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How much time studying vocabulary? | ||
Tags: Time to learn | Vocabulary learning | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Learning Techniques, Methods & Strategies |  | |
| Jeffers Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4702 days ago 2151 posts - 3960 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: Hindi, Ancient Greek, French, Sanskrit, German | Message 65 of 350 30 April 2015 at 11:11am | IP Logged | |||||||||||||||||
There's a lot in here, some really interesting ideas, and some good clarification of your points. I won't try to respond to all of it, but just bring back a few key points. * I agree your mother is boiling eggs for too long. On the other hand, if you tried to grill chicken in 2-4 minutes, I'd say you were risking getting sick. Just like different foods, different words need different times. Noir is a poor example, because it's practically an English word, so like you I would have zipped through that card in a couple of seconds. But take a word like serrurerie and that's a different proposition. Even if you know the meaning instantly, it's worth taking the time to think about how to pronounce it properly. Like you, I spend more of my time doing things other than SRS, but I'd rather not break up the flow of reading to think deeply about the word; that is something I can take the time for while doing SRS. * I decided to look at my Anki stats and see how much I've done in the past 30 days. I've SRSed 2500 cards (many of them repeats, of course), and spent 500 minutes, making an average of 5 words per minute. Much of that time occurred while doing other things (e.g. watching TV), so the time taken is stretched a bit in comparison to what it would be if I only did SRS when I was concentrating on it. * I'm glad you clarified your methods of learning words. "22 minutes inside SRS, and let's say 60 minutes outside SRS", totalling 82 minutes per word, seems like a reasonable learning period, and is something we can work with in thinking about how we use SRS. It does mean that, although you could SRS 8000 words in a year, you have no hope of learning 8000 new words in a year at that rate; there just aren't that many hours in a year. I do realize that 60 minutes is probably a figure you pulled out of the air, and on reflection you might make it shorter. * My only real objection was what I thought was the implication that you could learn 7-8000 words by SRSing for 22 minutes a day. * I'm liking your spreadsheet idea, and a big thanks to rdearman for showing us a working model. I teach ICT in a secondary school, so I'll probably show it to my classes as another example of how many things you can do with a spreadsheet. I call spreadsheets "duct tape for geeks", since we use it for everything! 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||||||||||||||
| daegga Tetraglot Senior Member Austria lang-8.com/553301 Joined 4314 days ago 1076 posts - 1792 votes Speaks: German*, EnglishC2, Swedish, Norwegian Studies: Danish, French, Finnish, Icelandic | Message 66 of 350 30 April 2015 at 12:07pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||||||||
Judging by the previous comments, this must be 82 minutes per day, not per word ;)
Real geeks don't use spreadsheets of course, it's cumbersome in a command shell if there even is a usable implementation (using ncurses or so). Isn't it usually the business administration guys and the secretaries who use spreadsheets? Edited by daegga on 30 April 2015 at 12:08pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||||||||||||||
| Ezy Ryder Diglot Senior Member Poland youtube.com/user/Kat Joined 4142 days ago 284 posts - 387 votes Speaks: Polish*, English Studies: Mandarin, Japanese | Message 67 of 350 30 April 2015 at 12:10pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||||||||
I think your maths is wrong... 82 minutes is the time spent daily on vocabulary acquisition, at the pace of 8k words a year. If it did take 82 minutes per word, that'd amount to just 365.25 words a year (on average). The average number of words "introduced" daily must be around 21.9, and if it takes 82 minutes daily, it means it's just ~3.75 minutes per word. EDIT: Ninja'd. Edited by Ezy Ryder on 30 April 2015 at 12:11pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||||||||||||||
| Jeffers Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4702 days ago 2151 posts - 3960 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Hindi, Ancient Greek, French, Sanskrit, German | Message 68 of 350 30 April 2015 at 1:02pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||||||||
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Whoops, I guess I read that one completely wrong! I read as time per word rather than time per day.
While I agree with the point that you could SRS 8000 words in a year, I still think it would be an amazing feat to both learn and SRS 8000 words in a single year. The poll I created was to see what language learners actually do, and so far nobody has ticked the 8000+ choice. A lot of the confusion between smallwhite and myself is over what we do with SRS. I use SRS for learning words in order to read, watch and listen. For me reviewing mainly takes place when I read, watch and listen. For smallwhite (if I understand her correctly), SRS is for reviewing words she has learned by other means. Edited by Jeffers on 30 April 2015 at 1:10pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||||||||
| rdearman Senior Member United Kingdom rdearman.orgRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5029 days ago 881 posts - 1812 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Italian, French, Mandarin | Message 69 of 350 30 April 2015 at 1:48pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||||||||
As an IT person I have to say the use of spreadsheets is my biggest bugbear. Especially when people use spreadsheets for DATA. Data goes into databases, spreadsheets are for calculations of numbers, and in fact databases can normally do those calculations better. It is just people tend to think in terms of grid layouts. If you've ever had to pull apart some of these obscene spreadsheets and make it into a proper database you'd happily kick Dan Bricklin in the arse. Anyway. I really like smallwhites spreadsheet it is very simple to implement and I'm thinking of using it for my Mandarin studies. It would help me to write in PinYin and hence Characters. I can see the use of having to type in the answer quickly. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||||||||||||||
| rdearman Senior Member United Kingdom rdearman.orgRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5029 days ago 881 posts - 1812 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Italian, French, Mandarin | Message 70 of 350 30 April 2015 at 11:16pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||||||||
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I have done an excel spreadsheet which is loosely based on smallwhites method. I tried to put it on google drive but it kept messing up the conditional formating. So if you want to download it and have a go it is here: Vocabulary.xlsx
My Italian tutor is always giving me crossword puzzle books. It is a great way to mine words for vocabulary, and I can just use the hint sentence in the puzzle for the book. So I've arranged the spreadsheet this way, so I have the answer, the hint, and the number of letters. You can rearrange as you please. I even included a pie chart, because all spreadsheets need a pie chart. :) 4 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||||||||||||||
| smallwhite Pentaglot Senior Member Australia Joined 5101 days ago 537 posts - 1045 votes Speaks: Cantonese*, English, Mandarin, French, Spanish | Message 71 of 350 01 May 2015 at 2:24am | IP Logged | |||||||||||||||||
OK, radio & conversations count like reading, but I don't do these either if I don't have to. There's an actively learning stage, and there's a graduated therefore no longer actively learning stage (I understand we learn new things every day even in our native language so I added the word "actively"). My goal is between those 2 stages. So, before reaching my goal, I study actively, but I only read or converse the bare minumum, just enough to reach my goal. Reading is not a given, and neither is radio, tutoring sessions, conversations, etc. "I don't need SRS because I re-encounter words when I read / listen to radio / take classes" is still saying "I don't need SRS because I do other forms of study". Whereas I would evaluate SRS TOGETHER with those other forms of study to pick what's most efficient. Instead of taking the other forms of study as given, and looking at whether using SRS in addition to them is necessary. (Of course it'd appear unnecessary if you look at it like that! If you're already taking multivitamins you don't need to take additional vitamin C!)
I hear this a lot, and I don't agree at all. Firstly, if you really mean NATURAL setting, that's very un-ambitious (don't know the word XD). That means you're only after maybe 3000 words. I aim higher. Secondly, I aim higher, because with SRS (and other efficient tools and tricks), I can achieve higher levels in the same timeframe. More in the same time, or even less time - who wouldn't want that? Thirdly, I don't believe you can really learn enough in a NATURAL setting. I believe you have to pick your genres carefully, read when you normally wouldn't, and read things you normally wouldn't read. Otherwise you'd only be exposed to maybe 3000 words, which takes us back to my first point above. And there you have a full loop.
But what I wrote there is afterall, personal preference, and people are welcome to say "I do prefer less in more time". My real question is - how is reading/exposure same as SRS? SRS is: more frequent initially, less frequent later. READING is: frequent words more frequent, less frequent words less frequent. READING is: encountering the word "friend" twice a day, the word "acquaintance" once a month. SRS is: encountering the word "friend" twice a day now, once a month later, once a year even later. Totally different, no? 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||||||||||||||
| smallwhite Pentaglot Senior Member Australia Joined 5101 days ago 537 posts - 1045 votes Speaks: Cantonese*, English, Mandarin, French, Spanish | Message 72 of 350 01 May 2015 at 3:03am | IP Logged | |||||||||||||||||
Sounds like I should teach ICT. I use Excel for everything! Empty grids for Chinese calligraphy, grids with pale grey Japanese words for writing over with pen, conjugation drills for French, blank music scores for writing music...
You understand her correctly. It's up to you how you use SRS/flashcards, but I'd sincerely like to remind you that learning is distinct from memorising, SRS was designed for memorisation, and that it's often best to use the right tools for the right purpose. If you and I use the same tool yet learn at different speeds, maybe it's because of the way we use the tool.
Learning 8000 words in a year is just 22 words a day. Not that hard if you use tricks like mnemonics or the just-pick-the-easiest-words I use, and beginning the SRS process rightaway. Once you do begin it, the chance of forgetting is just 15% for Anki (I's told) and 3.34% for my just-pick-the-easiest-words. If you spread it over 3 sessions during the day that's even easier. I noticed that I can only learn so many words in a session, but I can learn many, many sessions each day and still remember. I learned 78 Italian words the other day over multiple sessions, and when I did the reps the following day, they didn't feel any harder than my usual 12~18 words. Each session seemed independant. Edited by smallwhite on 01 May 2015 at 3:06am 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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