Comments on: Success Story…Kinda: SRS and the Power and Value of Memory /success-storykinda-srs-and-the-power-and-value-of-memory/ You don't know a language, you live it. You don't learn a language, you get used to it. Sat, 04 Jul 2020 16:09:19 +0900 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=5.1.13 By: Han /success-storykinda-srs-and-the-power-and-value-of-memory/#comment-93873 Thu, 21 Apr 2011 16:31:24 +0000 /?p=355#comment-93873 Sorry, don’t get what you’re asking.

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By: ライトニング /success-storykinda-srs-and-the-power-and-value-of-memory/#comment-93843 Thu, 21 Apr 2011 11:56:18 +0000 /?p=355#comment-93843 How is the explanation so short?

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By: Han /success-storykinda-srs-and-the-power-and-value-of-memory/#comment-93834 Thu, 21 Apr 2011 10:41:53 +0000 /?p=355#comment-93834 I use the SRS for Russian. Because I already study it in university (yeah, I know), I don’t have such a need for finding patterns in the grammar with sentences – it’s all rather second nature to me now. So, I usually keep it monolingual by putting a sentence or word on one side, and explanations in Russian on the other, such as:

[FRONT]
Говорят, я́кобы он умер
[BACK]
Они сказали что он умер, но я не знаю, и не действительно верю их

It’s turned out to be really useful in learning how to use figures of speech correctly. That’s how I use the SRS for my own studies, where my main priority is vocabulary building, rather than learning and understanding the frameworks.

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By: Casimiro /success-storykinda-srs-and-the-power-and-value-of-memory/#comment-39228 Tue, 13 Apr 2010 23:44:31 +0000 /?p=355#comment-39228 @Ramses
That’s a really bad example. That’s not what “fondo” means in that sentence, it means background.

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By: Mark /success-storykinda-srs-and-the-power-and-value-of-memory/#comment-15782 Thu, 05 Feb 2009 02:57:21 +0000 /?p=355#comment-15782 @Sponge Ascendant – Nice one! congratulations! Feels good eh!?!

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By: adshap8 /success-storykinda-srs-and-the-power-and-value-of-memory/#comment-15226 Tue, 20 Jan 2009 22:47:08 +0000 /?p=355#comment-15226 Wenhailin,

It was a lot of cards but the results really showed. I had tons of hypos, cases(facts/holdings), emanuel outlines facts, black letter law, important points made in class, etc.

The best part about using ANKI is that it stays with you. While most of the other students are already rapidly forgetting things as the next semester roles on, the stuff stays strong with me. While I’ve stopped using the deck from the first semester (due to lack of time and using the new deck), I may come back to it when the bar exam comes around. Anyway, good luck!

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By: Ramses /success-storykinda-srs-and-the-power-and-value-of-memory/#comment-15216 Tue, 20 Jan 2009 11:08:32 +0000 /?p=355#comment-15216 @ドンキホーテ
Keeping the SRS monolingual is quite easy, although I had to look for it as well. I simply put in the definitions of unknown words in the answer field. Example:

QUESTION
Al fondo de la obra se puede ver el monte Fuji, cuyo pico está cubierto por la nieve.

ANSWER
fondo = m. Parte inferior de una cosa.
-inferior: Que está debajo de otra cosa o más bajo que ella.

pico = Parte puntiaguda que sobresale de algunas cosas.

Sometimes they get bigger, with more info etc, but simply giving the definitions is enough. At times, I re-write the sentence after an explanation and put the easier to understand sentence in the answer field.

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By: wenhailin /success-storykinda-srs-and-the-power-and-value-of-memory/#comment-15191 Mon, 19 Jan 2009 07:20:58 +0000 /?p=355#comment-15191 I have actually been doing the same thing as AdShap for my contract law subject. And turns out I got a really good mark in that subject!

But, 2600 cards for two courses? That is just crazy, I only did about 200 for my 1 law subject. AdShap, you have motivated me to write even more cards for my law courses this semester!

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By: antaresprime /success-storykinda-srs-and-the-power-and-value-of-memory/#comment-15185 Mon, 19 Jan 2009 02:02:12 +0000 /?p=355#comment-15185 @budoboy

I’m an engineering student as well and I’ve been using Anki to learn Japanese. I’ve also been thinking about how I can use an SRS with course work. Please let us know how it goes.

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By: budoboy /success-storykinda-srs-and-the-power-and-value-of-memory/#comment-15182 Sun, 18 Jan 2009 22:19:05 +0000 /?p=355#comment-15182 AdShap, Khatz,

Thanks for posting the SRS sample; that answered all of my questions. I had thought about doing something similar with my physics/engineering classes (big word problems with short qualitative answers as the answer), but never tried it because I thought it’d be too cumbersome to work. Your experience certainly shows otherwise! It’s motivated me to start putting together an Anki deck for the upper division quantum physics class I’m taking this quarter. I’ll let you all know how it goes!

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By: Sponge Ascendant /success-storykinda-srs-and-the-power-and-value-of-memory/#comment-15172 Sun, 18 Jan 2009 08:29:30 +0000 /?p=355#comment-15172 Tremendously off-topic, but after 3.1 months I just finished RTK1. I’m rather proud of myself. Hats off to Khatz for motivating the craps out of me (now, crapless, I got to greater things).

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By: David /success-storykinda-srs-and-the-power-and-value-of-memory/#comment-15169 Sun, 18 Jan 2009 07:40:27 +0000 /?p=355#comment-15169 Yeah, I guess it wouldn’t work well for English majors, and I’d think other foreign languages classes. But in that case, you’re probably trying to learn that language instead. And, I have no idea what happened with my comments up there. I posted the first one and it didn’t go through. But when I came back here it was there. Strange. :\

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By: beneficii /success-storykinda-srs-and-the-power-and-value-of-memory/#comment-15165 Sun, 18 Jan 2009 03:33:31 +0000 /?p=355#comment-15165 About sentences. The number of sentences that will make their way through your SRS–mileage may vary. I have a very small SRS composed of interesting entries and I like it that way. I’m not wanting to review 50 items everyday.

Also, I know that AJATT has been attacked because of the crowd that thinks his method is about getting 10,000 sentences in their SRS and then reviewing them every day over and over again and then becoming fluent and who think that a short-cut is to download a pre-compiled list of sentences and get to work on them. They took what Khatz was saying totally out of context when they set out to do this. I doubt that any of the success had 10,000 sentences in their SRS at anyone time, because that would be a monster to review, but it’s probably true that at least some of them had 10,000 sentences or so grace their SRS over the course of their learning.

Again, too, Khatzumoto has spoken on the topic of _memorizing_ sentences, and Khatz is not talking about memorizing sentences so that you can recite them later; the purpose of the SRS is to artifically increase your input of sentence structures that seem interesting to you in a way, and which you had just come to understand, so that you can get a quicker handle on the sentence’s grammatical/phrase structure and words/kanji.

It might also help to write out the sentences as you review them, or at least their kanji, so that you can get more used to writing kanji.

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By: Jon /success-storykinda-srs-and-the-power-and-value-of-memory/#comment-15164 Sun, 18 Jan 2009 01:57:55 +0000 /?p=355#comment-15164 @igordesu

I’m not sure how close to the mark this will be (my major is *shudder* physics ;)), but your post reminded me of this article:

www.city-journal.org/html/14_3_defense_memorization.html

Long story short, he suggests that memorizing poetry and prose (something an SRS is pretty well suited to) is a great way to improve one’s command of the language. I myself have been using Mnemosyne to learn some of Shakespeare’s sonnets recently, and it’s actually kind of fun. I don’t know how much this would relate to your major (depending on your focus: creative writing? Lit crit? Journalism?), but it seems to be one way an SRS might help. In fact, it would pretty much parallel the AJATT method: immerse yourself in good (if dated) English, and your English writing will improve (or become dated). 🙂

Also, insofar as some English classes involve remembering grammar terms (gerund, participle, infinitive, etc.) or names and birthdates of important authors, another use for an SRS becomes apparent.

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By: LegionCobra /success-storykinda-srs-and-the-power-and-value-of-memory/#comment-15161 Sat, 17 Jan 2009 22:09:18 +0000 /?p=355#comment-15161 With SRS you aren’t memorizing a lot of sentences, it’s don’t make sense! SRS is to be forced to read a lot of japanese things every day, things that you have been learned before and will forget if not review.

The objective of SRS Khatz method is not to memorize all sentences, the objetive is to be forced to read japanese all day, a lot of sentences with japanese that is easy for you because you studied it before. And, when you’re picking sentences, you’re using japanese, you add 10.000 sentences but in this process you need do read more than 100.000 to collect sentences for SRS.

And, SRS is not all, it’s a tool, a very efficient tool, but it’s not all. You can’t learn japanese or any language using SRS only.

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By: igordesu /success-storykinda-srs-and-the-power-and-value-of-memory/#comment-15160 Sat, 17 Jan 2009 21:52:25 +0000 /?p=355#comment-15160 @ David (and/or others)
ha, well I’m an English Major, so I’m not so sure the SRS will help for that. I use an SRS for other things like science classes (*shudders*), communications, history, etc. But, the only thing is, especially my last two years of college where a majority of my courses will be for my major, an SRS won’t help me develop my writing skills. It won’t help me do literary analysis. And it sure as heck won’t help me with Shakespeare (however, perhaps that could evolve into another language learning thing; maybe I could use an SRS to unlock the mysteries of Elizabethan English?!). Yeah all this is a bit unfortunate, but whatev. I’ll still ace my other classes.

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By: mike /success-storykinda-srs-and-the-power-and-value-of-memory/#comment-15158 Sat, 17 Jan 2009 19:42:47 +0000 /?p=355#comment-15158 @Rob

I am assuming you attend law school too?

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By: David /success-storykinda-srs-and-the-power-and-value-of-memory/#comment-15156 Sat, 17 Jan 2009 17:26:09 +0000 /?p=355#comment-15156 I’ve been toying with something like this. Kind of the same idea that you should buy your textbooks in your target language. I’m a Web design major, so things like the Japanese version of the Dreamweaver help file, and Wikipedia articles (in Japanese) about things like HTML, XML, FTP, etc. are rather useful for me. And, I think this can apply to any major unrelated to Japanese. What’s nice about this is, you practice Japanese and study for quizzes/tests at the same time. And, being in class, since its conducted in English, you’re not likely to misunderstand. So, it’s safe, too. This is an excellent post, and highly motivational. 🙂

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By: David /success-storykinda-srs-and-the-power-and-value-of-memory/#comment-15155 Sat, 17 Jan 2009 17:14:52 +0000 /?p=355#comment-15155 I just started doing this for my Web classes. If there’s anything that uses acronyms, it’s the WWW.. or, I mean W3, er wait! The World Wide Web. You know, that FTP, Email, HTML, PHP.. thingy. 🙂

And, what’s more, is you can kill two birds with one stone if you think you have the time. For example:
ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTML
ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/File_Transfer_Protocol
ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cascading_Style_Sheets

And, when you have that pressure to learn something for school hanging over you, it gives you that motivational shove you might need. Plus, it kind of forces you to understand the information. And, I think Khatzumoto has mentioned before that in order to learn how to do adult things, like study for college exams, in Japanese, you have to do just that, in Japanese. If I can find a Japanese help file for Dreamweaver CS4 I’ll be making thorough use of it. x)

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By: ドンキホーテ /success-storykinda-srs-and-the-power-and-value-of-memory/#comment-15153 Sat, 17 Jan 2009 16:27:53 +0000 /?p=355#comment-15153 @Ramses

I have long been interested in started an SRS for a European language, but I am always tripped up by how to enter the questions and still keep it monolingual.
In Japanese I did the normal thing and entered the reading for the sentences in kana like a children’s video game in the answer field, and included definitions for words I thought I might forget.
But if the language was Spanish, I wouldn’t know what to do. I have tried putting the sentences translated into Japanese in the answer field, but it’s really not what I want.
Have you been able to keep your Spanish SRS monolingual, and if so how did you manage it?

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