[lojban-beginners] Re: Continuing with beginner vocabulary tools ...

[Chris Capel <pdf23ds@gmail.com>]

On 9/22/05, Colin Wright <colin.wright@denbridgemarine.com> wrote:
> > Considering that you want a reduced set of flashcards, you definitely
> > don't want to demand that rafsi be memorized.
>
> My thought has been that one card giving only english->lojban reviewed every
> day is about the same work as two cards, one for each direction, reviewed
> every other day.  Each card has the same idea but in a different direction,
> so I wonder if "two cards half as often" is a better solution.

I asked the Supermemo help about this very question, and they said
that in general having both directions isn't necessary and ends up
being more work for you than you'd want.

> Perhaps for each gismu there should be 10 cards, and that the initial review
> period is set to 5 days for each card.

Ack! I can't really explain succinctly why this is a bad idea, but my
experience with Supermemo has shown that this sort of approach is
probably very wrong. You'd be much better off spending the extra time
you save from not having as many flashcards in reading lojban or
translating things into lojban.

Alternatively, you could look into branching out into other ways of
reinforcing the gismu that provide a more natural context for the
word. For instance, you could use the gismu in a short example bridi
and convert that into three or four items. The more of your brain your
items use, the more interconnected your knowledge of lojban will be,
and the easier you'll find it to actually *use* the language.

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)