SRS: reviewing directions

[Kitaf]

BACKGROUND:

I've been happily using Anki for two years for  building passive vocabulary.

Most of my notes are two-character words , I only have a few cloze sentences and a couple of four-character expressions. Most words come from my reading/watching/listening or speaking with friends (I live in China). I keep the writing of characters in a separate deck (not the subject here though).

 

I read a lot of posts on the blog Hacking Chinese, especially this article, and decided to modify the vocabulary deck as such:

 

- Card 1: Front: sound file // Back: meaning, character,  pinyin, example sentences etc.  --> the goal is to practice listening skills

- Card 2: Front: character (with colour code for tone) // Back: sound + Back of card 1    --> the goal is to practice comprehension skills.

 

The first conclusions I draw with card 1 are that:

--> I need extra concentration because my listening skills might not be good enough or the synthetic voice is not always clear. The sound only review really trains one's ear. But am I doing training that  had better be done through watching something or am I still reviewing in a way?

--> Reviewing accuracy issue: I may stumble and fail on a homonym (with same tone pair) or a single character, for which I would give the right definition, but to another exact same sound.

(NB: I just found Imron's post about not going for single characters, but still wonder about a viable alternative).

 

I do not have a problem with reviewing  card 2 so far, but now, everytime I have a new word to ankify, I wonder if I should have it go both ways as above, or only test one of the two skills mentioned earlier, or do a cloze if one character only etc. A related issue is that as I ease myself into reading and listening more and more,  and as one naturally reviews while reading/listening, I am more and more intrigued about which words to ankify, if any.

 

Are my symptoms called the dreaded intermediate plateau, doctor?

 

 

[markhavemann]

On 6/24/2023 at 12:51 AM, Kitaf said:

-> I need extra concentration because my listening skills might not be good enough or the synthetic voice is not always clear.

I think you're much better off using Forvo. There is an Anki plugin to get audio automatically: https://ankiweb.net/shared/info/858591644

 

On 6/24/2023 at 12:51 AM, Kitaf said:

--> I need extra concentration because my listening skills might not be good enough or the synthetic voice is not always clear. The sound only review really trains one's ear. But am I doing training that  had better be done through watching something or am I still reviewing in a way?

I don't think there is really anything wrong with doing this, and as long as the audio is good it's probably reasonably useful. The way I see it, the most important thing here is how you call it "training" rather than "studying", which is exactly right. You should see this type of card as training like lifting weights, rather than studying and being right or wrong when answering. If I were you, I would split these CARDS into a separate deck (you can do this with the 'deck override' option in the top right drop down box when editing a note/card type), set some very low intervals and possibly a low max interval of 14 or 30 days. Then just keep doing 'reps' to train your ear, choosing 'correct' at almost every review, regardless of whether or not you were correct (you don't redo difficult reps when lifting weights, you just improve the next time). Again, the usefulness of this rests on having good audio.

 

This kind of practice should be stress free and take very little time for each card.

 

On 6/24/2023 at 12:51 AM, Kitaf said:

But am I doing training that  had better be done through watching something or am I still reviewing in a way?

Anki should support your watching/listening/communicating. To use the sports analogy again, nobody who is good at a sport only plays matches without doing specific supportive practice consistently to improve their weak points, and at the same time it would be pointless to ONLY do practice and never play an actual match.

 

On 6/24/2023 at 12:51 AM, Kitaf said:

or do a cloze if one character only etc.

If I've understood you correctly, this sounds like there will be a looooot of ways to get cards wrong and start to hate doing Anki.

 

There are a million things and a million ways to study, even just with Anki, so cards should be as simple, straightforward, unambiguous, and "fun" as possible. If a card or card type feels like a drag to do, then just delete it.

 

 

 

[Flickserve]

I would suggest it’s time to start practicing listening skills with a native voice within context of a sentence. 
 

You can watch videos but I find myself drawn to reading the subtitles to help understand the spoken voice which splits my concentration. One of the problems is variety of input - there’s so much unknown vocabulary, it’s difficult to follow.

 

Interesting point about getting the audio from forvo. That should be very useful. Even better if you made two similar anki cards with the same sentence but different voices. This would help train your listening. 
 

Another adjustment you can do to the front anki card is to repeat the sound file five or ten times. That way you don’t have to waste time continuously pressing repeat audio on the screen. 
 

The aim is for words that you already know, practicing like this and hearing different voices in context provides an intermediate stepping stone into the experience of real life conversations. After all, in real life, we might ask someone to repeat themselves if we didn’t catch their speech clearly. 

[Ledu]

I enjoy using Pleco over Anki but if it is working for you, cool. I also don’t use SRS any longer. Instead I work with small batches (50 words, ideally) for a week at a time. With Pleco I study them by Tones, Fill-in-the-blanks, Multiple Choice and Self Graded.That averages to about 7 words learned per day and it is easy to set up.  After the week is over, I pick another 50 words to study repetitively. I use Shun’s workflow.

 

Using a tablet is even better than a laptop or phone for studying/reading content.

 

On 6/24/2023 at 12:51 AM, Kitaf said:

which words to ankify,

 

So, I have discovered that almost every word or idiom I encounter “in the wild” is actually an upcoming HSK word that I don’t know yet. While previously I have been creating word/sentence Pleco flashcard categories for every textbook I finished, I now think I may be better off just studying the pre-made HSK vocab solely and in sequence.

 

On 6/24/2023 at 12:51 AM, Kitaf said:

the goal is to practice listening skills

 

On 6/24/2023 at 12:51 AM, Kitaf said:

the goal is to practice comprehension skills.

 

As far as practicing listening and comprehension skills, I consolidate what I have studied with Pleco flashcards (by 4 different tests) with graded readers.  I listen to the audio and then read. I read each book 4x which takes me about 2 weeks per book. I'm not really sure if I will buy any more graded readers after I finish the ones I already have.  

 

Pros:

-Vocab is recycled through series of books.

-Can use audio too.

-Appropriate for my level.

-Easy to buy online for e-reading.

-Can learn basic sentences that can be used for spoken language.

-Can learn different uses of vocabulary.

 

Cons:

-Doesn't feel authentic.

-Doesn't really teach me how a Chinese person would think/value etc (culture).

-Feels like I am just supporting an industry that was created to make money for someone.

[骏马的丕沿?]

I think you're focusing too much on technique - the truth is that the process of learning Chinese (whether you've been exposed to Chinese for only a year, or are a native speaker) is relatively simple. All it requires is old-school work ethic and persistence.

[Kitaf]

Thank all of you for your time and answers.

I just wanted to let a couple of months go by before reporting again on what fine tuning I did in Anki according to your comments.

 

1- I added the Forvo add-on, which indeed helps.

2- I turned "card 1" (audio only on front of card) into a subdeck, not a separate deck. This way i can either train listening only, or sometimes mix cards and keep an element of surprise in my reviewing.

3- I didn't tweak interval settings. After a few weeks of pratice, the time spent reviewing went down enough for me not to worry about that anymore.

 

Thank you once again for your help.