Luca Lampariello Is WRONG (Why You SHOULD Use Anki)

[@TheFiestyhick]

I've been following his stuff for years, so i can say he's pretty legit, and yes, he does speak like 7 languages at a solid level and like 4 languages at B1. His stance on Anki is kind of old school of just using books and notebooks. He got a lot of push back on his Anki stance. He's gone back and said, "I accept that Anki works well for many, I just prefer not to use it since my learning system works for me." His channel is pretty good. I realize that much of what he talks about is not needed if you understand grinding and daily work, but his channel was one of the first legit polyglot channels to pop up on YT and his advice is decent.

[@Evildea]

Good to see he changed his stance. If I changed a stance though I’d take the video down. He definitely does appear to be old school in his approach but there’s nothing wrong with that. At least I could use this as a good opportunity to do some Anki education :)

[@TheFiestyhick]

@@marikothecheetah9342 ummmmm....you are making major assumptions. Did I state old school methods of writing into notebooks is bad? No, I didn't. I simply explained that he leans towards some old school methods. I didn't say it in a derogatory way, at all.

[@marikothecheetah9342]

@@TheFiestyhick thanks for reminding me not to talk to people on the internet, because I am supposed to interpret what they write their way, and read in their minds.

[@francegamble1]

I think he has the time to do this, really. His method is how I learned Japanese in the 90s, but I think we have so many better things now. He just hasn't come away from paper pen and a book with dictionary. And I don't have that kind of time anymore. I also use Traverse instead of Anki, but flashcards work.

[@Evildea]

Yeah, it appears he just found a method that works for him. It wouldn’t work for me though.

[@francegamble1]

@Evildea It would work for me too... if I had 8 hours a day to translate manga again and watch tons of Japanese TV with Japanese subtitles. If I ignored the face that I have 45 hours a week job, need sleep, and have appointments every week with children. 🤣 Not to mention eating, cleaning, cooking, and being a parent and spouse. I learned Japanese during a time in my life where I could ignore these things and didn't have them.

[@Evildea]

@@francegamble1 I totally get that. Man I wish I had even a fraction of the free time these people have >.

[@MisterGames]

1 Luca has a course to sell so he needs to badmouth anything against his course. 2 His first point is contradicted by his second point. 3 reception is key, but apparently this is bad when Anki does it. 4 Luca doesn't know how to use Anki efficiently therefore bad.

[@matt92hun]

I never used it for any of the languages I speak, but I don't see why people who like it shouldn't use it. I think the best method is the one you like and keeps you learning.

[@Evildea]

100%

[@byronwilliams7977]

He does indeed speaking several languages at a very high level.

[@Reflekt0r]

Love your videos! Your audio cards method really helped me to speed up my learning. I'm not doing exactly the same as you and I think what you do is better than what I do, but I find my variation a little more enjoyable and so it might last longer before I burn out. I've only got a month left but I feel I'll at least have a good foundation when I'm forced to switch to "natural SRS". Keep on grinding! 🔥

[@Evildea]

Excellent work man! Yeap do whatever works for you. The grind is all that matters :D

[@betos-08]

1:21 Supermemo is like OG Anki from the early 2000s or maybe even the 90s. Anki is great especially when you get into all the cool addons on the website. There are so many awesome ones that just change everything and make it like a legit video game. When I had hundreds of reps daily, it'd be much easier to go through them

[@Evildea]

I’ve never really got into the adons. Got any recommendations?

[@betos-08]

It wouldnt let me reply for some reason but here's a couple addons I use for Anki, you asked like a week ago and I forgot. Audiovisual Feedback, Large and colorful buttons, Progress bar, AwesomeTTS I always find new ones. There's just so many cool ones though with good audio and visuals. I forgot the name but there was one I used that made Anki into an RPG game with sprites and weapons.

[@Evildea]

Haha that last one sounds fascinating!

[@stoic543]

I have been using Anki for the past year. If I come across a new word, I add the entire sentence containing the word to my Anki app... However if the sentence is too long or difficult, I replace it with a simpler one that I find in a dictionary. Is this okay??

[@Evildea]

Yeap as you’re creating context :)

[@ScarecrowSkye]

I think it shows a lack of reflection or intellectual dishonesty for him to start the video by talking about how complicated adding a card is, and then follow it up by immediately saying that adding new cards to anki is SO EASY that it's literally addicting lol

[@Evildea]

Good point and not something I noticed in the moment.

[@Thomas5k]

I used Anki to hammer out stuff I didn't know from novels after I reached a point I could read novels. It helped me so much remembering rare kanji and words. Like you, I would just delete a deck/cards when I felt I wasn't getting what I wanted out of them. I don't really use Anki anymore but using it while struggling through my first Japanese novel skyrocketed my ability.

[@Evildea]

Yeap, totally, it can be an amazing tool if used effectively!

[@Sam-shushu]

The problem with anki is that this isn't a built in, official feature (and it never will be, as it is against the personal learning ethos of its creator). If you happen to use anki desktop a lot, and don't mind running several versions behind that isn't compatible with any other plugins, there's a plugin for this. But really you should be able to set a threshold (next review in say 2, 3, or 6 months) where the card is disabled automatically because further review is useless. because on phones, which is how most people use anki, it's a pain to disable 2000 cards randomly scattered through a deck. That feature would go a long way to make Anki suitable for long-term use in langauge study. Right now, past a certain threshold of use, you end up just doing hours and hours of Anki a day instead of actually studying or using your language

[@amj.composer]

I know I’m super biased (idc tho) but when people start denigrating anki I REALLY start losing trust in them.

[@Evildea]

I’m usually okay if it’s based on their own experience but when they admit to having basically not used the program my thinking is like anything else, how can you judge without properly testing??

[@BrianWellness]

Good job breaking this down. Luca definitely has achieved a lot and he doesn't promote fake exaggerated stuff. However, you broke down where he got stuff wrong with Anki. Luca largely likes those traditional type approaches, but done with a more creative twist. He likes to use pen, paper, notebooks a lot. Also, reading books you like, in the language. Kind of "old fashioned" style. Anyway, good job showing a fair explanation of Anki

[@Evildea]

Thanks!

[@deborahromero6396]

Anki is just a program. I'm using Luca's method which is based on translating sentences or fragments of sentences in my target language and vice versa and I'm doing it in Anki, the only difference with what he does is that he uses a notebook. Anyway, his method is good, that plus immersion with Migaku is helping me progress a lot.

[@Evildea]

I wonder what Luca would have to say about that haha. I need to give Migaku a try sometime as I’ve heard it thrown around a few times now.

[@deborahromero6396]

@@Evildea migaku is really good, especially for the type of cards you make since it allows you to make audio cards in seconds.

[@Evildea]

I’ll definitely check it out and see if I can add it into my cycle! Thanks!

[@jaysterling26]

​@deborahromero6396 It seems made or promoted to learn Japanese- have you used it for this?

[@deborahromero6396]

@@jaysterling26 No, I'm using it for mandarin and it works pretty well although it's not perfect yet. It's definitely worth it anyway, it's true that making cards manually isn't difficult and doesn't take much time but being able to make them with just one click is just too good.

[@derekforde7164]

I used anki to learn Spanish to near perfect level. It was extremely effective for speaking skills and building the bulk of the vocab. For listening skills, watching movies in Spanish with the subtitles in Spanish as well was very effective.

[@Evildea]

The fact you speak perfect Spanish shows your method works :)

[@kineiya]

I used anki for yrs and I hate it. I learned Jack from it. I learn vocabulary by using it in sentences, reading, listening, and reading.

[@Evildea]

If something doesn’t work for you then totally ditch it and try something else. At the end of the day we’re here to learn a language not pledge allegiance to specific methodologies :)

[@artugert]

Why did you keep using it if it didn’t work?

[@GimGainor]

Mainly agree with your take here. One thing I would say though is that learning correct pronunciation early on is much easier than trying to fix bad pronunciation patterns at a later stage. This is especially true for Chinese. There are far too many learners who are nearly unintelligible to natives.

[@Evildea]

Yes, you definitely want to get the pronunciation down pat early on. I totally agree. I put a massive amount into my Chinese pronunciation at the start and it has massively paid off now. I added an overlay to that part of the video as I probably didn’t clarify it well enough.

[@TalkingAmerican]

Luka is a really sharp guy, but he does seem to have (I think accidentally) made a straw man argument against anki here. Yes, anki when used in less effective ways is going to be less effective. And I personally don't love using anki, but I don't leap from there to "anki is problematic."

[@Evildea]

That’s what I’m thinking exactly.

[@Reflekt0r]

If you had more time, how would you divide it between Anki and other activities? At an intermediate level, I think working for 3 hours through your Anki and do another 3 hours of comprehensible input would allow you to make great progress. After 6 hours in total, you probably get diminishing returns.

[@Evildea]

@@Reflekt0r Ah you mean the dream scenario? I would probably need to test a few methods. But what you’ve laid out here would definitely be a good starting point. If I had both time and money I’d throw in one speaking lesson with a tutor each day for probably 45mins to an hour. I’d probably do some comprehensible input in the morning to wake the brain, then go straight into the lesson, then do some comprehensible input to chill, then do the Anki review, then do sentence mining with a video, then finish off with just more comprehensible input.

[@Reflekt0r]

@Evildea Right, the tutor lesson would be a great addition to pure grinding. I hope that scenario will come true one day. ;-)

[@neutrino109]

I think the problem with reviewing hundreds of cards per day is sometimes real, but perhaps in a different way. A lot of very beginner words and sentences I’ll never need to see again. I never need to review “La suno brilas”. Even on a long timeline, totally unnecessary. Or sometimes a word might be useful, but not now. I shouldn’t focus on learning cornflower while I’m still learning yellow. In both cases what I’ve been trying is to have multiple smaller decks. The cards I learn in December 2024 will be deleted as a deck in December 2025. By that point either it wasn’t important enough to learn now or it’s already in there enough. Also I’ve used images when I was playing around with a couple of sign languages. Edit: talked a bit about as soon as i unpaused haha

[@Evildea]

Yeah, triming your deck regularly is a good idea after a while. No point reviewing shit 2 years from now that's just piss easy and taking up precious time.

[@masscreationbroadcasts]

Speaking 55 languages is impressive. Speaking 20 sentences in 55 languages is not.

[@overlordartorius6688]

I think it's easy not to use Anki for European languages or some Asian languages like Malay and Indonesian. However, for Chinese and Japanese, Anki saves a lot of time.

[@Evildea]

I need to test this theory in the future as it’s something I’ve wondered about for quite some time myself. I get the feeling that is why pure CI works so well for so many people learning Spanish as it’s just closely related enough that one can quickly spot the differences and feed upon them when feed them in a regular way.

[@artugert]

Why would it save time?

[@糖浆饼]

I do your audio card method using lines of dialogue from tv dramas, and I wish I could swap out the nouns and verbs as you do. But at the moment there's no way to preserve the actors voice in this swap (I'd have to do like you do and use those AI voices). I personally copy every single part of the actors line, including things that would not be present in an AI generated audio. I do love the idea tho, I just can't justify learning my accent from an AI. Do you have any thoughts on this? Thanks man, love your vids

[@Evildea]

@@糖浆饼 If your method is working for you that’s all that matters. One benefit to your method over mine is you’ll get a much more realistic range of accents which AI voices fail at. But maybe a mix of both could get the best of both worlds?

[@糖浆饼]

@@Evildea reasonable man!

[@Bruh-cg2fk]

what are your thoughts on watching a movie or an episode 50 times? I already have the full script of the episode 2 of Oshi no ko 推しの子 in anki I just need to review them while I watching the show, you can also duplicate all the cards of the entire deck and convert the new ones into an audio only format

[@Evildea]

I’ve played with that idea before and I imagine the massive repeated exposure would work but at the same time it might become really boring after just a few rewatches. But I haven’t actually done it for anything other than songs and it did work for the songs so hard to say.

[@糖浆饼]

If you really like the piece of content, go for it. I've seen a few dramas several times over (some as many as 5+ times). That being said, don't force yourself if you don't wanna do that and are just doing it for the gainz

[@nendoakuma7451]

The Days of French and Swedish (or whatever the channel is called now) guy recommends that. It seems insane to me. I’d get so bored. Moses McCormick recommended listening to beginning dialogues 1000s of times. I could do that more easily. It is easier to repeat something short.

[@糖浆饼]

@@nendoakuma7451 yea we've all seen Lamonts video

[@nendoakuma7451]

@@糖浆饼 I like him a lot, but he’s crazy.

[@cpnlsn88]

He has attained a high level in several languages without Anki and therefore comes to the conclusion that Anki isn't necessary. I don't think it's necessary to use Anki. My own practice is just to add words to recognise them in context. Making cards is just cutting and pasting into Anki (for me). I do add instances of idiomatic usage though (again cut and paste). Can it be useful to use Anki? Yes, I think so. I found it really helpful in reading New Testament Greek where it has sped up my reading a lot. I did Anki for Latin but stopped and in some of my languages I never used Anki. (With the New Testament there are a finite number of words - about 5,000 to be precise and there is quite a lot of value in using Anki for these words). (One of the things I found helpful with Anki is to read in a new script - e.g. Greek; I think that duolingo could also be helpful with helping with a new script and getting comfortable with it). My criticism of Anki (though I do use it) is the concept of the forgetting curve. The main learning of words is through..... comprehensible input. You learn language in order to do things like reading stuff, listening to the radio etc. Once you can do those things you don't really need Anki. But it can help you get to that point. The real SRS is comprehensible input (for me). I am really wanting to see a word x times through Anki (eg 10) and then have a good chance of understanding it in context. I know you can personalise the settings - I do that to an extent, lengthening the review period. Other methods are of course available - paper lists and such like. For all I now these may be better but there's a certain value in the program being able to sort your cards and being abe to do it on your mobile so you can do it when on a bus etc.

[@Evildea]

That sounds perfectly fine and similar to what I do, I use Anki to get it into my head then watch real life content to cement it for the long term and learn its various shades of meaning.

[@cpnlsn88]

@@Evildea Yes, I think that's right. So I don't think you need to get every single different meaning or definition. If there's a second meaning and it makes for an issue you can just create another card but mostly even that isn't necessary. Anki doesn't turn you into a walking dictionary like it's a computer program (I mean it is a computer program.....) but just gives you more familiarity with what you encounter.

[@Evildea]

100%

[@Iskoj210]

There are a couple of videos by dr Jeff McQuillan (a man of vast research experience) with him speaking about efficiency calculation, time of flashcards vs time reading etc. He says that the knowledge from flashcards only lasts over a short period and what studies have found is that even when learners are tested and those tests show that they do remember the words, they cannot use these foreign language words when they read or listen. Those may be of interest to all (cannot put direct link to videos only titles): 1 «Flashcard learning is NOT efficient» 2 «Flashcards develop knowledge you can't use»

[@Evildea]

I’ll add his videos to the list to review if they’re not too long.

[@TheFiestyhick]

@@Iskoj210 there is no way that Flashcards are as ineffective as that guy claims. There are countless people on YT that swear by them and have massively increased their vocab by Flashcards. It depends on how clever you are with Flashcard creation. If you just make tons of random words and sentences, results will be mediocre, but if the Flashcards have sentences that are practical or flow in a story type way, you'll definitely absorb the vocab. This isn't my personal opinion, this is based on countless people and even Evildea speaks of it's benefits

[@defqqq]

I watched those videos and some others by Jeff. He's Stephen Krashen's student and as such a huge proponent of CI. No problem there, I am too. Massive input is and always will be the king. Krashen said something along the lines of We acquire language when we understand the message and if smart Anki-ing helps you to do that, I don't see how it doesn't help, especially if you ENJOY doing it. It's all about balance and not falling into some of those traps Luca mentioned. I remember not being happy after watching those videos, because I don't think I was able to find and review any of those studies that were mentioned. Accepting that someone is an authority and a "man of vast research experience" is not enough for me to blindly believe everything they say. I also remember being under the impression that those studies he mentioned were few and far between and were also done in a sort of a laboratory setting, not in real life with experienced language learners. From what I remember and your summary supports my feeling, it almost looks, as if those studies were designed to fail. If you have those resources, please share. What I would like to see is something like this, here's Dreaming Spanish, use it exactly the way the creators want you to do it for one group, i.e. pure CI. And other group gets the same, plus they get to do Anki. Both groups get let's say 1000 hours, meaning Anki group will have to split that time between their activities and upn completion, we will test different aspects of their language skills. That would be much better study I think and one that will never happen I also think😂 Me personally, I don't care for anki much. I used some SRS software in the past, but I'm sure I didn't do it correctly in conjunction with language learning. I only have two measly languages under my belt, one I learned in school to a level at which CI and real life immersion were enough to keep improving naturally, the other one is so close to my native tongue that CI and some real life interaction is again enough to keep improving. I'd love to add two more. One using Refold method (involves Anki) and the other one - Spanish, using, surprise surprise, Dreaming Spanish. Or do I need 5 languages to be allowed to call myself a hyperpolyglot? Maybe I'll add one more using a version of old school hardcore Heinrich Schliemann's way.

[@Evildea]

I was literally saying in another thread here that next year I plan to start doing DreamingSpanish to test pure CI and I was also interested to see if I could reduce those 1500 - 2000 hours needed since I already speak fluent Esperanto and can read some basic Latin. I figured with that stuff to back me up I'll spot cognates and have a pretty good feeling naturally for the underlying language patterns.

[@eduardoidiomas5216]

He is a good at learning, but some people are just dead set on bashing anki.

[@Evildea]

He is very accomplished but yes sometimes people think that because A method worked for them than B method can’t work for others.

[@TheWishDragon]

I like your idea with taking 6 structures and making cards from them. I may have to give that a go. Sorry if this ks a silly question but what do you use to generate the audio? This would probably help me build a more solid foundation. Edit: you explained tiis in the video smh. I am silly. Thank uou, I will watch the grind video!

[@Evildea]

No problem!

[@onlinearmeygames]

Just Google text to speech in your target language and there will be website or apps you can use to generate the audio

[@Exemonster9]

I use an addon on Anki named "AwesomeTTS"

[@plasmamuffin1320]

I don't use anki not because I don't like flashcards, but because it's stupidly complex. I don't want to have to watch 5 video tutorials to figure out what "difficulty lampshade gradient curve 200%" means. Flashcards are the most basic thing ever, how do you mess that up I use wordholic flashcards, which has ads and is STILL better than anki.

[@Evildea]

I don’t even know what “difficult lampshade gradient curve 200%” means lol. If another system works for you then totally go with that. We’re here to progress and if the tool doesn’t work for you then scrap it.

[@tonykaku8948]

to use anki or not is up to learner, if he doesnt use anki, it doesnt mean you need to tell what we should or should not do.

[@Evildea]

That’s why I say in the video one needs to test it and not just believe him or me.

[@juniorp6467]

27 min Long video , seeing it was posted 27 mins ago awesome 😂

[@Evildea]

Haha! It was fate!

[@juniorp6467]

Could you do a video of your settings for anki , I seem to have messed mine up and can’t find the best settings

[@Evildea]

I’ll see if I can slot it in with another video on Anki in the future as probably wouldn’t make a good standalone video.

[@juniorp6467]

Thank you and keep up the good work

[@juniorp6467]

One quick question, would you ever consider making anki cards with your own voice ?

[@jiaweiwang2789]

I understand what you are trying to say. But why the heck you call Macdonald’s dirty? 11:21

[@Evildea]

Dirty; i.e. not good for you

[@Sam-shushu]

I used Anki continously for 3 years every day for my Korean, and while it did get me to the point where I could get around, I feel like it left huge holes behind. Basicalyl after a while you have so many cards due any day that you live just to do anki. 3 hours of card reviews every day. You don't have time for native content or even to go out and talk to natives. And you only really learn what is in the deck, nothing else. I mean, it's faster and better than duolingo, but that's not saying much. Duolingo is not good. Anki is okay, there are just better ways. Lots of better ways.

[@Evildea]

Yeah, that's why its a good idea to retire an entire deck and start a fresh after a while otherwise you'll get reviews for stuff you mastered long ago.

[@josecontreras7153]

How many languages do you speak fluently? I'd love hearing you speaking other languages. I have heard Luca speaking many at a very high level. His method works.

[@Evildea]

I speak Esperanto fluently and Chinese at an upper intermediate / lower advanced level. I have roughly 600 videos on this channel of me speaking Esperanto :) also I have no doubt his method works. I even said that in the video. What I disagree with him on is his claims regarding Anki. There are multiple ways to fluency, his way is one and a grind method using Anki is another.

[@artugert]

There is more than one method that works.

[@twodyport8080]

Anki is an awesome tool. But its just a tool. It can be useful, and also not..Depends how you want to train. I find I use it for a few months then just leave it for a while unless I want to intensely train vocab. I find that if you read a long text like a book then writing down is better than Anki. The physical motion is so powerful compared to glancing at an Anki card. I write notes and review the text so I have a more natural SRS system. Utlimately I think it all boils down to preference. Personally I don't like Luca at all nor do his methods work for me. But he does seem accomplished apparently. I am also very anti CI. So take that into account.

[@Evildea]

Essentially whatever keeps one grinding is the best method. Also, I think a lot of polyglots promote the idea that one must maintain one method throughout the journey which as you just noted can and should be adjusted based on your needs at the time.

[@jaysterling26]

09:54 - kudos to you et al on this medium ( spot the extrovert).

[@jpknijff]

Yeah right, the dude speaks only fifteen languages fluently, so yeah, what the heck does he know?

[@aSnailCyclopsNamedSteve]

Ok. One comment, two questions. Comment. Now that I know you enough, I think I can put this in terms you'll understand. When you are learning Chinese characters, there are three types. There are ones you see so frequently like man and woman that you will learn them regardless. Anki is enough for them because they are short and sweet and you don't need to consciously memorise them. Then there will be combinations of those characters that will also be easy to learn because you know all the component parts. Anki works fine for those because they also do not require conscious effort. But there are in-between characters that you see sometimes, maybe once a month, and they are more complicated than man or woman, maybe 6-7 strokes. Those need to be consciously memorised, like with mnemonics. And that is where my problem with Anki lies. Question. How do I control Anki so that I have time to create those mnemonics and grind those type-3 characters into my brain? Do you know a video that explains how to set Anki on manual advancement? Second. I think Anki master lists come as an Excel sheet. Do you have a video on how to set up that master list so that I can create my own? If you can answer either or both questions, the answers should be pinned in the comments, not given under my question.

[@Evildea]

I made a video on Chinese chatacters here kzbin.info/www/bejne/g2Paapd7r5ehirMsi=tZyo8Uf8y6xx4uCx I don’t know if you’ve seen it or not. Let me know if you’ve seen it as that will help me structure a response.

[@aSnailCyclopsNamedSteve]

​@@Evildea Thanks for asking. Yes, I had. I had not been aware of that structure before and had been just learning characters as characters, presumably the most important ones. Tuttle is not known for thorough analysis, although I did not know it at the time. Still, it was important for me because it taught me that flashcards alone without actual texts, verbal or visual, was a waste of time. It also clued me in that you are the real deal. It is a good video. But I see from your response and the transcript of that video that I have failed to communicate. I didn't want to go into a discussion of Chinese characters simply because I do not have the need or time to learn them. I was speaking specifically about Anki. One of these polyglots insisted he had the perfect Anki deck for German, which I was trying to prepare for my daughter as she might work in Austria at some point in the near future and she would need to pass a B1 or 2 exam in order to do that. Only I did not understand how to manipulate the deck and something like the 10th-15th word was one of those famous long German constructions. I understand from learning Lithuanian that attempting such a word is a total waste of time regardless of its frequency. Thus, I understand that I cannot use any Anki deck until I can manipulate the order in which words appear and how long I have to study each word. When you tell me I have 60 seconds or 180 seconds or even 600 seconds to memorise a word before the next automatically flashes on the screen, all I am thinking about is seconds, not the word at hand. The only way I can focus on the word is if I can manually advance the deck. Hence my two questions.

[@Evildea]

@ ah, okay, well I generally don’t ever recommend using other people’s decks as you didn’t build them and didn’t learn the content before hand. But I can see in your situation that kind of sucks as you’re trying to prepare it for someone else. I always manually advance my cards and never use a timer. I’m not trying to run a completion and therefore I give myself as long as necessary to absorb the content. I don’t think many people would do well using a timer. Regarding reordering a pre-existing deck, I don’t know if there is a good or efficient way to do it. Again, how do you determine the optimal order for something you haven’t learned yet? Basically you’ll always be relying on someone else’s idea. I guess the only way you could get around it is to search for specific decks that match specific skill levels but even then most of them will probably be poorly designed. Sorry I don’t have a good answer in this case. It would be akin to taking someone else’s class notes and trying to review them.

[@aSnailCyclopsNamedSteve]

@@Evildea Yes, I agree, I am too old. I tried to read the Anki instructions to see how to advance the deck manually, but all I see is adjusting the time, 60 sec being max. Can you tell me where to find instructions I can understand on how to advance cards manually and how to create my own deck? Video or written, I don't care. And if you are going to post your own video after you get back (no problem, I can wait), then I have a third request. Many languages have apparently been standardised in recent history, Lithuanian being one of them. The handiest deck to share would be not the 10,000 most common words, but the core words in a format where the new user could adjust the order to the text(s) they are reading. Put another way, use already created cards but arranged in a new order set by the new user. That would save writing time and the cards could include extras like mnemonics, which would be a huge savings in time.

[@Evildea]

Advancing Anki manually is the default so if yours is stuck on some timer maybe you've accidently added an addon? You can go to the tools menu and check Addons. Make sure there is no Addons related to timers. I'll think about what you're asking and if I can come up with a solution will make a video but yes would need to wait until I'm back.

[@Bruh-cg2fk]

what about any good deck for esperanto? lol

[@Evildea]

I don’t use other people’s decks as the creation process is vital to me.

[@elmadas]

Please review languagejones... 😅

[@Evildea]

I’ll add it to the list

[@paulacres794]

Uuurgh please, pretty please, don’t do it

[@Evildea]

Oh conflicting stances on a review. Very interesting.

[@paulacres794]

His “hey everyone I’m a linguist with a PHD and I want you to be sure you know it” vibe really gets on my tits

[@Evildea]

Ah okay, I’ve seen him recommended but haven’t seen his videos before.

[@Glassandcandy]

I absolutely hate this cottage industry of “this is how to REALLY learn a language” as if there’s this one mythical pedagogy that works efficiently for everyone everytime

[@Evildea]

Yeap, I hate it to, there’s so many roads to fluency yet even the best polyglots get locked down in their one method.

[@defqqq]

if you sell courses for 200 or 400 euro, than there better be the one mythical pedagogy that works efficiently for everyone everytime😂

[@Evildea]

@@defqqq Ah so that’s why I’m just a programmer and not a polyglot extraordinaire. I keep giving away my secret sauce :p

[@defqqq]

@@Evildea That would be it, yeah😂 Luca knows there really aren't any secrets, only the grind (of whatever kind, be it anki, thousands of hours of CI, or whatever it is he's doing). But he's also a marketer besides being a (legitimate I'd say) polyglot. If you want to sell a method that can be summarised in one minute, you need to make it look like the holy grail and stick to making doing it in every video😂

[@Evildea]

That just sounds painful haha. I'd prefer to make videos about trying all sorts of random methods. Keep life more interesting :D

[@marikothecheetah9342]

I disagree wholeheartedly with the damn "learn vocab in the context" thing, because guess what - if you write one sentence you learn the word in that one context. Second - some words will mean exactly one thing, unless they are in collocations or idioms. The word dog will usually mean dog if its on itself, in idioms you have: dog tired, dog ears, but once you learn the idiomatic meaning you don't need the context. I don't need to learn "the dog was big" because... it's a freaking dog, I know what it is, I just need to learn its equivalent in the other language. The words newspaper won't turn magically into something totally different, it will make sense 99% of the time and when it doesn't it's probably an idiom or colloquialism, then you look it up, read the definition - use it. Learn the basic meaning, add other meanings as you go (if there are any), you won't be throwing any idioms or abstract stuff around when starting to learn a language. My knowledge of English sky rocketed, when I ploughed through hundreds and hundreds of vocab, including specialised vocab, during my studies. Nobody had time to teach every damn word within the context. When it comes to Anki - it's a helluva complicated thing to learn the program and to use it to suit you, not easy when you first download it and far from being an intuitive program. But if somebody really can makes heads or tails out of it - it's a tool, like any other, so if suits your needs - use it. It's definitely perfect for speed review.

[@Evildea]

When it comes to words they can actually change depending on context. Think, goose, geese, cat, cats, sheep (doesn’t change at all), person, people. So unless you learn these things in context you won’t be aware of it. For other languages like Chinese this is even more crucial. For example, 一匹马 (a horse), 一条鱼 (a fish), 一只猫 (a cat), 一个人 (a person), 一位人 (a person), 一名人 (a person). The second character in all of those words is actually called a counter word and it changes depending on the classification of the word and the situation. In Esperanto it could be hundo (dog), hundoj (dogs), hundon (dog accusative case), hundojn (plural dog accusative case) and that’s without any sentence specific affixes such as hundaĉaro (A group of terrible dogs).

[@marikothecheetah9342]

@@Evildea "goose-geese" - they are not different words, it is just a plural version of goose. The word does not inherently changes its meaning. It's just basic grammar... Unlike in the example you provided below. I don't think we use the same description of a word as a lexical unit. "一匹马 (a horse), 一条鱼 (a fish), 一只猫 (a cat), 一个人 (a person), 一位人 (a person), 一名人 (a person)" - these are all compunds, the main hanzi for person is 人. Compounds exist in every language and you do learn them as separate words, like 中国人 - just learn this as a Chinese person and you'll be fine. 一个人 is not a person, it's alone - different word, 一名人 - one person, 一位人 - the person, one I am speaking of in particular and also in a polite manner. Just because it has person in its structure it doesn't mean it means just person, because classifiers and counters modify the word they are attached to. For that, however, you need your basic grammar, as you surely know. In Japanese you learn that: 人 (hito) - is just a person, so you can say: これは人です (kore wa hito desu). 一人: 私は一人です. (watashi wa hitori desu) - I am alone. 人間 (ningen) - それは人間ですか. (Is that a human?) etc. They are treated as different words, despite all having main kanji 人 (hito). They definitely do not just mean a person. "In Esperanto it could be hundo (dog), hundoj (dogs), hundon (dog accusative case), hundojn (plural dog accusative case) " - this is a grammatical thing, not a vocab thing, hundo is the basic form, the rest of it you learn via grammar and then context, but you can learn hundo on its very own and you go from there. I've learned Russian to a B1 level, and I always learned vocabulary in nominative, then learned all the cases, same with Latin. Context is good for word usage, but not necessary for learning the word in its basic form.

[@Evildea]

@ I think we’re talking from two different places. My point is that it is better to learn in context so you’ll automate the application of grammar. That’s what I was talking about in the video. That way you don’t need to to think whether it’s goose or geese. You’ll just automatically pick the correct words.

[@marikothecheetah9342]

@@Evildea Then you're speaking about grammatical aspect of vocabulary, not vocabulary as a standalone concept. Again, you are speaking about word usage, which definitely is a crucial skill to have, but if you have a text that contains, let's say: kitchen, room, bathroom etc. and you know what it is about just from recognising basic forms, any other derivative form will be just an indicator of grammatical change, and you can go from there. What I found blocks me the most is not my listening, it's not grammar, it's lack of vocab. How can I even identify a possible grammatical change if I don't understand the word in its basic form? I am not going to wait until some context, out of gazillion ones, that will tell me what that word means. And again - maybe it is also used in a totally different context and works fine, but differently, what then? Context is great to implement at an intermediate level, good in reading exercises at the beginner level, but in the very beginning, when you don't even know the mechanics of the language? Learning basic sentences is fine, but why not also learn it within grammatical context? I just had too many cases in my learning where not knowing one word just led me nowhere, no matter how well I understood the rest of the words or grammatical structure, because the context didn't determine the word, the word was just super specialised and had one, concrete meaning, you wouldn't guess in a million years if you didn't know specifics of that thing. Also, during my English studies I learned words from military, through music, to medicine. No freaking way I could guess what sciatica is in the sentence: "he used to have an acute attack of sciatica now and then and became bitter over time" other than well - something bad happened to him and cause him to be bitter. Learned the word sciatica? Oh, this is the illness where this and this happens, ok, the sentence makes sense now, since he's in excruciating pain a lot. Sometimes words provide contexts themselves, without surrounding sentence structure, especially specialised ones.

[@Evildea]

@ Most of those words I would just learn via CI. I wouldn’t bother with Anki. Especially for Chinese as there can be dozens of words that all sound the exact same. But if it works for you to memorise word lists then that’s cool. I mainly use Anki to learn language patterns. All those individual words that you listed like Kitchen and Bathroom I never studied I just picked them up in context via CI. But if and when I do need to route learn them maybe for specific work reasons etc I always put them into a context that makes sense. For example, Chinese 柴门霍夫 which means Zamenhof I never studied. I just watched Chinese videos on Esperanto.

[@EnglishwithJoe]

Luca is right, Anki is Wanki

[@Evildea]

I don’t know why but your comment made me instantly think of Wankanda haha

[@reggietkatter]

He’s a world renowned polyglot man…. Listen, I basically hear you say nonsense and give bad language learning advices and I’ve NEVER heard you speak your languages in any videos. My friend… Really give CI a try. I’m starting to become convinced you give advice about things you don’t have experience with. I mean, this guy speaks Spanish & ENGLIGH like a NATIVE. Are you hard of hearing!!? The guy is Italian and speaks English like that!!!!???? Get your hearing checked, focus entirely on CI and then come back to the videos and give informed advice. Study does almost nothing for language acquisition.

[@Evildea]

I have 600+ videos on my channel speaking Esperanto, probably 10 or more speaking Chinese, and then a few others in other languages. Luca is just a man who let his preferences overrule a fair judgement of the tech. I don’t doubt his language capabilities just his criticism of Anki.

[@reggietkatter]

@ hey, I didn’t use ANKI & only CI got me to a very good level of fluency. I actually asked a Mandarin native to judge your Chinese and was told though your pronunciation, tones and some speech patterns are unnatural, you actually command the language fairly well. I think CI appears a bit extra , but for most people is actually the more comfortable and effective system than memorization could be.

[@reggietkatter]

You telling people not to bother could be deleterious for someone who isn’t familiar with it.

[@Evildea]

Oh that’s cool to hear someone else’s perspective on my mandarin :D I plan to do a full challenge next year where I plan to learn Spanish purely via a CI methodology (this will be a multi year project obviously). I’m thinking Spanish as it has Dreaming Spanish available. Im not against CI and often use it it’s just my experience with it so far tells me that it should be done in conjunction with other methodologies for maximum efficiency. However maybe this multi year experiment of mine will give different results. I’ll try to remain as unbiased as possible and give actual feedback. This experiment will start in late January though as I’m currently in China.

[@Evildea]

Also regarding my mandarin I’m still just upper intermediate. It will be a long while before I’m fluent yet :)

[@slightlyaboveaveragebutaverage]

"What's up, grinders?" Yeah I'm just gonna say you're wrong and he's right.

[@Bruh-cg2fk]

what?

[@Evildea]

Like grinders part is wrong or like every word in the video is wrong. Because even Luca grinds.

[@crbgo9854]

Parolante de Dependeco, mi havas 457 tagojn sur Duolingo

[@Evildea]

Ho fek' hahaha