How to Memorize Words in a Language: DON'T
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- Опубліковано 2 чер 2020
- There's no doubt that vocabulary is one of the hardest mountains to climb when it comes to language learning.
The most popular method to go about it seems to be SRS (spaced repetition systems), aka flashcards. Bloggers and fellow UA-camrs seem to glorify the effectiveness of softwares like anki, memrise, quizlet...
But there's a dark side to flashcards...
In this looooong and controversial video, I show why learning vocabulary with flashcards not only is time consuming, but also counterproductive.
I explain my 7 reasons why studying vocabulary with flashcards is wrong, and in the next video I'll show you how I learn it!
Watch until the end to know if flashcards are all that bad, though 😅
Let me know in the comments if you like flashcards (you freaks), or of, like me, you despise them from the bottom of your heart ❤️
Let's connect on Twitter: @TheIndLang
I think you are talking about different stages of language learning. You did learn/load a lot of vocabulary into your brain using flash cards. Those were the early blocks. Once you have them, you can read books or watch videos and guess at the meanings of new words from context. You continue to add nuances to the words you had learned from the flash cards, like seeing familiar faces. I can understand why, in retrospect, learning isolated words from flash card, out of context, may seem boring to you now. But I think starting is always hard. True that making flash cards does take time. But making that content is when the brain explores. It is not time wasted. However, I agree with you that once you get past a certain level, one should reduce the deck size to free time up for other ways of learning. We always want to have fun while learning. When a learning method stops being fun, we have to find new rewards.
Decent
Other way around! Learn with dialogues , then you can learn with flash cards later when you know the language well enough.Best listening material? Postman Pat and other animated stuff. Why? Bc it’s short and full of dialogue which means you will speak more.Films tend to have too little speexh in comparison and are too long.
She just talked about the dark side, she didn’t day it’s useless
@@michaelfinn7871 yeah this exactly
I know im asking the wrong place but does anyone know of a way to log back into an Instagram account?
I was dumb forgot the login password. I would love any tips you can offer me
Thank you youtube for an option to speed up the video.
Exactly 😂
Just read my mind, tf lol
😆😆😆😆😆
Well I think it’s slow for a native speaker, but when you take into consideration that she doesn’t seem to be a native English speaker but yet has gotten her English to a native level, has excellent pronunciation and enunciation, and isn’t using any filler words like umm, uhhh, plus comes of as super comfortable on camera and is delivering beneficial information for free, we can excuse it guys , let’s be real 😂
Do everything, flashcards, read books, book tutors, read BBC or another news site. The only thing I struggle with is listening to talks/watching content, I just find it a non-starter.
look for *minimal pairs*. you'll find shared decks.
and look for movie2Anki addon it might help u alot.
and the key here is to relisten to those talks so it become recognizable for u. and movie2anki is good way to do that
My brother studied languages at the Defense Language Institute Foreign Language Center in California. The pace of study was intense. Students had to master the language course in 36-64 weeks. Psychologically it was very difficult, but fortunately he was helped by Yuriy Ivantsiv's book "Polyglot Notes. Practical tips for learning foreign languages”. The book " Polyglot Notes" became a desk book for my brother, because it has answers to all the problems that any student of a foreign language has to face. Thanks to the author of the channel for this interesting video! Good luck to everyone who studies a foreign language and wants to realize their full potential
as quoted by Bruce Lee: "Absorb what is useful discard what is not"
I tried so many methods of learning languages but I always keep coming back to Anki for the best results in terms of memorization. You need to know how to make it work for you. Also it is just a tool in your toolbox full with gadgets that will help you learn the target language. There is no all in 1 tool. If it works for you great, if not, find something else. Everyone is different in learning
I often make 15 flash cards a day but I don't simply translate. Instead, I put one phrase on front and one one back. Then i see the first and try to remember the another. In the back I also put the definition in ensligh (witch is the language I'm learning) and an image. Of course it's not with all words that is possible put image. But most of them I can do this. However as you sad is very time consuming. Even I just copy and paste, I use 4 different dictionaries to find good phrases and a good definition. Anyway thanks for the video, very useful and informative.
I agree with many points in this video, but I also disagree with others. As I self study Japanese (my fifth language), I am using Anki to learn the basic 2000 words I need to be able to later immerse in the language. I think many of the criticisms of SRS are valid, but in the earliest stage of language learning you need to acquire vocabulary in order to do anything with the language.
I find that the simplicity of Anki, which you criticise, is an advantage at the beginning. I don't want any nuances when I'm starting out. I just want to know how to say Monday, house, eyes, book, red, big, I like this, I don't like that, I get up at 5 o'clock, etc. Any subtleties at this beginner level will only confuse me and slow me down. When I finish this deck I plan to start reading easy manga, but I can't do that before I have any vocabulary drilled into my brain.
I agree that SRS should not be your only source of learning, which is why I am also doing a beginner course that teaches the fundamentals of the language. I think the beginning stage of learning a language is always the most boring, which is why many people give up so soon. I know, I have experience, that once you get onto the intermediate plateau things get more fun, because you can start to consume material that is interesting. You learn by reading and listening to content you enjoy. Learning becomes fun.
Yes
Thanks for the video - interesting take! Coming from a cog sci background, I think there's a couple of things going on here.
1) You're exactly right about context. Flashcards do not provide context and they do not provide a good, nuanced sense of what the word means. It's more like "X means something like Y," even though X might mean something like Y and Z and F.
2) A lot of people probably overuse flashcards. When you said that most of your studying time would be taken up with flashcards... yeah... that's really not a good use of time. Flashcards are best when it's like 10-15 minutes a day. And actually, with spaced repetition, you can build a pretty large
3) People also misuse flashcards. Flashcards build relationships between cues (those are the words you know) and targets (the words you don't know). But if you're never actually using the words that you're practicing in daily conversation or in written form or through reading comprehension, then they're just kind of floating there, detached from context. You can keep doing the flashcards, but, as you say, getting flashcards "right" isn't really the point of learning a language. Goal should be to go over words that you might forget.
4) There are also some alternatives to flashcards (like free recall practice), which are probably more effective. Flashcards are "cued" recall - you need the cue to think of the other word. But a stronger form of memory recall is being able to pull up information without the cue at all. Why don't you think of all of the cooking-related words in your target language? And then quickly write down 4-5 sentences (what you cooked yesterday, what you want to cook tomorrow, what you wish you could cook). Here, you're doing something closer to what you do when you're speaking or writing in the target language
5) All of the above being said, I still think flashcards are a pretty reasonable approach for learning a basic set of vocabulary that you can build off of. You yourself seemed to do that with Korean. If the flashcards get burdensome or boring that's a sign that you might not be using flashcards correctly. On the test anxiety thing, research actually suggests that regular low-stakes testing reduces test-anxiety (and tests themselves are pretty excellent learning opportunities - look up "the testing effect"). To actually test whether not using flashcards at all is superior, you'd have to do a comparison of two people (or preferably more), with one using flashcards and one not.
References:
pdf.retrievalpractice.org/guide/Agarwal_Bain_Chamberlain_2012_EDPR.pdf (low-stakes quizzing reduces anxiety)
citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.1061.366&rep=rep1&type=pdf (testing effect in the classroom)
citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.721.6502&rep=rep1&type=pdf (testing effect on complex materials)
If you take those premises and approaches to SRS systems given in the video, they are indeed inefficient, BUT those premises and approaches given in the video are suboptimal. First of all, SRS systems are not language learning, they are a supplement/one aspect for the language learning process that should use a variety of methods. Secondly, flashcards are not limited to single words AND they should not be. If you use phrases or full sentences, you already give semantic AND grammatical context for the words in those phrases/sentences. If you take those phrases from other (hopefully interesting) material you work on (i.e. novel, song, podcast), you will associate them in the context of the story, song, podcast and they won't be that boring. When you use multiple phrases containing a specific word, you give multiple contexts. All that is also why making your own flashcards are significantly superior to using premade decks.
If you add audio, you don't just give your brain another anchor point for memorization, but also train your listening skills and pronunciation (if you shadow it).
Making flashcards takes time, true, but if you dedicate an hour or so a week purely on making flash cards, doing them in a smooth routine, you will do many more than interupting your other study to do single flashcards when you encounter a new word. And in one or two hours, you'll have enough flashcards worth for several weeks (depending on how many new ones you learn every day).
SRS flashcard systems are not the Holy Grail and only learning method, but if used correctly and with their full potential, they are a very powerful tool to support the language learning process.
I agree. I did the same things with spanish and now I'm almost fluent
@Hedera Hashgraph Clips Please elaborate.
@Hedera Hashgraph Clips I've addressed that already in my initial post.
Again, SRS are not the ultimate and only learning method, but the effectiveness of SRS as a learning tool and useful supplement in the learning process has been proven in many scientific studies for over half a century now.
This didn't really change my mind about srs but helped me realize my own feelings about srs and how much it was dragging down my language learning as of late. The past few months, my vocab decks just feel like a chore and even though I consistently do them, I start to really drag my feet and not really absorb anything. It has become routine and mechanical. In the end, I look forward to other things like reading books or watching movies in my target language but whenever its time to review flashcards I just groan and lose motivation. This video helped me realize that it's better to just do away with srs if its no longer helpful or a source of joy for language learning. Better to amputate the limb then let it fester and cause you to give up on a language, which would be a shame imo
I don’t agree I learn a plethora of words quickly and easily with Anki.
Exactly! Same here, everybody is different
Anki wasted decades of my life. Never learned a thing from it.
@@Legendary_Detective-Wobbuffet Decades? Lmao how long has the app been around even?
@@murtadha96 how long have people been writing on both sides of paper?
@@Legendary_Detective-Wobbuffet you said anki, not flashcards.
+ what exactly was your approach in learning vocab through anki? yes it will be a waste if you don't know how to do it lol
Thank you for sharing your experience. I won't stop using Anki, for I think you can add cards with words in context (sentences - the "cloze" function is perfect for it) and this way you can explore the multiple meanings a word may have. On the other hand, I realize one must diversify learning methods. Anki won't make you fluent if you don't experience language both passively (though books, films... reading and listening in general) and actively (through writing and speaking). By these means you can truly assess your progress and experience the living language.
I've recently hit a stage where I've just had enough of using Anki (so much so I've just deleted my whole deck) to learn my spanish so I've been watching some videos to see other language learners opinions and for me you hit the nail on the head with your points. Now my next step is to find out how to learn vocabulary without it and what others do to achieve this. Thanks.
Been learning spanish for 4 years, wasted a lot of time. Now I listen to sound bites like form courses or what ever and just keep hitting the play button over and over till I can understand what is being said without thinking about it. I do the same with reading. I also like to mentally break a sentence up into small phrases. That seems to help listening comprehension a lot for me. But I never try to remember anything, I either know it or I dont, thats my brains job, not mine. My only job is to keep showing up, keep listening and reading. I feel the same way about trying to speak, the brain and body will take over when its time to speak. the most important key is dont gloss over a sentence or sound bite until you fully understand it without thinking about it because language isnt an activity we think about, we just do it, so train it that way. If you have to think about it you dont know it. dont worry about how many times you have to hear or read something to get it, youll just frustrate yourself.
Thank you a lot for do this video! It really helps that people concern about this situation without practice
When I started my "English 3.0" (I had English at school for 7 years, but that was 40 years ago, and another year at a community college more than 25 years ago, and I wasn't able to speak or understand videos after that - but that wasn't the fault of vocabulary learning or spaced repetition because I didn't know about spaced repetition and rarely memorized new vocabulary because I knew I would forget it anyway), I tried some vocabulary trainers with inbuilt vocabulary. They didn't teach me the words I wanted to know and instead of they are full of words I wasn't interested in. So I started to think about what and how I want to learn vocabulary. The result:
- I use a vocabulary trainer in which I have to make my own flashcards.
- I use example sentences. There are two different types: In the beginning I wrote them all by myself, using vocabulary I just learned, and sometimes even wrote little stories. It was also a great writing practice and made most of my memorized words active. Since lately I prefer typing in sentences from books I'm just reading because I want to improve my grammar and use of known words, f.e. prepositions. But I still write own example sentences when a word has several meanings, for the other meanings. That means that I don't trust in the meaning that the vocabulary trainer downloads automatically, but look up in a good bilingual dictionary which tells me a lot about the use.
- I do the inquiry not with the words, but with the sentences. My chosen vocabulary trainer, "My dictionary" has the option to do this, by making the vocab word a gap wherever it shows up in the text.
- I recently started trying out a method to memorize typical everyday sentences as a whole. Of course with another type of inquiry.
In my opinion the usual way of using flashcards isn't good, but the problem isn't flashcards or spaced repetition.
And I think that flashcards are not needed as long as you use a basic language course app. I started Spanish on Duolingo some months ago and there are so many inbuilt repetitions... If I would put the new words also on flashcards, it would be an over drill.
I disagree. Anki is very useful to learn the meaning of words (with examples). Also, even if we’re learning 5,000 words, we can set limits to match the amount of time we want to spend on it. It is only time consuming if you don’t put limits on your time. Flashcards work for anything, IF you use them right.
when learning a language you need to understand the language not memorize it, which is why flash cards are eh
@@Dropkickurteacher I mean flashcards can be more useful if you're using an app like Anki and have audio (esp if you are in the beginning stages of learning pronunciation). I completely agree that Anki alone is not enough. Talking with people who speak the language is super important (or at least interacting with the language through movies, tv shows, songs, etc.).
I can say from first hand experience, learning only with anki (esp if it's just individual words and not sentences) is severely limited. But I think this is a helpful tool for some people, especially if they are busy and don't have a lot of time or mental energy to commit to learning language at the moment, or just want to stay refreshed on languages they've learned in the past.
@@grady7420 Do you think anki can help me with learning words? I've learned a lot of grammar in Spanish but for months I've been struggling to find a way to learn words, I also have pronunciation down, I have been practicing that for months.
@@Dropkickurteacher That's why there is one golden rule when usins SRS and that is, First learn! flash cards are only for remembering what you have learned. Before you create a flash card for something, you need to actually learn and understand it. Create the flash card after you’ve really understood.
@@Dropkickurteacher I disagree, I hear this argument very often but in my opinion is that our brain is not computer it is not like you know that cat is Katze in german and when you hear that you would not "link" in with your knowling of the card of cours you will know it.
*Totally agree... and I've only realized this after 10+ years of language learning. LingQ is literally like a training wheels for me. I've learnt most words just by reading and repetition is indeed the mother of skill.*
How does LingQ differ if it also involves repetition?
@@laurajones7314 *What I meant by repetition is seeing the words over and over again while you're reading. It helps you remember words and grammar rules without actively learn them. It's the lazy man's way!*
@@thegeneral1418 True... but if you want to become proficient in specific areas quickly (for example: daily chat, games/tech/other internet chat/other specific interests etc) surely it would still be more beneficial to learn in a concentrated way? If you just want to get to C1/C2 and have no time limits on getting there then I agree that flashcards aren't the best way. But I guess most people language learn with specific intermediary goals in mind. Still, it's interesting to hear someone's perspective who's been trying different methods for 10 years.
Sorry but I don't agree with you, the majority of the words that I currently know in English I learned using Anki, but of couse you need a good method to do the flashcards for it to be effective in your learning process of the language. I do dentistry and I also study for my exams using anki and it really helps me, so I really believe in the spaced repetition system
That’s why I said that I don’t use SRS for language learning in particular. I do believe it is useful for learning factual information (like dentistry) but flashcards per se (even if done well) just lack enough context in order to be useful for vocabulary learning. By the way, all the English I know required me 0 use of flashcards. But if it works for you that’s great. I guess everyone has different preferences. The point of this video is to show an alternative to flashcards, since a lot of people don’t get enjoyment out of them.
@@TheIndependentLanguageLearner what alternative did you show?!
I've been facing the same problem these days, like I want to make my own flash cards with the words I think I need to learn, but it also takes me a alot of time to make my own flash cards properly and I don't think that is pretty productive.
When someone critise something and spend less time suggesting something else, you know he's talking Bullshit
I agree one should acquire vocabulary by exposure to the real language. But when you just start a language, you simply cannot get exposed, because you won't understand anything. You cannot learn words in context if you don't understand the context to begin with.
So, my current method starts with flashcards. I aim at at least 500 words. This enables me to start reading simple texts, shadowing and finally I begin learning the nuances of the language.
Great video!
I hate flashcards so much. I've tried this method countless times due to some of the best students in my class swearing by it. I lost so much time creating decks that never worked. The process felt so artificial and boring. Then I thought of the way I learnt english. I almost never studied english vocabulary. It all happened naturally by playing video games, watching movies and surfing the net. So inpired by that I tried the method that proved to be the most effective for me. The only way I have been able to learn vocabulary is by reading a lot of texts in the foreign language. I would try and come up with sentences to include the new words in, usually something connected to me as a person, trying to make the language feel closer to me like a part of my everyday life.So I would come up with sentances that include me, my friends, my parents etc and scenarios thlat have happened or continue to happen in my life. I try to never translate the word or write it seperately...ever. Everytime I veiew the word, I want it to be in context and from that context grasp it's meaning. I thought this would consume way more time than anki but it didn't. One method doesn't work for all.
Thanks, you helped me to decide. I was looking for a flash card app and yours ‘we need to understand the word, not only to remember it’ convinced me flash card will not help me too much.
I am learning Spanish and I created my own app without Flash Cards, but with SRS - now I understand I need to add to my app not only translation, but also few sentences with the learned word. THANKS!
I tried single-word flashcards & came to the same conclusion. I now learn words more casually "in context". IOW, in sentences & longer texts. I take articles & youtube comments in my target lang-- Italian-- & put them in a translation app in order to understand the meaning. I also have a book called 2K Most Common Italian Words in Context that I'm going thru. I'm not trying to memorize each word but just casually reading each entry multiple time to get exposure. I also watch youtube vids in Italian.
I was looking into SRS and seeing if I should try it or not. You bring some good points about the cons about SRS while providing some pros about it well. What I am currently doing in my language it would not be a good idea to do SRS. Thank you for your insight and time.
This is the best video about vocabulary learning, its so true what ur saying, as I memorised so many vocabulary when I was taking my B2 German, but now im studying naturopathic medicine and I don't remember so many of the words I memorised, they're like wiped out of my brain, cz I didn't know them, I just memorised them & forgot them
What you said at 4 makes a lot of sense. Thanks for the video.
I agree with some of the comments that criticized this video, however I find it very useful to see different perspectives, I liked the video, thanks for it :)
Great insights..i pretty much agree...Thanks so much..
This is really a great video..learning new words comes by reading and use it again in different contexts..not by apps.. thank you very much.
I really like your analogy of having to "meet" a word a many times in order to know it properly. If I tried to create a proper (Anki) flashcard from seeing a word once (even if I try to capture multiple definitions, back them up with example sentences and so on (which would however create cards with massive information leading to different problems altogether)) I wouldn't have a true intuitive feeling for the usage of that word. That makes sense and as a consequence of this reasoning, it's preferable to spend time previosly allocated for drilling vocabulary with exposing oneself to one's target language.
SRS as it stands for, [repetition]
as for what you've said (situations, conditions, context, etc....), you could add all of those to Anki and Anki will repeat those to u, (literally there's an add-on to add a whole movie ).
I think she knows that, since she read Gabriel Wyner's book. But it's still very time consuming.
I stopped using flashcards for language learning three years ago because it is one the things that drained too much time and motivation.
@@tsundoku5733 time consuming yeah,
but motivational drainer! not sure!
so here we should look into ways to make it easier or less time consuming.
then it'll be motivational for u!.
either so, here question should be asked, are there any alternatives for Anki or lang learning!? or best other way!.
if so feel free to share it.
if not, yup we'll continue to use Anki while figuring out ways to make Anki less time consuming!.
I teach ESL and I'm learning Italian, really my first motivated attempt to learn a foreign language. This video is spot on. It gives just right amount of credence to using Anki for language learning. In the beginning, flash cards can be very useful for learning the core vocabulary of a language but after learning the basic verbs, nouns and modifiers, one should develop experience of the language through receiving and producing it, spontaneously and with texts. I'm using Anki to do this with Italian (and SRS site, Duolingo) and it is helpful but mostly because I'm producing and receiving simple language at the same time. Memorization uses a completely different set of neural pathways than experiential learning does; all the patterns of language with context, and there're are a lot of them, can be recognized and organized by the brain - SUBCONSCIOUSLY! - if we get things set up right - this is exactly how we all learn our first language. Now I'm trying to develop pattern recognition decks for verb conjugations but Anki doesn't seem to be able to do this without a lot of effort creating the cards and templates. Great video, couldn't agree more!
I agree
I am an Indonesian and i speak fluent English and i never use flashcard before but now I'm using it to learn Chinese and Spanish
It help me a lot but ik i will stop doing it when I reach around B1-B2 level in Spanish or around HSK 3-HSK 4 in Chinese
Fun to hear you also studied Korean! Thanks for the great advice, now using it for Chinese 😊 Greetings from Beijing!
Thank you for showing another point of view :)
Thank you for watching :)
Great video, thank you. I tried learning French at school and learned a lot of vocab. Unfortunately, after 4 years of French class, I can’t speak french good.. I lost almost all of the vocab because I didn’t repeat them often enough..
Consistently exposing yourself to the target language is a natural SRS.
Thank you for revealing the topic so beautifully.
True. The first thing most people do is put the most frequent 500 or 1000 words in their SRS. But if they are interacting with the language at all, they will see all of them on an almost daily basis anyway. So I'm not sure what's achieved.
I’ve gone back and forth on this topic. I studied French, Spanish, and German (I only got conversational in German) before Anki was a thing. I tried vocabulary using flash cards and lists and I really tried and found it was futile. Luckily, just reading and listening and looking up stuff in a dictionary did work. Fast forward to about ten years ago and I wanted to learn Japanese. I thought I would just read Japanese and slowly learn it like German. Unfortunately the writing system is crazy hard. I ended up doing flash cards with vocabulary on the front and a definition and sentence on the back. Everything bad you said about anki was totally true. It was painful. But reading just wasn’t an option. After many years and many flash cards and a lot of anime I actually got pretty good at Japanese. So I think flash cards are good to get you learning until you can do something else more fun - reading probably. That said, I never really tried sentence flash cards. Well some, but not a lot. Putting a whole sentence on side one when studying Japanese meant putting even more kanji I wish I knew but probably didn’t and making it too hard. But Korean doesn’t have that problem. I’m studying Korean now and I think sentence flash cards are an ok way to review stuff. They have a lot more context than straight vocabulary cards.
I personally feel that with kanji it is more important to know the theory behind it (radicals and phonology), rather than rote memorization. Once you know how they work and the basic meaning of some radicals you can start reading. But this depends on your goal: if you want to be able to read kanji then you’re good, if you also want to be able to write them, then you also need to write a lot to build muscle memory. This is what I’ve learned from my experience in learning academically and solo. But everyone has their preferred methods of learning, of course. For Korean, even if they use hangeul, characters are still super important, because they help you figure out the meaning of words (Korean has a phenomenon that is very similar to onyomi and kunyomi in Japanese), kind of like knowing Latin helps you with guessing the meaning of words in Romance languages. I agree that some flashcard study might be useful at the beginning stage of learning, to make you feel more comfortable with the language. As far as sentence flashcards are concerned, though, I just feel like they’re just not enough. I think many people mistake example sentences with context. To me context is so much broader, it’s almost like the whole text.
Hmmm, it looks nice!
I'm a Brazilian that speaks English and I'm trying to learn German, French and Spanish before hitting 2022 ;)
Thanks for the tips! :D
Good luck for your studies!! Keep learning and having fun with languages :)
Let me know how it goes!
What's up man how much of those languages did you learn
Hello, I found your video because I typed in "flash cards BORING" ahahaha. I've NEVER liked them and I think I may have only tried to use these a few times during the course of 15 years. If something is boring I drop it, and my vocabulary in Italian has always amazed native speakers. I've always picked up vocabulary through input (loads of reading and listening) and my method has always been to take a quick look in the dictionary to go over the words as I encountered them. For example, if watching the TV, I would jot words down in my notebook (that I already knew but hadn't heard in a while so maybe my memory was getting rusty) and look them up quickly at the end. I've never had a problem with remembering words and have never been a flashcard user. Italians have always told me that I use way more words than they do, as well. My first language is English so there is a bit of an advantage but it's not like my first language is Spanish.
Now I'm learning Portuguese and there's no way I'll use my precious hour at the end of the day to make flash cards. I need to enjoy learning, so that's why I read or listen, and acquire new words like this. After reading a story once (without checking many words), I go back over the story and write down what I want to keep. I intend on typing up the handwritten notes at a later stage too. I think this writing them down a few times is what will make the words stick plus the fact that many of those words will come up frequently in books and speech.
You basiclly said what not to do. Watch movies, music in other language doesn't drill it in for me; at all. Unless I write down pause, write down, pause. Which is on a sheet of paper, just a big Flash card. Glad I put this at 1.75 speed.
You need to put the subtitles in that language and of course you won’t get it in your first time watching
Anki is a powerful tool, but yeah, It can get kinda boring sometimes.
Thank you for this video! I always thought I was the weird one since I hate and DREAD using flash cards to practice languages. I would much rather read and listen to interesting content look up the words a million times until they finally get stuck in my brain.
In some target languages, it can help to get some examples of core words. Youglish is a fantastic option for examples, when you have a core vocabulary list.
Once you can read and listen enjoyably to anything, that's going to be a better option obv.
I agree with you, to be honest, I use Quizlet just to see the words I found but when I want to study them I prefer watching videos or read books when people use those words in context
Anki felt like child abuse to me. I kept trying to figure out the next word so I didn't fail rather than read the card. Then I wouldn't even learn them either.
I love kanji exams. I don't do well at them though.
Really enjoyed your video and the points you made in it and I can see where you are coming from, the only real problem I can see is that the video feels slow without it being put on 1.5x speed but otherwise great video on the subject
Yes felt exactly the same but had to speed it up.
I'm Italian and I want to improve my English. Could you suggest me an alternative to learn vocabulary, phrasal verbs, idioms, collocations?
To be honest I've never tried anki flashcards, in the last few days I have been thinking about starting using them but today I discovered this video and now I'm pretty confused 😅
I agree And what do you think about the "Fluent with friends" method of the UA-cam channel Learn English with tv series
Perfectly explained 👍
With all My respect for your opinion i think srs is the Best Way for absorb many vocabulary in shortly time and if you have a problem with the different meanings of 1word you can do many flashcards for many meaning to 1 word and you can build The sentence in flashcards to understand All related meaning
I ´m learning a new language and i ´m crafting my vocabulary flashcards out of words and sentences that i find while reading or watching videos. i try to focus on those that dont understand and turn out to express same ideas and meanings that i use in my daily basis in my native language.
I've used Anki for about two years. I completely agree that making cards with individual words isolated from context is a very inefficient way to learn, if you actually learn at all. I'd add that full sentences on cards do not work either, it again becomes just rote memorisation. What I still think may have value is cards with chunks: collocations, expressions, conjugated verbs in context. I found with Irish this seemed to help me get to grips with when to use lenition and eclipsis, and in Spanish with when to use the subjunctive. Proverbs and idioms also seem well suited to flashcards, since they work as chunks and you don't meet them very often in the wild. I would say be very selective when making them and don't spend long on reviewing - for me it's ten minutes.
Si la Repetición no funciona, ¿Por que los deportistas profesionales practican tanto para ser los mejores?
Si funciona, yo creo que para cada persona los métodos pueden funcionar en diferentes niveles, yo también estoy de acuerdo en que aprender palabras en contexto es más fácil por eso también prefiero hacer flaschcards con oraciones en lugar de solo palabras, al menos 2 oraciones con diferente significados por palabra.
I agree. I have memorize couple of thousands of words, but actually I can't use them in tn my writing and speaking.
liberating, thank you :)
I only learn words using anki which don't depend on the context , I need to read to books , but to do that I need to atleast memorize the letters for example in Japanese I need to memorize hiragana and katakana or I just can't read , even if I can read I still need to do know like 1000 or 2000 words , to understand the basic things then work my way up through context , that's how I think of it .
So I do think I should use anki for like 1000 words or 2000 , but after that I can read and watch and the words I don't know I will just look them up and understand it with time .
Thank you for your insights. I have tried both, anki for when I was learning Japanese at uni (which required less context) and just recognizing kanji during extensive reading. I definitely do better in the latter. SRS is not necessary if you want to recognize kanji. If you want to do it and enjoy the activity that’s great, but reading daily can give you the same results.
I totally agree with the whole video! But what program/method do you suggest using instead of flashcards? (Comunque anche io sto imparando il coreano!!!!)
Ciao! Io uso Lingq da molto tempo e mi trovo benissimo. Ho praticamente iniziato coreano con quello e sto continuando ancora! Mi piace perché puoi usare contenuti che ci sono all’interno del sito (che sono molto buoni per chi inizia - ad esempio c’è una collezione che si chiama 바른 한국어 che è fatta molto bene, e che ho usato insieme alle Mini Stories) oppure puoi importare i tuoi contenuti (che è quello che sto facendo ora che sono a un livello intermedio). Provalo e fammi sapere come ti trovi!!!
@@TheIndependentLanguageLearner Ciao, porco giuda UA-cam non mi ha dato la notifica del tuo commento!!
Ti dico che ho iniziato da 2 giorni e lo sto adorando mi ispira molto di piu delle flashcards ed in piu mi sto gia abituando ad ascoltare frasi complete!! (A differenza delle flash)
@@aronvstheworld Mi fa molto piacere! Se hai dubbi o qualsiasi domanda fammi sapere :) Lingq è praticamente l'unico programma che è finalmente riuscito a farmi fare pratica di ascolto haha
@@TheIndependentLanguageLearner Grazie mille! Si LingQ mi sembra il top e poi devo dire che il creatore (Steve Kaufmann) mi sembra uno serio. Vabbe apparte ciò ti volevo dire per favore continua, hai uno stile unico a fare i video! (forse è la nonchalance italiana chi lo sa!). Daje :D
@@aronvstheworld Ho avuto il piacere di parlare con Steve per qualche minuto e devo dire che è una persona ammirevole! Se ti va guarda anche i video di Stephen Krashen sull'ipotesi dell'input comprensibile :) e grazie per i complimenti!!! Sono ancora alle prime armi ma col poco tempo che ho a disposizione mi piace fare video haha
Oddio la nonchalance non so se ce l'ho (grazie comunque!), però di italiano c'è decisamente il gesticolare :D dajeeeee
Hey i mean if you do have time and are still in school, you could make flashcards right? I mean would it help in vocabulary? I wont be drawing or something.
Yeah bottom line I have time so i would be able to make flashcards BUT will it help? if no then what do you recommend?
Hi! Even if you have time I would still encourage you to spend it reading rather than drilling flashcards. But at the end of the day the best thing is always doing activities that you enjoy. If you like flashcards more than reading, by all means go ahead :)
@@TheIndependentLanguageLearner Ah okay, all your points were true I couldn't disagree on any point but I guess everyone has a different way of learning:/
Yeah, everyone likes to learn with different content/tools. The most important thing is that you’re having fun! Good luck with your learning :)
Really, really good content!
I expected to disagree with this video. Yet found it enlightening about the topic! Thanks
I have created a similar anki kind of system in Roam and it has helped me alot in repitiotion..
Thanks a lot for this video, I was looking for something like this several times but hardly found anything. I am all about learning languages intensively whenever possible and then a few years ago in the summer break I decided to study German intensively and I used memrise, and I found a course with 5000 words, I said "yes, I can do it" and I went for it, I learned 100-200 words per days and I remember many days I had 2000-3000 reviews and I did them, yet the heartbreak when the summer break ended, and I djdnt have time to review, in no time all those words were quickly forgotten. It's even surprising that I was patient enough to do that many reviews, and then see what happened. Plus I am a believer in learning a language intensively being possible, and those number of reviews is not realistic, so even if SRS were to be useful, that is for hobbyists and who want to chill and learn gradually and that's not me.
Thank you for sharing you insight! This is exactly the same problem I faced: you just can't keep up with SRS in the long run, unless you really really like it.
I believe we're all better off reading in the target language for two hours than going through flashcards!
I feel you when you say that you like learning a language intensively. I am also about being intense and intentional with the time I dedicate towards language learning.
This is why I don't use flashcards, they seem like a complete waste of time.
Are you still learning german, though? I studied german way back when I was in high school: you can guess how much I've retained (almost zero).
Well, one reason that makes me want to learn languages intensively is studying at the uni and becoming a psychologist. A psychologist who doesn't know the local language is just hopeless. And then I tried coming to a country and studying at the uni on basis of the new language and it was super hard. I came to Estonia 4-5 years ago and back then I know almost zero Estonian, I participated in a one academic year long intensive course and then in the second year I started studying at the university on basis of Estonian which meant that all my courses and exams were in Estonian, and to be honest one year was nowhere near enough to bridge the gap to academic level and I was totally lost and had no idea what was going on. But now it's not like that anymore but the path is to here was far from straight line and smooth and I don't want to have to go through this again in the future.
@@TheIndependentLanguageLearner And about German, No, I don't learn German anymore, well, for me language learning is mostly related to finding my home, and Germany or any other German speaking country don't seem to be my home. I am now into Nordic countries , that means Scandinavian languages are in my focus. I study Danish at the university, Icelandic is most likely to be next. I hope I finally find my home in one of them, time to finally settle down.
I don’t think that learning a language needs to be in a straight, smooth line in general. It resembles pretty much how we live, with ups and downs. There are days where I feel like my Korean is great and I understand everything, and days where I question why am I doing all of this. I still have to accept that sometimes things just don’t go as I want them to be. Anyway, your efforts in learning Estonian are incredible! It takes guts to go and start academic learning after only one year of study (although really intense). Keep on looking for your home, maybe you’ll find more than one in the long run!
@@TheIndependentLanguageLearner Why did you choose Korean??? I have learned a bit of Korean in 2008 but once I decided I am not gonna move to South Korea, then I stopped learning it.
It’s an addition and a tool to language learning.
I concur with this.
My perspective, whilst not exactly congruent, shares many of the same values and arguments mentioned in the video.
I believe there are two sides of every coin, and the focal point of this video was the negative and ostensibly heavier side of the coin.
For attaining a higher level of proficiency or fluency, I have no choice but to agree that Anki, by itself, is incapable of moving mountains; however, when it is used in conjunction with fun and engaging activities that immerse you in the given target language, it proves very didactic.
Personally, I attribute a significant portion of my (future) lexicon to Anki. For English (not my native language), my entire foundation and the vast majority of my knowledge of the language has been primarily autodidactic -- inadvertently so -- through memorisation and application.
Granted, I may have installed Anki quite recently, but if anything, that attests to its efficiency, given the prodigious number of words I have learnt through a relatively short period of time spent.
Regarding a language which you are already relatively proficient in, Anki is completely sufficient, in my opinion, to cover all your vocabulary-building needs.
But, for learning languages you are relatively unfamiliar with, Anki should be used a supplementary tool. I think the creator of this video neglects the potential effectiveness of Anki. The methods they mentioned are not the recommended ones; the suggested ones are of a higher complexity -- the cloze cards.
Her focus is sort of a strawman, considering the, pardon me, the atrocity of her aforementioned methods. To those, I have no choice but to agree, but leaving it at that would be disingenuous and crude.
I will not delve deeper into methods of language learning. I just wanted to defend Anki.
To conclude: yes, Anki is not a standalone tool, but it is a great addition, however ostensibly time-consuming it may appear. Rome was not built in one day.
It is quite late where I live, so I mustn't tarry any longer. I have not proofread or carefully ruminated on the above, so I hope you can forgive any minor discrepancies, as well as tactless grammatical flaws. Farewell and have fun learning!
I would love to continue this discussion sometime if you are willing.
Redacted: I corrected ingenuous to disingenuous.
@@TobySpeedySP I hope u don't get disappointed by my grammar. Writing isn't my priority.
I will give u my honest opinion about how i am currently using the tools i am using. I use pimsleur, lingq and fluentforever app
and anki is currently used in a way of learning to use the program (also for other subjects than language learning)
I am using the Fluentforever app (Is a anki like app) For the early stages of french.
I will go and mine my way to a certain depth of german before using lingq also for german.
Another thing in the making are my Memory palaces these will be activated when i reach 26 of them.
I also use note taking (my note taking system is really hard to explain in a comment.) Notes are being used to understand certain grammar problems. Certain sentences that are different to my mothers tongue I study the sentence.
My goals are German and French right now and than i will go for Greek or Latin. (i hope to start with greek or latin in about 4 years)
The way i learn is an evolving one so hold this comment as one of the past.
(As i learn german i understand grammar can be a bit of fun and helpfull so don't worry my english will improve. I will also not spent to much time rewriting this comment Tut mir leid)
Happy new year and best of luck reaching ur goals.
#Newtolanguages
Cas
edit: Anki is kinda fun for me and i try to make it so as i do with all things. I believe a blank page with a front and a back has a lot of possibility's.
@@TobySpeedySP Are you sure English isn’t your native language?? 😂
You sound like a highly educated native and I saw absolutely no mistakes, great job!
I got it from the get go but I what is the best method to memorize words when you are not using them?
I wish I had seen your video years ago to sway me from the ruinous path of Anki and such. Instead, I just pushed and pushed myself like some masochist and the results aren't that great at all. At least now, that I suspect SRS isn't be all end all, your video helped me to formulate a better attitude. Thank you.
I've been using Anki to learn English. and as you said is boring and sometimes I've feeling that I'm just memorizing and not understanding, I'm saying that because sometimes I see one word on Anki and "Understand" but when I see the same word in a different context I struggle to remember the word meaning. all you said totally makes sense, recently I started to learn french and now I'll give a try and not use Anki in this process. (of course Anki helped me a lot with English). but I notice for long run is not so good.
Video suggestion: How to maintain languages. (sometimes I wondering how polyglots do that.)
I saw your comment on Lingq community and I came to check your channel, now I'm subscribed. :)
Aww thank you! I’m going to be posting a video tonight (a study with me), next week I’ll post a video in Portuguese, but I promise that the following one will be about maintaining languages. Thank you for subscribing and commenting, it means a lot to me ❤️
@@TheIndependentLanguageLearner I'm from 🇧🇷.
Have a wonderful day...
Então vc é brasileiro!! Que joia 👍 o português é uma das minhas línguas favoritas ❤️ acho que é muito musical. Um dia muito lindo pra vc também
@@TheIndependentLanguageLearner Como memorizar sem usar progama de repetição? Anotar no caderno é melhor?
Interesting thoughts. I think flashcards have their place along with reading, listening, watching and conversation. I'm about about to start using flashcards as part of my learning (maybe 5-10% of my time) just to reinforce words I've already learned - to keep them current in my memory. I use images where possible and always have an example phrase for each flashcard.
For beginner listeners in English,in brief:
In this video, the speaker discusses the drawbacks of using Spaced Repetition Systems (SRS) and flashcards for learning vocabulary in a foreign language. They argue that while SRS and flashcards are popular and often recommended by language learners, they are not the most efficient or effective way to learn vocabulary.
The main points of criticism are:
1-Flashcards are time-consuming to create and maintain.
2-They encourage one-on-one translation, which isn't how languages work.
3-They lack context, limiting the learner's understanding of the language.
4-SRS focuses on memorization rather than understanding or learning.
5-Using flashcards daily can cause stress and demotivation.
6-Flashcard drilling is boring for many people.
The speaker concludes that while flashcards may be useful for learning simple facts or preparing for exams, they are not ideal for achieving fluency in a foreign language. Instead, they recommend engaging with the language through reading, listening, and speaking, which helps build associations with words and their context.
Hello, I just wonder if you did something in the setting of your video, because for some reason I can't see the option to speed up the video.
Hi! I just took a look and didn’t change anything in the settings. The video was just published so maybe it’s because it still hasn’t uploaded the hd version? Sorry for the inconvenience though 😥
@@TheIndependentLanguageLearner It's not your fault, no need to apologize for it.
Oh, now it seems the speed up option is available.
Awesome!
"words are like people..." that's the best definition I have ever seen so far about this topic. I used to use flashcards a lot and I regret the time I wasted doing them.
well i went back to learn russian last year when the amount of words i knew was under 400, and by using flashcards of words collected from podcasts i listened to and articles i read, i really felt myself improuving during 3 months especially when it was summer and i had no problem spending hours making flashcards and decorate them, but by the 4th month and after memorizing more than 1200 words, my progress started to slow down i didn't understand what was going on i started to feel something was wrong with me because i thought that flashcards should work, and since in this month was september which means back to school, i had trouble with time and energy management and i gave up,
which means that istead of being fluent in russian since i started learning it at the summer of 2021, i did nothing and i am still looking for a good technic in 2023!!!
I agree with a lot of what has been said in this video. I still think that flashcards play a role in the first steps of the acquisition of a new language when your knowledge of that new language is pretty low, it helps get basic stuff anchored in your brain but at some point, it becomes kind of useless. Thanks for the video :)
yes we have to understand word and a lot reading and listening, but in the beginning we still need to make our brain remember first the basic word, so after that we can advanced to listening, reading and understand better, but in the beginning, still we have to memorise...
This video was kind long to make a few key points, but I kind of agree to what she is saying. Yes, using flash cards to learn vocabulary can be boring and maybe not as productive if you are not learning context. However, I have had success with flash card apps because I use it to learn phrases, not just single word vocabulary. So I start with 20 practical statements a week in the app, play mix and match or just repeat with the flash card, and then make an effort to use those sentences throughout the week. This along with reading materials, listening to music and watching the news or parts of a movie once a week has been pretty helpful.
I've experienced all the thing you expressed in the video.Memorizing words by repetition ,i means drilling, will not mostly help us out. I know the world when i see it in the reading context but i can't use that word in my daily life.I'm never familar with words that I've studied by heart before.
In short a mixture of both is a win. Traditional method and Anki. 👍👍👍👍
I agree with srs (anki) is time consuming, but the rest of problems that you mention is beacuse the way yo do the flash cards and the way you study it, but it's different the flash cards itself are not the problem. I haven't had problem with learn others meanings of the one word that I already learned, but that is because I use sentences instead just words in isolation. And no just study anki, we need to do other things. But yes, it's a little boring sometimes hahaha
I agree and disagee! What i mean is that the TIMIiNG of using flash cards has to be right. You can use them for your native tongue because you should know the grammar .You can use them for a foreign language you know well because you don’t want to be writing out a whole dialogue or text if there are only a a few words to learn. What i would say is don’t use flash cards at the start of learning a language. You know why? Apart from the obvious one( the structure of dialogues makes it easier to learn vocab)there is the fact that learning isolated sentences is fxxxxx boring ! You are going to fail if something sends you to sleep. I found that i got bored of them. For a new language I use Notability.I write out the short foreign dialogues then scroll down and do a translation in English with the help of a word- for - word translation.That way I can test myself and listen to the translated texts in audio as well. Very important to have the audio with the texts.Without the sound you will end up with a shit accent. So, cards for mother tongue and well- known foreign languages .Otherwise , texts or dialogues !
I'm totally agree with you
I can't agree more.
my major problem is trying to remove myself from the routine of memorising rather than learning
I totally understand! It’s something we’re used to do, so it can be hard to switch. I started doing that by slowly introducing some reading/listening in my routine, then gradually increasing until I stopped using SRS all together. I suppose that when I’m reading my brain automatically wants to understand, while during an SRS session it wants to memorize/recall words, and that’s really stressful for me.
I use method of making graphical hints table on computer to myself
When I make that table I am being so focused in making it that I actually already memorize most of words. K, I use that made to myself electronic images and words table often so I wouldn't forget it: I read easy Hiragana books, comics, etc.
And later it's just taking some more time...of course it's not like 800 words in one week memorization. I do it in portions of few dozens words and repetition is key to perfection as proverb says.
And... everyone can find some time in their day free when they does nothing important, that time they can shift to language studying.
I know this is opposite from what youtube says, but it works pretty well for me
I would say that learning Math is even more less linked to memorizing than Languages. I do agree with your video, language is not only about memorizing, but I think is a little bit more memorizing than Math.
set playback speed times two, so to have more time for SRS
Excellent video
how long it took u to speak korean?
Makes sense
I've been months learning russian now. And the teacher suggested to make flash cards. But as I saw flash cards methods are, my brain got lazy in an instant. Even before I make them, I've already knew it's gonna be boring. 😅 So I didn't make them. I'm just gonna do my own method when I learned english, which I listened to sooo many songs, many movies especially top ones. To me, Rachel Green and her F. R. I. E. N. D. S are my BEST english teachers. 🥰 So I'm just gonna have to find russian songs and movies which will suit my interest to enjoy. 😃 To be a polyglot is one of my best life goals. 😊 Thank you for your insights. I'm your new subscriber. 😁
I use Anki for sometime to learn Japanese. I don't completely agree with your points. In my opinion, you are right when you try to learn a language only through flashcards and don't actually engage in the language... However, when anki is used as a helping tool then I think it's helpful... I learn 25-100 new words each day with the related kanji in an hour (obviously most of them I forget but after a week I can retrieve them) but I proceed to watch some anime or listen to Japanese UA-cam with subtitles with no regard if the new words are present... As far as grammar is concerned I know the basics but stopped there until I learn more words since grammar isn't hindering my understanding and doesn't make it motivating to learn more...
I wish I knew Anki when I was learning English because for me the way of writing on a paper to remember vocabulary was a nightmare and couldn't remember anything or even sit on the desk to study... I guess even if Anki is worse the fact that you don't end up quitting is 10x more effective than learning faster the first 100 words and then quiting never to touch the language ever again...
You should think anki as a toolbox that you store with 10-15 other tools that you use when needed... There is no, one fits all tool. If you only use Anki and spend a bunch of time to create cards then yes it's a losing game.
Also you should download premade cards with the level you are interested in learning. You shouldn't learn blindly new words. Learn with target. For example in Japanese you should start with the n5 and move your way up to n1 after completing each deck.
I agree with you Totally. But what else is there????
I was using flashcards mainly to remember new words and expressions, but as you said, this is boring and time-consuming. Nowadays, I prefer to focus my energy on reading and listening to podcasts. These activities already introduce the repetition naturally and from my point of view, this is more enjoyable.
Thank you so much
You are very welcome!!
i'm buying like 1100 real flashcards (they're cheap don't worry) and i'm searching for a good flashcard making video, this one popped up now i don't know what to do now LOL
3:22
i read news and others online and highlight the words by this chrome extension
Highlight This: finds and marks words
then I copy the list from the extension
then I import them to this app
wordup
which makes the flashcards for me
video, photos, and quotes
super fast
super easy
ALL of your points are valid.
Exactly lady, i think exactly the same
I personally think, that memorization is needed only when there is a writing system that's not logically deducible, e.g. chinese and Japanese, and only in those cases it is important to be able to read them, because without even memorizing the reading, you can't understand the word in context, and taking a guess at the meaning is in most cases inaccurate. But I agree, that for most other languages it's a rather forceful approach. And I have to disagree with you on the point of it being demotivating, to get words wrong everyday, and I know it's just a personal view, but I get really happy when I get words wrong on one day, then the next day, and after a few days I see the word again and are perfectly able to recall it.
The SRS cannot be the main material you use to learn a language. It must be an auxiliar to get your newly learned vocabulary into the long term memory. It won’t help you to speak, it will improve your passive knowledge. Anki is really helpful, but you cannot use only SRS to learn a language. It has to be an auxiliar
I think it is not about agreeing or disagreeing here. She made some valuable points here. The concepts behind the words are not always identical between two different languages. Sometimes they overlap. Taking a ready-made flashcard with only one word on each side without trying to get the precise meaning first and repeating this card over and over again, would be similar to learn an incorrect spelling again and again. Shure with enough real live conversation after that, you will finally get it. But at what price? On the other hand, flashcards are only a tool and not per se bad.