how to use the SRS
For those who are unfamiliar with SRS, detailed information can be found on Wikipedia: Spaced repetition - Wikipedia
The SRS on LingQ is basically automatic. The status of a LingQ will determine when it will next appear in your SRS pile. You can access your list of flashcards that are due by clicking the SRS tab on the Vocabulary page.
LingQs of the Day will still be sent, but the most important terms in your SRS will be sent to you, helping you learn the most important words first. If you delete a word, it will be removed from your SRS and will not be added to your pile at the next scheduled date.
If you have any more questions, let me know!
I have 57 800 Russian LIngQs due for review :-o
A few hours work there skyblueteapot… 
So if we delete a word from the SRS, it will be removed from the SRS but remain as a LingQ?
No, deleting a word form the SRS will delete it from your account. To remove words from the SRS, you need to change their status. However, we are going to add a feature to allow you to batch “Mark as reviewed” which will reset your review date and remove these words from the SRS list. Give us a few days.
Please add SRS instructions to the FAQ context help when the dust settles. A more complete description would be appreciated.
Certainly!
I have just published a post on LingQCentral explaining the SRS system http://ow.ly/8jtUz. It includes all new updates and explains how the LingQs of the Day emails work. We did update the LingQs of the Day emails last night so the most recent email you received will be the first email using the new logic.
Thanks for the clear description. I think this is a great feature!
Just to be sure, will the reviews done by the iPhone app (or any API based status change) thus update the time stamp and remove the words from the SRS list?
Yes, any time the status of a LingQ changes, however it happens, the time stamp is updated.
Hi Alex, hi Mark,
Firstly I have to say that it is great that you decided to improve the SRS on LingQ. Thank you.
But I feel I need some further explanation. I’m not sure if I get everything right.
In the description is written “A LingQ’s status can change manually when clicking the Status bar or can be changed automatically when a LingQ is tested correctly twice in a row during a flashcard, cloze or multiple choice session. Note that Status 4 LingQs only have to be tested correctly once to move up to the next Status 4 review level.”
Example: I have 8 LingQs to review.
LingQ1a with Status 1 → I know it
LingQ1b with Status 1 → I don’t know it
LingQ2a with Status 2 → I know it
LingQ2b with Status 2 → I don’t know it
LingQ3a with Status 3 → I know it
LingQ3b with Status 3 → I don’t know it
LingQ4a with Status 4 → I know it
LingQ4b with Status 4 → I don’t know it
Now I review my LingQs for the first time and I get the LingQs with “a” in the LingQ correctly and the LingQs with “b” not.
Is it correct that LingQ4a will change the Status from Status 4 to 4a now??? Why does this LingQ remain on the flashcards for further review??? (They have to be tested correctly once to move up to the next Status 4, as you’ve written).
In the second batch I’ll see the same LingQs again. Now the status changes for the LingQs with the “a” and they will be removed from the flashcards. The LingQs with “b” remains for further reviewing.
LingQ1a with Status 1 → Status 2
LingQ1b with Status 1
LingQ2a with Status 2 → Status 3
LingQ2b with Status 2
LingQ3a with Status 3 → Status 4
LingQ3b with Status 3
LingQ4a with Status 4a → Status 4b ???
LingQ4b with Status 4
Will now LingQ4a change the Status from Status 4a to 4b???
All the LingQs that I’ve reviewed twice correctly will no longer appear on the flashcards. In the third batch I’ll only get the LingQs with “b”:
LingQ1b with Status 1
LingQ2b with Status 2
LingQ3b with Status 3
LingQ4b with Status 4
In general I stop to review here. If I continue with only 4 remaining LingQs it is a matter of time when I will get them two times correctly in a row. Unfortunately than the status increases which means
LingQ1b with Status 1 → Status 2
LingQ2b with Status 2 → Status 3
LingQ3b with Status 3 → Status 4
LingQ4b with Status 4 → Status 4a ??
I would love to get a WARNING when I start with the third batch. I’m sure that newcomers on LingQ will not understand how this works. It took my weeks when I started with LingQ to understand this. At the beginning I worked as long on the flashcards as LingQs have appeared. The result was that ALL my reviewed LingQs increased by one in every review I did.
Sorry for the long post but I want to make sure that you understand what my questions are. To summarize my questions are:
- Is it correct that a LingQ with Status 4 that I’ve reviewed correctly will change the Status from Status 4 to 4a in the first batch?
- Why does a LingQ with Status 4 that I’ve reviewed correctly once remain on the flashcards for further review?
- If I review this LingQ with Status 4a in the second batch again correctly will the Status change then to 4b?
- Would it be possible to give a warning before someone starts the third batch? Or simply not to increase the Status in this batch?
Thank you for the patience to read this long post.
Hi Vera,
There seems to be a bug here where Status 4 words aren’t disappearing after getting them right once. Fixing this should address the other questions you raise as well.
Hi Veral!
“I would love to get a WARNING when I start with the third batch. I’m sure that newcomers on LingQ will not understand how this works. It took my weeks when I started with LingQ to understand this”
I’m new here - do you mean I should not keep working through the flashcards when only the most difficult ones remain?
You’re welcome to keep working on them – this is just Vera’s personal preference when reviewing flashcards.
@keke_eo: The problem is if you continue to review until there is no flashcard is coming up ALL of the LingQs will increase the status by 1. So the status increases from 1 (New) to 2 (Can’t remember) on Day 1, to 3 (Not sure) on Day 3 (second day for review) and to 4 (Known) on Day 7 (third day for review). So on the seventh day all your days will have changed to status 4 (known). That makes no sense for me. As long as I didn’t get them right twice in a row I feel that I don’t know them and then I stop reviewing them. So only the LingQs that I really “know” increase their status!
I do not see what the difference is in terms of learning effectiveness. I usually do not select Ooops or Got It. I just change the Status and that determines when the term shows up again.
Furthermore, I save so many words and phrases, and spend so much of my time reading, saving and listening, that I cannot review any more than a small fraction of the terms I have saved. My word review is more like a sampling that helps me see the connections between words. I also save more and more phrases where I know the meaning and just want to see the words in combination in these phrases.
I tend to do all of this in a deliberate manner, where I control what to review, whether alphabetically, by lesson, by importance, “phrases only”, by tags or whatever. I believe that our SRS system is an SRS system which also offers a variety of ways of reviewing the terms.
From a practical point of view I really do not understand the point of your post, hape.
In my opinion it’s not the number of levels of an SRS that matter, but rather the sense of infinity. With Anki, I’m sure that the cards will show up again and again - it’s the whole point of it.
It is my understanding that the same is true with status 4 words but I am not sure. It is a good thing to have this discussion in order to clear up how our SRS system works.
From a practical point of view I have close to 19,000 saved LingQs, in Czech alone, and create around 100 new ones every day. I do not have the time to listen and read, create LingQs, and still review all of the terms that I have saved. So for me it is more of a deliberate and controlled sampling.
Maybe it has changed after the recent upgrade? (It was a long time since I got any LingQs in the mail)