Comment by MostlyStable
1 day ago
I created a python script that checks my anki deck for the cards that I'm scheduled to review the next day and asks an LLM to generate new sentences for the cards, so that every time I see them, I see them in a new context.
I did this because I realized I was hitting an issue where I theoretically "knew" a word (would get it always correct on the card), but wouldn't always recognize it in a novel context.
I'm hoping that having the context be variable when I'm learning it will help fix this issue.
> ”I realized I was hitting an issue where I theoretically "knew" a word (would get it always correct on the card), but wouldn't always recognize it in a novel context.”
Some of the problem is due to the specificity of the training effect. I.e., if you mostly practice something through flash cards then you’re going to be training your ability to work with that on flash cards.
With language, there’s an additional challenge—many if not most words have different meanings in different contexts.
Shameless plug of my language app, dangerous.
Our language app is largely based on using LLMs and spaced-repetition. We explain the context behind every word and phrase, provide additional usage examples and cultural notes, and also use speech recognition to test recall and pronunciation.
We're invite-only at the moment, but happy to pass along invite codes to anybody who may find it useful.
https://apps.apple.com/us/app/dangerous-language-skills/id67...
Very curious to try this app too, if you dont mind sending an invite code.
Sounds very interesting. I’d love an invite. I’d love to be able to navigate conversations better next time I’m in China.
I’m also working on learning Nepali which is hard as far as language apps go because none of the apps take on smaller languages like this. I’m hoping this will change with LLMs in the mix. My experience (and that of my Nepali friends) is that ChatGPT’s written and spoken Nepali language skill is too-notch.
Yeah, I'm trying to spend a lot more of my language learning time just reading/listening to content in my target language, but it's actually pretty difficult to find enough content that is in the right difficulty band where it has some words/grammar etc. that I am still learning but not so much that I just can't understand it at all.
That's a great idea. I was an early Anki contributor and ended up wasting a lot of time with SRS. Basically every language blogger I knew in 2008 was obsessed with it.
If I were to go back and learn Japanese again, (which I may do since I haven't spoken it in 20 years), I'd use Anki for the following:
- drilling the sounds, single syllables, 2-3 syllables, and identifying pitch accents in sentences
- relearning hiragana and katakana
After that initial phase, I'd probably make the core of my practice listening to podcasts for foreign learners while reading the transcripts at home and then re-listening to those same podcasts later while outside for practice. It's way easier and more helpful to recall words in a context you already understand.
I'd also use Anki for learning kanji if I hadn't spent years reading traditional Chinese. Since I have that background and Japanese character simplifications were so modest, I think I'd just read some audio books while listening to the audio and see if I could figure out all the kanji from context. TV series are also great once you can access them because they tend to use similar vocabulary and revisit similar throughout a season arc.
Check out if there are comprehensible input sites for your target language if you haven’t already, for example fo spanish there is: https://www.dreamingspanish.com/ which puts out videos labeled with various difficulties of speaking and listening
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I'm building a reader app that tries to solve this exact problem by providing a range of gradually simplified versions of each article to match your proficiency. So you can stay in the sweet spot, or work your way up version by version.
If your target language happens to be Chinese then you can give it a try at https://reader.longyan.io/landing
No login required, love your feedback.
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That’s a really clever use for LLMs, I have the exact same problem with my Anki deck. Do you store all the historical sentences for each card or is it just a destructive overwrite each time?
This sounds useful. Maybe someone could create an Anki plugin that does this.
Or is there something similar already available?
That sounds like a really useful project!! Have you considered publishing it?
I don't think what I wrote would be very generally useful, other than the basic idea of it. I wrote it with some pretty narrow assumptions about card layout etc that work for my exact deck, and it's not designed to be flexible. It wouldn't be hard to adjust it I don't think, but also it's such a simple script, that once you have gotten to the point of changing it, you aren't much beyond writing it from scratch either.
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