I am having big issues with classic reviews. I’m currently working on four different languages on Memrise, I have about 30 different lists of words and about 10000 words in them.
of course, that makes A LOT of words to review everyday and it’s getting too much. especially as I’m learning around 25 new days everyday so it keeps stacking up.
the main issue is that if I stop using Memrise for a few weeks, I get something like 2000 words to review and that might be OK if I didn’t have to review all these words before having to review again the first ones I didn’t get correct. I’m flooded with classic reviews and I have no idea and I have no idea how I can deal with that.
is there a tweak that would make me get fewer classic reviews everyday ?
can I freeze some lists so that classic review stop showing up for some time ?
Learn fewer words everyday. Just focus on the high frequency ones. Once you know these and feel that you don’t need to be tested on them any more, ignore them when they next come up in a review. Then you can move on to learning new, more advanced words, without old, common ones coming up in your review seasons.
thanks for your answer !
learning 25 new words (most are not even words but short sentences) or more everyday is definitely not a problem. they all come from lists I’m making myself (I’m not really using lists made by other people or Memrise) and I’m at a level in the languages I’m currently learning where frequency lists are no longer useful.
but I really like the idea of ignoring words that show up and that I think I have them perfectly stored in my memory. there’s always a chance I can forget them some day but if it happens, I can add them on Memrise as a new word again.
but what should I do when I decide not to use Memrise for a few weeks ? I recently stopped working on my Chinese on Memrise and now, I have thousands of classic reviews. that’s intimidating and I have no idea how I can catch up with that. again, Memrise makes it impossible to go back to a word you recently got wrong before you cleared all the other classic review. that’s insane
You can also “unignore” a word, but it may be difficult to find it when you have a lot of words or phrases in a course.
–> right, my biggest list has 2000 words in one level. it’s impossible to find a specific word that you want back (and how do you know you want/need it back unless you’re tested on it by the way ?).
If you split your database into levels, you can review every level individually, no matter how many reviews are pending.
–> great tip, I’ll look deeper into that, thanks !
one of the ideas was also to put a whole list on ignore so it freezes completely. but doing that, I’m losing track of the words I already ignored for other reasons (because I know I know them). so unfortunately, this tactics is not working.
Memrise should have an option that lets you freeze lists completely. simple as that (but apparently not available as of now).
I don’t fancy the idea of ignoring words to keep them from showing up in repetitions. I do 6 languages every day on Memrise, 4 of them with one course each, 2 with three and four courses. I have a ton of older (finished) courses where I have a backlog of hundreds and hundreds of words in each course. That’s OK with me - I’ll get to review them when I have the time and feel like it!
What I do is I mainly work on the courses that I haven’t finished yet and make sure that I keep working on finished courses for weeks (or even months) until I feel that I really memorized the majority of words.
It’s a tad sad that you can’t assemble your own list of words to do a review on. If Memrise had that I could focus on the words that are weaker than others. The difficult words list doesn’t help much as it’s too intense to just do a review or even a speed-test/turbo.
And FWIW - for courses where you want to quickly run through your backlog, do a speed-test/turbo. I don’t care much about the score/points involved, but if you do: you’ll get ~150 for each backlog item in classical review, but only 45 (or 50?) per item in a speed-test/turbo.
Some time ago, I created an unlisted ‘revision’ course for this purpose. When I get a word or phrase that I just can’t master, I add it to my ‘revision’ course, where I can review it as often as I need to until it finally sticks. I then delete it from my ‘revision’ course so it only contains the items that need to be there.
@possopo - just try not to be intimidated by the number of items listed for review. As Olaf says, manage the load by concentrating on what is most important to you and leave the rest until later. They are not going anywhere.
I feel for you with that single-level course of 2000 items! Multiple levels of 30 - 40 each is definitely the way to go. I don’t think there is an easy way to split a single-level course. Doing a search on the forum shows a few earlier threads with suggestions but they are each a bit ‘clunky’.
@possopo, I can’t add anything - great advice above.
I would just reiterate, don’t be forced to ‘review’ and then only do the levels which are important to you - perhaps the last level with the new words you have just learnt.
