Anki Myth 1: The Cake is a Lie
While I do enjoy studying Chinese words using Anki, I must admit it can feel like a chore much of the time. I tend to aggressively focus on challenging words,…
Busting Personal SRS Myths, and an Anki Simulation in Python
I am a faithful user of flashcards to study Chinese words, with Anki as my software of choice to take care of the spaced repetition rescheduling. Even though I try to keep my queue empty on a daily basis, there are still days when I feel like I’m swimming against the tide. If I look at my forecast of upcoming cards, the level of daily cards quickly drops to a low baseline after a week or so. Yet, I never seem to reach the level that Anki’s forecast graph promises me. Then there are other days where I get weary of the constant drilling and skip a few days. When I come back to study, I have a large queue of overdue cards waiting for me (as expected). However, once those cards are cleared, Anki’s forecast of future cards is surprisingly good—maybe better than if I hadn’t skipped those days. Am I being punished for my diligence? Is this just my perception of the flashcard experience, or am I encountering something tangible related to SRS scheduling?
A way to test various theories was to create a simulation of Anki’s SRS scheduling. (more…)
Mapping the Old HSK Vocabulary onto the New HSK
The HSK is a well-known skill level test used by the PRC to assess language proficiency in Chinese. Even for those who have no interest in taking the HSK test, the lists of Chinese words associated with the test are a convenient source of material for learners to study vocabulary. I have used these word lists myself with great success; it was a quick and effective way to gain a huge amount of usable vocabulary.
In 2010, the HSK exam underwent a major reworking, changing the structure of its skill ranks, increasing emphasis on speaking and writing, and revising its vocabulary. Where the “old” pre-2010 word lists consisted of 8,000+ words across 4 levels, the “new” HSK has 5,000 words distributed into 6 levels. Below is a summary of the word counts in the old and new vocabulary lists, based on actual word lists obtained from various sources (see footnotes for details). Note that these include a small amount of double counting (less than 2%) due to words repeated at more than one level, because of either different pronunciation or meaning. Also note that these counts differ slightly from the official word counts reported by Hanban.
| Level | old HSK | new HSK |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1007 | 153 |
| 2 | 2001 | 150 |
| 3 | 2189 | 300 |
| 4 | 3587 | 600 |
| 5 | – | 1300 |
| 6 | – | 2513 |
| Total | 8784 | 5016 |
Since I had invested so much time in studying the old lists (up to level 3), it was natural to wonder whether I should continue studying my existing flashcards or switch to the new HSK lists. How many words have I learned that are deprecated by the HSK, and does it mean they are unimportant? If I did switch, what level should I pick to start studying ?
Creating Audio Flashcards with Transcriber, Audacity, and Anki
Transcriber, Audacity, and Anki are three programs, all free and open source, that are useful for language study. At some point in the future, I hope to write more on each of these. In the meantime, I wanted to announce two export plugins I created for Transcriber. One export creates a label file for Audacity, for splitting an audio file into individual clips, and the other creates an import file for Anki, associating the transcribed text with the audio segments. Below are step-by-step instructions for the 6 steps involved, starting from a raw audio file and finishing with a set of Anki flashcards.
What makes a good vocabulary list?
People study foreign languages in many different ways. Because my main goal is reading, my particular method for studying Chinese places a large emphasis in acquiring receptive vocabulary, knowing the pinyin and the definition of words from the written characters. This is done through either flashcard software (I use Stackz) or spaced repetition software (like Anki). If I have an electronic text available, I use home-grown scripts to segment the text into words, and then create a word list of all the unique words. If I only have a printed book or magazine, I pick out the unknown words by hand, although this can be overwhelming with a difficult text. (more…)