Daily flashcards - brain changing?

[realmayo]

Does anyone think that doing flashcards every day might have an effect that goes beyond simply language learning? I recently restarted flashcards and wonder what kind of effect 20-30 minutes of relatively abstract concentration every morning might have on how my mind works. After a year or two or three, might it not become something more than just a habit - perhaps some kind of comforting ritual. Maybe a bit like meditation? Or a signal each morning that there is structure to the day. And has any regular flashcarder ever got withdrawal symptoms when they stopped?

 

[roddy]

I'm a big fan of habit and routine, but I find flashcards quite bitty - you're not really in a 'zone', you're doing lots of tiny tasks, each with a variable outcome (right, wrong, check dictionary, add to different deck). It's more of a chore for me than meditation. 

[realmayo]

I see what you mean - I tend to separate 'Anki' and 'Anki admin', as it were.

There's also a long-standing hypothesis that doing and completing a task that requires concentration early in the morning will give your brain a big dose of dopamine, some of which will continue sloshing around (that's the medical term) around your head for the rest of the day.

[roddy]

Even so... it's staring at a screen mechanically tapping. Although I suppose it's what you're doing, if your cards are prompting you to recite a poem...

[yu]

Before covid I used to make my own flashcards with coloured paper, wrote characters and pinyin on one side and English translation on the other side. It took a lot of time and space (I have done it for about 2 years of uni so you can imagine how many of them I had for level HSK4) but I liked making them and it was nice to study without my phone or laptop. Also, it was easy to  sort them to different groups (flashcards to study once a week, flashcards of the characters i still don't remember, these that I remember well etc) But it was also annoying to bring all of them to the library or wherever I was studying at, there were simply just too many of them so I change to quizzlet app/website. It's okay but to be honest I miss my paper flashcards because I actually enjoyed studying them now it feels like a chore. Or maybe the lack of motivation is just caused by covid

[骏马的丕沿?]

Those who are just starting out may think that studying new vocabulary with flashcards is useful, but the truth is, using flashcards is detrimental to life-long learning. It took me quite a while to realize this.

 

In my opinion, all the hype revolving around “flashcards,” “Anki,” and “spaced repetition” (which is a very rudimentary and simple tactic for studying) is unwarranted.

 

Again, those who are just starting out may like flashcards, and that’s fine, but eventually, there will come a point when they realize that there are much better ways of studying, learning, understanding, and retaining. If I were an instructor for Chinese language, I wouldn’t be encouraging my students to use flashcards.

 

As for specifically why I don’t like flashcards, the reason is quite complicated. It’s a messy combination of: discouragement of incidental learning via reading, and therefore a decrease in exposure to culturally and/or philosophically specific information, and therefore a potential increase in instances of misunderstanding and a potential decrease in interest, the lack of practice in “guessing” (for example, mentally connecting contextual clues in a text or audio), and therefore a lack of practice for critical thinking, scientific research that shows that rote learning is a very inefficient way of storing long-term information, and the list goes on...

 

At the end of the day, though, if I absolutely had to use flashcards, hand-made ones beat digital ones all day! ?

[Moshen]

Quote

As for specifically why I don’t like flashcards, the reason is quite complicated. It’s a messy combination of: discouragement of incidental learning via reading, and therefore a decrease in exposure to culturally and/or philosophically specific information, and therefore a potential increase in instances of misunderstanding and a potential decrease in interest, the lack of practice in “guessing” (for example, mentally connecting contextual clues in a text or audio), and therefore a lack of practice for critical thinking, scientific research that shows that rote learning is a very inefficient way of storing long-term information, and the list goes on...

You seem to be assuming that if people use flashcards then they necessarily don't read or do all the other things on your list.  That's a false assumption.  Someone who uses flashcards for review as part of a well-balanced diet of learning activities can remain motivated and get all the other practice kinds you mentioned.

[骏马的丕沿?]

28 minutes ago, Moshen said:

You seem to be assuming that if people use flashcards then they necessarily don't read or do all the other things on your list.  That's a false assumption.  Someone who uses flashcards for review as part of a well-balanced diet of learning activities can remain motivated and get all the other practice kinds you mentioned.

 

I'm saying that using flashcards encourage the things mentioned in that list, and not that people who use flashcards exercise, outside of the flashcard-using context, the things mentioned in that list.

 

In other words, what I said has nothing to do with people, but rather has only to do with the use of flashcards itself.

[Flickserve]

6 hours ago, 骏马的丕沿? said:

scientific research that shows that rote learning is a very inefficient way of storing long-term information, and the list goes on...

 

At the end of the day, though, if I absolutely had to use flashcards, hand-made ones beat digital ones all day!

I find this quite interesting because in my field for postgraduate exams, I had to use flashcards in order to compartmentalise and organise information into manageable packets. My flashcards stacked up would come to more than a metre high in total with information in table and diagrams as well as explanations. I learnt all of them by rote for the exams - the information is reinforced by day to day work and experience. It was either that or keep revising from books and research papers which would take up shelves of space. Books and research papers don’t present information in an efficient manner. My contemporaries also use flashcards- there’s just no other way. 

 

However, the way it’s used in language learning is different with one fact per card. I also find that medical students are using anki a lot but the information presented is haphazard due to its nature of presenting a single question and fact. I find it quite hard to adapt to that way. Even more difficult is the one word per card. 

[骏马的丕沿?]

1 hour ago, Flickserve said:

8 hours ago, 骏马的丕沿? said:

scientific research that shows that rote learning is a very inefficient way of storing long-term information, and the list goes on...

 

At the end of the day, though, if I absolutely had to use flashcards, hand-made ones beat digital ones all day!

I find this quite interesting because in my field for postgraduate exams, I had to use flashcards in order to compartmentalise and organise information into manageable packets. My flashcards stacked up would come to more than a metre high in total with information in table and diagrams as well as explanations. I learnt all of them by rote for the exams - the information is reinforced by day to day work and experience. It was either that or keep revising from books and research papers which would take up shelves of space. Books and research papers don’t present information in an efficient manner. My contemporaries also use flashcards- there’s just no other way. 

 

However, the way it’s used in language learning is different with one fact per card. I also find that medical students are using anki a lot but the information presented is haphazard due to its nature of presenting a single question and fact. I find it quite hard to adapt to that way. Even more difficult is the one word per card. 

 

I think flashcards are great and super useful in the right context. When preparing for exams, or when trying to memorize a list of things for the short-term, or when the situation at hand necessitates rote learning, for example, flashcards are wonderful, and I personally like to use them in this context.

 

In the context of increasing one's vocabulary count (active and passive), and decreasing the rate at which vocabulary (active and passive) is lost, though, I believe that the use of flashcards is very much a low-efficiency method.

 

As I was typing this, I just thought of something, and that's: things are never so simple. If learner A really likes using flashcards, and the convenience of using flashcards, in some way, gives learner A motivation to keep going, then shouldn't the use of flashcards be more beneficial than it is detrimental? Meanwhile, learner B might be more inclined to research/study/explore the topic at hand for it's own pure sake, for example, and doesn't mind going through a rough patch by not utilizing the convenience of flashcards. So, ultimately, one can argue that it all comes down to personal learning styles. Yet, a counter-argument to this would be: as learner A gets more skilled in his/her respective field, he/she will naturally find more motivation to keep going, and will soon find that flashcards are no longer useful for the long-term.

 

Sorry for the wall of text. Ultimately, I think that flashcards can be useful for the short-term, but cannot be useful for the long-term. Do you agree?

[realmayo]

 

15 hours ago, 骏马的丕沿? said:

rote learning is a very inefficient way of storing long-term information

 

Flashcards aren't rote learning - certainly not once they have intervals longer than a few days. For those longer intervals, flashcards do help cement in your mind the knowledge that a certain word exists and what its (exact or approximate) meaning is. I don't see how that's a bad thing, though it's obviously no substitute for repeated exposure to a word in real life.

 

But rote learning is great! Human beings living in civilisations have used it successfully for a very long time. I'm confident they knew what they were doing and, as a human being myself, I'm happy to learn from what worked for them. Why deny yourself a tool that has worked for centuries and centuries? Deep down I think it's fear of hard work.

 

But I also think fetishising memorisation ("how many characters should I learn before I can speak Chinese?") is also daft and there's probably also some kind of fear of hard work there too: it's easier just to learn 10 more characters and congratulate yourself on your memory, than it is to sit down with a real Chinese text and confront the fact that you find parts of it really hard - or impossible - to understand.

[骏马的丕沿?]

Oh, wow! ?

 

That’s fine - to each his own. You are wrong, though, in saying that using flashcards isn’t a case of rote learning - using flashcards is most definitely an example of rote learning. And rote learning is preferable in some contexts, and not preferable in others.

 

To clarify, it is not the case that I “fear hard work,” and that therefore I avoid hard work, which I think you may have implied. Rather, my Chinese-learning experience has taught me that flashcards are ineffective for the long-term. I learned this really late, though (about two years ago).

 

“Real Chinese texts” come in a myriad of ways, and there are definitely texts out there that are suitable for beginners. One or one’s teacher just has to find them.

[realmayo]

Sorry, I didn't mean to suggest you were scared of hard work - clearly you have a high level of Chinese and I'm sure that wouldn't have happened without lots of hard work. I was referring to the recent trend over the last 50 years or so to remove rote learning from the student toolbox in some countries.

 

As for rote learning: imagine you have a flashcard 羚羊 and you've got it right several times in a row, so the new interval is 6 months. If, after 5.5 months, you saw the characters "羚羊" on an advertisment, would it be "rote learning" if you remembered what the word meant? What about if instead, you saw "羚羊" in your flashcard deck after 6 months. Would it be "rote learning" if you knew what it meant there? Surely, these are both examples of remembering?

[骏马的丕沿?]

OK, I see what you're saying - perhaps "rote learning" wasn't the best word to use. I used to couple "rote learning" strictly with using flashcards, and memorizing and reciting poems (as is traditionally done in Chinese education). I'm not some kind of expert in pedagogy, so maybe my previous view of "rote learning" is too narrow.

 

In your example, if you used flashcards to memorize "羚羊," and then you saw it on an advertisement, then I think that's great. The downside to this is that the word was mostly memorized without context. Put another way, I theoretically could open up a dictionary, choose a random word, and memorize it via repeated flashcard practice, but this method of learning words isn't as effective as memorizing words in context. If I'm reading a book (at a suitable level, of course), and I encounter the word, "羚羊," I may choose to look it up in the dictionary. If I encounter that word repeatedly throughout the rest of my reading, that's fantastic, and the word will stick to me longer than if I had used flashcards. (Granted, "羚羊" might not appear many times within said book, but the upside is that a book contains A LOT of words, in both quantity and diversity. So, you might not learn and absorb through repeated exposure the word "羚羊", but you'll learn other words, like "麒麟," "鼎足," "存款," or whichever words you're encountering often.)

[Moshen]

Quote

In your example, if you used flashcards to memorize "羚羊," and then you saw it on an advertisement, then I think that's great. The downside to this is that the word was mostly memorized without context. Put another way, I theoretically could open up a dictionary, choose a random word, and memorize it via repeated flashcard practice, but this method of learning words isn't as effective as memorizing words in context. If I'm reading a book (at a suitable level, of course), and I encounter the word, "羚羊," I may choose to look it up in the dictionary. If I encounter that word repeatedly throughout the rest of my reading, that's fantastic, and the word will stick to me longer than if I had used flashcards.

I still don't understand why you are disparaging the use of flashcards and making them the opposite of reading.  There are many people in this forum who create flashcards OUT of their reading as a form of review.  I am using TofuLearn - a flashcard program - to review all the HSK 4 words, which I supposedly already learned.  It seems to me that if I can recognize and define the words out of context I can even better recognize and understand them in context.

 

And would you say, equally, that quizzes are abominable?  The ones on Chairman's Bao really help me assimilate new words.  And I don't see a big distinction between taking a vocabulary quiz and reviewing with flashcards.

 

I get that you have a pet peeve.  But I don't see that anyone else should agree with you on it.

[骏马的丕沿?]

 

1 hour ago, Moshen said:

I still don't understand why you are disparaging the use of flashcards and making them the opposite of reading.  There are many people in this forum who create flashcards OUT of their reading as a form of review.  I am using TofuLearn - a flashcard program - to review all the HSK 4 words, which I supposedly already learned.  It seems to me that if I can recognize and define the words out of context I can even better recognize and understand them in context.

 

And would you say, equally, that quizzes are abominable?  The ones on Chairman's Bao really help me assimilate new words.  And I don't see a big distinction between taking a vocabulary quiz and reviewing with flashcards.

 

I get that you have a pet peeve.  But I don't see that anyone else should agree with you on it.

 

Haha, no - you absolutely don't have to agree with me. I have a pet peeve just as much as you have a pet peeve.

 

My pet peeve is: seeing beginners, that are learning/practicing in very inefficient ways, be stubborn about accepting advice from (relatively) seasoned people. Your pet peeve is: hearing ugly truths.

 

My responsibility here as a learner is to share my advice, and, then, consider the advice of others. As someone who, relatively speaking, is very-well seasoned in Chinese, I have lots, and lots, and lots of advice to share, and a lot of them are controversial, unconventional, and, yet, very effective. How dare I not share what others don't know? Yes, it may seem like flashcards are a point of worship for you, but that doesn't matter to me.

 

Flashcards don't promote long-term retention. At this point, I prefer that you provide copies of scientific papers, if you want to say otherwise.

[jannesan]

7 hours ago, 骏马的丕沿? said:

You are wrong, though, in saying that using flashcards isn’t a case of rote learning - using flashcards is most definitely an example of rote learning.

19 minutes ago, 骏马的丕沿? said:

ugly truths. [opinions]

On 3/6/2021 at 7:21 PM, 骏马的丕沿? said:

the truth [my opinion] is, using flashcards is detrimental to life-long learning.

 

I think people would be more open to discussion of advantages and disadvantages if you didn't claim your opinion to be the "truth".

Also one can use flashcards / spaced repetition in many different ways*, so instead of just assuming the only way that people use flashcards

is like cramming for an exam you could try to understand how others find software like Anki to be a great help on their learning journey.

 

* for example:

• review words that were encountered when reading
• preview words that are in a text
• memorize common phrases for conversation
• contrasting similar words

 

On 3/6/2021 at 7:21 PM, 骏马的丕沿? said:

As for specifically why I don’t like flashcards, the reason is quite complicated. It’s a messy combination of: [1.] discouragement of incidental learning via reading, and therefore a decrease in exposure to culturally and/or philosophically specific information, and therefore a potential increase in instances of misunderstanding and a potential decrease in interest, [2.] the lack of practice in “guessing” (for example, mentally connecting contextual clues in a text or audio), and therefore a lack of practice for critical thinking, [3.] scientific research that shows that rote learning is a very inefficient way of storing long-term information, and the list goes on...

 

1. For me personally spaced repetition has been a great motivator to start reading native material, I use it to prelearn the high frequency words and then I am more motivated to read because it's just more enjoyable not having to look up many words.

2. Just because I am using flashcards does not prevent me from having to guess meanings from context when listening to podcasts or reading a book. I agree that the majority of time should not be spent on reviewing flashcards, they should be an aid.

3. Spaced repetition is not rote-learning, rote-learning would be reviewing the same flashcards over and over without increasing intervals. If you have some scientific research that suggests better methods than spaced repetition for memorizing information please share it.

[Sreeni]

 

6 hours ago, 骏马的丕沿? said:

Flashcards don't promote long-term retention.

I think how you are using flash cards matters. The above point makes this discussion interesting. 
 

say I am following this process as a beginner: Read a textbook (for context) and learn 5 or n new words per day and enter them in Anki and learn. while you could not remember meaning of a word, try to update the flash card with notes/annotations and learn the etymology of that word and make connection stronger. make similar words list and confusing words lists in the same flash cards system and Continue and practice this daily.

 

I think, if you practice like this long term retention also will be achieved. Learning without context with Anki/SRS still you might be able to re-collect on long term I think so. But context must be better. Also it matters how you are connecting the meaning with word

[realmayo]

10 hours ago, 骏马的丕沿? said:

Flashcards don't promote long-term retention. At this point, I prefer that you provide copies of scientific papers, if you want to say otherwise.

https://www.evullab.org/pdf/CepedaPashlerVulWixtedRohrer-PB-2006.pdf

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1876761/

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S016643280200270X

 

(I certainly believe there are pitfalls associated with using flashcards to learn a foreign language - and I've fallen into them myself - but saying they "don't promote long-term retention" runs contrary to scientific findings, personal experience, and common sense. It's possible you didn't express yourself as clearly as you'd hoped.)

[roddy]

It's also only relevant if *all* you are doing is flashcards, which I don't think anyone would recommend. But I can't see what's wrong with using flashcards to get things into short / medium term memory, so you can then consolidate that knowledge doing other stuff, without constantly needing to refer to a dictionary.