For iPhone/iPod touch users: Using Mnemosyne to study Japanese?

[iSRS]

Hi Everyone,

I just wanted to get the word out to people who use Mnemosyne to study Japanese and own an iPhone or iPod touch. You can do your learning on the go now with iSRS, a Mnemosyne compatible iPhone/iPod touch app! Do a search in iTunes for "iSRS".

For those of you who don't know what Mnemosyne is, it's a spaced repetition system (SRS). An SRS is like flash card application, only more intelligent and will help you learn more quickly and efficiently. Basically you grade yourself on how well you answered a question and the program then schedules the card to appear again at the next best interval. You'll see cards you don't know well more often than cards you do know well, so you don't waste time on things you already know.

I highly recommend using an SRS like Mnemosyne or Anki to help with getting Japanese vocabulary, phrases, and sentences into long term memory. The only hard part is entering your cards and showing up to do your reviews/studying, let the SRS take care of the rest and learning will seem effortless.

 

[GreenCat]

Hi Everyone,

I just wanted to get the word out to people who use Mnemosyne to study Japanese and own an iPhone or iPod touch. You can do your learning on the go now with iSRS, a Mnemosyne compatible iPhone/iPod touch app! Do a search in iTunes for "iSRS".

For those of you who don't know what Mnemosyne is, it's a spaced repetition system (SRS). An SRS is like flash card application, only more intelligent and will help you learn more quickly and efficiently. Basically you grade yourself on how well you answered a question and the program then schedules the card to appear again at the next best interval. You'll see cards you don't know well more often than cards you do know well, so you don't waste time on things you already know.

I highly recommend using an SRS like Mnemosyne or Anki to help with getting Japanese vocabulary, phrases, and sentences into long term memory. The only hard part is entering your cards and showing up to do your reviews/studying, let the SRS take care of the rest and learning will seem effortless.

Looks like an interesting application.

I generally don't recommend people to learn words without the contexts they are used, but for first 500 words or so, the application must be helpful.

Mnemosyne (software) - Wikipedia
Principles | The Mnemosyne Project

 

[iSRS]

I completely agree with learning in context. A very effective method I've discovered by reading Khatzumoto's blog All Japanese All The Time (do a search) is the following:

1) Learn the Kanji/Keyword pairs (not readings) from Heisig's Remembering The Kanji Volume 1 (and 3 if you like for higher literacy) using an SRS
2) Learn the Hiragana/Katakana characters using an SRS
3) Learn lots and lots of gramatically correct sentences using an SRS. You'll learn vocabulary and the readings of kanji in context with every sentence you learn. Don't stress too much about grammar. Let the SRS help you memorize the sentence patterns and vocabulary/readings and eventually it will become ingrained in your mind and you'll be able to reuse and remix those patterns to produce you're own sentences naturally.

I know not everyone will agree with this method, so in the end you should do what works best for you.

 

[karamazu]

I just logged on to ask if anyone had a suggestion for a flashcard program, to aid with word familiarization, and I find my question answered already. Thanks, I'll give it a go & hopefully it'll help.