Register  Login  Active Topics  Maps  

The "piling up" effect

 Language Learning Forum : Learning Techniques, Methods & Strategies Post Reply
26 messages over 4 pages: 1 2 3 4  Next >>
rapp
Senior Member
United States
Joined 5722 days ago
129 posts - 204 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: Esperanto, Spanish

 
 Message 9 of 26
08 October 2010 at 3:58am | IP Logged 
This is really much ado about nothing.

If you tried the experiment of entering X cards per day and doing the scheduled reviews every day, by the end of the week you would have convinced yourself that this "piling up effect" doesn't happen in practice. You would have to force it to happen by rating your recall of a huge percentage of the cards very lowly. That would force them to be scheduled for review in a few hours, effectively making them permanently "new". As long as you rate the cards honestly, this effect won't occur.
1 person has voted this message useful



Volte
Tetraglot
Senior Member
Switzerland
Joined 6430 days ago
4474 posts - 6726 votes 
Speaks: English*, Esperanto, German, Italian
Studies: French, Finnish, Mandarin, Japanese

 
 Message 10 of 26
08 October 2010 at 12:27pm | IP Logged 
rapp wrote:
This is really much ado about nothing.

If you tried the experiment of entering X cards per day and doing the scheduled reviews every day, by the end of the week you would have convinced yourself that this "piling up effect" doesn't happen in practice. You would have to force it to happen by rating your recall of a huge percentage of the cards very lowly. That would force them to be scheduled for review in a few hours, effectively making them permanently "new". As long as you rate the cards honestly, this effect won't occur.


I don't have a particularly bad memory, as far as I can tell, but I don't learn well/quickly from anki cards, so I do honestly run into this effect.

1 person has voted this message useful



noriyuki_nomura
Bilingual Octoglot
Senior Member
Switzerland
Joined 5331 days ago
304 posts - 465 votes 
Speaks: English*, Mandarin*, Japanese, FrenchC2, GermanC2, ItalianC1, SpanishB2, DutchB1
Studies: TurkishA1, Korean

 
 Message 11 of 26
08 October 2010 at 1:21pm | IP Logged 
I got a set of Flash Cards Korean, and I must say that, they are one of the best investments I have ever made on language learning (especially for Korean), given that I have spent already so much money purchasing books (in Japanese) to learn Korean. Not only do the flash cards help me to learn new words, I found that they have helped me to memorise the words at ease, anytime and anywhere.

A forum-member proposed something very useful and meaningful - read as many books/novels (of even 600+ pages) as possible because words tend to repeat themselves (since it's written by the same author and surely the author will have a certain style or preference for certain words) and you get to learn them according to the context. For instance, I am reading this French literature, le comte de monte cristo, and I jot down the meaning of any word that I do not understand in the novel, and I will write the words and their meaning in a notebook, and learn them, while continuing to read the book. Since to me, it's not my aim to finish the novel asap, but rather, to learn new words in context and appreciate the story.    
1 person has voted this message useful



rapp
Senior Member
United States
Joined 5722 days ago
129 posts - 204 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: Esperanto, Spanish

 
 Message 12 of 26
08 October 2010 at 2:55pm | IP Logged 
Volte wrote:
rapp wrote:
This is really much ado about nothing.

If you tried the experiment of entering X cards per day and doing the scheduled reviews every day, by the end of the week you would have convinced yourself that this "piling up effect" doesn't happen in practice. You would have to force it to happen by rating your recall of a huge percentage of the cards very lowly. That would force them to be scheduled for review in a few hours, effectively making them permanently "new". As long as you rate the cards honestly, this effect won't occur.


I don't have a particularly bad memory, as far as I can tell, but I don't learn well/quickly from anki cards, so I do honestly run into this effect.


Do you learn well from traditional flashcards? The TS has said that he does, so I'm assuming that Anki will work at least that well for him.

1 person has voted this message useful



B-Tina
Tetraglot
Senior Member
Germany
dragonsallaroun
Joined 5518 days ago
123 posts - 218 votes 
Speaks: German*, English, French, Polish

 
 Message 13 of 26
08 October 2010 at 6:12pm | IP Logged 
Volte wrote:

I don't have a particularly bad memory, as far as I can tell, but I don't learn well/quickly from anki cards, so I do honestly run into this effect.


Try writing (or rather jotting) down the content of the cards on paper (old-fashioned style) while reviewing them. The handwriting helps in my experience in better retaining the stuff you want to learn. Admittedly it takes some extra time, but I found it to be useful nonetheless.

1 person has voted this message useful



Javi
Senior Member
Spain
Joined 5972 days ago
419 posts - 548 votes 
Speaks: Spanish*

 
 Message 14 of 26
09 October 2010 at 12:07pm | IP Logged 
dairwolf wrote:
Hey everyone, right now I´m having a hard time with a problem I just
can´t get solved. I used to work very successfully with paper flash cards, but now I´m
doing an exchange year at a Japanese university and I couldn´t take my flash cards with
me, so I switched to Anki. Everybody tells me that it is a very helpful tool and that I
should use it, and from a logical standpoint it makes sense. There´s just one problem I
have.

Let´s say I learn 30 new Words today. Then I learn 30 new words tomorrow, and I will
still have to review the 30 words from yesterday. Now on the third day if I learn yet
another 30 words it´s already ninety words. So the words just pile up to a huge review
mountain that I don´t think I can cope with. Of course Anki will from some point on put
longer intervals between older material, but that doesn´t solve the problem because I
will have to repeat multiple sets of 30 word entries on one day anyway.

I DO have the feeling that my idea about Anki is wrong though because a lot of people
recommend Anki and the system definetely appeals to my logical sense, but somehow it
still doesn´t "feel" as if I could cope with my problem.

Has anyone ever had those same doubts about Anki or any other SRS? Or did they never
arise and did you always trust in the programme? What can you tell me about my thoughts
about Anki!

Thanks & later,

Tobi


The number of daily repetitions tends to fall rapidly unless you keep feeding the
program with new words. If you do so at a constant daily rate, it will increase
forever, only that at a very low pace in this case, not the arithmetic progression you
mentioned. In the long run the first tendency will prevail, given that the number of
words to learn is finite. In my experience, this piling up effect has more to do with a
high failure rate or too many lost days. Nothing you can't manage in a few days if you
stop adding new words. There's no reason why you should add new cards every day.
1 person has voted this message useful



Volte
Tetraglot
Senior Member
Switzerland
Joined 6430 days ago
4474 posts - 6726 votes 
Speaks: English*, Esperanto, German, Italian
Studies: French, Finnish, Mandarin, Japanese

 
 Message 15 of 26
09 October 2010 at 7:49pm | IP Logged 
rapp wrote:
Volte wrote:
rapp wrote:
This is really much ado about nothing.

If you tried the experiment of entering X cards per day and doing the scheduled reviews every day, by the end of the week you would have convinced yourself that this "piling up effect" doesn't happen in practice. You would have to force it to happen by rating your recall of a huge percentage of the cards very lowly. That would force them to be scheduled for review in a few hours, effectively making them permanently "new". As long as you rate the cards honestly, this effect won't occur.


I don't have a particularly bad memory, as far as I can tell, but I don't learn well/quickly from anki cards, so I do honestly run into this effect.


Do you learn well from traditional flashcards? The TS has said that he does, so I'm assuming that Anki will work at least that well for him.


I don't. I'm just pointing out that the problem is something I run into in practice - it doesn't take dishonest ranking of cards.

B-Tina wrote:
Volte wrote:

I don't have a particularly bad memory, as far as I can tell, but I don't learn well/quickly from anki cards, so I do honestly run into this effect.


Try writing (or rather jotting) down the content of the cards on paper (old-fashioned style) while reviewing them. The handwriting helps in my experience in better retaining the stuff you want to learn. Admittedly it takes some extra time, but I found it to be useful nonetheless.


It's useful, but I still run into the same problem, at which point the amount of time involved gets even larger.


1 person has voted this message useful



Javi
Senior Member
Spain
Joined 5972 days ago
419 posts - 548 votes 
Speaks: Spanish*

 
 Message 16 of 26
10 October 2010 at 12:10pm | IP Logged 
hypersport wrote:
Start reading books. Vocabulary will quickly repeat itself in
context and stick.

Start with childrens books and work your way up to novels with about 600 pages. Read
them out loud to perfect your speech.

After a year or two you'll have acquired a lot of vocabulary that you can use in every
day conversations and reading will be as easy as reading in English.


This is actually a very good piece of advice, although not in the unhelpful and nasty
way intended by the poster and the 2 people that rated it as useful (in what way
mates?). Given your previous experience with physical flash cards it seems that you're
working with pre-made decks. If that's the case you could try making your own cards
using words and sentences from your readings (I'll assume it's not your aim to be
illiterate in your TL) or whatever input source you use: TV, movies, conversations
with friends, etc. That way, apart from learning words more in context, the whole
process will be smoother and you'll be less likely to run into that piling up effect.
You can actually combine both types of decks.


1 person has voted this message useful



This discussion contains 26 messages over 4 pages: << Prev 1 2 3 4  Next >>


Post ReplyPost New Topic Printable version Printable version

You cannot post new topics in this forum - You cannot reply to topics in this forum - You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum - You cannot create polls in this forum - You cannot vote in polls in this forum


This page was generated in 0.3281 seconds.


DHTML Menu By Milonic JavaScript
Copyright 2024 FX Micheloud - All rights reserved
No part of this website may be copied by any means without my written authorization.