Using Spaced Repetition to Learn More Japanese Faster
Today we're releasing a very important feature to help you blast through all the kanji and vocabulary you need for the JLPT or just every day life in Japan.
I, to be honest, love flash cards. I think they are a great tool for memorizing kanji, or vocabulary. I usually start out with all of my cards in one enormous pile then separate them into smaller piles that seem to be memorizable in one day each. Then I go to work one pile at a time; one card at a time. Every couple of days I go back and review all the piles I've seen so far. It's this last part that isn't so very wise.
As the days turn into weeks, that review pile becomes ginormous. Reviewing ALL the cards every few days quickly drains me of my will. There comes a day when I decide to take a break and suddenly it's weeks later and the cards are gathering dust along with my motivation. The funny thing is that a large percentage of the cards in the review pile don't really need to be reviewed. I've already memorized them, but separating them from the smaller percentage of cards that I don't know so well and DO need to review is a chore.
It would have been much more wise of me to put the review cards into separate piles based on how well I've memorized them as I learn them. Then I could devote review days to the cards that I don't know so well. I could also constantly place the cards into appropriate piles based on how well I know them during the review day. This would be a much more efficient use of my daily study time as I would be able to focus on new cards as well as cards I don't know well enough yet. The cards I've learned thoroughly could sit and gather dust only to be reviewed occasionally.
Well, that is essentially the feature we're releasing to you today. It's a Spaced Repetition System based on the Leitner Cardbox System.
Every day you study a new set of kanji and/or vocabulary. Just use the Search Form to find the cards you want to study. As you go through answering them we'll record your answers. Every card you answer incorrectly will be automatically put into your first SRS Bucket. These are the cards you'll need to review every day. Every card you answer correctly will, however, be placed into your second SRS Bucket, which is to be reviewed every other day.
All in all you have five buckets.
When you review a bucket every card you answer correctly will be moved up a bucket and every card you answer incorrectly will be moved down a bucket. We'll be timing your answers too, so if you know the card really well it will move up two buckets. If you have a really hard time remembering it we'll move it down two buckets at once.
Every time you login the system will present you with a quick schedule telling you which buckets need to be reviewed today and which buckets you need to review soon. You can review your buckets as often as you like but the cards in them will only be moved on, or after, the scheduled review day. We will also, only mark the bucket as reviewed on, or after, the scheduled day.
Bucket 1 will always contain at least 30 cards. The system will automatically fill it with extra cards that you haven't already studied, so to get started using our Spaced Repetition system all you need to do is start reviewing your first SRS bucket.
If you would rather fill your first SRS bucket with specific flash cards just use the Search Form to find the cards you want to start with. Each one you answer will be automatically placed into either bucket 1 or bucket 2.
The next step is simple: Come back and use the system every day!
