The Role of the SRS
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- Äas pĆidĂĄn 26. 06. 2024
- TIMESTAMPS:
00:00 - Intro
00:22 - Part 1: SRS in a Vacuum
08:01 - Part 2: Immersion in a Vacuum
11:20 - Summary
12:24 - Part 3: The Proper Role of the SRS
12:53 - Part 3, Section a: Mental Dictionary Entries
16:58 - Part 3, Section b: Increasing Comprehensibility
20:29 - Part 4: Conclusion
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TL;DR: The role of the SRS within the greater process of language acquisition is to help you efficiently *learn* the basic meanings of words, in order to greatly increase your capacity to _notice words_ and _understand sentences_ in your *immersion* , and in turn vastly accelerate the process of *acquisition* . Knowledge is just knowledge; it can never _directly_ transfer to acquired ability. That's why SRSing with no immersion is a dead-end. But, by helping your brain make sense of the language, knowledge can _indirectly_ lead to acquisition when combined with immersion. This is why combining SRSing with immersion leads to faster progress than immersion alone.
Also, what I say about âwordsâ applies to grammatical structures as well. In reality, most of what is commonly referred to as âgrammarâ can be viewed exactly the same as words from a language learning perspective. Probably should have talked about this in the video.
Question: I ran into some apps on android touting themselves as NHK news readers. Depending on the app the features seem to be a mix of easy versions of Japanese news stories with furigana and text to speech audio and dictionary lookup. Any experience with these sorts of apps, and opinion on which is the best in terms of ease of use and not killing the experience with roadblock ads and such?
@@autobotsNdecepticons You mean stuff like "NHK Easy Japanese News Reader - Simple & Useful"? I think it's decent.
I ran an experiment with this, because I was curious. Ten years ago I used Anki while AJATT-ing heavily, with great results. But I already had a foundation of a few thousand words to help me launch into it from regular study in classes. Next, I wanted to learn Mandarin. As I was going to grad school in Japan, I didn't feel like I had the time to seriously study Mandarin. So I thought I'd just add cards to my SRS (with audio), and slowly build up a similar foundation, so that when I was eventually ready to do serious immersion, I'd have some basis. Recently I've finally made that shift, after nearly a decade slowly building up a few thousand Mandarin cards. (Put it off for ages as I got burned out a bit in Japan). But within weeks my comprehension has rocketed up. I'd say SRS sentences can help prime the engine. It can get you ready to notice a lot. But yes, it's very limited without real immersion to push you along.
Please allow me to add Spanish captions to your video. I'd like to share the information you are providing us here to my Hispanic fellows.
For the longest time I thought you had a barcode on your shirt. Then I realized it was sushi.
@Garrett C as a Chinese I've never seen sushi written like that in Chinese though
@@penthoy ćŁœćž
Now everybody has sushi on their shirts
â@@ReiAyasuka only when I eat too fast
This video just saved me from addicting to making cards. Matt you're the goat
I just passed the 50% on the Lazy Kanji deck. That means I've seen 50% of them. About 19% are old cards (I did some days without adding new cards but I've reviewed the old ones like 99% of the time.).
I am so super motivated beeing able to write and recall Kanji that seemed to difficult a month ago. Matt your attitude just rocks and that you are doing this basically for free is so nice in this day in age.
I think your summary of SRS is on point. Our brains are very adept at recognizing patterns, and the SRS (or any repetition system) play into this. It gets to the point where you see the card, and you're not seeing what's on the card, your brain is recognizing the pattern of the card and spitting out the answer to pass this hurdle.
This video is exactly how I learned English.
I mean, I had classes since I was a kid, the usual vocab and grammar stuff, but that only helped filling in the blanks for the instances where I really acquired the language; playing and replaying SNES Roms with a dictionary on top of the desk. That, and the subbed movies on cable TV.
To see all of that in the form of a structured, well thought and well explained video put a huge smile on my face.
BTW, I can't thank you enough for doing such a good job giving immersion based learning a solid structure to follow. You're doing God's work, did you know that?
I'm reminded of an old AJATT quote that made a strong impression on me: "Knowing, understanding and using a word in one context is the first and only possible step in knowing it in more contexts." When I first encountered sentence-cards, they seemed like a bad idea because it was obvious that my knowledge of the word would be (somewhat) dependent on the context of that single card. But it's still a better starting point than trying to memorize the "full meaning" with a vocabulary-card. As you explain, a sentence card at least gives you a dictionary entry and single context from which to broaden to more contexts via immersion.
I feel like that quote isn't legit cause it doesn't contain a single instance of 'motherlicker'
Just to say, I learned a language, with no SRS (it didn't exist at the time), went through a basic textbook, then acquired the language purely through immersion, and I can pass as native over the phone.
One big thing though, I married someone who would actively pick up every mistake I made (people always say "that must have been annoying" - it really wasn't.
Yea, once someone corrects you it's instantly sinks. I'll never forget the time I was talking about a friend of mine and described him as "LĂ€cherlich" (Laughable (From Lachen, to laugh)) when I meant to describe him as someone who smiles a lot. The face on my host mom's face was priceless when she told me I didn't quite understand that word
@@Crazybassable ha!
Yeah moments like that can be funny. I once meant to ask for some dipping sauce with my food and just by getting a tone wrong I accidentally asked for vaginal juices.
@@keithws2779 đđđ
This is one of the most valuable pieces of content you have made so far. Thank you, Matt.
So basically Immersion is the heavy lifter and SRS is the support, not the other way around. Gotcha
You sir.. are the ultimate resource on language learning⊠100% . I hope you know how many people you help and inspire.
26:55 Letâs always keep this in mind when immersing. Donât fall for this trap of âIâm doneâ like I did.
Basically, Anki is roids and comprehensible immersion is working out.
If you work out you get slow results, but roids speed it up.
If you only take roids, you just get useless bloat.
Thanks, Matt!
I wish the example by Krashen was in another language than my mother tongue. đ
Great video btw, I recently started SRSing less and reading/listening to natural speech more and it has so far helped a lot đ
The retirement addon has retired 1734 cards so far which means I won't bogged down by old reviews coming up again and again! I am thrilled to be able to use this add on that you have developed. Thank you so much!
I'm also glad to finally know how to describe that phenomenon of noticing something more very suddenly.
Every time I review new cards, it feels like a new pathway opens. Sentence mining and making the cards myself helps me retain the meanings for long enough until I get to review the card itself as well. It's a very nice feeling.
I do get frustration when I forget a word (and I know I should know it) but it's good to see that this is a normal part of the process and looking it up will help to hook the word into my memory.
What a stud! You sir are so smart and great at educating people on how to acquire a language. You do it better than the other authorities , like the two Steveâs
Illuminating, as always. Thank you Matt.
This feels like some forbidden knowledge for some reason. Thank you!
One of the best videos about Anki that I've ever seen. Thank you!
Thank you for making this video. I'm currently learning Japanese and I have learned so much about language acquisition from watching your videos and reading the MIA website. I hope you continue to make great content.
THIS IS ONE OF THE GREATEST VIDEOS I'VE WATCHED ON THE SUBJECT OF LANGUAGE ACQUISITION
Excellent! That is exactly how I use Ankie! It is ONLY my dictionary and reminder to ensure I don't forget words that I have superficially learned. If I find that I have forgotten a word in Ankie, I add it (re-add it) to my separate learning list and relearn it. Ankie is ONLY a memorisation tool, a tool to ensure that I don't totally forget any words I have learned - and it's a nice way to keep a personal dictionary of them. Memorisation is just the beginning thing for STARTING to learn that word. Memorisation is the easy part. It's only the very beginning of your relationship with that word - it gets you maybe...1% there, so that you can start to add to your understanding of that word, like adding a computer folder in which to start a document collection, really. After I've learned it I'm listening to that word on my word listening list for a long time until I get an immediate REACTIONARY IMAGE of the meaning or feeling of understanding. A REACTIONARY IMAGE in my head - NOT an English word or translation - I don't want to think of English words at ALL in fact - if I'm still getting English translation words in my head when I hear a word, it's a LONG way from being ready for hearing from a native speaker and from even starting the acquisition process, in my opinion. When that happens, when I get a reactionary image or feeling of the word, I take that word off the word listening list. (In my opinion, from the very minute you've established a base meaning, you need to start DISASSOCIATING your target word from the English translation and make it stand, with meaning, on it's own. And it doesn't really take that long if you listen every day - you get a relationship with each word - some words click immediately, but some don't. Taking them off the list is okay, because I am, hopefully, ready to start HEARING that word in conversation in the future, or my native listening pursuits - then, each time I hear it, I'm one more step to having acquired it. Only one more step - I've acquired it when I hear the word and understand it immediately and automatically without even trying (or even when my concentration is elsewhere), just like I do with my native language. For me this is happening VERY SLOWLY. This crap about people acquiring a language within a few months...well, I'm sure they THINK that is acquisition, but it's not. Anyone who claims that type of stuff is misunderstanding the definition of 'acquisition', and lying to themselves, and thus others that they acquired a language in such a short time, particularly for very distantly related or unrelated languages.
I ALSO limit Ankie to a maximum time period. When I first started, I limited Ankie to a few months, then I extended it to a year. It is STILL one year. It takes me maybe half and hour to go through 50 words (actually 100 words altogether - 50 English to target, 50 listen target to English). A 1 year limit means that I can learn up to 18,000 odd words at 50 words per day reminders. I'm never likely to learn that many words, so the 1 year limit is fine. And words I know very, very well? Well they are very fast to review indeed. And if I get anywhere near 18,000 words, well, most of those words will be very well known indeed by then - 50 words (or 100) would probably only take about 10 minutes per day - and by then I won't be using Ankie anyway. I think everyone should be limiting Ankie in a similar way. There is no real point to having words with 2 or 5 year reminders. You won't need them anyway.
Of course, listening to words is also only a small part of the required listening to acquire the language. Words alone is not sufficient. I do a TONN of other listening - native speakers and full sentence and speaking content. You have to hear words in sentences and conversations.
Solid synopsis. Very similar to my own experience with American Sign Language and now with Spanish. Especially with the reactionary image comment. When you really get fluent in a language itâs registered meaning. English is no where near my mind bc I just understand the messages Iâm receiving. Can basically immediately make it a picture in my mind if I need to. When Iâm reading in Spanish I am picturing the story. Images stick and form deeper connections, itâs why things like memory places and such are impactful for memory competitions. At actual fluency youâre taken away from âwordsâ and into pictures. Also agree that any of these ppl pretending you can become fluent in a language in mere months are foolish, and if any of there language abilities were truly tested from jumping to context to context theyâd crumble immediately. In sign language for me the native speaker can go from politics, current events, to a book they read and on down the list and I donât lose the string of the narrative. Took a lot more than a couple months lol. My sign language is way better than my Spanish simply due to how much time Iâve spent with ASL and the hours Iâve spent in that time, but my Spanish is coming along. None the less, solid comment.
alright seriously, ever since your patreaon and you taking all this about language learning etc more serious, making sense of it and sharing it with other people, your understanding about it, even the samll nuances, has become sooo fokken deep mate, great respect, and THANKS SO MUCH for sharing.
OMFG, Matt/Yoga! This is PURE GOLD! Thank you, guys â€ïž
This is an EXTREMELY valuable video. I love revisiting your old content when Iâm at a different stage of my language learning journey than I was when I 1st watched it. It just hits different!! đđŸ Thatâs the benefit of following you for years. đđŸ
2:25 it's also helpful to actually being hit and smacked: in this case, the acquisition of the nuances works on totally new level
What a gem of a channel
Man, a big THANK YOU for this video. I learned about Anki flashcards about a year ago, and now you did not only list all the issues I felt I had with it, but also gave a very clear solution to them. I am now very motivated to give my deck a fresh new pass and start applying your advice. Hats off to you!
dude I just discovered your channel today while at work! Your content is amazing! I've read alot about language learning and japanese learning theory but you are like the cherry on the top of a cacke! thanks
Your videos always help me get back on track and motivate me to keep going. ăăăăšăăăăŸă
One of my techniques to bypass the srs is reading a comic and translating unknown words and putting them on the side so I can quickly refer as I'm reading if I need to. Then a read the same comic over several times!
This video is pure essence of required knowledge to start to learn something new right way, languages in particular.
Thanks a lot, it's very useful.
I've been both of these people among my journey and found your description of both to be exactly true.
Content is King, not fancy settings or cameras.
Great Video man. Subscribed đ
Rewatching this video answer all my current problem.
Pretty solid video for any language learner. Nice work and nice production values!
Watching your videos gives me so much motivation for learning Japanese. Thank you!
Excellent video that explained clearly some of my own conclusions studying Spanish for five years as a heavy SRS and Krashen acolyte. Highly useful to hear it synthesized like this, I feel more confident in how my own methods can be perfected now - in particular how to mix srs and immersion.
Excellent video Matt, you went in depth in the topic and explained everything in great detail. Thanks!
Matt killing it with the basics
Thanks for your eloquent criticism of SRS learning. I used to be an adherent before I grew frustrated with its limitations. I have since then always been doubtful of SRS as a primary method.
I had no idea about the Badder-Meinhof effect/ frequency illusion but I remember as a teenager (12-13) taking the bus for the first time after only being driven to school, that I suddenly would be able to see that there were so many buses. This is because I spent a lot of time waiting for the bus and looking out for it to call it to stop.( Buses don't stop unless someone pushes the button to get off it or someone at the bus stop signals the driver. for those who don't ride busses). I realised very quick that those buses had existed all along and it was a mental illusion to me, but I never knew someone had named the psychological phenomenon after themselves.
This is the best explanation of Learning VS Acquisition I've heard so far. Before I've just heard people throwing it out there like some sort of buzzword without offering a good explanation. Thanks =D
I notice a real similarity between grammar study and SRS, in that they both give us learned knowledge that aids comprehension. The pitfalls of exaggerating their importance is also similar.
The last thing you said is so important! Paying attention, being alert and focused, is probably the most important thing in learning new things. There are tons of people who spend years in another country and have tens of thousands of hours of exposure to the language but their language ability just plateus at a certain point. Once you stop to really dig into the language, and reflect on your own use of the language, you will stop improving!
I'm glad this is still here even though you've gone back on a lot of this.
I died when Zorolla showed up! Can we make this a real word?
Untill I read your comment I thought it was LOL
( btw I'm not an english native speaker)
@@enricodiniz3586 How's your English learning going? Wishing all the best!
@@enricodiniz3586 SAME
My level of english comprehension is quite good i swear
Great video. The key messages in the video are consistent with my 2 1/2 years experience with SRS and immersion in my target language. I had to learn a few things the hard way though, this video would have helpful near the beginning of my journey.
26:53 Woah, great point! I didn't realize it until now but that is kinda what I have been doing.
This video helped me so much I was doing your new SRS voc for Japanese not realizing I wasnât doing enough immersion. Therefore my brain couldnât remember any more words after a week of doing SRS. my brain just couldnât retain the words but watching this has really help thanks Matt đȘđŸđ
this content is so valuable
clean video
Wow this video is gold! đ€©
Wow this is so accurate. Everything is relatable I have all the problems matt mentioned
another great video, also the beard suits you really well
I donât study Japanese or Chinese nor do I learn language strickly through immersion but I find your videos fascinating and helpful to understand learning at a deeper level. I hope to see some new content in 2023!
I am not using your method fully but I am doing RTK currently at 1235 kanji and thinking on switching to lazy kanji.
I did quite a lot of grammar (Tae Kim+ other Japanese grammar tools)
I'm at the point where I feel like I need to immerse myself in Japanese so I started reading Manga and watching stuff in Japanese only with subtitles(Japanese sub of course).
And this video is gold IMO you explain very well how it works and I can recognize myself in what you're saying about using SRS.
awesome video, thanks a lot!
Great video!
AWESOME VIDEO
This video is extremely helpful. For the mental dictionary I just kept thinking of 性äžć€« in my case. I understand itâs definition of something being okay, but I was immersing earlier today and heard it in a completely new context which sort of baffled me a bit. But I felt that impact of adding âsomething to the hookâ.
One thing I think can be quite difficult in learning languages is related to when you say 'you need to know which specific meaning of each of these words is being used in this context' and that is when language is being used metaphorically. Without a good amount of exposure you will try and interpret or translate some things as literal when they're not.
Bro.. I do love your videoss
I am having constant instances of that Baader-Meinhof effect as I am going through the RRTK deck. So many kanji I can pick out now even if I don't really know what it means.
it's an amazing content!
I'm still at the point where I need to do more active learning before I can start picking up enough through immersion. But so far Wanikani and Mirai Japanese have been really fun and helpful on Kanji and grammar respectively.
The part about context-dependent knowledge is really true. I think also having a card memorised has a kind of 'google effect' which is where you don't retain knowledge of the actual thing, but rather the knowledge that you can just google it. The same thing happens when you have a card for something - the actual knowledge contained within the card gets replaced with the knowledge that it's just gunna come up again sometime.
I have noticed that the more information I record about a topic the less I'm likely to remember anything about it. It's as if the act of recording the information tells my brain it's not necessary to remember this. The more selective I am about what I want to record they more likely I am to remember it. When I don't record anything I have more time to simply be present with the information and thus somehow I'm more likely to remember it. I don't know if that makes sense.
Nice video.
Iâm getting some Thomas Frank vibes while watching! In my opinion, Matt is becoming the new Thomas Frank for immersion based learning while keeping his style, wisdom and grace! I love it! Thanks for the video Matt this was really helpful and informative, your doing amazing keep up the great work!
damn, such a quality video
I watched alot of sub anime when i was younger and i can hear the distinction of normal japanese conversation. i dont understand them since i just started learning japanese seriously recently
Matt I love this concept of mental dictionary. I tried many times to learn kanji with rtk but even with mnemonics my retention sucked and I always gave up. Now I'm using a different approach, I'm just learning vocab and after that I will go through rtk to solidify my knowledge. I think that's the reason that the japanese don't forget the meaning of the kanji right? because they already have the words to attach this knownledge to. ie they have a mental dictionary.
This video was great for me because I think I have been doing too much srs, also I recomnd watch the video of the balance reading and listening of Matt I think it complements well this video
At the end of the video I kinda relate to that, yeah I feel like once I finish srs I am done for the day, although I immerse a lot now, I kinda zone out as Matt said, so from now one i wil pay much more attention when acitve listening!!!!!!!! Thanks Matt for one more exceptional video, so good.
Actually I recomend you to watch all of Matt's videos tbh
(my favourite is the 3h video, love it)
I never knew Jeff Bezos was so good at Japanese
What
I find it funny that when he pointed out that the main purpose that anki flash cards serve is creating a entry for your brain to use later because that is legitimate the same reason people used RTK. So in essence, I'm doing multiple layers of the same thing. First, I used Remembering the Kanji to get a keyword for kanjis, and then I'm using Anki to get more specific entries that were built off using the knowledge gained from knowing those keywords...
This is really interesting to hear from someone who studies primarily sentence cards. I studied vocab cards (no sentence) because I found them quicker, and had the same sort of "context-dependent knowledge" problem you discuss. I would have thought you would have less of a problem with that. I would guess the "secret sauce" here is not really the sentences, as much as the immersion
What is more interesting is that you come to some conclusion and only after that you find a video which confirms your conclusion...
This video was perfect timing for where I'm at right now. Picking out a lot of words during immersion but noticing plenty sneaking by. A lot of my SRS cards I know based on the context of the card. What do we think about using a frequency list with morphman on 2-3 shows and immerse only with those as a way to aquire faster?
I have been using a particular format of cards, that I feel are helping with acquisition. That is I only use sub2srs cards with audio, relistening the same sentence over and over from the reviews can sometimes trigger that switch where the word is acquired and not only memorized. Happens for about half the words.
Great video. This issue is one of my biggest worries right now, but this video helped me out. Now that I finished the core 10k Anki deck, I was worried about whether I should continue to do a combination of Anki and immersion , or just focus on one mostly. I decided to continue to do both.
**Core 10k Anki deck**? Jeez..
I like your lofi and vaporwave background music haha
Nice Ryoma poster!
Great video. Mattâs obviously a smart dude.
Question about Lazy Kanji. Just starting so should I just rep the LK cards until finished (in a few months) while also immersion... and thatâs it? No sentence mining, reading, grammar, etc?
in the first part you perfectly explained every single problem i have learning japanese with flashcards lol
Btw. plz make a vid on your Chinese MIA/ACATT and how do you progress, Matt! I've been ajatting German for a few years now and was thinking about taking up Mandarin in some time, and would like to hear how you go about it having all the ajatt pre-knowledge already under your belt! Thanks!
Beard looks great mâdude
I don't think I have ever seen a language in which there is such a big difference between words that are used only in written communication and those used when speaking.
It is the famous æžăèšèăšè©±ăèšè.
I always struggle to find out if a word I find when reading is only used in writing and whether I should memorize it at all for conversation...
I guess only immersion and exposure to the raw, spoken language can help here?
Wow đŻ Iâm learning differently about this language learning
Should I be using SRS when I can almost always understand of my target language but I can't casually use a lot of the phrases I know in my own speech. What's the best way to break through this?
I am now experimenting with a retirement interval of only 15 days, on a sentence deck mined from anime with mpvacious. I'm hoping for the following benefits with this strategy:
1. Higher throughput that more than makes up for a higher percetange of words forgotten after their retirement, compared to using a long or no retirement interval.
2. I speculate that the mental dictionary entry is created after just a few repetitions. Reviews after long intervals probably only have a marginal benefit, since the filling of a word with meaning happens during immersion anyway.
3. It feels good to think of Anki as a content processor, instead of an accumulator. Everything I put into Anki, "goes out" a few weeks later. The review count cannot rise to infinity, but, in my case, stays at a healthy and doable 60 - 80 reviews, with 20 new cards every day.
4. A higher number of new cards also means more mining, which automatically means more immersion, compared to time spent on reviews.
5. If I forget a word after its card retired and I end up adding it again as part of another sentence card, it doesn't worry me. The new context hopefully helps my brain more than if I had just seen the old context more often. In a way Anki becomes more of an immersion amplifier than an SRS, as the goal of memorization only applies in a confined way.
Thank you Matt for all your videos! They really help me a lot.
When learning new words (from, say reading a newspaper article), would you recommend making a basic Anki flashcard for the new word, and then a separate Cloze flashcard that has the learned word in it for context?
new meditation video incoming? the last sentence along with the unlisitng of the mediation video suggests so and i really hope my senses are correct. class vid btw
Has Matt ever gone over whether you should do SRS reps in the morning or at night?
For the context dependent knowledge I solved the issue by trying to retrieve it with srs by both ends.
For example if I see æ„ I know is called haru and means spring but in almost every word when I wanted to think of it in Japanese I never could cause of context dependency(also cause haru can mean stick and written as ćŒ”ă) but I just made cards that exercise the opposite reverse recall of the word and problem solved.
I can see some people still calling it context dependency even if you do both ends and probably it is but it gets the job done.
It happened to me in Japanese that I would be reading a novel (native level) and around the 170° page I would encounter some vocabulary that I don't know. However, I kept reading while trying to focus on the actual content and context of that word and then just had to type it (don't even to take another look at it. It might be somewhere hidden among those bunch of pages.) As I remembered that word as an image linked to context (the first to look up the reading and the second one to fully grasp the whole meaning of that vocabulary in that particular situation)
The phrase was this
çăć·ă
Digging the lo fi
Damn this guy knows his shit
TTT vers STT, Teacher Talking Time vers Student Talking Time - This video made me feel like I have ADHD and I'm a language teacher, lol. Use of examples and demonstrations give the viewer time to process and acquire what's being discussed, instead of only a thin veneer of 'what is SRS'
Creating mental dictionary entries and the quality of your input are two things I took away from this one.
Ever since immersing more and controlling the type of decks I was using in the SRS while maintaining stress levels, it became more fun and more effortless using the knowledge in the wild.
Haven't heard anyone accurately represent Context Dependent Knowledge before this. I'm guessing the way to get past this is just to immerse more, so that you can replace the artificial context with more meaningful interactions.
EDIT: Never mind you cover it at 24:00 and I think in the Patreon Q&As