SRS Flashcard Program Launched Today!
When Natalie and I decided to build Lenguajero one of the goals we had was to build an online SRS system for Spanish and English learners. We are happy to announce that our SRS system has been built, and is now available for free to all Lenguajero members.
What is a Spaced Repetition System and why should I use one?
A spaced repetition system (SRS) is a learning program that schedules what material you need to study, and when you need to study it, so that over time the material becomes incorporated into your long term memory. That is, you will be able to recall the material instantly.
Lenguajero’s SRS program is designed for Spanish and English learners who want to expand their vocabulary, and improve the speed at which they recall words or phrases.
Lenguajero’s SRS program allows you to add either pre-existing flashcard sets to your personal deck of cards, and/or create your own sets. We currently offer many standard flashcard sets, which cover a lot of basic Spanish and English vocabulary. The majority of the cards focus on learning new words, but we also include two sets of basic phrases to help you start memorizing phrases as well as words. If you are an advanced learner, and these flashcard sets are too basic for you, just create and save your own custom sets.
How do I use Lenguajero’s Spaced Repetition System?
Our flashcard system let’s you grade how well you know words and phrases on a scale of 0-5. The program then remembers these grades, and schedules when the next time you need to see a word or phrase will be. The lower the number the more frequently you will need to see a card. Our grading system works like this:
0 — I don’t know what the answer is.
1 — I don’t know the answer, but it is familiar.
2 — I know it today, but I probably will forget it tomorrow.
3 — I know it, but it took me a few seconds to remember.
4 — I know it, but it took a 1-2 seconds to remember.
5 — I know it like the back of my hand.
After you use the program for the first time you will notice that each time you visit the program you will have flashcards scheduled for your review. Once you have reviewed all of your scheduled cards you can choose to continue learning unmemorized cards, or you can call it a day.
Tips on using Lenguajero’s SRS flashcard program
1. Study your cards every day. It makes a big difference!
2. Add words AND phrases. Studying words is a great way to increase your vocabulary, but adding phrases will really help you improve your speaking ability.
3. Add corrections from your writing assignments. When you write about a topic in the writing club you will receive feedback from other users. Make sure that you add these corrections to your custom set by clicking the “Add A Card button in the bottom right corner of the screen.”
Is there some reason you used 5 different categories for the cards? It seems pretty typical of SRS programs to include 5 categories and I wonder if it is just a best practice.
Hey Mike,
The idea of having 5 choices (actually we do 0-5 so that is 6) is for variability. The idea is to space when you see cards based on how well you know them. The more choices there are for selecting how well you know something, the more refined the schedule of when you need to see a certain card will be.
Dear August,
Yeah, you are right 6 choices is right. Boy did I miss that.
I don’t mean to pick a fight but as I look at the choices I wonder if you aren’t making a mountain out of a molehill with questions 3 and 4?
Also, how does someone predict (#2) not knowing something in the future that they know now? What does one base your decision on? The length of time it takes to remember something (which is already covered in 3-4)?
Aren’t there only four real choices (given that the natural language too describe this is kind of sloppy):
1. I don’t know it.
2. I don’t know it, but it seems familiar
3. I needed some time to remember it
4. I remembered it immediately
Hey Mike,
I see your point here, actually I am in favor of changing our algorithm so that we have five choices. I’m not a big fan of 0-5. I think it should be 1-5. This is something that we intend to do in the near future.
As it stands the reason for having the 0-5 is that we modeled our program off of another very popular SRS program called Mnemosyne. Since we wanted to launch our program as quickly as possible it was quicker to model our algorithm on theirs than to build our own from scratch.
The way I view #2 is something like this, I either missed the word/phrase on my first pass, so no I have seen it twice. I know it this second time, but that is based on seeing it 10 minutes before. I therefore probably won’t remember it again unless I see it really soon.
Thanks for the feedback on this post. It is greatly appreciated. Let me know if you have any other ideas on how we could improve the program.
Interesting. What categories does Mnemosyne ask the user to respond to? I wonder if they created the categories to fit the algorithm or the other way around. I can see the advantage of having more categories to work with (from a statistical point of view) but in terms of simplicity and the ability of the user to clearly understand the categories I think less is more.
As I look at many of these SRS programs I can’t help thinking they were created for someone with a “technical programming background” not someone with a very simple understanding of memory.
I think if you’d ask most people, they would put memories into three groups.
1. The unknown
2. The vague
3. The well known
and unfortunately, as has been shown, the last group (#3) is unreliable.