Subject: Re: [lojban] Lojban in 12 weeks?

From: Robert LeChevalier <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 03 Oct 2002 19:09:58 -0400

At 10:25 PM 10/3/02 +0100, poldenet wrote:
>I have been using the Logflash program from 17th June until 25th September 
>up to the end of Gaining Control Mode. I used the program pretty much 
>daily, averaging about 45 minutes to an hour a day throughout this period 
>of 101 days. I therefore estimate that I have spent perhaps 76 to 101 
>hours using Logflash. When I started out learning the Lojban gismu I set 
>myself two targets: firstly to achieve 50% recognition and recall within 3 
>months, and then to achieve 90% recognition and recall within 6 months. I 
>tested myself on 17th September, by which time I had completed the New 
>Words mode and was more than half way through the Gaining Control Mode. I 
>scored 57% on recognition and 53% on recall, with no special preparation 
>other than the Logflash work I had been doing anyway.
>Bob implied I think that the Under Control phase under Gaining Control 
>mode were a kind of ongoing test of overall progress (apologies if this is 
>not the case). However I didn't get that impression while doing the work, 
>as it seemed to me that the gismu given for recall in the Under Control 
>phase were mostly from the most recent sessions, with only a handful from 
>further back.

That is correct - actually they are from about 5 sessions earlier, with a 
random sampling of others. I look at Under Control Lessons from AFTER all 
new words are completed to get an idea of overall progress (The best 
approach is to go into maintenance mode and randomly regroup the words).

> So although I was regularly remembering 80% plus of the Under Control 
> words, I think this gave a somewhat inflated impression of my real 
> ability, as the test on 17th September indicated.

Yes. However a 53% recall is pretty good for a single pass (indeed I am 
surprised that it was anywhere near as high as your recognition scores).

The pattern we've seen in several users is that each time through the 
words, the error rate is cut in half (and because of the increased speed, 
you can up-to-double the size of the lessons with each regrouping - by the 
time I was up to 97% Under Control, I was doing 250 word lessons in 
approximately 10 minutes, making a half dozen errors. I regularly did 750 
words a day for the last week I used the program).

The main problem with my time estimates is that we had no idea what would 
happen with New Words mode, which was not originally a part of the 
algorithm. People used to start in Gaining Control Mode, and a significant 
number of them were not using the program daily, or were using 10 word 
lessons to keep the time per day small. At 10 word lessons, it would take 
more than 4 months to complete the first pass through the words, by which 
time they will have forgotten the words from the beginning and we decided 
that New Word mode, without Recall, might encourage people to choose a 
larger lesson size and thus get through the words at least twice as fast, 
followed by a more rapid progress through Gaining Control. Unfortunately 
with all the variables we let you control, people are using LogFlash in too 
many different ways to predict the time too accurately. I'm inclined to 
think that New Word mode is a waste for people who plan like you did to 
systematically master the words in a limited time and who can actually put 
in the hour a day.

>I have stopped using Logflash now, at least for the time being, as I want 
>to try other ways of consolidating the vocabulary, partly by actively 
>using the language, and also learning the gismu by topic using the 
>thesaurus file worked out by Yevgeni Sklyanin. In any case I will send 
>the log files to Bob if they are useful.

All files are useful, if only for such questions as Nick asked.

lojbab

-- 
lojbab [email-masked]
Bob LeChevalier, President, The Logical Language Group, Inc.
2904 Beau Lane, Fairfax VA 22031-1303 USA 703-385-0273
Artificial language Loglan/Lojban: http://www.lojban.org