Reviewing your vocab how often do you do it?

Language Learning
1

I was wondering are there people here that work with a memory palace or just mnemonics and how you schedule your reviews. I now have 2500 words and start to spend a lot of time reviewing them.
I work with mnemonics mostly but also have a few decks with a memory palace (300 words).
When I try to review and use the memory palace that takes to much time if I want to do it all in my mind.
So I use flashcards that I flip with an average of 12 minutes for 105 cards.
the results are pretty good 97% retention but I start to get into trouble with the time it takes to review.
I review everyday 420 cards and then I learn 15 new ones and have to review those to and this week I will work with a memory palace so I have to create that one too. I was wondering how you guys do it that have let’s say 3000 cards or more?

I don’t like using an SRS programm because for me the repetition algorithms don’t work so well.
I have to review everything I know at least 4 times a month or it is fading out of my memory.

Thanks in advance it’s great to have a forum with people that are using these techniques for all kind of things awesome.

2

There are some notes on review patterns here:

:slight_smile:

3

Thanks Metivier for the reply.
I have to review the 2500 words that I have now at least every two weeks or they start to slip out.
I did a test were I didn’t review my decks for 20 days and the mnemonics where sometimes gone.
I need to work on improving them but it is also time and speed that sometimes make them weak.
I love the books of O’brien and also your audiobook on how to learn spanish vocabulary is very good.
Bridging figures make my life a lot easier when it comes to creating mnemonics.
I use memory palaces a lot less then you do for vocabulary but I find it very impressive stuff and read your e-mails always and I’m amazed by your enthusiasm for this subject and how you help people to discover the power of using a memory palace.

4

Thanks for these kind words, rayver.

Yes, the bridging figure technique is brilliant for many things.

In what ways do you find success when not using Memory Palaces or other location-based strategies?

5

I don’t get this. You don’t like SRS programs because they’re too repetitive, but it’s OK to review the whole lot? I assume there’s something there that I don’t get, because SRS greatly reduces the amount of pointless review on words you already know.

As for reviewing, if it’s a tier 1 word, as in it’s simple and common, don’t waste your time on them. If you’re using the language you’ll find all those words get more than enough review.

The ones you want to focus on are probably the tier 2 words. They’re less common than tier 1 words, but they’re general utility. You’ll have some repeated exposure to them, but not as much as you’d have with the tier 1 words and they’re likely to be less concrete as well.

Tier 3 words are words that aren’t really worth wasting a lot of time reviewing. If they’re relevant to an area of interest, you’ll get plenty of review from engaging in your hobby, but they’re not common and they can usually be replaced with more common and less complicated terms.

The tiers are somewhat arbitrary, there really isn’t a good line where this side is tier 1 and that side is tier 2, but it’s a way of looking at the vocabulary that helps you to consider how much time it’s worth spending on the word and what priority to give to it.

As for the topic at hand, I review every day, because I use an SRS program and it takes about 10 minutes tops, assuming that I haven’t been slacking off for the previous week. It’s something I can easily do while waiting for the bus or in the elevator.

6

Hi Anthony,

Mnemonics are very important for me without them there is no way I can retain the information I’m learning.
I also use pictures or paintings if I struggle with let’s say a very difficult word. Basically this is a mini memory palace or loci.
I learn Thai and there are many particles that are important with multiple meanings. I use a picture for example of a tv cast to remember all the meanings and ways how to use this particle.
When I read a comic or watch a TV show and one of those particles pops up I go in my head to the picture let’s say Luke Skywalker, Darthvader and Obiwan kenobi ( I’m a huge star wars fan so I use Star wars for almost anything when it comes to learning a language.) I know with this technique then what the three meanings are for let’s say the particle ดี (dii) when it’s placed at the and of a sentence.

I can then review this without using anything just a plain peace of paper like you review your vocab.
Sometimes when I have a little free time I do this to check if I’m still 100% accurate with my particles.
This way I know what the meanings are in L1 and L2 also and it works great.
For me it is never a problem to find these pictures so I don’t have to organize them I know that ดี is that star wars scene where luke watches Vader fight with Obi Wan.
The same with words most of the time I can remember where I saw the word for the first time in a movie or a book.
But that will do nothing for actually remembering the word I need the mnemonic for that.

I have experimented much with remembering complete sentences with memory palaces and it works but it is not so useful in real life situations. I once learned 500 sentences in Thai with memory palaces that I made with my computer.
It was exhausting to do but it was possible and the retention was pretty good. Memory palaces work no doubt only sometimes they can be a lot of work to construct or to maintain.
While I’m learning vocab I reduce them to a minimum and use mnemonics only.
Another thing that I like if I have a compound word is look at the word and then if there is a movie with that title I use the cover of the dvd to place the words that I have transformed in bridging figures on that picture.
An example of this is revenge in thai is การแก้แค้น (gaan keh ken) I use Revenge of the Ninja cover and place then three bridging figures that make up this word in the right sequence on this picture. The figures are James Caan (Ninja), Dj Fix (sword) and Ken the barbiedoll (flame thrower) I then make a story that connects them and it doesn’t end to good for Ken The barbiedoll :wink:

With Thai there are so many compound words, that almost every word has at least one Bridging figure in it.
So I made a whole collection of Bridging figures for prefixes and words that I see over and over again. This makes it so much easier to make mnemonics. Another thing that I discovered and O’Brien already mentions this in one of his books is that it is easier to remember persons instead of objects. When my bridging figure is an object it is harder to form a story with it. So I try to make every bridging figure into a person.

This is how I I try to win the battle learning Thai LoL :slight_smile:
I have lost many battles with Thai already but I know I will win the war at the end but it takes time :slight_smile:

Thanks for your time Anthony Metevier

7

Hi Pfrank,

For people that use SRS and it works for them it is awesome and saves a lot of time and in your case it works also very good. Can you tell me how many words you have in your SRS deck and what is your average percentage?
And are you learning form L1 to L2 or L2 to L1?
For example Olle Linge did 10.000 words in Chinese and had a review of 30 minutes every day with a very high score everyday. This is awesome but I know that I didn’t had the same experience when I used SRS I wish it was different and there are more people that are not so successful with it.

I don’t like to use SRS because it uses an algorithm that will not give me enough exposure to the words.
I have used SRS in the past and the interval gets so big that some words will have a review after two months again.
Now the whole idea behind these algorithms are that you will get a review just before the word slips away.
For some people and I admit for a lot of people this gives a pretty good retention and it works very well.
However for me I have noticed that with Thai this is not the case. I need to review more often and can’t select words that can be thrown away easily.
With Thai there are hardly any loanwords so it’s not the same when I learned Spanish where the word count was a lot lower to become pretty good in reading and speaking the language. If you would read the book the Wordbrain then the author mentions that for an Asian language you need about 15.000 words to become fluent. Ok this is maybe a bit high but a minimal of 10.000 words is pretty accurate I think. So you can imagine that tier 1, 2 or tier 3 words are not an issue here they are all tier 2 words I have in my decks.

Now normally reading a lot in the language gives a lot of exposure to learn words but with Thai I read very slow and can not read a book every week so to say. So I have to review my vocab a lot to keep getting exposure to the words I learned. One thing that I have discovered for me (I’m not saying this is the same for another person) is that words that one day seemed very easy are giving me a problem on another day. With the 100% reviewing I keep everything in my head. Now I’m playing with trying to skip certain decks for a week and I learned already that if I skip the easy decks for 20 days I have a retention loss. And one day it’s word x and the other day it’s word z so with an SRS algorithm I would sooner or later get a lot of words back.

But don’t underestimate the time that even if you use a SRS program takes every day.
I spend now every day between 45 minutes and an hour to review 420 cards.
The retention is around 98%.
When I used SRS software I was not spending much less time because I kept seeing words that I forgot and had to think about the mnemonic and was loosing time or just choose to fail the word and it would be added ad the end of the session for repeat.
When I now start my routine of the day I flip my cards fast and this also helps me when I use the words when I speak. I sometimes need to think for a few seconds but I use a timer to keep everything under control. I rather have a lot of mistakes but complete the deck fast then that it takes me 30 seconds to retrieve the information. This way I know that I can do every deck within 15 minutes. That makes the choir not so hard. It’s not fun but I like the results. I hope that I can push my first 10 decks two weeks forward when I have 5000 words.
I was wondering how other people are dealing with this on this forum that have at least 3000 words but I have no replies except Anthony Metevier that uses the memory palace system with great success.
Or they didn’t reply because they use SRS or ?
Well at least I’m happy that two people responded It’s always good to here opinions and tips of other language memorizers :slight_smile:

BTW I’m not knocking on SRS software because I think it is pretty useful but not for me when it comes to learning vocabulary.

8

The extent to which SRS programs reduce words that you already know is highly questionable. When I used them in the past, they usually decided too soon that I’d memorized a word, letting them drift into oblivion both in the program and in my mind.

Making myself an SRS, on the other hand, by simply sitting with a piece of paper and a pencil and wandering the Memory Palaces while writing down each word before checking the record (which itself often isn’t necessary unless there are problems) accomplishes several things:

  1. It trains my mind to use itself and only itself to find the memorized material. It becomes a self-reinforcing feedback loop assisted only by checking the written record when necessary (not a fragmented set of cards that have to be flipped through, but a top-down, linear list).

  2. There is no pointless review. It uses beautiful mnemonics and Memory Palaces, strengthening my memory abilities. No time is ever wasted and there is never the pain of blunt force repetition caused by boring SRS routines.

  3. I become faster and faster, which leads to better imaginative abilities and “getting things right” the first time, meaning better recall.

I strong encourage anyone and everyone reading this to take a month off SRS devices, memorize and recall using Memory Palaces and associative-imagery and reproduce the material from your mind using a pen or pencil and paper. Check it against your record and troubleshoot any images as necessary.

If you do this with integrity, I have good reasons to believe you’ll never pour time into an SRS device again. They’re simply not necessary if you’re using mnemonics in the best possible manner.

Incidentally, I’m not anti-technology, but I am pro-mind. I don’t like index cards for rote memorization either and the difference between SRS and a stack of index cards is decision. Likewise, the difference between true success with mnemonics vs. SRS-assistance is decision.

The power is in yours!

9

I don’t agree with you guys. Some systems will automatically decide that you got it right so you know it. But better ones like Anki let you choose how firmly you know it and you can always lie and say that you didn’t get it right.

As far as thinking about what mnemonic you used, I’ve never found that to be a useful expenditure of time. I’m sure opinions will differ on this, but the mnemonicis for putting things in. I’ll create a new one each and every time I get a word wrong if need be. Worst case I wind up with more connections that I really need.

It really sounds like less of an SRS problem and more of a “you guys don’t trust the system” problem. Which is fine, to an extent this is a personal decision, but with the number of flashcards you need to cover even a children’s movie, I just don’t think it’s worth worrying about the times when it falsely pushes the card too far down the stack. If it does that, the card eventually pops up again and you fail it and it comes again more frequently. What’s more, people are almost completely incapable of completely forgetting something once its been stored. So, you might not remember that word now, but if you hear it or something that reminds you of it, it’s likely still in there somewhere.

As far as rote learning goes, SRS isn’t rote learning. People can use it to engage in rote learning in a more efficient fashion, but SRS doesn’t deal with the mechanism of memory, just the mechanism by which you’re presented with the cards. I don’t personally see any good reason why I should spend time reviewing cards that I’ve already learned every time I want to review and SRS helps me a lot with that.

As for the size of my decks, they tend to be rather large. The one I’m working on for the HSK exam is about 5k cards and the one that I’ve been using for Finding Nemo is probably only 1k cards and the other deck is probably only another 400 or so words. Apart from the HSK one that takes longer because it’s on Memrise, I don’t spend more than about half the time you do and I can easily do it while I wait for the bus or while I’m riding home. So, in practical terms, I spend no real time on it.

As far as review goes, 45 minutes a day to review 420 cards is to me an unnaceptably large amount of time to be spending on reviewing cards that you’re supposed to already know. That’s time that you don’t have available for things that are actually going to improve your language skills. If you know 98% of the words, that’s a pretty clear indicator that the material is too easy and that most of those cards should have been swapped out in favor of new materials. 80-90% is a better target success rate as it actually represents the fact that you haven’t completely solidified all the vocab. Just as long as the cards you get wrong aren’t always the same.

As far as how many words to be fluent, it’s not 15k or 20k or 100k, fluency has very little to do with the number of words you know. Fluency is partially a function of vocabulary, but it’s really a matter of how you use the words and grammatical strucures you know to communicate meaning. There’s no guarantee that you’ll be fluent because you know X words.

10

I do trust the system. I trust it to bore me out of wanting to use it.

End of the day: go without whatever works for you. All of your justifications are valid and worthy and will help people interested in SRS. But these arguments and defenses are beside the point. For those who find SRS boring (which I think is a lot more people than who actively admit this is the case), they dislike it due to the boredom of repetition, the boredom of the screen and thus it doesn’t work for them, and it won’t no matter how much flash Memrise and the like put into it.

But there’s an alternative and it’s worth spreading the good news about. It’s called mnemonics.

True, but there’s nothing that guarantees fluency. Whatever works for people is best, and it’s usually a combination of many things, none of which will amount to much without speaking, reading, hearing and writing the words, phrases and construction possibilities in addition to the memorization technique.

Again, many people find SRS boring. It becomes a barrier to forward progress. There are also people who find mnemonics a barrier to forward progress. I cannot fathom why from my perspective because this approach is the most exciting form of mental craftsmanship that exists and extends far beyond language acquisition, but it seems to be true that mnemonics bores and frustrates some people, possibly because they haven’t experienced any quick victories. For these people, SRS may be an alternative.

The third alternative is a combination of both, which is what ultimately winds up happening for people that use mnemonics, but not necessarily so for people who use SRS.

A question: I don’t understand what you mean by children’s movies and Finding Nemo. Are you memorizing the dialogue in a target language? Or just the story elements?

11

When I first tried to use SRS I thought it was the answer to forgetting vocab and started using it.
I had no problem using the technology or faith issues it was the results that I didn’t like.
I had a very nice app called flashcard deluxe it does what Anki does you can choose between 3 settings etc…
So I don’t want to blame my app for being the problem there was nothing wrong with it.
I used it for a year or so and it’s a great app you can add pictures, sounds and draw in it when your reviewing. But it was not for me.

Learning words and not using mnemonics is just rote memorizing and that works for very few people your lucky if you can do it that way. I know when I was young I could remember words when I just saw them once or twice and I never used Flashcards or anything.
But that was when I was 11 years old and I learned English this way without any effort. When I was 35 and thought I could do the same with Spanish I had a wake up call that my memory was not able to do that any more.
I had to study and learn and with a lot of sweat and tears I got to the point I could read anything in Spanish that had my interest and I still love that language it’s beautiful. I don’t want to start a discussion if a child’s brain learns better then an adult but I know for me there is a huge difference between being a teenager or somebody that groans a bit when he has to tie his shoelaces at 42 :wink:

Like I mentioned before when I did use an SRS deck I didn’t spend only 10 minutes on the bus and would be finished. It was more like this, when I woke up I would see that I had let’s say 200 cards to do.
By the time I had finished those cards there would be at least 20 cards that I had wrong so they were added to review again after the session and a few new ones, because the SRS never stops giving you reviews. Then there would be a few hours later 20 words or more to review again. By the time the evening was finished I would be spending 30 minutes at least to get rid of all the words with just ok results. But and her comes my problem my retention got worst and worst the bigger the card decks became and sometimes I would see a word after 3 months and there it would stare at me, word L1 is in L2 the word? and there would be a blank space in my head.

Now I find that if I would go from L2 to L1 that it becomes a lot more easier but I now from experience that when I want to speak the words will not be there for me. The word is in my SRS deck but I can then only recognize them but I can’t use them because I never learned them from L1 to L2. Again there are people that have different results they seem to go from inactive vocab to active vocab automatically but that’s not my experience when I learned Spanish or something I want to discuss. So L1 to L2 is how I learn my languages although for the words that I have in my memory palace this is not an issue because they go both ways. This is an advantage using a memory palace I only wish it wouldn’t take me so long to create one and the mnemonic that is stored there. That’s why I use mnemonics only as much as possible.
Still takes me between 30 and 45 minutes to do 15 words everyday.
Thinking of a good connection then writing it down and reviewing them in pairs of five.
I’m so jealous at people that can create mnemonics on the fly that is so awesome.
But I’m not complaining that I’m not a black belt (yet) but I have kind of a purple belt now in wordjitsu and that’s ok :slight_smile:
Olle Linge does two words every minute including reviewing them whooo that is a Master in wordjitsu for me.
The same with memory champs they can create mnemonics so fast.

Using an SRS was for me super boring and frustrating and I hated it everyday to do all of my words.
Not the mention if I would be sick for two days then I would have a workload that was a lot more then an hour.
Now a days I get up get my cards out of my box I know that I will be finished within an hour and the results are good.
It’s not perfect and yes I also agree with you that spending an hour every day is not little time but the way how I see it I can split it up in 4 times 15 minutes everyday and it is very manageable. But I know when I get to 5000 cards I maybe can’t do it in one hour every day. But I have to experiment a bit with it.
I did 2494 cards in 4 hours and 49 minutes in 6 days and had 62 mistakes (97,5%)
So 5000 cards will take me close to 10 hours in a week.
I will experiment to skip the first 10 decks for a week and then I will add them again.
I know now that 20 days is not a good idea because I had a retention loss and my review speed went down.

LOL I have some experimenting to do and I will also keep including memory palaces mini or full ones for a whole deck to see how my retention is with those. I have three decks with a memory palace but I find if I review them it takes me a lot longer. the rewards are also bigger words are known two ways without a problem and I feel a bit like a magician that I can reproduce 105 words out of nothing on a piece of paper.

Metevier you mention in your book that you do one letter every day that is about one review every month.
That is awesome if you then have a good retention rate. I can take my 3 decks with mnemonics out of the flashcard and try to review them on paper once a month. If I may ask what is your speed, how long does it take when you review let’s say a palace with 100 words in your head or on paper?

When I do this I think of my station then the mnemonic pops up and then I know the Thai word and then I have to think of the meaning I always find this a big effort and it hurts my brain a bit ;-). But when you describe it, it sounds like you really enjoy the process of your journey walking your route and retrieving your information stored there easily. It inspires me to try your technique more.
I have a memory palace ready so this week will be one that I will place my 105 words in a memory palace.
I walked for an hour and it’s pretty strong in my mind so I will have no problem to remember my stations.
Then I will review the palace after 3 days and then 7 and then one month.

Thanks for the replies,

Ray

12

To tell you the truth, I’ve never tracked my speed because I don’t compete. However, Noel van Vliet has tracked his speed when using the Magnetic Memory Method and I think that my times are very similar:

In case you don’t have time to read his article, he averages recall out to about 3 seconds per word.

That sounds about right to me.

Apropos to our discussion here, he talks about how he used Anki in a much more interesting way as part of his experiment. For the purpose of testing rather than retention. Finally a use of which I can approve! :wink:

13

That’s pretty fast but he also mentioned that he didn’t use the mnemonics on that review.
But if you can do this in your head at the same speed that is amazing and something I want to try also.
This week I use a memory palace for the words and one thing that I like is that I now review words in between when I cook or clean or even drive. This way I review my new words a lot more then with the flashcards.
For the first time I have actually used a real route instead of a made up one in the computer.
This makes a huge difference in recalling the route. Even though not all streets where familiar to me when I walked the route I can retrieve the stations without any hesitation just being there once. I took pictures with my Iphone to check if I didn’t miss a station while reviewing my route.
Now when I retrieve the word it doesn’t take me so long but I don’t do 1 word every 3 seconds yet but that will come in time. I like the website of Noel I went to the website when you mentioned it in one of your e-mails and I have read most of his articles. He used the SRS to check if he would get the words in another sequence order if that would be a problem. It wasn’t and it will never be a problem I’m sure of that. I think from now of on I will implement the memory palace every week and I will try to review them once a month and see how I do. Thanks for the input this was just the little push that I needed to go all memory palace :slight_smile:

Ray

14

What Noel says is that he “didn’t conceive the complete images in my mind, that would have taken longer, of course.” This is perfectly in line with what happens with mnemonics. The trigger effect happens so fast that you rarely need to “see” everything. That’s precisely why I call my approach “magnetic.” You put in that tiny amount of effort based on well-structured Memory Palace principles, do the “organic” rehearsal, and when you test, the results come in quicker than you can reconstruct the images you used to encode the target information. It’s like quantum computing or something like that.

A very positive effect.

As for your journeys, have you made any interior journeys based on buildings? I was chatting with a champion named Phil Chambers for my podcast and he said that he doesn’t think there’s much difference in effectiveness between indoor and outdoor locations, but I think there’s a massive difference. Contained locations are much easier to contain and you don’t have to go through so much vague territory that cannot be used, like the streets you mention. I think streets are best when you use something like Broadway in Manhattan (if you know that territory). 72nd is followed by 71st is followed by … and so on. The structure is build into the Memory Palace so you can rely upon that more than any actual memory of what the corners actually look like (though that can certainly help).

Keep on Rocking in the Memory Palace World!

15

Hi Anthony,

I have used buildings and of course my own house too but walking a route is even easier to remember.
In thailand it’s so much easier there are objects every two meters and everything is colorful my country is the opposite. everything looks the same almost no color because that is against the rules so it’s hard to to find stations and I had to walk a long time. I can imagine that Broadway is more like thailand then the neighborhood I live in.
At this moment I find it easier to remember going from long points to another instead of short distances.
Micro stations is something that I have experienced with also and it works great but they are harder to remember there is more effort. But I have to use micro stations because I need every week 105 stations.
I can’t come up with routes every week. When I did my 500 sentence experiment I used shops that I created in the computer. It works but it took some time to build everything. I also used real locations but had a problem coming up with a lot of stations until I started to look at things like I was only 5cm big.
But again this made it harder to remember the stations.

I experimented with movies and those work limited but they do work only it’s important (for me at least) to follow one character in the movie. I memorized a bunch of Thai problem sentences with repeating grammar patterns placing them on three movies and I can write them them out on a piece of paper. This technique is limited to about 15 -20 sentences per movie if I want to keep things clear.
I only recommend this for special patterns that are just hard to remember and are used a lot
But it takes more effort to remember the stations (still not really hard work and worth it for small tasks).

With the route I walked I had no problem reciting 150 stations just being there once.
But it’s time consuming so I will go with buildings but I need to do micro stations or I will not have enough stations to do my 105 words every week. This week is very easy with the route I have no problem connecting my bridging figures and stories to what I encounter on my route.
So I do think a route is easier but when a building has clear routes like you say don’t cross your paths and this is soooo important or confusion will kick in.
You can be sure I will keep rocking in the Memory Palace World.

Thanks,

Ray