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My experience with Anki and similar programs has always been that my ability to recall the learned information is heavily dependend on context. Words or facts I

by s9w 8y ago

My experience with Anki and similar programs has always been that my ability to recall the learned information is heavily dependend on context. Words or facts I can perfectly recall in Anki often didn't come to me in real-life situations.

Pimpus 8y ago
I use Anki but it's insufficient as a sole tool for learning. Being able to memorize e.g. foreign language vocab (or grammar patterns using clozes) is very valuable but you won't become fluent without daily or almost-daily practice communicating using the language.
drivers99 8y ago
Is part of the context translating from one language to another, vs producing it directly? (e.g. is the front of your card "cat" and the back "gato"?) Or do you use pictures (google image search[1] for "gato" and see what comes up, use one of the pictures for the front of the card, and "gato" on the back). For example, being able to speak the new language without having to think of the words in your first language and then mentally translating it? As mentioned in the book and website "Fluent Forever" (a language learning method which also recommends Anki), it's better to translate from a picture to the new language rather than learning to translate from your first language. https://fluent-forever.com/ https://fluent-forever.com/ "No Translation" "Use pictures when learning new vocabulary and grammar rules. You'll discover that you can actually remember what you've learned." [1] "Fluent Forever" suggests trying google image search in your target language because many words are not direct translations, and you'll notice differences in what types of images come up for words. gato/cat is not a great example of this though
- yorwba 8y ago
  Words and pictures are just different ways to represent a concept whose description in the target language you want to learn. It probably impacts fluency (i.e. speed) when you first come up with a word in one language and have to translate it into the other, but learning the connection "word -> word" and "picture -> word" should be equivalent otherwise. I would try using pictures more to see whether there actually is a difference, but most words I'm practicing with Anki don't corresponding to visible objects at all.

by s9w 8y ago

Pimpus 8y ago

I use Anki but it's insufficient as a sole tool for learning. Being able to memorize e.g. foreign language vocab (or grammar patterns using clozes) is very valuable but you won't become fluent without daily or almost-daily practice communicating using the language.

drivers99 8y ago

Is part of the context translating from one language to another, vs producing it directly? (e.g. is the front of your card "cat" and the back "gato"?) Or do you use pictures (google image search[1] for "gato" and see what comes up, use one of the pictures for the front of the card, and "gato" on the back). For example, being able to speak the new language without having to think of the words in your first language and then mentally translating it? As mentioned in the book and website "Fluent Forever" (a language learning method which also recommends Anki), it's better to translate from a picture to the new language rather than learning to translate from your first language. https://fluent-forever.com/ https://fluent-forever.com/ "No Translation" "Use pictures when learning new vocabulary and grammar rules. You'll discover that you can actually remember what you've learned." [1] "Fluent Forever" suggests trying google image search in your target language because many words are not direct translations, and you'll notice differences in what types of images come up for words. gato/cat is not a great example of this though

yorwba 8y ago
Words and pictures are just different ways to represent a concept whose description in the target language you want to learn. It probably impacts fluency (i.e. speed) when you first come up with a word in one language and have to translate it into the other, but learning the connection "word -> word" and "picture -> word" should be equivalent otherwise. I would try using pictures more to see whether there actually is a difference, but most words I'm practicing with Anki don't corresponding to visible objects at all.