Any science out there on how many review cards per day should be done? Rules to Follow when Creating New Cards. Thanks for the review. Is memorizing vocab detrimental to my learning of another language? I simply warned against using such an aide to rote memorize decontextualized words and to focus on output, which in the long run is not an efficient way to learn. It has examples and even audio for many, many words. This ensured that the words were relevant to me and likely to recur. It’s very true memorized words is not right thing to learn language.you have to acquire word.aquire mean get something like never forget and words have different meaning in different situation. Watch Queue Queue. We also say things like “take a risk” or “open a bank account”. Check out the whole playlist here: https://goo.gl/NxYTorDoes the video seem blurry? After a few weeks, if you have too few/many reviews, adjust the amount of new cards until you have a manageable number of reviews every day. You also have to remember that Spanish and Portuguese are very close languages; in fact, if it weren’t about politics, one of the two would probably be called a dialect since they are so similar (pronunciation notwithstanding). Keep in mind there are learning styles; for me I score high on “reflective” learning (versus active). The short answer is: Anki is the one app that language learners all need. Don’t read the Anki user manual though; read these tips first. What about your personal experience learning a language? What would people say optimal spacing is? Making a deck is very laborious. If you don’t want to see a card for another day, you “bury” it. 100? Even though I’ve known of it since 2011 (and I tried it for Chinese, but I didn’t use it much). the easier it is to commit something to memory. Maximum of 50 new cards per day, on average 30 cards added per day. used only in one particular context)? Yes, Eric sets a wrong goal. Anki is free and open source. Memorizing a particular definition of a word may, in fact, only add to the confusion, because the next time you’ll come across that word in a text, you’ll expect it to mean what you memorized and prepared for, while there’s a high chance that the word may in fact mean something very different depending on the context in which it is used. Getting the benefit of seeing that nothing is new under the sun and surveying the different methodologies, pedagogies and theories will also better enable him to pick and choose the right strategies to achieve his personal goals; this instead of perhaps slavishly trying to live up to an idealistic or some other learner’s goal that is unsuitable for his circumstances (which is in lieu of commenter Tiffany pointing out, that “we have to use different approaches according to our goals,” which is entirely correct). However, there are so many little nuances in how to use it, so I thought I’d share a tip on how to make your reviews show up at the time that you are more likely to do them. I currently don't use a maximum review limit and learn 30 new cards a day (although not every day I have made enough new cards to learn 30). Just trying to memorize words is stupid. There are good decks for Italian, French, Spanish (and of course learning English from any of those languages) but I haven’t gone hunting yet as those languages are just on maintenance. What’s your mother tongue? It doesn’t have the best interface (which is why you even need this FAQ), and there are cleaner flashcard apps out there. However to increase the level of conversational ability (in practice), they need to know a certain amount of words just to begin. I’d say taking phrases you hear from native material (TV, songs, articles, etc) and then throwing them into Anki, or, bringing out a dictionary that has the translation AND the words used in multiple example sentences. For iOS, you have to buy the AnkiMobile iOS app. For example, the “Chinese Words and Sentences, Spoon Fed” is well regarded on language learning forums as being the greatest Chinese Anki deck of all time. I’ve been studying Spanish for the past 2-3 years, but really I’ve mostly done it on and off. Thanks for commenting! Setting a limit on cards you create will focus you on more essential facts over unnecessary details. If you are that interested in learning a language, think first of reading it, then of achieving basic conversational fluency, improving on that if you have the opportunity, and work constantly on listening comprehension (probably the hardest thing.) And after all, he was studying French, a language closely related to English, and was using textbooks and watching TV alongside deck-study. It would be actually even fun. I need more vocabulary to understand the YouTube videos, too. Anki is so “standard” that many apps are designed to sync with Anki. Personally, I think the only definition that makes sense is counting in “lemmas” (words in dictionary form, roughly.). I need to know!”. With many of my decks, cards are just one-way. You or someone you know may have gone through an experience similar as Eric’s. Maybe you should add some information about add-ons? Then he can incorporate all of that into his base method and repeat the process over time as his circumstances and goals dictate. It’s cleaner and easier to use, plus only contains what you need to know. As if collocations weren’t enough, the other thing is that words rarely have only one strict meaning. After a few weeks, if you have too few/many reviews, adjust the amount of new cards until you have a manageable number of reviews every day. As a result, Eric quickly became demotivated and lost an interest in “studying” French. It is something I found out hard way last year, when I breezed into French using the 625 “fluent forever” words, some grammar and practice. A good point is to be made here, an actual process of how to learn would be helpful though. It can easily lead to a lot of time wasted, frustration, and demotivation. There's no point in defining a fixed amount of new cards per day. Guess that just means I need to study them more. The thing is, I don’t think this is the right question to ask. After years of just giving up with language learning, and having the mindset of ‘Eric’ in the story above, I discovered Steve Kaufmann and Luca Lampariello on youtube around 2 years ago! Thanks for commenting! Lucky for me the teacher erased all those Fs cause I was the topper of the class and keeping his average grades quite high, which in return would show favourably on his employee evaluation. Personally, since questions like these do smack of click-bait marketing, I tend to agree with the author that, at least more often than not, these are wrong kinds of questions to ask for beginning language learners; maybe when Eric gets some more experience. It’s very configurable. Do `(one) book` and `(two) books` count as different words? Then you just make lists of the words you can’t remember, or anything else that is stubborn to learn. Pictures don’t even work for most words (like verbs). What are the best Anki clients to download and use? Ultimately, the goal of Lingholic is to share a variety of perspectives and experiences; it is then up to the individual readers and learners to choose what they think might work best for them. I hope this clarifies things a bit! You can learn how to use Anki in 30 minutes. did anyone contact you about great spanish decks? Anki Pro Tips for Language Learners (a FAQ). I find it hard to formulate a simple message on how to learn naturally, especially when in their mind, they already have an awful method they consider good pretty solidly anchored in there lol. Learning a word on its own is close to useless. It’s not a matter of which method works and which one doesn’t, I think most of them are ok if YOU make them work. are interrelated. – Are easy to use: easy to understand (translations), easy to commit to memory (SRS.) Good points, Taylor. If he wanted to immerse himself in a French book about something interesting, he is going to need knowledge of vocab and grammer, or look up each word as he goes. Everything we’ve learned from learning eight languages. Probably just by going over and over the dialogues that I’d find in my beginner textbook (or audio method, etc.). The human brain (thankfully) has a built-in mechanism that by default, will make it forget most of the information that it is presented with. Collocations are important because they are the foundation of natural and proper sounding speech/writing. The most useful words and phrases to learn are those that you have actually heard used. So what happens with Eric, you may ask? 20 cards is a piece of cake when you're just starting, but gradually becomes unbearable as the amount of daily reviews increases. Great review! So what’s the point in learning the word “bank account” in isolation if you won’t know with which other word(s) to use it to form a proper sentence? Another thing I found that made me learn was when the words were funny, like Geschlechtsverkehr- directly translated it means “gender traffic” !!!! The most I've studied is 2400 cards. I think a lot of words do change based on context, and you are right in that studies should be context-focused. You can’t just read an article with audio and magically become fluent. For example, this picture shows a simulation of the whole Zanki deck with 40 new cards per day over the next 700 days (in red). This is subjective, but I think it carries weight as we’ve studied many languages. I looked around the web for other language learners using Anki, and found similar results: aggressive, full-time learners would even out at 50-100 a day, and keep on pace to learn thousands of words in a few months. Should I use Anki or another flashcard app? However, when I struggle to complete a sentence and my Japanese friend suggests a word, I almost always recognize the word, and after just one such instance, it becomes a whole lot easier to remember that word when I want to use it later. I'm about 5 months in and spend about 45 minutes each day on anki reviews. So you’ve diligently been making lists of words in your notebook or Google Sheets. I can only see him immersing in a French movie/show/Youtube channel and music. I told you not to use topics as decks in a previous lesson, and this is another reason why. That’s roughly an hour for studying/news and then 1.5 hour for the reviews. We have to use different approaches according to our goals. Thanks for sharing your insights, Fabien. Indeed, the more links you can make between already-known information and new information (mnemonics, anyone?) Eric is a beginner language learner eager to learn French. In the beginning, the words you’ll add will be easy, like numbers and greetings. I mean, sure, learning 50 new words per day is a challenge, but hey, he’s got the tools for it. Recently, I’ve started using Duolingo every day and I found it very effective. New to Anki? So, what memorizing means anyway? Anki was not designed to handle many decks, and it will slow down as you add more. How many new cards? Hierarchical tags. Despite what I’ve said so far, there’s a good chance that you won’t be convinced yet that trying to deliberately memorize words is mostly a waste of time. But if you aren’t going to live in a foreign country or have a foreign tutor, the next best thing is to listen to audio at least an hour or two a day. Short answer: Use tags to separate themes of words, not decks. Maybe I’ll see them a few times and remember them, but I really don’t need to know how to say forge in the target language. There is no particular reason why this is the way it is, apart from the fact that it’s just the way people use these words. General consensus from the internet is 30-60 minutes, or around 150-300 cards. I love reading German novels, and watching TV, and speaking to German friends when I have the chance, and it all just feels so ‘natural’, and I feel so free. These days I know people are impatient. What is it that I’m trying to accomplish? If you find an excellent publisher for a language, then I heartily recommend downloading a deck and learning that. If you are very honest to yourself unless you love watching medical TV series or you’ve spent some time with a organ failure in a…let’s say French…hospital, you won’t permanently remember the word for ‘liver’ in French. A good starting point is around 7 cards for every hour per day that you are prepared to study. Learn FIRST, and THEN do spaced practice. But you’re right, I don’t think it’s necessarily a bad way to go. I’d love to hear more specific examples for, “interesting resources to consult to immerse yourself in the language”. I was just wondering what the methodology is supposed to be. However, a little drilling and memorization never hurt anyone, as those types of activities are very helpful, even if we can discipline ourselves for 15 minutes a day. I also have a question – how is memorizing words a form of output? The hard part is to find material that is suitable to your current level and needs, but the Internet has really made that job a lot easier for all of us…! Hi Charles. : 20 min in the morning, then 5-10 min several times throughout the day to review, plus another 20 min the the evening to relax with an interesting dialogue. I first finish my reviews and then, if I want continue, keep adding new cards until I no longer want to. They assume you use Anki to manage your database and want to let you keep doing that, and just provide a glossy surface on top. Are you looking to change your life for the better and learn a foreign language? It helps boost your energy. It’s not perfect, but it’s free and it works. Based on your observation of students that fell behind, though, were these students also the kind not to get exposed to large amounts of input in the foreign language they were learning? There may be a few who may believe they did it that way, but I can guarantee they were also learning in other ways that enabled the mastery. I’ve spent the last 20 months designing a training that lets people learn those 5K words in 12 months. This equates to adding 25-50 cards a day. But after two weeks, he goes through a slight motivation trough. It may just be me, but I swear that I saw both Anki and Memrise recommended very strongly because they help with memorizing words. Anki is so widely used you can buy flashcard decks from many major websites and publishers, like from Lingualism for example. Because the options for these decks are set to 50 New and 50 Review cards, you may still have cards remaining. Can I do multiple languages at the same time in Anki? I feel like this article is contradicting the rest of the site, if not fully but partially. Memory functions mostly by association. Eric also underestimated the finite amount of willpower (or “motivation”) that he has under his belt, and set exaggerated targets that were not relevant nor in line with the actual progress in fluency he would undergo over time. Most modern software doesn’t need a manual, but Anki’s user manual is massive. No disagreement here. You're in the right place! Really it all comes down to, What are you going to do consistently? I guess that because I am really anti drugs, and he was a closet druggie then it fitted. I am trying to keep in mind how I learned English: It was being spoken around me all the time, I started speaking it before I was literate, and I became literate a letter and word at a time. I still think a surprising amount of words do change meaning based on the context, or their equivalent in English (or whatever your native tongue is) is used more restrictively/liberally, etc. Obviously 200 words get you to your level in 2 or 3 days and then you hit a wall. Can you work out what it actually means . That’s a great point Thomas. In both places I was around other students. The other problem is that Anki constantly pushes me to learn more words. Yes, if you’re serious about learning, it’s worth it. If you have one you love, let us know in comments. They truly believe that they need to have knowledge of these words in order to reach fluency, while in fact it’s the opposite: you need to be fluent in a language before gaining knowledge of more advanced vocabulary. – Offer audio and phonetic transcriptions: in order to develop good listening and speaking habits from the start. A note is a group of information, like 1. a word, 2. its pronunciation, and 3. its meaning. I would argue that for most other languages, learning isolated words may not be a very good strategy. :p. This article truly sums up what I feel is the biggest problem in language learning today! I’m sure he’ll do much better on that one. Only add as many new cards as you can keep up with the reviews. I recall it… Read more ». For the New Cards tab, I recommend these settings: “10 1440 4320” means pressing Again shows the card in 10 minutes and pressing Good would show the card after 1 day, then after that — 3 days. But I’d only recommend this if a) you want to get to a professional translator level and b) the language you’re learning needs lots of memorisation, like Chinese or Arabic. If you’re wondering “Is AnkiMobile worth the $24.99?”, people have asked this question of other language learners many times before. Worse, memorizing too much vocabulary can lead to blockage, leading to situations where people overthink instead of “going with the flow”. After a year, he’ll be pretty much fluent in French, with an impressive vocabulary that’ll be the envy of his friends and classmates. I believe this included 125 new cards (which is effectively ~300-420 of the total count). That’s it: 50 new words, every day. “but I can guarantee they were also learning in other ways that enabled the mastery” – exactly. Hi Vinicius. But you can also do two-way (or more) cards. I.e, watching series without subtitles, or with subtitles in the language I was learning, listening to music, writing short estories and asking someone to correct them if needed, reading articles, books or comments on videos I watched to procrastinate (haha) and a lot more. How do you sync Anki over the air between mobile and computer? First of all, what does “memorizing” a word mean anyway? A good starting point is around 7 cards for every hour per day that you are prepared to study. It isn’t so much that the words have only one meaning, but that a word is 95% of the time in that meaning. Two minutes does not allow me to start suffering, yet I find that I can get a surprising amount done, especially reviews, since many of them don’t take much time/thought. How funny is that??? Pronunciation if not obvious (e.g. I did 30 cards per day when I was doing RTK and 20 per day for Jalup Beginner. Memorizing for how long, and what meaning(s)? And in that case, you want to make sure that you see all the new cards by some arbitrary deadline (leaving ample review time before the exam). You can also share your decks later (but don’t share ones you’ve bought!). When should I “Bury” a card, and when should I “Suspend” it? being exposed to the information as often as possible, until it “sticks”). Short answer: words, pronunciation, and sentence examples. Unfortunately, it happens to a lot of people and not only once (I’m no exception). I set a 2 minute timer on my iPhone and just do Anki for that amount of time, many times per day. Trying to memorize specific meanings can also slow down your progress to advanced fluency because your use of words is likely to become constrained by the meanings you have deliberately attached to them. I have bought a book I would love to immerse myself in (a cookbook, with pictures, since I love food) but I still need more vocabulary. It might be out of the budget of the kids. Hungarian.). So how else would I remember “nice to meet you” in Indonesian? I am using this kind of memorization apps but I make sure to not advance with the level of my vocabulary more than one lesson ahead of the course book I’m using (I prefere to go through lessons concentrating fully on the grammar presented rather than being held up wondering what this or that new word might mean). Pictures if you get stuck. As for whether to learn words by rote in advance, or learn them as you go along while immersing yourself in a language activity (e.g. After a month at this pace, you’ll have a vocabulary of about 1000, which is enough to get by. Looking at Eric’s situation, I think the problem lies in the very fact that he focused too much on goals rather than the process, or “system” to learn the language. Lying in bed watching ‘Friends’ in German, or staying up late into the night reading a fascinating novel, or going to a restaurant with Germans and chatting over good food, none of this is ‘work’ or ‘studying’, it is simply living :). For me the best tactic is definitely doing flashcards to learn 30 or so new words a day that I encounter and decide are worth learning plus reading a French book everyday for 30 minutes to absorb grammar and learn/reinforce vocab. Personally, I like Anki if just for the fact that I have notoriously poor memory and simply don’t remember the words with or without context. I’m learning Slovak . Also, my mistake that I set 75 new words per day, it is just unreal to accomplish so I started to skip it altogether, thanks for pointing that out in your review. It’s free, but not built by Anki. the number of words to memorize every day) is a good start. Instead of using “Food Nouns” for example, you tag each word with “Food” as well as “Noun”. ← The Top 10 Best Translation Resources for Learning Languages, Language Learning, Scaffolding, and the Zone of Proximal Development →. I’ve always gotten mine from newspaper articles, poems, a book on Greek mythology, and when I come across words that I want to know, I save them in my Anki deck. No doubt we’ve seen and heard this many times from various learners in different ways, but I’d like to know, method-wise, where “learn ___ words a day” came from. You don’t want to drown and feel “behind” later. It is just a general guideline that we found to work for most people who have used our Speakada flashcards and/or who generally use Anki for language learning. e.g. Develop more interests and you vocab will grow faster! interesting resources to consult to immerse yourself in the language) rather than output (i.e. At this rate, he could pass the HSK level 4 language test by the end of the year. This is different, and I think totally fine. The list is endless. For myself I have tried different methods and techniques, from classical school, to “street smarts”, also using flashcards. At the very least you will have a fluid reading knowledge of the target language, and then you have to use that ability regularly. I would say major frustration kicks in after the first couple of months because the learning isn’t fluid or “natural”. So when our French teacher wanted to get some (for him) no effort grades by just quizzing us on chapters from our vocabulary book, I simply refused to go along with it. Besides, you are not going get a medal for doing things you did not enjoy.. . If you don’t enjoy doing that, what’s the point? How about creating things with the words you already know? Then, even with languages dissimilar to my own (such as Chinese), once I have gotten to an intermediate level or above I no longer memorize, I also just learn through active reading/socializing/watching media etc But definitely for dissimilar languages I rely heavily in the beginning on my Anki flashcards. So I did a few hundred words, assimil, some series with English subtitles just to get used to sounds and pick up words, then a 1000 families or so with first shot serious grammar study, then we see. Secondly, it’s important to note that the iOS app is not free. It’s already pretty ambitious but sustainable for anyone willing to study several times a day. Like when people say “all I did was ____” or “language learning is all about just doing ____” as if the entire field of practical second language acquisition rested crucially on one factor/method. And most importantly…. After a month, Eric pretty much all but gave up reviewing his flashcards, and after two months he feels like French might not be that much of a big deal after all. Unfortunately, Anki’s interface is not intuitive. reading a book, watching a movie), I think do whatever feels more natural for you. The article has made the point that context and denotation in language is very important, but I still don’t believe memorization is entirely bad, as it relates to common words especially nouns. Share your stories with the rest of us below, and make sure to share this article if you’ve found it useful in any way! Read native material, listen to music, skim a grammar book just so you’re AWARE of the patterns, and watch TV in the target language. My approach was to systematically rote learn about ten new words each day that I had encountered during the day. You can anki all day using every memory technique out there and if you are ready, you can do 200 words in a day. Thanks to Anki, I have ‘memorized’ (based on hiragana prompts) over 13,000 Japanese words. And the thing is, going the reverse way just doesn’t work. I agree. Nope, I will not memorize the hospital related vocabulary by next week as I know I’m not going to use it any time soon. Even thirty seconds per second can be a real challenge for me. It helps build resilience (discipline if you wish) and techniques not only coping up with failures but praising them as valuable lessons. A rule of thumb for how many Anki cards per day to do is 10 cards per day. I would argue that the challenge those days is not to describe the process of learning a language. What makes a difference is their mind-set and ability to learn from mistakes. – Are at your level, in terms of both grammar and vocabulary range (frequency list.). As for my Japanese, I have a book called Common Japanese Collocations, but I can’t sit there and read a dictionary-like book. my studies in Indonesian, Turkish, Japanese), I definitely dedicate about 1/4 of my learning time to memorizing vocabulary – 50 words, phrases, or grammar rules/conjugations per session is my concentration span. Even if you only learn a word in one way (by that, I mean only by reading hiragana, or only by reading kanji, or only by recalling in response to an English stimulus), the fact that the word is somehow stored in your mind enables you to more easily learn other aspects of the same word. It truly feels like you are discovering and exploring a world, not even aware that you are learning. English –> Spanish), a note and card are the same thing. (Sources: Reddit, various language forums, and an online Anki calculator). There are a few cheap iPhone apps too. There are lots of blogs and books on the topic already and, like any learning endeavor, a lot comes from the experience of doing it ourselves, something books can evoke but not transmit. Seriously, you have to understand a word to learn it. are a lot harder to remember than those in languages closer to your native tongue. Wow, these are great tips! Want to get more tips on language learning, cultural exploration and immersive learning? Yes, it goes together with reading and creating cards (often ignored by beginners). Lingholic serves as a hub for language learners from around the globe to share their experience, success stories, and recommendations to other language learners. What decks are you using? Great to hear that this tactic has been working well for you Jenny. In my case, I prefer to learn them in advance as much as I can, and the keep the immersion part to a level where I know at least 80% of the words, because: 1) I hate stopping and looking up words all the time; 2) I actually enjoy using memorization software, it’s not a burden and actually enjoyable if I keep it under 1hr a day 3) every time I see or hear a word, e.g. In our experience, as well as in the experience of 90% of successful language learners we know, there’s great power in focusing on one language at a time. Puts the argument well, shredding the belief that you can memorize your way to learning a language. It grows cumulatively, and a session can include 100 reviews or more, which can each take a while as you realize “Hey, I don’t know how to use this word, I should write a sentence”, or “I’m having trouble learning this word and need to learn it another way”.