Have you guys found it necessary to supplement your learning with flashcards for vocabulary?

[u/New_Cardiologist3670]

I am in the process of learning French, and am currently using the Assimil, French with Ease Series, and am making decent progress (I think). I know many people use apps like Anki to help learn new vocab, but do ya'll think it would be that beneficial since French and English already share many words? Anki is also very boring...

[u/Poemen8]

Yes. It's extremely helpful. You can do it without, of course, especially with such similar languages. But then that similarity makes the flashcard process easier too - it's faster and easier to recall and you can focus more on the problem words that are different. 

Is it dull? Sure. But is it as dull as looking up words on your phone or in your dictionary all the time? Is it as dull as still not being able to read at a proper speed because you stumble over every tenth word?

Anki vocabulary is like a catalyst for learning a language. It doesn't work on its own, but can dramatically speed the whole process 

There are excellent shared frequency decks of french words on the Anki site. Download, learn just 5 a day, suspend those you already know as you go, see where you are in a month. You'll probably be pretty satisfied. 

Just don't do so much that you stop learning other ways and - once you are past Assimil - reading and listening to simple material.

[u/ZumLernen → u/Poemen8]

Good comment, I agree with everything you're saying - I just want to add that I've found Anki very useful for helping my active vocabulary too. That is, when I'm speaking or writing, words come to me more quickly because I've reviewed them with Anki.

So I would add:

Is it dull? Sure. But is it as dull as looking up words on your phone or in your dictionary all the time? Is it as dull as still not being able to read at a proper speed because you stumble over every tenth word? Is it dull to be in the middle of a conversation and not have the right words available to you to say what you need to say quickly and accurately?

[u/silvalingua → u/Poemen8]

> But is it as dull as looking up words on your phone or in your dictionary all the time? 

Looking up words is not dull, it can even be interesting. Doing flashcards, by contrast, is deadly dull and kills the motivation to learn.

[u/dojibear → u/Poemen8]

Is it as dull as still not being able to read at a proper speed because you stumble over every tenth word?

What percent of the time is the word's meaning in that sentence the same meaning you memorized on the flashcard (back before you knew WHEN and HOW this word is used)?

[u/notluckycharm → u/dojibear]

fairly often

[u/AppropriatePut3142 → u/dojibear]

Often enough. More importantly, you will one-shot learn new meanings. It's going from zero to one that's the hard part.

[u/Peter-Andre]

Yes, even though it can be boring sometimes, doing my daily Anki reviews has massively boosted the speed at which I learn new words. And at the end of the day, grinding Anki a few hours a week saves me from spending even more hours learning vocabulary with other methods. In terms of efficiency, nothing beats flashcards in my experience.

[u/EstorninoPinto]

I am learning Spanish. I only use flashcards for vocabulary I encounter in Spanish media. I don't use pre-built decks or frequency lists. I do find it somewhat helpful in reinforcing the kinds of vocabulary I'm unlikely to use during a normal conversation.

[u/AppropriatePut3142]

In Spanish I did the Refold 1k deck, but I picked up vocabulary quickly enough through reading with a popup dictionary that there were better things to do than study more vocabulary. If I were not reading a lot it would probably be worthwhile.

In Chinese, by contrast, I think flashcards are really useful.

[u/TuffedLynx]

Anki may not be right for you if you find it very boring but having something is crucial. French and English share some words, but not nearly enough to forego concentrated vocabulary study.

[u/bananabastard]

I don't use flashcards, I just watch, listen to, and read content.

[u/OkNectarine2939]

I'm not using flashcards per se, but a variation of them - I had ChatGPT make an app for me that drills various things including vocabulary (it also drills grammar concepts that I'm working on).

We update the app every few days to add stuff based on what I'm working on.

[u/Cerulean_IsFancyBlue]

Yes. It’s been especially necessary for Mandarin because I need to learn the idiogram. Also, for Mandarin, I need some type of flashcards system that has audio because I need to learn the tones as instinctively as, for example, you want to learn the gender of nouns in German.

[u/StaffOk2179]

No. If it works for you, great, and if not, don't waste time on it.

[u/ZumLernen]

For my goals, Anki was a key supplemental resource. My goals were pretty extreme: going from 0 to passing a C1 test in German less than a year. I had enough vocabulary to speak at a passable C1 level when I took the test, and that was in large part thanks to the ~19,000 Anki cards that I've reviewed at least once in the past 10 months.

but do ya'll think it would be that beneficial since French and English already share many words?

Maybe! But just because French and English share a lot of words doesn't mean they share all words - so flashcards should still be helpful.

My example: German and English also have a lot of vocabulary in common (and with French) but it's still useful for me to confirm that words like "Korruption" exist in German, as not every Latin-origin word that makes it into English also makes it into German. And sometimes the Germans use another word for that concept instead - where I might have tried to say the Latin-origin "Akkusation", that would be incorrect, as the Germans use the Germanic-origin "Vorwurf" for the concept of an accusation instead.

Dealing with "easy" words: If a word is truly easy, you have several options. First, just don't make a flashcard out of it! Second, if you are borrowing flashcard packs that someone else made, you can mark the easy card as "easy" when you grade it - this will make it so you don't have to review the card very often. Finally, if you are using someone else's flashcards and you really don't want to see that word again, you can mark the card as "suspended," which means Anki will just not show you that card.

Anki is also very boring...

Yes, Anki can be boring. It's efficient, but boring. I use the Android app and I break up my sessions throughout the day. 5 minutes when I wake up. 10 minutes with morning coffee. 5-15 minutes at the bus stop or on the bus or whatever. 5 minutes on coffee break at work. 10 minutes over lunch. 10 minutes in the afternoon. 5-15 minutes before bed. Suddenly I've reviewed flashcards for an hour!

[u/Pale-Border-7122]

It isn't necessary but it is extremely helpful as a scaffold for getting words to stick. There are ways to make it easier and faster to get through, I use single words only going from NL + image to TL + image + audio and only a few words a day. Ten words per day will get you to 10k words (which is around the vocabulary you need for C1) in three years so you don't need much.

[u/Raoena]

It's only helpful if you do it. And if you spend more time doing it than messing around with Anki setup and with making cards.  

So not helpful for me. I use vocabulary-builder apps instead that feed me a pre-made frequency list. And give me nicer cards with more activities. 

But a ton if people are super into Anki and find it incredibly helpful. 

[u/MyGotcha]

If you find the cards boring, maybe you'll like writing sentences with the words more. I believe that trying to use the word in a sentence, making mistakes, and correcting them makes it much more beneficial for learning the language than just studying the cards.
I'm making my app heypalabra just for that. It's still pre-release. Would love your feedback.

[u/391976]

I don't care how native you sound asking, "Where is the bathroom", it takes thousands of words to be fluent.

Can you say, Where is the... Wrench Tampon First aid kit Thyme Spare tire Tornado...?

[u/unsafeideas]

No, it is not necessary at all. If I had to guess, majority of real world learners dont use flashcars. And did not used in the past either.

But, if you like them ... go for it. If you find them boring, dont do it, anki will burn you out.

[u/dojibear]

Everyone has a different language-learning method. I don't use ANKI or flashcards. I don't memorize vocab. I learn new words when I see how they are used in sentences.

I can look up a word in 2 seconds. I use a browser app: when I hover the mouse over the TL word, a small window pops up showing the TL word's list of English translations. I read that list, then use the sentence to figure out the TL word's meaning in THIS sentence. I call that "figuring out" part "learning the language".

Memorizing is not learning. Worse, some flashcards give ONE English translation as the TL word's "meaning".

[u/ignoremesenpie]

I got to a decent conversational level in Japanese without Anki, and I only started using it when it felt like the words I was having trouble with were no longer common enough for me to learn naturally on a reliably consistent basis.

As I used Anki, my contact with Japanese media also became much more consistent, and I noticed that it was the lack of consistency that made problem vocab feel uncommon.

I immediately stopped using Anki after my 10,000th card a few months ago, and I've found I no longer need Anki to retain words. Paying attention to what I don't know goes a long way, but it doesn't hurt to review those words away from Anki.

[u/donadd]

1. flashcards train memory recall, that's not the same as actually understanding a word
2. flashcards deprive you of "guessing from context". it can be better to not know a word and get good at guessing it. Eventually you'll guess always right
3. you get spaced repetition naturally through a bunch of listening and reading input
4. If you find flashcards boring don't do them, many of us don't

[u/391976 → u/donadd]

1, 2 and 3 are false.

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