How do you decide when it’s time to change the word status of a certain word (from 1 to 2 for example)?
When I read texts in French it’s easy to decide - when I feel that I know what a word means I change the status from 1 to 2 (and so on). But in the case of Japanese it’s different. Sometimes I remember the reading or the meaning but not both at the same time (sometimes I know the meaning but I need a lot more encounters to remember the reading). In other words, I know the meaning of a word very well but I keep status 1 because I still can’t remember the reading (or vice versa).
And how often do you change the status of a certain word? Once a day, once in one text or every time you got it right?
I usually change to 2 when I think of a meaning, and it’s relatively close, but not quite correct. I usually set to 3 if I can come up with the meaning, but I have a hesitation. I set to 5 when I know the word in that context and it comes to me quickly. I don’t use status 4 any more.
Whether I change the status often usually depends on if I’m repeating a particular lesson or reading a lesson and moving on from it. Some lessons I like to repeat because they are short and I wante the repeated exposure. I may read these a few times over the course of 2-3 days. In that time I generally will have moved 80-100% of those to “known” (5). I don’t worrry about getting 100% and just simply move on to the next lesson after those 2-3 days. If I’m reading novels in Lingq…I’ll just read and move on. No repeat. So it may be awhile before I move certain words because I may not see them very frequently.
I also will readily move a word back down to 2 or 3 if I see it again at some point and the meaning does not come instantaneous.
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I do a bit of what Eric does and my procedures have changed a bit over the years since this is my first time using LingQ and I was still feeling out a system for what constitutes when I know a word.
Some people just have two categories: known and unknown and don’t bother with the degrees of what constitutes known. I may do a variant of this with my next language, but I think I am most likely to do it this way: If I recognize the word in context and think I’ll recognize it outside of that context, I’ll make it known. Before that time, if I’m only recognizing it in context or getting part of the meaning right (say one of the definitions), I’ll upgrade its number status.
Right now, I move up the number status if I get it right without looking in each new lesson I encounter it. If I get it instantenously and recgonize it outside of context (or am very sure I would know it outside of context), I move it to Status 4 and it thus becomes part of my known words count. Once I have lingqed a word or phrase, I never use “known” (check mark) as a status. I only use level 4. I started doing that because there was a time when lingqs could only be created on the computer and not on your iPad or phone. now it’s wonderful you can do that. However, I will probably keep using just level 4 so I don’t have to skip over it and will be able to see that there was a time when I had created a lingq for it.
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When I’m new to a language, I review flashcards at the end of each lesson and rely on the SRS algorithm for moving the word status. In languages like English and German, which I’ve been learning for many years, I prefer to increase word status each time I encounter it in text. I don’t understand why it works for me without doing flashcards. But I can be quite sure in most of the cases that after the fourth time I meet a word, I know it well.
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