dEhiN's Language Log

[dEhiN]

Thanks Le Baron!

[dEhiN]

Merry Christmas all!

I'm sorry I didn't continue after my last post. To be honest, I got a little discouraged by what I perceived to be invalidating responses to my last post. Silly, huh? I was sharing with księżycowy (whom I originally met through another language forum but have become friends with over time) how, even though he says this isn't the case, I have this impression of this forum that it's full of really serious and strict language learners. And, while this whole year I kept up with Anki on my own, even going through phases of putting effort into restructuring my deck and cards to make it more helpful for me in my studies, I thought it might be nice to connect to his community. To that end, I also thought sharing my process might be enjoyable for those on here.

Ok, enough meta-analyzing! Following up on my last post about Anki, the overall point to it was that I've kind of have two concurrent goals with Anki. The first is to learn the existing cards I have for the languages I'm now studying, and the second is to restructure all of those existing cards so they have the grammar information I find helpful. I do add new cards from time to time, but I've held myself off from mining new vocabulary or grammar and adding stuff en masse, the reason for which, you'll see soon.

I also haven't used any other resources, with the exception of the French course I did over the summer. Currently, I have 4 major Anki decks: Cartes actives (active cards), புதியச்சீட்டு* (new cards), Cartas de proyectos (project cards), Cartas inativas (inactive cards). *I'm not sure if my Tamil translation is correct but it's supposed to be "new cards". As you can see, I used French, Tamil, Spanish, and Portuguese respectively for each deck.

I think the first deck is self-explanatory. Under it, I have 2 sub-decks, Languages and Scripts. Under Languages, I have my main 4 , Maori and I recently added Albanian and Tagalog. For Maori, I've just kept up the 13 or so from earlier this year. For the other two, I have cards from the past and I recently started going through them a little at a time. Under Scripts, I only have Korean and it's a shared deck. But I used it this past year to relearn the Korean alphabet. (I actually have a Scripts sub-deck under inactive cards, and in there I have Occitan and Georgian).

New cards is split into Current-Learn and Future-Learn. Current-Learn has Current-on-Deck and Ready-on-Deck. I didn't need to split the cards I'm currently trying to (re)learn into two, but I took the idea from baseball and I find it helps me strategize. For Future-Learn, I have a sub-deck for each language I'm studying with the prefix "FL_".

The third major deck, project cards, is where all the existing cards that still need to be restructured for the 7 languages I'm studying reside. Actually I have two sub-decks as the first level down, Card-Archiving and Card-Refactoring. Under Card-Refactoring, I have a sub-deck for each of the 7 languages with the prefix "CR-". Card-Archiving is for cards I come across in those 7 languages that I deem way too easy and a waste of time to actually throw into the mix. (An example of this is manger "to eat" for French.)

In my next post, I'll share my current progress and start tracking from there.

[dEhiN]

I think to make things easier to write and track on here, I'm going to structure my progress not based on my decks structure but based on each language. That is, for each language, I'll share how many cards are active, how many are new (i.e., in the புதியச்சீட்டு deck), and how many need to be restructured.

Ok, so, as of 20:21 2022-12-25, this is my current Anki database:

español (Spanish)
Active: 193
New: 19
Refactor: 535
Total: 747

français (French)
Active: 644
New: 290
Refactor: 515
Total: 1449

português (Portuguese)
Active: 225
New: 85
Refactor: 252
Total: 562

Shqip (Albanian)
Active: 9
New: 49
Refactor: 14
Total: 72

Te-reo-Māori (Maori)
Active: 19
New: 1
Total: 20

Wikang-Tagalog (Tagalog)
Active: 13
New: 26
Total: 39

தமிழ் (Tamil)
Active: 134
New: 58
Refactor: 456
Total: 648

The totals are just to give an idea for comparison. As you can see, for both Maori and Tagalog, I don't have any cards I need to restructure.

[dEhiN]

Since I like data and playing around with data (maybe I should become a data analyst?! ), even though it's only been a day since my last update, I worked out a new way to present my "data", including for my signature. In the signature, the progress bars reflect how many cards I've learned out of the "Restructured Subtotal", that is, those cards I've refactored.

So, all I did was really just learn one card from new status. I started to learn a second one, but it was a Spanish card and I decided I wanted to change the Explanation-Definition language to French. However, after looking up Wiktionary, WordReference and Linguee for the correct meanings, I got a little confused and ended up posting on Reddit for some clarification. I also suspended a couple of cards.

Updated: 18:07 2022-12-26

español (Spanish)
Restructured Active: 192
Restructured New: 18
Restructured Subtotal: 210

To Refactor: 535
Total: 745

français (French)
Restructured Active: 644
Restructured New: 300
Restructured Subtotal: 944

To Refactor: 515
Total: 1459

português (Portuguese)
Restructured Active: 225
Restructured New: 85
Restructured Subtotal: 310

To Refactor: 252
Total: 562

Shqip (Albanian)
Restructured Active: 9
Restructured New: 49
Restructured Subtotal: 58

To Refactor: 14
Total: 72

Te-reo-Māori (Maori)
Restructured Active: 19
Restructured New: 1
Restructured Subtotal: 20

Total: 20

Wikang-Tagalog (Tagalog)
Restructured Active: 13
Restructured New: 26
Restructured Subtotal: 39

Total: 39

தமிழ் (Tamil)
Restructured Active: 134
Restructured New: 59
Restructured Subtotal: 193

To Refactor: 456
Total: 649

[księżycowy]

If I've understood correctly, you have (for example) 72 cards for Albanian. I can't help but wonder if you plan to add more once you go through those 72 cards or not. I'm just curious.

How are you constructing your decks? As in how are you adding and/or subtracting cards? Given the total amount of cards, I'm assuming you purge your cards for languages like French and Spanish and whatnot at certain points. Or is that incorrect?

You might have talked about it before and if so I must have missed it, but how many cards are you doing daily? Per language and overall.

Great to see further updates! Keep em coming!

[dEhiN]

Quick update and then I'm going to respond to księżycowy's post. Here, in Canada, because both Christmas and the day after (called Boxing Day over here) are stat holidays, I had yesterday and today off. Today was because Christmas fell on the weekend. For Christmas, my girlfriend and I drove to Toronto on Sunday and stayed over Sunday night to celebrate Christmas with my family. On Boxing Day, after checking out and having brunch with my family, my girlfriend and I hung out at a shisha/hookah place for about 8 hours! During that time, I worked through a bunch of Spanish cards in terms of the refactor project. I also added some when I realized that I had gaps for the Spanish numbers from 1 to 100. While I more or less know all of them, I haven't counted in Spanish enough to not have to think about it or see the number first in English. Anyway, all of this means that now I only have a "handful" of Spanish cards to still refactor.

Updated: 21:56 2022-12-27

español (Spanish)
Restructured Active: 192
Restructured New: 462
Restructured Subtotal: 654

To Refactor: 140
Total: 794

[dEhiN]

If I've understood correctly, you have (for example) 72 cards for Albanian. I can't help but wonder if you plan to add more once you go through those 72 cards or not. I'm just curious.

Yeah, that's correct - I currently have 72 cards in my whole database for Albanian. I do plan to add more. For the most part, I'm trying to not to add new cards for any of the 7 languages I'm actively doing, at least, not until I have restructured all the existing cards. There is a part of me that would like to wait until I actually learn all my existing cards (i.e., have them not be in new status in Anki) but that's almost 2,350 cards, so it's not feasible.

However, for Albanian, Tagalog, and Maori, I don't plan to add anymore until I've both restructured existing cards and learned them. Those three are like my second string - I want to learn some things in them but not focus too much on them.

How are you constructing your decks? As in how are you adding and/or subtracting cards? Given the total amount of cards, I'm assuming you purge your cards for languages like French and Spanish and whatnot at certain points. Or is that incorrect?

I'm not sure I follow your first two questions. Do you mean where I'm getting the data I use to create new cards? If so, then at this point, it's more just random: whatever I come across while going about my day.

As for purging, I'm not really purging my cards. I did that earlier this year but now I regret it. Instead, if I come across a card that I think is super easy for me and not worth keeping around, I suspend it and add it to an archive deck. The plan is to export all those cards so I can have them for posterity.

[dEhiN]

You might have talked about it before and if so I must have missed it, but how many cards are you doing daily? Per language and overall.

I don't think I've talked about it. However, looking at the stats for my subdeck Languages (which has all the active cards for all 7 languages), over the past 365 days, I've studied 343 out of 346 days since January 16, which is when I picked up Anki again. In all that time, I've averaged 29 reviews/day.

For French, I've averaged 17 reviews (per day); for Spanish, Portuguese, and Tamil, 5; for Tagalog and Albanian, 3; and for Maori, 2. I probably spent a good 6 to 8 months really focusing on French, which is why my average daily review for French is so much higher. On August 11, I had 153 unique cards I went through, totalling 271 reviews for that day. I believe I had just finished my summer French course, and for the course, I had created a deck where I would add the weekly vocabulary. Except, I would add the official vocabulary and whatever words I learned in the previous class. I think on August 11, I decided to cram and go through all the remaining "new" cards since most of them I recalled from in class. Thus, out of the 153 unique cards, 129 of them were French.

I did a similar cram once or twice more for some of my Portuguese cards. These were generally cards that I didn't want to archive but I remembered them fairly well from having done them in the past, when I was regularly using Anki. I didn't want to archive them though because between 2018 and this year, when I stopped using Anki, I wasn't doing any Portuguese so I lost any abilities I had in it. There are still cards for Portuguese as well as Spanish and Tamil that would fall into the same category: vocab or grammar that I passively recall pretty well but that I still want in my database so I can get more active practice with them.

Great to see further updates! Keep em coming!

Thanks! I'm hoping the updates aren't boring people or becoming tedious. They are helping keep me motivated to actively pursue the refactor project. They are also stirring interest within me to create a game plan for how best to "relearn" all the cards still in new status, especially for French, Spanish, Portuguese and Tamil.

A big part of this is because there are grammar points I've forgotten that I know I have cards for. For example, I have Tamil cards for the various case suffixes. I also have ones for the PNG suffixes, though I more or less am comfortable with that on my own. A second reason is because there are grammar points I want to add. For example, I have looked up plenty of times the tense suffixes in Tamil for the 7 different verb classes, but I want to add them as cards so I can commit them to memory. The same is also true of the imperfect and preterite tense conjugations for both Spanish and Portuguese. To this day, I'm still not comfortable using the past tense in either language for a lack of tense conjugation knowledge, for even regular verbs.

Going forward, I think the question will continue to be, apart from the refactor project, how do I balance going through all the "new" cards while making sure Anki time doesn't become a slog. During the cram times I mentioned above, while I would do maybe 10 new cards at a time (or about 100 in the case of French), I would then just do review for the next several days to weeks, to let the review count peter out. However, while this approach works well for intense bursts of "new" cards like a sprint, it doesn't work for going through the 2,350 new cards I would love to eventually go through.

[księżycowy]

Thanks for taking the time to answer my (often misguided) questions.

Yeah, that's correct - I currently have 72 cards in my whole database for Albanian. I do plan to add more. For the most part, I'm trying to not to add new cards for any of the 7 languages I'm actively doing, at least, not until I have restructured all the existing cards. There is a part of me that would like to wait until I actually learn all my existing cards (i.e., have them not be in new status in Anki) but that's almost 2,350 cards, so it's not feasible.

However, for Albanian, Tagalog, and Maori, I don't plan to add anymore until I've both restructured existing cards and learned them. Those three are like my second string - I want to learn some things in them but not focus too much on them.

I figured that Albanian (and the other two) where lower priorities, I just took it as an example because I figured it'd take you less time than, say, French, to get though.

I'm not sure I follow your first two questions. Do you mean where I'm getting the data I use to create new cards?

More or less yes. I know you're currently not taking a course or going though any texybook. I'm not sure if you read books or the surf internet or watch shows, etc?

As for purging, I'm not really purging my cards. I did that earlier this year but now I regret it. Instead, if I come across a card that I think is super easy for me and not worth keeping around, I suspend it and add it to an archive deck. The plan is to export all those cards so I can have them for posterity.

I asked about purging cards I guess because I was surprised at how many you have, especially for some of your better languages. Not to say almost 1k for French isn't respectable, I guess it was just a combination of thinking you must know more than 644 words in French and not knowing what a reasonable amount of words would be known for a B1/B2 level (I forget which you've identified your French to be before). Maybe I'm way off. Shrug. (And no, I'm not trying to call anyone out as not truly the level they claim to be, I'm actually curious about it.)

I'm hoping the updates aren't boring people or becoming tedious. They are helping keep me motivated to actively pursue the refactor project. They are also stirring interest within me to create a game plan for how best to "relearn" all the cards still in new status, especially for French, Spanish, Portuguese and Tamil.

I don't think you have to or should worry if they are boring or tedious to other people. The most important thing is they they are motivating to you.

[dEhiN]

Thanks for taking the time to answer my (often misguided) questions.

They're not misguided plus I like talking to you.

More or less yes. I know you're currently not taking a course or going though any texybook. I'm not sure if you read books or the surf internet or watch shows, etc?

I guess surf the internet. I've tried to be more rigorous about mining for new vocab when watching a French show or reading some French article online, but I'm usually not able to or not really wanting to stop what I'm watching/reading, look up the new vocab, and write it down in Anki. Heck, I'm not even willing to write it down somewhere (i.e., in an Evernote note) to then look up later. I actually have multiple notes like that, both digital and analog.

I think I've lost them now in the 3 moves over the past 4.5 years, but I had planned at one point to go through the 5 or 6 notebooks of various vocab I'd collected for all the languages I've ever tried to study and add them all to Anki. (I haven't actually lost the notebooks; they're just in storage somewhere and I don't know where). If I were to try and do that some day, I think I would need to be selective of what I add to Anki. For example, my very first language notebook is from 2011 when I using some language exchange website to find a partner in French. His English was much better than my French, and over time, we became good friends who pretty much just communicated in English, but initially, I did write some vocab he taught me. Some of it includes slang like kif-kif, which I don't really need to add to Anki.

I asked about purging cards I guess because I was surprised at how many you have, especially for some of your better languages. Not to say almost 1k for French isn't respectable, I guess it was just a combination of thinking you must know more than 644 words in French and not knowing what a reasonable amount of words would be known for a B1/B2 level (I forget which you've identified your French to be before). Maybe I'm way off. Shrug. (And no, I'm not trying to call anyone out as not truly the level they claim to be, I'm actually curious about it.)

I don't know how many "words" one should know per CEFR level, though I'm sure there are sites that will tell you. I have sometimes thought of looking up a Swadesh list for my languages, especially the newer ones, but I think I remember a discussion on another language forum about how that's not what the list is meant for and it's probably not a good way to learn a language.

As for the amount of cards I have in total, currently I have 1,461 notes/cards (I create one card per note) for French. It's not a lot and unfortunately, I did delete a bunch when I decided to whittle down my decks. Since deciding to just suspend and eventually export those I no longer want/need to learn, I've tried to get back those I deleted, but I fear that's a losing battle. It's a shame though, because I had cards going back to 2014 from the first time I ever started using Anki.

On a fun side note that you'll appreciate, it seems in my current database, the first card I ever created was on August 1, 2014 and it was おかあさん. It's sad that I can't read that anymore; well, I could if I really tried, but I'd have to literally look up every kana. Actually, it looks like my first three are all Japanese: きょう and せんせい are second and third respectively.

I don't think you have to or should worry if they are boring or tedious to other people. The most important thing is they they are motivating to you.

Aww, thanks!