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+--- Thread: "Learning" vocabulary with an SRS? (/thread-6937.html)
"Learning" vocabulary with an SRS? - Dairwolf - 2010-12-23
I was just wondering whether an SRS like e.g. Anki is suitable for learning vocabulary initially. Let´s say I have an new word and repeat it using Anki until it sticks to my memory for the learning session. Then I would usually rate it the highest, so it shows up in eight or nine days again. Somehow I hardly believe that I will remember the word after eight or nine days if I didn´t learn it two or three days continuously.
Can anyone share his or her experience about this with me?
"Learning" vocabulary with an SRS? - nohika - 2010-12-23
I do the opposite (though I do learn vocab initially in Anki for about half of the vocab I do). I rate it the hardest so it shows up the next day so I see it again continuously. One day interval, two days, etc. Rating it the easiest if it's just in your short-term memory is disastrous - you won't see it for quite some time and by then it's very, very likely you will have forgotten it.
Rating it hardest the day you INITIALLY learn it allows you to see it again soon and allow you to remember it if you still can (some words take FOREVER to stick for me).
"Learning" vocabulary with an SRS? - Zarxrax - 2010-12-23
I have a lot of trouble with this. I might be able to remember the vocab for a few days sometimes, but when the intervals get up to 1-2 weeks, I always end up forgetting them. And it continues in this cycle... I will remember it long enough to get the interval to 1-2 weeks, then its forgotten again. The cards never get to maturity.
I wish I could find a way to really strengthen these memories though.
"Learning" vocabulary with an SRS? - Dustin_Calgary - 2010-12-23
Only way I can do this is to make sure I fully understand it and the context, then enter it with cram mode til I get it every time.
Once it is super easy this way I keep setting it as hard at first to make sure it doesn't get too ahead of me too quick.
So far so good
"Learning" vocabulary with an SRS? - JimmySeal - 2010-12-23
Dairwolf Wrote:Then I would usually rate it the highest, so it shows up in eight or nine days again. Somehow I hardly believe that I will remember the word after eight or nine days if I didn´t learn it two or three days continuously.I don't understand why you would put it at the highest rating when you already know that's not going to work. :|
Just start new vocabulary at a Hard rating and it should go fine.
"Learning" vocabulary with an SRS? - Dragonsheep - 2010-12-24
I'd have to say that a "bare" SRS (word/reading to character/meaning or something inverted like that) is not suitable for new vocabulary.
It's really hard to learn a random, often useless, word without context or background knowledge. Honestly, if I showed you the characters for communism (4 character compound) with their readings, and I showed them to you every day for perhaps a week, would you retain them 2 weeks later? If I showed you the characters for 2 weeks in a row, would you remember them a month later? I know 14 exposures is a lot, but is each exposure to such an abstract cocept meaningful at all?
Because you have so little background, you probably wouldn't get communism into long-long term memory for a while. Why?, because you have nothing to relate it with.
Vocabulary are best learned, I think, in some organized, lesson based, format. Anki is fine for reviews, but I'd stay away for learning from scratch.
However, Smart FM Core (using iknow and not Anki), despite being an SRS, does add new items in coherent, semi-lessonish groups and does provide example sentences. The format is designed from the ground up for both learning and reviewing. For this reason, I find it the best free way to acquire vocabulary at the pre-intermediate stage. If you're willing to pay though, I've heard good things about KO2001, although for me, iknow is very effective.
"Learning" vocabulary with an SRS? - Dairwolf - 2010-12-24
@ JimmySeal: I did it this way because I just started reviewing vocabulary with an SRS. Before I used paper flash cards. When I still did it this way I wasted a lot of time reviewing the same vocabulary over and over again. I think I could have used this time to learn new vocabulary.
As with all beginnings, I do not know yet how many cards I can learn each day (or within a week etc.) with the SRS, how I should rate the cards and whether it works at all for me. That´s why I was asking.
Thank you all very much for your answers! I guess my initial doubts were correct, so rather than learning vocabulary initially with the SRS I guess finding other ways would be better.
"Learning" vocabulary with an SRS? - Rina - 2010-12-24
Interesting thread.
I always rate the vocabulary as hard. One week after appearing for the first time I have the new words learned. I always learn the vocabulary in sentences so that I can have some context.
最近共産主義が拡大した。 The sentence I used to learn the word 拡大, now I can say both communism and enlargement/expansion
"Learning" vocabulary with an SRS? - Javizy - 2010-12-24
I don't end up adding my vocabulary lists into Anki for quite a while, and I've studied a good few thousand from premade lists I've found. My total correct after 71,000 reviews is 89%, which I guess isn't amazing, but it's not too bad either.
If you're already familiar with kanji, a lot of words are pretty easy to remember 8-12 hours later, but with something like 黒煙, it's kind of hard to forget, so I often hit good/easy first time for these sort of words. If I'm going through a vocabulary list and I remember where the word came from, I usually go with 'good' as well. If I have absolutely no idea, I just fail the word, so I can test myself again in 10 minutes.
I have example sentences included on the back where available, and a link to 大辞林 so I can conveniently コピペ the definition if there's still some ambiguity. As long as you feel you genuinely understand the words, and backup your reviews with lots of exposure, I doubt it's going to be detrimental. What's the better alternative when you're learning 5,000-10,000+ words a year?
"Learning" vocabulary with an SRS? - gibosi - 2010-12-24
It works for me. I went through RTK2 and put the example words into SRS. It helped me build vocabulary and learn the onyomi. I seem to belong to a very small minority within this community in this regard. But of course, different strokes for different folks. My advice: Give it a try. If it seems to work, keep going. If not, stop.
"Learning" vocabulary with an SRS? - bertoni - 2010-12-25
I went through RTK 2, as well, and found it extremely useful. Being able to guess pronunciations for words was very handy. All in all, though, I agree that learning a lot of vocabulary words without context is suboptimal. If I had the energy, I'd start collecting sentences for the RTK 2 vocabulary, which I think would improve its usefulness.