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I’ve been increasingly frustrated with using anki for learning Japanese, I don’t think the software is bad, but I’ve been wondering about flashcard learning in general, as I tend to forget most of the words I’ve learned as soon as I need to use them. This was even the case when smart.fm was useful. “nihongo wo …wo….” It’s embarrassing to forget basic words like benkyou.
I’ve come across this article recently, it’s worth checking out:
I think while anki is a useful addition for symbols and radicals, perhaps words themselves need something different? Something to think about before rolling out a thousand textfugu word flashcards.
A very interesting article, I have to say.
I understand where he is coming from and I do agree with him but only to a certain extent. I don’t believe that flashcards should be used for cramming (he seems to think that’s all they are good for) and sometimes learning single words first and THEN learning how to use them in sentences and contexts is better – for me, at least. I use flashcards mainly for vocab but also sometimes for phrases and forms.
Different methods work for different people.
Flashcards work for me. For other people, they may not. Flashcards aren’t as effective if that’s *all* you do. What’s wrong with rote memorising a word and *then* practising with it?
Also, he says “With language learning you don’t want to memorize the facts while ignoring the why and how.” – the “why and how” are covered by studying, using textbooks or in class or whatever. It seems like he doesn’t understand that. Do some people *really* try and learn languages just by vocab memorisation? I don’t think anyone is that stupid.
Might wanna give the (advanced) learning method of AJATT a try. Learning vocabulary in simple “n+1″ sentences, where every sentence stretches your knowledge a tiny bit.
Requires kanji knowledge tho, as you wanna read the japanese sentence with kanji while having understood the meaning (not literally translate).Hit up http://tatoeba.org/ they have tons of sentences for particular words you might be interested in. Some sentences are a bit too advaned tho.
While I agree that anki, or flashcards alone isn’t very helpful… using it with textfugu is VERY helpful. Writing the vocab is also very helpful.
I don’t expect to walk into a japanese conversation and remember 1/10th of what I drill on anki, but drilling the words there, seeing, and hearing them DOES help in memorization at least to the point where when they come up in a lessson… I already know it and it has then been chiseled deeper into my brain (and having some knowledge of a word that comes up in a grammar lesson helps tie things together).
Keep in mind that most people going through textfugu are absolute beginners, and don’t have a lot of foundation just yet… anki helps us learn the vocab for the lessons. Once it is memorized if you don’t do anything else with it and just move on… fail.
One thing I’ve noticed lately after drilling through all this vocab is I’m starting to hear words and phrases in japanese, that used to be a sea of syllables. Words that jump out at me and I automatically know the meaning as soon as I hear them.
If you’re at more of an advanced level, I can see there would be a point that drilling anki would probably become less and less efficient. But starting out, we really don’t have a whole lot to anchor onto other than this.
I see anki/flashcards as simply the tack you’d use to place the word on your brain allowing you to leave it in place while removing your hands. Making mistakes while using the language, context, and understanding are the superglue that lock it into place.
I think I agree with this in the context of normal flashcards. If you have a set and you use them one week to cram for an exam they are only effective for your short term memory.
What Anki does and what I think hasn’t been taken into account is showing you cards that you haven’t seen in a long time. This is to help put the cards into your long term memory and for me I feel that this works.
Also as Narcoleptic LTD so eloquently said – Anki is just the pin. You need to use the words in context to re-enforce what Anki has done. This will also help you in actual situation recall. For me those words that aren’t staying put I start making sentences with. Thinking about further associations than just the English word for example with the noun いぬ I pictured my pet dog. The more attachments the stickier it is.
oh and in the beginning I noticed that I was learning the words in the order that they appeared ie I knew what was coming next and that is not a functional attachment. So hit the shuffle button to prevent that.
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