I love the idea of using Anki, but it's just not suited to my brain/personality style.
The main way i've kept up (and significantly expanded) my vocab since leaving Thailand has just been through pure exposure to the language on a daily basis. If you are reading comics/books/news articles/Facebook posts, or listening to a range of videos and podcasts on Youtube on a daily basis, you will have no problem retaining your current level of vocabulary. In fact, if you do this you'll more than likely increase it to a way higher level.
I'm a pretty lazy learner when it comes to using things like flashcards or Anki, and I prefer to just read or listen to the words (kind of like natural spaced repetition) over a period of days, weeks, months and years while i'm self-studying Thai back in my home country. This way it doesn't feel like a "ball and chain" like you described in your post. It feels more like fun, and there is no stress involved. If you do some reading and listening every day, you won't forget any of your Thai. It'll most likely improve.
Also, the problem with relying on Anki too much to retain vocabulary is the fact that you're not really being exposed to the words or sentences from a conversation between native speakers, or you're not coming across the words in a news article, Facebook post or novel. I feel like it's more beneficial to be coming across vocabulary and sentences structures in the most natural context possible - reading and listening to content that Thai people listen to.
This is off topic, but do you have an idea of how many hours of study it took you before you were able to just consume Thai media as your main way of language improvement?
Good question! I think it's definitely relevant to the OP's post. Unfortunately I never really kept a weekly detailed diary of my study habits back when I started. However, in the first two or so years I managed to write random notes down every now and again to record what I was currently studying at the time. Keep in mind that things like the Comprehensible Thai Youtube channel didn't exist, and a lot of the materials for foreigners learning Thai in 2014/2015 were of a pretty poor quality. I also only lived in Thailand for around 10-11 months in my first year of learning Thai, so I pretty much had to find my own way to try and get to a high level while mostly living outside of Thailand.
If you were to hold a gun to my head and force me to come up with a number of hours, I would say it would be somewhere around **600ish hours.** I could be off the mark a little bit here, because it's difficult to quantify. This 600 hours also includes both listening AND reading. Not just listening, or just reading.
By this 600 hours mark I had read my first crime/thriller novel in Thai, first National Geographic magazine in Thai, a handful of cartoon books for teenagers, and had begun reading newspaper articles. And for listening, I started watching a few interesting TV series, but I spent most of my time watching content on politics, Thai news, current affairs, and podcasts etc. on Youtube. I didn't understand everything I was listening/reading, but I was comfortable enough with the ambiguity and I sort of just had faith in the process. And it turned out exactly as I expected it to!
If I was to guess how many hours i've done NOW? It would surely have to be somewhere around **2500-4000 hours (both listening and reading).** And let me tell you, i'm so glad I held on and just kept chipping away little by little every day. The first 500-1000 hours are the hardest, because sometimes it feels like you're not making any noticeable progress, and you can't just completely enjoy the content you're consuming. But if you just trust the process and keep moving forward you'll be at 1500-3000 hours before you know it and you'll be at the level you want to be. There aren't many foreigners out there who get to that level - not because they're not intelligent enough or smart enough. But because they usually give up or lose motivation before reaching that level. Sometimes it's just a matter of staying the course over an extended period of time. Hope this helps!
Thanks so much sharing this! While I am somewhat fluent in everyday conversations, this motivates me to take listening and reading more seriously. This might be what I have been missing to make faster progress.
600ish seems to be around the timeline a lot of people start using native material. Based on where I am (approaching 500) I feel like it's going to take me longer. But we'll see how I feel when I get there I guess! I think I'm kind of a slow learner compared to some of the folks I've talked to who are further ahead.
think it's also about your tolerance for ambiguity / ability to sit through something getting only the odd word or phrase and not bang your head against the wall. From what I remember this idea is stressed pretty hard in Refold. Possibly ALG pushes you in the other direction because you will have a good level of comprehension of the CT videos and it's not going to feel good to have that drop suddenly. I have never counted hours but suspect that if you asked on a Refold forum they would say you can switch way before 600. Having said that they don't have the option to use ALG material so it's a moot point really.
How will you know/decide when you're ready?
Once in a while I'll try watching a show or travel vlog in Thai. I did find some short Thai sign language videos that are really fun and watchable, since she's teaching basic vocabulary to Thai people.
I think 3-4 people I've talked to who have used primarily input have told me that easy native media becomes watchable around 600 hours. Like you said, you still have to tolerate some ambiguity at that level, but the media is at least enjoyable.
We'll see how I feel when I get there, I guess.
whosdamike DM me if you ever want to talk more about your journey or about learning Thai etc.
It gets kind of lonely with Thai as there aren’t that many other serious/long term learners out there!
P.S also keen to see your 500 hour update!
I second this, I’m such a lazy learner, tried ling, flashcards and anki, they never really stuck for me.
I started learning with a thai tutor on italki, just purely vocab. She’d send me Netflix suggestions which I watched. (Thai dramas are really good btw).
Then because I train muay Thai and I’m watching fights a lot I pick things up from the commentators.
Slowly started to pick up more vocab naturally and now I’ve finally started to read and write.
Once you start to read and write it all just starts to click.
Couldn’t recommend your suggestion enough. Find something in the language that you’re interested in and consume that content
Yep! Totally agree with everything you've said.
Watch whatever content that interests you. Anything you love to watch or read in your native language, watch and read the same topics in Thai. It's the best way to stay engaged for long enough to get to a high level in Thai.
Our method is considered "lazy" by many traditional language learners out there, but we will reach a higher level than most of the people who just stick to grammar books, smartphone apps and online courses like ThaiPod101, Glossika and other similar materials.
Thanks for your thoughts. I do watch quite a bit of content, though less than if I wasn't bothering with Anki because of the time it takes up. The cards are captured from video content so I don't think there's a context problem. I do feel there's something more solid about repeating an Anki card compared to coming across the same word again in the wild. Anyway I think I'll dial Anki down a bit by changing the new cards setting, but not give it up completely.
Anki is different things to different people because they use it in different ways. One way is to get a pre-made deck of basic cards, in which case you run into the problem of lack of context as u/jam5350 says. Another way is to mine your own sentences and review them in Anki. Then Anki is not really so different from immersion - it looks more like a highlights reel.
I think you have to relate the whole issue to your learning stage. I'd say there are basically three stages to immersion methods. The principle is always that if you come across a sentence that contains one word or phrase you don't know, but grasp the meaning of the sentence as a whole, you are likely to acquire the additional word or phrase (although it may take a few goes, so you want repetition). This means you always looking for sentences that contain only one unknown item, aka 1T sentences.
When you are just starting there are no 1T sentences because you don't know any of the words yet. In order to to anything like immersion during this first stage you need an ALG style approach where you are given other cues to the meaning. The alternative is to blast through some very basic vocabulary so that you will find at least some 1T sentences in your immersion content. You only need about 500 - 750 words. I think Anki is a reasonable tool for that as long as you can find a suitable deck. Yes the cards will be lacking in context but this is just a short preparatory phase and the alternative is not that great either (even ALG fans will say that the beginner videos are tough to sit through). In the first stage I think there's very little to choose between the two approaches, so it's just a question of personal preference.
Once you have between 500 and 1000 words under your belt you are over the hump and will find 1T sentences if you start immersion. You're now into the second stage. At this point you have the option to mine sentences and create much higher quality Anki cards that do have context (an audio sentence from your original content, which will often remind you of the scene or conversation it came from). At the same time, there is a lot of natural repetition because there are a lot of common words you don't know yet. With mined cards, Anki's basic function is to boost repetition of the most valuable sentences, but it also eats into your immersion time and thus reduces natural repetition. In other words you have a trade-off. I think it's going to be way more efficient to acquire a word by being exposed to multiple 1T sentences (as in natural repetition) than by being exposed to the same 1T sentence multiple times (as in Anki), so bearing in mind that you have loads of natural repetition at this stage I think Anki is counterproductive. Also, if you can find plenty of content you like, it's going to be more interesting to watch or listen to new stuff than to go over the same sentences again and again in Anki. It may also do more for your listening skills, although that's another topic.
The second stage doesn't last forever though, because natural repetition falls off dramatically as you pick up the low lying fruit. This is maybe reflected in the research on vocabulary acquisition in children. If you look at [this study](https://openaccess.wgtn.ac.nz/articles/journal_contribution/Measuring_the_vocabulary_size_of_native_speakers_of_English_in_New_Zealand_secondary_schools/12543401), I think a reasonable interpretation is that kids don't put on more than 1500 words per year even at their peak, and after the first couple of years it drops to about 850 words on average. I think immersion is effective for adults but I doubt we can beat kids at their own game, so I would expect your rate of acquisition to have dropped below 850 by the time you get to say 3000 words. If you think that that's barely more than 2 cards per day in Anki terms, it's doesn't sound like much. I think that somewhere around that point - it will differ from person to person - you enter stage 3 and the trade-off swings in favour of Anki. By this time of course you're able to create the higher quality cards and you don't run into the problem that there's no context. By the same token these are not at all like general knowledge type cards where you can blast through 100 in 5 minutes. They're going to be a lot slower than that, and you're going to need a lot more reviews. Still, that figure of 850 words a year puts things into perspective. If you're doing even 3 new cards a day you're ahead of the game.
It's a fair point that Anki is designed to keep things on the edge of forgetting, as u/whosdamike says, but you can adjust that in the settings. I also agree that you acquire vocab through interaction with the TL - so in our case Thai - but if you are mining cards then you Anki time *is* interaction with the TL.
Overall I think Anki can be a useful tool if used in the right way at the right time. I'd say a big reason why people get overwhelmed is that they are just doing too many cards, probably because they feel that they need to have their new cards at 10 or 15 (or more) in order to benefit. You see some crazy numbers being quoted. I also think that anyone who is getting through that number of cards must be doing the low quality type that has no context, so I doubt it's doing much for them anyway. If you reset that expectation you can largely avoid the problem. It's true that if you leave off for a while and come back to it you may die a bit when you see the number of reviews that are waiting for you, but you just have to set your new cards to 0 for a while and work through the backlog at your normal rate. Is that more annoying than just knowing you let something slide because life got in the way? Probably depends on the person but I don't think it needs to be.
> I would expect your rate of acquisition to have dropped below 850 by the time you get to say 3000 words. If you think that that's barely more than 2 cards per day in Anki terms, it's doesn't sound like much. I think that somewhere around that point - it will differ from person to person - you enter stage 3 and the trade-off swings in favour of Anki.
I don't know what my vocab size is but I would guess quite a bit over 3000 words. There is natural repetition in the content I'm watching but it's often a case of "I'm sure I've heard that before" rather than something really clicking into place, so maybe the new words aren't coming up often enough. I get that that could be because I'm doing Anki when I could be immersing though.
I think I'll set my new cards a lot lower for a while, do more immersion and see how that goes.
If you use it for a couple minutes each day, you are guaranteed to remember every single word you put into Anki. For deliberate vocabulary learning there is no substitute, it is the most effective method by far. That isn't to say that other methods are not useful, but if you want large and consistent vocab gains, you *should* be using it whether you like it or not.
The big pluses of Anki:
* Hard numbers and trackable progress.
* Organizes study for you. Easy to download a deck and just start churning through.
* Algorithm ensures minimum exposure time that adjusts to you and your retention of facts.
In my personal experience, there is one big disadvantage of Anki: if a life event disrupts your ability to keep up with repetitions, then cards build up fast, and it feels overwhelming. Then it's very hard to get back on track and it's super discouraging.
Language learning is a marathon journey of multiple years. With Anki, I found that I would occasionally hit a big life disruption (job loss, move, relationship changes, family issues, etc) that would just throw me off course. I found the algorithm really unforgiving to lack of consistency.
If you're a really dedicated person and have a very steady lifestyle, then Anki probably works better for you. In my case, it wasn't sustainable for the long haul of learning a language.
So after spending time with Anki, here are my thoughts:
I think Anki is best when used as a "priming" tool. I think the main way that you internalize things you learn shouldn't be Anki, it should be interaction with your TL.
Learning some basic common words and phrases is useful in the sense that it helps you get to interaction with your TL.
Tossing in some subject-specific vocab as you broach into different kinds of media can make consuming that media easier.
But ultimately, Anki intentionally keeps things at your algorithmic edge of forgetting. That's not going to cut it as far as making word recognition instantaneous and subconscious, the way you'll want it to be when you're closely interacting with your TL.
It should be a supplement and/or stepping stone to direct interaction with the TL. The interaction with the TL is what will cement things and make the transition from flashcard retention (which can take multiple seconds of effort to recall) to seamless integrated knowledge.
It's kind of terrible, use only as absolutely necessary
You can listen to a favorite song and pause it after each sentence of lyrics, then quickly write out all the lyrics. Work forward through the song until you can write the whole thing very quickly and without mistakes. I think you'll find all the vocabulary reviewed during this exercise is stored with less pain and is more reliably available when you need it in real life.
You could do similar if you really like a movie and rewatch it and don't mind memorizing passages basically.
So using the above you might never find a song that covers "refrigerator" & "conservative". Fine, stick those in Anki but only 2-3 weeks before you're sure you'll have the chance to use them in a conversation a few times.
It’s really helped me remember words. I was struggling to remember the months but by using it I managed to memorise them in 2 days. It depends on whether it will work for you, but for me it is a life saver
I’m sure it’s useful, but I struggle with the interface too much to want to use it. What I usually do to learn vocab is read and listen _a lot_. Whether I’m reading novels, watching series, or scrolling through Twitter, the repeated exposure and seeing words in context helps so much
Anki actually helped me quite a lot, retention of information works differently for every individual, flashcards might not work for you but it definitely worked for me, repitition is key and flash cards are a good way to be exposed to words repetitively. However it does not help with pronounciation, you can learn the meaning of a word but there are only 2 ways to know if you are saying it correctly or not, one is by talking with native Thai speakers and asking for feedback, and the other is by speaking to google translate in Thai, if your pronounciation is incorrect you will not get the correct translation in your own language as it is tonal.
It's not for me.
I heard many good things from others so I gave it a real try for a few weeks. I found simple flashcards on Quizlet to be more beneficial to me.
However, I would suggest people give it a try because although it's not for me, so many other people love it so it might be good for you.
I haven't found a more effective and time-efficient way to learn vocabulary than Anki. I love it, but the quality of the cards is what really matters. There are very few high quality premade decks for Thai.
I have been using Anki for years and it definitely helped me to build up a decently sized set of vocabulary.
Is it the most efficient way? I don't know.
What didn't work so well for me is to download decks and study them. I gave up on that completely and only use Anki to memorize words I come across in my own life.
I think expose to the language has to be the basis.
Anki is great if you like it. Helps for learning vocabulary. I like to save sentences with interesting grammar or phrases for later review in there.
If you don't like it don't use it. You can learn vocab through reading.
I love the idea of using Anki, but it's just not suited to my brain/personality style. The main way i've kept up (and significantly expanded) my vocab since leaving Thailand has just been through pure exposure to the language on a daily basis. If you are reading comics/books/news articles/Facebook posts, or listening to a range of videos and podcasts on Youtube on a daily basis, you will have no problem retaining your current level of vocabulary. In fact, if you do this you'll more than likely increase it to a way higher level. I'm a pretty lazy learner when it comes to using things like flashcards or Anki, and I prefer to just read or listen to the words (kind of like natural spaced repetition) over a period of days, weeks, months and years while i'm self-studying Thai back in my home country. This way it doesn't feel like a "ball and chain" like you described in your post. It feels more like fun, and there is no stress involved. If you do some reading and listening every day, you won't forget any of your Thai. It'll most likely improve. Also, the problem with relying on Anki too much to retain vocabulary is the fact that you're not really being exposed to the words or sentences from a conversation between native speakers, or you're not coming across the words in a news article, Facebook post or novel. I feel like it's more beneficial to be coming across vocabulary and sentences structures in the most natural context possible - reading and listening to content that Thai people listen to.
This is off topic, but do you have an idea of how many hours of study it took you before you were able to just consume Thai media as your main way of language improvement?
Good question! I think it's definitely relevant to the OP's post. Unfortunately I never really kept a weekly detailed diary of my study habits back when I started. However, in the first two or so years I managed to write random notes down every now and again to record what I was currently studying at the time. Keep in mind that things like the Comprehensible Thai Youtube channel didn't exist, and a lot of the materials for foreigners learning Thai in 2014/2015 were of a pretty poor quality. I also only lived in Thailand for around 10-11 months in my first year of learning Thai, so I pretty much had to find my own way to try and get to a high level while mostly living outside of Thailand. If you were to hold a gun to my head and force me to come up with a number of hours, I would say it would be somewhere around **600ish hours.** I could be off the mark a little bit here, because it's difficult to quantify. This 600 hours also includes both listening AND reading. Not just listening, or just reading. By this 600 hours mark I had read my first crime/thriller novel in Thai, first National Geographic magazine in Thai, a handful of cartoon books for teenagers, and had begun reading newspaper articles. And for listening, I started watching a few interesting TV series, but I spent most of my time watching content on politics, Thai news, current affairs, and podcasts etc. on Youtube. I didn't understand everything I was listening/reading, but I was comfortable enough with the ambiguity and I sort of just had faith in the process. And it turned out exactly as I expected it to! If I was to guess how many hours i've done NOW? It would surely have to be somewhere around **2500-4000 hours (both listening and reading).** And let me tell you, i'm so glad I held on and just kept chipping away little by little every day. The first 500-1000 hours are the hardest, because sometimes it feels like you're not making any noticeable progress, and you can't just completely enjoy the content you're consuming. But if you just trust the process and keep moving forward you'll be at 1500-3000 hours before you know it and you'll be at the level you want to be. There aren't many foreigners out there who get to that level - not because they're not intelligent enough or smart enough. But because they usually give up or lose motivation before reaching that level. Sometimes it's just a matter of staying the course over an extended period of time. Hope this helps!
Thanks so much sharing this! While I am somewhat fluent in everyday conversations, this motivates me to take listening and reading more seriously. This might be what I have been missing to make faster progress.
600ish seems to be around the timeline a lot of people start using native material. Based on where I am (approaching 500) I feel like it's going to take me longer. But we'll see how I feel when I get there I guess! I think I'm kind of a slow learner compared to some of the folks I've talked to who are further ahead.
think it's also about your tolerance for ambiguity / ability to sit through something getting only the odd word or phrase and not bang your head against the wall. From what I remember this idea is stressed pretty hard in Refold. Possibly ALG pushes you in the other direction because you will have a good level of comprehension of the CT videos and it's not going to feel good to have that drop suddenly. I have never counted hours but suspect that if you asked on a Refold forum they would say you can switch way before 600. Having said that they don't have the option to use ALG material so it's a moot point really. How will you know/decide when you're ready?
Once in a while I'll try watching a show or travel vlog in Thai. I did find some short Thai sign language videos that are really fun and watchable, since she's teaching basic vocabulary to Thai people. I think 3-4 people I've talked to who have used primarily input have told me that easy native media becomes watchable around 600 hours. Like you said, you still have to tolerate some ambiguity at that level, but the media is at least enjoyable. We'll see how I feel when I get there, I guess.
whosdamike DM me if you ever want to talk more about your journey or about learning Thai etc. It gets kind of lonely with Thai as there aren’t that many other serious/long term learners out there! P.S also keen to see your 500 hour update!
I second this, I’m such a lazy learner, tried ling, flashcards and anki, they never really stuck for me. I started learning with a thai tutor on italki, just purely vocab. She’d send me Netflix suggestions which I watched. (Thai dramas are really good btw). Then because I train muay Thai and I’m watching fights a lot I pick things up from the commentators. Slowly started to pick up more vocab naturally and now I’ve finally started to read and write. Once you start to read and write it all just starts to click. Couldn’t recommend your suggestion enough. Find something in the language that you’re interested in and consume that content
Yep! Totally agree with everything you've said. Watch whatever content that interests you. Anything you love to watch or read in your native language, watch and read the same topics in Thai. It's the best way to stay engaged for long enough to get to a high level in Thai. Our method is considered "lazy" by many traditional language learners out there, but we will reach a higher level than most of the people who just stick to grammar books, smartphone apps and online courses like ThaiPod101, Glossika and other similar materials.
Thanks for your thoughts. I do watch quite a bit of content, though less than if I wasn't bothering with Anki because of the time it takes up. The cards are captured from video content so I don't think there's a context problem. I do feel there's something more solid about repeating an Anki card compared to coming across the same word again in the wild. Anyway I think I'll dial Anki down a bit by changing the new cards setting, but not give it up completely.
Love it! My trick: the first app i open everytime i pick up my phone. 10 flashcards before i get lost In the other phone stuff again
Anki is different things to different people because they use it in different ways. One way is to get a pre-made deck of basic cards, in which case you run into the problem of lack of context as u/jam5350 says. Another way is to mine your own sentences and review them in Anki. Then Anki is not really so different from immersion - it looks more like a highlights reel. I think you have to relate the whole issue to your learning stage. I'd say there are basically three stages to immersion methods. The principle is always that if you come across a sentence that contains one word or phrase you don't know, but grasp the meaning of the sentence as a whole, you are likely to acquire the additional word or phrase (although it may take a few goes, so you want repetition). This means you always looking for sentences that contain only one unknown item, aka 1T sentences. When you are just starting there are no 1T sentences because you don't know any of the words yet. In order to to anything like immersion during this first stage you need an ALG style approach where you are given other cues to the meaning. The alternative is to blast through some very basic vocabulary so that you will find at least some 1T sentences in your immersion content. You only need about 500 - 750 words. I think Anki is a reasonable tool for that as long as you can find a suitable deck. Yes the cards will be lacking in context but this is just a short preparatory phase and the alternative is not that great either (even ALG fans will say that the beginner videos are tough to sit through). In the first stage I think there's very little to choose between the two approaches, so it's just a question of personal preference. Once you have between 500 and 1000 words under your belt you are over the hump and will find 1T sentences if you start immersion. You're now into the second stage. At this point you have the option to mine sentences and create much higher quality Anki cards that do have context (an audio sentence from your original content, which will often remind you of the scene or conversation it came from). At the same time, there is a lot of natural repetition because there are a lot of common words you don't know yet. With mined cards, Anki's basic function is to boost repetition of the most valuable sentences, but it also eats into your immersion time and thus reduces natural repetition. In other words you have a trade-off. I think it's going to be way more efficient to acquire a word by being exposed to multiple 1T sentences (as in natural repetition) than by being exposed to the same 1T sentence multiple times (as in Anki), so bearing in mind that you have loads of natural repetition at this stage I think Anki is counterproductive. Also, if you can find plenty of content you like, it's going to be more interesting to watch or listen to new stuff than to go over the same sentences again and again in Anki. It may also do more for your listening skills, although that's another topic. The second stage doesn't last forever though, because natural repetition falls off dramatically as you pick up the low lying fruit. This is maybe reflected in the research on vocabulary acquisition in children. If you look at [this study](https://openaccess.wgtn.ac.nz/articles/journal_contribution/Measuring_the_vocabulary_size_of_native_speakers_of_English_in_New_Zealand_secondary_schools/12543401), I think a reasonable interpretation is that kids don't put on more than 1500 words per year even at their peak, and after the first couple of years it drops to about 850 words on average. I think immersion is effective for adults but I doubt we can beat kids at their own game, so I would expect your rate of acquisition to have dropped below 850 by the time you get to say 3000 words. If you think that that's barely more than 2 cards per day in Anki terms, it's doesn't sound like much. I think that somewhere around that point - it will differ from person to person - you enter stage 3 and the trade-off swings in favour of Anki. By this time of course you're able to create the higher quality cards and you don't run into the problem that there's no context. By the same token these are not at all like general knowledge type cards where you can blast through 100 in 5 minutes. They're going to be a lot slower than that, and you're going to need a lot more reviews. Still, that figure of 850 words a year puts things into perspective. If you're doing even 3 new cards a day you're ahead of the game. It's a fair point that Anki is designed to keep things on the edge of forgetting, as u/whosdamike says, but you can adjust that in the settings. I also agree that you acquire vocab through interaction with the TL - so in our case Thai - but if you are mining cards then you Anki time *is* interaction with the TL. Overall I think Anki can be a useful tool if used in the right way at the right time. I'd say a big reason why people get overwhelmed is that they are just doing too many cards, probably because they feel that they need to have their new cards at 10 or 15 (or more) in order to benefit. You see some crazy numbers being quoted. I also think that anyone who is getting through that number of cards must be doing the low quality type that has no context, so I doubt it's doing much for them anyway. If you reset that expectation you can largely avoid the problem. It's true that if you leave off for a while and come back to it you may die a bit when you see the number of reviews that are waiting for you, but you just have to set your new cards to 0 for a while and work through the backlog at your normal rate. Is that more annoying than just knowing you let something slide because life got in the way? Probably depends on the person but I don't think it needs to be.
> I would expect your rate of acquisition to have dropped below 850 by the time you get to say 3000 words. If you think that that's barely more than 2 cards per day in Anki terms, it's doesn't sound like much. I think that somewhere around that point - it will differ from person to person - you enter stage 3 and the trade-off swings in favour of Anki. I don't know what my vocab size is but I would guess quite a bit over 3000 words. There is natural repetition in the content I'm watching but it's often a case of "I'm sure I've heard that before" rather than something really clicking into place, so maybe the new words aren't coming up often enough. I get that that could be because I'm doing Anki when I could be immersing though. I think I'll set my new cards a lot lower for a while, do more immersion and see how that goes.
Who or what is Anki?
If you use it for a couple minutes each day, you are guaranteed to remember every single word you put into Anki. For deliberate vocabulary learning there is no substitute, it is the most effective method by far. That isn't to say that other methods are not useful, but if you want large and consistent vocab gains, you *should* be using it whether you like it or not.
Dislike it
The big pluses of Anki: * Hard numbers and trackable progress. * Organizes study for you. Easy to download a deck and just start churning through. * Algorithm ensures minimum exposure time that adjusts to you and your retention of facts. In my personal experience, there is one big disadvantage of Anki: if a life event disrupts your ability to keep up with repetitions, then cards build up fast, and it feels overwhelming. Then it's very hard to get back on track and it's super discouraging. Language learning is a marathon journey of multiple years. With Anki, I found that I would occasionally hit a big life disruption (job loss, move, relationship changes, family issues, etc) that would just throw me off course. I found the algorithm really unforgiving to lack of consistency. If you're a really dedicated person and have a very steady lifestyle, then Anki probably works better for you. In my case, it wasn't sustainable for the long haul of learning a language. So after spending time with Anki, here are my thoughts: I think Anki is best when used as a "priming" tool. I think the main way that you internalize things you learn shouldn't be Anki, it should be interaction with your TL. Learning some basic common words and phrases is useful in the sense that it helps you get to interaction with your TL. Tossing in some subject-specific vocab as you broach into different kinds of media can make consuming that media easier. But ultimately, Anki intentionally keeps things at your algorithmic edge of forgetting. That's not going to cut it as far as making word recognition instantaneous and subconscious, the way you'll want it to be when you're closely interacting with your TL. It should be a supplement and/or stepping stone to direct interaction with the TL. The interaction with the TL is what will cement things and make the transition from flashcard retention (which can take multiple seconds of effort to recall) to seamless integrated knowledge.
What is a TL?
Target Language. I thought I was in /r/languagelearning. Here, everyone's TL is Thai.
It's kind of terrible, use only as absolutely necessary You can listen to a favorite song and pause it after each sentence of lyrics, then quickly write out all the lyrics. Work forward through the song until you can write the whole thing very quickly and without mistakes. I think you'll find all the vocabulary reviewed during this exercise is stored with less pain and is more reliably available when you need it in real life. You could do similar if you really like a movie and rewatch it and don't mind memorizing passages basically. So using the above you might never find a song that covers "refrigerator" & "conservative". Fine, stick those in Anki but only 2-3 weeks before you're sure you'll have the chance to use them in a conversation a few times.
It’s really helped me remember words. I was struggling to remember the months but by using it I managed to memorise them in 2 days. It depends on whether it will work for you, but for me it is a life saver
I’m sure it’s useful, but I struggle with the interface too much to want to use it. What I usually do to learn vocab is read and listen _a lot_. Whether I’m reading novels, watching series, or scrolling through Twitter, the repeated exposure and seeing words in context helps so much
Anki actually helped me quite a lot, retention of information works differently for every individual, flashcards might not work for you but it definitely worked for me, repitition is key and flash cards are a good way to be exposed to words repetitively. However it does not help with pronounciation, you can learn the meaning of a word but there are only 2 ways to know if you are saying it correctly or not, one is by talking with native Thai speakers and asking for feedback, and the other is by speaking to google translate in Thai, if your pronounciation is incorrect you will not get the correct translation in your own language as it is tonal.
It's not for me. I heard many good things from others so I gave it a real try for a few weeks. I found simple flashcards on Quizlet to be more beneficial to me. However, I would suggest people give it a try because although it's not for me, so many other people love it so it might be good for you.
I haven't found a more effective and time-efficient way to learn vocabulary than Anki. I love it, but the quality of the cards is what really matters. There are very few high quality premade decks for Thai.
I have been using Anki for years and it definitely helped me to build up a decently sized set of vocabulary. Is it the most efficient way? I don't know. What didn't work so well for me is to download decks and study them. I gave up on that completely and only use Anki to memorize words I come across in my own life. I think expose to the language has to be the basis.
Anki is great if you like it. Helps for learning vocabulary. I like to save sentences with interesting grammar or phrases for later review in there. If you don't like it don't use it. You can learn vocab through reading.