Category Archives: SRS
It will come – Developing Meaning Over Time
For the longest time, I had no idea what 及んで meant. I’d do tons and tons of extensive reading, and I would see it all the time (I was reading particularly formal documents at the time, it’s a hint for you), but I would be frustrated because even though I obstensively knew the kanji and [...]
Also posted in Extensive Reading 29 Comments
Anki Tip: The Weekly Cycle
A cool trick I learned in the past few weeks to manage time. Here’s the backstory.
I’m a teacher, so naturally I do have to take a break from teaching myself languages and then go and teach languages to other people (namely English, although I do sometimes help other people learn Japanese). In addition, my class [...]
Posted in SRS 24 Comments
SRS Trick: Holding the Line
What do you do when you’re overwhelmed?
Particularly with Anki, which has cumulative review (Surusu does not, having the limit set to 35. You can then do additional reps afterwards), this can be a nasty problem. Nobody likes opening their SRS program to see hundreds and hundreds of cards awaiting them (I can totally relate, when I was [...]
Posted in SRS 16 Comments
Getting Personal with your Learning
So I need to thank my coworker Casey for this one. Casey came in to my office to talk about a pretty specific instance of a possible use of the SRS, but it generalizes pretty well.
At our work, like at most places where teachers teach, there are student evaluations of the teacher’s performance at the [...]
Also posted in Language, Language Learning Techniques, Motivation 14 Comments
Adventures in German – Day #9
Finally got a grip on the hundreds of backlogged German cards.
How, you might ask?
I’m a time-using machine (And if I were a time-machine, that’d be even better). I bring my computer with me to class because I use powerpoint often for presentations (which, if you ever need to do, I highly recommend going all Presentation [...]
Also posted in Language Learning Techniques, Learning German 18 Comments
Extensive Reading vs. New Cards
Doing some thinking today about priorities of someone going it alone in their language learning. There’s one thing that I feel is a given now, especially after a few years of trial and error (yeah, it only took me a few years):
Take care of your daily reviews before you do anything else.
I got my butt handed [...]
Also posted in Language, Language Learning Techniques 21 Comments
Back to German – Day #1
Wow. Breath in. Breathe out.
Open up Anki today. Find myself face to face with about two hundred cards waiting for me to work on. Rough.
Ok. Take it easy. I’ll get through this. First order of business, before jumping back in and making the situation even worse, is to get a handle on all the cards [...]
Also posted in Learning German 13 Comments
Building Uncontained Motivation
How do you do it? Especially with long-term projects.
This is oneof my tricks. Start with an action that can be measured in small, daily, chunks (if you can’t do that yet, break it down until you can measure it). We’ll talk about new sentences in your SRS for this purpose.
Then make your daily amount even smaller. [...]
Also posted in Language, Language Learning Techniques 17 Comments
Using Wikis to Learn Languages
A quick video to show you how I use a combination of Wikipedia and notepad to create quick and easy SRS sentences. See if there’s anything you would like to use.
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Also posted in Language Learning Techniques, Technology & Language, Video 31 Comments
When Your Listening and Subs Don’t Match