I recently read the webpages describing the program Supermemo and, being intrigued, I downloaded the trial copy and set out to study some English. However, I found that when I loaded the program, I had no idea what kind of questions to write. My typical method (learned in school) of quizzing vocabulary is to create flashcards with German on one side and English on the other. I know that to study a new language in the context of my native is not a good plan, but I don't know what else to do.
They speak so highly of Supermemo, but what sort of questions should I create for revising vocabulary without falling back on German? My friend gave me a Webster American dictionary, and I thought of using definitions therefrom, but often it is hard to understand and I have to look up words in the definition and words in that definiton and so forth.
Thanks!
Hi Thom,
I've already been using SuperMemo for some months now and I've found a method to create items which I think gives me the best results so far. This is a method similar to one explained in the "How to learn English" section on this side. But as you can imagine I've modified this way of creating items after my fancy cause I think the most suitable items are the ones who give you (and no one else) the best results. Here is my way:
1) I write English example sentences into the question part (often more than two, but not too many either). You'll find example sentences in your dictionary and on the Internet. The best example sentences are of course the ones you have a "relation" to, like sentences and phrases of your favourite movie or lyrics of a song etc. Then I mark the word or the phrase I want to keep in my mind in every sentence in red colour.
2) Into the answer part I copy an explanation of the meaning of the word or phrase from my dictionary.
3) Below the explanation I write the different forms of the word used in the English language like this: "love (loves, loving, loved)" or for example "vast (vaster, vastest) n: vastness". Sometimes I add further information about the word, like for example differences in writing between American and British English (I mark AM words in blue colour).
4) At the end I often write German equivalents of the word or phrase into the answer part. Of course I try to avoid doing so. But I think using equivalents of your native tongue is not that wrong like some people say. I've read an article about foreign language learning and it said that it is no mistake to actively use your native tongue (in our case German) when you acquire a new language.
And one tip at the end:
Of course you don't have to understand every English word at the beginning. Try to acquire as many new words as possible. When you've found a dictionary definition with four unknown words when using SuperMemo you can right use them to create four new items. But don't ignore a sentence only because you don't understand one single word! The most important thing is just "input" (I think you surely already know the input theory), not the "damn" definition of every single English word.