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Learning Persian with Anki, ChatGPT and YouTube

cjauvin.github.io

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Re: Learning Persian with Anki, ChatGPT and YouTube

#31

Post by veqq »

raincole wrote: post #23
veqq wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In English you have to actually press shift to change q to Q. In Persian, this is all done for you. Simply press a letter key and the correct form will appear (automatically changing form based on letters later.) Describing that as "challenging" indicates that the author does not know how to type in Persian.

... He's talking about reading as a challenge. Not typing. It's very clear and unambiguous from the original article.

You still misunderstand. This is only relevant because the author doesn't understand the system and instead of engaging with it, is making counter-productive crutches which prevent actual learning.

I'm flagging your comment for claiming I didn't read the article. If the author has trouble reading letters, how can he type well (which was your first point)? Addressing that first would prevent him from using transcriptions and dual sets of flashcards.

Re: Learning Persian with Anki, ChatGPT and YouTube

#32

Post by cjauvin »

veqq wrote: post #31
raincole wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

... He's talking about reading as a challenge. Not typing. It's very clear and unambiguous from the original article.

You still misunderstand. This is only relevant because the author doesn't understand the system and instead of engaging with it, is making counter-productive crutches which prevent actual learning. I'm flagging your comment for claiming I didn't read the article. If the author has trouble reading letters, how can he type well (which was your first point)? Addressing that first would prevent him from using transcripti…

Author here: my learning objectives, in order of importance, are: (1) vocal understanding, (2) speaking, (3) reading, and (4) typing and writing (far further). As I explain, I'm mostly bypassing the problem of typing by using screenshots (ChatGPT's OCR capabilities are very good, and Anki works very well with it too).

Re: Learning Persian with Anki, ChatGPT and YouTube

#33

Post by bsnnkv »

Always fun to see two of my worlds collide!

I studied Dari own my own and at college as an elective, and ended up taking a job with the ICRC to investigate ISAF war crimes in Afghanistan right after I graduated

These days Dari is my most comfortable second language (and I have quite a few of them)

I'm not sure if, given I had to start from scratch again, I'd go down this route - the description and screenshots seem very overstimulating for me

The most important parts of my language learning in Dari (and Pashto) - the "aha" moments if you will, were trying to express something, making a fool of myself, making everyone around me laugh, and then being gently corrected in a long-winded way (usually because I couldn't understand a simpler, more direct correction)

In hindsight this feels like a very equitable cultural exchange - I learned something valuable about the language and culture while giving my interlocutors a funny memory to share with their friends and family

Re: Learning Persian with Anki, ChatGPT and YouTube

#34

Post by pessimizer »

mtalantikite wrote: post #25
pessimizer wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used only pre-"built" decks and got to C1 in Spanish. One was actually prebuilt, the other was literally algorithmically generated disposable clozes. That, one graded reader and comic books got me to being comfortable in an L1->L1 dictionary, and then it's over. You don't need language learning material any more, just material. People are just repeating this advice about making your own decks, and it's based in not…

Did you get through the entire KOFI deck for Spanish? I started the French one, but didn't make it past a month or two before I fell off. I'm thinking of going through the French -> Spanish Assimil course soon and might give the KOFI deck another go, this time in Spanish.

I very much did, and sticking with it was the best choice I made. You will get very very fast at it after a while, and the first verbs are the hardest and most irregular (and you should spend the most time on them.) Throwing in the messy clozes after doing your conjugations is relaxing, and you can do as many of those as you're in the mood for, whereas the conjugations are systematically introduced and you shouldn't speed it up too much. Took me 7 months, but complete mastery. But literally some of the conjugations from the first hard couple months will bother you until the end.

I feel even better than natives sometimes because they learn conjugations in order at school, and when asked to recall them out of order (or hop from form to form) get confused. Once you have conjugations, you can read anything with a dictionary (and the online dle is the best dictionary I've ever used.)

I'm about to start again with KOFI French, but I had to do a lot of work to get my mouth and ears adjusted to hearing French as anything other then murmurs, and to be able to read (luckily for me, French is the opposite of perl and read-only instead of write-only.) There's a lot of stuff in French I want to read; reading all of the stuff translated into Spanish from French (but never into English) has got my beak wet.

Also, Spanish-language comic books will make you forget about English-language comic books. And they are very online, examples: http://columberos.blogspot.com/ and https://comicsmexicanosdejediskater.blogspot.com/

Also lots of other good material for vos: https://ahira.com.ar/ including https://ahira.com.ar/revistas/skorpio/ and https://ahira.com.ar/revistas/hora-cero-suplemento-semanal/ which is a landmark of literature that is too good for us (El Eternauta spans the entire length of the series.)

Re: Learning Persian with Anki, ChatGPT and YouTube

#35

Post by meken »

re-sounding wrote: post #21

That's pretty cool–but also quite a time intensive workflow when my biggest challenge is not being lazy. Anki has been useful for me but I find it hard to just stick to a rhythm. I was super bullish about ChatGPT's Voice Mode, but it is so eager to respond that I never get a chance to complete sentences!

I, too, had the same frustration as you - until I figured out you can hold down the circular icon while you’re speaking then let it go when you’re done and it won’t interrupt you.

Edit: it looks like they updated the Voice Mode UI since I last used it - hopefully they retained this capability.

Re: Learning Persian with Anki, ChatGPT and YouTube

#36

Post by veqq »

cjauvin wrote: post #32
veqq wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You still misunderstand. This is only relevant because the author doesn't understand the system and instead of engaging with it, is making counter-productive crutches which prevent actual learning. I'm flagging your comment for claiming I didn't read the article. If the author has trouble reading letters, how can he type well (which was your first point)? Addressing that first would prevent him from using transcripti…

Author here: my learning objectives, in order of importance, are: (1) vocal understanding, (2) speaking, (3) reading, and (4) typing and writing (far further). As I explain, I'm mostly bypassing the problem of typing by using screenshots (ChatGPT's OCR capabilities are very good, and Anki works very well with it too).

With a few hours of applied learning, distinctions between these will collapse. If you work on typing, your reading will naturally improve (because you're identifying letters to input). With stronger reading, you won't see differences between scripts and reading will be the same as listening. That is, improving your knowledge of the language by reading will improve your listening comprehension too. (Reading the wikipedia article on phonology will also unify reading out loud and speaking, Persian is extremely phonemic.)

At minimum, consider a few hours now compared to the time saved by halving the number of flashcards you need.

Re: Learning Persian with Anki, ChatGPT and YouTube

#37

Post by pessimizer »

hitarpetar wrote: post #26
pessimizer wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used only pre-"built" decks and got to C1 in Spanish. One was actually prebuilt, the other was literally algorithmically generated disposable clozes. That, one graded reader and comic books got me to being comfortable in an L1->L1 dictionary, and then it's over. You don't need language learning material any more, just material. People are just repeating this advice about making your own decks, and it's based in not…

the advantage of building your own decks is choosing words you will actually use. this matters if you're practicing conversation, if your goal is just to read general material then using preselected word lists makes sense

You should be using all the words. If you want to learn words about cooking, buy cookbooks. I want to read all material. I want to read extremely esoteric subjects from UNAM's press, I want to read Cervantes, I want to read cookbooks, I want to read Mexican street fotonovelas from the 70s.

> using preselected word lists makes sense

I have never used Anki for word to word translation, because there is no Spanish word that means any English word. You've restricted yourself to a particular paradigm from the beginning. I mean, do whatever you need to do to get a foothold, but you want to get away from L1 as much as possible as soon as you can.

Re: Learning Persian with Anki, ChatGPT and YouTube

#38

Post by garbthetill »

thebiblelover7 wrote: post #2

I've found Anki the best app to learn almost anythinf that requires memorization. In my high school days, I saw a direct correlation between the amount of Anki studying I did, and my grade.

I found it really great for quickly learning contents of a paper or books, my only gripe with anki is the integration between desktop and mobile, especially if you dont opt to sign in and getting things to sync was a pain in the ass. Hell even moving my deck from my old computer to new one wasnt straight forward

Re: Learning Persian with Anki, ChatGPT and YouTube

#39

Post by codyb »

piva00 wrote: post #10
codyb wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a large number of prebuilt Anki decks available here as well if this is useful for anyone exploring the space - https://ankiweb.net/shared/decks?search

As far as I know about decks for language learning, you should be building your own. Pre-built decks don't work so well exactly because you don't spend the time to create the links that work for you personally, I know a few people who tried to shortcut it by using pre-built decks but gave up after noticing it wasn't working well. It sucks though, it's also the one thing that makes me constantly not be consistent usin…

Ah, that's interesting. I've definitely learned a ton through the vocabulary and conjugation decks and they're a great way to continue learning even on days when there's little other stimulus.

I think what's key is that I'm taking the words and conjugation rules I'm learning and using them relatively quickly, often that day or that week. I.E., I'll come across words in Anki, then hear them in a baseball broadcast or see them in a news article. Or I'll recognize what tense something is because of the rules.

So it's supplemental, and maybe that's why it's sticking better. I don't think I'd want to create decks constantly, I created one 140 card deck and that was enough.

Finally, I do frequently use memory tricks to create associations so maybe my experience with memory castles, mnemonics, and other techniques (which I use on cards I forget frequently to create links I'm unable to create quickly on my own (or to differentiate similar words (or words that are the same but in different tenses))).

Yea, it's _work_!

Re: Learning Persian with Anki, ChatGPT and YouTube

#40

Post by mresnick »

garbthetill wrote: post #38
thebiblelover7 wrote: post #2

I've found Anki the best app to learn almost anythinf that requires memorization. In my high school days, I saw a direct correlation between the amount of Anki studying I did, and my grade.

I found it really great for quickly learning contents of a paper or books, my only gripe with anki is the integration between desktop and mobile, especially if you dont opt to sign in and getting things to sync was a pain in the ass. Hell even moving my deck from my old computer to new one wasnt straight forward

Could you talk about your method for breaking up the contents of papers and books into cards? I have a bunch of reading to catch up on for a midterm in a few weeks and I'm not sure how fine-grained to make my cards.
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