When learning languages, or anything else that requires rote learning and memorisation, using flashcards is a tried and tested method. Flashcards are quite simple, they are simply, well, cards with a question on one side and the answer on the other. For learning languages, it can have an English word on one side, and the Ukrainian word on the other. You have a deck of these, and pull cards randomly, look at the question side, try to answer it and then flip it over.
There are two advantages with using flashcards this way. First of all they are based on the idea of repetition, which, as we know, is a necessity for learning. They are also based on you first trying to give the answer, and this is something crucial. There are studies that have shown that the act of trying to remember and recall something is crucial for learning. In other words, it’s not always enough to just read something over and over to learn it, you need to practice recalling it from your memory.
Of course you can do all this with index cards or pieces of paper, but there is also digital tools for that. One of these is an open source program called Anki. Anki is simply a program where you can enter your own decks of flash cards. You can then choose one of these decks, and the cards are shown one after the other.
One thing that Anki does, that is trickier to do with an analog deck, is that it uses a nifty algorithm to determine when a certain card should appear. If you have more trouble with a card, it appears more often, whereas cards that you answer correctly often will be shown with longer time intervalls.
Another advantage is that there is different types of cards, and that you can add cards in bulk, by importing text files.
Anki is one of my main tools for learning, not only for vocabulary, but I have also decks with grammar questions for instance. I can recommend it strongly, for me it has made a big difference. My plan is to write more about Anki and how I use it in upcoming posts, stay tuned!
Anki is also open-source, and free to download for Windows, Mac and Linux. There is also an app-version for smartphones, which isn’t free (I think it is 29.99$). This is to support the development of Anki, and because it’s not free to put up apps on the different App Stores.
Link: Webpage of Anki