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Reverse Cards, synonyms & leeches | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Learning Techniques, Methods & Strategies |  | |
| zenmonkey Bilingual Tetraglot Senior Member Germany Joined 6538 days ago 803 posts - 1119 votes  1 sounds Speaks: EnglishC2*, Spanish*, French, German Studies: Italian, Modern Hebrew | Message 1 of 10 11 May 2011 at 10:12am | IP Logged |
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While using cards I've discovered that I am getting wrong some of the reverse sides of cards simply because of synonyms.
I've a question on how people deal with synonyms on the reverse of cards as this is making things frustrating and slow. With a certain vocabulary you begin to get "duplicates" or synonyms in your target language. I'll have for example F:kümmern R:to take care of and that works fine but the reverse card F:to take care of R:kümmern I'll fail because I think of an alternate word first (besorgen, etc...). Eventually it will be marked as a leech by Anki and removed from my active stack or I'll think I don't a word for the source language meaning when I really do. I can go through and manage these cards by editing them and adding the synonym but it is very slow going. How do manage this? Only do cards in one direction? Delete? Edit? Edited by zenmonkey on 11 May 2011 at 4:02pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Ari Heptaglot Senior Member Norway Joined 6568 days ago 2314 posts - 5695 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Mandarin, Cantonese Studies: Czech, Latin, German | Message 3 of 10 11 May 2011 at 11:22am | IP Logged |
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I have dealt with this by somehow identifying the word, often by providing the first letter (possibly the last letter is more useful).
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| smallwhite Pentaglot Senior Member Australia Joined 5294 days ago 537 posts - 1045 votes Speaks: Cantonese*, English, Mandarin, French, Spanish | Message 4 of 10 11 May 2011 at 2:15pm | IP Logged |
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Currently, like Ari, I provide the first letter:
F:to take care of, k- Previously, I sort the answers alphabetically, and provide a number: F:to take care of 1 R:besorgen F:to take care of 2 R:kümmern or maybe F:to take care of 1/3 (meaning 1 of 3) when there are more than 2 synonyms (B sorts before K, so B is 1 and K is 2) It's a lot of work because when you add a third synonym, you'll have to update the numbers. And when you answer cards, you have to recall all three answers, and then sort them mentally. But I think it's worth the effort for the first, say, 5000 words. Beyond that, I switch to my first method. Sometimes, I try to elaborate the FRONT somehow, eg. F: to take care of, vt F: to take care of (person) F: to take care of (object) F: to take care of (slang) F: to take care of (rarer version) F: to take care of (chapter 3, animals) etc 5 persons have voted this message useful | |
| zenmonkey Bilingual Tetraglot Senior Member Germany Joined 6538 days ago 803 posts - 1119 votes 1 sounds Speaks: EnglishC2*, Spanish*, French, German Studies: Italian, Modern Hebrew | Message 5 of 10 11 May 2011 at 4:06pm | IP Logged |
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Yes, I meant synonyms. Oooops (note to self, don't post before morning coffee)
Possibly another idea is using sentences for these words, often in a sentence the correct synonym will be more obvious because the sense is more restricted by the rest of the sentence. I "help" the woman cross the road. I "take care of" the woman at the hospital. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| cathrynm Senior Member United States junglevision.co Joined 6111 days ago 910 posts - 1232 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese, Finnish | Message 6 of 10 11 May 2011 at 5:03pm | IP Logged |
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I don't suspend leeches. If I leave this setting on, 50%+ of my Finnish decks get suspended-- Finnish
words are just difficult. The last year or so I've just been doing Finnish to English because the spelling was killing me. I like the idea of giving the first letter. Maybe the number of letters might work too. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| ellasevia Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2011 Senior Member Germany Joined 6128 days ago 2150 posts - 3229 votes Speaks: English*, German, Croatian, Greek, French, Spanish, Russian, Swedish, Portuguese, Turkish, Italian Studies: Catalan, Persian, Mandarin, Japanese, Romanian, Ukrainian | Message 7 of 10 11 May 2011 at 11:16pm | IP Logged |
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I never thought of giving the first letter, but that's a good idea. The only problem would be when they start with the same letter or letters.
What I generally do is either add more details to the L1 side, like smallwhite mentioned, or write in parentheses whatever the synonym is that it isn't. I'm not sure if that made sense, so here's what I mean, with a German example: German: die Bibliothek, die Bibliotheken English: library (not Bücherei) And likewise: German: die Bücherei, die Büchereien English: library (not Bibliothek) 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| zonius Triglot Newbie Israel Joined 5048 days ago 12 posts - 15 votes Speaks: Russian*, English, Modern Hebrew Studies: Spanish, Mandarin | Message 8 of 10 02 June 2011 at 12:04pm | IP Logged |
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I usually make a new field "Hint" in the Anki deck and fill it with "(not otherword)" when I have throuble keeping two words separate. For most cards the field stays empty, but when I notice that I often give the same wrong answer to the card, I put it in the Hint field.
But in some cases I just do something else. It seems that when the problematic card comes up I usually can remember (after failing the cards several times) that there are several possible answers, I just can't remember which is this one. So I just test if I'm able to recall all the variants, that is just list all the synonyms that I tend to confuse. Then I check myself and if the correct answer was among those that I've remembered then the card is marked as passed. Numbering the synonyms and trying to remember the specific one seems like too much work, after all if I can remember all the synonyms then it's enough for language learning, isn't it? 1 person has voted this message useful |
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