4 ms·

My experience has been exactly the opposite. When speaking or reading Spanish, German or French, I never think "gee, if only I knew more grammar" but almost eve

My experience has been exactly the opposite. When speaking or reading Spanish, German or French, I never think "gee, if only I knew more grammar" but almost every day I think "well, it sure would be nice if I knew the word for ___." It seems your advice is directed towards language learners who think they might get away with just learning words and not bothering at all with grammar, collocations, expressions and all of the other things you need to truly grasp a foreign language, like practicing listening comprehension. For those people, your advice makes sense. But realistically, even among flash card aficionados, how many people do you figure think learning a language is as easy as just learning words? Do those people even exist?

hasenj 12y ago
Ah, but the word for X in this context is not necessarily the same word you should use in some other arbitrary context.
- stdbrouw 12y ago
  And many people to add hints to their cards (e.g. to distinguish prevoir quelqu'un from prevoir quelque chose) as well as add example sentences – or, as you suggested, have sentence decks in addition to word decks. But even regardless of that, not using flash cards because sometimes contextless learning is not ideal would be throwing away the baby with the bathwater; the increase in speed at which you can learn vocabulary is just immense with SRS.
  - hasenj 12y ago
    > not using flash cards because sometimes contextless learning is not ideal would be throwing away the baby with the bathwater No, that would only be the case if one decided to stop learning the language all together because they think they'll never be fluent. I'm proposing to learn the language properly: by exposing yourself to as much material as you can, for prolonged periods of time.
    - stdbrouw 12y ago
      > I'm proposing to learn the language properly: by exposing yourself to as much material as you can, for prolonged periods of time. ... which is what you need for mastery, I absolutely agree (it's what I do too!), but it's very, very slow.
      - hasenj 12y ago
        It's not really very slow. It took me about one year to learn English when I arrived to Canada (I was 16).

hasenj 12y ago

Ah, but the word for X in this context is not necessarily the same word you should use in some other arbitrary context.

stdbrouw 12y ago
And many people to add hints to their cards (e.g. to distinguish prevoir quelqu'un from prevoir quelque chose) as well as add example sentences – or, as you suggested, have sentence decks in addition to word decks. But even regardless of that, not using flash cards because sometimes contextless learning is not ideal would be throwing away the baby with the bathwater; the increase in speed at which you can learn vocabulary is just immense with SRS.
- hasenj 12y ago
  > not using flash cards because sometimes contextless learning is not ideal would be throwing away the baby with the bathwater No, that would only be the case if one decided to stop learning the language all together because they think they'll never be fluent. I'm proposing to learn the language properly: by exposing yourself to as much material as you can, for prolonged periods of time.
  - stdbrouw 12y ago
    > I'm proposing to learn the language properly: by exposing yourself to as much material as you can, for prolonged periods of time. ... which is what you need for mastery, I absolutely agree (it's what I do too!), but it's very, very slow.
    - hasenj 12y ago
      It's not really very slow. It took me about one year to learn English when I arrived to Canada (I was 16).