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Sick and tired of SRS part 2 | ||
Tags: Spaced Repetition (SRS) | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Learning Techniques, Methods & Strategies |  | |
| PeterMollenburg Senior Member AustraliaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5258 days ago 821 posts - 1273 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: FrenchB1 | Message 9 of 41 17 June 2015 at 11:30am | IP Logged | ||||||||
True. I guess I'm prepared to drop English as my type-written required answer for my cards, but not completely get rid of English from my cards at this stage. Perhaps learning things by heart (or trying to) has been part of my problem at times. The way you seem to approach your word lists- not going back to them after a 2nd or 3rd visit seems that you might not learn things by heart but in fact learn to 'recognize' words (like emk's recognition cards) and gain a feel for the language in that language. Iversen, do you use Danish or another language when creating your word lists? What do you write next to each new term? what's your guide? A definition in that language?
I see your point here and I'm sure it makes sense for learning your vocab from wordlists containing associated terms. I have a few issues with this. Firstly for me if I have too many associated words to learn in the one group of new words/terms (or at least closer together in time- ie same day) I run a much higher risk of confusing terms/forms. I prefer to add unknown words to my FC deck as they appear. This way when I come across peine a day, a week, months later I feel like it's a natural form of SRS and that I strengthen neural pathways between à peine and peine. In other words if I learn à peine and peine together I MIGHT confuse them (probably not) and then it feels more like an island to me rather than a connection. If I come across à peine today and peine a few weeks from now I think back to à peine and the two islands now have connecting ferries rather than one island with a bunch of huts that look similar. Having said all that I do utilise association to some degree but don't go out of my way to utilise it. Also as I add vocab from learning materials as I progress (though lessons, through a book) I dont'want to stop for 20 minutes adding all the various forms. I"m best to move on this way i've learned it in context and then 'peine' will be learned in context some time later. And as a bonus if I"ve forgotten what à peine means then peine will likely remind me be revisiting that island briefly while sitting down for talks over the newly proposed ferry service between the two islands.
I agree learning one translation at a time is a good idea unless more than one translation word is simply to bring more clarity to the first word and not an entirely different meaning (as explained in my response to emk). I think trying to learn all distinctly different meanings of a word within the one flashcard is asking for trouble (but nuances/shades of meaning are ok provided they are very close). Yes learning the rest later is wise. okay so my cards will appear like this now Direction 1 Side 1: J'arrive à p_____ à soulever mon sac I can "hardly" lift my bag (I answer "à peine" - answering just "eine" is fraught with issues as my answer is taken from side 1 when card created) Side 2: à peine loc adv *hardly, barely, scarcely Direction 2: Side 1: *hardly, barely, scarcely J'arrive à p_____ à soulever mon sac (same expected type written response as direction 1: à peine) Side 2: à peine loc adv I can "hardly" lift my bag ---------- So the two latest changes are the hints (or half cloze if you like) ie instead of "J'arrive ______ à soulever mon sac" it's now "J'arrive à p____ à soulever mon sac" Easy cards, much less likelihood of using an incorrect synonym. and the other change is the asterisk beside *hardly (see above) this will clarify that out of the three English shades of meaning it is 'hardly' that this sentence translates more appropriately to. As I said different distinctive meanings (not shades of meaning) will be on a separate card altogether. PM 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| PeterMollenburg Senior Member AustraliaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5258 days ago 821 posts - 1273 votes Speaks: English* Studies: FrenchB1 | Message 10 of 41 17 June 2015 at 12:25pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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I"ve tried improving on this last layout mentioned to no avail. I think it's the best
I can come up with currently without making things far too complicated and winding up back at the start (over-complicated slow to create cards). Also I'd prefer to have 2 variations (directions) of the same cards. I tried definitions (working out how to do recognition cards like emk), but couldn't get it running smoothly (efficiently) enough imo. I was able to create all the necessary components within the one card with two programmed layouts for reviews but the whole copy paste of definition and adding example sentences is proving fiddly. It extends the creation of one card out too long. Eseentially I need brief cards that give a tad more than the gist of the word, but nothing much more. I think the above formula is the best yet with sufficient variation EDIT: Thanks for the input guys. I really appreciate having replies from a bunch of very well seasoned language learners- you good old bunch of guys you (pushes you over emphatically - think Elaine from Seinfeld)... Although I'm not naive enough to think a 'newbie' that hasn't learned languages for any where near as long couldn't offer great advice as well- a very diplomatic premier-ministre like addition there monsieur le PM if I do say so myself. Although I actually mean it ;) (opposed to ahem *cough* actual PMs) Edited by PeterMollenburg on 17 June 2015 at 12:56pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
 emk Diglot Moderator United States Joined 5314 days ago 2615 posts - 8806 votes Speaks: English*, FrenchB2 Studies: Spanish, Ancient Egyptian Personal Language Map | Message 11 of 41 17 June 2015 at 1:29pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
I almost never make both. My rule of thumb goes something like: 1. Is this a word that I really, genuinely want in my active vocabulary? If so, make a half-word cloze card or two. 2. Is this a word that I only care about understanding in context? If so, make a recognition card.
Seriously, I wouldn't worry about any of that stuff. I'd just design my cards so that I didn't have to care. Mostly, nuances will just care of themselves if I'm reading enough. I'll see the word, and say, "Oh, I didn't know I could use it that way. Cool." Every once in a while, I'll see an especially interesting new use of a word, and I'll copy and paste it onto a recognition card. That's more than enough. You've probably noticed theme in my advice: Simple, easy cards work great. I've done something like 35,000+ Anki reps, and my card formats have gotten simpler and simpler, and they're definitely more effective now than when I started. If you feel the urge to overthink your SRS cards, then at least devote that effort to inventing new, ridiculously easy card formats. :-) If I recall correctly, the AJATT community went through much the same process: They started out doing all kinds of brutal memory excises with kanji, and keywords, and stories, and all that. But over the course of years, they finally moved towards lazy kanji cards, which are far easier: 1. Look at the kanji on the front of the card, and copy it out by hand. 2. Guess any word that is even vaguely associated with any meaning of the character. ...and then pass the card. You don't need brutally rack your memory or recall an exquisitely precise definition—you just need to be able to perform some ridiculously easy act of comprehension or recall. Another way to think of it: You don't do SRS cards to master the meanings of words. You do SRS cards to tell your brain, "Hey, this word exists, and it means more-or-less something like..." Later, this knowledge acts more-or-less as a "anchoring point" to which your brain can attach details while reading. SRS cards aren't really about mastery, they're about jump starting. 6 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
 Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6485 days ago 9078 posts - 16473 votes Speaks: Danish*, French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, Romanian, Catalan Studies: Afrikaans, Greek, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian, Icelandic, Latin, Irish, Lowland Scots, Indonesian, Polish, Croatian Personal Language Map | Message 12 of 41 17 June 2015 at 1:33pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
I could say exactly the same thing about my use of wordlists.
I don't do SRS cards so my situation is different. With my wordlists there are two scenarios: some lists are based on lists of new words in concrete texts (typically from intensively studied texts, where I jot all unknown or otherwise interesting words down in the right margin), and here there obviously is a context, although it is hidden in a text and not written on the same sheet as the wordlist. With 1 or 2 repetitions shortly after the original list I still have some idea about the original context. With my dictionary based lists there isn't a context, except that I might add a note on morphology or mention the preposition which is most likely to follow a given verb. I sometimes include short word combinations (including idiomatic expressions) in a word list, but not long ones - mostly for space reasons. The important thing with both SRS and wordlists is to memorize each word or word in combination with one or max. two core meanings - the one or ones you write on the paper - and a number of 'memory hooks' (including associations), which aren't written anywhere but just stored in your memory. Trying to memorize a lot of different meanings and expressions that include a certain word is an exercise in its own right, and this exercise is best performed for one word at a time and on a simple sheet of paper, where you have space for memory maps, tables or whatever suits your mindset best. And with 'grammar' words this exercise will be more or less the same thing as studying grammar mechanisms rather than learning specific words. And btw, in my word lists I mostly use Danish in the translation column, but if there is a shorter or less ambiguous term in some other language I'll often chose that one instead. And when I jot down unknown words from bilingual text I'll often make notes in the language of the translation - and that doesn't have to be in Danish. Edited by Iversen on 17 June 2015 at 1:46pm 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| chaotic_thought Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 3324 days ago 129 posts - 274 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Dutch, French | Message 13 of 41 17 June 2015 at 1:33pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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For sentence vocabulary cards I use three fields, all with a "cloze"-style prompt in Anki:
Dictionary Form Sentence (the phrase that I highlight is "clozed out" in the display) Definition All fields are optional. The dictionary form field is really just for sorting and reference purposes. If the word than I'm training has synonyms in the language that I know, then I just write the synonym(s) that I know in to the Definition field. Example: men zegt ____: "De Graslei in Gent is de mooiste straat in de wereld." : soms; ooit > weleens In this example, I must type the missing word after the prompt symbol ">". By the way, I've never ever used the word "weleens" before, and I wouldn't be terribly surprised if I never need to utter it except when explicitly discussing the word itself. But when I encounter this word in another context I'd like to be able to recognize it. Typing it in is a way for me to actually think about this specific word itself, to practice spelling it (spelling a word that I think I know can be quite hard for me in Dutch!) and to avoid getting bored out of my mind whenever I review flash-cards. Quite often (80-90%) I notice that the sentences I pick out don't even need a definition. Just start your card without any definition and see if you can remember it that way: Wouter ____ voor zijn grote oren > schaamt zich I was always able to remember it, and it's already clear what the meaning is, so I've never needed to bother thinking about what a truly faithful translation for "zich schamen" might be. For some cards I skip the sentence altogether and just include a definition or translation if appropriate: : een dochter van je broer of zus > de nicht Basically, this three field-approach lets me do all of these variations with just one card layout, so I find it easy to work with, and I don't waste my time with multiple "directions". 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| PeterMollenburg Senior Member AustraliaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5258 days ago 821 posts - 1273 votes Speaks: English* Studies: FrenchB1 | Message 14 of 41 17 June 2015 at 2:14pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Well... this thread is proving useful :)
emk, I like your tune that's slowly but surely being drummed into my head- simplicity! I'm acyually now considering to do two example sentences for my (half) cloze deletion deck instead of the 2nd direction/manner in which i started off with English def+same French sentence. I'm really gravitating towards that for its simplicity, more examples and even larger step away from the crutch of English... well sort of. Iversen your core meaning and memory hooks make a lot of sense, but I won't apply this to my own vocab acqusition at this stage. I may try it at a later stage but truthfully I generally don't operate that way even if it screams of logic. I wanted to see if you translate your words as you said why use English. I see that you use another language too (often your mother tongue) when learning vocab, so what exactly did you mean when you alluded to me dropping English? chaotic thought your Dutch only cards look good. It seems that where I'm at now, the more I move away from English the better- maybe this is the kind of thing Iversen meant. My 'multiple directions' might be serving up some confusion. As I dont use Anki I wasnt sure how to describe it. Basically I'm creating predominantly 2 main 'versions' as you call them by entering info into 5 fields within the one card or layout. Perhaps confusion arose as my meaning for 'direction' seems to equate to your 'version' which my FC program labels 'layouts'. ie I enter info into 5 fields, while having already selected options to have two different versions of this same single card tested in those two different ways using different fields selected from among the 5 entered. Its all automated- all i do is enter the info into the fields. Edited by PeterMollenburg on 17 June 2015 at 2:15pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| PeterMollenburg Senior Member AustraliaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5258 days ago 821 posts - 1273 votes Speaks: English* Studies: FrenchB1 | Message 15 of 41 17 June 2015 at 4:27pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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After reading over the posts in this thread several times and going back to my FC deck to fiddle with the
options/layouts and so on I became fed up with the whole thing and went back to my origingal deck... No, just joking (as stubborn as I am though you probably thought it was true for a moment). It finally sunk in what more than one person has been saying in this thread after re-reading- translation is fraught with assorted issues/ why rely heavily or even mildly on English. So I simplified. Although I discovered I could actually create far more than 2 "directions/layouts/versions" for drilling the same set of cards in more combinations than you can poke a stick at... I cut back to 1 version/layout/direction. eg Front: J'arrive à p____ à soulever mon sac. (hardly) expected typed response: à peine or perhaps 2 sentences: J'arrive à p____ à soulever mon sac. (hardly) Elle sait à p____ lire (hardly, barely) (same expected answer: à peine) Back: loc adv (phonetics if req'd) (I don't need to have the answer to sentence as when I type it on side 1/front I will get a correction then) Even less English (sentence translation gone) and very little likelihood for ambiguous responses, half close kept (good suggestion!) and the nuances of meaning gone- the English translations gone except for under each corresponding sentence as emk does. I think this is simple as I can go for now without driving myself insane. Ok finally, I think I actually have it now ;) Thanks again peoples, peace up! Your insights, input and resourcefulness are highly valued, cheers :) PM 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| PeterMollenburg Senior Member AustraliaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5258 days ago 821 posts - 1273 votes Speaks: English* Studies: FrenchB1 | Message 16 of 41 18 June 2015 at 3:24am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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hmmmm, another adjustment.
I realised that I don't always have example sentences, and I don't really want to have to go looking for them all the time. That being said cloze cards are my default, but in the off chance I'm learning isolated vocab without any cloze sentences due to not being able to find them, not wanting to, just wanting to speed things along, or some other reason... Well what I did was this. As there is no 'if' clause i'm aware of in my FC deck, I had to do a work around (i also added a number in the brackets to indicate if there is more than one word to an answer). My change here btw will mean I do enter English translations (not sentences tho). Side 1 if I have cloze sentences goes like this J'arrive à p___ à soulever mon sac (hardly, 2) Elle sait à p____ lire (hardly, barely, 2) TYPED ANSWER REQU'D : à peine Obsucred behind the answer section are my English translations.... therefore, if I have no cloze sentences the English is no longer obscurred and side 1 will appear like this: hardly, scarcely, barely TYPED ANSWER REQU'D: à peine Side 2 à peine loc adv It means I need to ensure I have a min of 5 lines of text (max of 6) in my example sentence section, so if I only have one example I just need to hit enter a few times to create that gap that pushes the English text down behind where I'm meant to type. In actual fact I think this will just streamline things. English translations are there but NOT needed UNLESS I have no cloze sentences in which case they will be my prompts. word EDIT: Maybe I should have either/or, not both. I could treat my cloze field as my clue field and put in there whatever I like to arrive at the answer à peine- ie if I have good cloze sentences use them, if not, just type in the English translations that avoids all the BS with hiding things behind the answer section Edited by PeterMollenburg on 18 June 2015 at 3:34am 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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