>>Xie,
I have been using flash cards in Mnemosyne, and I've faced several problems. [...]
Thx, Johnny. I see your points. I had the same problems too. All in all, I still find entering flashcards itself to be the most troublesome. Let's say I'm learning English. Whether I use Collins or Cambridge (software) to learn English words, very often it's not worth the time to copy dictionary entries into a flashcard and start reviewing from time to time. By common sense, the worst danger is to review just for the sake of it, which is quite silly.
Once I saw a discussion, where one person said:
"In using flashcards, why should you bother with something you don't have any use for?" with a sly smile. Something like this.
>>3) The definition in the flash card must be as simple as possible and most details should be left out. This means it's too hard and impractical to try to remember exact definitions. [...]
4) It's difficult to choose what to include in a flashcard and what to leave out. Since you have to keep it simple, you need to leave out as much as you can, and only include the main meaning: secondary meanings will be understood.
5) Making a flashcard for a word you see often and you are likely to learn quickly is useless. You should only make flashcards for the words you come across and
- you feel they might be useful
- you feel you keep seeing them but you can never remember the meaning <<
I can't skip too much of your post. The above just explains exactly what to include and what not to. In practice, it's a matter of practice how you can do the things you said above right. But I didn't find this easy, either. I find it, therefore, not a very good idea. This idea of using flashcards sounds like a hideous, overly complicated mechanism to me. If you can read a textbook/a text/an audiobook simply by reading it, why should you need this sophisticated mechanism to help you learn vocab? This is my main complaint, in fact.
Having that said, certain things are probably very good material for flashcards. Such as if you want to remember the names of all countries in the world in English, such flashcards are VERY useful. But then, let's return to the logic:
"In using flashcards, why should you bother with something you don't have any use for?"
I don't even find it useful to remember many countries even in Chinese. At large, I only remember more famous/significant/larger countries. I can't recall any countries in Oceania except larger ones.
==
I'm yet to understand the whole AJATT system. (Note: When I say AJATT, it's usually the method, not the site or the person. But all of them just refer to the same ideas in the method.) In fact, if you exclude Kanji/Hanzi (only valid for Japanese and Chinese), I think the whole matter of learning a language, in AJATT's terms, is like:
- Flashcards are for memorizing, usually anything useful/you want. I won't argue about this. (Kanji/Hanzi is apparently included too.)
- Intensity. But this is not flashcards, just about how intense AJATT himself learned Japanese.
Personally, I went through both English and German grammar in different ways. I spent far more time without flashcards than the AJATT guy for Japanese who used flashcards. His ideas of acquisition are at large valid. I do agree that I could have shortened my learning of German grammar somehow if I had used flashcards correctly. But since I'm already done with the grammar book, I can't tell how you learn grammar with flashcards.
So, for me now, even with German, not to mention English, if I am to make good flashcards, I won't for sure do grammar in this way. I'll be using flashcards only for vocab, for example.
I have been using flash cards in Mnemosyne, and I've faced several problems. [...]
Thx, Johnny. I see your points. I had the same problems too. All in all, I still find entering flashcards itself to be the most troublesome. Let's say I'm learning English. Whether I use Collins or Cambridge (software) to learn English words, very often it's not worth the time to copy dictionary entries into a flashcard and start reviewing from time to time. By common sense, the worst danger is to review just for the sake of it, which is quite silly.
Once I saw a discussion, where one person said:
"In using flashcards, why should you bother with something you don't have any use for?" with a sly smile. Something like this.
>>3) The definition in the flash card must be as simple as possible and most details should be left out. This means it's too hard and impractical to try to remember exact definitions. [...]
4) It's difficult to choose what to include in a flashcard and what to leave out. Since you have to keep it simple, you need to leave out as much as you can, and only include the main meaning: secondary meanings will be understood.
5) Making a flashcard for a word you see often and you are likely to learn quickly is useless. You should only make flashcards for the words you come across and
- you feel they might be useful
- you feel you keep seeing them but you can never remember the meaning <<
I can't skip too much of your post. The above just explains exactly what to include and what not to. In practice, it's a matter of practice how you can do the things you said above right. But I didn't find this easy, either. I find it, therefore, not a very good idea. This idea of using flashcards sounds like a hideous, overly complicated mechanism to me. If you can read a textbook/a text/an audiobook simply by reading it, why should you need this sophisticated mechanism to help you learn vocab? This is my main complaint, in fact.
Having that said, certain things are probably very good material for flashcards. Such as if you want to remember the names of all countries in the world in English, such flashcards are VERY useful. But then, let's return to the logic:
"In using flashcards, why should you bother with something you don't have any use for?"
I don't even find it useful to remember many countries even in Chinese. At large, I only remember more famous/significant/larger countries. I can't recall any countries in Oceania except larger ones.
==
I'm yet to understand the whole AJATT system. (Note: When I say AJATT, it's usually the method, not the site or the person. But all of them just refer to the same ideas in the method.) In fact, if you exclude Kanji/Hanzi (only valid for Japanese and Chinese), I think the whole matter of learning a language, in AJATT's terms, is like:
- Flashcards are for memorizing, usually anything useful/you want. I won't argue about this. (Kanji/Hanzi is apparently included too.)
- Intensity. But this is not flashcards, just about how intense AJATT himself learned Japanese.
Personally, I went through both English and German grammar in different ways. I spent far more time without flashcards than the AJATT guy for Japanese who used flashcards. His ideas of acquisition are at large valid. I do agree that I could have shortened my learning of German grammar somehow if I had used flashcards correctly. But since I'm already done with the grammar book, I can't tell how you learn grammar with flashcards.
So, for me now, even with German, not to mention English, if I am to make good flashcards, I won't for sure do grammar in this way. I'll be using flashcards only for vocab, for example.