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Lists vs Flashcards

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Poll Question: Which is more effective:
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34 messages over 5 pages: 1 2 35  Next >>
Serpent
Octoglot
Senior Member
Russian Federation
serpent-849.livejour
Joined 6597 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 25 of 34
13 September 2012 at 12:01am | IP Logged 
tarvos wrote:
Grammar drills work the best for me but I don't do them a thousand times, just two or three to get the idea down (and that's usually enough to get it right 80/90% of the time)...
Great post, thanks for your reply!
What do you mean by 2-3 times, 2-3 exercises or 2-3 sentences? Nowadays even doing one exercise with boring examples feels like a torture to me... :D

Yeah, I think it would be great for my Polish if I could just speak Polish-Russian and adjust it more and more towards proper Polish. That's what my mum did in Poland :D But for me this would feel disrespectful, given that these are not just grammar mistakes but an invasion with Russian grammar ;/ I have no problems doing the same in Spanish though, hehe. When I had a text corrected at lang-8, pretty much ALL my mistakes came from Portuguese :D The problem is that I prefer writing to speaking (unless I'm travelling), and in writing these things can look ugly.

I suppose a good exercise for me would be to take a text I like and (automatically) delete some small words and endings and reconstruct them... If that's a literary text then I could even shadow it with an audiobook on, filling in the gaps orally.
I remember a site where you can paste any custom text and you need to reconstruct the word order, but nothing like that, hm...
1 person has voted this message useful



tarvos
Super Polyglot
Winner TAC 2012
Senior Member
China
likeapolyglot.wordpr
Joined 4707 days ago

5310 posts - 9399 votes 
Speaks: Dutch*, English, Swedish, French, Russian, German, Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Afrikaans
Studies: Greek, Modern Hebrew, Spanish, Portuguese, Czech, Korean, Esperanto, Finnish

 
 Message 26 of 34
13 September 2012 at 12:25am | IP Logged 
It depends on the method and the situation what solution I am using. For example, I am
using FSI
Swedish right now and the end of the chapter contains a tonne of drills designed to be
repeated over and over. My usual approach is the following - I do all the drills once.

Then I use the following criterion.

1) Can I produce the desired grammatical feature fluently by the end of the series
(this is about 15-30 minutes depending on the size of the unit). This does not imply
100% accuracy but that I get the principle right and that in 90% of cases, the response
is automatically correct before I see/hear the answer.

If no, then I go to step 2), which is repeat the practice until I can produce it
fluently.

If yes then I don't repeat that drill (or in many cases I just skip the entire section)
when I decide to do a repeat drill (this is usually the next day).

I never have to do it more than 3 times to get to my desired level. If I have to do it
more often I will obviously, but then it's probably one single issue I have problems
with and that's usually easy enough to fix.

The bottom line is that I don't worry if it doesn't come out 100% right directly. I do
not have any sort of perfectionism concerning this and I am not afraid to make
mistakes.

If I am working with a textbook like for French class, then my tack is simply "I do the
exercises the teacher says" but don't pay more attention to them than that. Usually the
French grammar topics are rehashes of things that are buried under a layer of peat in
my brain, and simply need one activation to be fully ready for reuse.

For Russian I did a bit more drills but I never spent much time on them either.
Whenever I see workbooks I literally spend only 5-10 minutes rushing through the
answers, and they're usually close to 100% correct.

The problem really is that memory is simply a strong suit of mine and I don't really
need rote memorization that much to get to where I want to be. My focus areas tend to
be pronunciation (to get the sounds right) and producing coherent, connected phrases of
text that aren't me mumbling through it. Then for languages I have learned but have to
reactivate, it's the fossilized mistakes I made back then that I have to erase (not
remembering noun genders, in the case of German adjective declension is a huge
problem).


Edited by tarvos on 13 September 2012 at 12:28am

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patrickwilken
Senior Member
Germany
radiant-flux.net
Joined 4533 days ago

1546 posts - 3200 votes 
Studies: German

 
 Message 27 of 34
13 September 2012 at 5:40pm | IP Logged 
I think this is a bit like asking the Mac vs PC vs Linux question.

I have been using Anki for a bit over three months and have found it very helpful. I think wordlists wouldn't work as well for me, but that's just a preference.

I like the way Anki implements SRS, and if you want you can always adjust the relevant parameters to have cards appear sooner/later.

Anki also allows you to link audio etc to your cards which I have heard some people find helpful; though for me this would be too much work.

I guess the main thing I like about Anki (which is a bit stupid) is that it can't really be paused. It has really forced me to do daily word/sentence drills. Of course, if I had the right study ethic I would do this with paper and pen, but that wouldn't really happen.
2 persons have voted this message useful



montmorency
Diglot
Senior Member
United Kingdom
Joined 4828 days ago

2371 posts - 3676 votes 
Speaks: English*, German
Studies: Danish, Welsh

 
 Message 28 of 34
13 September 2012 at 5:56pm | IP Logged 
patrickwilken wrote:
I think this is a bit like asking the Mac vs PC vs Linux
question.


:-)

I know what you mean, but I don't think it's as extreme as that.

Committed users of any of the above probabably wouldn't go near the other two with a
barge pole :)


Whereas, for example, word-lists and physical flashcards can be perfectly compatible.

Quote:


I have been using Anki for a bit over three months and have found it very helpful. I
think wordlists wouldn't work as well for me, but that's just a preference.

I like the way Anki implements SRS, and if you want you can always adjust the relevant
parameters to have cards appear sooner/later.


Sounds a bit of a fiddle-faddle though.

Quote:

Anki also allows you to link audio etc to your cards which I have heard some people
find helpful; though for me this would be too much work.

I guess the main thing I like about Anki (which is a bit stupid) is that it can't
really be paused. It has really forced me to do daily word/sentence drills. Of course,
if I had the right study ethic I would do this with paper and pen, but that wouldn't
really happen.



There is that, but how does Anki know how you are feeling that day, and whether you
feel you know a word, or only think you do? I sometimes find I'm going through my non-
anki methods, all the time making subjective judgements whether I really need to
practice a word still, or if I can lay it to rest, at least for a while. No computer
program can do that for you.
2 persons have voted this message useful



patrickwilken
Senior Member
Germany
radiant-flux.net
Joined 4533 days ago

1546 posts - 3200 votes 
Studies: German

 
 Message 29 of 34
14 September 2012 at 7:50pm | IP Logged 
Quote:

There is that, but how does Anki know how you are feeling that day, and whether you
feel you know a word, or only think you do? I sometimes find I'm going through my non-
anki methods, all the time making subjective judgements whether I really need to
practice a word still, or if I can lay it to rest, at least for a while. No computer
program can do that for you.


I don't really find that much of a problem. For wordlists on Anki, I either know the word or not (I visually see the word in the TL for the answer so I know whether it's correct/wrong); with sentences in the TL - which make up about +70% of the cards - it's pretty obvious whether I am understanding them or not. Sometimes I have sentences that I understand and that have long repeat times, which have some grammatical point or word I want to practice and so I just tell Anki I have forgotten it, so it goes back to a daily repeat.

I am adding about 35 cards/day to Anki, but I am in a particular situation: I am unemployed, and need German for work; so I have lots of motivation and free time.

Anki on it's own wouldn't be enough, but in addition to speaking practice, and active listening via TV/Movies (without subtitles) it's working very well. At some point I'll probably just switch to reading/tv/radio but Anki is really helping.

Edited by patrickwilken on 14 September 2012 at 7:51pm

1 person has voted this message useful



William Camden
Hexaglot
Senior Member
United Kingdom
Joined 6272 days ago

1936 posts - 2333 votes 
Speaks: English*, German, Spanish, Russian, Turkish, French

 
 Message 30 of 34
15 September 2012 at 8:48pm | IP Logged 
I didn't vote as I might use either or both methods. Flashcards are especiallly effective with basic vocabulary. If you are well into the language and want to learn large amounts of vocabulary in a short term, then lists are better.
1 person has voted this message useful



nonneb
Pentaglot
Groupie
SpainRegistered users can see my Skype Name
Joined 4751 days ago

80 posts - 173 votes 
Speaks: English*, Ancient Greek, Latin, German, Spanish
Studies: Mandarin, Hungarian, French

 
 Message 31 of 34
15 September 2012 at 8:51pm | IP Logged 
With European languages related to ones I know, I don't use flash cards or word lists. I tend to prefer lots of input
with an occasional dictionary reference. The good thing is, that's fun and I don't really even count it as studying.

I've tried word lists and flash cards for Chinese, and had little success with both of them. That turned around when
I started doing sentences targeted towards new words or new grammar points in flash cards, and I started learning
at a much faster rate than I was with individual words. I now follow this approach with any language where most of
the vocabulary looks foreign to me. I just can't imagine sentence lists being as hassle-free as sticking them on
jMemorize or Anki for me, but I imagine that's just preference.
1 person has voted this message useful



stifa
Triglot
Senior Member
Norway
lang-8.com/448715
Joined 4873 days ago

629 posts - 813 votes 
Speaks: Norwegian*, EnglishC2, German
Studies: Japanese, Spanish

 
 Message 32 of 34
15 September 2012 at 9:00pm | IP Logged 
@nonneb

That's what I've been doing as well. It's almost like we're cheating :D


1 person has voted this message useful



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