You may have read my posts on how great flashcards are for language learning where I’ve talked about the ‘magic of SRS (Spaced Repetition Systems)’ and ‘how Anki is an essential resource’, etc. etc.
But…
As I progress in my language journey, I’ve realised that I’ve made quite a few mistakes in my flashcard study.
I hope that all of you learning vocabulary using flashcards will read this post and learn from my mistakes.
I promise you, it’ll save you hours of work.
Mistake 1: Inputting EVERY WORD I saw
Problem
Since every time I saw a new word, I would rush to Anki and make another flashcard, I would end up with huge decks of meaningless vocabulary. I mean, who really needs to know how to say ‘the psychoanalyst’ in French?
Having huge flashcard decks were terrible for my motivation to study, and later on led me to stop studying French for a few months.
I’m sure inputting less vocab would’ve been more productive than quitting for a few months.
Solution
I would now only input words that were actually important for my language goals. For example, if I wanted to just go to France as a tourist, the words that I actually needed to learn (as a beginner) would be not a lot, compared to someone who wants to study in France.
Even if your language goals require a lot of specialised vocabulary, you still need to pull yourself back from inputting vocab that are unrelated to your goal. For example, inputting science specialist words when you want to study French history.
Mistake 2: Starting Every Study Session with a Review Set
Problem
Every time I had the motivation to study, I would sit in front of my computer and open up Anki. Faced with over 100 vocab every day, I would spend around 20–30 minutes reviewing, before even studying anything important.
Those minutes were either boring or extremely difficult, because all of the words I either already knew, or didn’t know at all. Imagine spending time on reviewing 156 new words, only to never use a lot of them in conversation?
I ultimately lost all motivation to study something important, and instead got back to procrastinating and not being effective at all.
Solution
First of all, I would have to solve the first problem, so that I had a smaller deck. And, I would end a study session with review, instead if starting with it.
A good way to do this is to set a limit to how many reviews you can do a day.
- Click the cog button next to any deck you want then click ‘Options’
2. Click on ‘Reviews’, then change the ‘Maximum reviews/day’ to a lower number
Mistake 3: Only Studying Single Words
Problem
Apart from a very small collection of useful phrases and idioms, I was reviewing vocabulary in isolation.
The problem with this, was that I was simply translating single English words into single French words, so it wasn’t too useful when it came to making sentences.
When I would attempt to create a French sentence, I would translate an English sentence word by word, then try to make the grammar correct, most of the time unsuccessfully.
Solution
A useful way of solving this problem would be to create ‘cloze’ flashcards, where you need to fill in the blanks in a sentence.
Using cloze flashcards are actually effective for other topics like science as well!
- Click on ‘Add’ to create a new card.
- Change the ‘Deck’ to another one if applicable
3. Click on ‘Type’ then change the card type to ‘Cloze’. Click ‘Choose’.
4. Type in ‘Text’ the sentence you want
5. Highlight a word that you want to hide, then click on the […] icon.
This is what it should look like. You can repeat this process to hide more words. Once you want to create the card, click on ‘Add’.
Another way of improving conversation is to use more dialogue to practice vocabulary, instead of relying on flashcards alone.
Mistake 4: Thinking that SRS is Fool-Proof
Problem
I was relying only on SRS for vocabulary memorisation because language learners were saying things like ‘SRS is fool-proof’, ‘learn vocabulary with only flashcards’, etc. etc., but I’ve leant that SRS is definitely not fool-proof.
Yes, SRS is great for learning long lists of isolate vocabulary, but without using other resources as well, it isn’t that much use.
There’s also a limit as to how many new words you can learn in a 30 minute session, and cramming won’t get you that far.
Solution
An important way of learning vocabulary is to mix different resources. This means you should review less with SRS, and instead use that time to read, write, do exercises and practice with native speakers.
Mistake 5: Cramming All Vocabulary into One Deck
Problem
I would input a huge collection of random genres and parts if speech (nouns, adjectives, verbs, etc,) and study them all at once.
The problem here was that I was training myself to think of different types of words as the same. So I would be training myself to think that the word for ‘couch’ was the same type as the word for ‘running’.
This way of reviewing was inefficient and boring. Sometimes I might feel like (or need to) review a certain type of vocabulary, but there was not a way to do that.
Solution
The easiest way to solve this issue would be to create subdecks based on genre and parts of speech. Unless you’ve already got hundreds of vocabulary, it’s quite easy to do.
- Click on ‘Create Deck’, name it something, then click ‘OK’.
2. Drag and drop it on top of the deck you want it in (the deck you want it in should have a faint black border)
This is what your deck should look like (Nouns is a subdeck of Babbel Words). You can add subdecks in subdecks also by following the same process.
Final Words
I hope this has taught you some tips on how to use flashcards more effectively, and avoid the mistakes I’ve made in my language learning.
Good Luck!
Luca,
Hangul Beuja
