20 Dec 2021
This is the second update on my German language learning journey!
See the two month update here.
Stats
Words that I had hoped to have learnt by now: 900 (10 each day for 90 days)
Words that I have actually learnt by now: 700
Total days studied: Approx. 70
Consistency
I’m 200 words, or 20 days, behind my learning target at present. 14 of those days were missed because of school camp, and another 6 were missed due to a recent break that I took.
Why the break?
Two main reasons for taking a break. Firstly, I was feeling a bit overwhelmed by way that the number of Anki reps (flashcards) that I needed to do each day was increasing. But this was compounded by the fact that I wanted to finish writing my second book by December 21st. The added pressure of these two things was making me stressed out, and I decided to take a break.
What did I do during the break?
The break was actually amazing. The first couple of days I just rested (but I still did my Anki reps), worked on my book, and caught up with some friends. The next few days I took some time to read parts of the productivity book, Getting Things Done, and designed a new organisational system to keep all my competing commitments (teaching, consulting, book writing, PhD, language learning, spending time with my partner) organised and accounted for, as well as leaving time for fun activities like mountain biking, surfing, and skating. I also cleared my inbox(es), there were some emails in there from many months ago, so that was a huge weight off!
I’m feeling heaps more relaxed and organised now, and was happy to get back into adding new cards a couple of days ago.
Has anything changed in my study approach?
Not hugely. One difference is that I’m spending a lot more time listening to podcasts at the moment, and I’m working my way through the backlog of the EasyGerman podcast, which I’m loving. At the moment, this is where I’m getting most of my new vocabulary from, rather than reading. But that’s only been for the last week or so.
Rethinking my daily new word target
I’ve also been rethinking my daily new word target. I’ve found that the thing that makes me feel most stressed out is when I have HEAPS of Anki reps to do. If I open up Anki and see there are 100 flashcards to get through, that’s a bit stressful for me, and it takes a lot more effort for me to get through as I need to break it up over the day (see my advice for getting through intimidating piles of flashcards here)
For example, when I came back from school camp, here’s how my daily reps increased over successive days: 43, 65, 47, 66, 69, 55, 74, 94, 77, 83, 81, 103. After which I decided to take a break from adding new words.
So my goal now is to find a word number per day that keeps my number of flashcards to review per day to a more manageable number. When I open Anki and see 50 cards to review (including new cards that I’ve added that day), that’s fine, because it means only about 20 or so minutes of flashcard practice, and I feel relaxed.
If I open Anki and see 100 cards due, that’s intimidating. It’s a very mentally intensive activity, and 100 cards is a huge effort and not sustainable against the backdrop of my other commitments.
In the short term (and especially of the Christmas and New Years period, during which I’ll be spending lots of time with the family), I’m going to start by adding 5 new cards per day and track my daily flashcard load. If it stays pretty consistent, I’ll add another one or two per day and monitor that. This has to be a sustainable project for me to continue it, there’s no point burning myself out!
Sense of progress
Despite somewhat of a setback this month, I do still have an enormous sense of progress. I’ve been listening to the EasyGerman podcast almost since I started playing around with German in the first place. At first, obviously, I couldn’t understand a word they were saying, but now I’m to the point that I can follow along during most conversations, laugh at their jokes, and actually enjoy the content.
This is one of the reasons why I’m enjoying using this as a source of vocabulary, because many of the words used recur, and each time I learn and remember a new word, it opens up future episodes to me more too.
Since my break, I’ve been enjoying my German again (after feeling that overwhelm), so I’m feeling really great about that. Remember, there’s no point just ploughing through, effective learning is all about adaptation.
Have I changed my system at all?
Over the last month I’ve been continuing with my A.R.E vocab learning method (attach an anchor, rehearse the rhythm, envision the endpoint). I’ve been happy with my retention, and I’ve been answering between 82% and 86% of my flashcards correctly on a consistent basis. I’m feeling like I’m retaining the vocab and also managed to use several new words in my language exchange last night, which was awesome.
Something I do want to experiment with in the not too distant future is reinforcing repetitions during the Anki process. For example, after I’ve answered a card correctly, I’ll often just rehearse the rhytm (see here) a few more times to really burn it into my brain. But I’m not sure how many times I should do this, or what kind of impact it’s having. Once I feel like I’ve stabilised my review count per day, I plan to do some experimenting with this approach, so watch this space. (I mentioned this last month too).
Insights?
The only real insight about learning from the last month has been about my level of alertness. It’s super important for me to try to do my Anki during a time of day when I’m feeling awake and alert. I was often leaving it to day’s end, but that would often mean that I’d end up in a bit of a rut, and also wouldn’t remember the vocab well the next day. Now I’m using time blocking for each day, and blocking in my German practice to a time when I’m alert. This has been going well.
Next steps
Again, grammar is being left a bit by the wayside, but I have exchanged a few emails in German with one of my German language exchange partners recently, and have received some good feedback there. Ok, I’ve just scheduled in 2 hours over the next week to explicitly research Grammar learning processes. Aah… the benefits of reflection!
I hope you enjoyed this update on my journey – From Beginner to Fluent German in One Year: the Challenge