30 a day - Retaining vocabulary

[mackie1402]

Hey.

 

I'm living in Hangzhou and have been studying Chinese at the University for the last 4 weeks. 

 

We're going through the 汉语教程 books if any of you are familiar. 

 

One lesson in the book is about one day at university so in the first 4 weeks we finished 第一册下 （15 lessons） and started 第二册上。 

 

I'm using Pleco flaschards for my vocabulary I'm learning, but just after 4 weeks I've already got a deck of 562 cards. 

 

Every day we start our class with dictation so I have to know each words from the previous lesson. I've never had a problem with this, but after a week I forget some of our previous lessons vocabulary.

 

What would be the best method to retain this vocabulary?

 

I did a quick browse on the forum but couldn't find much, but if there are similar topics then please send the link my way.

 

Regards

[li3wei1]

Sounds like a punishing schedule. Do everything you're supposed to do for the class: reading, listening, practice, whatever, and spend every minute left in the day either flashcarding, or speaking/reading/listening/writing in Chinese. Get plenty of sleep, exercise regularly, and remember to focus on distant objects every few minutes. Eat a healthy diet and don't overdo the alcohol. And be content with the fact that some proportion of those characters will flow through you like water through a seive, but that even if you can't write them down on the required dictation, someday you'll meet them again and they will be slightly easier to learn than if you had never seen them before.

[imron]

What would be the best method to retain this vocabulary?

Revise previous lessons regularly.  The dialogs in these chapters are quite simple and once you've learnt them, you should be able to read through them again in a few minutes.  Reading the words in context will help reinforce them in your mind.

 

Each day set aside say 15 minutes just to go back and read over previous dialogs and lesson text.  Go in reverse order, so if you're up to chapter 14, first read chapter 13's dialogue, then chapter 12's, then chapter 11's.  If you find yourself running over your 15 mins, simply stop and perhaps maybe once a week make sure to make some time to go through everything.  If you find you really can't get through more than 1 or 2 previous chapters in 15 mins, then maybe give yourself a bit more time, maybe 20-30 mins.

 

For writing, you might also consider something like Skritter.  The forums has a Skritter giveaway at the moment, and from what I last heard there are probably still quite a few vouchers left, so it's worth a try.  Skritter has pre-made word lists for all chapters from most of the popular textbooks.

[Ruben von Zwack]

I did a survey with myself to find out how soon I need to revise vocabulary before I forget it. Maybe you can find the time to do this experiment with yourself, too, so you can revise more efficiently?

How I did it: I wrote date and time and which lesson it is that I am reviewing on the sheet of paper, marked my mistakes, and collected these for a week or two. I could pretty quickly see a pattern emerging and knew exactly how soon I need to revise previous lessons, and how many days I can stretch in-between.

 

It's called "forgetting curve", I guess there are individual differences from person to person, but the principle is the same for everyone and SRS works with the basic principle.

[Johnny20270]

Anki is good but I think you need to alter the default the settings to suit you. For example default recall times come up at 1min and 10mins and next day. That is way off for me. I need, 30s, 1m, 3m, 10m and next day, specifically if is Chinese --> English. Other way round is much easier

 

Also default decks are only so useful I think. I find it a lot better to create your own excel spreadsheet, add your newly learnt words in yourself (just a copy and paste from a website) and then import the lot into anki. This way you can add your own "Anki fields" 

 

A row from my spreadsheet might look like this: (where A - M are the columns)

 

A) 会

B) can; be possible; be able to; will; be likely to; be sure to; to assemble; to meet; to gather; to see; union; group; association; CL:個|个[gè]; a moment (Taiwan pr. for this sense is huǐ) huì

C) 會

D) Can you use chopsticks

E) Nǐ huì yòng kuàizi ma?

F) 你会用筷子吗？ 

G) Will it snow tomorrow?

H) míngtiān huì xià xuě ma

I) 明天会下雪吗

J) CP E075

K) BCG

L) B16

M) HSK1

 

 

These columns correspond to

 

A. Simplifed Hanzi

B. English meaning

C. Pinyin

D. traditional Hanzi

E. Example sentence A - English 

F. Example sentence A - Pinyin

G. Example sentence A - Hanzi

H Example sentence B - English 

I. Example sentence B - Pinyin

J. Example sentence A - Source, i.e. where I encountered the sentence (so here CP = Chinese Pod Elementary lesson 75

K. Example sentence B - English  i.e. where I encountered the sentence (so here BCG = Basic Chinese Grammar 16)

L. Anki Tag - HSK1, so I use this to filter decks (naturally one word can have more tags but the HSK always take priority for me)

 

Notes

• It might be a bit tedious to sent up but once you have a rhythm its fairly easily. Anyway I can only manage 5 - 10 words a day consistently. For the HSK I just download the lists and alter them
• The physical act of actually doing it is learning in itself I find
• The idea of 2 sentences is two fold, (a) many hanzi have several meaning such as in my 会 example and (b) I like to have a sentence from 2 very different sources such as a grammar book and one of a colloquial nature, like Chinese Pod
• You could just use ready made sentences in Pleco but sentances which I have seen and studied also remind me of a grammar point, sentence pattern etc
• A lot of vlookups() / match() VBA macros in excel are very useful. I also have a VBA macro to convert pinyin to letters with tone marks (i.e. wo3 -> wǒ） Plenty of websites do this but easier if you have your own button on a toolbar in MS word to do this
• As for the Anki learning I find that every few weeks I just need to suspend any new cards for about a week, as I could have 50 failed cards and I just keep iterating around them. New cards just pollute old ones
• I disagree with the whole concept of "leeches" I like to stubbornly bash them into my head and not "suspend" them

 

Disadvantage

• Slow to get going and find a way that suits you personally
• Bit of learning required to use Anki especially creating templates and bespoke cards
• need to be somewhat computer literate but that can only aid your career
• strong chance you make mistakes like typing wrong character but actually as I get better I spot these much easier
• Major one - can't have media, such as sounds, pictures but I find this not really necessary anymore. I know how to pronounce all pinyin.

Oh and be sure to back up the spreadsheet on Google Drive or something. There are many many hours invested into mine

 

 

And last point: I will probably get slatted for this but you have just started university right? Yeah true, don't be dumb about it and keep your eye on the end game but I would say "Enjoy your time! you won't get those years back! " You could be decades doing the tedious grind working for some @ss and those university years will seems like a flash in the pan

[icebear]

I second Imron above - reread the texts or related texts as much as possible. Perhaps buy textbooks at a similar level as they will reinforce.

 

My experience is that flash cards are less useful if the flow of new words is greater and greater - they all start to get jumbled in my memory. For anything more than 10 words a day I need to have much more exposure in context.

[gato]

The OP is learning about 140 new words per week. Is that a bit too much?

[shuoshuo]

Gato - It's common for intensive Chinese learning to organize it in that manner. I think it's cram-level learning though, after a while you remember the ones you use often enough and forget the ones you don't get to use at all.

[mackie1402]

Firstly, thanks a lot for all the detailed replies. Really appreciated.

 

 

For my general revision I have been using the flashcard system with Pleco which I find very convenient as it is a quick way to access all of my vocabulary with stroke orders, pronunciation, example sentences and how the characters are broken down. Very convenient. 

Also, I love the feature to be able to quickly switch from testing my writing (fill in the blanks), stroke order (stroke order) and general knowledge of the characters.

 

I should of added that this isn't a full time language degree course. It is simply a Chinese language course. Monday to Friday for 3.5 hours a day. Once I finish my class at noon, I just straight to my full time job which I finish late in the evening, so time is a bit limited.

 

I've heard good feedback about people studying similar level books which helps with the comprehension. I'd love to take this approach but simply do not have the time. I have, however, been studying the JiaoCheng YueDu book which follows the chapters exactly with a focus on reading. This has been very helpful to get a better understanding. 

 

I must say that as simple as it is to review my previous lessons, even from the very beginning of the book, I just simply forgot. 

 

This will be my next step and I am hoping to review a previous chapter every day in my free time (or any time I can find).

 

Thanks a lot.

 

Hope this helps any others with similar issues.

[imron]

Be sure to come back and let us know if it makes a difference.

[mackie1402]

Morning everyone.

 

I just wanted to leave a quick post with my progress with reviewing the old whilst still learning the new.

 

I spend more time moving about than in one location throughout the day so that's why I was  a big fan of Pleco flashcards.

 

I tried Skritter as mentioned above and was extremely happy that they have all of my books that I am studying, already available. This saves me an extra half hour every night, putting in all the new words from that days lesson. That's an extra 30 mins I can be reviewing!

 

Secondly, I found the overall app very pleasant. I used to use Skritter as a beginner learning the HSK1 vocabulary list, but was never too serious, so when the free trial ran out I never subscribed. 

 

The fact that I can constantly be reviewing vocabulary in all aspects (writing, reading, tone practice, definition) simultaneously helps a great deal. I used to review hanzi first in Pleco, then have to change my settings to definition and review the whole lot again, even if I knew a great deal. 

 

In the last 3 days of using Skritter (I've managed to get in about 2-3 hours a day in between lessons, work, taxi rides), I've reviewed and retained a lot of the forgotten vocabulary. 

 

All in all:

 

Skritter

- With books already available, it saves a great deal of time every day

- Great combination of all aspects of reviewing such as the writing, reading, tone etc.

- Continuous reviewing without having to constantly change settings. 

 

Pleco will still be my go to Dictionary on the go and it's even more convenient that Skritter links to Pleco if I want to know a character in more depth. 

 

Hope this has helped anyone in a similar situation. 

[voraviu]

@Johnny20270: Very useful tips I will check careful regarding Anki, but  indeed you can upload pictures, mp3 audio  even record audio if you want too.

 

I hope it helps

voraviu

[Johnny20270]

Hi voraviu,

Yes I should have been clearer. Because I export data to excel and import spreadsheets I can't export/import media via a spreadsheet.

I have been using PLECO recently but mainly for the reader. I find it very useful to add words to my pleco word list. However exporting this list so I can read it in anki is not possible as far as I can see. Will do more research though.

OP: how's your SRS progressing? Still on 30 a day?

[mackie1402]

It's going well so far.

 

Recently, the last 2 students in my class at Uni have just returned home for the summer, so for the last week and the next two weeks I have 1 on 1 classes 3.5hr classes, 5 times a week. It's a bit intense but we're getting through a lot of grammar and it's really helping my spoken and listening as I have to pay constant attention.

 

The lessons in the book are slowly getting more words so I'm having to learn around 35-40 words a day at the moment. Using Skritter throughout the day for reviewing and Pleco flashcards just for that days flashcards ready for dictation, I've found it a good combination. I would say I'm retaining about 90-95% of the vocab I'm learning. 

 

The benefit of following the book is as it reviews old vocab in many of the new lessons which is helpful. 

 

I can definitely see using a book more beneficial than just learning vocabulary lists. 

[roddy]

Mackie - any reflections for us 18 months later?

[mackie1402]

I can't believe it's been 18 months. Feel like I could have done so much more.

 

I did use Skritter a lot! It definitely helped retaining the vocab when I was at Uni. After I finished the semester I didn't really use Skritter again. Well, at least not until I decided to do a bit of language studying with a few colleagues. Once we finished our target, I didn't touch it again for a while.

 

From my experience, Skritter has been a great tool for when I needed it! However, when I wasn't studying seriously and didn't need to know x amount of words in x amount of days I never used it. I did decide to nuke my Skritter recently to start from scratch.

 

For the serious language learners who have their quota of new words each week and keep it up self studying, then I'm sure it's an indispensable tool. I have to say my biggest problem was setting myself a target of time each day. "Do this many minutes of skritter before I sleep". Targets like this are never too helpful. Wish I just said to myself to try and do a bit here and there.