I think many of us have created flashcards for various subjects. To memorize new words in a foreign language, many people make cards, on one side of which the word is written, and on the other, its translation. Perhaps you made such cards on geography, and wrote the names of states on one side, and the names of capitals on the other. Or in history, when on one side it was important historical event, and on the other - its date. It is possible that you carried such cards in your pocket, or left them on your bedside table to look through before going to bed.

The services mentioned in this article allow you to create such cards, only in electronic form. They also have additional functions: use cards created by other users; share your cards with other users; add images or audio to cards; work with cards using mobile devices. Online cards can not only be flipped, but also shuffled and combined into groups.

How to use online flashcards in teaching?

• Students can create flashcards on given topics.
• The teacher can create flashcards for students.
• Students can share the created cards with each other.

Before you ask your students to make flashcards, you should familiarize them with all the features of the program you plan to use, as well as create several sets of flashcards as a reference.

Quizlet is a learning flashcard service that lets you:

• create your own cards by adding pictures and audio files to them,
• search for cards created by other teachers,
• embed cards on the site, and share them on social networks,
• print cards,
• adjust the visibility of cards (only for you, for everyone, by password, a certain class).

With Quizlet, you can create flashcards for a variety of subjects, but it seems to me that the service will be especially useful for teachers foreign languages, especially considering that the audio is available in 18 languages.

Both teachers and students can use the basic features of Quizlet for free.

You can purchase one of the premium versions, for students - for $15 per year, for teachers - for $25 per year.

A detailed article on Quizlet can be found.

StudyBlue

StudyBlue allows you to create study cards using a combination of text, voice and images.

You can either turn the cards over to see if you answered correctly, or turn a set of cards into an online test or printout. When re-studying the cards, you can work with the entire set at once, or select only those cards in which you made a mistake.

When you create cards, you can see hints in the margins - variants of cards with the same word created by other users. This is very convenient, since the use of ready-made formulations allows you to create your own materials very quickly.

Basic features are available for free, there is a premium version for $84 per year.

When I first saw Anki a couple of years ago, I was absolutely delighted, including the fact that there is an opportunity to download collaborative decks. However, later it turned out that those decks that were in the public domain were, to put it mildly, "bad". Everyone advised me to make my own, in principle I did and do, but at the moment I went back to that list of public decks and was pleasantly surprised - there were lovely decks that will be very useful to use. Here are the main ones (I will go in descending order of popularity):

1.Title: Advanced English Vocabulary - 2000 Sentences
Commentary: language english vocabulary
Size: 441.70 Kb
Advanced English vocabulary - words, phrases, idioms & phrasal verbs.
All items with example sentences.

At their core, these are quite rare words, but they are made in a very good way - as missing words in a sentence, and a hint about its meaning. In fact, I think this is the standard - this is how all Anki dictionaries should be formatted. The context and meaning of the word is clearly visible here. It is a pity that the words are quite rare.

Card examples:

2. Name: English Word Frequency 1/4 (00001-10000)
Comment: English
Size: 771.67 Kb
This is part 1 of 4 English word frequency lists (all together some more than 40000 items). The question contains only the number of ranking - the answer the English expression. You will need to add your own questions in your preferred language and your own sample sentences etc, what should be not too difficult by using the web and online or offline dictionaries. The benefit is to learn words in order of importance for common usage. For experienced learners I recommend deleting all at first sight known words. This approach gives you the chance to check your command at English and to advance it with what you most are in need of.

This, unfortunately, is a "raw" deck, i.e. it cannot be used immediately. However, at least for me, it is quite important - I already have a pretty decent vocabulary, but from time to time I stumble upon a word that I don't know - and this dictionary bridges the gaps in my knowledge. All that is needed is to go through the list of words, immediately remove many known ones, and add phrases and translations to the unknown ones.
Yes, there is a lot of work here, but the deck will turn out to be of very high quality and your knowledge will finally become completely complete.

Card examples:

3. Title: English Phrasal Verbs with Sentences
Commentary: english, phrasal verbs
Size: 142.62 Kb
English Phrasal Verbs with Sentences
how to this deck was building (Russian language): http://nicloay.blogspot.com/2010/10/anki-phrasal-verbs.html

Good vocabulary with stable English phrases, examples and subtexts.

Card examples:

4. Title: Oxford Advanced Learner's Dict En-En: Top 0001-1000
Comment: en_en monolingual english oxford wordlist corpus top en_en monolingual english macmillan wordlist corpus top sentence_mining onami phrases
Size: 18408.26 Kb

This deck contains numerous examples of usage of the most frequent words of English (from 1 to 1000). It was made according to frequency lists such as BNC (British National Corpus), COCA (Corpus of Contemporary American English), Longman 3000, and Paul Nation's one.

* * *
Here are some screenshots of how the cards look like:
http://i.minus.com/ibccVnQscPtpg.PNG
http://i.minus.com/ibr0sy8TX7V0x.PNG
* * *
There are 3 possible layouts:
Q: You look lovely, if I may say so.
A: may /meɪ/ - used as a polite way of making a comment, asking a question, etc.
--------
Q: Go on! Take it! I dare you.
A: dare somebody /der/ - to persuade somebody to do something dangerous, difficult or embarrassing so that they can show that they are not afraid
--------
Q: He must have known what she wanted.
A:
He must have known (= surely he knew) what she wanted.
must /məst/ - used to say that something is likely or logical

My comment: Awesome! Looks like what I need! It really turns out now that in a sentence I don’t know just one or two words. This dictionary should just tell me them. Again, lots of context - easy to learn.
Please note that there are a lot of decks (this is only the first part), in the search for decks, enter "Oxford Advanced Learner" s" to see everything.

Card examples:

Last: Title: Russian-English
Size: 78585.05 Kb
3920 cards "Russian-English" (side "Question" - Russian, "Answer" - English; tag: Standard) and _of_them_ another 3860 cards "English-Russian" were made (mirror image of the sides "Question" - English, "Answer" - Russian, tag:Reverse)
I would not advise using this dictionary - it contains a lot of "Single" words, without context and phrases, so they will be remembered for a very long time.

In this review, I did not include frankly uninteresting soundboards, in which, for example, 800 of the most frequent words, or 300 I don’t understand what words, or hundreds of words, but which have only a translation word (according to this principle, learn English words it is forbidden! I speak from my bitter experience, I did this for a year, I remembered much fewer words than I could.)

Definitions from textbooks, poems, road signs- everything that can be remembered with the help of flashcards, but Anki is most often used for memorizing words. Unlike Quizlet, this program uses a spaced repetition method.

Downloading (creating) decks of cards for Anki

Anki is available for PC and mobile devices. The PC version can be downloaded from the official website. At first, you will have only one empty demo deck named “Default”. To start learning words, you need to create a deck of cards, there are 3 ways to do this (they correspond to 3 buttons at the bottom of the program window).

Method 1: Download a public deck

The simplest, but also the most inefficient option. Click on “Download” and you will be taken to the public decks section of the Anki website. Choose the category you need, find the right set of cards, download and practice.

Anki teaches more than just languages

The problem is that someone created these decks according to his own philosophy and it’s far from a fact that they will suit you. The creators of Anki themselves in the instructions strongly recommend creating cards on their own, customizing them to fit their needs:

“Creating your own deck is the most effective way to learn a complex subject. Subjects like languages ​​and the sciences can’t be understood simply by memorizing facts - they require explanation and context to learn effectively. Furthermore, inputting the information yourself forces you to decide what the key points are, leading to a better understanding.”

“Creating your own sets of cards is the most effective method learning difficult material. Subjects such as languages ​​and the natural sciences cannot be understood simply by memorizing facts - effective learning requires explanation and context. Moreover, when you enter information yourself, you have to choose the most important, which contributes to a better understanding of the material.”

Method 2: Create a deck directly in the program

Click on the “Create Deck” button and add cards one by one. In this mode, there are a lot of opportunities for fine-tuning cards. For example, you can add a field (or several fields), making the card not double-sided, but, as it were, three-sided. For example: word - translation - phrase with this word. Pictures and audio recordings can be attached to the cards.

Anki has a lot of fine-tuning. On the one hand, this expands its capabilities, on the other hand, it makes it difficult to master the program.

Method 3: Import a deck from a file

If you have a file with a list of words that you need to memorize, then you can not hammer them one by one, but import them in one fell swoop. Unfortunately, the program will not be able to digest any list of words, but only “text separated by a tab or semicolon” ​​in UTF-8 encoding. The easiest way to make such a file for import is in the standard Windows Notepad program, the one that creates files with the .txt extension - just remember to save the file in UTF-8 encoding. Words must be in two columns and separated from each other by a tab (Tab key) or a semicolon.

A list of words in an xls table (Excel), for example mine, can also be imported. Copy the two columns of words to a .txt file, save it in UTF-8 encoding, and add it to Anki.

The Spaced Repetition Method in Anki - Learn Words and Don't Forget

Anki uses spaced repetition to learn words. Spaced repetition is a method of effective memorization, its essence is to repeat memorized information at certain intervals (without repetition, it will quickly be forgotten). The length of these gaps depends on how well the material is learned.

I'll explain with an example. You took, say, 30 cards with words, learned them. Words will not be remembered tightly, very soon they will begin to be forgotten. Some words will be remembered better, others worse. Words learned as “excellent” can be repeated in two weeks, learned as “satisfactory” is better to repeat in five days, and those that are memorized as a two should be refreshed in memory the next day.

Now imagine that the learned 30 words need to be sorted according to how well they are remembered in your opinion and repeated at certain intervals. You will just get confused. Moreover, in reality there will be not 30 words, but much more.

Anki itself sorts the words in the right way and gives them out for repetition in strict accordance with a scientifically verified schedule. This is very convenient, you take a deck of cards with words, learn a certain number of cards in one sitting (the default is 20 cards per day) and do not worry about repetition - the program itself will suggest repeating the words at the right time.

The learning process itself looks like this:

1. The program shows one side of the card, you need to remember the answer and click on "Show answer".

Cards can be viewed from language A to language B. To learn words from language B to language A, you need to make an inverted version of the deck.

2. By clicking on “Show answer”, you will see the correct answer, you need to mark how easy you guessed it - “I don’t remember”, “Just right”, “Very easy”. Based on the statistics of your answers, the program will conclude which card and when to show for repetition.

“Very easy” cards will need to be repeated after 4 days. You can change the interval in the settings, but this is for advanced users.

I will also add that in Anki, unlike some other similar programs (for example, Quizlet), there is only one learning mode. Nothing extra.

Is it possible to learn a language with Anki?

Short answer: No.

Long answer: With Anki, you can memorize a lot of foreign words, which is very important in learning a language, but this alone will not allow you to master the language (read, write, communicate).

Here is what the creators of Anki write:

“If you are a language learner, you may be tempted to download a long list of words and their translations, but this won’t teach you a language any more than memorizing scientific equations will teach you astrophysics. To learn properly, you need textbooks, teachers, or exposure to real-world sentences. […] if you attempt to study complex subjects without external material, you will probably meet with disappointing results”

“If you're learning a language, you might be tempted to download a long list of words with translations, but that won't teach you the language any more than memorizing scientific equations can teach you astrophysics. To study properly, you need textbooks, teachers, or real language perception. […] Trying to study a difficult subject without additional materials, you are likely to be disappointed in the result.”

Vocabulary is an important, time-consuming, but not the only side of language learning, it is impossible to fully master the language without devoting some time and effort to grammar and practice in reading, writing, listening, speaking. Moreover, I believe that memorizing lists of words from flashcards is advisable when you are just laying the foundations of vocabulary, taking your first steps in learning a language, or want to pull up some specific vocabulary topic.

Other programs for memorizing words

In fact, programs mobile applications too many words to remember. Many of them are not much different from each other. I will highlight two more, in my opinion, noteworthy services:

1. LinguaLeo.

2.Quizlet

Conclusion

If for some reason you want to memorize quite large sets of words, Anki is an effective solution. Anki is convenient if you want to load words into the program - and let it teach. The program uses the method of spaced repetitions, it will “throw” you the right cards at the right time to securely fix the information in memory. It is also convenient that, having registered in the system, you will get access to your cards both on the PC program and on mobile version, great for casual activities (in traffic, in line, etc.)

Anki (jap. 諳記 - memorization) - computer program for memorizing words, expressions and other information using the memorization technique using spaced repetitions.

The first versions of Anki used the SuperMemo SM5 algorithm. However, according to the authors, it was found that SM3 and newer algorithms, in which, unlike SM2, the answer to one card affects the time of appearance of others similar to it, in fact, have significant drawbacks compared to SM2, in which, when the answer sets the gap only for this card. This is especially noticeable when the program is accessed irregularly. Anki now uses an algorithm based on SM2.

With the help of this program, even the laziest can quickly learn a lot of new words and terms, so after a few weeks of using the Anki program, new words will appear in the user's everyday life, and memorizing necessary information V Everyday life will become easier. The essence of the program is both simple and ingenious - you just need to periodically repeat certain information, and soon this information is successfully assimilated.

In previous versions of Anki, users were asked to memorize only textual information, so only visual memory was trained. Now, lessons with audio recordings and video files are available to users, so you can also train figurative and sound memory. All tasks in the program are divided into special Anki cards Drive depending on their definition, pronunciation and other criteria. All tasks are listed in the database of the program, and you can always download new cards with tasks to further expand your horizons and train your memory.

Also, the Anki program provides the possibility of flexible configuration, so everyone can easily customize the program to suit their needs and abilities. At the same time, the program ensures the most even distribution of questions and tasks so that they do not repeat too often. Sometimes, when answering questions or performing tasks of the program, the user needs to leave. In this case, the program can save the card on which the user stopped. And when he starts the program again, she will offer him to continue completing tasks from the saved place or start a new training session.

Tasks in the Anki program can be divided into two groups - in one, the user is asked to answer the question, and in the other, he needs to give a definition of the proposed word. Thus, the maximum effect of memorizing new words and definitions is achieved. The program allows you to improve your long-term memory, learn how to memorize the necessary information, and add many new words to your vocabulary.

Features of Anki

• Learning languages.
• Preparation for medical and legal exams.
• Increasing geographical knowledge.
• Learning long poems and complex guitar chords.

Anki functions

• The basis of the Anki database (collection), stored in the format, is a list of records (notes; before version 2.0 - “facts”).

Each entry is a set of fields with words, definitions, pronunciations, etc., from which cards are automatically created according to the templates specified in the database. Fields can consist of text with styles, images, sounds (since 0.9.9.6 recording is supported), video (since 0.9.9.8.2) and LaTeX.

• When closing or synchronizing (before version 2.0 - after entering the number of facts specified in the settings or viewing a certain number of cards), a backup copy of the database is saved (without media files).
• Anki can make it so that different cards generated from the same entry (e.g. "picture → word" and "word → image") do not appear in a row (in version 1.x, the time is configurable; since version 2.0.21 they are delayed by default until tomorrow, postponed can be returned in advance).

Available for the user setting and many other variables.

• If an error is made in scoring an answer, the scoring can be cancelled.
• A number of statistics are available in the form of numbers and graphs.
• There are special features for learning Japanese - for example, when entering a kanji in the "question" field, the corresponding furigana can be automatically entered in the "answer" field.

Since version 0.9.9.8.2, functions for Japanese and Chinese languages ​​have been moved to plugins.

As promised, I wrote an article with practical advice on working with Anki, designed for easy memorization of new vocabulary; how to use ank, the ank program as a whole, we will analyze all these issues below.

For my readers!

Hi all! A week ago, I wrote in which I introduced you to two good programs that are designed to effectively memorize new words and phrases while learning in English(or any other).

As you remember, both of them are based on spaced repetition of flashcards. As the name suggests, spaced repetition is the systematic repetition of new vocabulary at regular intervals. Thus, new information is assimilated for a long time.

One of the programs is ABBYY Lingvo. And in particular, an addition to it, which is called ABBYY Lingvo Tutor. You can download this program, as well as read recommendations for its use, here.

Today, I will teach you how to work with the second cool program called Anki. To do this, I recorded a special video lesson and published it on your YouTube channel! From the video you will learn:

• how to install, change language and user in Anki;
• how to download decks for free and create your own;
• how to change the design of cards;
• how to create back cards, change their order in the deck and use the function of writing the correct answer;
• how to change settings and sync the activity app across devices;

Download and install Anki.

We go to the official website of the program. As is clear from the description, this program facilitates the process of memorizing any information. It is many times more efficient. traditional methods. By spending less time memorizing, you absorb more information when working with Anki. The program can be used for:

• learning foreign languages;
• exam preparation;
• remembering the names and faces of people;
• memorization of poems;
• and even for practicing guitar chords.

Let's take a look at how Anki can help us learn English. So, click "Download", download and install the program.

Installation shouldn't be a problem. After the installation is complete, the Anki icon will appear on the desktop. We start the program.

As you can see, the menu is extremely simple, there is nothing complicated. What is most important here:

1) Deck. By default, one deck is created, which is called “Default”. Decks are your main tool for the job. You can create your own decks or download ready-made ones. More on this later.

2) Buttons at the bottom of the program "Download" and "Create deck".

3) "Add" button at the top of the menu

Let's see how to work with this program.

How to improve vocabulary with Anki.

Before creating my own decks, I want to show you how you can download existing decks from the program's database. So click the "Download" button at the bottom of the menu. A site opens with a database of decks of various subjects.

There are two broad categories: "languages" and "arts, sciences and general information(arts, sciences and trivia). Since we are interested in replenishing our vocabulary, let's go to the "Russian" section from the "Languages" category.

Before us opened a list of available decks in this section. There are a lot of decks, some are useful, some are completely unnecessary. Let's download the "1000 Russian Words (with audio)" deck. What do all these columns mean:

2 - date of the last change;

3 - the number of cards in the deck;

4 - the number of voiced cards;

5 - the number of cards to which pictures are attached.

In order to download the deck, click "Info". Information about the deck comes off. Here you can read the description of the deck and view an example of cards. In order to download the deck, click "Download". Once the deck has loaded, just double-click on it and it will be automatically imported into Anki.

We see that the deck has appeared in the menu. Even though there are 1000 words in the deck, only 20 are displayed in the "New" section. This means that only 20 new cards per day are available for study (in fact, this is the optimal number). It can be changed by clicking on the gear on the right and selecting the "settings" section. We will not dwell on this, we click on the deck, the following window opens:

We see that there are 20 new cards in the deck today, 0 have been learned and 0 have been checked. Click "Learn". We start to practice. First, a word with voice acting appears, you try to remember it in English. To check yourself, click "Show answer".

Depending on how well you know the word, you can choose three options:

1) I don't remember (<30 с). То есть, данное слово снова будет вам предложено менее чем, через 30 секунд. The lesson will not end until there is at least one word that you marked as “I don’t remember”!

2) Just right (1 d). You will see this word again only after 1 day.

3) Very easy (4 d). You know this word very well, the next time you will see it only after 4 days.

Friends, these time intervals can be customized as you like. At the end of the lesson, a window opens:

That is, the daily limit of this deck has been exhausted for today. Once again, it will be possible to repeat the passed words only in a day. You can click the "Additional training" button, and continue to study on the deck by selecting the "Increase today's limit on new cards" item.

This is how you memorize new words with the Anki program. Again, the spaced repetition method is very effective!

Building your own decks with Anki.

Let's say that you want to memorize 15 new English phrases that you have taken with a tutor, read in a book, heard in a movie, or anywhere else. To do this, go to Anki and create a new deck:

For example, let's create a deck of "Phrases on the topic Acquaintance". We create a deck and now click "Add" at the top of the menu. Adding new cards to our deck:

First of all, we select the deck to which we are going to add new phrases. Then fill in the fields "front" and "back" of the card. By default, the fields are named "Question" and "Answer". As you can see, I renamed them to "Phrase" and "Translation". To do this, click the "Fields" button, and then "Rename".

So what are our options here? You can edit the color of the text in the card, add a picture to it, record your pronunciation, etc.

Thus, create new cards by filling out the "Phrases on the topic of Acquaintance" deck, customize it and start practicing. Friends, by creating your own decks, you will better remember words and phrases! So don't be lazy!

OK it's all over Now. I have told you about the most basic aspects of working with the Anki program. The program is great! With regular practice, new vocabulary is firmly absorbed in memory. Try not to work for quantity, but for quality. No need to try to remember 100 new words every day, 15-20 words or phrases are enough! After all, no one is rushing you anywhere, right?

As you have seen, Anki is also available for other operating systems such as Android and iOS. So, you can practice it on your electronic devices! Now you know anki and how to use it.

Learn English, friends! Work with Anki and stay safe!