Re: Iversen's second multiconfused log thread
Posted: Mon Jun 08, 2020 4:04 am
Answer to slowmoon:
I would formulate this slightly differently: I have found out that the number of words I don't remember after the second repetition is more or less the same as after the first repetition - but it is not the same words I don't remember. The mechanism is probably the following one: I get a boost to a number of half forgotten words with the first repetition, but then I forget some other words instead.
So the second repetition is not without value, but it is boring because it's the same words again for the third time, and as slowmoon suggests it is more fun to continue with some totally new words. In other words I keep the first repetition because I can feel that it is necessary for my longterm retention, but I dispense with the second one because I don't want to be waddling around in the same old words for a long long time. I don't have any statistics for my 'word loss' with no repetition at all. but I know from experience that it amount to some 20% after a day or two where I do my first (and mostly only) repetition. It could easily be 50% if I postponed the first control to for instance a week or a month later., but this is not something I have checked. Maybe I should - it would be fairly easy to do the experiment with just a limited range of words.
And then there is of course the time factor: a repetition is much faster than doing the wordlist the first time, so you can't just assume that skipping the repetition would leave time for doing a new main wordlist round. When I make the wordlist in the first place the words are new, and maybe I have to read a headword explanation thoroughly to choose the central semantic core, and I may even be 'distracted' by examples and morphological information. Even choosing the words takes time although it is fairly straightforward to select them when I work directly from a dictionary, but some of my wordlists are based on new words from studied texts and then I have to skip around in the dictionary. Doing a repetition is easy and fast because all the words already are listed on a piece of paper, and I have seen all of them at least once.
Apart from that: I have not even reached the end of D yet so going through the thick green Pons will take a long time - especially since I have planned to do a fair amount of local tourism here in June.
I would formulate this slightly differently: I have found out that the number of words I don't remember after the second repetition is more or less the same as after the first repetition - but it is not the same words I don't remember. The mechanism is probably the following one: I get a boost to a number of half forgotten words with the first repetition, but then I forget some other words instead.
So the second repetition is not without value, but it is boring because it's the same words again for the third time, and as slowmoon suggests it is more fun to continue with some totally new words. In other words I keep the first repetition because I can feel that it is necessary for my longterm retention, but I dispense with the second one because I don't want to be waddling around in the same old words for a long long time. I don't have any statistics for my 'word loss' with no repetition at all. but I know from experience that it amount to some 20% after a day or two where I do my first (and mostly only) repetition. It could easily be 50% if I postponed the first control to for instance a week or a month later., but this is not something I have checked. Maybe I should - it would be fairly easy to do the experiment with just a limited range of words.
And then there is of course the time factor: a repetition is much faster than doing the wordlist the first time, so you can't just assume that skipping the repetition would leave time for doing a new main wordlist round. When I make the wordlist in the first place the words are new, and maybe I have to read a headword explanation thoroughly to choose the central semantic core, and I may even be 'distracted' by examples and morphological information. Even choosing the words takes time although it is fairly straightforward to select them when I work directly from a dictionary, but some of my wordlists are based on new words from studied texts and then I have to skip around in the dictionary. Doing a repetition is easy and fast because all the words already are listed on a piece of paper, and I have seen all of them at least once.
Apart from that: I have not even reached the end of D yet so going through the thick green Pons will take a long time - especially since I have planned to do a fair amount of local tourism here in June.