From lojban-out@lojban.org Sat Jan 01 22:46:05 2005 Return-Path: X-Sender: lojban-out@lojban.org X-Apparently-To: lojban@yahoogroups.com Received: (qmail 61349 invoked from network); 2 Jan 2005 06:46:05 -0000 Received: from unknown (66.218.66.167) by m7.grp.scd.yahoo.com with QMQP; 2 Jan 2005 06:46:05 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO chain.digitalkingdom.org) (64.81.49.134) by mta6.grp.scd.yahoo.com with SMTP; 2 Jan 2005 06:46:04 -0000 Received: from lojban-out by chain.digitalkingdom.org with local (Exim 4.34) id 1CkzV5-0005fN-WE for lojban@yahoogroups.com; Sat, 01 Jan 2005 22:46:04 -0800 Received: from chain.digitalkingdom.org ([64.81.49.134]) by chain.digitalkingdom.org with esmtp (Exim 4.34) id 1CkzUV-0005eu-7H; Sat, 01 Jan 2005 22:45:27 -0800 Received: with ECARTIS (v1.0.0; list lojban-list); Sat, 01 Jan 2005 22:45:24 -0800 (PST) Received: from wproxy.gmail.com ([64.233.184.202]) by chain.digitalkingdom.org with esmtp (Exim 4.34) id 1CkzUJ-0005ei-Se for lojban-list@chain.digitalkingdom.org; Sat, 01 Jan 2005 22:45:16 -0800 Received: by wproxy.gmail.com with SMTP id 71so1181700wra for ; Sat, 01 Jan 2005 22:44:44 -0800 (PST) DomainKey-Signature: a=rsa-sha1; q=dns; c=nofws; s=beta; d=gmail.com; h=received:message-id:date:from:reply-to:to:subject:mime-version:content-type:content-transfer-encoding; b=bckoUIK4hXQoRD14YGUIlX26gR7Y3sSTcO/u/weihqOAQLIpTJBVhGjyTFelhlLJQK11ytBysWGdQfT1B0XIxxlfJPmR4TzqJJLfKUxAtRNBvhoayTB797Pi5V8IFQR2EwirjaU95FX8opyBWz6xwMHCLiCvywYS2Mbc/MgSQrc= Received: by 10.54.33.14 with SMTP id g14mr214727wrg; Sat, 01 Jan 2005 22:44:44 -0800 (PST) Received: by 10.54.15.62 with HTTP; Sat, 1 Jan 2005 22:44:44 -0800 (PST) Message-ID: <737b61f305010122443341ba89@mail.gmail.com> Date: Sun, 2 Jan 2005 00:44:44 -0600 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII X-archive-position: 9143 X-ecartis-version: Ecartis v1.0.0 Sender: lojban-list-bounce@lojban.org Errors-to: lojban-list-bounce@lojban.org X-original-sender: pdf23ds@gmail.com X-list: lojban-list To: lojban@yahoogroups.com X-eGroups-Remote-IP: 64.81.49.134 X-eGroups-From: Chris Capel From: Chris Capel Reply-To: pdf23ds@gmail.com Subject: [lojban] Learning vocabulary X-Yahoo-Group-Post: member; u=116389790 X-Yahoo-Profile: lojban_out X-Yahoo-Message-Num: 23539 Hi everyone, I'm interested in learning Lojban. However, I find the age, the platform, and even the approach of the current LogFlash program to be rather unappealing. There has been a lot of effort put into solving memorization in general, and I think it would be better to take advantage of that effort by using a program such as SuperMemo or MemAid (free software, multi-platform) and simply provide the appropriate items as raw data for these programs. I would be willing to work on providing a list of items, but I'd like the input of the group before I start. There are several considerations. First, it's necessary to understand the general approach of Supermemo-type programs to learning. In these programs, each individual piece of knowledge is completely independent of all others. Each time an item is reviewed, it is rescheduled for review at a later date. The interval is based solely on how difficult the item is for the user (how well they've scored on that item in the past) and what the previous scheduling intervals were. Using this information, the program tries to estimate the current forgetting curve (see http://memaid.sourceforge.net/docs/repetitions.html) and schedule the item optimally. New items are introduced gradually, at a pace determined by the user. Next, each item in these programs consists of two parts--a "question" and an "answer", which can be any text. The question is shown to the user, the user is prompted to confirm, the answer is shown, and the user grades him- or herself. If the user wishes, they can provide themselves with additional forms of sensory reinforcement, such as repeating the answer out loud, or typing it on the keytops. Fitting knowledge of lojban into the question/answer format shouldn't be too difficult, but it would be quite different than items in LogFlash. First, because of the approach of the method, it would be best to separate each brivla (and perhaps selbri needing separate definition) into many different items. One way to do this is to have one item for the overall "sense" of the selbri (it would include the place order, but the user wouldn't grade themselves as hard on it), and one item for each place of the selbri. For place items, the question would be composed of the selbri along with the FA cmavo indicating the place in question. This has the additional advantage of directly teaching the correct FA word for that place for that selbri, instead of knowing the place's order in the selbri and having to also think up the FA cmavo for that place, as would happen when you simply memorize the places in the "x1 goes to x2 via x3" form. Each item would probably need to be included twice, once with the question and answer reversed. This could be made less monotonous by staggering the introduction of the different items pertaining to a word in the new word list, so that the lojban/english item is introduced first, followed by place items, followed by english/lojban, followed by rafsi and reversed place. So it could take weeks to introduce all the items for a single word. Cmavo may be more difficult to formulate questions for. For one, they often have no useful gloss. For another, they often have difficult definitions, and true understanding only comes with examples and practice, and a knowledge of the overall organization of the cmavo groups. I think introductions to the cmavo are best left to other pedagogical tools, but a good way to practice them would be to have a number of examples (one per item) in English and their lojban equivalents for the question and answer. Again, these could be reversed for additional practice. Rafsi could be learned by simply having the gismu as the question and its various rafsi as the answer. Are there any other language elements that would be suited to a memory program that I'm missing? Next, I think it's important to allow people to learn the vocabulary bits at a time. For that, it's necessary to have some sort of taxonomy and provide lists of words in each category. There could also be a list (or two--level 1 and 2) including a basic core of all of the most frequently used words, and from there other groups would build. There could be a group with computer science words, and a group with practical living words, and a group with "academic" words (the kind used in philosophy and other non-fictional exposition), and so on. There could be an 'eclectic' group. Of course, there's no reason not to include an item in multiple groups. A user could simply ignore those that they have already learned when adding new groups. Finally, I think it's important that brivla/selbri lists include lujvo as well as gismo, from the beginning. They can be told apart by spelling, and a lojban word list ordered by frequency of use would include hundreds or thousands of lujvo before it included 90% of the gismu (I'm guessing), so having all the gismu be learnt first seems really silly to me. Of course, this assumes that there are enough established lujvo to be included in such a list. For completeness (and for the rafsi knowledge) there could be one vocabulary group including all the miscellaneous gismu, with rafsi, not in the basic groups, though they might be duplicated in the advanced groups. The core basic group is the most essential. Mastery of it would give a person with some grammar knowledge the ability to hold basic conversations in lojban, and to read text with the help of a dictionary. Thereafter they would be free to continue their education through other methods, with much less resistance than they would have had before. It might also, if translated, give people the ability to continue to learn lojban in the absence of many dictionary definitions or tutorials in their native language, allowing them to "bootstrap" into a knowledge of lojban with relatively little translation effort required to make it possible. (This aspect is also somewhat important to me, personally.) I'm willing to do as much as I can in my spare time to see this happen. However, in interests of conserving resources, it might be wise to somehow make this part of the jbovlaste project. Some items may be able to be generated automatically (or mostly so) from jbovlaste data, and many other items (probably most) will be straightforward rearrangements of parts of the word's definition. I can also provide programming if existing memorization programs fail to meet the needs of lojban pedagogy. As an excellent learning program, including tutorials, references, and vocabulary tools, is essential for the growth of lojban, I think this project, if it doesn't have any flaws I don't see immediately, will be worthwhile. I think a first step would be to identify a list of words and cmavo examples as candidates for inclusion in a basic-level word list. I could go through the gismu myself, but on cmavo and lujvo, I'm afraid I wouldn't be much use. Chris Capel -- "What is it like to be a bat? What is it like to bat a bee? What is it like to be a bee being batted? What is it like to be a batted bee?" -- The Mind's I (Hofstadter, Dennet)