On 30 Jul 2009, at 22:57, querido <[email protected]> wrote:
> > > I see wǒ 我 and rén 人 a hundred times every day! I feel safe assumi > ng > that as long as hundreds of sentence-cards (with audio by the way) are > present which contain these characters, I may prune them. (The Author, > above, used this word; I wasn't even considering it.) The task then is > to develop some reliable rule to govern this. Then, optionally > *automating* the action of the rule led me to the ideas I wanted to > post. In these cases, you would rate the card with the maximum score repeatedly such that the intervals increase rapidly - this is almost equivalent to automatically pruning them (e.g. In my deck, words like 人 and 是 were assigned intervals of a few years very quickly - they are, for all practical purposes, pruned, by virtue of the rapidly increasing long intervals and short answer time). However the idea of zooming out to higher knowledge abstraction levels as the 'atomic' cards become well-learned is very interesting, although it certainly seems like a difficult and topic-specific task that is beyond the scope of current SRS systems which require little information from the user and usually ignore the card contents completely. Oisín > > On Jul 25, 8:46 pm, Ben <[email protected]> wrote: >> Thanks, this is an interesting email. I agree with your thoughts >> that I quoted below. I think a program like Mnemosyne seems pretty >> optimal if your goal is, for the rest of your life, to be able to >> recall a fact at random in a few seconds from your deck. For >> languages, this may fit real life very well---you never know when >> you will run across some word and you want to be to recall the >> meaning in a few seconds. >> >> However, this context-free benchmark may not appropriate for some >> other knowledge. For instance, suppose I wanted to remember linear/ >> abstract algebra for the rest of my life well enough that, should I >> run across a paper that uses basic linear algebra, I could spend 10 >> minutes reviewing and be able to understand the paper. This is >> different from being able to remember in a few seconds the >> definition of a "homology" or whatever. >> >> This isn't a complaint about Mnemosyne of course, I'm just agreeing >> that a card-based system may not be the ultimate answer to >> retaining all knowledge and skills. >> >> -- >> Ben >> >> ----------------- Original message ----------------- >> From: querido <[email protected]> >> To: mnemosyne-proj-users <[email protected]> >> Date: Fri, 24 Jul 2009 16:40:07 -0700 (PDT) >> >> ... >> 1. One resists the idea of pruning cards, but after thinking about it >> I have found a good rationale (not proof). Some have opined that at >> very short intervals, beginning from the first glance at a fact, >> flashcards are not yet the ideal tool, that one should first learn >> the >> fact to some (arguable) degree. (I agree, without knowing how well >> that should be. I've tried stretching this out as long as eight days, >> memorizing material before flashcarding it for retention-only. An >> ideal is probably in there somewhere.) Now, similarly, maybe the >> single-fact, atomized-data style flashcard system becomes non-ideal >> again at long intervals too. For example, one of my earlier Chinese >> textbooks broke down into 900 flashcards total, which are still in >> mnemosyne. I can now read, aloud or not, this book fairly rapidly, >> and >> understand its audio. So, reading or listening I zoom over hundreds >> of >> "atoms", all nicely connected with context and grammar, etc.- real >> language. At some point, it might be a good idea to prune all 900 >> cards and make a "review scheduling style" card maybe like this: >> Front- "read Modern Chinese Reader aloud" Back- "Did you know >> (almost) >> everything?" (Where "almost everything" concedes that your brain is >> not a machine, after all; we all have a standard, and compromise on >> "perfection" for the sake of just carrying on living and learning.) I >> now intend to do this when I get around to it. (By the way, this >> would >> make it even more important that you're learning from something >> cohesive, like a book with lots of context, *so that* you could later >> prune all of the cards, knowing you can still hold them all securely >> in one hand.) >> I had thought that once cards were known perfectly well that each >> card >> would become sufficiently effortless. It doesn't; it is still many >> times harder than flying over that same fact in context while reading >> or listening. (You could prove that.) I had also thought that once >> they were promoted far enough, they would practically disappear. >> Well, >> your testimony above confirms my impression that they don't, quite >> well enough. This is what motivated me to think about this again. >> ... >> >> > > --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "mnemosyne-proj-users" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/mnemosyne-proj-users?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
