Does the usability of flashcard for learning vocab reach an end at some point?

[Guest realmayo]

jkhsu, hold on a second. You're saying that everyone who uses SRS does so because they:

really like doing SRS vs reading and that's a hobby for you that you'd like to continue forever

and you suggest that people like me, who use SRS as a tool to stop forgetting vocab:

can't really hold a conversation or comprehend words they thought they knew when used in different context

whereas you are radical because:

You know what's radical, I have never used flash cards and was able to get through the new HSK 4 just fine. All I did was read.

You might not be aware, but that comes across very dismissive of people who've been using this tool, which you've only recently come across, for a good while. I spend at least an hour a day reading magazines or novels or whatever, and about 20 minutes on SRS, am very happy with the combination, and am not sure why you're telling me that I'm doing it all wrong.

[feihong]

@realmayo

I too am put off my jkhsu's comments but I think it's pointless to argue with him when I see this quote:

I have been putting words that I don't know in Anki but haven't really actively started flipping through them yet as I have too many textbooks to get through at this point.

If I'm reading this correctly, jkhsu has an opinion on flashcards but he does not have a well-informed opinion on how effective a long-term flash card strategy is. Because he hasn't actually tried it yet. So there's nothing to really argue about.

[jkhsu]

Let me address each of your points as I think you have taken some of my comments out of context.

jkhsu, hold on a second. You're saying that everyone who uses SRS does so because they:

"really like doing SRS vs reading and that's a hobby for you that you'd like to continue forever"

The way that you have been talking about SRS in your posts seemed like you relied on it extensively. I said that I came in thinking people would like to get off of that crutch. If people actually enjoy using it then, fine with them.

and you suggest that people like me, who use SRS as a tool to stop forgetting vocab:

Quote

"can't really hold a conversation or comprehend words they thought they knew when used in different context"

The example I gave were for people who read very little and relied on flash card type memory methods to remember words for tests. If all you did was use SRS and never read or saw words used in other context, then yes, I do believe that. However, from your reply, you seem to do a good amount of reading so this does not apply to you then.

You might not be aware, but that comes across very dismissive of people who've been using this tool, which you've only recently come across, for a good while.

You are the one who said it was radical to take imron's advice of periodically deleting decks. Therefore, I said if you thought deleting a deck was radical, then my example of having never used SRS is even more radical.

Finally, there are plenty of people who have learned Chinese without having to use flash cards or SRS programs. I absolutely do not believe you need to use SRS to learn Chinese. If that were the case, how did people learn Chinese before SRS? However, I am not opposed to it and do think it is beneficial when supplemented with reading. I just chose not to use that crutch and have managed fine without it.

[jkhsu]

If I'm reading this correctly, jkhsu has an opinion on flashcards but he does not have a well-informed opinion on how effective a long-term flash card strategy is. Because he hasn't actually tried it yet. So there's nothing to really argue about.

While it may be true that I have not actively used SRS, I understand how it is supposed to work. Ultimately if your primary method of learning a word is using SRS instead of reading, then what you would end up learning is the word and whatever meaning you put in for that card. Let's assume that you learned the exact dictionary meaning of a word through SRS. Now, when it comes to composing a document and you have many different words to choose from with similar meanings, which do you choose? You really only learn those intricacies through reading how others have written the same thing. If dictionary meanings were all you need, how come Google Translate can't get everything right?

Again, I will say this again, SRS in combination with reading is fine. But you don't need SRS to learn Chinese as long as you read extensively. I'm not telling anyone to not continue using SRS, I am just saying I never heard of it before I joined this forum recently and I did fine without it.

Finally, I didn't start this thread and I am not planning to start one to bash SRS because I have no intention of doing that. Someone simply asked about a problem they were having with remembering words via this system and I said that I have never used this system in my Chinese studies.

[imron]

Now, if you really like doing SRS vs reading and that's a hobby for you that you'd like to continue forever, that's fine.

This has always been one of my main points of contention with SRSs, I simply don't want to have to keep doing repetitions forever. I've been experimenting with them on and off since back when the only choices were SuperMemo and Memaid (the precursor to Mnemosyne) to try and find something that works for me, because I really like the theory, I just find that in practice it falls short of my needs, especially when decks get larger and start taking up a larger percentage of study time.

Everyone has different learning needs and goals and a technique that works for one person may not work so well for others. This goes for the strategies that I'm suggesting as well, they may not work for everyone (and in fact are probably unsuited to people just starting out on the adventure that is learning Chinese), but I just want to put the ideas out there for people to consider, and share the experience I've had with them.

[jkhsu]

I just got private messaged by someone on this forum regarding my tone on this topic. I thought I'd best post a reply here publicly. First of all, apologies to those who are using SRS and got offended by my own personal opinions on the software. My opinions are based on how much time I can afford a day on learning Chinese and I chose to spend it on reading vs an SRS type of system. I understand that most people use SRS to supplement their reading so there's nothing wrong with that. We're all trying to learn Chinese here so it's best to be open to what others are doing as well as offering your own opinions.

[Guest realmayo]

Yes, jkhsu by the looks of it you saw a post higher up in the thread where someone talks about how SRSing seems to be their main way of studying, doing it several hours a day, and you assumed that was common to most people using it, which is where you went wrong.

On the issue of drilling vocabularly or not: I know someone who studied European languages at university and who was really surprised that I still need to drill (be it lists or be it SRS) Chinese vocab: she said that once she came across a new word, looked it up and worked out how it was used, she remembered it fine. And I wonder whether people here are in the same position with Chinese: that they don't need to actively drill new vocab any more?

[jbradfor]

I too am put off my jkhsu's comments but I think it's pointless to argue with him

Ditto. I've pretty much stopped reading the threads in which jkhsu posts a lot.

Not that I think jkhsu is stupid, or makes only bad points. But jkhsu comes across to me as someone who thinks they has nothing to learn from other people, and unless I have to I don't bother to discuss topics with such people.

[jkhsu]

@jbradfor - If I remember correctly, you were the one who introduced me to SRS and Anki and I thanked you for that. While (I believe, my opinion) it might not be as applicable for me at the current moment, I can see using it to remember vocab for readings in the future.

@jbradfor, @realmayo, @feihong and anyone else who has issues with my posts:

I admit that I have my opinions but I state them openly and I'll defend them as best as I can if I don't feel that there is a convincing alternative argument. At the same time, I think people reading the threads can learn by seeing opinions from various sides. In spirit, isn't that what these forums are about? I don't come in with the attitude that you guys know all and I just ask and say "ok". The threads that I'll participate in or start not only interest me but are ones where I will have quite a bit of experience in some aspect of the discussion. I don't have a problem of toning down my posts (and I'll do that) but I do hope that the "core" group here can be more open to other's opinions as well (even if they are very different from yours), and I will do the same.

[jbradfor]

You admit that SRS is new to you; and yet you already are telling people how useful (or not!) it is? You "ask" about learning Chinese outside China; and yet you get more than one person saying that you already appear to have made up your mind?

You have received some rather direct feedback on how you come across. It is up to you whether you are able to really evaluate your own behavior.

[jkhsu]

Alright, let me try to answer this as best as I can without offending anyone:

You admit that SRS is new to you; and yet you already are telling people how useful (or not!) it is?

SRS is new to me. The software facilitates vocab memorization; I got that. My contribution to this thread was to say that there are people (like me) who have not used SRS or flashcards and have at least gotten to my current level from reading books. So I wanted to show an example, that one can learn a different way (without SRS). Remember the original poster was asking about whether the usability of flashcards reaches an end point? Because I did not use SRS or flashcards, I thought I'd offer my own experience as an example. That is the reason why I participated in this thread.

I am addressing your other statement here My link

[murrayjames]

I know someone who studied European languages at university and who was really surprised that I still need to drill (be it lists or be it SRS) Chinese vocab: she said that once she came across a new word, looked it up and worked out how it was used, she remembered it fine. And I wonder whether people here are in the same position with Chinese: that they don't need to actively drill new vocab any more?

I never struggled with languages before learning Chinese. While studying French, Spanish and Tagalog, I made quick gains in each and never knew what SRS was. Didn't need to know.

With Chinese I feel my mind is a sieve. Characters are hard to remember. I forget tones constantly. Words don't stay at the tip of my tongue like before; they're in the recesses of my subconscious, hiding. For me SRS is a crutch--I admit that. My memory is poor but somehow flashcards keep vocab fresh. This is a much-needed boost to my self-confidence. Plus I treat my flashcard reviews like a game, which keeps a repetitive, obviously monotonous activity from getting boring.

Of course there's a limit to flashcards. Native language input (books, TV, talking with real Chinese people) is *the* way to learn Chinese. Using flashcards (vocab lists, premade decks) to learn Chinese out-of-context is just retarded. I'm jealous of people like Imron who, through reading widely, can retain what they've learned before. That hasn't been my experience, and so I walk with a crutch, for now ;)

[Guest realmayo]

The maths suggests (I think) that reading-as-spaced-repetition would involve an awful lot of reading!

consume initially lowlife superstition landlady ghastly calculate uneasy

According to a corpus I saw these words have a frequency in English of around two per million. And google says War and Peace has over 500,000 words.

So if you were learning English and saw one of these words, you would have to read War and Peace just to see this word again once.

I find that once I come across and learn a new word, it's still a bit abstract for me until I see it again being used "in the wild", ie if I'm reading a book or watching a film. But: once I do see it again, and need to spend a little effort recalling the word, that process seems to cement it firmly into my memory -- only then does it feel that I've really learned it.

But obviously the difficulty is being able to recall that word across the time gap between the first time I learned it, and the next time (say, six months) I see it in the wild. For that SRS does a great job: seeing the word in SRS several times over that six month time gap doesn't seem like it really deepens my memory or understanding of it, but keeps it just about alive, zombie-like or in stasis at my then-current level of understanding. A crutch! Until ... I eventually do see it for real.

So I can see why imron's deck-deletion deviancy would work: deleting a word after it has been in the deck for six months would have given you time to see it again in the wild, had that "aha" moment and really feel like you now know it ... or, if you don't come across the word in that time, then it was rare enough not to bother with anyway.

But then again, if using SRS to review old (ie more than 6-month old) words only takes five minutes per day, what's the harm? You're making sure you don't forget the word. And I'd guess the time spent reviewing 10 old words is less than the time it takes to look up one word you've forgotten while reading a magazine or so on. So SRS switches from being a crutch/life-support-machine to a safety net.

[xiaotao]

I personally love the ease of the Pleco flashcard function. I always thought pinyin and zhuyin fuhao to be the crutches. I have a kid who have been attending a Chinese immersion school for almost a decade. The school doesn't instruct the kids to use flashcards but they encourage reading. I believe she reads and writes better than her classmates because she is willing to read in Chinese for pleasure about 3-4 hours a week. She thinks Pleco is very helpful but she rarely use the the flashcard function.

[creamyhorror]

Way back before there were SRS programs, I remember the only time I had used flash cards was to study for the SAT test. I also clearly remember my friends who were prolific readers (unfortunately, I was not one of them) scored higher than me in the SAT without having to use flash cards. They not only knew more words but were just better than me in English period through reading more books. I also know that there are many Chinese students now who use SRS and flash cards to pass various English exams so they can attend school in the USA. Many of them score higher than native English speakers here but when you actually meet them, you realize they were just great at learning words for exams and can't really hold a conversation or comprehend words they thought they knew when used in different context.

I've noticed the same situation as well. I've always had a big English vocabulary relative to my peers who read less, and I never used flashcards. I also knew students from China who used flashcards to study for the SAT, but still had poor ability to actually deploy the vocabulary they learnt.

But I know:

1) I'm no longer young - I can't suck up words and structures like nobody's business. Flashcarding reminds me of things I've learnt, keeps them fresh until I see them again in reading.

2) I don't have the attention span to read as intensely as I did when I was young. Getting through a book takes me a really long time. This means I'm not going to see a new word again for a long time.

3) I feel if I'd started SRSing while I was studying Chinese in school, I would have done better then and possess a significantly bigger vocabulary now. (Of course, I would have needed to read more too ) I'm making my little brother use Anki and seeing how that works out for him. He remembers words in his Anki deck pretty well - much better than if he hadn't (he forgets them really quickly otherwise, because he's very resistant to reading).

[Silent]

On the issue of drilling vocabularly or not: I know someone who studied European languages at university and who was really surprised that I still need to drill (be it lists or be it SRS) Chinese vocab: she said that once she came across a new word, looked it up and worked out how it was used, she remembered it fine. And I wonder whether people here are in the same position with Chinese: that they don't need to actively drill new vocab any more?

Don't really know how to interpret this question. I mean no matter what level you are you will need to add vocabulary to keep improving. Question is though till what level you want to do that. I mean, what's the point in learning 50 000 characters if most natives don't even know 10 000. At some point you just have to decide enough is enough. Look up the characters you come across and really need to understand what you're reading.

Whether you drill or not depends imho primarily on the quality of your memory, your present level and the level you _actively_ want to achieve. The ultimate goal should imho be not to drill and learn through natural exposure. I never really drilled for my other languages (that's probably why I scored so poor on languages in school) but I found it very usefull and motivating for Chinese. It provides a good kickstart to start reading Chinese and provides motivation as the first few 100 characters contribute enormously to the amount you recognise in real chinese sources.