Just kidding. I only wrote that to get you to read this thread. I don't really think that.

I realize that maybe this forum, of all places, is the wrong place to be asking this (as I know most of us are rabid SRS junkies...), but I just have a simple question. What do you think of the SRS-less language learning that people like Steve Kaufmann have done? I've read in several places about people having success like that. I'm not talking about LinQ or whatever, but the kind of learning where you just read and look up words as you go along, occasionally doing writing practice, and just generally not SRSing sentences? I know the guy in the following link (that Khatz mentioned once) talks about that: http://tesl-ej.org/ej45/tesl-ej.ej45.fr1.pdf

I'm primarily interested in this because, although I like the AJATT/SRS style of learning, I think I could expose myself to even more Japanese following this kind of strategy (I think in such a case I could say that I am truly "following the fun" All The Time). What do you think of this? Pros? Cons?

Well it's kind of similar to SRSing, just a little less regimental. I think over time it would work just as well, but your progress is going to be a lot slower as retention will be less.

But it would definitely work I reckon.

You think so? I mean...how much less efficient could it be? I realize that retention would be less...but with no commitment to SRS/Anki, one could expose oneself to sooo much more of the language...you know?

pros: as you said, "all fun all the time". if you're not liking the srs, get rid of it. ajatt is really about keeping up your motivation, so that you maintain an immersion environment, so if srsing is boring you, it's actually against counterproductive to your ajatt.

cons: new vocab and new grammar are easy to forget. srs (mostly) keeps that from happening, so it could speed up your learning process.

in the end, if you don't like it, don't do it. is it not necessary. if you "do" enough japanese, all the vocab and grammar you need to know will be there, repeatedly.

Using Japanese (reading, watching movies, anything) is also spaced repetition. It's simply a matter of whether or not to go about it systematically.

Edit: Also, I love the title of your thread.

That's what I do! As I posted in another thread, it works far better than my SRS methods ever did. I keep a journal that helps me review what I learned in the last day or two, to keep it from being immediately forgotten. But I find any review beyond that to be entirely pointless.

@mafried:

For realz? Man, I hate to be a bother, but could you sort of elaborate a little bit on what you're doing? That sounds really interesting!

@igordesu:

Well I've got to leave for work, but I can start by pointing you to the discussion we already had about my methods (my posts start on page 2):

http://forum.koohii.com/showthread.php?p...4#pid72404

Let me know if there's anything else or more specific that you want to know.

What do you think about all the leverless load lifting that people have been doing? Just yesterday, I picked up something heavy and didn't use a single simple machine to help!

(I don't think the SRS multiplier is quite that big, but you get the idea)

Edit:

igordesu Wrote:but with no commitment to SRS/Anki, one could expose oneself to sooo much more of the language...you know?

Either you spend vastly more time on the SRS than I do, or you spend vastly less time on the language itself. Further down the page that mafried links to I give an approximate of my input-to-SRS ratio; like I say there, shifting that over to all input is hardly what I'd call "sooo much more of the language", or even a variant with fewer "o"s.

~J

I don't want to hijack igordesu's thread, but no, I don't get the idea. SRS doesn't teach you anything, it helps you remember things (you know that of course). But my experience has been that when compared against the techniques igordesu is talking about it only helps you with remembering the wrong things, i.e things which you shouldn't have tried to remember anyway. So where is this leveraging of learning happening anyway?

I do SRS too, but I think that extensive exposure should be #1.

For the intermediate to lower advanced phase of my Japanese learning, I just read a ton of manga and light novels. (This was before BitTorrent and ubiquitous drama uploads, so I didn't get as much aural exposure as would have been really ideal). Some "real" novels too. And what this did for me, most of all, is that it gave me a kind of intuitive sense for grammar. Not that it's up to a native-speaker standard, but it's reached the level of a "gut feeling" rather than having to think it out. Second, it gave me a bag of tricks for reading for content even if you don't know the meaning of every single word, and I got really good at guessing from context and gliding over passages I didn't fully understand.

Khatzumoto refers quite a bit to Stephen Krashen's research, and Krashen is one of my language-learning gurus as well, but Krashen NEVER mentions SRS. Krashen puts the biggest emphasis on reading whatever you want to read and reading for content/meaning/enjoyment.

I am doing some SRS now as well, but it's ten or twenty minutes a day, and I still try to read in Japanese for an hour or so most days. (And, honestly? I think the biggest roadblock I've faced in my advanced Japanese learning is that I kept pressuring myself to read the major big-name Japanese authors instead of light novels, and as a result intimidated myself away from reading every day.)

I don't think the SRS is necessary at all. It is extremely useful and can probably speed up the process and help you remember vocabulary/sentence structures that you might not use often, but want to remember how to use.

The #1 most important part of learning a language, though, is the exposure to native materials. I think if you really, truly, self-immerse, you could learn at a decent speed without the SRS. But I'd still use one It's like having a pre-made quiz every day... like a teacher who says, "Okay, based on your previous abilities to remember this sentence, I gotta ask you if you understand these." It's just a memory tool.

I think that, on this forum, too many people think the SRS is how you learn a language. You download a big spreadsheet, throw it in Anki, and do reps and reps and reps and one day you're just going to start speaking Japanese. Like mafried said above, though, it's only a tool! It will teach you nothing! You can't just import a ton of sentences. Sure, maybe in the very beginning, you need guidance, so you can use sentences from textbooks or books on particle usage or whatever, but eventually, you need to be putting in sentences from the manga and books that your reading. Or the example sentence in your dictionary for a word you heard while watching 電車男.

I think I got a little off topic... but.. good thread

woodwojr Wrote:What do you think about all the leverless load lifting that people have been doing? Just yesterday, I picked up something heavy and didn't use a single simple machine to help!

(I don't think the SRS multiplier is quite that big, but you get the idea)

Edit:

igordesu Wrote:but with no commitment to SRS/Anki, one could expose oneself to sooo much more of the language...you know?

Either you spend vastly more time on the SRS than I do, or you spend vastly less time on the language itself. Further down the page that mafried links to I give an approximate of my input-to-SRS ratio; like I say there, shifting that over to all input is hardly what I'd call "sooo much more of the language", or even a variant with fewer "o"s.

~J

I don't spend a huuuuuge amount of time on Anki...but neither do i think that I only spend a small amount of time on the language.

For one, I just generally dislike time spent in front of the computer. I don't know why. I hate being tied to it for a certain amount of time everyday. Also, I have lots of reading/watching/listening on my computer. And I virtually *never* use it. Because of this attitude that I have and the other stuff that I'm busy with, the very existence of the SRS, to me, "spoils" Japanese. It...puts a bad taste in my mouth...perhaps because I just generally dislike sentence reviews. Just replacing the hour or so of the Japanese time spent on SRS reviews with more input feels like I would be adding so much more *joy* to my environment

I'd much rather sit with a physical book in hand. Heck, even paging through a physical notebook for 15 minutes everyday filled with interested sentences that I've jotted down sounds like a good plan.

mafried Wrote:@igordesu:

Well I've got to leave for work, but I can start by pointing you to the discussion we already had about my methods (my posts start on page 2):

http://forum.koohii.com/showthread.php?p...4#pid72404

Let me know if there's anything else or more specific that you want to know.

Thank you very much for the link

Death of the SRS perhaps?

Perhaps not a complete death. I find the SRS useful to remember how to write the kanji and information for tests in school (however...SRSing information ahead of time for tests can actually be pointless if you don't plan on retaining the knowledge after the test. I just used the cram study feature of anki for an hour before school this morning and totally aced a chemistry test today solely based on that studying...all you really need is a good system of taking notes / ordering information).

In the end, as far as this language learning this is going, I find myself becoming more and more of a hippy...

mafried Wrote:But my experience has been that when compared against the techniques igordesu is talking about it only helps you with remembering the wrong things, i.e things which you shouldn't have tried to remember anyway.

And my experience is that it helps me with remembering the things I put in it, so assuming there exist things which are not "wrong things" that are capable of being put into it this is not an inevitability.

igordesu Wrote:Because of this attitude that I have and the other stuff that I'm busy with, the very existence of the SRS, to me, "spoils" Japanese. It...puts a bad taste in my mouth...perhaps because I just generally dislike sentence reviews. Just replacing the hour or so of the Japanese time spent on SRS reviews with more input feels like I would be adding so much more *joy* to my environment

So the SRS introduces side effects that aren't fundamental to it that adversely affect you. Sounds like an excellent reason not to use it.

Sounds like a rather… less than excellent reason to ask for opinions on going SRS-free without mentioning it up front.

~J

woodwojr Wrote:

mafried Wrote:But my experience has been that when compared against the techniques igordesu is talking about it only helps you with remembering the wrong things, i.e things which you shouldn't have tried to remember anyway.

And my experience is that it helps me with remembering the things I put in it, so assuming there exist things which are not "wrong things" that are capable of being put into it this is not an inevitability.

igordesu Wrote:Because of this attitude that I have and the other stuff that I'm busy with, the very existence of the SRS, to me, "spoils" Japanese. It...puts a bad taste in my mouth...perhaps because I just generally dislike sentence reviews. Just replacing the hour or so of the Japanese time spent on SRS reviews with more input feels like I would be adding so much more *joy* to my environment

So the SRS introduces side effects that aren't fundamental to it that adversely affect you. Sounds like an excellent reason not to use it.

Sounds like a rather… less than excellent reason to ask for opinions on going SRS-free without mentioning it up front.

~J

Hmm. Let me put it another way.

In dealing with a certain, limited amount of time that can be spent on Japanese -- whether it be 10 minutes or 10 hours per day -- the benefits of only learning via natural, enjoyable reading far, far outstrip the benefits of spending that same amount of time drooling in front of my computer (out of boredom) as I waste away hours of my life reviewing sentences, namely because I can be assured that, as long as what I'm reading is *interesting*, I will always be naturally reviewing previously gained knowledge *that matters*.

Also, in the event that I am successful in my endeavors (of language learning), it will be quite nice to know that the maintenance of that knowledge relies not on a (perhaps comparatively) dull activity such as "SRS reviews," but on fun activities like reading.

Quote:What do you think of the SRS-less language learning that people like Steve Kaufmann have done?

Of course you have to remember that the majority of people who learn languages do not use SRS, and SRS programs weren't written until the 1980's.

I didn't use SRS, flashcards of any kind, or self-immersion, and I made good progress. A lot of language learning is just finding a method that you think is interesting, and that allows you to make consistent progress, and spending time on it. (Some methods are better than others, but interest is important as well.)

What I did is basically what mafried describes and it worked fine for me. Now I'm at the point where I feel like my kanji ability is actually getting worse in the sense of being able to give readings and meanings of out-of-context kanji, because I've forgotten all the ones I studied at one time but never see, and I can usually figure out the meaning of a word from context (and from knowing one of the two kanji in a compound) without having to look it up.

igordesu Wrote:Hmm. Let me put it another way.

In dealing with a certain, limited amount of time that can be spent on Japanese -- whether it be 10 minutes or 10 hours per day

There's a major difference between the two ends of this range, but I'll get back to that.

Quote:the benefits of only learning via natural, enjoyable reading far, far outstrip the benefits of spending that same amount of time drooling in front of my computer (out of boredom)

Like I just said, this is your problem, not a universal problem. I don't say that in the sense of "there is something wrong with you", but just like someone with, I don't know, a predisposition to getting shin splints may not be best served by running as a form of exercise, an SRS may not be right for you without being able to validly generalize that.

Quote:as I waste away hours of my life reviewing sentences

Like I thought, you're spending a lot more time than I am on this. To get to a few hours ("few" being around two or three) of review takes about a week and a half to two weeks in my experience, and I only put that in all at once if I've blown off reviews in the interim (I actually find that for most things this doesn't hurt that badly, since my deck is primarily consisted of items with relatively long schedules giving it a fairly small relative error).

Quote:namely because I can be assured that, as long as what I'm reading is *interesting*, I will always be naturally reviewing previously gained knowledge *that matters*.

Only if you define "matters" in the most convenient of fashions (if "if I don't encounter it it doesn't matter" comes to mind, you may wish to consider a course on logic).

Quote:Also, in the event that I am successful in my endeavors (of language learning), it will be quite nice to know that the maintenance of that knowledge relies not on a (perhaps comparatively) dull activity such as "SRS reviews"

I guess this is another place where utility of an SRS can differ. I find reviews to at times be relatively entertaining; since a sentence doesn't generally go into my SRS unless it has something new that I don't instantly understand, it acts as a little "look how awesome I am now" activity.

Plus there's the opportunity to save gems. Who can resist chuckling when 「男子のペニスのように変形させる魔法の秘薬が！」 comes up (may not be as funny without the memory of the context, I don't know)?

Quote:but on fun activities like reading.

Speaking of things that don't apply in general, here's one for me: SRS reps end faster than a book. If it's entertaining and I start, it may be a good long time before I surface again…

~J

I really have no idea why you've decided to pick a childish catfight on this one.

woodwojr Wrote:

igordesu Wrote:Hmm. Let me put it another way.

In dealing with a certain, limited amount of time that can be spent on Japanese -- whether it be 10 minutes or 10 hours per day

There's a major difference between the two ends of this range, but I'll get back to that.

Okay, no. Just no. There is not a major difference. My point is that, however much time I have at my disposal for Japanese, the following apply.

Quote:

Quote:the benefits of only learning via natural, enjoyable reading far, far outstrip the benefits of spending that same amount of time drooling in front of my computer (out of boredom)

Like I just said, this is your problem, not a universal problem. I don't say that in the sense of "there is something wrong with you", but just like someone with, I don't know, a predisposition to getting shin splints may not be best served by running as a form of exercise, an SRS may not be right for you without being able to validly generalize that.

Perhaps you would have been better off *not* breaking up my sentence into separate parts and dealing with them out of context. I shouldn't have to tell you this, but the "drooling in front of my computer" part is merely an exaggeration. If you would have taken this part in context with the rest of my post, you would have understood the overall point that SRS reviews, ***IN COMPARISON TO READING INTERESTING MATERIAL***, are boring. My point was never that SRS reviews are boring for everybody. My point was that they are boring ***IN COMPARISON*** to reading fun material.

Quote:

Quote:as I waste away hours of my life reviewing sentences

Like I thought, you're spending a lot more time than I am on this. To get to a few hours ("few" being around two or three) of review takes about a week and a half to two weeks in my experience, and I only put that in all at once if I've blown off reviews in the interim (I actually find that for most things this doesn't hurt that badly, since my deck is primarily consisted of items with relatively long schedules giving it a fairly small relative error).

Not like you thought. I never gave a time frame. Perhaps it would have been more accurate for me to have written "as I waste away *days/weeks* of my life reviewing sentences." I never said hours *per day*.

Quote:

Quote:namely because I can be assured that, as long as what I'm reading is *interesting*, I will always be naturally reviewing previously gained knowledge *that matters*.

Only if you define "matters" in the most convenient of fashions (if "if I don't encounter it it doesn't matter" comes to mind, you may wish to consider a course on logic).

Perhaps you had better consider a course on literature interpretation (or just plain reading and writing), considering the brilliance with which you have torn the various parts of my post out of context.

As for the logic, I fail to see where I'm not spot on here. I follow this logic for the same reason that I don't pull out a textbook on astrophysics and start memorizing all the terms via brute force: 1) I could care less about astrophysics. 2) Because "I don't [and never will] encounter it [astrophysical terms], [so] it doesn't matter." I'm learning Japanese to be able to enjoy and use Japanese (my apologies if this isn't your purpose), so, if I *never* encounter something in my reading, then it probably doesn't matter. What I'm reading is really the only thing that matters. The stuff I'm not reading (/never will read)? Doesn't matter.

Reviewing stuff via SRS is slightly less efficient than copious amounts of reading (WARNING!: This is merely IMO. That's what this thread is about!) because you can't know for sure if all the stuff you're reviewing in the SRS will come in handy within the foreseeable future (or at all). If you come across it in your reading, well, then there you go. It did matter, and it was worth it.

Quote:

Quote:Also, in the event that I am successful in my endeavors (of language learning), it will be quite nice to know that the maintenance of that knowledge relies not on a (perhaps comparatively) dull activity such as "SRS reviews"

I guess this is another place where utility of an SRS can differ. I find reviews to at times be relatively entertaining; since a sentence doesn't generally go into my SRS unless it has something new that I don't instantly understand, it acts as a little "look how awesome I am now" activity.

Plus there's the opportunity to save gems. Who can resist chuckling when 「男子のペニスのように変形させる魔法の秘薬が！」 comes up (may not be as funny without the memory of the context, I don't know)?

Quote:but on fun activities like reading.

Speaking of things that don't apply in general, here's one for me: SRS reps end faster than a book. If it's entertaining and I start, it may be a good long time before I surface again…

~J

Again, props for tearing my sentence apart. The whole *POINT* of this last part was the comparison between the "fun-factor" of SRS reviews vs. reading!!! Der!!! You're whole point about how "fun" sentence reviews are is literally worthless given this fact. I didn't claim that "sentence reviews are intrinsically boring." I claimed that "in comparison to reading, sentence reviews are boring.

igordesu Wrote:

woodwojr Wrote:

igordesu Wrote:Hmm. Let me put it another way.

In dealing with a certain, limited amount of time that can be spent on Japanese -- whether it be 10 minutes or 10 hours per day

There's a major difference between the two ends of this range, but I'll get back to that.

Okay, no. Just no. There is not a major difference.

I have better things to do with my time than argue with someone to whom "percentages" and "marginal benefit" appear to be foreign concepts. Good day, sir.

~J

Can someone please point me to an example of a person who learned the ~2500 kanji and ~15,000 vocabulary words required to be fluent "naturally"?

Also consider the fact that in just about every country, the native language is studied in school for well over a decade.

I realize it's currently a popular trend on the internet to be anti anything resembling studying for learning languages, but the irony of this is that the biggest proponents of this idea seem to have a pretty poor command of even their own native language...

Matthew Wrote:Can someone please point me to an example of a person who learned the ~2500 kanji and ~15,000 vocabulary words required to be fluent "naturally"?

There are plenty of people, as I said, who have become "fluent" without making extensive use of flash cards or SRS. 2500 kanji is a pretty high number that sets the bar for proficiency higher than most native speakers, and I'm not sure many people can reach that point without a lot of intense studying, but you can learn quite a lot through reading without using flash cards to review.

woodwojr Wrote:

igordesu Wrote:

woodwojr Wrote:There's a major difference between the two ends of this range, but I'll get back to that.

Okay, no. Just no. There is not a major difference.

I have better things to do with my time than argue with someone to whom "percentages" and "marginal benefit" appear to be foreign concepts. Good day, sir.

~J

Good day