Comment by Alex-Programs

Comment by Alex-Programs 2 months ago

Spending half an hour mind-numbingly learning words through flashcards will teach you about as much vocabulary as an hour watching educational videos, but it'll be far less fun and you'll feel like it actually took two hours.

Keep that up every day and you'll burn out much faster with option 1 than option 2. Now, maybe you have enough motivation for that not to matter, or the self-discipline to keep going - as I did in my A levels - but don't be surprised if it kills your interest in the subject.

runarberg 2 months ago

I‘m not super well versed in the literature but I know this has been researched, and—unless you are being hyperbolic—it completely fails the sniff test.

As OP points out, SRS is optimized for memory retention. You will almost certainly encounter many more words watching a two hour long video, but you certainly won‘t retain nearly as many words as half an hour of SRS.

Actually you can combine the two. Use the two hour long video to encounter new vocabulary in context, put the new vocabulary in your Anki deck, and review it with optimized SRS. You get the best of both worlds. As a bonus you often remember the source which will help you recall... This is actually common enough pattern that it has a name: Vocabulary mining.

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ayrtondesozzla 2 months ago

Oh thanks, I didn't know there was a name for the thing I've been doing. Vocabulary mining is a nice term.
I agree with your general point too. People are correct to say SRS only helps with memorising and not with learning, but this is only a problem if you haven't developed functional learning techniques or you have to learn something you don't enjoy. Good learning essentially hinges on interest and excitement, and making the thing you're learning relatable or catchy.
If you have exams and deadlines, this can be hard. If you've no exams and no deadlines, just flashcard anything interesting that comes your way, include context and jokes, and focus on enjoying yourself. Delete flashcards with a smile if they annoy you a few repetitions down the line. Make all your own cards. Invent funny stuff, find quirky facts that stand out.
E.g., the area of Ireland is 84,421km^2 - all powers of 2. I never had a "yardstick" for big areas, now I do. Borneo is nearly nine Irelands in size.
Or another example, French Polynesia has 121 islands, 75 of which are inhabited. I found this fact shocking, so I thought I'd put it in to a flashcard. After some quick reflection, I'm sure you too could come up with ways to make those numbers stand out.
Another - the title of Wittgenstein's "Tractatus Logico Philosophicus" - where truth tables were popularised - ends in SOS. No more forgetting the title, or where truth tables are from!
In summary - learn things you like, and make it spicy for you.

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Alex-Programs 2 months ago

Yeah, and flashcards generally work better when you're reinforcing existing learning. Learning by flashcards is hellish for me.

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- jldugger 2 months ago
  
  > Learning by flashcards is hellish for me.
  Wait, you're putting yourself in a situation where the first time you see a card, you have no idea what it is?
  
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  Alex-Programs 2 months ago
  
  I've tried it in a few situations (e.g. my driving license theory test) and yeah it's absolutely awful and I quickly stopped. My modus operandi is obsidian notes->flashcards->revision to keep my knowledge up. However, a lot of people do actually do that!
  People will genuinely download top x wordlists for a language and try to learn from them. Hideous, but they do it.
  
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  runarberg 2 months ago
  
  > People will genuinely download top x wordlists for a language and try to learn from them.
  I’ve done that, and I’ve even created a whole SRS app to learn kanji which does that by default (https://shodoku.app).
  I think this is common practice for the first 1000 words, and I don’t exactly recommend against it. Unless your target language is close to another language you already know, you are going to have to learn your first 1000 words somehow, and you will not learn them by comprehensible input in any reasonable time, unless you are actually living in the language area, and cannot use other languages.
  I actually bought a vocabulary book which has 1000 basic words and example sentences and puts them in categories (e.g. work, travel, food, etc.). I then downloaded an Anki deck from the book and use it. To be fair though, I first read the word in the book, and practice it with a red-sheet (albeit in reverse, i.e. from english and try to recall it in japanese).
  As for my kanji learning app. I made it so the first time you see a kanji, it does not hide any information, and it shows you the strokes in order as you write it on first encounter, after that you review it normally.
  
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pessimizer 2 months ago

> Spending half an hour mind-numbingly learning words through flashcards will teach you about as much vocabulary as an hour watching educational videos, but it'll be far less fun and you'll feel like it actually took two hours.

The first part is definitely untrue, you won't learn any vocabulary spending an hour watching an educational video, you'll be lucky if you remember one new word tomorrow. That half hour on Anki will be spread out over six months, and will teach you 20 words.

As for the second part, doing Anki is like doing through any sort of timeline that spits out random rewards and failures. I get a rush whenever I remember stuff, and I get bummed out when I forget; it's basically facebook.

I understand why one wouldn't think that with single-word vocabulary flashcards, because they are horrible to do and unhelpful. You should be running sentences, not words. Words rarely translate well, change form when they are in sentences, and often show up as part of seemingly ungrammatical set phrases.

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fluidcruft 2 months ago

It's very likely that you're using Anki in situations that will burn you out and drain your motivation anyway.

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Alex-Programs 2 months ago

Nah, I love physics. It's just a lot!
Edit: It's worth noting I had a nasty head injury that was slowing me down. Optimising my learning was a necessity, and the injury meant I spent more time studying than my peers, in more optimised and less enjoyable ways, to get the same result.

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