Svenska 10000
Printed From: How-to-learn-any-language.com
Forum Name: Language Learning Log
Forum Discription: Your personal language learning logbook: milestones, successes, brick walls & goals great and small. Document your progress and get support, tips and encouragement from other forum members.
URL: http://how-to-learn-any-language.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=33590
Printed Date: 15 May 2021 at 6:13am
Posted By: Rob Tickner
Subject: Svenska 10000
Date Posted: 31 August 2012 at 3:01am
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Intensive Swedish vocab acquisition for a good kick start in the language.
Have done the Pimsleur course, so have a good start with pronunciation and basic phrases. Created a deck in Anki by purchasing this publication: http://www.tpbooks.com/about_English-Swedish_vocabulary_3000 _words/113 as an EPUB, then running a script across it to convert it into a format suitable for import into Anki. The content is copyrighted, so I can't share this deck, sorry. Plan is 200 new words per day + scheduled reviews. Words will be reviewed as per the schedule after the initial 15 days, along with getting into some native materials (L-R if I can find suitable material for purchase). I am aware that the number of stacked cards will soon become burdensome. I post this for neither pride nor merit, but as people have a tendency to proclaim that such a thing "cannot be done", it will serve as either proof to their claim, or evidence to the contrary. |
Replies:
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Day 1 (yesterday)
Total: 200 New: 200 Review: 0 Time: 85mins. Rob Tickner on 31 August 2012 |
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Good luck! If you're committed, then you should be able to complete you goal. I don't think I'd ever be able to do it though xP
And even if you find you have to slow down halfway through, you'll still achieve your goal as long as you keep going :) ZombieKing on 31 August 2012 |
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I won't say it can't be done, but I'm glad I'm not the one doing it.
Swedish is a lovely language by the way, and since you have a background in both English and German, it should be very easy for you. Brun Ugle on 31 August 2012 |
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Thank you for your kind words.
Day 2 Total: 400 New: 200 Review: 200 Time: 108 mins. Rob Tickner on 31 August 2012 |
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200 words a day does sound ambitious. For comparison I'm slowly edging towards (and
sometimes away from :) ) the 50 per day mark in Danish, but that includes cognates and words I half know, etc, and it's probably only in the range 20-30 really new words. But I certainly won't say it won't be done, and the way your have set it forth means it's quite predictable with a clear end goal in sight. And 3000 sounds like a tidy vocabulary to have for a basis to build on for the future. I'll be watching from the sidelines and cheering you on. I think there is probably a lot to be said for rapid word acquisition, especially if it can be accompanied by frequent repetition and exposure to native materials that help put it in context. montmorency on 31 August 2012 |
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Your thread title sounds like some new model of Scandinavian robot. Which is, in a way, related, as machine-like
discipline will certainly be needed for this challenge. :-P Keep us updated! Hekje on 31 August 2012 |
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Day 3
Total: 600 New: 200 Review: 247 Time: 138 mins Rob Tickner on 01 September 2012 |
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Day 4
Total: 800 New: 200 Review: 238 Time: 118 mins Rob Tickner on 02 September 2012 |
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Day 5
Total: 1000 New: 200 Review: 246 Time: 114 mins Notes so far: 1. Knowing English and being comfortable with German means that I've been able to hook around 90% of words to words that sounds similar to the English or German equivalent. Even French has been a slight help - e.g. affisch = poster. 2. Using an SRS alleviates the pressure of having to make a conscious effort to remember all these words. I can just let go and enjoy the learning process. 3. Average retention rate is around 80% perfectly, I would venture to say 90% accounting for simple mistakes (mixing up a, ä, å, or using incorrect gender). 4. It feels more of a pleasure than a chore. Rob Tickner on 03 September 2012 |
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So would you say that Swedish shares a large vocabulary with German? I wouldn't mind learning to read Swedish one day :)
ZombieKing on 04 September 2012 |
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Definitely a strong correlation between the two, though often with slightly different
spelling, e.g. berühmt = berömd. Rob Tickner on 04 September 2012 |
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Ahhh, well, that's wonderful news.
Have you started with the L & R yet? ZombieKing on 04 September 2012 |
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I'll most likely start LR when I finish learning these 3000 words, and the subsequent
reviews start to spread out a little. Rob Tickner on 04 September 2012 |
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Day 6
Total: 1200 New: 200 Review: 379 Time: 163 mins Rob Tickner on 04 September 2012 |
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Day 7
Total: 1400 New: 200 Review: 467 Time: 146 mins Rob Tickner on 05 September 2012 |
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Day 8
Total: 1600 New: 200 Review: 416 Time: 151 mins Rob Tickner on 06 September 2012 |
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Day 9
Total: 1800 New: 200 Reviews: 503 Time: 141 minutes Rob Tickner on 07 September 2012 |
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Omg! 2+ hours of anki review D: Seems painful...
But it looks like you're doing alright! Just wondering, are you going to keep reviewing this deck indefinitely? Or are you going to stop once you reach 3000 words? ZombieKing on 08 September 2012 |
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Day 10
Total: 2000 New: 200 Reviews: 487 Time: 153 mins Rob Tickner on 08 September 2012 |
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2000 :-o Are you an Anki superhero?!
prz_ on 08 September 2012 |
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2000 total deck entries, not 2000 reviews :)
tarvos on 08 September 2012 |
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Still! I have less than 200 decks in English and I already think that it's quite much.
prz_ on 08 September 2012 |
To quote the OP:
He's 2/3 the way through proving that it can be done. Well done Rob. Not too far to go now. montmorency on 08 September 2012 |
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Thanks, it's certainly nothing remarkably difficult or requiring
a great stretch of intelligence to accomplish, simply a concrete goal and persistence. To clarify, 2000 new words learnt, the deck size is 3000. 200 new words a day plus reviews. Once all the new cards are done, I'll keep doing the reviews as they come up to maintain it all. Rob Tickner on 09 September 2012 |
I believe that your hard work will definitely pay off. There's no reason why a person isn't physically capable of learning 200+ words a day, it's just the discipline it requires to do so is hard to come by. With your determination, I think Swedish will be a breeze for you! ZombieKing on 09 September 2012 |
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For me the problem is not determination, the problem is that (in my case) while having the last several dozen or even several words they simply can't stick to my mind. And when I finally guess them, because there are so little of them that I can remember it for 10-15 seconds, I forget it after another 10-15 seconds ;)
prz_ on 09 September 2012 |
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Day 11
Total: 2200 New: 200 Reviews: 461 Time: 131 mins Rob Tickner on 09 September 2012 |
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Your determination is admirable. I am "mining" my own Japanese deck, and it has only
~1200 items; I only add 10-30 new cards a day. When you're done with those reviews, you could just add new cards based on words you encounter in native material. Perhaps even with Swedish definitions considering the fact that you have 3000 words under your belt... Good luck with the last 800. stifa on 09 September 2012 |
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The "stickiness" of each new Swedish word seems to directly
correlate to the level of similarity with the same word in English or German, and/or the ability to conjure up some memorable image that I can recall later. I imagine one's creativity would get a greater workout as the languages diverged, however. Rob Tickner on 09 September 2012 |
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Thanks for your suggestion, I hadn't considered entries
using Swedish alone. Best of luck with your Japanese studies. Rob Tickner on 09 September 2012 |
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Thanks.
You might end up finding unknown words in the definitions but those words are usually related to the original word, or they might be "dictionary words". I've been doing this with Japanese, and I'm very lucky if I don't have to learn 10-15 more words to actually understand the definitions. The reason for doing that is the fact that some words can't really be translated properly into English. I noticed this when I looked at Lang-8 entries in my own language. An example would be the word "to add" which could be translated to several words in Norwegian. The one most similar to the English word, "Ã¥ addere" is, as far as I know, only used in mathematics. (Please forgive my English language mistakes.) stifa on 09 September 2012 |
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Day 12
Total: 2400 New: 200 Review: 447 Time: 153 mins Rob Tickner on 10 September 2012 |
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Day 13
Total: 2600 New: 200 Review: 647 Time: 138 mins Rob Tickner on 11 September 2012 |
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Impressive!
Day 12: 20.5 sec per review Day 13: 12.8 sec per review How did you almost double your review tempo? stifa on 11 September 2012 |
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A large portion of the words that came around for review on day 13 were words which I'd
reviewed multiple times before, I'd originally seen in the Swedish Pimsleur course I completed prior to this log, or were otherwise easy to recall. I was also a little more alert on Day 13 than on Day 12 (long day at the office), which probably made the whole process a little more efficient. Rob Tickner on 11 September 2012 |
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Day 14
Total: 2800 New: 200 Review: 674 Time: 168 mins Rob Tickner on 12 September 2012 |
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Day 15
Total: 3000 New: 200 Review: 681 Time: 174 mins Rob Tickner on 13 September 2012 |
Rob Tickner on 13 September 2012 |
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Thanks for those who provided encouragement during this endeavor.
As you can deduce from the charts above, there are a substantial number of reviews in the upcoming weeks, which I will tend to with diligence. Once this number of reviews has dropped to a reasonable number (say, 100 per day on average), I will add the next set of cards to my deck (I purchased the Swedish - English 5000 word book from T&P books this morning, and have stripped out those words not in the Svenska 3000 deck, to be added at a later date). I'm going to continue this on later with the 7000 word and the 9000 word set, which should take an additional 30 days at 200 new words a day, though this will be pushed out by the need to take a break at the end of each level until the review count drops. I've given it some thought over the last few days, and while I could probably jump into L-R now, as I did with German and French, I'm not going to do that for Swedish. Not only is this intensive word cramming a lot of fun, but I don't have to think about it - I just have to load up Anki on my smart phone, take a long walk through the countryside and just review and learn, review and learn. And for those who are interested, the average success rate on reviews is currently 77%. Rob Tickner on 13 September 2012 |
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Day 16
Total: 3000 New: 0 Review: 514 Time: 136 mins Rob Tickner on 14 September 2012 |
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Day 17
Total: 3000 New: 0 Review: 409 Time: 87 mins Rob Tickner on 15 September 2012 |
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Day 18
Total: 3000 New: 0 Review: 415 Time: 81 mins Rob Tickner on 16 September 2012 |
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Very impressive, Rob. I love that little purple Anki chart on the top right: 200 new cards a day, 15 days in a row. Well done!
smallwhite on 16 September 2012 |
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Day 19
Total: 3000 New: 0 Review: 481 Time: 76 mins Rob Tickner on 17 September 2012 |
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Thanks smallwhite, the coloured graphs Anki produces certainly are a treat!
Rob Tickner on 17 September 2012 |
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Day 20
Total: 3000 New: 0 Review: 407 Time: 63 mins Rob Tickner on 18 September 2012 |
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I've been wondering, what card layout do you use? And do you use example sentences?
stifa on 18 September 2012 |
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Simple word pairs. Shown the English word, give the Swedish word. Verbs in the
infinitive, all nouns have corresponding genders. Several years ago I experimented with different card formats in Anki for some adhoc German vocab work. I found that it wasn't necessary to do both English -> German and German -> English - for me, English -> German was more than sufficient. No example sentences. The purpose here is to internalize a large bank of common Swedish words in my brain in a short period of time, which requires a fast way to generate reliable word lists (using scripts run across a dictionary or vocabulary book). The simple, pure list of word pairs eliminates distraction, and is, in a way, almost beautiful in its simplicity. Rob Tickner on 19 September 2012 |
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Day 21
Total: 3000 New: 0 Review: 370 Time: 68 mins Rob Tickner on 19 September 2012 |
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So you are only going for English->Swedish (just as you only went for English->German)?
That's interesting. I suppose that many beginners concentrate on target language->base language, and forget about the other way around, which is often harder. I'd have thought you still needed to give some attention to TL->BL though, but if it works for you... (bear in mind I don't use Anki and don't really know how it works, but with physical flashcards it's less of an issue, as you can very simply use them in either direction). montmorency on 19 September 2012 |
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You can easily "flip" anki decks as well.
stifa on 19 September 2012 |
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Correct, only English->Swedish.
In theory, it would make sense to learn the words in both directions. In practice, the link generated in my brain is close enough to bidirectional. The other direction is easier, and is thoroughly exercised later on with listening and reading, plus I spend my time learning new words instead. Not sure what the theory is behind it all, but the results speak for themselves. Rob Tickner on 19 September 2012 |
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The reviews have gotten down to around an hour a day now, so tomorrow I'll be adding the
next 2000 words to the deck, and unleashing them over the next 10 days at 200 words/day. The last few days of reviewing without new cards has left my spirit wanting, though the short break did seem appropriate. Rob Tickner on 19 September 2012 |
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Yes, although I don't use Anki, I find I prefer to learn "new" words than go over "old"
ones! Worries me sometimes, but, that's just the way it is. montmorency on 19 September 2012 |
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Day 22
Total: 3200 New: 200 Review: 356 Time: 108 mins Rob Tickner on 20 September 2012 |
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Day 23
Total: 3400 New: 200 Reviews: 421 Time: 141 mins Rob Tickner on 21 September 2012 |
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Day 24
Total: 3600 New: 200 Review: 378 Time: 143 mins Rob Tickner on 22 September 2012 |
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Day 25
Total: 3600 New: 0 Review: 618 Time: 151 mins Rob Tickner on 23 September 2012 |
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Day 26
Total: 3800 New: 200 Review: 268 Time: 131 mins Rob Tickner on 24 September 2012 |
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Day 27
Total: 3800 New: 0 Review: 361 Time: 98 mins Rob Tickner on 26 September 2012 |
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Day 28
Total: 4000 New: 200 Review: 453 Time: 149 mins Rob Tickner on 26 September 2012 |
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Day 29
Total: 4000 New: 0 Review: 631 Time: 138 mins Rob Tickner on 27 September 2012 |
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Day 30
Total: 4000 New: 0 Review: 408 Time: 52 mins Rob Tickner on 28 September 2012 |
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Hur går det med att lära dig nya ord? Kan du reproducera dina ord i samtal?
tarvos on 28 September 2012 |
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Day 31
Total: 4500 New: 500 Review: 203 Time: 182 mins Rob Tickner on 29 September 2012 |
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Thanks for stopping by, tarvos.
Production: Besides the little I picked up from the Pimsleur course, I have no grammatical or conversational experience in Swedish. Those are skills that I will start building after I finish this initial vocabulary acquisition. Comprehension: Choosing a random article from Dagens Nyheter (http://www.dn.se/nyheter/varlden/sex-doda-i-spanska-oversva mningar), I could recognise around 90% of the words on that page (including the advertisments), and construct the story with little effort. New Words: It's starting to take much less time to learn new words, as they are becoming more frequently compounds of words I already know, and if not, I can usually relate them to another Swedish word. Rob Tickner on 29 September 2012 |
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Fortsätt så och du kommer lära dig snabbt!
aftonbladet on 30 September 2012 |
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Day 32
Total: 4500 New: 0 Review: 802 Time: 153 mins Rob Tickner on 01 October 2012 |
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Tack aftonbladet. Jag hoppas det!
Rob Tickner on 01 October 2012 |
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Day 33
Total: 4800 New: 300 Review: 322 Time: 147 mins Rob Tickner on 01 October 2012 |
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Day 34
Total: 5000 New: 200 Review: 437 Time: 151 mins Rob Tickner on 02 October 2012 |
Rob Tickner on 02 October 2012 |
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That's it for the 5000 word target. New words are becoming easier to learn, and I'm
starting to feel a real ownership of the language. Newspapers are fairly legible now, which is nice, though the enjoyment of becoming more familiar with this beautiful language is reward enough. I'll let the reviews settle for a few days, then start on the next set (7000). Again, thanks to those who provided encouraging words. Rob Tickner on 02 October 2012 |
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Day 35
Total: 5200 New: 200 Review: 408 Time: 132 mins Rob Tickner on 03 October 2012 |
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Another set of beautiful Anki graphs from you. Well done!
smallwhite on 03 October 2012 |
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Impressive and very inspirational thread.
I'm playing the idea of ordering some T&P 9000 for my studies, but I usually buy pdf format, so I'm not so familiar with epub and the opportunities with it, and being a complete computer dummy, I'm interested whether I can transform the wordlist to Anki. Is there a dumbproof, easy-to-understand way to do this? To be honest, I wanted to wait for the audioversions of the books, but if I could transform the books to decks I would save money beacuse of the Google TTS plugin. Question 2: Is there a way to do this with different books? I can use the English versions but if I could make native based decks, so Hungarian - Turkish or Hungarian - Bulgarian (English-Hungarian can be bought), it'd be perfect. pingvin10 on 03 October 2012 |
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@pingvin: I have no idea about the Anki aspects of your question, but in principle, one can convert an EPUB to a PDF within the freeware Calibre (and to and from other formats). (There may conceivably be DRM issues, but you need to check out that side of it for yourself).
montmorency on 03 October 2012 |
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Thanks for your kind words.
@pingvin: It's a fairly straightforward procedure to convert if you have the right tools. How I convert these books into Anki lists: STAGE 1 - CONVERT EPUB TO TXT 1. Purchase the book and download in ePub format. 2. Download and install Calibre, ebook management software: http://calibre- ebook.com/download 3. Open Calibre, and click and drag your ePub file into it. 4. Select your ePub file in the list, and click "Convert Books" up the top. 5. Change the output format (top right corner) to "TXT", then click "OK" down the bottom to start converting. You'll see a spinning wheel in the bottom right corner, with "Jobs: 1". When the job is complete, you'll see the wheel stop, and the Formats section on the right side of the screen will change from "EPUB" to "EPUB, TXT". 6. Click "Save To Disk" up the top, pick a folder on the computer, and Save. A new window will open up, descend through the folders till you find your TXT file. 7. Open up your TXT file (in Notepad will be fine for this step), and make sure all the special characters show up correctly. In the case of Swedish, ä, å and ö. If the characters are garbled, you may need to adjust your settings in step 5. Try different character encodings, etc. If the characters look fine, you're ready to move on to stage 2. STAGE 2 - FORMAT TXT FILE INTO A FORMAT ANKI WILL ACCEPT 1. If you have a decent text editor already, that supports macros, then load that up. If not, download Notepad++ from here: http://notepad-plus-plus.org/download/v6.1.8.html and load it up. 2. Open the TXT file generated from stage 1. 3. What you do now depends on the format of the TXT file that was generated from the book. In the case of the T&P books, there is some garbage at the start (introduction, pronunciation) and at the end (footer) that you should delete. Then you will have a few tens of thousands of rows, with a lot of blank rows in between. 4. Remove the blank rows by pressing CTRL-H (replace). In the "Find what:" field, place "\r\n\r\n" (without the quotes). In the "Replace with:" field, place "\r\n". Make sure the Search Mode is set to "Extended". Now click "Replace All". It will take some time, maybe 30 seconds, then return a number of replacements. Keep clicking "Replace All" until the number returned is 0. What we are doing here is removing all the blank rows from your TXT file. 5. The T&P books have section headers, which we'll now remove. These are in the format "number. title", so we can find them all by hitting CTRL-F (find). In the "Find what:" field, put ". " (dot space, without the quotes). Every time you press "Find Next", it will move you in the file to the next heading it finds. We want to delete these. So for example, it will lead you to "2. Greetings". Delete this line. In some cases, you will also see chapter headers, which appear in ALL UPPER CASE, e.g. BASIC CONCEPTS. You want to delete these too. Keep clicking "Find Next" and removing these heading lines until you can't find any more headers. 6. You will now have a file where the words are in this format: native language word target language word IPA pronunciation native language word target language word IPA pronunciation . . . We want to get rid of all those IPA pronunciation lines, and move those target language word lines up to the line above with a TAB, so that we have a file like this: native language word<TAB>target language word native language word<TAB>target language word . . . This is where we use macros. A macro is a sort of "trick" which we can use over and over again to save ourselves a lot of time. Go to the start of the first line in your TXT file, and click "Macro -> Start Recording". Then do EXACTLY the below steps: press the HOME key. press the DOWN ARROW key. press the BACKSPACE key. press the TAB key. press the HOME key. press the DOWN ARROW key. press and hold in the SHIFT key. press the DOWN ARROW key. release the SHIFT key. press the BACKSPACE key. Now click "Macro -> Stop Recording". The first line of your TXT file should now be in the format of the "native language word<TAB>target language word", and your cursor should be at the start of the second line. Now click "Macro -> Playback", and the second, third and fourth line should magically be transformed into the second line, in the format "native language word<TAB>target language word". Now, click "Macro -> Run a Macro Multiple Times", select "Run until the end of file" and click the "Run" button. This may take 30 seconds or so. 7. Congratulations, you should now have a list of "native language word<TAB>target language word" word pairs! Save your file. STAGE 3 - IMPORT INTO ANKI 1. Open up Anki, click "File -> Import", name your deck, and choose your TXT file for importing. Click the "Import" button, and your deck will be created. Have fun learning your new words! Rob Tickner on 04 October 2012 |
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Words can't describe how grateful I am, thank you, Rob, for the manual.
pingvin10 on 04 October 2012 |
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Day 36
Total: 5400 New: 200 Review: 452 Time: 141 mins @pingvin: you're welcome. Rob Tickner on 04 October 2012 |
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Great job!
Can I ask you some things in more detail how you applied this? In your first post you wrote : per the schedule after the initial 15 days, along with getting into some native materials (L-R if I can find suitable material for purchase). So what did you do with the words the initial 15 days? And per the schedule is that the SRS schedule? Regards, Fredrik juman on 05 October 2012 |
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Day 37
Total: 5400 New: 0 Review: 797 Time: 143 mins Rob Tickner on 05 October 2012 |
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Hi Fredrick, thanks for stopping by.
All reviews are done to the SRS schedule, correct. As for learning the new words, I look at the English word, look at the Swedish word, and try to link them up. German words that I know often help as well. Once I've made the link, I hit Soon Again, I see the pair again a few minutes later, and if all went well, recall the Swedish word. To be honest, I try not to think about the process - I just do it, and it seems to work. I'm not really interested in tinkering - I just want to learn Swedish. Rob Tickner on 05 October 2012 |
Thank you for your reply... Och lycka till! Fantastiska resultat och bra jobbat! :)
juman on 05 October 2012 |
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Day 38
Total: 5600 New: 200 Review: 544 Time: 203 mins Rob Tickner on 06 October 2012 |
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Thank you so much for posting such a helpful tutorial, Rob! I purchased the T&P 3000 for Spanish and after some
wrangling on my Mac (I'd never even heard of macro programming before your tutorial) was able to create a well- formatted Anki set. My question for you is on the content of the T&P 5000/7000. I was disappointed by the vocabulary selection for the 3000. It included the word for auroch (an extinct type of cattle) and other impractical animals, but not for government (one of the top 10 most frequently used nouns in written and spoken English as determined by a study of the British National Corpus). How did you find the more extensive 5000 for word utility? Thank you. Agnesi on 06 October 2012 |
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Day 39
Total: 5800 New: 200 Review: 573 Time: 139 mins Rob Tickner on 07 October 2012 |
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Hi Agnesi, I'm glad you found the notes useful.
The T&P sets do have a few interesting words in them that you might never use - the price one must pay when using a word list prepared by others. Though the 3000 set had the list of exotic flora and fauna, the additional cards from the 5000 set seemed to be more useful - there were a good number of words related to business, employment and management, and a decent dose of adjectives (though the 7000 set seems to be shining more in this regard). If you're thinking about running through the T&P sets in Anki, the very best of luck to you. Rob Tickner on 07 October 2012 |
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Day 40
Total: 5800 New: 0 Review: 752 Time: 96 mins Rob Tickner on 08 October 2012 |
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Day 41
Total: 6000 New: 200 Review: 265 Time: 129 mins Rob Tickner on 09 October 2012 |
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Day 42
Total: 6000 New: 0 Review: 706 Time: 96 mins Rob Tickner on 10 October 2012 |
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Day 43
Total: 6200 New: 200 Reviews: 442 Time: 130 mins Rob Tickner on 11 October 2012 |
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Day 44
Total: 6200 New: 0 Review: 703 Time: 127 mins Rob Tickner on 12 October 2012 |
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Day 45
Total: 6600 New: 400 Review: 398 Time: 152 mins EDIT: Took two hours to run through an old Teach Yourself Swedish book (1969) to satisfy some grammatical curiosities. Seems like a sensibly constructed language. Rob Tickner on 13 October 2012 |
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Rob,
I can't remember if this has been mentioned, but are you getting any audio input? I don't mean dialogues necessarily, just some guidance on the pronunciation of words that you are learning? I know that I need to say a word as well as write it down and see it written down in order to help learn it. montmorency on 13 October 2012 |
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Day 46
Total: 6600 New: 0 Reviews: 937 Time: 107 mins Rob Tickner on 14 October 2012 |
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Hi Montmorency, good to hear from you again. Before starting this vocabulary acquisition
phase, I finished the Pimsleur Swedish course, and did the pronunciation chapter from FSI Swedish. Pronunciation was important to get right before starting, as sounding the words out greatly aids in my memorizing them. I'm not worried about listening comprehension now - that will be swiftly dealt when I finish vocabulary training, and start extensive L-R. Rob Tickner on 14 October 2012 |
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Day 47
Total: 7000 New: 400 Reviews: 400 Time: 172 mins Rob Tickner on 15 October 2012 |
Rob Tickner on 15 October 2012 |
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The 7000 set is now complete. I'm going to take a few days to let the reviews subside,
then add an additional 3000 cards to complete a set of 10000 words learnt. At this stage, I'm not sure if that will signal the start of the next stage (listening and reading comprehension using a large number of books/audiobooks), or whether I'll continue expanding my vocabulary with beginners dictionaries of increasing sizes. Rob Tickner on 15 October 2012 |
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Stig Larsson böckerna är skrivna med simpel svenska och du kan dessutom köpa engelska
varianten och ha bredvid. Finns mycket svensk film, vill du ha serier så kan kanske "Beck" vara något. Gillar din ambition! aftonbladet on 16 October 2012 |
Right, so as you see the word, you are fairly sure of its pronunciation, so it's not really an issue. I am vaguely aware that one can store sounds (and pictures) in Anki, as well as text, so I wondered if you were doing that. I imagine getting the sounds together is a non-trivial task, unless one obtains ready-made decks which include them. Anyway, I envy you your 7000 words(!) and will envy your 10,000 even more. With that number, theoretically you could probably race through an average NL paperback with little trouble, picking up new words by context along the way. Probably a very efficient way of going about things, but I don't think I could have put myself through an intensive 200 words a day. montmorency on 16 October 2012 |
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What do you think about the wordlists you have been using? Is it useful words? Do you
recommend the 3000 or 9000 version? juman on 16 October 2012 |
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Day 48
Total: 7000 New: 0 Reviews: 348 Time: 48 mins Rob Tickner on 16 October 2012 |
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@aftonbladet: Tack för dina rekommendationer, tyvärr gillar jag inte kriminalromaner, men
jag ha beställt några andra böcker från bokus.se. Lycka till med din spansk! Rob Tickner on 17 October 2012 |
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@juman: I would recommend all sets - there are a few strange words but overall it is a
very good collection for a beginning study of vocabulary. I purchased the four sets one after another (3000, 5000, 7000, 9000), in order to set targets, though in hindsight, each set doesn't really build upon the previous so much - they just introduce new themes. You could just purchase the 9000 set and divide it up yourself, and save a little money. If I were to do it again, I would still purchase the four sets - it's one less thing to worry about. Rob Tickner on 17 October 2012 |
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@montmorency: There's the rub - accompanying sound files would certainly be useful, if
it were easy enough to find them and to incorporate them into the deck. In the long run, it probably doesn't matter - I'm sure there are some words I'm pronouncing incorrectly, but any issues should be addressed given time with audiobooks. Testing your theory of reading comprehension, on the first page of my hardcover copy of Harry Potter och De Vises Sten: out of 272 words, there were 13 which were unfamiliar, though most of their meanings were fairly easy to deduce. To be honest, if the intensity is there in this approach, I'm not feeling it. If anything, it's more an enjoyable, thoroughly addictive game, which one partakes in while strolling through the bush, or lounging in front of the television, or while commuting, rather than a grueling slog to be administered in a padded room by trained specialists. Please don't be intimidated by the numbers in this log - a minute in heaven is quite different to a minute in hell. Rob Tickner on 17 October 2012 |
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Very interesting log!
I'm thinking about giving it a go in German. Do you think is it better to put my language in the question side and German in the answer? I don't know Swedish but, German having three genders would it be wise to put it there, isn't? Roman on 17 October 2012 |
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Thanks Roman. I think it's best to have your native language (Portuguese, English) in
the question side, to which you must provide the German translation. You should definitely learn the gender of nouns when doing this. With German, plural forms can be helpful as well. e.g. Q: the horse A: das Pferd -e (the -e indicates that the Plural is "die Pferde"). I highly recommend you find a large existing wordlist or set of flashcards already made, rather than entering them manually yourself. That way, you can begin learning straight away. Best of luck to you - German is really a beautiful language. Rob Tickner on 17 October 2012 |
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Thank you for the tips!
I already found a Spanish-German deck with 7000+ and a PT-German deck with 10000 cards and I'm tempted to do something like you're doing. I just don't know yet if I set it to 100 or 200 new cards a day plus reviews. Any thoughts? Roman on 17 October 2012 |
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Have a quick look through both decks, assess the quality. Find the best one (nouns with
genders, some idioms may be useful, not a whole lot of bizarre words), load it up, and get started. I'd be tempted to set it to 200 new cards a day first, or even higher if you can manage it - you can always dial it down if it starts to get out of hand, and depending on how much time you have. Some days I was able to do 400 new words, some days I only had time to do the reviews. It's important that you know how to pronounce the words properly before you start. Brush up on your pronunciation if you need to. One last thing - once you choose a deck and get started, I would strongly recommend this being your only German study - not think about tweaking the process, trying different decks, or doing other courses - until you have finished the deck. For me, having complete trust in the process, even when the occasional bizarre word comes up, has been critical in maintaining focus. Rob Tickner on 17 October 2012 |
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Oh! So I'll have to stop my Assimil German for a while! Having restarted it (I was on
lesson 39, without audios), I'm only on lesson 10 now, so it is not much of a problem... For pronunciation I think I can handle most words. I'll have to flip this Spanish deck (it is the one with words-only cards) and do some editing. It'll give me some work, let's see. If I can't edit it maybe I do the Portuguese one and just delete the sentence cards. Roman on 17 October 2012 |
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Ok, just got the 3000 version to get started as it seemed cheap enough to try out...
Is the 3000 words part of the 9000 for example or are they all different? Btw I saw that you had script to convert the file for Anki. If you rename the file to zip you can extract the content directly. I did that and used some scripting to convert it all to a tabseparated file for import into Anki.
juman on 17 October 2012 |
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Day 49
Total: 7000 New: 0 Review: 1227 Time: 184 mins Rob Tickner on 17 October 2012 |
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@Roman: I look forward to hearing about your progress. I
hope you'll keep us up to date with a log or similar. @juman: Thanks for the .zip renaming tip, did not know that. The 3000 set is a subset of the 9000 set. Best of luck with your studies. Rob Tickner on 17 October 2012 |
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I probably will not start a log like you right now because I had some bad experiences
(giving up) with Anki, but in fact I did start the deck yesterday. When I get to say, day 15 and beyond, I think I can start a log retrospectively (made sense what I said?) and keep it up to date. Roman on 18 October 2012 |
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Du är en inspiration för oss alla!
Följer med spänning ditt projekt. Du inspirerade mig att börja lära mig mer ord, skall börja idag. Vill du ha tips eller annat så skriv gärna här så skall jag hjälpa dig så gott som jag kan. aftonbladet on 18 October 2012 |
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Did you set the Leech Threshold or did let it default? The deck I had download is set to
80 failures! Roman on 18 October 2012 |
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@aftonbladet: Tack för dina fina ord. Lycka till med dina nya ord. I framtiden ska jag ha
många frågor till dig! @Roman: I'm so glad to hear you made a start on it. I was never one for writing logs either, and I don't want to pressure you into writing one. Far be it from me to tell you how to study your languages! I've never found a need to fiddle with the Anki settings, and it's always served me well. Rob Tickner on 18 October 2012 |
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Day 50
Total: 7000 New: 0 Reviews: 807 Time: 98 mins Rob Tickner on 18 October 2012 |
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Day 51
Total: 7200 New: 200 Reviews: 487 Time: 108 mins Rob Tickner on 19 October 2012 |
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> Svenska 10000
Hurray! Bravo! Go, Rob!! smallwhite on 19 October 2012 |
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Good job, Rob!
I'm on day 3 of my "Deutsch 7000+" underground experiment viewing 200 new cards a day. Today I reviewed 991 and it took me 2,01 hours! Let's if I can do it for as long as you and beyond... Roman on 19 October 2012 |
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Day 52
Total: 7400 New: 200 Reviews: 558 Time: 77 mins Rob Tickner on 20 October 2012 |
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@smallwhite: Thanks for your ongoing support!
@Roman: That's good news! I'm sure your efforts will leave mine in the dust. Do keep us informed every now and then, many of us will be interested in your results and comments. Rob Tickner on 20 October 2012 |
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I've really enjoyed this log - it's interesting to see how much language competency is
dependent on vocabulary alone. I'm currently working through a 5000 word Spanish deck on Memrise after quite a bit of a grammatical background. And thanks so much for the instructions on turning an ebook into SRS cards. I'm grappling with a vocabulary book right now, and so far it's winning due to character conversion and layout issues, but if I get it to work it could really revolutionize my study. I'm eager to see where you go once you hit 10000! sctroyenne on 20 October 2012 |
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Day 53
Total: 7600 New: 200 Reviews: 504 Time: 125 mins Rob Tickner on 21 October 2012 |
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@sctroyenne: Thanks for stopping by. It's my pleasure to provide the instructions. If you
need help pulling apart that ebook, let me know, and I'll see if I can help. Rob Tickner on 22 October 2012 |
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Hats off to you sir, it is inspiring seeing such discipline and consistency.
I may have missed a post but how do you initially learn your vocabulary? Do you purely use Anki or is it only used in the review process? jazzboy.bebop on 22 October 2012 |
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@jazzboy.bebop: Thanks for stopping by. Just read through your blog, quite an
interesting and natural approach. I hope you're enjoying your time in Norway. As for learning the new words, it's all done in Anki. There are a few ways that words get linked: --- I look at the Swedish word, and try to match it up with a word I know in English, German, or French. ENG: a book SWE: en bok ENG: an umbrella SWE: ett paraply FRE: un parapluie ENG: damp SWE: fuktig GER: feucht --- If it doesn't resemble a word I know, it might sound like something I know already. In this case, I come up with a story or picture in my head quickly. It doesn't matter at all what that story or picture is - it's sole purpose is to provide some link in my brain. e.g. ENG: to allow SWE: att tillåta When I saw this, I pictured a boss and a new trainee employee at the little corner shop where I grew up. I'm buying something, and the trainee needs to open the till. The boss allows the trainee to open the till, saying "you ought to open the till". There could be a far easier way to link this, but this is what I came up with at the time, and it's served me well to remember it. --- Other words don't relate to a word I know, or sound like anything. These are the hardest to link. ENG: desolation SWE: ödeläggelse Sometimes a story helps here, other times I'll learn words later on that will form parts of this word, which can help. Sometimes, the links just take time and repetition to form. There are only a few of these words, so I don't worry too much about them. --- Once I've made the link, I hit Soon Again, I see the pair again a few minutes later, and if all went well, I recall the Swedish word. I'll conclude by saying that one never has to think consciously about the process - the brain just seems to choose the appropriate way naturally. Rob Tickner on 22 October 2012 |
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Ah I see, you're using mnemonics then. I need to try that a little more often with
vocabulary, I've only really used mnemonics for non-language related subjects. I've always wondered if the efficacy of mnemonics would still remain high when learning large amounts of vocabulary but evidently it's fine. I must try that more often when learning vocabulary from now on. I'd certainly recommend using parallel texts (paper or electronic) as a relaxing supplemental way of language learning, much like L-R in principle but without needing such fierce concentration in the earlier stages and allows you all the time you want to analyse. Many thanks for the reply and I look forward to following your progress! jazzboy.bebop on 22 October 2012 |
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@jazzboy.bebop: Thanks for the recommendation. In the past I've experimented a fair bit
with L-R (around 50 hours in both German and French, and 25 hours in Spanish), and thoroughly enjoyed it. I'll be heading in that direction when finished with this initial vocabulary acquisition. Rob Tickner on 22 October 2012 |
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Day 54
Total: 7800 New: 200 Reviews: 804 Time: 133 mins Rob Tickner on 22 October 2012 |
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This is very inspiring. I'm thinking of doing the same for Dutch but using my own lists
collated from multiple books in aggregate and sorting by frequency and then perhaps randomising in order to spread the difficulty evently throughout. My translations will be done by Google Translate. Not perfect I know. rolf on 23 October 2012 |
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Why do you need to use Google Translate when there are tons of good online dictionaries
around? stifa on 23 October 2012 |
I am yet to find any good Dutch-English word lists, paid or not. Hence I make my own. Unfortunately, there is a dearth of good Dutch language learning materials. rolf on 23 October 2012 |
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@rolf: Thanks for stopping by. I was surprised by how difficult it was to come across
good quality word lists as well. There's a Dutch <->Â English shared Anki deck that might be OK to start with. I've recently been mining a few Android dictionary apps I bought. They needed a fair bit of cleaning up, but have generated a reserve of around 20,000 words ready to be imported into Anki. Having said that, I've rarely been disappointed with Google Translate, so your idea may hold water. Good luck with your studies. Rob Tickner on 23 October 2012 |
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How are you retaining all 200 words? Also- while doing these words, are you going in and
learning grammar points as well? Keep up the good work, by the way. Very inspirational. Bbcatcher 08 on 23 October 2012 |
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@Bbcatcher 08: Thanks for your kind words. I find that once I've linked them in my mind
(see half-way down Page 16 in this thread), they stay there. Anki repeats the words to me at regular intervals, so that I don't forget them. It seems this is a skill you improve at as well - it felt easier and took less time to learn words 7600 - 7800 than words 0 - 200. Currently, I'm just learning words - grammar will come later. Rob Tickner on 23 October 2012 |
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Are you even trying to use them yet, or just concentrating like you said, on pure
learning of the vocabulary. Bbcatcher 08 on 23 October 2012 |
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@Bbcatcher 08: Not using them, just learning them, getting to know them, and tending to
them. Rob Tickner on 23 October 2012 |
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Day 55
Total: 8100 New: 300 Reviews: 557 Time: 144 mins Rob Tickner on 23 October 2012 |
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Making cards from base language to target language is something I always think about, but I can't find a way to do it, as I can't get my mind around the problem of synonyms. Especially, since you're tackling such a huge amount of words, you must be facing something like this all the time. How do you cope with this?
In the end I can only manage to do this kind of cards for sets of "thematic" vocabulary or, in general, for non-abstract nouns. And it's a pity because I do think that testing in that direction forces the brain to make stronger connections to remember it. In any case, what you're doing is very impressive! lukbe on 23 October 2012 |
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@lukbe: Thanks for stopping by. To be honest, I don't really worry about it. If an
English word has multiple definitions in my word list, I concatenate them in the Swedish side of the card: ENG: dermatologist SWE: dermatolog, hudläkare If a synonym is not in my word list, it doesn't get learned. Such is the way of things - luckily I'm not a perfectionist in this regard. Rob Tickner on 23 October 2012 |
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You may have answered this earlier in the thread, however, how are you quizzing yourself
on the previous words? Just going back through the whole list every day? Bbcatcher 08 on 23 October 2012 |
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It seems subconsciously I'm thinking of two-way cards, and that's how I didn't think of this. I mean, that's just what I do for the L2->L1 direction, just list synonyms.
I should reflect on this a little bit. I mean I can't do the same thing as you, with so many words, as I don't have any source for this (for Cantonese), and because I don't think I could have the willpower to go through hours of daily Anki reviews. Also I can't link the words to any language I know, so I must definitely learn more slowly. However, I'm thinking about creating such a deck according to my interests, with priority given to the words I know I may want to say, as well as with some of the words I may grab from radio and tv shows. Thanks, and keep up the good work! lukbe on 24 October 2012 |
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@Bbcatcher 08: I'm using a program called Anki, which is spaced repetition software.
They have a desktop version, which I use to enter the cards, an Android version, which I use to do my learning/reviewing, and a web version, which helps to sync them all together. When you answer a card in Anki, the program will schedule that card to be seen again, at longer and longer intervals between. So, if I see a card, and get it right, it will show me again in 4 days, then if I get it right in 4 days time, it will show me again in 8 days, etc. This way, I don't have to go over the list of words every day, which would be a monumental (and unnecessary) task. http://ankisrs.net/ - Anki http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spaced_repetition - Spaced Repetition Rob Tickner on 24 October 2012 |
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@lukbe: You're right, this approach is probably only effective when you can "hook" onto
things you know. For something like Cantonese, the pace would be much more limited. Good luck with your deck, and please let us know how you get on with it. Rob Tickner on 24 October 2012 |
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@Rob- Do you have to make the cards yourself, or are they already on there?
Bbcatcher 08 on 24 October 2012 |
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@Bbcatcher 08: I make the cards myself, by pulling them from dictionaries and ebooks that
I purchase, using scripts to format them for importing into Anki. There are some shared decks in Anki that might be useful to you. Rob Tickner on 24 October 2012 |
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Ok thanks! I'll definitely check it out!
Bbcatcher 08 on 24 October 2012 |
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Hi Rob,
Thanks for your earlier reply. You've inspired me to start using flashcards generally, something I cringed at the thought of before but now find to be quite an enjoyable mental exercise! I'm curious to know how you configured Anki. It seems that you are adding 200 new words a day and reviewing some at the same time. Every now and again you do reviews only. Now how are you configuring Anki to do this? I see it has default settings of 20 new/day and 100 reviews/day. Are you modifying these values on a daily basis e.g. sometimes setting the new cards to zero when you take a break? What are you setting the value for "daily reviews" to? thanks rolf on 24 October 2012 |
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Day 56
Total: 8100 New: 0 Reviews: 904 Time: 116 mins Rob Tickner on 25 October 2012 |
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@Rolf: Glad to hear you're enjoying flashcards. I add cards in
bulk once I hit my target, generally 2000 or 3000 at a time, then set the new/day to 200 or higher, or to 0 on days off. Rob Tickner on 25 October 2012 |
Thanks. What about the review setting? Do you set it to 500 or similar? Or do you put it real high and then just stop when you feel like it? rolf on 25 October 2012 |
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Hey, Rob!
Still doing Anki? I'm on day 17 of my and it's feeling like hardwork to me... I usually take a little more than 2 hours to finish my deck and I had to low the new cards level to 100 because I keep forgetting some words. Roman on 03 November 2012 |
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Has anyone tried to repeat that experiment?
French_please on 26 February 2018 |