JEdutainment.com

 As you may remember I recently wrote about how I found an interesting site AllJapaneseAllTheTime.com. At first I wasn’t sure exactly what to think of the author’s methods. So I did a bit of digging. Now I’m convinced that the Spaced Repetition philosophy he writes about actually makes a lot of sense. I didn’t even realize it but I was already using elements of spaced repetition in my own study methods (although my ways were a bit more painful at times).

The idea is that you keep exposing yourself to the material you want to remember over spaced intervals of time. These intervals are spaced according to how well you can recall the information and whether or not you make mistakes.

For example once you remember a new word today, that new word will be showed to you again tomorrow, if remembered then again in 3 days… 7 days… 1 month… 2 months etc.

The basic premise is that humans, as we are designed, remember things for a short while (yup, short-term memory). Then as time passes the memories fade if they are not reinforced. This has been a major problem of mine in studying kanji. I’ll learn an amazing amount of kanji before an exam, but then 2 weeks later I’ve forgotten almost half of them. Why? Because none of them were committed to my long-term memory. None of them were reinforced after the exam. This can ONLY be acheived by repeated exposure to the words/characters.

So now you’re probably saying to yourself, “Yes, repetition=memorization. duh!?”

But how do we intelligently space the repetition? How do we organize all this data? How do we ensure that the words we already know aren’t reviewed unnecessarily? How do we remember to remember the words that we forgot?

One answer is The JEdutainment Podcast
but unfortunately podcast episodes can’t change vocabulary dynamically.

Another great solution is called Spaced Repetition Software. There are a variety of SRS applications out there, but the one that I chose and which works best for me is called Anki. I like it because it runs on a Mac (but it also runs on Windows and Linux). I like it because it’s free. I like it because I can sync to a webserver for free which allows me to study from any other computer, or from my cellphone. I like that it gives me lots of options as to how it will display information to me. Overall it’s a great piece of software that does everything that the Spaced Repetition philosophy is about. You just input the vocabulary and the software algorithm handles the rest.

I like it so much that I have completely changed my studying methods. I now input all of my new material into Anki and use it for studying everyday. No longer do I spend hours writing up my own flash cards, or carrying around big bulky cards everywhere I go. I always have my cellphone anyway, so I can study anywhere anytime.

If you have problems forgetting words/kanji I highly recommend you give it a look. If not Anki than maybe search around for another SRS program. I welcome any comments or experiences with SRS in your studying.

Gambatte!

This entry was posted on Saturday, February 2nd, 2008 at 3:58 pm and is filed under Japanese Computing, Learning Japanese. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.