Spaced Repetition...

[khiemtran]

So, I've been experimenting lately with new ways to take my Chinese to the next level. Up until now, I've been using mainly podcasts in the car, conversations when I can get them and trying to read signs when ever I see them.




The first new thing I tried was video based learning (via ChineseClass101.com). In this method, you see pictures and hear words, and then you watch a video and hear the words in sentence; then finally you see the video on its own and you need to repeat the sentence.

I was somewhat sceptical at first, until I went shopping the next day, glanced down at my trolley and realised I was a gùke (customer) in the chāoshi, gòuwu (shopping).

Unfortunately, while this was great for short term memorising, I found that by the time I had finished the video series I had already forgotten lots of vocab from the beginning (especially the tones, which is one of my weak points). It was much easier to pick up the vocab again the second time around, but I found my enthusiasm for watching the same videos day after day starting to wane.

So, the next thing I tried was spaced repetition flash cards. This is something I've been wanting to try for a while, but I've never actually gotten around to it. Basically, the principle is that you review the vocab at increasing intervals which are carefully chosen to maximise the chances of transferring the words into your long-term memory.

So far it's been relatively painless, although it's difficult to gauge how effective it is. I've gone through about eighty cards in two days (including some for words that I already knew) and while I've memorized a lot of new characters (literacy is my other weak point), I've also found there are quite a few words that I'll learn one day and then blank on the next.

I think I'm going to make this part of my daily routine for about a month and see how it goes. If it works, I'll keep going. If not, I'll have to look for something else.

Comments

[lethargic-man.livejournal.com]

Interesting. I didn't know about spaced repetition, but it's similar to what I do myself: I wrote myself a flashcard program in Java, initially for learning Hebrew, but now also for German. (For a period it was showing me Assyrian cuneiform too, until I gave up on that as too hard.) I have it set to show me words I've learned recently more often than words I should know by now, but just need occasional boosters on.

[khiemtran.livejournal.com]

I did something similar just for memorising words, but I haven't tried the increasing spacing before. There seem to be quiet a few different algorithms to use though. The one I'm using seems to choose intervals based on how well you knew each card. i.e. You can choose between "Didn't know", "Ok" and "Well" and it picks a time interval for you. I've noticed that once I get one wrong more than once, it often comes up quite a lot even after I've got it right, so I think it's keeping some running stats on each card.

The big test is going to be whether all this makes it into my long term memory. I've always been good at cramming, but I haven't yet learned how to stayed up to speed on a language when I'm not putting the work in.

[lethargic-man.livejournal.com]

Oh, that's cool. Maybe I should switch to using one of those programs. (Or incorporate something similar into mine!)

[khiemtran.livejournal.com]

Anki, which heleninwales pointed out looks to be quite good. I think I'll give that one a go next. I've found one drawback with the otherwise excellent flash card system on ChineseClass101 - I just tried to check my cards this morning and they aren't loading. Hopefully this isn't going to be a regular occurrence.

[heleninwales.livejournal.com]

I find the spaced repetition very effective for learning Welsh sentences. I type up the stories, one sentence per card, with the Welsh on one side and the English on the other. I use physical cards made out of actual thin cardboard, but you can use Anki or other flashcard programs for iPod/iPhone or computer. If you're learning a major language, you can download ready made sets, but I'm dubious of any Welsh sets because it tends to be a) old fashioned/formal or b) the wrong dialect.

I find some sentences are quite easy to learn, so they progress through the box quickly, others keep going round and round, but eventually they stick in my memorey and get promoted to the "once every 3 months" box. I now also have a box of "retired cards" and every so often I throw a few of them back in at the beginning.

[khiemtran.livejournal.com]

Interesting thanks. Do you have a particular system for doing the spacing or do you just go through the box as fast as you can?

[heleninwales.livejournal.com]

I have a system. Group 1 is supposed to be done twice a day, but mostly it's just daily. Group 2 is daily. Group 3 is every 3 days. Group 4 is weekly. Group 5 is once a month. Then they get put in a once every 3 month box and if i can still remember them at that point, they get put in the Retired Cards box. I print out a spreadsheet which tells me what date I'm supposed to be doing each group. Any cards that I can't remember, whatever group they were in, get relegated right back to Group 1.

The cards are in an old 3.5" floppy disc box, the sort that had plastic dividers so you could group your discs into subjects. It works really well. :)

[khiemtran.livejournal.com]

Cool, thanks! And how often do you promote the cards?

[heleninwales.livejournal.com]

The system I'm using is the Leitner system".

Basically, you start off with all the cards in the Twice A Day group. When you know a card, it's immediately promoted to the Once A Day group. When you go through those cards the next day, those that you can't remember get demoted back down to Twice A Day. Any you do know get promoted to Once Every Three Days. You'll then work just on the Twice A Day and Once A Day until the time comes to do the Once Every Three Days. Again, if you know a card it's promoted to the Once A Week group, if you don't, it drops right back down to Twice A Day.

After a week, you look through the Once A Week group, promoting cards to the Once A Month or demoting to Twice A Day, as appropriate. Cards in the Once A Month section are ignored until the month is up, then treated as before and either promoted to "Retired" or demoted right back down to Twice A Day.

As cards move up through the box and eventually out at the other end, new cards are steadily fed into the Twice A Day group.

All in all, this is one of those things thats more complicated to explain than to do! If you use software such as Anki, that's what it's doing, but the software is handling when you see a card and when it's held back to test if it's moved into long term memory.

It's important to remember that the spacing is as important as the repetition. That's what tests whether a word or symbol has gone into the long term memory.

[khiemtran.livejournal.com]

Thanks! That seems very straightforward. I'm starting to see some of the spacing for cards I know well come up with values like "27 days" now, so it will be interesting to see if I remember them by then. It's also getting to be a bit addictive checking to see which cards I have ready on the laptop - a bit like HL and her Tiny Zoo, I suppose...

[heleninwales.livejournal.com]

I find it really works for me. I like the little, "Yay!" moment when I turn over a card, realise I got it right and I move it up to the next group. But getting it wrong is no big deal, it just goes back to the start and you can have another attempt at learning it.

[green-knight.livejournal.com]

Thanks, that sounds as if it'll be reasonably easy to incorporate into my Japanese database.

[khiemtran.livejournal.com]

What do you have currently in your database?

[green-knight.livejournal.com]

Everything I'm learning in a slightly unordered fashion - hiragana, Kanji, vocabulary. (I'm using a site called wanikani.com, which is currently in beta, so the order of things depends on their system). I'm still working out what I need and what works for me, but the idea is to have several ways of throwing things at my brain and testing myself, so I can choose a set of items to review, and either simply go through them (with a chance to peek) or test myself by entering on'yomi/kun'yomi readings etc. It's all very much in development, and not having an idea of what's needed and what will be useful Does Not Help.
(I've only now learnt that on'yomi readings are often given in Katakana. That's a feature I'm happy to implement once I've brushed up on my katakana skills. Etc etc.)

[khiemtran.livejournal.com]

Thanks! I've found having the software calculate the intervals for me is really handy. I'm finding I'm actually spending less time on each card than before, but remembering them better because of the growing intervals. Of course, the real test will be how well I remember some of the characters that have just been sent off and told to come back next month...

[green-knight.livejournal.com]

I can see how the spaced repetition works (not entirely certain how to implement it) - and I agree that this type of system is promising - not in the least because you get a reward (something to do, positive feedback) for coming back, which is an incentive to come back again.

For me, this is part of working out how I learn languages. I am obviously not entirely untalented in this regard - I am bilingual, and I read half a dozen further languages sort-of-ok, but I don't _speak_ any further languages, and I want to remedy that, and this time I'm going to listen more to what works and what doesn't rather than trying to follow somebody else's system when I dislike that system.

[mnfaure.livejournal.com]

Interesting! I'm going to look into finding something similar with Egyptian Arabic.

[khiemtran.livejournal.com]

Hope it goes well! I've got the LP Egyptian Arabic phrasebook and it's not bad, but it's a bit hard to get the pronunciation right. I also chose the (Moroccan) Arabic Survival Phrases (http://survivalphrases.com/arabic/guest.php) course as a free gift when I signed up to ChineseClass101. It's quite good for building confidence and learning key phrases, but I'm not sure how useful it would be in Egypt.

[aliettedb.livejournal.com]

He, interesting, thanks for sharing! I'm taking the repetition approach, listening to pieces of dialogue over and over (with substitutions of key words to vary a bit). Also, translating a story and planning to learn it by heart, which I hope is going to help with my vocabulary...

[khiemtran.livejournal.com]

I also like to memorize Chinese poems, which is great for learning vocab but also has the added bonus that you get some amazing poetry (my favourite poets are Du Fu and Su Dong Po).