Interval repetition on LinguaLeo

The main problem in the study of foreign languages ​​- forgetting the material studied earlier. The bad news is that no matter how good your memory is, you will still forget.

The good news is that in order to maintain the vocabulary level of the Upper-intermediate level (4000 words) for 73 years, it suffices to give only 29 hours to repeat. If you divide this time by the number of days in 73 years, you get 3 seconds per day. The numbers may seem unrealistic, but this is possible in the interval repetition model.
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In this article we will tell:

1. About the method of interval repetition, which allows you to remember the words while reducing the total number of repetitions to a minimum;
2. About special training for interval repetition, with which you can repeat up to 100 words in three minutes.

Interval repetition

To increase the speed of learning, it is necessary to study daily ( link for those who missed the previous post about memorization). To maximize the benefits of daily activities allows interval repetition, which is based on the forgetting curve .

The method of interval repetition is based on the following assumptions. Suppose you remember a new word and remember it for a while, say, 5 hours, and then forget it. The ideal time to repeat in this case is 4 hours 59 minutes after memorization. If you repeat the word earlier, for example, after 2 hours, it will be inefficient, since you will lose time to repeat what is well kept in memory. But if you miss the perfect snooze time and encounter a word, say, after 9 hours, then you will have to memorize it again.

In addition, the time interval to the point of ideal repetition increases each time. If you have not forgotten the word within 4 hours and repeated it, then you will not forget within 10 hours. If you have not forgotten within 10 hours and repeated, you will not forget in a day. Next time you can repeat the word after 2 days, then after 5 days, after 12 and so on.
These figures are conditional, in fact they depend on many factors, but the principle of increasing the repetition intervals works equally well for everyone.



That is, the basic meaning of interval repetition is to keep the number of repetitions to a minimum, while maintaining the stored one. So, if the interval of each subsequent repetition is increased by two and a half times, then to save each memorized unit of information in memory will require only 13 repetitions in 73 years.



If the repetition of one word will take 2 seconds, then in 73 years it will be necessary to spend only 26 seconds per word. That is, to maintain a vocabulary of 4,000 words, it will be necessary to spend only 28.9 hours in 73 years.

But such a number of repetitions is ideal. Sometimes words will be forgotten before repeating. For such cases, our system provides the function of adapting the intervals for each word. That is, some words in which you are mistaken will be repeated more often than others, in which you are never mistaken.

Training for repetition

In order to make repetition as productive as possible, we tried to achieve an optimal ratio of the three parameters:

• workout usability
• the quality of learning words
• repetition rate.

Training allows you to fully concentrate on repetition and enter into a state of attention. Firstly, you are not distracted by the choice of answer options, since only two keys are involved. Secondly, you do not waste time searching for the right answer, because there are only two options.

Repeating with the effect of testing (choosing from the options) will not allow you to passively look through the words, thinking about something else, and the timer will not allow you to be distracted by other things, because when the time has expired, a word error will be counted. Therefore, the repetition is very fast, about 2 seconds per word.

Bug work

After the end of the workout, you will see a list of just repeated words. The first will be presented the words in which you made mistakes (they need your attention more), then go the words that you repeated successfully. In any case, it will be more useful to glance over all the words, focusing on those in which you are less confident.

Conclusion

In developing the training of repetition, we put emphasis on speed, so that the repetition of words does not take too much time relative to other stages of training, but at the same time remains effective.

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