mars

[visual tartan]

Please be patient

Our volunteers look into many questions every day; sometimes it takes them a little while to answer.

Pro tip: you can rename the thread title with `.tr <thread name>`

Make it descriptive, including relevant context, but also to the point. This way you improve your chances of getting a more relevant and specific answer.

[scenic bear]

I've been using Anki for a while, albeit for another language. Not sure I can answer everything but maybe I can help

[copper scroll]

How did you structure your deck? I've reset mine countless times every 1-2 months because it gets messy, confusing and I don't feel like it helps. For context my goal is to take the DELF B1 this summer, and B2 later in the year or next year, depending on how fast I progress. I have many resources/books on my hands. I really want to use spaced repetition to make sure everything stays tight, but it gets super confusing with time. (different flashcard types, grammar cards, etc etc)

[scenic bear]

oh, you don't got the right deck apparently

resetting is not something you should do for SRS

[copper scroll]

Well, I did try a premade deck, but I stopped around 1200 words, I tend to set high goals and burn out.

[scenic bear]

you need to split different types of cards into different decks (grammar deck, vocab deck, etc)

don't set too high of goals if you're gonna burn out. the daily exercise is the most important stuff

how many cards were you doing?

[copper scroll]

And how would I go about the flashcards?

[copper scroll]

adding around 35 a day, from everything I was finding

[scenic bear]

it's WAY too much, you ARE gonna burn out

[copper scroll]

It came easy when I had vocab lists (for example Le corps)

There wasnt a lot of effort in processing those, they all have direct translations, so it was straight forward

[scenic bear]

15 is considered a tough pace

[copper scroll]

But then I listened to a podcast and heard "le parvis" and spent 15 minutes wondering how would I go about that. (no direct translation, a definition on one side wouldn't help me with actively using the word..) (example)

[copper scroll]

Really? I'll stick to 10 from now on, to be safe.

[scenic bear]

here's an example of what a mature deck should look like. That's already a lot of reviews and you shouldn't consistently have over 150 reviews a day

in my case, I only have individual vocabulary cards. I don't use anki for grammar, but if you do, use another deck than vocab
The 2 decks I have are a premade 2k vocab deck, and a mining deck (mining is making cards yourself from words you stumble upon when reading and listening)

[copper scroll]

How are your cards structured, if you don't mind sharing?

( Now that I think more deeply, it's really a game of how much effort you put in a card vs how much you get out of it.)

[scenic bear]

I take about 10s to make a card.
I put the word in the target language on the front, and 1 to 3 words in my language on the back
I think making the card making process easy is important if you're gonna mine a lot (which is my case, but if you wanna stick to premade decks, just pick good decks)

just for information, I'm focusing on input, which is to mean my goal is mostly to be able to read and listen to sentences.
If your goal is output (to make your own sentences) you might wanna do the reverse

[copper scroll]

This can easily cover words with direct translations, or multiple, simple meanings. How do you deal with abstract words or expressions? (Everything from the perspective of wanting to actually recognize and use these)

Also, in your case I can see that the foreign word is on the front. (nvm)

[scenic bear]

most words I mine for myself, I did look up what they meant and how they were used
usually translations work fine enough, and if they don't, I can put an expression or a more detailed explanation on the back

[scenic bear]

yeas that's what I meant with focusing on input. Because my goal is mostly to be able to read/listen, the exercise is being able to read the foreign word
If your goal is output (to make your own sentences) you might wanna do the reverse. Possibly both, but it takes more time, and you should do it in separate decks

[copper scroll]

My goals would be passing the DELF / simply being able to use the language in all aspects ( career related )

I guess I've made my flashcards wayy to complex by making myself have sentences/cloze deletions/definitions/explanations for expressions/write a sentence with said word... cards/... you get the idea)

How far have you gotten in your target language? (answer after you finish your idea)

[scenic bear]

you can, but it does take time, and only on the back
you should split different types of cards/exercises in different decks (which means it's more work, only focus on 2 decks max)
and keep the front as simple as possible. One word is usually perfect

another thing I wanna say
SRS loses interest as you become better at the language
as you do so, you can read and listen through more media, and you are naturally going to review a lot through input alone. SRS is mostly good to make you review stuff when you don't have the ability to go through input naturally

[copper scroll]

Not being constantly surrounded by my TL certainly makes this harder. I listen to podcasts/news/and do things on a daily basis, but I still have huge gaps.

Learning for so long and then realizing I don't know what 'le talon' means was something. Put the fact that my writing is 0, compared to reading/speaking.

[scenic bear]

Japanese takes a lot longer to learn than other languages. I'm around 1000h in and only A2 equivalent or so, but Anki definitely helped a lot with vocab

[copper scroll]

That sounds like you have put in a lot of effort, but how do you know how many hours you've put in?

[scenic bear]

average time studied per day times days studied. It's a big approximation

I have about 250h on anki alone

[copper scroll]

I think I will go for having my flashcards as simple as possible, less perfectionism

How did you go about grammar? Ok, now with japanese I bet it's radically different from my situation

Learning grammar rules feels meh, but having cloze deletion exercices might lead to me brute-force memorizing the answers to each one. (I've had some sentence flashcards where I didn't have a real understanding of the word/expression used (ex. quoi que ce soit), and I just memorized it like that)

[scenic bear]

whenever I read/listen and get stuck on grammar, I review the grammar point, whether I was supposed to know it already and forgot or it being new to me
recently though, I additionally added an app keeping track of my progress and giving me custom grammar exercises using SRS, but unsure if an equivalent exists for French

[copper scroll]

My main resource is DrFrench, which has a lot of lessons with exercices in it. (some premade quizzes for each topic). Kwiziq is awesome but wayy too expensive.

I suppose that I've been trying to go too fast and that tripped me up. I hope I'll still be able to reach my goal if I go through another change of decks. (though this time I used tags, so I can save some things)

[scenic bear]

but yeah, I've been going through the same decks for years without reset, and I am about 3k cards in rn

[copper scroll]

3k cards of strictly words? you have them mixed with expressions?

[scenic bear]

basically strictly words
japanese is quite different and basically no word is transparent, so you have to learn every little thing

35k is about the vocab of a native speaker

on a normal pace, if you're doing all your reviews, you should have less than 100 cards due a day
if you're doing all your reviews and have over 150 cards due a day, you're probably doing too many

[copper scroll]

Just the vocabulary without any of the nuances is a lot to learn. (I mean proper pronunciation, writing, ..., this considering that 'vocabulary' means just being able to recognize/translate between words)

Alright, I will schedule a time to get my deck on a better path.

The thing with 'years' scared me though, is there really no way I can accelerate my learning? I've been immersing myself a lot, and this is why I end up with so many words every day.

[scenic bear]

that said, pronunciation in Japanese is fairly standard. Unlike French or English, how it's written is how it's pronounced
I am adding help with the pronunciation on the back side (like this one). French isn't as consistent with spelling. You might wanna add like IPA or something to help you remember how a word is pronounced on the back if you're having trouble.

[scenic bear]

immersion is basically SRS
as I told you, the more you do immersion, the less you need SRS

[copper scroll]

I use AI voices, not the best, but I don't have to learn to read the IPA and it's good to repeat after them with every card.

[copper scroll]

so I'd put into Anki only the core things from that day (force myself to stick to 10-15 cards, and so keep the most important things), and the rest of the words I would just hope I hear them again in the future (after checking their meaning, obviously)

Ok, I think I have one last question, but I hope to find you some other day in the text channels, I'll update you on how it's going.

[scenic bear]

you don't need to add every word you're stumbling upon. Sometimes I skip words and if I find myself in the dictionary being like "uh it's the second time I've been looking for this word" I'm adding them. (I do add a lot directly tho, if I feel like I will need them)
even with that, you can have them stack in the background. If you mine 30 words in a day, you're gonna learn them over several.

[copper scroll]

Did you follow any path/learning scheme? As I said, I have a lot, lot of resources, for listening, speaking (some very good friends ), reading, grammar, ... , so I could take any of them and go "I'm doing that.". How do you structure your practice? I don't have a coursebook to be fair, like a manual, and I never used one. (that would introduce concepts in a premeditated way/order, I mean)

[scenic bear]

my routine is fairly simple, but I think it's effective
I'm mostly reading and listening to random stuff I like. Whenever I play games, watch videos, read comics etc I try to do that in the target language as much as possible
If I get stuck on a word, I check the dictionary, and possibly add it to my anki
If I get stuck on grammar, I check how the rules work, look for more examples and try to better intuit the concept
I'm also doing about 30min SRS a day rn, but I intend on lower that amount in favor of immersion as I get better

not the only way of doing things tho