pub (begins with L)
pub (begins with K)

When it’s the meanings are subtly different, I’ll try to keep the translations straight with some keywords that help guide me towards the right context. While I’ve a long way to go to entering all of the Using German Vocabulary stuff into Anki, I’ve not ran into any words that have proven impossible to deal with, and most of them haven’t posed any problems at all. If I run into any major problems down the road, I’ll definitely post about it.

I’m not sure if it’s a time issue - I’ve used the sentence method a lot longer than a few weeks, probably 7 or 8 months with SuperMemo. However, to be fair, I wasn’t very eager to add material to SuperMemo, because.. well, I’ve ranted about that enough around the blog, I think.

And, to clarify: I never said sentences don’t help (or at least, I’m pretty sure I didn’t - if I did, I didn’t mean to!) I’ve not stopped adding sentence items to Anki, I’ve just started adding a lot of word pairs from a reliable source as well. I’ll get the benefits from sentences, as well as the efficiency from using a good quality word list.

For example; I’ve only been using sentences, some radio and some television (and some normal reading aswell) the last half year. Last week I was in a Spanish-Only environment for a whole week, and had no troubles discussing the deeper things in life. Why? Because sentences helped me with both the grammar (along with some grammar studying) and the words. The family I stayed with was impressed by the large vocabulary range I had (bit arrogant to say, but I’m just referring to what they said). So yeah, sentences do help, but just stick to them long enough.

Whilst I respect your opinion on this, I just thought I would contribute mine.

Exactly why I have comments here. Regarding forgetting words learned via this method, I don’t really have any long-term data to look at for myself, particularly due to my switch from SuperMemo to Anki. It’s also difficult for me to compare my older cards in Anki, which are sentence items, to the cards I’m adding now, which are essentially word pairs. This is due to the fact that with sentence items, the sentence itself would “help” me understand the word. Seeing the word in that particularly sentence would often help me understand the word, but if I removed the word from that context and placed it in a different sentence - what then? I’m honestly not sure if I’d understand it.

Regarding overstretching with Anki, right now, I tend to have 75-100 words to review each day, not counting going through new material I’ve added. I don’t mind it much; at this point in time, I’m willing to do some trudgework to get my vocabulary up to speed, and this seems like the quickest method to do so.

Also, I’d like to point out that I’m aware that learning words in this fashion is not going to teach me everything about them - far from it! As “Iversen” from the how-to-learn-any-language.com forums stated about his word list method, I tend to view this whole process as a first acquaintance with the words. Even if I do end up only having a passive understanding of them, that’s far better than not knowing them at all when running into them in reading or conversation. Also, while it may seem like a huge timesink, I’d say that if I did the division, overall, using this method, I don’t have much time in any one word.

Thanks for commenting!

David:

But they seem (to me) to only be learned to a certain level. I need to encounter them again in a few contexts before the meaning really solidifies.

Agreed there. See my above remark about my process being a “first acquaintance” with the words.

Regarding the easily confused words: yeah, I ended up adding some context to those items. I still had trouble though, due to how similar their meanings were. I was able to take care of Bettzeug, at any rate, by looking closer at its second part, zeug. Once I learned that Zeug means “stuff” or “things”, Bettzeug and its meaning “bedding / bedclothes” stuck easily. Go figure.

I just think its important to recognize their limitations.

Agreed again. I don’t want to ever give anyone who reads this blog the idea that you can master a language by solely studying individual words and translations with a spaced repitition program.

I agree that alot of words can be learned using flashcards and lists. But they seem (to me) to only be learned to a certain level. I need to encounter them again in a few contexts before the meaning really solidifies.

The thing you mention about similar looking words being easily confused happens to me alot with my flashcards too. But only when the words in question are still in that lower level. Once one of them solidifies from contact in other contexts those problems go away because the word is no longer just a random combination of letters that can be easily confused with an other combination of letters.

Anyway, I’d be the last person to say that flashcards/lists aren’t useful: (1) I use them excessively, (2) I am the developer of a spaced repetition flash card program. I just think its important to recognize their limitations.

The problem with learning words in isolation is they tend to fade from your memory in the long-term. Whilst in the past I learned lots of words in German similar to the way you are currently, I find that years later most of them are forgotten or otherwise consigned to the lowest depths of my passive memory. Anki does help, but I eventually find myself cheating too much over “that stupid word” that I can never remember if it´s not in a sentence.

There is something about context that cements a word in your mind for a much longer period of time. Even if this means learning less words initially, in the long run I personally find the rate of retention is higher. The key is being patient. Those words that are learnt well will be like old friends when you next encounter them.

I have also found that overstretching myself on Anki usually ends up in having dozens or possibly hundreds of cards to review in one day. Certainly not a fun scenario.

Saying that, the most important thing is , of course, not in the method but its daily execution!