Sometimes things click I’ve written recently about wanting to speed through finishing my 625 Word List for Italian — German still has a way to go — so that I can move on to working through my grammar book and beginning to write on italki. I wrote in that same blog that I had over 330 unseen cards in Italian and was intimidated by adding more cards on top. It’s been about a week since I added any cards to my Italian deck. During this break I’ve had some insights. Two titles from sections of Fluent Forever have clicked together recently for me: Principle 1: Make Memories More Memorable

–Gabriel Wyner, Fluent Forever, p. 18 and More Is Less: The Learning Paradox

–Gabriel Wyner, Fluent Forever, p. 74

Does that mean what you think it means? (with apologies to The Princess Bride) One of my concerns about speaking a new language is saying something inadvertently. Synonyms are treacherous things. When we rush through language learning — and when aren’t working with a tutor (yet) — we run the risk of making some of these mistakes. Creating the flashcards is supposed to be part of the learning experience. Wyner writes about how creating each flashcard exposes you to your target language and helps you build an understanding of each word’s denotation (dictionary definition) and connotation (shades of meaning).[1] In American English, what we wear on our legs can be pants[2] or trousers or slacks or jeans. Pants is a broader category that incorporates the other words (i.e., all jeans are pants, but not all pants are jeans). There are differences in both the denotation and connotation. Slacks are pants that are appropriate for an office but jeans (usually) aren’t. Trousers sounds stuffy and unusual. Americans, at least those of us in the northeast, don’t often say trousers. In Italian, for example, I know two synonyms for “room”: “camera” and “stanza”. At this point in my learning journey, I don’t know when to use one versus the other. It could be that they refer to different sizes of room or rooms in different types of building. The word for “bedroom” is “camera del letto”, so I wonder if “camere” are in houses and apartments but “stanze” are in offices. In German, I am reminded by this at almost every word because dict.cc, one of the sites in the German Multisearch tool, lists many synonyms for each word. But one that especially stuck out to me was “Plastik”. “Die Plastik” (feminine singular) and “die Plastiken” (feminine plural) appear to translate as “sculpture” and “sculptures” but “das Plastik” (neuter singular, with no plural form) translates as “plastic” as in the material.[3] I’m not sure if “die Plastik” is a common or uncommon way of referring to sculpture in German. This is something I would like to ask a tutor. On my flashcards I only included the neuter form for now.

When did I make that flashcard? There have been several instances recently where Anki shows me a word and I cannot remember what it means. Using the pronunciation rules I learned using the two trainers, I can usually pronounce the word accurately. The thought of, “What the hell does that mean?” — though in Italian, I’m starting to think “Che significa?” instead — is not comforting. It makes me feel, even momentarily, like I’m doing something wrong. Rushing at this stage — which I certainly am guilty of — puts us at risk of practicing surface translation rather than rich experiential learning. I usually feel a faint spark of recognition when I see the picture. I wonder, though, if that’s not the spark of recognition but rather the spark of my brain wiring the word and picture together. This is one of the meanings of “more is less”. Although I created more flash cards, I forgot them by the time I got to them. The effort I made in creating the card, while not wasted since I have a card where I otherwise wouldn’t, is still diminished. It just doesn’t feel good to have that momentary feeling that I am somehow learning wrong.

It’s the journey, man… I’ll be honest, I kind of hate to travel. As such, I’ve never been fond of the adage, “It’s about the journey, not the destination.”[4] That said, at least as far as language learning goes, I appreciate the wisdom of that adage. Being unable to recall the image when shown the word feels like someone saying, “Remember the time we…” and my not having any recollection of it. It has this gross feeling of it not having made an impact. Seeing the image feels like seeing a snapshot of the event after the fact. “Oh, yeah,” I hear myself thinking, “yeah, yeah, that.” There’s something hollow in that for me. I want to be present in the moment of flashcard creation going forward. I want to spend the time having the word make an impression rather than feeling like I’m being reminded of something that happened to someone else.

What do you think? Have you had the same experience I’ve described above? Or is your experience wildly different from mine? Are you using other strategies for your flashcard creation? Let us know in the comments below.

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