When using Anki, are you meant to write out vocabulary lists?

[Hally04]

I find that whenever I use Anki it is very effective for me to be able to recognise characters/words when I am reading articles or texting my mates, but if I want to use the words in conversation I can only seem to remember about 40%. How do people get past this? Would it help to write out the vocabulary for a single study session then pin it up on my notice board for me to look at often?

[arreke]

It's because Anki or any other spaced repetition software helps you to increase you passive vocabulary (the words you understand by listening or reading), and doesn't help with your active vocabulary (the words you use when you speak or write). For instance, children by the age of 2 are able to understand many basic words when you talk to them, but they can't speak yet, or can say a few very simple words, like mama, for example. It shows that when we learn words, they initially go into our passive vocabulary, and after some time only few of them move to our active vocabulary. Just like you said, you can recognize all the words you have studied when you are reading articles, these words are in your passive vocabulary, but you use only 40% of them in conversation, because when speaking we use the words from our active vocabulary, which is several times smaller than our passive vocabulary.

As I said, Anki only helps with passive vocabulary, the only way to increase active vocabulary is try to use the words you study in conversations and speak as much as possible.

[Shelley]

You don't say what other study materials you use. A good textbook should teach you how to use the words you are learning through Anki.

I don't use Anki, I prefer Pleco, and there are sample sentances in Pleco to help understand usage.

 

I use New Practical Chinese Reader textbooks, workbooks, audio, and videos (on Youtube), the textbook has a section called substution and drills where you learn how to use the new words in sentances and I input each lesson's vocab in to Pleco to study them, but for using them in conversation you need to practice that.

 

You need to speak more. I found TPRS very good for increasing my level of speech and understanding, if you do a search on these forums for TPRS there is a good explanation. Basically it is storytelling, this is a simple explanaintion and doesn't really do the method justice, so go have a look.

 

You could write out new words in sentances and practice using them in conversation this way, but you need to actually use them in speech too. You could try Pimsleur, this also very good and is all about listening and speaking.

[arreke]

You need to speak more. I found TPRS very good for increasing my level of speech and understanding, if you do a search on these forums for TPRS there is a good explanation. Basically it is storytelling, this is a simple explanaintion and doesn't really do the method justice, so go have a look.

Do you know any TPRS class in China?

[Silent]

 

How do people get past this?

I think the only way to increase active vocabulary is active usage of the language. So basically write/speak. In my opinion speaking is better then writing as you may get immediate feedback. If you have a conversation about something, your partner is likely to throw in words that you only know passively, but you can often easily echo back. For example:

learner: This thing is useless.

native: yes, but the bicycle was very cheap

learner: The bicycle is useless. The bicycle is hard to ride, it is bad.

native: you can't expect quality for that price

learner: true, the price of the bicycle indicates poor quality.

 

Often this works this way quite natural. Obviously you may actively persue to echo words back by mentioning things explicitly instead of just referring to it indirectly, repeat/rephrase  statements and ask obvious (retoric) questions. If you push it to extremes conversations may become artificial and more suitable for a classroom then real live.

[Shelley]

@arreke no I don't know any in China, I did mine on skype with a teacher in USA and I am the UK.

 

I did my tasters sessions with Eszter here http://www.chinese-forums.com/index.php?/topic/46693-any-experience-with-tprs/

 

 

[arreke]

@arreke no I don't know any in China, I did mine on skype with a teacher in USA and I am the UK.

I did my tasters sessions with Eszter here http://www.chinese-forums.com/index.php?/topic/46693-any-experience-with-tprs/

What a pity, never heard of TCPR in China either, all the Chinese teachers I've met in language schools are stuck to the old school teaching methods, and have no idea of Anki, Skritter and many other useful tools that make the life of the students easier ))