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Learning with Anki (not just review)

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tangleweeds
Groupie
United States
Joined 3335 days ago

70 posts - 105 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: Irish, French

 
 Message 1 of 14
12 May 2015 at 11:12pm | IP Logged 
In a couple of recent threads, I noticed people saying flashcards/SRS are meant for review,
not initial learning. I thought that was interesting, because flashcards have always been
the most effective way for me to drill large quantities of new information into my brain,
far more effectively than simply reading, re-reading, and/or taking notes.

So one question I have is: if you only use SRS only for review, what other activities
constitute your original learning process? What strategies, other than SRS, do people use
to make large quantities of unfamiliar data stick in their memory?

One feature of Anki I particularly depend on is the ability to use cards to help me
practice pronunciation, by playing the native speaker audio, and allowing me to record
myself repeating what I just heard. It seems essential to be able to listen and compare my
pronunciation to a native speaker's, as hearing my recorded voice allows me to notice flaws
in my pronunciation which are otherwise not discernable while I'm actually speaking. This a
one major reason I do most of my serious study in Anki. Is there other software I could be
using like this?

I'd also be curious to hear from others who use Anki to speed their initial learning
process, as well as for review. I've used Anki for many years, and I've noticed that it has
gradually become increasingly optimized for this sort of initial learning, whereas in the
past it took more hacking to use it effectively for learning rather than review.
2 persons have voted this message useful



chaotic_thought
Diglot
Senior Member
United States
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Speaks: English*, German
Studies: Dutch, French

 
 Message 2 of 14
13 May 2015 at 12:14am | IP Logged 
tangleweeds wrote:
What strategies, other than SRS, do people use
to make large quantities of unfamiliar data stick in their memory?


Most programs already incorporate SRS (spaced repetition) if you think about it. In a typical language program you begin by repeating simple sentences in short intervals ("listen and repeat" or something similar), and as the lessons proceed, the items are repeated with larger intervals naturally.

For studying a new text I find it personally helpful to highlight new items. For example, the first time I see a new word "X" in a text I am reading, I will highlight or underline it. The next time I see another X in the same text, I should hopefully remember having seen it a few minutes ago, and with some luck I'll remember the meaning as well. If not, I can wander back to that page where I highlighted X to see if I can remind myself. This is also a form of SRS. You don't need flash cards to do it.

After you finish the text you can optionaly collect the highlighted words and drill them. But most of the time I just move on to another text. I estimate I spend about 1% of my study time on flash cards.

I noticed for me that some words just "stick" for whatever reasons and some words don't. So if I tried from the beginning to make them all stick forcibly by drilling flash cards, I would basically be doing extra work on all the items that are going to stick easily on their own. Some items need drilling for whatever reason, but nowhere near a majority need drilling. And my memory is not that good either. For someone with a good memory you probably need to drill even fewer items.


Edited by chaotic_thought on 13 May 2015 at 12:19am

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smallwhite
Pentaglot
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Australia
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Speaks: Cantonese*, English, Mandarin, French, Spanish

 
 Message 3 of 14
13 May 2015 at 4:00am | IP Logged 
tangleweeds wrote:
In a couple of recent threads, I noticed people saying flashcards/SRS are meant for review, not initial learning. I thought that was interesting, because flashcards have always been
the most effective way for me to drill large quantities of new information into my brain,
far more effectively than simply reading, re-reading, and/or taking notes.

So one question I have is: if you only use SRS only for review, what other activities
constitute your original learning process? What strategies, other than SRS, do people use
to make large quantities of unfamiliar data stick in their memory?


It's just a matter of definition, of where the line is between "learning" and "memorisation". I don't normally or always use the words like this, but within the context of SRS, by "learning" I mean from not knowing or understanding to knowing and understanding. From not knowing how to conjugate Spanish verbs, to seeing the conjugation tables and being told how to use them - but not remembering any conjugation ending yet. "To drill large quantities of new information into my brain" would belong to "memorisation".

Have you read this link, "The 20 rules of formulating knowledge in learning"? I think it's written by the Supermemo team, and as such kind of forms part of the instructions of using Supermemo / an SRS program. The second rule is "Learn before you memorize".

I hope I didn't say "flashcards/SRS are meant for review" because flashcards and SRS are 2 different things. I'd say "SRS is meant for review" - Spaced Repetition System, a revision scheduling system - but flashcards can be used for anything, for example, just for record-keeping, or for improving response speed.

So, by defining "learning" and "memorising" the way I do above, I don't think you're really asking us for ways to "learn", because the answer would just be "using Assimil" or "reading Harry Potter". I think you're asking us how we bridge initial learning and Anki, how we slightly memorise the new word, in order to be able to answer the first rep in Anki.

Well, if all else fails, you can always tweak Anki settings (or use another app) to start with really, really short intervals, like 2 mins > 4 mins > 8 mins... That sounds painful but should work, theoretically, for really hard-to-remember cards.

Another way is to only SRS words that you're already slightly familiar with. Have you seen my posts about having an initial word list of ~3000 words, and then picking the 10 easiest words from there to SRS?

When I used that method, I used to drill the words a bit first by answering flashcards repeatedly; like the "cram" function in Anki I think, where you answer cards the normal way but the results don't count. I used my Excel file and other homemade apps where the cards can flip really fast. I'd drill repeatedly until I can constantly respond instantaneously, as if I were answering cards on my mother tongue.

And I used to make up little word games that force me to fiddle around with the batch of new words, looking at them repeatedly and thinking about their meaning.

Another trick is to incorporate SRS into the intial learning. Eg. when I extract unknown words from novels or word lists, instead of writing down the word, looking up the dictionary and writing down the definition the moment I encounter the unknown word, all of which constituting only 1 encounter of the word, I would split up those steps: I would read the whole chapter, copying down all the unknown L2 words, then go back to the first unknown word and look up the dictionary and understand the definitions of each word, then go back to the first word and write down all the definitions. That would be like 3 repetitions already.

This last trick works so well that in fact I can't start SRSing rightaway because it'd be too easy and boring. I start 1 day later, and words towards the end of the batch usually get started 2 days later.

And then there's Memrise, which has an initial learning phase of 6 reps before starting the SRS schedule.

Edited by smallwhite on 13 May 2015 at 4:23am

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Serpent
Octoglot
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Russian Federation
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 Message 4 of 14
13 May 2015 at 4:53am | IP Logged 
chaotic_thought wrote:
Most programs already incorporate SRS (spaced repetition) if you think about it. In a typical language program you begin by repeating simple sentences in short intervals ("listen and repeat" or something similar), and as the lessons proceed, the items are repeated with larger intervals naturally.

Actually some courses use spaced repetition deliberately, such as Assimil and Pimsleur. Assimil expects you to do one lesson a day.

Podcasts also seem to try to incorporate that, but if a resource doesn't state that officially, that's very hit-and-miss. Although especially for the more common words there's a lot of natural repetition.

As for the original question, I've never thought of it explicitly but I guess I try to focus on items that I'm ready to remember and have no aversion to. Some words just don't click and I generally avoid wasting the time on them. Maybe they'll click later, or maybe I don't need them. If I can't avoid them I google more examples, perhaps listen to an actual human pronouncing them on forvo etc.

I also generally grade cards as 0 or 1 repeatedly before getting them right for the first time. (this shouldn't affect the leech threshold) Basically, I treat them as actual cards from the first time Anki presents them, so I try to remember, usually fail, then do some more cards and soon I'll see it again.
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tangleweeds
Groupie
United States
Joined 3335 days ago

70 posts - 105 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: Irish, French

 
 Message 5 of 14
13 May 2015 at 9:13am | IP Logged 
Thanks, everyone, you've helped me with some useful shifts in perspective. I've had a
couple of insights into where the question comes from.

One factor in my Anki-dependence is that I'm still in that very early bootstrapping stage
with Irish, where it's still a struggle to accumulate enough vocabulary and grammar to read
the simplest materials, or catch more than a handful of words when watching Irish language
TV. There isn't a lot comprehensible input available for this early a stage of learning,
which makes it hard to gather understanding by seeing things in use. All of this was far
less of a problem during my foray into French, where there were all kinds of media aimed at
beginners, so I felt less need to feed Anki any French.

Another factor is that Irish spelling and pronunciation are very, very different from
English, so my initial pronunciation guesses are often laughably off-target. So I try to
make my exposure Irish text be accompanied by or compared to native speaker audio as often
as possible, and have come to depend on Anki as a way of automating this.

So maybe I'm asking what other methods people use to bootstrap themselves into minimal
competency in a new and unfamiliar language.
1 person has voted this message useful



Serpent
Octoglot
Senior Member
Russian Federation
serpent-849.livejour
Joined 6357 days ago

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 Message 6 of 14
13 May 2015 at 3:03pm | IP Logged 
tangleweeds wrote:
Another factor is that Irish spelling and pronunciation are very, very different from English, so my initial pronunciation guesses are often laughably off-target.

There are probably exceptions, but have you learned the rules?
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tangleweeds
Groupie
United States
Joined 3335 days ago

70 posts - 105 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: Irish, French

 
 Message 7 of 14
13 May 2015 at 3:36pm | IP Logged 
I've got the general rules down, but there are still surprises. I get caught out when a vowel
is present only to influence the broad/slender quality of an adjoining consonants, so it
doesn't get pronounced in itself, or when the dialect I'm learning swallows entire syllables
that other dialects might choose to pronounce.

Good point though. I'll re-list pronunciation rules for more intensive study, as there do seem
to be things I'm missing.
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rdearman
Senior Member
United Kingdom
rdearman.orgRegistered users can see my Skype Name
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881 posts - 1812 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: Italian, French, Mandarin

 
 Message 8 of 14
13 May 2015 at 5:41pm | IP Logged 
Interesting thread. I've been trying to work out a way to do irregular French & Italian verb conjugation tables using anki. Most of the ones I've downloaded are rubbish. At the moment I just have a table on a bit of paper posted to my wall. :)


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