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My Flashcard System | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| CaitO'Ceallaigh Triglot Senior Member United States katiekelly.wordpress Joined 6856 days ago 795 posts - 829 votes  Speaks: English*, Spanish, Russian Studies: Czech, German | Message 1 of 14 26 December 2006 at 3:37pm | IP Logged | ||
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I realized I'd become completely obsessed and so I've cut back quite a bit on language learning. What I'm doing now seems a bit more sensible and sane. Well, we'll see. One, I just can't deal with German right now so forget it. Taking on German happened at the height of my obsession. I had just started working from home, so I had all this "free time". Ug, I don't want to talk about it anymore.
Two, I do a Rosetta Stone Russian lesson a day because I have the software, it takes fifteen minutes a day and why not. After I finish Level II, I'll figure out what to really do with Russian. For now, it's all a nice review. Lastly, I know I've talked about my articial Spanish world, where I lived in a Spanish bubble with my mp3 player on the bus plus magazines, movies, radio, et cetera. I've totally stopped this, with the exception of listening to Jorge Drexler who is the most gifted, wonderful singer songwriter IN THE WORLD. Instead, I had this idea while talking with my Spanish teacher. We're both so impressed with the magazine Punto y coma. Her opinion is, this is the only resource I'd ever really want to use (this and notesinSpanish.com). So I had this idea: what if I managed to learn every single new vocabulary word in this month's issue. I mean, how more complete could you possibly get? Each article has its own glossary, the topics are interesting and current, it uses all types of Spanish language (from Spain anyway) from the sciences to slang, and then most of the articles also come in mp3 format. So then I invented my own flashcard system, inspired by something I've read here. I have a love-hate relationship with flashcards, but I've found something that really works. I got a small filing box for index cards that came with five dividers. I've labeled them as this: Once a day, Twice a week, Once week, Once every two weeks, once a month. I go through my flashcard stack every morning. Takes five minutes. Every word that I know, Spanish to English, English to Spanish, goes to the next level in the filing system. This way, I'm not reviewing the same words every single day and later on down the road, I can review. I was inspired by something I'd read where forgetting words is as important as remembering them. So if I don't have a word memorized, OH WELL. Back in the stack it goes and I try again the next day. And believe it or not, words do eventually stick. And some don't and that's okay. Then I've just been going through the magazine, reading articles out loud, listening to their mp3 files and then doing the included exercises outloud (still making flashcards of all unknown words). This is what helps create the real context for all these new words. So whoa, here's the amazing discovery: all these words I'm learning are all over the place. They're in magazines, newspapers, literature, tv you name it. These are words (mainly expressions and idioms) I might have just glossed over because I at least understood the context. Now they're entering my daily lexicon. I think this is helping me develop an actual command of Spanish, beyond just understanding and being able to talk with patient people. I am noticing actual subtlety and nuance. It's becoming a more powerful language to me. And the more I learn this way, the more alive Spanish becomes. So I'm going to stick with this. Edited by CaitO'Ceallaigh on 26 December 2006 at 3:38pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Ari Heptaglot Senior Member Norway Joined 6581 days ago 2314 posts - 5695 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Mandarin, Cantonese Studies: Czech, Latin, German | Message 2 of 14 27 December 2006 at 5:44am | IP Logged | ||
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Have you considered using a flashcard program with a learning algorithm, like SuperMemo? Your flashcard system seems to work well, so maybe there's no need. I personally love SuperMemo. It calculates exactly when you need to rehearse the word to be able to remember it forever (it will keep repeating it at longer and longer intervals for 30 years!). If you're having trouble with a word, it's repeated more often, and if it's simple, it's pushed further back.
Just thought I'd mention it as an automated alternative to your method. It seems great, I just know that I personally would forget using it. At any rate, well done with the new determination (and I think it's a good idea to focus at one language) and good luck! 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| CaitO'Ceallaigh Triglot Senior Member United States katiekelly.wordpress Joined 6856 days ago 795 posts - 829 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Russian Studies: Czech, German | Message 3 of 14 27 December 2006 at 12:18pm | IP Logged | ||
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SuperMemo looks cool. I've been reading through the site. I don't know, I just like my little box of words. It's portable. I can see myself using SuperMemo, though. Can it handle different language fonts?
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| luke Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 7204 days ago 3133 posts - 4351 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Esperanto, French | Message 4 of 14 27 December 2006 at 12:41pm | IP Logged | ||
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Thanks for the detailed post Cait. It's always nice to hear about a shift in study habits that is paying big dividends. You've got me thinking of using DVD telenovelas as more than entertainment.
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| Dogberry Groupie United States dogberrypatch.com Joined 6564 days ago 60 posts - 60 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 5 of 14 27 December 2006 at 3:46pm | IP Logged | ||
If your operating system can display the font, then SuperMemo can display the font. I use SuperMemo on a Palm, and so it is quite portable. I have my 'cards' with me everywhere I go. I think it would be worth buying a cheap palm off eBay or wherever just to have SuperMemo with me. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| CaitO'Ceallaigh Triglot Senior Member United States katiekelly.wordpress Joined 6856 days ago 795 posts - 829 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Russian Studies: Czech, German | Message 6 of 14 27 December 2006 at 3:51pm | IP Logged | ||
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Can anyone give some examples of how you use it (SuperMemo)? Does anyone use the "Incremental Reading" feature? Has anyone used the "Super Memory Store Collections"? Edited by CaitO'Ceallaigh on 27 December 2006 at 3:53pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Ari Heptaglot Senior Member Norway Joined 6581 days ago 2314 posts - 5695 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Mandarin, Cantonese Studies: Czech, Latin, German | Message 7 of 14 28 December 2006 at 4:01am | IP Logged | ||
I have used neither (and I don't even know what the first one is). My usage is pretty basic. When I want to learn a new word or phrase, I write it in French as a question, and in Swedish as an answer. If I think I need to do it the other way around as well, I do that, too. Then I just make sure I go through the "outstanding material" every day. I started going through the dictionary (not all words, but all that I want to know) and got through A before getting interrupted by school. Now I'm working through my books of argot/slang (as I've found these words immensely useful when watching movies). When done with that, I plan to go through the entire dictionary in the Swedish-to-French section, then skim through the French-to-Swedish to make sure I didn't miss anything. That's how I use it. I haven't started using it for Mandarin, and I think that when I get the need to do that, I'll use ZDT (Zhongwen Development Tool) instead, as it has similar features and is specialized for Mandarin. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| CaitO'Ceallaigh Triglot Senior Member United States katiekelly.wordpress Joined 6856 days ago 795 posts - 829 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Russian Studies: Czech, German | Message 8 of 14 28 December 2006 at 12:02pm | IP Logged | ||
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Well, curiosity got the best of me and I downloaded it. Wow. Okay, I love my little box of words, but this is a great product.
"Incremental Reading" is where you import articles from the Internet. I'm using it with the .pdf versions of Punto y coma. What I like is that you can extract words from the text and then create questions and answers where you fill in the blanks. Too hard to explain here but it wasn't that hard to figure out. Thanks for suggesting SuperMemo. I was skeptical at first but the more I looked at it, the more I realized how useful it can be. By the way, have you read this article? This was written by a guy who used SuperMemo to learn English. http://www.antimoon.com/how/sm.htm His personal account is here: http://www.antimoon.com/how/tomandsm.htm So now my goal is to get all the vocabulary and most of the articles from Punto y coma into Supermemo. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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