Wow, LingQ does show you what you’re doing right and what you aren’t. I have been archiving assignments without bothering to learn all the words and now I I’m falling behind already on my words learned score. I have a huge backlog of flashcards to learn and I can’t go back and read the words in the original context without going through the unarchiving process for about a dozen assignments. I think I’d better go and sit on the stairs to think about what I’ve done
How do the less lazy among us learn their vocab? Do you do it as you read a new assignment or do you leave it until later? Do you archive assignments before you have learned all the new words in it? Or do you make a point of keeping it active until all words are “known”?
The first thing I would do is upgrade from Free membership so I don’t have to do so much archiving!
I used to be like you and not review very much but since we instituted the LingQs of the Day, I review them religiously and my learned LingQs numbers are through the roof. Every day I click to review them with the flashcards and keep going until they are all gone from the flashcard session.
Irene, what you have to be able to do is to go through them quickly. Don’t spend too much time with each flashcard. Either you know it or you don’t. Keep moving through them and you will eventually remember the ones you miss on the first few passes. Yes, when the number of flashcards is high it takes a little longer but they are all words you have to learn and if you don’t study them now, when are you going to study them? After all, you are adding new words all the time.
Just to echo Mark’s comments, do not expect to “learn” your words at one sitting. Some you will remember right away and some will elude you no matter how hard you try. Since reading Leitner’s books, I just tend to go through them fast, and on my second pass I just press oops a few times, and eventually let them go. Reviewing, seeing them in close proximity, is just a part of the learning process. They will come at you again and you can always change the status of words that are really stubborn.
That said, we will probably give the learner the flexibility to control the number of flash cards, but not for quite a while. Nothing personal, Irene, and we know you want that ability. We just want to stay on our schedule for now.
Right. Here’s the plan. I open a new assignment, download the audio to my mp3 player, and create the flashcards for it. Then I listen to it daily, and revise flashcards, for 5 days (i.e a week). Then it gets archived. Any word that hasn’t sunk in in a week is going to have to wait to get learned.
i listen to all the audio i’ve downloaded most days. Unfortunately they play out of order because the files aren’t always named systematically. The Power of the Linguist series seems to change its name to Who Is She? half way through. i can’t work out what i’ve done there. I shall have to rename my downloaded copies of the podcasts.
BTW Mark, once the kids are back at school for the Autumn i intend to upgrade and get serious about learning Russian. if I can’t get into good habits now with only 5 active assignments, imagine the muddle I will get into with 50!
I meant to add: it’s also proving helpful to read the flashcards aloud, the word, the example phrase and the definition. It helps me remember the word and improve my pronunciation.
have you considered a slideshow mode for the flashcards so we could get into a good rhythm without having to keep clicking the mouse?
