Language Journal: July 23rd 2019
Less than 6000 new cards left in my current Anki decks. At 20 new cards a day... that is still about 10 months. Ouch.
I've hit a point where I've invested a lot of time in my flash cards. And I'm trying to decide on my exit strategy. Which is hard, because I don't have a solid idea of what to replace them with. Which I guess is an easy way to say that I'm not really ready just yet to move off of them anyway.
But, what this whole process has really taught me is that; when I'm struggling, that is when I'm learning the most. And I'm not feeling the struggle with the flashcards as much any more. I keep tossing myself curve balls to up the complexity. But, I'm getting to the limits.
Right now, I generally try to force myself (with very few exceptions), to get the meaning of every word in the sentence and not just the target word(s), as well as a decent general interpretation of the sentence on the whole and even somewhat force myself to think about pronunciation.
There are a few sentences which are just so long they are silly, or include words I never use even in English and I'll let myself slide on knowing the exact meaning or reading of those words.
I even force myself to reconstruct the sentence in my mind if I forgot while I was thinking about the words and will penalize myself to some degree if I can't get the sentence structure/particle usage correct.
With all of this, my accuracy is still over 90% daily.
At the same time though, I'm terrible at listening. It is certainly getting better. But, it is far from where I'd like it to be. And while my reading is good, I still make a lot of very common mistakes.
Put another way, I'm studying my flashcards often enough that my accuracy is an A+. But, it doesn't give me enough exposure to reading or listening to maintain or grow those skills. And that is hard to digest.
So, it is pretty obvious that I need to start considering paring back flashcards and shoring up more verbose reading and higher frequency of reading practice.
But, Anki is just too easy. It is on my phone. The interface is simple. The habit is formed. 914 days straight, without missing a single day! I need something as simple as that. Which is what I'm struggling with. And, on top of that, I have enough cards that I'm reluctant to add things from other sources. But, I really can't afford to be afraid like that.
So, most likely, what I need to do is scale back on the number of decks I have. Maybe just keep the more difficult ones, and then back fill with custom decks. Some with audio, and some with passages from books, manga, etc...
Not ready to take the plunge yet though.
I've hit a point where I've invested a lot of time in my flash cards. And I'm trying to decide on my exit strategy. Which is hard, because I don't have a solid idea of what to replace them with. Which I guess is an easy way to say that I'm not really ready just yet to move off of them anyway.
But, what this whole process has really taught me is that; when I'm struggling, that is when I'm learning the most. And I'm not feeling the struggle with the flashcards as much any more. I keep tossing myself curve balls to up the complexity. But, I'm getting to the limits.
Right now, I generally try to force myself (with very few exceptions), to get the meaning of every word in the sentence and not just the target word(s), as well as a decent general interpretation of the sentence on the whole and even somewhat force myself to think about pronunciation.
There are a few sentences which are just so long they are silly, or include words I never use even in English and I'll let myself slide on knowing the exact meaning or reading of those words.
I even force myself to reconstruct the sentence in my mind if I forgot while I was thinking about the words and will penalize myself to some degree if I can't get the sentence structure/particle usage correct.
With all of this, my accuracy is still over 90% daily.
At the same time though, I'm terrible at listening. It is certainly getting better. But, it is far from where I'd like it to be. And while my reading is good, I still make a lot of very common mistakes.
Put another way, I'm studying my flashcards often enough that my accuracy is an A+. But, it doesn't give me enough exposure to reading or listening to maintain or grow those skills. And that is hard to digest.
So, it is pretty obvious that I need to start considering paring back flashcards and shoring up more verbose reading and higher frequency of reading practice.
But, Anki is just too easy. It is on my phone. The interface is simple. The habit is formed. 914 days straight, without missing a single day! I need something as simple as that. Which is what I'm struggling with. And, on top of that, I have enough cards that I'm reluctant to add things from other sources. But, I really can't afford to be afraid like that.
So, most likely, what I need to do is scale back on the number of decks I have. Maybe just keep the more difficult ones, and then back fill with custom decks. Some with audio, and some with passages from books, manga, etc...
Not ready to take the plunge yet though.
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