At the moment I’m focusing on improving my Russian and Czech, and am trying to keep my other languages ticking over. I’ve starting using Anki to store and learn words and phrases, and am finding it very useful. For words that can be visually represented, I use pictures rather than translations on the flash cards – an idea from Gabriel Wyner’s book Fluent Forever. For other words and phrases I use English translations. I’ve briefly dabbled with SRS programs like Anki before, but never really gave them much time. Now I’m starting to see how useful and effective they can be, especially if you make your own lists, rather than relying on those made by others.
Another way I’m using to help me remember words is to learn the equivalent signs from the appropriate sign language, which I find in the Spread The Sign multilingual sign language dictionary. So I’m learning Czech words and Czech Sign Language signs, and so on. This gives me gestures I can link to the spoken and written words, and I hope it will help me to remember them.
Do you use Anki or other SRS / flash card programs? Do you find them useful?
I’ve been using Anki for a couple of years now and I really like it, I think it’s probably the most effective vocabularly learning technique I’ve come across. Can I ask what your preferred method is, if not SRS?
Normally I do a lot of listening and reading and just try to absorb the vocabulary. For any words I really want to memorise I use associations, and/or look into their etymology. This way usually enables me to understand languages quite well, but I find it more difficult to use them in conversations and in writing. I think the process of making the flashcards / decks actually helps you to remember the words, as does using the SRS. So it seems better to make your own decks rather than to use ready-made ones.