making sentence cards less a chore?

making sentence cards less a chore? - Printable Version

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making sentence cards less a chore? - vix86 - 2012-05-21

Zgarbas Wrote:Reading a book is fun, but it's the SRS that got me able to read it.

This is basically what I don't get from all the people saying "SRS is boring, just read native material." You can't read native stuff without learning words. So either you are learning stuff before you read something or you are left constantly looking up words. If you then aren't somehow keeping those words put away, be it in a list or in SRS, how are you going to learn them so that next time you see it you don't go "gosh what is this?"

I, like you Zgarbas, only got to my point now where I can read newspapers and light novels by going through Core6k. I've continued to add new words from this material when I can to keep the words fresh, other wise I forget them.

making sentence cards less a chore? - Irixmark - 2012-05-21

vix86 Wrote:You can't read native stuff without learning words. So either you are learning stuff before you read something or you are left constantly looking up words. If you then aren't somehow keeping those words put away, be it in a list or in SRS, how are you going to learn them so that next time you see it you don't go "gosh what is this?"

Second that. I've spent many years forcing my way through difficult texts while looking up lots of words, only to forget them right after. Next to RTK, going through Core6k and then the remaining 10k made the biggest difference in my Japanese studies. In the process I did recall the occasional word here and there and didn't have to learn it, but the SRS makes them stick now.

I'm not sure though if it's worth adding new sentences or even words to the SRS beyond 10k or just spend more time on native material. My hunch is that after Core6k the returns to adding more to the SRS are diminishing rapidly, but until then it's hard to beat.

I bet most people who feel Core6k and SRS don't pay off live in Japan or at least have a Japanese gf/bf/spouse and get constant exposure to the language. Good for you, but for the rest of us pre-made sentences in an SRS got us to the point where we could really benefit from native material, and it did so in the shortest possible time.

Usual disclaimer: for me the news/newspaper vocab in Core is actually interesting and useful.

making sentence cards less a chore? - Fillanzea - 2012-05-21

Well, one of the principles of extensive reading is that you should read texts that are so easy you can understand them without a dictionary. I did a lot of brute-forcing my way through hard texts, and I don't think that ultimately helped me as much as reading really easy stuff.

If your reading speed is low, then if a word is fairly uncommon you're not going to encounter it very often. Say that a particular word occurs four or five times in a given book. If you can finish that book in a week, you've got a decent shot at remembering that word. If it takes you three months? No way. So you can get around that by putting words in your SRS, or you can get around it by reading a massive amount of easy stuff, so that your reading speed gets faster and you encounter a small amount of really useful words. I'm glad I did some vocabulary by SRS, because I think it helped me get over a hump, but now that I'm at the point where I can hustle through a novel in a week if I try hard -- native materials are their own SRS; if a word is worth knowing, you'll see it again.

making sentence cards less a chore? - Inny Jan - 2012-05-21

Note: I think there was only one person here so far who said that they don't SRS.

This debate started from a proposed solution to the OP's question, which was "making sentence cards less a chore?" and the solution being skip the sentence part. If you read http://supermemo.com/articles/decalog.htm and http://supermemo.com/articles/20rules.htm you will find in point 4. why the precursor of SRS discourages from complex cards. Exactly for the reason of simplicity SRSing sentences is a misuse of Anki and it really comes down to simple "SRS words, don't SRS sentences".

making sentence cards less a chore? - partner55083777 - 2012-05-21

Inny Jan Wrote:If you read http://supermemo.com/articles/decalog.htm and http://supermemo.com/articles/20rules.htm you will find in point 4. why the precursor of SRS discourages from complex cards. Exactly for the reason of simplicity SRSing sentences is a misuse of Anki and it really comes down to simple "SRS words, don't SRS sentences".

I don't feel like you can say that SRS'ing sentences is a misuse of Anki. It's like saying drawing pictures is a misuse of paper (which should be used for writing essays). Both those uses are perfectly valid, depending on your goals, etc.

I agree with you that you shouldn't make complex cards, but I disagree that sentences are necessarily complex. I have lots of sentence cards (usually short, i+1 cards) that take just as little time as my straight-up vocab cards.

I do agree that i+2, i+3 sentence cards take more time to review. I wouldn't recommend anyone use them extensively.

I was thinking about this thread today and I came up with another reason why I really like SRS'ing sentences. You start to form word groups in your head about what words sound good together. For instance, I put the word 臼 in Anki because I wanted to be able to read the kanji. I also added the example sentence "自宅の庭で杵と臼を使ってもちをついている風景は, 最近ではあまり見られなくなった。". It was a pretty long sentence, and most people on here would probably say that I shouldn't have added it, but I am glad I did. After seeing it a few times, it really creates a strong connection between 庭, 杵, and 臼, which I think is important. If I would have just put in 杵 and 臼 as separate words, I would have no connection between them.

Once again, the obvious argument against this is that if you read a lot, you should get that connection.

making sentence cards less a chore? - Irixmark - 2012-05-21

Inny Jan Wrote:Exactly for the reason of simplicity SRSing sentences is a misuse of Anki and it really comes down to simple "SRS words, don't SRS sentences".

That's going a bit too far. I think a good way forward is not to have complete sentences, but collocations, i.e. typical word combinations, like (totally random example pops into my mind as I'm stroking my chin) 無精髭が生えている

That's much less of a chore to create and review, and better than just a word out of context.

One disadvantage of SRS'ing collocations that I can't really explain to myself is that I get the extreme version of passive knowledge: after entering a collocation into the SRS, I basically already know it passively, so it quickly moves into the "see again in two years" chunk of cards. But I can't recall it very well. Doesn't quite happen the same way with sentences.

making sentence cards less a chore? - Seamoby - 2012-05-21

Some of you are misunderstanding what some of us are saying. I for one am not saying that reading native material means that one does not need to review new words that one has learned. As for reviewing, Anki/SRS is just one method. Some do not care to use Anki for reviewing. Some use good old pen and paper, and some, like Fillanzea, read extensively as a means to review. And still others use other methods to review. And, for me, Anki is for reviewing, not for learning new things.

making sentence cards less a chore? - Inny Jan - 2012-05-21

Irixmark Wrote:That's going a bit too far. I think a good way forward is not to have complete sentences, but collocations, i.e. typical word combinations, like (totally random example pops into my mind as I'm stroking my chin) 無精髭が生えている

Well, I was carried away a bit. You are right, collocations are worth putting into SRS as well. In fact anything that can be qualified as an "item" (I would not say that a sentence is an item...) can be SRSed. You want to remember things like:
お風呂に入る、薬を飲む、バスに乗る、電車を降りる, etc.

But if you want to SRS:
あの人はご飯を食べている間テレビを見ていた。

then your item is inefficient.

Also, I'm of opinion that cloze deletes in sentences are OK for acquiring grammar. So, if you take the previous sentence, and do:
Q: あの人はご飯を[...]テレビを見ていた。
A: 食べている間

then it's fine as well.

Irixmark Wrote:One disadvantage of SRS'ing collocations that I can't really explain to myself is that I get the extreme version of passive knowledge: after entering a collocation into the SRS, I basically already know it passively, so it quickly moves into the "see again in two years" chunk of cards. But I can't recall it very well. Doesn't quite happen the same way with sentences.

Put the collocations as production items?

making sentence cards less a chore? - animehunter123 - 2012-05-21

Good luck with SRS'ing sentences. For me, I mixed everything together. Keep adding new material and dont worry about old material. As long as you keep going through new interesting material; it doesnt feel like a chore.

I have not used CORE decks but I heard they are great. (Btw, does anyone know if there is japanese version of CORE? J<->J cards are tedious but help me immensely Smile

)

making sentence cards less a chore? - partner55083777 - 2012-05-22

animehunter123 Wrote:(Btw, does anyone know if there is japanese version of CORE? J<->J cards are tedious but help me immensely )

Have you looked at the Tanuki deck? I think it might be what you want.

For those of you who are just SRS'ing vocab, would you mind telling me a little bit about your history of Japanese study? Did you start with the sentence method and slowly move to vocab? For those of you doing extensive/intensive reading, what kind of things are you reading and what percentage of words do you not know? How much are you reading a day? What kind of words and how frequently do you put stuff into Anki? How many reviews are you doing a day?

One thing with sentences vs. reading in order to get context is that sentences are more controlled. If you've put something into Anki, then you're bound to get it again in the near future. If you're just reading, then you may or may not see something again in the near future. When you do see it again, you may not remember the context you saw it in last time, so it seems completely new to you.

On the other hand, this may be considered a good thing? You'll only see common things a lot, so you'll naturally remember the most common things first. But this method is a lot less controlled than putting sentences into Anki.

making sentence cards less a chore? - Nukemarine - 2012-05-22

animehunter123 Wrote:Good luck with SRS'ing sentences. For me, I mixed everything together. Keep adding new material and dont worry about old material. As long as you keep going through new interesting material; it doesnt feel like a chore.

I have not used CORE decks but I heard they are great. (Btw, does anyone know if there is japanese version of CORE? J<->J cards are tedious but help me immensely )

There's the "Tanuki" deck which has example words for the Jouyou Kanji. The deck's entirely in Japanese and includes brief Japanese definitions and sample sentences. This deck would be a prime candidate to sort via KO2k1 order if you're interested in attacking the whole thing and not just individual words. That can also resolve duplicates that do appear in the list.

making sentence cards less a chore? - blackbrich - 2012-05-22

partner55083777 Wrote:
animehunter123 Wrote:(Btw, does anyone know if there is japanese version of CORE? J<->J cards are tedious but help me immensely )
Have you looked at the Tanuki deck? I think it might be what you want.

For those of you who are just SRS'ing vocab, would you mind telling me a little bit about your history of Japanese study? Did you start with the sentence method and slowly move to vocab? For those of you doing extensive/intensive reading, what kind of things are you reading and what percentage of words do you not know? How much are you reading a day? What kind of words and how frequently do you put stuff into Anki? How many reviews are you doing a day?

I wrote out the first part then realized it was too long. But I wrote it so I'm not deleting it. Skip to short story if it's too long.

HISTORY

LONG STORY

I started with sentences from Tae Kim, then after I kinda floundered for a while then gave Core 6000 a try. I just kinda randomly went through and picked sentences I felt like would help me. After about a month I stopped srsing because I'd gotten all the grammar and I started to hate Core.

Next I floundered for a while again. Then in January of last year I bought my first manga and input every word I didn't know, which was a lot. I SRSed that for about 4-5 months and at the end I was better for it. I could read manga more or less.

After I stopped that I tried LingQ. Used that for 3 months or so. I then got a part time job where I was working 36-40 hours a week in 3 days. I stopped reading a lot because had no time or I'd be burned out from work the entire week. I felt like I was regressing(probably really wasn't).

I started to SRS sentences again just so I could stay used to processing Japanese sentences(I picked from mostly my one manga that I owned). I also picked up sentences from the Intermediate+Advanced grammar 8000+ sentence deck. I eventually quit and I got tired of just sentences because I started to read like I had before. Then I started adding a lot of stuff to that deck. I added random Japanese facts, Jouyou Kanji(I never finished Heisig), words from reading, Core words.

I reviewed all these for a while up until about 2 months ago . I suspended all my sentence cards because they were taking around 10 seconds to review and all other cards were like 2-3 seconds. Now I do everything that's left. But I'm currently not truly SRSing anymore.

SHORT STORY
Tae Kim
Core6000
Nothing
Vocab Only Deck
Nothing
LingQ
Nothing
Sentence Deck
Added Any and Everything to Sentence Deck
Suspended Sentences
SRS for exposure

QUESTIONS

What kind of things are you reading and what percentage of words do you not know? How much are you reading a day?
I went from reading Manga(singular) to LingQ to News(More intensive) and Light Novels.

Currently Unknown Words: Light Novels Maybe 6%, News from 10-30%, Manga 4%. All Guesses.

I read about 8 pages average. Some days I barely read.

What kind of words and how frequently do you put stuff into Anki? How many reviews are you doing a day?
I put any word that catches my fancy apart from all the other stuff I said I've already put in. How many reviews wouldn't be a good question to answer since I don't SRS like most of the rest of you probably.

making sentence cards less a chore? - Fillanzea - 2012-05-22

Quote:For those of you doing extensive/intensive reading, what kind of things are you reading and what percentage of words do you not know? How much are you reading a day? What kind of words and how frequently do you put stuff into Anki? How many reviews are you doing a day?

I read novels, mostly, plus some nonfiction and some news articles.

For novels, I'd say I understand 95-98% of the vocabulary. For nonfiction it can get lower than that, but still 90-95%.

I will go through spurts of reading and not reading (I'm a writer and librarian, and I spend a lot of my free time reading English fiction) but if I'm actively engaged in a Japanese book I'll read 30-50 pages per day. If it's something dense like a news article it might be only three to five pages.

Right now, I'm not doing any SRS reviews except things from my study book for the Kanji Kentei exam. That does involve a little bit of new vocabulary, but it's not my primary purpose in studying.

making sentence cards less a chore? - Crispy - 2012-05-22

I usually read novels that are translated into Japanese so I'm at least familiar with the story. I have a few pixar movies that have been turned into short 200 page kids' novels which are fun and easy. Fully recommended to anyone who wants something they can enjoy without stressing about too much about vocabulary. And there's bound to be stuff in there you don't know.

Then I have slightly harder stuff but again, usually based on films again (whatever I find in Book Off). Memento, Bronx Tale, Robocop, Winnie The Pooh or whatever lol. Basically it's just stuff without furigana.

And if I don't feel like that then I'll glance through something more comic-like and easier. I have a load of Charlie Brown books in Japanese which I love to read. Also, an idea for some of you maybe is a book called "Shinu ka to omotta" it's short (embarrassing) stories, each one being about a page in length or sometimes shorter. They also have a website (where it originated) by the same name with stories. Some are lame, some are really funny but because the stories are so short and there are so many in a book you can read them over and over before it gets too boring. And it's written by everyday normal people which is always a plus for me.

Generally I understand around 70-80% (rough guess) but it really depends on the book. Sometimes it feels like I understand 20% haha. Obviously Finding Nemo or The Incredibles is easier than Bronx Tale but Bronx Tale is easier than Battle Royale so it really does vary. As for how much I read, don't have a whole lot of time these days so I just aim for a chapter of anything each night as a minimum.
I just do whatever I feel like doing, I don't force it. Somedays I'll open a book and just sink "Holy shit!! I can't be bothered reading this crap..." and then I'll read something easy. Other days, easy stuff is too boring and I want something more.