quasi-cramming sessions, sometimes for 2-3 hours total in a day. I didn't mind not working through all the reviews, one needs only to go through all the short time ones. The same - I didn't really work through 200 new cards in a day, I wanted simply weed out the easiest ones quickly.

And then, you can reset the setting to more reasonable pace.

The advance of the mentioned settings is that you can add as many new cards as you can/want learn at one time. Practically, you have only 10 unknown cards max among your reviews and will go through the less known words in reviews at first. You can work through all reviews and nobody says that you really have to to go through the all new cards scheduled...
4 persons have voted this message useful



atama warui
Triglot
Senior Member
Japan
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Speaks: German*, English, Japanese

 
 Message 5 of 14
15 March 2012 at 10:26am | IP Logged 
It doesn't matter what and how much you add when using an SRS system. The words you failed on test will come back anyways, again and again.
I've started at 50 words/day (80% retention) and raised that to 100 words/day (60% retention). 100% more energy spent for 50% more effectiveness is great in my book. It doesn't take long to do a review.

However you feel like going at it, you will eventually succeed. Sometimes it will take a long time until something sticks, because the existing network is not yet there.. and sometimes you will encounter a term that perfectly fits in from the moment you first see it. In the end, you will know them all.
3 persons have voted this message useful



SueK
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United States
Joined 4779 days ago

77 posts - 133 votes 
Studies: Mandarin

 
 Message 6 of 14
15 March 2012 at 5:43pm | IP Logged 
I use memorise for Mandarin, when I can. Great tool. I think you're being too conservative though, step it up. You can always take a 'review day' if you feel like your getting overwhelmed.
1 person has voted this message useful



dampingwire
Bilingual Triglot
Senior Member
United Kingdom
Joined 4693 days ago

1185 posts - 1513 votes 
Speaks: English*, Italian*, French
Studies: Japanese

 
 Message 7 of 14
15 March 2012 at 11:07pm | IP Logged 
SueK wrote:
I think you're being too conservative though, step it up.


I've thrown in 20 new words today; I'll have exhausted the seeds in a week (it's a small
JLPT N5 set) so I'll see how it goes.

Thanks all.

1 person has voted this message useful



Serpent
Octoglot
Senior Member
Russian Federation
serpent-849.livejour
Joined 6625 days ago

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Speaks: Russian*, English, FinnishC1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese
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 Message 8 of 14
16 March 2012 at 1:12am | IP Logged 
dampingwire wrote:
I've thought about the sentences-vs-words thing but I don't have the time to go mining right now.
That's what makes it fun though, and you can just take sentences from what you read. Twitter is a great source, for example.
What can be more important than making sure you enjoy your learning?


1 person has voted this message useful



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