Don't break the chain!

[js6426]

Admin Edit: Split from discussion here.

 

I don't want to hijack this thread, but a quick question for BearXiong, Imron and/or AdamD - is the unbroken chain you guys are talking about adding the words into Anki every day, reviewing them every day, or both?  Asking because I want to add that to my goals!

[AdamD]

My chains are just reading and listening to Chinese every day. Sometimes it’s flashcards, sometimes it’s books and magazines.

[DavyJonesLocker]

17 hours ago, BearXiong said:

1) Add 5 new words (learned in context) to Anki everyday. I started doing this based on some advice I read by imron. I haven't missed a day since I started over 550 days ago. This should increase my passive vocab from about 4300 words to over 6k words.

 

2) Finish going through a 3000 character recognition Anki deck. I started doing this 6 months ago, and have currently gone through the first 1570 characters. Right now I'm going at a pace of 5 characters per day but might have to drop it to 3 or 4 per day when the characters get rarer.

 

 

How much time are you spending on anki now?

I was around the same mark as you are now but found anki became very time consuming. The result was I read little and hence it became a vicious cycle.  No reading practice meant that I was forgetting characters faster, thus time spend on anki increased, hence no time left to read. 

 

Think its better to ensure reading is completed daily then adjust anki new characters to zero even until the time spend reviewing comes down.

 

Also well done on 550 continuous days!

 

[BearXiong]

Thanks for all the positive comments!

 

js6426, the chains for me include both adding the words (learnt in context) to Anki and doing the daily reviews. Since the words are learnt in context, that forces me to engage with Chinese content for some minimum amount of time each day.

 

DavyJonesLocker, I spend about 25-30 mins each day doing 60-70 word reviews in Anki. However, most of my cards have at least one example sentence, so I consider at least part of that time reading practice. I spend about 13 mins/day doing character reviews. On weekdays, I do my anki reviews on the bus to/from university so I don't find it too bad.

 

Did you stop doing character reviews altogether, or just stop going through new characters in Anki? How many characters do you know and how are you learning new characters? I'll definitely need to do more reading but I'm trying to hold out a bit longer, as reading native content seems painful when I can only recognise less than 1600 characters. I guess I could try reading more graded readers. Since I'm so biased towards listening practice, at the moment most of my reading practice comes from reading subtitles. In fact, I'd guess that well over 1000 characters that I've gone through on Anki I was already familiar with on some level just by matching up sounds with characters when watching TV shows (I made no effort to do this, it just happened naturally).

[imron]

19 hours ago, js6426 said:

Asking because I want to add that to my goals!

Adding vocab is not much use if you are not reviewing old vocab.

 

In order of precedence this what I think is important:

 

1) Reading - whether novels, newspapers, graded readers, graded newspapers (like Chairman's Bao, Du Chinese etc), textbook dialogues or whatever other content is suited to your current ability (feel free to substitute reading for listening or some other activity where you are consuming content in Chinese).  Ideally you should be spending at least 30 minutes a day on this and you should be able to understand most of what you are reading.  This should be the driving source of new vocabulary that you learn.  This item comes in at priority number 1 because it's using the language and doing the thing that you want to learn.  Reviewing vocab and adding new vocab are ancillary items that aren't representative of real world skills and usage of Chinese.  If you spend all your study time on ancillary skills you'll never know where your primary skills are lacking, so prioritise your study based on primary skills, or put more simply, train what you want to learn.

 

2) Reviewing vocab - this is number 2 because there's not much point adding and adding words to flashcard software if you're then not reviewing those words.  If you are only adding and not reviewing you'll just be increasing your review burden without doing anything to reduce that burden - it's counterproductive. Review comes in secondary to reading for the reasons mentioned above and also because you'll be getting reviews of some words from reading.  If your reviews start taking longer than 30 minutes a day then it's time to consider deleting your deck and starting over.  See here for the rationale of this.  This might seem in conflict with the first sentence of this paragraph, but really it's not.  You still need to review every day, but deleting your decks will be an infrequent occurrence to clear out the dead wood and reduce the burden and dread of the review queue.  Any words you hadn't learnt properly will either get added back later or are not relevant to you yet.   Keep in mind that SRS is a tool, it should not be the main focus or driver of your studies and when it starts to feel like a burden that's a great sign that you should clear everything out and start again.  Nothing hampers study more than feeling like its a burden and deleting your decks is akin to a controlled burn in a forest to clear buildup of dead wood and leaves and make way for new growth.  Also with regards to SRSing if you find you are spending too much time on deck maintenance with Anki (creating cards, writing definitions etc), I would highly recommend switching to Pleco with the paid flashcard module and one of the quality paid dictionaries (I personally use the Guifan C-C dictionary, and the ABC C-E as fallback for words the Guifan doesn't have).  Using Pleco will effectively reduce flashcard maintenance time to zero.

 

3) Adding new words.  I've found that somewhere between 5-10 new words a day is good, sustainable rate for learning new vocab, with sustainable being the key word.  5-10 words is something that can be done day in day out without becoming a serious burden or eating in to time better spent on other activities.  Don't do more than that, even if it feels too easy at first - the whole point is that it is easy because that means you'll be able to do it *every day*.  The exception to this is if you are studying full-time and have > 4-5 hours a day of study then you can probably choose a higher amount (say 10-15 or 15-20), but don't go too high, make sure it is a sustainable rate and not the limit of what you can do.  The number of new words per day is not as important as the number of days in a row that you spend doing this.  Use time as the multiplier not number of new words per day.  What to do if you encounter more than 5-10 new words?  Look them up in a dictionary if you like (or not) and make a mental note of the meaning (or not), but don't add them to Anki/Pleco yet or consider them for further study at this point.  Don't worry about missing out on useful words.  If the words are truly useful, you'll encounter them again another day and can add them then.  If you never encounter them again then by definition they are not useful to you and you can safely ignore them.  I've written more about this here.

 

All of the above can be distilled in to 3 chains

 

1) Read for 30 mins

2) Revise vocab

3) Add 5-10 new words a day

 

19 hours ago, js6426 said:

Asking because I want to add that to my goals!

Try to form habits instead of setting goals.  I mean sure, decide on a goal but then think about what activity you could be doing every day to make that goal a reality and then think about how you can work it in to your daily routine such that it becomes a habit.  Then stick to that every day for at least a month (preferably 2-3 months) and by then it will become a habit.  Forming good habits that work towards your goals are what will let you achieve them.

[js6426]

Thank you so much for taking the time to write that, it's incredibly helpful.  I am going to start using the 'don't break the chain site', and switch over to Pleco instead of Anki, restarting all my decks. 

[Yadang]

On 12/31/2017 at 12:31 AM, imron said:

  5-10 words is something that can be done day in day out without becoming a serious burden or eating in to time better spent on other activities.  Don't do more than that, even if it feels too easy at first

 

On 12/31/2017 at 12:31 AM, imron said:

What to do if you encounter more than 5-10 new words?  Look them up in a dictionary if you like (or not) and make a mental note of the meaning (or not), but don't add them to Anki/Pleco yet or consider them for further study at this point.

 

What do you do on the days that you have more time than usual for study? If the answer is "keep reading more native content", then what happens if your quota of words isn't large enough to have prepared you for more reading? Do you just look them up and keep going? But if that's the case, and say I'm using Chinese Text Analyzer, and I've arranged it so that I'll pre-study all the words necessary to give me a 98% understanding of the text, if I then go on reading and just look up the words in a dictionary that I might have studied tomorrow or the next day (had I waited), what would you do then - just delete them from the flashcard deck (skipping them) and keep going?

[imron]

2 hours ago, Yadang said:

What do you do on the days that you have more time than usual for study?

Keep reading more native content, or repeat/re-read content to make sure you can read it effortlessly, or do some other activity related to consuming native content (watching films/tv, listening to radio etc).

 

2 hours ago, Yadang said:

then what happens if your quota of words isn't large enough to have prepared you for more reading?

Try to keep your quota relatively strict based on how much you can reliably handle day in, day out.  You might have more time to handle more words today, but will you have more time tomorrow and the next day and the next day?  It's not about how many words you can manage to learn on any given day, it's about how much you can reliably handle every day, and adding more new words on one day will increase your burden on another day.

 

If your quota isn't big enough, then don't add the extra words to your flashcard system.  Look them up if you like.  Pre-study them if you like and you have the time and it doesn't encroach on reading time, just don't add them to SRS or commit to further learning them yet.  One of the ideas behind having a quota is prevent overburdening yourself with future reviews.  Feel free to look up words and try to remember them mentally, just don't put any importance or effort in remembering them beyond that day.  Don't worry about missing out on words - as long as you are reading enough, the useful ones will appear again soon enough and you can add them then.

 

If there's really too many new words, that is probably indicative that you are trying to read something too far above your current level and you should find something more appropriate.  Instead of thinking "I need to learn more words today to reach 98% comprehension" you should think "I need to find some easier content today so I can reach 98% comprehension".

 

This might mean you can't read what you want to read *right now*, but it's ok to put that aside - it will still be there once your level improves and reading it then will be more enjoyable anyway.   I've been in that situation (described here) and I needed to swallow my pride and look for content better suited to my level - it was definitely the right decision because it meant I read more material and after almost a year was able to go back and easily read what I had attempted to read in the first place. The alternative is to struggle through material that is too advanced and/or be overwhelmed by new words such that vocab learning starts to dominate your study process.  Doing that makes learning more difficult because the more struggle required, the more your brain is likely to resist.

 

2 hours ago, Yadang said:

if I then go on reading and just look up the words in a dictionary that I might have studied tomorrow or the next day (had I waited), what would you do then - just delete them from the flashcard deck (skipping them) and keep going?

Sure, and if you can remember them easily the next day (or several days later) when they come up naturally in the text then that frees up a spot in your quota for another word and also congratulations because then you're learning words without the need for SRS.  Which is the ideal you should be aiming for and is what you do in your native language when you come across an unknown word - you look it up in the dictionary and then you remember it by understanding it.  This still happens to me maybe half a dozen times a year for various English words.

 

It's important to keep in mind that the above are guidelines and you can tweak them as necessary to suit your current situation.  The overriding principles that should inform your decision making are:

 

1. Make actual usage of the language the primary focus of study - whether that's reading or listening, or speaking or whatever.  Nobody is learning Chinese just to be able to do hundreds of flashcard revisions per day so don't let flashcards take up the bulk of your study time.  Train what you want to learn and don't let supplementary activities become your focus.

 

2. Make sure your study habits and routines are designed that you can easily do it every day.  If you have more time, add extra activities (or repeat existing ones, re-read or re-listen to content etc) but make sure your core routine doesn't become a burden.  Learning too many new words a day will eventually become a burden, plus you're probably better off learning fewer words each day and learning them more thoroughly.

 

3. Make sure to consume content suitable to your level (or just above).  Going too far above will slow things down and make them less enjoyable.

[Tomsima]

Reading this don't break the chain thread got me inspired to properly get down and set out plans for some concrete new years resolutions. I've used anki for years not just because it's srs is good, but because i can't help but get a kick out of seeing my stats. Seeing my days turn into months, then years keeps me motivated for some reason (as I'm sure we all know, pleco is lacking on the visual stats...). As for 'dont break the chain', the phrase is new to me, but the concept I am familiar with. while anki is great for motivating vocab and character learning, I've always lagged behind in tasks that I can't see in my stats. Two goals in particular that require daily practice, but aren't srs-related:

 

1. Shadowing. Its a technique I know works, and works really well. But I just can't bring myself to do it every day.

 

2. Guqin. I've been learning guqin for around a year and half now. I'm really trying to push myself to learn some of the early melodies such as 幽蘭 or more complex ones like 搗衣, but again, forcing myself to go over the patterns daily is so difficult.

 

So, I've decided to give it a go old school cross-off-the-days-on-the-calendar style. I made one calendar for keeping track of my shadowing (represented by 習) and one for guqin (represented by 琴).

 

I promise to be back next year, Jan 1st, no matter what, and post pictures of my two calendars (hopefully fully crossed off).

[imron]

6 hours ago, Tomsima said:

but because i can't help but get a kick out of seeing my stats

The problem with Anki (and other SRS) stats is that they are disconnected from ability to use the language for (at least) 2 reasons:

 

1.  An increase in the number of words known doesn't necessarily translate to improved ability to understand texts when reading.  For example, if you have a deck with 10,000 cards and you study hard throughout the year and bring that up to 15,000 (13-14 words a day) then due to the infrequency of words at that level it will only correspond to a tiny percentage increase in real word understanding (maybe only 1-2% of any text).  That's a lot of work, for no real gain, and that same time could have been better used towards developing other skills (e.g. reading stamina).  The same is going to be roughly true for any deck over about 5,000-6,000 words, unless you are only learning words directly relevant to what you are reading (and the only way to find those words is through reading).

 

2.  Many words you ostensibly 'know' in Anki are not going to be known well enough for reading.  For example, say you are doing a review.  You see the front of the card which is the chinese characters, you pause briefly to think and can clearly remember the meaning and pronunciation.  You should fail this card, or set it aside for extra drilling/memorisation because to meet the standard of knowing a card well enough to read, you need instant recognition.  Pausing briefly to think is highly disruptive to the reading process.  If you have more than say 1 in 10 'known' cards like this, that's disastrous for reading - or at least disastrous for reading long passages of text for long periods of time (say several pages of text over 30 minutes) because it will result in constant interruption to the reading process.  If you are not being that rigorous in failing cards, then many of the cards you 'know' aren't known well enough.  It's easy to be lenient on yourself when doing flashcard revisions.  Reading actual content is a much harsher mistress because you'll be clearly reminded every time you encounter a word that is not instantly recognised.

 

In summary, the kick you get from seeing those stats improve motivates you to improve those stats, but if the stats are not connected to real world ability, you are optimising for the wrong thing.  This is what I mention above about flashcards and SRS being a supplementary activity.  It's not the skill you are actually trying to develop so you shouldn't be trying to optimise for it and it shouldn't become the main focus of your study.  Therefore beware of stats that aren't actually helping your real world skills improve.

 

P.S.  Those are awesome calendars!

 

 

[Tomsima]

15 minutes ago, imron said:

This is what I mention above about flashcards and SRS being a supplementary activity.

Great advice. Don't worry, I read a post of yours about a year ago on how to study which gave me the much needed wake up call. Now srs is my morning revision activity, it's like my candy to encourage me before I go out into the real world and read stuff I cant understand and get told for the nth time 'you said the tone wrong'!

[Yadang]

 

4 hours ago, imron said:

Many words you ostensibly 'know' in Anki are not going to be known well enough for reading.

This is what I've been having trouble with for a while, actually. I've started a new topic here.

 

[白耀龍]

I think that learning words from context is more efficient. Anki can work most of the time if you go for learning new words through their usage in a sentence. 

By the way I am new here. 

[ChTTay]

On 12/31/2017 at 3:31 PM, imron said:

Try to form habits instead of setting goals.

 

Bingo! 

 

This is 100% true for almost anything. I never managed to do it with Chinese; I was always a stop start learner. Once i’m done studying (Not Chinese) i’m going to push on with language studies again. I did manage to do this with healthy eating and exercise though. Gradual, steady, sustainable progress. L

[imron]

2 hours ago, ChTTay said:

Gradual, steady, sustainable progress.

Good good study, day day up.