What would be the best design for flashcards?

What would be the best design for flashcards? - Printable Version

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What would be the best design for flashcards? - Transtic - 2007-11-14

I want to spend a lot of time on the next months on studying japanese, but haven't decided yet the design of my flashcards (I'm planning to use Resolve's Anki), and would like to read your advices.

Take into account that one can make flashcards for different purposes, and depending on the purpose, the design should be different. I mean, it is not the same making flashcards for isolated kanjis, compound words or grammar points.

My main concern is about grammar points, and the best way to really LEARN them and not just "rote memorizing" them. If you have some experience on designing flashcards for grammar points, I would really appreciate your sharing your experience and advice on do's and dont's on this topic.

By the way, I'm also looking for good resources from where to take info for my flashcards.

Thank you.

What would be the best design for flashcards? - nac_est - 2007-11-14

If you don't already know it, you might take a look at the AJATT site. It has a lot of suggestions on these matters and more. Read something and see if you find some ideas that you like Smile

What would be the best design for flashcards? - Jarvik7 - 2007-11-14

In my experience, grammar points are best learned through actual use and not flashcard memorization. Try writing out unique sentences of your own construction using the grammar forms that you are learning. If you have a speaking partner, make a point of using a few different grammar points as much as possible every day. It might get repetitive, but you'll learn them well, especially if your partner responds by overusing the same grammar points. I once had a ~30 minute conversation consisting of mostly "ue ni" sentences.

Looking at them on flashcards and "memorizing" them doesn't put them into your active memory. You might understand them but probably won't be using them in your daily conversation. Vocabulary should also be put into active use as much as possible in order to be able to use them quickly and naturally, but they are a lot more friendly to flashcard memorization.

For vocabulary, I like using 3-sided cards for the Japanese->English cards, which I don't think Anki is capable of. The first side is kanji, the second side is the yomigana as a hint if you can't read the kanji right away, the third side is the answer, English. The lack of 3 sided cards (as far as I know) is what has prevented me from using Anki so far.

What would be the best design for flashcards? - Magnadoodle - 2007-11-14

The best way to learn grammar points would be to get a textbook with good explanations and example sentences. Right now, I'm using the Kanzen Master 2kyuu grammar book and it's really good. It groups similar grammar together so that you can see the tiny differences between them. It also has tests with pretty tricky questions to further your understanding.

You could also enter sentences into an SRS and try to remember their meaning, as seems to be your plan. The problem is that you might be missing some nuances.

Good sources for input sentences could be the dictionaries of basic/intermediate japanese grammar. These books also have really good english explanations. And they have plenty of example sentences. The only downside is that they don't have any exercises to test your understanding.

The cheap option would be to use something like http://jgram.org/ for sentences but keep in mind that they might be incorrect.

What would be the best design for flashcards? - dilandau23 - 2007-11-14

Jarvik7 Wrote:For vocabulary, I like using 3-sided cards for the Japanese->English cards, which I don't think Anki is capable of. The first side is kanji, the second side is the yomigana as a hint if you can't read the kanji right away, the third side is the answer, English. The lack of 3 sided cards (as far as I know) is what has prevented me from using Anki so far.

I think you could actually say that Anki has n-sided flashcards. It may just not be implemented the way you are used to. It is really well designed once you get used to it. Basically you have a Fact layer which can have any info in. Lets say for an extreme example you want to test the following data:
Kanji: 最
KunExample: 最も
KunReading：　もっとも
KunMeaning:　most; extremely
OnExample：　最初
OnReading: さいしょ
OnMeaning: first time
Used in Grammar:　最中に
UiGReading:　さいちゅうに
GrammarMeaning: in the midst of
Sample Sentence1: Example
1Reading: Reading
1Meaning: Meaning
Sample Sentence2: Example
2Reading: Reading
2Meaning: Meaning
Sample Sentence3: Example
3Reading: Reading
3Meaning: Meaning
Cloze Exercise: Cloze Example
Cloze Answer: Answer

You could make that your "fact". Then in the model layer you could design any number of cards based on the fact info. Say a Sentence1 -> Meaning1, Cloze Exercise -> Answer, OnMeaning -> OnExample, Etc. You could set up Anki to automatically keep all the cards for this model apart from each other any interval you would like. On top of that, you could set it up to generate all or some of the n cards you designed for each fact you add of that type from then on out. Admittedly, I would never recommend making facts this dense as input would take a fortnight, but the point is you can.

What would be the best design for flashcards? - synewave - 2007-11-14

That sounds pretty cool. Can you have more than one 'fact' appearing in the answer field?

e.g. Q: Cloze question -> A: missing word; meaning; grammar rules

What would be the best design for flashcards? - dilandau23 - 2007-11-14

Synewave: Yes, you can assign any of the fact fields to any of the two sides of each card you design. I forgot to mention there is basic HTML support in the card designer and you can also prioritize your cards so that you see certain cards before others. Here is an example from my own deck that I made based on Unicom grammar book. I could post other examples if you like.

EDIT: In fact if you download the deck I made from the Cloze spredsheet you posted you can see I did exactly that

Code:

Step:    B

Drill:    2

Question Number:    1

Question:    何かスポーツをしたはうがいいと医者に言われたが、スポーツをする＿＿＿、

                    なるべく歩くことにしている。

Reading:    なにかスポーツをしたはうがいいといしゃにいわれたが、スポーツをする＿＿＿、

                    なるべくあるくことにしている。

Choice 1:    までもなく

Choice 2:    とおりに

Choice 3:    ことなく

Choice 4:    かわりに

Ref 1:    

Ref 2:    85

Ref 3:    43

Ref 4:    31

Answer:    4

And the way the card model is setup:

Code:

Question format:

%(Question)s

<table><tr><td>(1. %(Choice 1)s)</td><td>(2. %(Choice 2)s)</td>

<td>(3. %(Choice 3)s)</td><td>(4. %(Choice 4)s)</td></tr></table>

Answer format:

<table><tr><td>(1. 文法編#%(Ref 1)s)</td><td>(2. 文法編#%(Ref 2)s)</td>

<td>(3. 文法編#%(Ref 3)s)</td><td>(4. 文法編#%(Ref 4)s)</td></tr></table>

<center><font color=green>(%(Answer)s)</font>

%(Reading)s</center>

And the look for question:

Code:

何かスポーツをしたほうがいいと医者に言われたが、スポーツをする＿＿＿、

なるべく歩くことにしている。

(1. までもなく) (2. とおりに) (3. ことなく) (4. かわりに)

And answer:

Code:

(1. 文法編#) (2. 文法編#85) (3. 文法編#43) (4. 文法編#31)

                                   (4)

なにかスポーツをしたほうがいいといしゃにいわれたが、スポーツをする＿＿＿、なるべくある

くことにしている。

What would be the best design for flashcards? - synewave - 2007-11-14

That sounds great Smile

Might have to join the Anki club after all...