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
Let me ask: what sort of background is necessary to get jobs based on your skills in a second language? I'm very into language learning as a hobby, but would it be necessary to get a degree before applying to these sorts of jobs? Where would one even look for jobs?
Anki is great for building one's vocabulary. It is not meant to be the only tool used for learning a language. But actually learning a language is much easier and goes much faster when one has adequate vocabulary.
I've had some successful sprints using Anki, but I always get fatigued making cards for it after a few months, even when leaning on LLM tools to speed up the process.
One app I used early on when beginning French was Clozemaster, set to keyboard input (instead of multiple choice). The largest benefit was I didn't have to make all the decks, they progress you through the most common words (used in context), and there are ChatGPT grammar explanations for everything if you wanted to drill into it. It sounds very similar to what OP created for themself.
At a certain point you just need to switch to native content, but at the beginning I found Assimil + Clozemaster + comprehensible input on YouTube to be able to get me to watching regular French TV in maybe 6 months.
Shameless plug for anybody who has been through the hell that is Anki card creation for language learning - I built an LLM powered extension for Anki that allows you to wire up fields to arbitrary prompts, and then generate notes in batch (or selectively per field). I use it every day for generating example sentences, definitions, and TTS. Would have quit Anki ages ago without this.
FWIW I did get a lot more mileage from building my own deck vs a custom deck too, would recommend that approach regardless once you're past the initial vocab bootstrapping phrase.
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
This is why for learning Chinese I use Pleco, which is a dictionary that allow has a button to instantly add any word to your flashcard list. So when I encounter a new word I just look it up and then add it to flashcards which I review each morning.
I don't know what similar tools exist for learning other languages but it does help a lot for Chinese.
I use yomitan + a spanish dictionary + ankiconnect for flashcard creation. i can browse whatever in spanish, hold shift and hover to see the definition(s) of a spanish word unconjugated + how its conjugated, and hit a + button to add it to my anki deck, either in context or just as a word
Now I just click any word or phrase when browsing the web, and it shows me the exact meaning in context, thanks to an AI-powered dictionary that works for any language. I save the word along with the sentence, add a quick note if I want, and later export everything straight to Anki.
It’s cut out all the friction of card creation for me. I use it daily for English and Chinese, and it’s made sticking with Anki sustainable again.
I'm on year 10 of learning my second language and passed through a variety of teaching/learning methods. Intensive FSI courses, immersion including output as early as possible, self guided based heavily on reading and vocabulary, etc. While I get by mostly fine and now live in my second language, my listening is definitely my weakest skill.
Anki is probably my most beneficial single tool. Though if I were to do it over again I'd follow more or less the poster's strategy. Maybe 80% comprehensible input for listening and 20% Anki for vocab building. At least until I could watch native TV without much effort. I've played around a bit with LLMs, but still haven't found a really great use case for my study.
On the otherhand I think consistent practice (with growing difficulty) trumps technique. Whatever process keeps you motivated to practice month after month is most important.
Just kicked off my third language after reaching B2/C1ish in my second (~5 years in), we'll see what the C1 test determines this fall, and Anki has been the consistent thing that stayed through all the other learning experiments. It's amazing just investing in Anki right out the bat how much quicker I'm moving on the new language. Especially considering it's way harder as it's not like any language I know (rich declension system, etc).
GenAI also been a big helper when I run out of content. "Write me an essay involving [subject I want to learn about]. In my response after reading, any word I've written separated by a comma generate a CSV of the format "that word, english definiton"." I'll then just dump those new words into Anki.
The most effective routine is the one you stick with for sure!
I love anki and use it for Spanish which is showing marked improvement. I do vocab and conjugation with Anki.
Then I just find other ways to immerse myself and call it a day.
- Spanish audio for sports whenever possible
- Interfaces for personal computers/devices
- Picking up the Spanish language weekly from the little box on the corner
- Listening to Spanish artists
- Reading the news in Spanish instead of English (One major benefit here is consuming far less news)
- Writing notes for work and personal projects
- Texting friends
It all really adds up over time and is definitely doable even as an adult, but it requires a ton of work, so being able to find ways to incorporate it into the activities I'm already doing is key for me on top of the more active Anki learning.
Trying to learn a language by anything other than going through the process of constructing grammatical sentences in the language is my favorite genre of hackernews posts
This is a fine way to bring the material into your "cache" but you aren't doing the work required to learn a language: Communication!
I share your skepticism. The approach you mention seems to be not only the most efficient, but maybe actually the only one that works. This is probably more about neuroscience than personal preferences.
The approach presented in the post is not necessarily on conflict with that, but it seems like extremely laborious preparation stage. And despite expectations, learning the different alphabet is usually unnecessary until fairly late into the learning process.
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.
Author, you're not properly engaging with the language. Instead of learning to type (and simply adding vowel marks), you complain about letters having different forms akin to someone saying q and Q are different and then write a post about an actively worse approach.
You also didn't understand that cards in anki can have more than 2 sides. Making Persian writing->Latin transcription then Latin transcription->English translation is a huge antipattern, when you can have all 3 on one note (simply add a 3rd field, also there's a built in "hint" field) - and above all should not use a Latin transcription at all (Notably, in the deck settings, you can generate cards from notes in different ways.)
هیچ کُدام now has the o marked, that easy! (N.b. author, another issue with your method is... Youtube videos are teaching you random things without structure. Colloquial Tehrani Persian turns án/ám into un/um which you are learning in your vocabulary. But you can simply learn the replacement rules and apply them when speaking in certain contexts.) Please use a good textbook instead. In 100-200 hours, you should be around B2 with a good program. (Better Assimil courses bring that down to ~75 hours.)
I strongly recommend:
- Baizoyev & Howard’s Beginners Guide to Tajiki - teaches the written language, with all vowels marked, and multiple dialects, this is by far the fastest way to master Persian. Reading/writing in Persian script is essentially mechanical with a good base in the language and not an issue, but you can read all Persian classics in the Tajik script with all vowels marked...
- Lambton's Persian Grammar - teaches the written languages along with colloquial Iranian usage
- Elwell-Sutton's Colloquial Persian - uses Latin transcription, quickly teaches the grammar and a nice vocabulary
-----
But going further, if a vowel's not marked but feels necessary:
> In 1792, Edward Moises already suggested not trying and just saying e
Different dialects differ a lot on short vowel usage (even in grammatical forms), so this is a surprisingly valid trick.
Your post is actually very helpful, but comes across as harsh and condescending. I think you should reconsider how you approach this.
EDIT: to be more specific, language like "You complain" and "You also didn't understand" can appear abrasive and scornful. Removing them would probably make the effect you're hoping for (proper learning techniques for the language) more meaningful.
> you complain about letters having different forms
Where did they "complain"?
The OP's article:
> From this, I will extract three screenshots (with the MacOS screenshot tool). First, to create a card of type “basic” (one side). I use this type of card to exercise my reading, which is very difficult and remains stubbornly slow, even though I know the 32 letters of the Persian alphabet quite well by now. But the different ways of writing them (which varies by their position in the word) and the fact that the vowels are not present makes it an enduringly challenging task.
It doesn't sound like they literally can't type in Persian, or they're complaining about how it's written, at all. They're merely stating the fact it's difficult for them (like every language learner).
They also screenshot the English part too. So presumably they screenshot because it's faster, not that they can't type.
> Author, you're not properly engaging with the language
Strangely condescending. They're focusing on reading and listening, which is legit for beginners.
I do agree that the use of Anki cards is suboptimal though.
Don't know how applicable it is in regards to vowel marks, but similarly in online conversation Czech people often leave out all diacritic marks (so no čšťďřňůúáéíýó).
This used to be completely incomprehensible to me, until I had enough knowledge to read "normal" Czech text with relative ease.
So it seems to make a lot of sense to learn with that aid and later transition to no vowel markings (or reduced / the normal amount)
I haven't incorporated Anki yet, but I guess a similar idea would be Memrise. My experience with that for Korean was that it was too intense in the beginning, since it was throwing random (though basic) phrases of like 9 syllables at me, and I couldn't keep them straight. I am considering trying Memrise again, since I've gone through A2 level on Busuu since then, and know more basic phrases and grammar. I do think I should be building my own Anki set by this point, but I've been too lazy.
Helping with language learning is one of the things I think ChatGPT is excellent for. I have a long-term conversation only about Korean, and I can ask questions like "how would a Korean understand [some grammatical structure]?" and it gives very insightful answers, and even refers back to vocabulary that I've already used or other discussions about similar topics.
I find it interesting that despite the relationship between Iran and various Arab countries being pretty hostile, there is no move towards stop using the word "Farsi" and revert back to "Parsi". Anyone know why? Seems like a easy political win for a besieged regime.
Because it has nothing to do with Arabic. /p/ in Persian is aspirated, and in some words, like aspirated /p/ in some other languages (e.g. Greek), it has turned into /f/; Ever wondered why ph is pronounced /f/? In Persian this is called "softening" (Narm şodegi).
Not only just a superficial change, and if anyone calls it parsi in iran they just come across like a literary person, it’s that Classical persian literature as we know it is from after arab era until 1300s. Persian imported arabic words and used them widely in its literature. Maybe an analogy is english should be called Anglish.
The difference between Persian and Farsi matters in english world because it is political. In english, Farsi doesn’t carry prestige, same way iran doesn’t carry Persia. But they do for those in iran. I’m not familiar enough with afghanistan to know first hand, but perhaps same can be said for Dari. I might be wrong though on this last one.
Both are used in Iran. Though a common folk etymology, Parsi didn't change under Arabic influence. Words like abzar and afzar exist in similar variation, guwspand gufsand, ispand, isfand, Espahan, Esfahan. Even modern loans from Russian sometimes undergo this change like apelsin->aflesun.
There are some people suggesting that, however at a small scale and not taken that seriously by many. What difference does it make? What about all the other words that underwent the sound change? Also, some nuanced people can keep languages and politics separate. The sound shift isn't even entirely clear to be due to arabic influence, how come it turned into 'f' and not 'b' such as the arabic approximation? How come sounds like 'g' remained?
And in the end, in English it should be "Persian" and not "Farsi", that is where the actual move should be. How sad and historically wasteful if we started to do that to all languages, "deutsch", "zhongwen" or "elliniki" instead of German, Chinese and Greek
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 am in high school and I had created anki notes for thermodynamics which are since lost but my friend used to say to do it in organic notes and I just ditched anki.
My organic chemistry is... terrible to say the least. I might try Anki again if you say so!
I add memory tricks (mostly mnemonics in this case) in that I learned from Dominic O'Brien [0] (I think some of his work has PDFs available) in order to juice the process a bit (helps with the tricky ones, and can make learning the new ones quicker if you do it from the get go)
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
Maybe its the enthusiastic indi-developer in me, but it feels like this is an opportunity for someone to make a better version of Anki specific to language learning. I see it as a hybrid of Babbel + Anki.
I see some individuals creating LLM generations of the cards which is definitely helpful at times, but also a double edge sword when it comes to learning. But I don't see anything taking in the users voice as an input which would be immensely beneficial
I could learn Danish with Anki, YouTube, ChatGPT and a teacher in evening school. I think Danish is even harder to learn then Persian. ;-)
Anki is a great concept!
How difficult a language is to learn is very subjective. My mother language is Danish and therefore learning German was relatively easy for me (relatively because it is always difficult to learn a new language!)
Manchmal, wenn ich ein Wort noch nie gesehen habe, kann ich die Bedeutung herausfinden, weil ich das entsprechende Wort auf Dänisch kenne.
If you know English danish/swedish/Norwegian is absolutely one of the easiest languages to learn.
People do underestimate how much a good teacher and putting in the work can make a difference. Money well invested if you actually NEED to use the language and will have opportunity to.
Persian is such a beatiful language. Sounds like singing. Like the french language of the middle east. And Anki is a super effective tool. I learn all kinds if things with it. Technology like AWS, new concepts, infos about colleagues, infos about my city, just about everything. Love it.
Cool! Have done a similar thing in the past with AP Psychology and Anki. ChatGPT is really helpful for turning Quizlet-esque flashcards into good-quality copy+pasteable Cloze cards in Anki.
I won't trash it, but for me, anything that means i'm using a screen/app means my retention is lower than if i just pick up a pencil and write on a flashcard.
The flexibility of being able to dynamically generate a ton of Anki cards using a script is trumped by just using ChatGPT to generate and grade answers. This will not work well for advanced language learners but for German it works really well - as much repetition as you need to master specific skills - up through intermediate level.
bsnnkv|5 months ago
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
jean_lannes|5 months ago
maininformer|5 months ago
dotancohen|5 months ago
mtalantikite|5 months ago
One app I used early on when beginning French was Clozemaster, set to keyboard input (instead of multiple choice). The largest benefit was I didn't have to make all the decks, they progress you through the most common words (used in context), and there are ChatGPT grammar explanations for everything if you wanted to drill into it. It sounds very similar to what OP created for themself.
At a certain point you just need to switch to native content, but at the beginning I found Assimil + Clozemaster + comprehensible input on YouTube to be able to get me to watching regular French TV in maybe 6 months.
piazz|5 months ago
https://ankiweb.net/shared/info/1531888719
https://smart-notes.xyz
FWIW I did get a lot more mileage from building my own deck vs a custom deck too, would recommend that approach regardless once you're past the initial vocab bootstrapping phrase.
codyb|5 months ago
wahnfrieden|5 months ago
It's gotten quite popular enough that I've gone full-time on it
sharperguy|5 months ago
I don't know what similar tools exist for learning other languages but it does help a lot for Chinese.
0xbeefcab|5 months ago
brianphan1803|5 months ago
Now I just click any word or phrase when browsing the web, and it shows me the exact meaning in context, thanks to an AI-powered dictionary that works for any language. I save the word along with the sentence, add a quick note if I want, and later export everything straight to Anki.
It’s cut out all the friction of card creation for me. I use it daily for English and Chinese, and it’s made sticking with Anki sustainable again.
gotodengo|5 months ago
Anki is probably my most beneficial single tool. Though if I were to do it over again I'd follow more or less the poster's strategy. Maybe 80% comprehensible input for listening and 20% Anki for vocab building. At least until I could watch native TV without much effort. I've played around a bit with LLMs, but still haven't found a really great use case for my study.
On the otherhand I think consistent practice (with growing difficulty) trumps technique. Whatever process keeps you motivated to practice month after month is most important.
piffey|5 months ago
GenAI also been a big helper when I run out of content. "Write me an essay involving [subject I want to learn about]. In my response after reading, any word I've written separated by a comma generate a CSV of the format "that word, english definiton"." I'll then just dump those new words into Anki.
codyb|5 months ago
I love anki and use it for Spanish which is showing marked improvement. I do vocab and conjugation with Anki.
Then I just find other ways to immerse myself and call it a day.
- Spanish audio for sports whenever possible - Interfaces for personal computers/devices - Picking up the Spanish language weekly from the little box on the corner - Listening to Spanish artists - Reading the news in Spanish instead of English (One major benefit here is consuming far less news) - Writing notes for work and personal projects - Texting friends
It all really adds up over time and is definitely doable even as an adult, but it requires a ton of work, so being able to find ways to incorporate it into the activities I'm already doing is key for me on top of the more active Anki learning.
casey2|5 months ago
This is a fine way to bring the material into your "cache" but you aren't doing the work required to learn a language: Communication!
josefrichter|5 months ago
The approach presented in the post is not necessarily on conflict with that, but it seems like extremely laborious preparation stage. And despite expectations, learning the different alphabet is usually unnecessary until fairly late into the learning process.
re-sounding|5 months ago
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!
meken|5 months ago
Edit: it looks like they updated the Voice Mode UI since I last used it - hopefully they retained this capability.
veqq|5 months ago
You also didn't understand that cards in anki can have more than 2 sides. Making Persian writing->Latin transcription then Latin transcription->English translation is a huge antipattern, when you can have all 3 on one note (simply add a 3rd field, also there's a built in "hint" field) - and above all should not use a Latin transcription at all (Notably, in the deck settings, you can generate cards from notes in different ways.)
هیچ کُدام now has the o marked, that easy! (N.b. author, another issue with your method is... Youtube videos are teaching you random things without structure. Colloquial Tehrani Persian turns án/ám into un/um which you are learning in your vocabulary. But you can simply learn the replacement rules and apply them when speaking in certain contexts.) Please use a good textbook instead. In 100-200 hours, you should be around B2 with a good program. (Better Assimil courses bring that down to ~75 hours.)
I strongly recommend:
- Baizoyev & Howard’s Beginners Guide to Tajiki - teaches the written language, with all vowels marked, and multiple dialects, this is by far the fastest way to master Persian. Reading/writing in Persian script is essentially mechanical with a good base in the language and not an issue, but you can read all Persian classics in the Tajik script with all vowels marked...
- Lambton's Persian Grammar - teaches the written languages along with colloquial Iranian usage
- Elwell-Sutton's Colloquial Persian - uses Latin transcription, quickly teaches the grammar and a nice vocabulary
-----
But going further, if a vowel's not marked but feels necessary:
> In 1792, Edward Moises already suggested not trying and just saying e
Different dialects differ a lot on short vowel usage (even in grammatical forms), so this is a surprisingly valid trick.
y-c-o-m-b|5 months ago
EDIT: to be more specific, language like "You complain" and "You also didn't understand" can appear abrasive and scornful. Removing them would probably make the effect you're hoping for (proper learning techniques for the language) more meaningful.
raincole|5 months ago
How do you know they are not learning to type?
> you complain about letters having different forms
Where did they "complain"?
The OP's article:
> From this, I will extract three screenshots (with the MacOS screenshot tool). First, to create a card of type “basic” (one side). I use this type of card to exercise my reading, which is very difficult and remains stubbornly slow, even though I know the 32 letters of the Persian alphabet quite well by now. But the different ways of writing them (which varies by their position in the word) and the fact that the vowels are not present makes it an enduringly challenging task.
It doesn't sound like they literally can't type in Persian, or they're complaining about how it's written, at all. They're merely stating the fact it's difficult for them (like every language learner).
They also screenshot the English part too. So presumably they screenshot because it's faster, not that they can't type.
> Author, you're not properly engaging with the language
Strangely condescending. They're focusing on reading and listening, which is legit for beginners.
I do agree that the use of Anki cards is suboptimal though.
cenamus|5 months ago
So it seems to make a lot of sense to learn with that aid and later transition to no vowel markings (or reduced / the normal amount)
kwoff|5 months ago
Helping with language learning is one of the things I think ChatGPT is excellent for. I have a long-term conversation only about Korean, and I can ask questions like "how would a Korean understand [some grammatical structure]?" and it gives very insightful answers, and even refers back to vocabulary that I've already used or other discussions about similar topics.
HexDecOctBin|5 months ago
dashtiarian|5 months ago
throwaway2202|5 months ago
The difference between Persian and Farsi matters in english world because it is political. In english, Farsi doesn’t carry prestige, same way iran doesn’t carry Persia. But they do for those in iran. I’m not familiar enough with afghanistan to know first hand, but perhaps same can be said for Dari. I might be wrong though on this last one.
veqq|5 months ago
jagaerglad|5 months ago
And in the end, in English it should be "Persian" and not "Farsi", that is where the actual move should be. How sad and historically wasteful if we started to do that to all languages, "deutsch", "zhongwen" or "elliniki" instead of German, Chinese and Greek
crossroadsguy|5 months ago
thebiblelover7|5 months ago
Imustaskforhelp|5 months ago
My organic chemistry is... terrible to say the least. I might try Anki again if you say so!
codyb|5 months ago
[0] - (https://peakperformancetraining.org/)
garbthetill|5 months ago
b_be_building|5 months ago
I see some individuals creating LLM generations of the cards which is definitely helpful at times, but also a double edge sword when it comes to learning. But I don't see anything taking in the users voice as an input which would be immensely beneficial
Aldipower|5 months ago
JohnLocke4|5 months ago
Manchmal, wenn ich ein Wort noch nie gesehen habe, kann ich die Bedeutung herausfinden, weil ich das entsprechende Wort auf Dänisch kenne.
isaacremuant|5 months ago
People do underestimate how much a good teacher and putting in the work can make a difference. Money well invested if you actually NEED to use the language and will have opportunity to.
submeta|5 months ago
eloycoto|5 months ago
ntnbr|5 months ago
techlatest_net|5 months ago
[deleted]
bumseltagbaerbi|5 months ago
HK-NC|5 months ago
BeetleB|5 months ago
shermantanktop|5 months ago
The flexibility of being able to dynamically generate a ton of Anki cards using a script is trumped by just using ChatGPT to generate and grade answers. This will not work well for advanced language learners but for German it works really well - as much repetition as you need to master specific skills - up through intermediate level.
FranzFerdiNaN|5 months ago