Comprehensible input
I just have some doubts about the antimoon method in relation to comprehensible input.
Flashcard
My doubts
The antimoon method, and also the allthejapaneseallthetime (AJATT) method, emphasizes the use of flashcards. But isn’t it very mundane and tiring to make so many flashcards just for the sake of remembering the content? If I miss a grammar rule or a word, I can simply check the source once again. If I always miss it, probably it’s just a matter of time before I can finally remember it. Personally, not to mention/not to say, for example, stroke me as particularly annoying because I forgot them all the time. Theoretically, I’d agree that I could have tried Anki or something similar to finish them. But maybe because I was too lazy and didn’t seem to understand the whole mechanism, the flashcards didn’t work well because there were just too few of them and I found it too troublesome to use.
Issues
First, you need to type it explicitly but very often you already remember it before you finish typing.
Second, if you were me running into not to mention/not to say, whether you had flashcards or not, you’d make a mistake for 50 times before you get them right. I did get them wrong so frequently until I finally memorized the meanings for good. If I’m wrong anyway so frequently, I doubt whether flashcards can help me correct my memory problem.
Third, you also need to understand the mechanism very well and maintain the learning system. How possible is it?
Fourth, using flashcards sounds a very futile idea to me. And even more so when AJATT himself speaks of 10,000 sentences. I know this is just a rough estimate indicating the very extensiveness and intensity of the system, but how possible is it at all to enter thousands of items into the same system? It does sound to me more like drudgery when you have to type that much just for learning.
Writing
AJATT also mentioned WRITING the sentences down on paper by hand. I guess this is for some kind of kinetic help with memory. This seems trivial, but I’d agree that doing so is still better than purely writing out lessons (of, say, textbooks) and forgetting the content afterward, which was my case for language notebooks. I simply had no time to review old content of textbooks. And textbooks naturally contain all kinds of made-up sentences without genuine, creative contexts.
This leads me to another two issues. One, is it all that necessary to enter individual sentences into the SRS and then review repeatedly? Suppose you put an Assimil lesson into the SRS, let’s say it has 13 sentences. If you put them separately into the SRS, you run into the danger of mutilating the lesson into 13 sentences with half of them being meaningless. Why? Because some aren’t even complete sentences (with a period, that is). Some are purely useless that doesn’t deserve any review, such as the phrase Hello for the whole first sentence. In those cases, it’s of course more sensible to put them into complete sentences and take ONLY sentences I think to be worth reviewing in the future.
Maintenance
How to keep your deck orderly? Do you actually keep something like
#13: And I’m not going to do this anymore! Bye! (Lesson 37, Antimoon Englisc with ease)
this, adding where it comes from? This looks more orderly with the lesson number and the source name, but it adds to your typing work.
General issues
I know this is a very old topic and past discussions have exhausted pretty much of it. However, I’m still wondering about several things, such as just how you grade your performance in an SRS, i.e. from 0 mark to 5 marks.
And still, I find it most troublesome to type so much.
The way of reading Latin
As I wrote earlier in one of the threads buried down in antimoon, there was once a very mundane way of learning Latin through reading. This isn’t a “method” per se as in the AJATT method or the antimoon. It isn’t systematic, either:
So now, I want to learn Latin. I’ll first find all the tools necessary, i.e. a good dictionary, some readers, a starting textbook, a grammar book.
After some textbook and grammar lessons, like how Barry Farber did languages as he wrote in his own book, you go to read. When you read, of course it’s good to have known some words/a lot of words even before you read a particular text. But, anyway, just start reading. If you don’t understand something, just read the dictionary. You may end up having to rely on the dictionary for 3 out of 4 words in the same Latin text. And when you read, you don’t need to copy anything. This isn’t like writing notes in university lectures. The text won’t change and doesn’t need any interpretation (one important fact is you don’t normally need to interpret. This isn’t a literature course, either. Usually, the text could be understood literally).
My purpose of mentioning this is to say it may run against the antimoon/AJATT method somehow, and particularly the SRS. First, if I’m writing flashcards, probably (I don’t know if this is necessary as a matter of fact) I should be writing what is means.
#13: And I’m not going to do this anymore! Bye! (Lesson 37, Antimoon Englisc with ease)
Anymore: any more
If you do not do something or something does not happen any more, you have stopped doing it or it does not now happen
I don't do yoga any more.
(courtesy of CALD)
If you put a card like this, then this card becomes at least 4 lines. If your Anki/Mnemosyne/whatever’s screen is small, you may even end up reading 6 lines to review the same card, and for a single word “anymore”. Not to mention if you also want to learn the pronunciation of this word, which is the stress being put at more instead of any. Such a card sounds infinitely long. It’s still ok to have phonetics on the cards, but… dictionary entries are just too long usually to be there.
Second, the above way of reading doesn’t involve writing. In fact, why should I write? You may say this is a matter of taste, and it is. People may like to practice their Chinese or Japanese writing, but as a Chinese speaker myself I don’t even need to practice Japanese, though I don’t strictly know any Japanese at all. I can learn the kana within hours, given previous experiences.
I just have some doubts about the antimoon method in relation to comprehensible input.
Flashcard
My doubts
The antimoon method, and also the allthejapaneseallthetime (AJATT) method, emphasizes the use of flashcards. But isn’t it very mundane and tiring to make so many flashcards just for the sake of remembering the content? If I miss a grammar rule or a word, I can simply check the source once again. If I always miss it, probably it’s just a matter of time before I can finally remember it. Personally, not to mention/not to say, for example, stroke me as particularly annoying because I forgot them all the time. Theoretically, I’d agree that I could have tried Anki or something similar to finish them. But maybe because I was too lazy and didn’t seem to understand the whole mechanism, the flashcards didn’t work well because there were just too few of them and I found it too troublesome to use.
Issues
First, you need to type it explicitly but very often you already remember it before you finish typing.
Second, if you were me running into not to mention/not to say, whether you had flashcards or not, you’d make a mistake for 50 times before you get them right. I did get them wrong so frequently until I finally memorized the meanings for good. If I’m wrong anyway so frequently, I doubt whether flashcards can help me correct my memory problem.
Third, you also need to understand the mechanism very well and maintain the learning system. How possible is it?
Fourth, using flashcards sounds a very futile idea to me. And even more so when AJATT himself speaks of 10,000 sentences. I know this is just a rough estimate indicating the very extensiveness and intensity of the system, but how possible is it at all to enter thousands of items into the same system? It does sound to me more like drudgery when you have to type that much just for learning.
Writing
AJATT also mentioned WRITING the sentences down on paper by hand. I guess this is for some kind of kinetic help with memory. This seems trivial, but I’d agree that doing so is still better than purely writing out lessons (of, say, textbooks) and forgetting the content afterward, which was my case for language notebooks. I simply had no time to review old content of textbooks. And textbooks naturally contain all kinds of made-up sentences without genuine, creative contexts.
This leads me to another two issues. One, is it all that necessary to enter individual sentences into the SRS and then review repeatedly? Suppose you put an Assimil lesson into the SRS, let’s say it has 13 sentences. If you put them separately into the SRS, you run into the danger of mutilating the lesson into 13 sentences with half of them being meaningless. Why? Because some aren’t even complete sentences (with a period, that is). Some are purely useless that doesn’t deserve any review, such as the phrase Hello for the whole first sentence. In those cases, it’s of course more sensible to put them into complete sentences and take ONLY sentences I think to be worth reviewing in the future.
Maintenance
How to keep your deck orderly? Do you actually keep something like
#13: And I’m not going to do this anymore! Bye! (Lesson 37, Antimoon Englisc with ease)
this, adding where it comes from? This looks more orderly with the lesson number and the source name, but it adds to your typing work.
General issues
I know this is a very old topic and past discussions have exhausted pretty much of it. However, I’m still wondering about several things, such as just how you grade your performance in an SRS, i.e. from 0 mark to 5 marks.
And still, I find it most troublesome to type so much.
The way of reading Latin
As I wrote earlier in one of the threads buried down in antimoon, there was once a very mundane way of learning Latin through reading. This isn’t a “method” per se as in the AJATT method or the antimoon. It isn’t systematic, either:
So now, I want to learn Latin. I’ll first find all the tools necessary, i.e. a good dictionary, some readers, a starting textbook, a grammar book.
After some textbook and grammar lessons, like how Barry Farber did languages as he wrote in his own book, you go to read. When you read, of course it’s good to have known some words/a lot of words even before you read a particular text. But, anyway, just start reading. If you don’t understand something, just read the dictionary. You may end up having to rely on the dictionary for 3 out of 4 words in the same Latin text. And when you read, you don’t need to copy anything. This isn’t like writing notes in university lectures. The text won’t change and doesn’t need any interpretation (one important fact is you don’t normally need to interpret. This isn’t a literature course, either. Usually, the text could be understood literally).
My purpose of mentioning this is to say it may run against the antimoon/AJATT method somehow, and particularly the SRS. First, if I’m writing flashcards, probably (I don’t know if this is necessary as a matter of fact) I should be writing what is means.
#13: And I’m not going to do this anymore! Bye! (Lesson 37, Antimoon Englisc with ease)
Anymore: any more
If you do not do something or something does not happen any more, you have stopped doing it or it does not now happen
I don't do yoga any more.
(courtesy of CALD)
If you put a card like this, then this card becomes at least 4 lines. If your Anki/Mnemosyne/whatever’s screen is small, you may even end up reading 6 lines to review the same card, and for a single word “anymore”. Not to mention if you also want to learn the pronunciation of this word, which is the stress being put at more instead of any. Such a card sounds infinitely long. It’s still ok to have phonetics on the cards, but… dictionary entries are just too long usually to be there.
Second, the above way of reading doesn’t involve writing. In fact, why should I write? You may say this is a matter of taste, and it is. People may like to practice their Chinese or Japanese writing, but as a Chinese speaker myself I don’t even need to practice Japanese, though I don’t strictly know any Japanese at all. I can learn the kana within hours, given previous experiences.