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Flashcards - good or bad? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Learning Techniques, Methods & Strategies |  | |
| marklewis1234 Newbie United States Joined 5303 days ago 32 posts - 39 votes Speaks: English* | Message 1 of 45 01 June 2011 at 11:09pm | IP Logged |
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Hi,
I occasionaly use flashcards for learning vocabulary, are these considered useful? Or a there better alternatives to use? Edited by Fasulye on 18 June 2011 at 8:33pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| rain_wolf Newbie United States Joined 5687 days ago 2 posts - 2 votes Studies: Japanese | Message 2 of 45 02 June 2011 at 3:55am | IP Logged |
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I feel flashcards can be very useful. You just got to use them constantly and try from both sides. I keep most of the flashcards I make and review them a week, or even months later.
However, I have found it much easier for me to remember the word if I learned the word from context (such as hearing it from a conversation or a movie line, or even reading it out of a book, etc) instead of just making word cards out of random lists. Just my two-cents. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| smallwhite Pentaglot Senior Member Australia Joined 5297 days ago 537 posts - 1045 votes  Speaks: Cantonese*, English, Mandarin, French, Spanish | Message 3 of 45 02 June 2011 at 7:51am | IP Logged |
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Hi,
For basic and unambiguous vocabulary, flashcards are useful and efficient. Eg. numbers, seasons, colours, animals, etc. I'd cram them within a short time so that I could understand the example sentences in textbooks. And by reading the example sentences I get to learn how the words are used. For more advanced and more abstract vocabulary, flashcards are still useful and efficient, but they are also often insufficient, and it gets boring to do so many flashcards. Then I'd just use them for straightforward words like "hydrochloride" and not for words with like 20 meanings and 50 connotations. I think it makes sense that we should need different strategies for different words. I don't do any oral or writing practice, so I rely on flashcards to practise production. If I were in an immersion environment, I wouldn't do any flashcards. > Or a there better alternatives to use? I think flashcard is the most efficient but least interesting method, so it depends on what you mean by "better" ;p Edited by smallwhite on 02 June 2011 at 7:52am 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Amandasmile Newbie United States Joined 4916 days ago 8 posts - 5 votes | Message 4 of 45 02 June 2011 at 10:10am | IP Logged |
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I agree with rain wolf.To remember the words in the context is more easy. there is
another method is to recite it constantly . 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Andrew C Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom naturalarabic.com Joined 5179 days ago 205 posts - 350 votes Speaks: English*, Arabic (Written) | Message 5 of 45 02 June 2011 at 6:38pm | IP Logged |
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I think they're bad.
You might be interested in a previous thread: Are flash cards a necessary evil? 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| NickJS Senior Member United Kingdom flickr.com/photos/sg Joined 4948 days ago 264 posts - 334 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Russian, Portuguese, Mandarin, Cantonese | Message 6 of 45 03 June 2011 at 4:41am | IP Logged |
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I'm not sure where I read it but some people seem very negative about them as it is
essentially trying to burn the words into your mind and that it limits you because of that, although I have tried using them (Anki) and they seem effective to some extent. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Sandman Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5397 days ago 168 posts - 389 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Japanese | Message 7 of 45 03 June 2011 at 8:00am | IP Logged |
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Love them.
They're an efficient way to get a quick, loose, foothold on an enormous amount of words in a relatively short time period (emphasis on "relatively"). No one "learns" the words from flashcards alone, but having a rough definition of a huge # of terms makes listening and reading more advanced things much easier. I was initially worried that all my flashcard work would "fossilize" some bad pronunciation habits in my mind, but as long as it's done in conjunction with solid audio work (Pimsleur, MT, Assimil - where you can pick up a lot of the grammar points) I've noticed my hold on the "rarer" words that I've only learned from flashcards has been tenuous enough (efficient spaced repetition means you should only ... barely ... recall each word) that my brain keeps from hard-wiring the pronunciation until I start experiencing them in more natural contexts. If flashcards or reading is ALL you do, then there may be long-term problems with pronunciation, but as long as they're supplemented with plenty of intelligently chosen audio I don't think there should be much long term damage. Learning all the various uses of the words will then come on its own time, as it would anyway once you acclimate yourself to natural materials. Edited by Sandman on 03 June 2011 at 8:02am 3 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Ari Heptaglot Senior Member Norway Joined 6571 days ago 2314 posts - 5695 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Mandarin, Cantonese Studies: Czech, Latin, German | Message 8 of 45 03 June 2011 at 9:37am | IP Logged |
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Flashcards are awesomesauce on toast. Many people who don't like them seem to have this idea that if you use flashcards, that's the only method you use. Which is bollocks. Flashcarding a word won't mean you automatically know it by heard and know all the subtleties of usage. However, it means you're much more likely to recognize it when you encounter it and to start building on the foundation given by the card. I learn words in three steps:
1: Get the word inside my head. This step is what flashcards are great for. In this step, I can come up with a basic translation of the word if I think for a few seconds. Using flashcards I can stuff truckloads of words in my brain in a short amount of time. 2: Get it to passive fluency. This means I can recognize the word quickly when I encounter it and don't need to translate it in my head. Loads of input will do the trick. After finding the word and stopping my reading or pausing the movie and coming up with the translation a few times, it gets faster and faster and finally I don't have to stop anymore. Step two: check. 3: Get it to active fluency. Now I need to start using the word. Ideally, I'll have native speakers to try it with. I'll have someone I know will correct me when I make mistakes. I start using the word in fixed phrases I remember from phase two. then I start experimenting a bit, putting it together with other words in new ways and checking them with my native speaker. Thus my understanding of the word grows. That's my word learning process. And flashcards are essential for that first step. Without them, you have to look up the word every time in step two, which is very time consuming and will lead you to just skipping it. EDIT: Also, only cavemen use actual physical cards. Get an SRS program such as Anki and step into the 21st century! Edited by Ari on 03 June 2011 at 9:52am 16 persons have voted this message useful |
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