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掲示板 Forums - More efficient/faster quizzing
Top > renshuu.org > Feature Requests/Improvements > Finished/Rejected Requests
onoki
Level: 1
I'm a long time Anki user and just started doing the vocabulary quizzing here. This far I've been practicing [Japanese word] -> [Reading and meaning] in Anki and found it useful. However I think currently there is a usability issue.
First thing is the problem, what to quiz. Because my native language isn't English, the definition option is a bit cumbersome. Sure, the definitions are good, but it is awfully slow to translate it in my head to other language and then look it up from a long list of words (4 options, each can have up to roughly 4 synonyms).
The alternative is of course to quiz for the reading, but then I can't quiz for the meaning, especially because the system tells it only after I have picked up a reading. Also it is cumbersome here too to read through all the options and only then select the correct one.
When quizzing the later levels (N2 for me, soon N1, I hope) there is just so much to quiz that the time is a very important factor at least for me.
My suggestion is to add same kind of functionality as in Anki. That I can judge myself if I'm correct or not. This way I can quiz through a mountain of questions very efficiently while checking two things at the same time (reading and meaning).
The bare minimum implementation for this would be to add a shortcut keys for (a) show answer and for (b) correct / incorrect.
[hr]
Also some other speed related things:
- It would be cool to get the answer right after answering. WHILE waiting for the AJAX request for the new question (not after the request is complete). Of course if the "more Anki like" features are implemented, this won't be a problem.
- It would be cool to be able to use rikaichan / rikaikun / peraperakun dictionaries on Firefox / Chrome. However now that the characters are individually packed in table cells (<td>), it doesn't work.
First thing is the problem, what to quiz. Because my native language isn't English, the definition option is a bit cumbersome. Sure, the definitions are good, but it is awfully slow to translate it in my head to other language and then look it up from a long list of words (4 options, each can have up to roughly 4 synonyms).
The alternative is of course to quiz for the reading, but then I can't quiz for the meaning, especially because the system tells it only after I have picked up a reading. Also it is cumbersome here too to read through all the options and only then select the correct one.
When quizzing the later levels (N2 for me, soon N1, I hope) there is just so much to quiz that the time is a very important factor at least for me.
My suggestion is to add same kind of functionality as in Anki. That I can judge myself if I'm correct or not. This way I can quiz through a mountain of questions very efficiently while checking two things at the same time (reading and meaning).
The bare minimum implementation for this would be to add a shortcut keys for (a) show answer and for (b) correct / incorrect.
[hr]
Also some other speed related things:
- It would be cool to get the answer right after answering. WHILE waiting for the AJAX request for the new question (not after the request is complete). Of course if the "more Anki like" features are implemented, this won't be a problem.
- It would be cool to be able to use rikaichan / rikaikun / peraperakun dictionaries on Firefox / Chrome. However now that the characters are individually packed in table cells (<td>), it doesn't work.
0
14 years ago
Report Content
マイコー
Level: 301
Thanks for the comments! Let me comment on each thing individually.
[quote author=onoki link=topic=1112.msg6653#msg6653 date=1296280364]
I'm a long time Anki user and just started doing the vocabulary quizzing here. This far I've been practicing [Japanese word] -> [Reading and meaning] in Anki and found it useful. However I think currently there is a usability issue.
First thing is the problem, what to quiz. Because my native language isn't English, the definition option is a bit cumbersome. Sure, the definitions are good, but it is awfully slow to translate it in my head to other language and then look it up from a long list of words (4 options, each can have up to roughly 4 synonyms).
The alternative is of course to quiz for the reading, but then I can't quiz for the meaning, especially because the system tells it only after I have picked up a reading. Also it is cumbersome here too to read through all the options and only then select the correct one.
When quizzing the later levels (N2 for me, soon N1, I hope) there is just so much to quiz that the time is a very important factor at least for me.
My suggestion is to add same kind of functionality as in Anki. That I can judge myself if I'm correct or not. This way I can quiz through a mountain of questions very efficiently while checking two things at the same time (reading and meaning).
The bare minimum implementation for this would be to add a shortcut keys for (a) show answer and for (b) correct / incorrect.
[/quote]
Unfortunately, I don't think you're going to like my answer. Hopefully, I can explain things clearly. I'm happy to hear criticism on any of these points, as it's always my goal to improve things around here (and in my own teaching).
While this site (and many others, including Anki) makes extensive use of spaced repetition (aka Leitner's), my goal with renshuu is not to replicate the way Anki does studying.
I'm not a fan of flashcards (and I see Anki as something much closer to an intelligent flashcard system) for a few reasons (the time it takes to make/manage them aside), and these guide a few of the key elements I used when making the quiz engine for the site.
1. They bunch information. By this, I mean (for the example you gave) you might have 'Japanese word' on one side, and 'Reading + meaning' together on the 'back'. For languages, I don't feel this is realistic or practical. It's not realistic because you're most likely never going to be presented with a situation when you are going to either a)be presented with both bits of information or b)be required to recall and utilize both of them at the same time.
If you're listening to someone, you'll hear the 'reading', and you'll need to recall the meaning.
If you're reading, you'll see either the Japanese word or the reading (referring to vocab), and you'll need to recall the meaning.
If you're talking, you're going from meaning->reading.
If you're writing, it's meaning to reading or Japanese.
The site looks at a (I'm just talking about vocab for now, and am ignoring Kanji characters as single terms) vocab term in several different ways, allowing you to focus on how you want to study (or more accurately, why you want to study). In the same way, you can ignore 'study vectors' that you aren't interested in (I'm not currently interested in my writing skill, so I avoid kana->kanji quizzing).
2. Self-deception (sounds so negative!). The one thing I never really cared for with flashcards/Anki-style systems was that it relied on you (the studier) to analyze whether or not you know something. You have to look at the material, then say 'do I know this enough to be able to say it's correct?'. It makes it easy(easier) to tell yourself that you know the material. You're right in that in can be very efficient in terms of how quickly you go through the material; it's my belief, though, that a system such as with renshuu will be more effective in real world application. It's easy to say "yea, I know this enough", especially when you are (for example) near the end of a stack of cards and just want to be done, or if you've got a lot and know you need to go quickly.
Jumping back to the first point, doing it this way is (I think) unnatural when you compare it to how you'll be actually using the information. What renshuu attempts to do is present the data in as natural a format (albeit very broken up, at times) as possible, so it's as easy as possible to transfer the knowledge learned here to active usage in Japan (or wherever).
I'm a teacher by profession in addition to running renshuu, so I really want to provide a system that I feel is the most efficient in both a)acquiring knowledge and b)being able to easily use that knowledge outside of an academic/study environment.
Now that that's out of the way, I'd suggest that you take a look at the site's Schedules; in particular, the mastery schedules. It's an extremely popular way of studying on renshuu, and it's geared towards efficiency. You pick what and how you want to study, then the schedule automatically provides you with quizzing over a period of time. It's a great way to manage large amounts of terms if you stick with it. You mentioned N2 and N1: while it took more time when I first got started (I wanted to pick up the terms very quickly), my mastery schedules let me easily maintain/reinforce my N2/N1 knowledge (what is that, about 5000 words?) at about an hour a day (should drop down to 30 minutes in a month or two).
Also some other speed related things:
[quote]
- It would be cool to get the answer right after answering. WHILE waiting for the AJAX request for the new question (not after the request is complete). Of course if the "more Anki like" features are implemented, this won't be a problem.
[/quote]
If I understand what you're saying, you'd like a separation between the sending of the 'answer' portion and the next question? I don't think that'd be too much faster, to be honest; there is a renshuu pro setting (that I might make available to everyone) that presents the answer, then allows you to hit a button before the next question appears. However, this is merely cosmetic, as they're still both processed in the same request.
If you're looking for an instant answer after the question, that won't be possible a lot of the time. While multiple choice answers have a single, clear answer, a lot of questions don't have that luxury (in particular, fill-in-the-blank). I won't get into the details as to why, but renshuu is not like anki in the sense that it's *static* questions and answers.
If I'm off-base on what you're saying, let me know.
[quote]
- It would be cool to be able to use rikaichan / rikaikun / peraperakun dictionaries on Firefox / Chrome. However now that the characters are individually packed in table cells (<td>), it doesn't work.
[/quote]
This is somewhat of a しょうがない situation. I realize that it would be helpful (they're great extensions), but the ones that are displayed through tables are done so that they can be shown with furigana. If..this is being done in places where there is no furigana, let me know.
That being said, you can mouse over just about anything in any of the sentences in the site and receive information on the terms; you can also click on most kanji and pull up relevant information in the dictionary. It's a somewhat different interface from those extensions, but more useful (in my opinion) to users of the site: it's very easy to jump from kanji lookup to vocab lookup, a snap to pull up sentences that use a specific term, and so forth.
[quote author=onoki link=topic=1112.msg6653#msg6653 date=1296280364]
I'm a long time Anki user and just started doing the vocabulary quizzing here. This far I've been practicing [Japanese word] -> [Reading and meaning] in Anki and found it useful. However I think currently there is a usability issue.
First thing is the problem, what to quiz. Because my native language isn't English, the definition option is a bit cumbersome. Sure, the definitions are good, but it is awfully slow to translate it in my head to other language and then look it up from a long list of words (4 options, each can have up to roughly 4 synonyms).
The alternative is of course to quiz for the reading, but then I can't quiz for the meaning, especially because the system tells it only after I have picked up a reading. Also it is cumbersome here too to read through all the options and only then select the correct one.
When quizzing the later levels (N2 for me, soon N1, I hope) there is just so much to quiz that the time is a very important factor at least for me.
My suggestion is to add same kind of functionality as in Anki. That I can judge myself if I'm correct or not. This way I can quiz through a mountain of questions very efficiently while checking two things at the same time (reading and meaning).
The bare minimum implementation for this would be to add a shortcut keys for (a) show answer and for (b) correct / incorrect.
[/quote]
Unfortunately, I don't think you're going to like my answer. Hopefully, I can explain things clearly. I'm happy to hear criticism on any of these points, as it's always my goal to improve things around here (and in my own teaching).
While this site (and many others, including Anki) makes extensive use of spaced repetition (aka Leitner's), my goal with renshuu is not to replicate the way Anki does studying.
I'm not a fan of flashcards (and I see Anki as something much closer to an intelligent flashcard system) for a few reasons (the time it takes to make/manage them aside), and these guide a few of the key elements I used when making the quiz engine for the site.
1. They bunch information. By this, I mean (for the example you gave) you might have 'Japanese word' on one side, and 'Reading + meaning' together on the 'back'. For languages, I don't feel this is realistic or practical. It's not realistic because you're most likely never going to be presented with a situation when you are going to either a)be presented with both bits of information or b)be required to recall and utilize both of them at the same time.
If you're listening to someone, you'll hear the 'reading', and you'll need to recall the meaning.
If you're reading, you'll see either the Japanese word or the reading (referring to vocab), and you'll need to recall the meaning.
If you're talking, you're going from meaning->reading.
If you're writing, it's meaning to reading or Japanese.
The site looks at a (I'm just talking about vocab for now, and am ignoring Kanji characters as single terms) vocab term in several different ways, allowing you to focus on how you want to study (or more accurately, why you want to study). In the same way, you can ignore 'study vectors' that you aren't interested in (I'm not currently interested in my writing skill, so I avoid kana->kanji quizzing).
2. Self-deception (sounds so negative!). The one thing I never really cared for with flashcards/Anki-style systems was that it relied on you (the studier) to analyze whether or not you know something. You have to look at the material, then say 'do I know this enough to be able to say it's correct?'. It makes it easy(easier) to tell yourself that you know the material. You're right in that in can be very efficient in terms of how quickly you go through the material; it's my belief, though, that a system such as with renshuu will be more effective in real world application. It's easy to say "yea, I know this enough", especially when you are (for example) near the end of a stack of cards and just want to be done, or if you've got a lot and know you need to go quickly.
Jumping back to the first point, doing it this way is (I think) unnatural when you compare it to how you'll be actually using the information. What renshuu attempts to do is present the data in as natural a format (albeit very broken up, at times) as possible, so it's as easy as possible to transfer the knowledge learned here to active usage in Japan (or wherever).
I'm a teacher by profession in addition to running renshuu, so I really want to provide a system that I feel is the most efficient in both a)acquiring knowledge and b)being able to easily use that knowledge outside of an academic/study environment.
Now that that's out of the way, I'd suggest that you take a look at the site's Schedules; in particular, the mastery schedules. It's an extremely popular way of studying on renshuu, and it's geared towards efficiency. You pick what and how you want to study, then the schedule automatically provides you with quizzing over a period of time. It's a great way to manage large amounts of terms if you stick with it. You mentioned N2 and N1: while it took more time when I first got started (I wanted to pick up the terms very quickly), my mastery schedules let me easily maintain/reinforce my N2/N1 knowledge (what is that, about 5000 words?) at about an hour a day (should drop down to 30 minutes in a month or two).
Also some other speed related things:
[quote]
- It would be cool to get the answer right after answering. WHILE waiting for the AJAX request for the new question (not after the request is complete). Of course if the "more Anki like" features are implemented, this won't be a problem.
[/quote]
If I understand what you're saying, you'd like a separation between the sending of the 'answer' portion and the next question? I don't think that'd be too much faster, to be honest; there is a renshuu pro setting (that I might make available to everyone) that presents the answer, then allows you to hit a button before the next question appears. However, this is merely cosmetic, as they're still both processed in the same request.
If you're looking for an instant answer after the question, that won't be possible a lot of the time. While multiple choice answers have a single, clear answer, a lot of questions don't have that luxury (in particular, fill-in-the-blank). I won't get into the details as to why, but renshuu is not like anki in the sense that it's *static* questions and answers.
If I'm off-base on what you're saying, let me know.
[quote]
- It would be cool to be able to use rikaichan / rikaikun / peraperakun dictionaries on Firefox / Chrome. However now that the characters are individually packed in table cells (<td>), it doesn't work.
[/quote]
This is somewhat of a しょうがない situation. I realize that it would be helpful (they're great extensions), but the ones that are displayed through tables are done so that they can be shown with furigana. If..this is being done in places where there is no furigana, let me know.
That being said, you can mouse over just about anything in any of the sentences in the site and receive information on the terms; you can also click on most kanji and pull up relevant information in the dictionary. It's a somewhat different interface from those extensions, but more useful (in my opinion) to users of the site: it's very easy to jump from kanji lookup to vocab lookup, a snap to pull up sentences that use a specific term, and so forth.
1
14 years ago
Report Content
onoki
Level: 1
Sorry in advance. The reply became a bit longer than I thought, but I'll try to argue some of my points a bit further.
[b]Technical things[/b]
[quote][quote]Able to use rikaichan[/quote]
This is somewhat of a しょうがない situation. ... displayed through tables are done so that they can be shown with furigana. If this is being done in places where there is no furigana, let me know.[/quote]
It is done at least while quizzing [kanji]->[kana]. And obviously there isn't furigana at that point. But I guess that is quite minor thing. It is unfortunate that many browser's dont support furigana/ruby yet, which would make things a lot easier. Chrome supports it but even Firefox doesn't.
[quote]If I understand what you're saying, you'd like a separation between the sending of the 'answer' portion and the next question? I don't think that'd be too much faster, to be honest; there is a renshuu pro setting (that I might make available to everyone) that presents the answer, then allows you to hit a button before the next question appears. However, this is merely cosmetic, as they're still both processed in the same request.[/quote]
[quote]at about an hour a day (should drop down to 30 minutes in a month or two).[/quote]
That "time required" was my main point. Instead of an 60-30 minutes, I would like to only use 30-15 minutes to achieve the same because that is certainly possible with some tweaks.
But with the showing the answer I meant that now the process goes like this: answer->wait->check answer->read and answer next question. I think that waiting part is unnecessary. For me (slow Internet connection) the waiting time is roughly a second. I wouldn't like to use more than 2 seconds for answering (I either know the word or not), so removing the waiting part would increase the speed by 33%. Of course this means that the checking of the answer has to be made before the request. I don't know how it is now, but my suggestion would make it so that during the request it would send information about the answer's correctness and would receive the next question and answer to that (the answer to the new question of course hidden from the user at this point).
[b]Pedagogical things[/b]
[quote]... you might have 'Japanese word' on one side, and 'Reading + meaning' together on the 'back'. For languages, I don't feel this is realistic or practical. It's not realistic because you're most likely never going to be presented with a situation[/quote]
I disagree because for example while reading a book, if you think both the meaning and reading of a word, it reinforces the memorization of the kanjis. But I have heard your argument from other more learned people than me and can't say it wouldn't be valid.
[quote]I'm not a fan of flashcards (and I see Anki as something much closer to an intelligent flashcard system) for a few reasons, and these guide a few of the key elements I used when making the quiz engine for the site.[/quote]
Yes, Anki is basically a flashcard system. But I would argue that the especially vocabulary (and kanji to some extent) practice is nothing but flashcards. You get an input, and you output the requested information very simply. I think all the practice methods are just the same for that, the computer based methods just make you output the more difficult items more often.
[quote]Self-deception ... It makes it easy(easier) to tell yourself that you know the material. ... It's easy to say "yea, I know this enough", especially when you are (for example) near the end of a stack of cards and just want to be done, or if you've got a lot and know you need to go quickly.[/quote]
You have a point, the student has to have correct methods (= knowledge of these and the motivation to study) to use e.g. Anki effectively. One has to be strict and reward oneself for the effort, not for achievement (there was some TED lecture with more science about this some time ago).
However, I don't think the current quiz is any different from this. If you look at the choices, there is usually 1 (sometimes 2) possible answers that make any sense. I think doing this is as self-deception as you can do in Anki. And if you don't look at the answers straight away, it comes down to Anki again.
So in short I think the quiz idea (especially for vocabulary) is very much like Anki in terms of usage and ease of self-deception.
[b]Technical things[/b]
[quote][quote]Able to use rikaichan[/quote]
This is somewhat of a しょうがない situation. ... displayed through tables are done so that they can be shown with furigana. If this is being done in places where there is no furigana, let me know.[/quote]
It is done at least while quizzing [kanji]->[kana]. And obviously there isn't furigana at that point. But I guess that is quite minor thing. It is unfortunate that many browser's dont support furigana/ruby yet, which would make things a lot easier. Chrome supports it but even Firefox doesn't.
[quote]If I understand what you're saying, you'd like a separation between the sending of the 'answer' portion and the next question? I don't think that'd be too much faster, to be honest; there is a renshuu pro setting (that I might make available to everyone) that presents the answer, then allows you to hit a button before the next question appears. However, this is merely cosmetic, as they're still both processed in the same request.[/quote]
[quote]at about an hour a day (should drop down to 30 minutes in a month or two).[/quote]
That "time required" was my main point. Instead of an 60-30 minutes, I would like to only use 30-15 minutes to achieve the same because that is certainly possible with some tweaks.
But with the showing the answer I meant that now the process goes like this: answer->wait->check answer->read and answer next question. I think that waiting part is unnecessary. For me (slow Internet connection) the waiting time is roughly a second. I wouldn't like to use more than 2 seconds for answering (I either know the word or not), so removing the waiting part would increase the speed by 33%. Of course this means that the checking of the answer has to be made before the request. I don't know how it is now, but my suggestion would make it so that during the request it would send information about the answer's correctness and would receive the next question and answer to that (the answer to the new question of course hidden from the user at this point).
[b]Pedagogical things[/b]
[quote]... you might have 'Japanese word' on one side, and 'Reading + meaning' together on the 'back'. For languages, I don't feel this is realistic or practical. It's not realistic because you're most likely never going to be presented with a situation[/quote]
I disagree because for example while reading a book, if you think both the meaning and reading of a word, it reinforces the memorization of the kanjis. But I have heard your argument from other more learned people than me and can't say it wouldn't be valid.
[quote]I'm not a fan of flashcards (and I see Anki as something much closer to an intelligent flashcard system) for a few reasons, and these guide a few of the key elements I used when making the quiz engine for the site.[/quote]
Yes, Anki is basically a flashcard system. But I would argue that the especially vocabulary (and kanji to some extent) practice is nothing but flashcards. You get an input, and you output the requested information very simply. I think all the practice methods are just the same for that, the computer based methods just make you output the more difficult items more often.
[quote]Self-deception ... It makes it easy(easier) to tell yourself that you know the material. ... It's easy to say "yea, I know this enough", especially when you are (for example) near the end of a stack of cards and just want to be done, or if you've got a lot and know you need to go quickly.[/quote]
You have a point, the student has to have correct methods (= knowledge of these and the motivation to study) to use e.g. Anki effectively. One has to be strict and reward oneself for the effort, not for achievement (there was some TED lecture with more science about this some time ago).
However, I don't think the current quiz is any different from this. If you look at the choices, there is usually 1 (sometimes 2) possible answers that make any sense. I think doing this is as self-deception as you can do in Anki. And if you don't look at the answers straight away, it comes down to Anki again.
So in short I think the quiz idea (especially for vocabulary) is very much like Anki in terms of usage and ease of self-deception.
0
14 years ago
Report Content
マイコー
Level: 301
Thanks for the reply! The quote's of quote's are getting a bit messy, so let me just give everything a header.
1. Rikaikun/chan: If you're in the question box of a quiz, I'm not sure there's a valid reason for you to be looking up the words using an extension (for this reason, a lot of the mouse-clicking to lookup kanji, etc; is disabled within question/answer boxes. If there is, let me know :).
I would *love* to be able to use ruby, but as you said, it's just not common enough. It would be *trying* to implement two methods of display based on whether or not the browser supports those tags, so I'm forced to wait until it's common enough that I can expect the vast, vast majority of renshuu's users to be able to see them. A shame, really!
2. Answering speed: I see what you're saying, and I am always working on speeding up (from a 'how long it takes the site to generate the previous answer and the new question) this process. As I mentioned before, there are a lot of question types (many of the kanji quizzes, anything that's fill in the blank (as there are often many, many valid variations on a correct answer)) where this would not work, but I could see it being feasible for a multiple choice answer.
Another way to potentially approach this is to get the system to start preparing the next question while you're reading/thinking about the previous one. Although I don't have the numbers in front of me, I suspect the waiting period you talk of is probably 20% 'answering the previous one', and 80% 'generating the next one'. If that 80% could be done while you're working, it could be sent much more quickly.
I've thought about this time and time again, but it currently is not something I'll be able to develop during the current beta period. I'd love to try and get it in during the next version of the site, but I'm pretty busy right now.
The same would go with sending the answer 'ahead of time', as you suggest (although there are some tricky issues with that as well; very very tricky issues that are hidden from the user, and would require a good deal of rewriting); it's not something I have the luxury of working on right now, but I will certainly keep it in mind.
What I can try to do is continue to work to minimize the time it takes to generate those questions, and this is something I can and will do over the next month before it's released.
3. Reading a book: this one is a bit tricky, because I can certainly see where you're coming from. I guess my response would be that the 'reading a kanji compound and coming up with the reading/definition in your head' is an intermediate step. I think (it'd be hard to test myself because I'm actively thinking about the topic) - as you progress in your studies, you'll ultimately read the compound without translating it to a reading in your head, and skip straight to the meaning. I think.
It is possible that the learning styles are simply different. If you'd prefer to emulate this style of studying on the site, you can do what I do: If I have a Kanji->kana question, when I see the Kanji compound, I try to recall both bits of information. If I can recall both of them, then I let myself answer the question correctly. If not, I skip it (it gets marked wrong). Interestingly enough, the information comes separately in recall.
To frame this in a more technical nature, having a combined reading+meaning would not fit well in the technical setup of the site.
4. Flashcard-ness: you're right in that renshuu is not a complete departure from flashcards (although I'm developing grammar, and eventually reading quizzes that will step away from this). The kanji character quizzes have some more interesting (especially for renshuu pro users) quiz formats, and vocab quizzing under pro let's you do context based quizzing with sentences, so it really challenges you in a different way from flashcards.
Back to the basic vocab quizzing, though. What I personally see as a major difference from the traditional flashcard is renshuu's ability to both a)extremely flexible and b)provide continually different answer cues.
You have the choice of choosing exactly what type of question and answer format you'd like. Renshuu even goes so far as to keep track of the kanji you know; it can actively suppress unknown kanji and replace it hiragana (all this can be changed/deactivated/etc in user settings).
The answers (and this is going to get into your last point about self-deception) are also much wider in scope. While the user currently does not have a way of turning this on or off, the vocab questions (and kanji) actually have two different answer 'types' when you do kanji compound -> reading, (or kanji character -> reading). It can
a)choose answers from other words that you know
b)create misspelled variations of the word.
You mentioned that there's usually a couple of 'obvious' answers; I'm guessing that these are answer choices from the first group, (a). There's only so much a system can do on it's own, but I'd love to have specific examples so as to try and improve it. Answers are chosen on the spot, and are based on a)your current vocabulary/kanji knowledge and b)similarities between the correct and incorrect answers. There's no set of 'incorrect' answers; that would make quizzing less and less valuable as you have a tendency to memorize an answer as being wrong just as much as you might remember another as being right (so the incorrect answer pool would be less and less valuable).
I think the misspelling really shines here; it focuses (although there are a few small bugs) on mistakes that would be easy for a learner to make, very realistic ones. It focuses on sounds that are very similar to one another, or commonly mistaken juxtapositions.
Currently, there's no way to say "ignore the (a) group, and give me misspellings only", but I might add that in the future. One of the main goals of the current beta round is to reduce complexity in the site, and I've gone a bit overboard in the past with the number of user preferences/settings available.
The show answers link is there (although it can be disabled in settings) to let you think about the answers before you see them, in case you want to try pure recall. If I guess on a question, show the answers, then don't have my guess in there, I will skip the question (even if I can still deduce the answer from the four choices). This marks it as wrong, and let's my mastery schedule continue the way it should. This helps keep 'self-deception down'.
If you want to make it even harder on yourself to 'cheat', change the answer type to fill-in-the-blank. I love using it for kanji->kana or meaning->kana. With this, you don't have any opportunity to use parts of the quiz system in order to help yourself.
So really, this is one of the places where the site works well; while it is more complicated to get used to compared to a simpler (closer to standard flashcards) system, it has enough flexibility that you can find whatever level of help/guidance (or lack thereof) you want when you're studying.
1. Rikaikun/chan: If you're in the question box of a quiz, I'm not sure there's a valid reason for you to be looking up the words using an extension (for this reason, a lot of the mouse-clicking to lookup kanji, etc; is disabled within question/answer boxes. If there is, let me know :).
I would *love* to be able to use ruby, but as you said, it's just not common enough. It would be *trying* to implement two methods of display based on whether or not the browser supports those tags, so I'm forced to wait until it's common enough that I can expect the vast, vast majority of renshuu's users to be able to see them. A shame, really!
2. Answering speed: I see what you're saying, and I am always working on speeding up (from a 'how long it takes the site to generate the previous answer and the new question) this process. As I mentioned before, there are a lot of question types (many of the kanji quizzes, anything that's fill in the blank (as there are often many, many valid variations on a correct answer)) where this would not work, but I could see it being feasible for a multiple choice answer.
Another way to potentially approach this is to get the system to start preparing the next question while you're reading/thinking about the previous one. Although I don't have the numbers in front of me, I suspect the waiting period you talk of is probably 20% 'answering the previous one', and 80% 'generating the next one'. If that 80% could be done while you're working, it could be sent much more quickly.
I've thought about this time and time again, but it currently is not something I'll be able to develop during the current beta period. I'd love to try and get it in during the next version of the site, but I'm pretty busy right now.
The same would go with sending the answer 'ahead of time', as you suggest (although there are some tricky issues with that as well; very very tricky issues that are hidden from the user, and would require a good deal of rewriting); it's not something I have the luxury of working on right now, but I will certainly keep it in mind.
What I can try to do is continue to work to minimize the time it takes to generate those questions, and this is something I can and will do over the next month before it's released.
3. Reading a book: this one is a bit tricky, because I can certainly see where you're coming from. I guess my response would be that the 'reading a kanji compound and coming up with the reading/definition in your head' is an intermediate step. I think (it'd be hard to test myself because I'm actively thinking about the topic) - as you progress in your studies, you'll ultimately read the compound without translating it to a reading in your head, and skip straight to the meaning. I think.
It is possible that the learning styles are simply different. If you'd prefer to emulate this style of studying on the site, you can do what I do: If I have a Kanji->kana question, when I see the Kanji compound, I try to recall both bits of information. If I can recall both of them, then I let myself answer the question correctly. If not, I skip it (it gets marked wrong). Interestingly enough, the information comes separately in recall.
To frame this in a more technical nature, having a combined reading+meaning would not fit well in the technical setup of the site.
4. Flashcard-ness: you're right in that renshuu is not a complete departure from flashcards (although I'm developing grammar, and eventually reading quizzes that will step away from this). The kanji character quizzes have some more interesting (especially for renshuu pro users) quiz formats, and vocab quizzing under pro let's you do context based quizzing with sentences, so it really challenges you in a different way from flashcards.
Back to the basic vocab quizzing, though. What I personally see as a major difference from the traditional flashcard is renshuu's ability to both a)extremely flexible and b)provide continually different answer cues.
You have the choice of choosing exactly what type of question and answer format you'd like. Renshuu even goes so far as to keep track of the kanji you know; it can actively suppress unknown kanji and replace it hiragana (all this can be changed/deactivated/etc in user settings).
The answers (and this is going to get into your last point about self-deception) are also much wider in scope. While the user currently does not have a way of turning this on or off, the vocab questions (and kanji) actually have two different answer 'types' when you do kanji compound -> reading, (or kanji character -> reading). It can
a)choose answers from other words that you know
b)create misspelled variations of the word.
You mentioned that there's usually a couple of 'obvious' answers; I'm guessing that these are answer choices from the first group, (a). There's only so much a system can do on it's own, but I'd love to have specific examples so as to try and improve it. Answers are chosen on the spot, and are based on a)your current vocabulary/kanji knowledge and b)similarities between the correct and incorrect answers. There's no set of 'incorrect' answers; that would make quizzing less and less valuable as you have a tendency to memorize an answer as being wrong just as much as you might remember another as being right (so the incorrect answer pool would be less and less valuable).
I think the misspelling really shines here; it focuses (although there are a few small bugs) on mistakes that would be easy for a learner to make, very realistic ones. It focuses on sounds that are very similar to one another, or commonly mistaken juxtapositions.
Currently, there's no way to say "ignore the (a) group, and give me misspellings only", but I might add that in the future. One of the main goals of the current beta round is to reduce complexity in the site, and I've gone a bit overboard in the past with the number of user preferences/settings available.
The show answers link is there (although it can be disabled in settings) to let you think about the answers before you see them, in case you want to try pure recall. If I guess on a question, show the answers, then don't have my guess in there, I will skip the question (even if I can still deduce the answer from the four choices). This marks it as wrong, and let's my mastery schedule continue the way it should. This helps keep 'self-deception down'.
If you want to make it even harder on yourself to 'cheat', change the answer type to fill-in-the-blank. I love using it for kanji->kana or meaning->kana. With this, you don't have any opportunity to use parts of the quiz system in order to help yourself.
So really, this is one of the places where the site works well; while it is more complicated to get used to compared to a simpler (closer to standard flashcards) system, it has enough flexibility that you can find whatever level of help/guidance (or lack thereof) you want when you're studying.
1
14 years ago
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マイコー
Level: 301
Note: I totally forgot to mention something. If you go to User settings (the tools icon up top), you can turn on 'simple definitions', which (for a good several thousand terms) shows simplified English definitions. It might not be a huge help for you, but I'd give it a shot!
Edit: I might have a way of doing some additional significant speedup with the quizzes. I need to work on it for a couple of days to see if it's feasible.
Edit: I might have a way of doing some additional significant speedup with the quizzes. I need to work on it for a couple of days to see if it's feasible.
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14 years ago
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Tanooki
Level: 14
For the 'time saved' issue: Well, just think about the time (and resources) you're saving by NOT making flash cards by hand (and shuffling them/reorganizing them to keep the vocab fresh, etc). That's kind of a main point of this site.
I never really notice a problem with loading speed. In the end it could just come down to the newness of a user's computer + internet speed.
As for the whole self-deception with the flash card method:
When I do quizzes on the site, before displaying the answers I try to write (by hand on a scrap piece of paper) the answer (whether it be kanji, hiragana, etc). Then I check to see if what I wrote is on the list. I don't see how that would be 'self deception' though. I think it shows pretty well what I know, and I'm honest with myself with what I don't know.
Even if you're doing it the 'bad' way and just displaying answers immediately to pick from the list, at least you're still getting a little review in. (though not as thorough)
edit:
Just googled this 'Anki' method I heard you mention. It looks...kind of dull honestly compared to the options you get here ^^;; Perhaps I didn't see the exact same thing you use though. But hey, in the end, whatever helps you learn best you should totally stick with!
I never really notice a problem with loading speed. In the end it could just come down to the newness of a user's computer + internet speed.
As for the whole self-deception with the flash card method:
When I do quizzes on the site, before displaying the answers I try to write (by hand on a scrap piece of paper) the answer (whether it be kanji, hiragana, etc). Then I check to see if what I wrote is on the list. I don't see how that would be 'self deception' though. I think it shows pretty well what I know, and I'm honest with myself with what I don't know.
Even if you're doing it the 'bad' way and just displaying answers immediately to pick from the list, at least you're still getting a little review in. (though not as thorough)
edit:
Just googled this 'Anki' method I heard you mention. It looks...kind of dull honestly compared to the options you get here ^^;; Perhaps I didn't see the exact same thing you use though. But hey, in the end, whatever helps you learn best you should totally stick with!
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14 years ago
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coin
Level: 632
I have to say, the reason why I love renshuu is because it is NOT a flashcard/anki-based system. I am the queen of self-deception, and I do not think I am the only one. I need the system to tell me if it is right or wrong, I know I can not rely on my own self-evaluation. It is so easy for most students to think you know something when you recognize it (because obviously you remember part of a word or part of the kanji most of the time if you have seen it before and added it to your flashcard-system), but I think there is a huge difference in recognition and recall, and renshuu really helps me with the recall-bit. After all, you can not really use the language yourself (speak and write) if you can not recall the words on your own.
I have recently changed the way I study vocab here on renshuu. I have now started to quiz vocab from kanji to hiragana where I fill in the blank instead of seeing the answer choices, and my kanji recognition has improved much faster because of this. I actually spend less time studying the kanji in total now (answering each question takes longer and I make more mistakes than before, though), but the kanji stick better because i actually have to write in the correct hiragana without getting any hints. The next time the word comes around I find I remember it a lot faster than I did when I did multiple choice. I absolutely recommend "fill in the blank" instead of multiple choice when you are practicing reading.
I am not a linguist so my next paragraph here might be totally useless, but here is my opinion about having to recall meaning and reading at the same time when seeing a kanji... I believe that as you get more fluent in a language, you do not translate everything in your head anymore. English is not my first language, but when I write English, I tend to also "think" in English, and I do not even think about what the words mean in my native language anymore. I have not reached that point with Japanese yet, but that is my ultimate goal, to be able to "think" in Japanese, instead of translating everything word for word. I therefore think that it is not necessary to see both the kanji and the reading and the meaning all at once when one is quizzing, I think it is a good point that you can pinpoint exactly what vectors you want to study.
I have recently changed the way I study vocab here on renshuu. I have now started to quiz vocab from kanji to hiragana where I fill in the blank instead of seeing the answer choices, and my kanji recognition has improved much faster because of this. I actually spend less time studying the kanji in total now (answering each question takes longer and I make more mistakes than before, though), but the kanji stick better because i actually have to write in the correct hiragana without getting any hints. The next time the word comes around I find I remember it a lot faster than I did when I did multiple choice. I absolutely recommend "fill in the blank" instead of multiple choice when you are practicing reading.
I am not a linguist so my next paragraph here might be totally useless, but here is my opinion about having to recall meaning and reading at the same time when seeing a kanji... I believe that as you get more fluent in a language, you do not translate everything in your head anymore. English is not my first language, but when I write English, I tend to also "think" in English, and I do not even think about what the words mean in my native language anymore. I have not reached that point with Japanese yet, but that is my ultimate goal, to be able to "think" in Japanese, instead of translating everything word for word. I therefore think that it is not necessary to see both the kanji and the reading and the meaning all at once when one is quizzing, I think it is a good point that you can pinpoint exactly what vectors you want to study.
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14 years ago
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