Three things I would like to talk about today... Anki, Memrise, and follow up on the plan I mentioned in the previous blog entry. I will begin with Anki. As I have stated in the past, Anki is a computerized flashcard program. It is decent, and about a year ago (or so) they introduced a new version (2.0). Initially, I was not too impressed with the new version. After using it on an irregular basis, my opinion has started to sway. At this point, I think I like the newer version better overall than the first. Initially I did not. Anyway, I will talk about the pros and cons...
pros -
1- the algorithm is really good, better than for 1.0.
2- all the decks are grouped together, but may also be examined separately. This is better than in Anki 1 where they were all in different decks and I needed to open each deck to examine them.
3 - because they are all combined, I can search all decks for a common term, very convenient and much more powerful
4 - seems faster than the previous version.
cons -
1 - adding terms seems a bit clunkier than 1.0. This may be the result of me not really understanding the new system, or taking ample time to learn it.
2- sometimes when importing decks, I run into problems with the fields as such that I may have set more than one field, but Anki 2 incorrectly groups the wrong fields for some of the cards.
3- I miss some of the graphs that I found in Anki 1.
Well, Anki 2 is improving, and it is certainly better than it was at release.
The next thing I want to talk about is Memrise, a learning site that I recently learned about from the message boards on Chinesepod.com. I have been using the site for a week, and so far, I think it is fantastic. Because I am doing other things, and I am afraid that they are going to soon start charging for their service, I have been loathe to pursue this site with full vigor, but it does look really good. It reminds me of Smart.fm back in 2010, but I think this one is better, and not exactly the same, but similar idea.
Now to follow up on the previous post. I kind of gave up on the increased structure of study. I will go bullet for bullet and update on what I have done.... Green text is the plan listed in my last entry.
- I plan to study an upper-intermediate and an advanced Chinesepod lesson each week. Yes, I have been doing this, but not in a very systematic way. I have selected 7 adv and 7 upp lessons to review over the summer, and been working at it half-steam.
- Work my paper flashcards and Anki every day- specifically, I want to
catch up on my hanzi deck. Right now, I have about a 650 card backlog
(yeah, and lately it has been whipping my ass). I did catch up, and still working both Anki 1 and Anki 2. More and more with Anki 2 as I continue to migrate the data.
- Do some type of practice test once per week, either out of the HSK exam book, or on Chinesepod. I haven't done this.
- Continue to transcribe the Qing wen lessons to my notebook I transcribed about 8 or so lessons. It is hard to stay motivated because I am still on the early ones that had Amber and Clay, and they seem somewhat childish, so it is sometimes painful to listen to them, but I will be past them soon and move onto other hosts.
- work on listening extensively, i.e, while on the treadmill at the gym, I will listen to Advanced level lessons. I did so-so with this, but I could do better.
- other stuff to a lesser extent than before. Yeah, Ive pretty much stopped all the other stuff I was doing in June and early July. One thing I have been doing is, is listening to more Intermediate level lessons. For the most part, they are too easy. If I can listen to a dialogue and understand everything, then I just look over the vocab, expansion etc to see if there are any terms I don't know, or any phrases that I want to memorize. If there are parts I don't understand, I will certainly do more work.
Yeah, thats pretty much it for now. Until next time.
