Now that I have your attention.... I just started using Anki again a few days ago. My first thought was just to start with a frequency dictionary and add maybe 10 entries per day. I started near the beginning of the dictionary, so it is pretty easy. A few common words can be tricky though. Prepositions mostly. Also, many words have multiple meanings. So far, I've just stuck with the definition in the dictionary, which is short and simple. Here it is a few days later. I'm not in trouble yet, but according to my original estimate of adding maybe 10/20 (with backs) a day, I have well over 100 cards. If I keep this up, I can see getting in trouble. Not so much with the frequency dictionary, but with other vocabulary I want to add. My language is French, so I'm using the Routledge Frequency Dictionary, which has 5000 words. The idea of starting near the beginning is just not to overlook or unknowingly misunderstand a word. I also started using a book called Reading French in the Arts and Sciences. The introduction to the book mentions making flashcards, so I put my Anki deck to work. The most notable thing in chapter 1 was the False Friends. I.E., words that look like cognates, but aren't. One of those for me in French was "important", which the book translates as "large". Wordreference gives other meanings, such as "influential", "important", etc. For me, the revelation was that a phrase like, "un magasin important" may mean "a large store", rather than "an important or influential" store. Anyway, I added false friends from Chapter 1 to Anki. I'm also thinking about adding words from Assimil courses. Mind you, these are courses I've been through before, so most of the vocabulary isn't new. None of it is new, but some of it may never have been fully grasped. You can see where I'm going with this. So far, I've only been doing 5-8 minutes a day. That's where I'd like to keep it. I'd also like to learn all the mysterious vocabulary in my courses. How do you keep from creating an Anki Monster?
Hey you stole my trademarked term, "Anki whore", that I used in another thread! And I was planning to use it in a thread title shortly too! Now I'll have to come up with something else. You have two choices: 1) keep Anki reviews way down and learn vocab at a snail's pace, or 2) keep them to a higher but still manageable number of reviews and learn at a much faster rate. As I said in another thread, I currently have over 9700 German words in Anki. While that includes some phrases/idioms, I try to keep that down and either place them on a card for the main word(s), or in a different deck. Plus I also try to put collocations on the same card with the main word, unless the meaning is different than suggested by the individual pieces. Yesterday I had 463 reviews which took 39 minutes, and then I reviewed 30 new words which I had already previewed. Note that I have my deck divided by source (courses, word lists, etc) and then sub-divided even smaller into sub-decks of 30-60 words. This obviously adds to time in creating the deck and inflates the list in the side panel. As I review sub-decks and most of them become fairly well known, I either eliminate the sub-decks arrangement by combining them into somewhat larger groups, or transferring them into the main (sub) group, using the rename deck option. I do this because I review words according to sub (or sub-sub etc) decks but don't want the number too small where it is too easy to recall and the words in the sub-deck help each other to be remembered. I preview a sub-deck I am going to add early in the day by opening the browser, choosing the sub-deck, and then clicking on "preview", which opens up a window with which you can step through that sub-deck. I study 3-4 words one after the other and then back up and see if I partially learned them yet (you still have to press a button to view the back of each card). Then I proceed forward 3-4 more and so on. This way is easier than trying to first learn them while treating them as new cards the normal way, and such a preview does not screw up my totals for reviews and time for the day. As I mentioned in another post, while my review time of 40-60 minutes has remained constant over time, which I ensure by stopping new cards for a couple days if necessary on occasion, the size of my deck has grown substantially larger. The same amount of time that once only reviewed a couple thousand cards now reviews almost 10K. It is reviewing fairly new cards that really increases the reviews and review times. When you fail an old card you still recognize it faster the next time than if it were brand new. Obviously you can, and I sometimes do, break up reviews into chunks of time, and spread them out through the day. However there seems to be a benefit to doing them all at once, as in my brain seems to work better on German when I spend longer times working with it. My advice is to keep at a pace that you can sustain, but to challenge yourself to add more and more new cards each day. The mathematical difference between 10 and 30 and 60 new cards per day is obvious. It is just tedious. But learning the vocabulary faster allows you to focus on grammar and usage more, and get into native materials faster. You will find that you can be past what intermediate and so-called advanced courses have to offer you, other than grammar, idioms and usage. Now the real monster is when you miss a day. But even if you missed a week, you can start back slowly if you use sub-decks and just concentrate on what is most important as to what current study materials you are using that some of the vocabulary is associated with. While learning "only" 10 cards a day and over 3K words a year would place you far ahead of most language learners, learning 10K places you in a truly elite group because there simply aren't many people who will make the commitment to do it and stick with it (OK that wasn't very modest). And if you have polyglot aspirations, then it is even more crucial to learn lots of vocabulary each year. I think Iversen has said he didn't begin many languages until later in life, but he has accumulated an impressive number of languages, and ones in which he has a large vocabulary of 20K+ words, as opposed to the B1-glots. One last thing. Make good cards that are worth keeping and ignore all advice to ever delete them. By good I mean with more than one word definitions (English words have multiple meanings too and you need to differentiate them to have an accurate L2 definition) and at least a couple example sentences (wordreference.com dictionaries are a great source of sentences). Although the SRS algorithm works to push known cards ever further into the future, you can also simply transfer words into a "known" deck or something. You never know if some life happenings will cause you to have to stop studying for a while, and you will have a way back. Dividing decks into sub-decks by courses/sources helps in that since you can tailor Anki to the course/source you are using at the moment. Good luck and keep cramming that vocab!
I know that was a long reply, but naturally I just thought of some more points. -I am conservative in pressing the buttons for how well I know a word initially, i.e. I will opt for the shortest interval. Later when either I am sure I know it well, or after having forgotten and failed it but when it becomes known again, I am liberal, i.e. I will opt for the next to longest interval, but never more than a month until I am actually past a month. I am not a fan of multi-year intervals even once I know it well (and which is only now coming up after a year of Anki for German). -It helps, me at least, to not only put the gender articles with nouns, but to also put them in front, as in "das Buch". I want to learn that as a chunk, which is a natural order, which "Buch, das". is not. I do however follow the word with the traditional method of noting genitive and plural, so "das Buch /-(e)s, -¨er", the latter of which symbols corresponds to the umlaut in the plural of "Bücher". Putting the article first makes it more difficult to skim the browser side panel and detect duplicates, but that trouble is worth it to me. -Although I recommend not only multiword, but also even long definitions, I only try to learn the first 2 or 3 words of same the first few times I review a new word. I just want to get a toehold on the meaning which is easier than initially trying to learn a longer definition. And while I try to put the most common meanings first, as near as I can judge from a dictionary, I will rearrange them to make it easier to learn a difficult word. And if still difficult, I will focus on just one word until I get that in my head. -Sometimes in using sub-decks you find a couple words that are close in spelling but very different in meaning, and which interfere with each other. I will then transfer one of them to a different sub-deck to help eliminate that interference. And if it is only later than I run across a similar interfering word when I can't quite recall the first, I will search my deck for the other word so I can distinguish them. This is very important in German where you have ein-this and ein-that and this-setzen and that-setzen with prefixed verbs. -When reviewing, despite the fact I advocate putting example sentences on the cards (and often several), I don't normally look at them unless stuck for the meaning, especially with newer cards. Later as a word becomes more well known, I will look at them when doing same won't substantially prolong that day's review time. And I occasionally use the preview option in the browser mentioned above to step through a sub-deck and concentrate on sentences. While many look down on dictionary sentences, they can be highly idiomatic and not just mere grammatical constructions sticking in each part of speech. -Between the word and example sentences, I put one or more phrasal usages as in a verb or noun plus a preposition. These often have different meanings than one would think. Anki can be as demanding as you wish to make it. But just as with the best teachers and coaches, it can push you if you let it, to achieve fantastic results that come only via hard work applied day after day after day.
You are very enthusiastic about Anki and it is contagious. I studied 124 cards in 9 minutes today. I'm taking your advice and continuing to add cards each day. One neat thing about restarting Anki was the cards that I got the first time that I'd not looked at in months quickly jumped to 1.4 years for review. That little feature of being able to put Anki aside if necessary and then later to come back and if you know the cards, file them away in the far future file.
Glad you're back on the Anki treadmill. Things that result in fewer and faster reviews: -short definitions, especially those of only one word -a high percentage of cards still being grammar function words which you run into all the time anyway -being liberal in how well you know cards (opposite of me as above), which pushes them farther away til the next time -adding new cards at a slow pace -low leech threshold and allowing suspension of leeches Things that result in more and slower reviews: -longer definitions -being into lower frequency range with new cards where you don't encounter them in reading as often -adding new cards at a faster pace daily -being conservative about how well you know a card (more necessary with longer definitions) -adding more abstract vocabulary that does not have as many related words -putting collocations on the card of the main base word -high leech threshold and tag only Over time, many new cards get easier, because they are derivatives, or partial derivatives, of already known words. But there will still be plenty of annoyingly tough to remember words. Many on the other forum advocate deleting such cards or having a low leech threshold. They seem to believe it is not important enough to learn simply because it is tough. Eventually you will learn those tough words, even if it takes 10 times as long as easier words. If you choose your words as well as you can, up to at least say 6000 words, then they are in fact important. You can tweak the leech threshold on Anki to low, which after a few failed attempts will in effect suspend those cards. Leech threshold is set by selecting a deck and then using the "options" button on the bottom. I have mine set to 99 and tag only. One can also set the easy interval (and bonus etc) to a custom level. I used to use 3 days for the lowest interval, but found that using 2 days, which results in quicker and more reviews, actually produced less failed newer cards in the long run, i.e. that extra day before I saw a new card I had previously known, now helped make me forget it. Anyway, just remember hamsters have to remember to get off the treadmill to eat, drink and poop occasionally to keep them from keeling over.
Thanks for the informed tips. I see I can set tweak the leech count on the default deck to affect all decks. It looks that way anyway. I kind of like the fact that "tough" cards will be removed from the rotation. I assume that's what it means. E.G. miss this card 8 times and it will be suspended and therefore you won't see it until you take some action. The other algorithm tweaking tips are interesting as well. I believe it said I did 111 cards in 12 minutes this morning. I like the tip about making the cards simpler to make it easier. I get that this isn't the approach you have taken, but it seems helpful for me.
Up late and can't sleep and see you just made this reply. In fact that was not a tip, i.e. about making cards simpler. Rather it was just an observation that simpler cards lead to lower numbers of reviews and review times. What I advocate in fact is more complex cards, i.e with longer multiword definitions. But when you first see that card, just try to remember the first couple words, or just one word. Later as it comes up you can add more of the definition. You want to get a toehold on the definition, and from there you can add to it. If you will commit to 40-60 minutes a day for a year, you can know 10K+ words by the end of that year, after which you can either keep up the pace or slow down. Or start another language. But if you take years to get to a 10K+ vocabulary, you might as well just take school courses. After which you still won't be able to read a newspaper or hold an in-depth conversation with ease. And the additional benefit of that year will be that for the next Romance language, it will be even easier to acquire a similar sized vocabulary (or same with Swedish/Dutch after German).
This is essentially what Ausubel defines as "progressive differentiation". Start with the core concept behind something, then gradually add more and more detail until you understand all the specific uses and applications.
As far as the title of the thread, it's a throwback to I was a Teenage Werewolf. There were others: I was a Teenage Frankenstein. I was a Teenage Zombie, which is so bad I won't even link to it.
An additional plug for Anki, as if I were lacking in singing its praises above, is that if you spend the time and attention to make really good cards, it can function as your own private dictionary. Each of the definitions I have entered have been checked with at least two, and sometimes three or four online dictionaries or other sources (like linguee.com). It takes experience to recognize which of several uses of a L2 word seem most prevalent, and which English translations seem the best. When I find that the translation I have heretofore used is a little off, I research the word again and adjust my Anki definition. So when I think I recognize a word but can't quite recall its meaning or a usage of same, I look first in my Anki deck, because I trust it the most. No card is ever a finished product, but always a work in progress.
