The Role of the SRS (YouTube Video Transcript)

(00:00:00) Your YouTube transcript will appear here (00:00:00) hey guys so today I'm gonna be talking (00:00:02) about the role that the SRS plays within (00:00:04) the big picture of language acquisition (00:00:05) and I just want to say upfront that in (00:00:08) this video I'm gonna be assuming that (00:00:09) you already know what an SRS is and (00:00:12) understandably how the SRS works and I'm (00:00:15) also going to be assuming that you are (00:00:16) already familiar with the distinction (00:00:18) between learning and acquisition as (00:00:20) described by stephen krashen (00:00:24) so when we're talking about language (00:00:26) learning for the most part the main role (00:00:28) of the SRS is to help you memorize the (00:00:31) meanings of words and in this case (00:00:33) memorization really means learning not (00:00:36) acquisition now depending on how you (00:00:38) actually formulate your SRS cards it is (00:00:40) possible to get some acquisition (00:00:42) benefits from the SRS and this is (00:00:44) actually why I recommend sentence cards (00:00:46) although I'll save going into detail on (00:00:47) that for a future video (00:00:48) for the most part what's really taking (00:00:51) place when you are memorizing the (00:00:53) meanings of words through the SRS is (00:00:54) learning not acquisition so in order to (00:00:58) flesh this idea out a little bit let's (00:00:59) try to do a little bit of a thought (00:01:00) experiment so what would happen if (00:01:02) someone attempted to learn a language (00:01:03) entirely through the SRS without (00:01:06) spending any time actually reading or (00:01:08) listening to content in their target (00:01:10) language so without doing any immersion (00:01:12) so first of all for every word that this (00:01:14) person memorized through the SRS they (00:01:16) would really only have a superficial (00:01:18) understanding of what these words meet (00:01:20) for example think about in English the (00:01:22) difference between the word hit and the (00:01:24) word smack so meaning wise they mean (00:01:27) pretty much the same thing yet if you're (00:01:29) a fluent speaker of English that you (00:01:31) know that the feeling or the nuance (00:01:33) associated with each of these words is (00:01:35) completely different right if I said oh (00:01:37) he hit me versus oh yeah he smacked me (00:01:40) the just way that those sentences feel (00:01:43) is quite different yet this would be (00:01:46) something that's extremely difficult to (00:01:47) explain to someone who is a learner of (00:01:50) English or who didn't yet know these (00:01:51) words right even if you read a (00:01:53) definition or a written explanation of (00:01:56) what each of these words mean although (00:01:58) that would allow you to understand the (00:02:00) basic raw meaning that it means (00:02:02) basically to punch someone right you (00:02:04) wouldn't be able to intuitively or (00:02:05) deeply grasp the actual nuance are (00:02:07) feeling associated with each of these (00:02:10) words in order to get to that point you (00:02:12) have to just hear (00:02:13) these words being used by countless (00:02:15) different people in countless different (00:02:16) contexts in order for your brain to (00:02:18) slowly infer the kind of real (00:02:20) significance or feeling associated with (00:02:23) these words now if you're memorizing (00:02:24) words through the SRS then again you're (00:02:27) stuck with basically simple definitions (00:02:29) that only tell you the really (00:02:31) surface-level meaning of the word and (00:02:32) even if you're making things like (00:02:34) sentence cards and even if you have (00:02:35) multiple sentence cards for the same (00:02:37) word then again that's still a very (00:02:40) limited number of contexts right even if (00:02:42) you have three sentence cards that's (00:02:44) only three sentences and in the big (00:02:46) scheme of things that's really nothing (00:02:48) you need to be coming across words (00:02:49) probably hundreds of times before you're (00:02:51) really gonna fully grasp the meaning (00:02:54) nuance and usage in the same way that (00:02:57) native speakers do so the next big (00:02:59) problem that this person is likely to (00:03:01) face is that no matter how many words (00:03:02) they memorize through the SRS this isn't (00:03:05) really gonna translate very well into (00:03:07) the ability to actually understand (00:03:09) native speech now I think this is (00:03:11) something that anyone who spends any (00:03:13) amount of time language learning has (00:03:14) probably experienced right you memorize (00:03:16) a bunch of words and then you try to (00:03:18) actually understand a conversation and (00:03:20) you understand nothing and then you look (00:03:22) at the subtitles or you look at the (00:03:23) transcript and you realize that you (00:03:25) actually knew a bunch of the words that (00:03:27) they were saying yet it went right over (00:03:29) your head because it was just too fast (00:03:30) and too blurry right this is what (00:03:33) happens if you haven't spent hundreds (00:03:35) and thousands of hours listening to your (00:03:37) target language it's just too fast and (00:03:39) at the beginning first of all you're not (00:03:41) even going to be able to hear all of the (00:03:42) vowels and consonants correctly and then (00:03:44) second of all even if you can hear the (00:03:46) vowels and consonants you're not going (00:03:47) to be able to hear where one word ends (00:03:48) and another word begins and even if you (00:03:51) can pick out where it's decently well (00:03:53) they're just gonna be linked together so (00:03:55) fast that your brains not gonna be able (00:03:56) to keep up with it right it's only (00:03:58) through listening for hundreds of hours (00:04:00) that you develop the unconscious (00:04:02) infrastructure necessary to parse (00:04:04) language in real time and simply (00:04:06) memorizing words doesn't actually (00:04:07) contribute to this process at all and (00:04:09) even if we're talking about reading (00:04:11) although your work that you do in the (00:04:13) SRS will translate to reading ability (00:04:15) more than it will translate to the (00:04:17) ability to actually understand spoken (00:04:19) speech you're still not going to be able (00:04:21) to read very well at all because you're (00:04:23) gonna run into this other issue that (00:04:24) probably (00:04:25) any of you have experienced where even (00:04:27) though you know the meaning of every (00:04:29) word in a sentence for some reason you (00:04:31) still just can't understand what the (00:04:33) sentence means as a whole and this is (00:04:35) because there's a lot more to (00:04:37) understanding the meaning of sentences (00:04:38) than simply knowing the words that (00:04:40) comprise them right a sentence is more (00:04:42) than just a sum of the parts you have to (00:04:44) know how to parse the grammar you have (00:04:46) to know which meanings of each of those (00:04:48) words applies in this specific situation (00:04:50) which kind of goes back to the first (00:04:52) point I was saying and so basically (00:04:54) until you actually practice reading in (00:04:56) the language you're gonna have extremely (00:04:58) poor reading abilities and again (00:05:01) memorizing things in the SRS it's gonna (00:05:03) help a little bit but without actually (00:05:05) putting in the actual reading practice (00:05:08) you're not going to be able to ever read (00:05:10) the language now the last big downside (00:05:12) of SRS learning is that it creates (00:05:14) context dependent knowledge so let me (00:05:18) explain what I mean by this this is (00:05:19) something that probably any of you who (00:05:21) have tried to use an SRS for language (00:05:22) learning have experienced so basically (00:05:25) let's say that you make an SRS card to (00:05:27) learn a certain word so you make this (00:05:29) flashcard you memorize the answer to the (00:05:31) flashcard and every time the flashcard (00:05:33) comes up you're able to answer it (00:05:34) correctly yet for some reason when you (00:05:36) come across this word in an actual book (00:05:39) or in real life although you remember (00:05:42) that you have a flashcard for it you (00:05:44) can't remember what the word actually (00:05:45) means and this is because you have (00:05:47) created context dependent knowledge (00:05:49) meaning that every single time you were (00:05:51) called to this piece of information (00:05:53) which is the meaning of the word it was (00:05:55) in the specific context of the exact (00:05:57) flashcard that you made for that word (00:05:59) and so you've only practiced recalling (00:06:02) the word in that situation so when (00:06:03) you're in a totally different context (00:06:05) sometimes you just can't access that (00:06:07) memory quite as well or sometimes not at (00:06:09) all and so another way to think about (00:06:10) this is that sometimes what happens with (00:06:13) the SRS is that instead of memorizing (00:06:15) the meaning of a word you end up (00:06:17) memorizing the answer to a specific (00:06:19) flashcard so the second you see the (00:06:22) flashcard the second it pops up before (00:06:24) you have even read the question you (00:06:25) already know what the answer is because (00:06:27) your brain is just memorized oh this is (00:06:28) that card they answer to that card is (00:06:30) this and therefore now the flashcard (00:06:33) isn't really doing anything useful for (00:06:35) you because instead of memorizing the (00:06:36) meaning of the word (00:06:37) you ended up just memorizing the (00:06:38) flashcard and this particularly tends to (00:06:41) happen once the intervals of your cards (00:06:43) get pretty big and so there's this (00:06:45) common phenomenon where you might have (00:06:47) memorized tons of words in the SRS and (00:06:49) your retention rate in the SRS might be (00:06:51) quite good yet when you actually try to (00:06:53) open a real book you can't remember what (00:06:55) the meaning of lots of words are there's (00:06:57) words that look familiar but you can't (00:06:59) remember the meaning there's words that (00:07:00) don't look familiar but when you look at (00:07:02) the muck you realize that you did (00:07:03) actually have a card for that a long (00:07:04) time ago and so there's kind of just (00:07:06) this issue where due to the artificial (00:07:08) nature of the SRS you can sometimes end (00:07:11) up creating context dependent knowledge (00:07:12) memorizing the answer to flashcards (00:07:14) instead of memorizing words and overall (00:07:17) just having knowledge to get blurrier (00:07:18) and blurrier over time as the intervals (00:07:21) continue to expand now one other thing I (00:07:23) just want to say real quick is that the (00:07:25) extent to which you will suffer from (00:07:26) these potential downsides of the SRS (00:07:28) that I just mentioned depends a lot on (00:07:30) the specific way that you formulate your (00:07:32) SRS cards for example in my experience (00:07:34) making sentence cards instead of (00:07:36) isolated vocabulary cards and sentence (00:07:39) mining instead of just using a premade (00:07:41) deck of canned sentences both contribute (00:07:43) to having your SRS work translate to (00:07:46) real ability a little bit better but at (00:07:49) the end of the day no matter how great (00:07:51) your SRS work is through never even (00:07:53) going to be able to scratch the surface (00:07:54) of fully acquiring a language if you (00:07:56) don't spend a majority of your time (00:07:58) immersing instead of just going on the (00:08:00) SRS so now that we've taken a look at (00:08:05) what might happen if someone were to try (00:08:07) to learn a language only through the SRS (00:08:09) without any immersion let's try to do (00:08:11) the opposite thought experiment so what (00:08:13) would happen if someone tried to learn a (00:08:14) language entirely through immersion (00:08:16) without using the SRS at all now I know (00:08:19) that different people use the word (00:08:20) immersion in different ways but for the (00:08:22) sake of this specific thought experiment (00:08:24) I'm using the word immersion to mean (00:08:26) that you're just watching things (00:08:28) listening to things and reading things (00:08:29) in your target language and you are (00:08:31) looking words up in the dictionary as (00:08:33) you go but even after you look up a word (00:08:36) you're not really writing it down (00:08:37) somewhere or adding it to some list or (00:08:39) putting it into some flashcard software (00:08:41) you're just looking things up as you go (00:08:42) and then you just keep on going so (00:08:44) really all you're doing is consuming (00:08:46) content and looking things up on the (00:08:48) spot now (00:08:49) I actually think that this is a (00:08:50) completely viable way of going about (00:08:52) becoming fluent in a foreign language (00:08:53) because when you actually stop and think (00:08:55) about it right all throughout history (00:08:57) and even today most people who have (00:09:00) become fluent in a foreign language (00:09:01) didn't use an SRS because up until very (00:09:04) recently a stress didn't even exist and (00:09:06) even today when it does exist most (00:09:07) people still seem to have never heard of (00:09:09) it and so if we were to go to some (00:09:11) foreign country and find a foreigner (00:09:13) there who's extremely fluent in the (00:09:14) local tongue and we asked them how did (00:09:17) you become so fluent they're probably (00:09:19) going to explain some variety of this (00:09:21) basic method that I'm explaining here (00:09:22) now of course lots of people are going (00:09:25) to have used a textbook in the beginning (00:09:26) or had some sort of teacher but (00:09:29) realistically these things only really (00:09:30) take you from a very beginner level into (00:09:33) a low intermediate level and past that (00:09:35) point if they actually ended up getting (00:09:36) good then chances are they did that (00:09:39) through just getting tons of exposure to (00:09:40) the language and then when they came (00:09:42) across anything they didn't know they (00:09:44) either looked it up in a dictionary or (00:09:46) just tried to infer what it means or (00:09:47) asked a native speaker and through doing (00:09:50) this they picked up more and more until (00:09:52) they successfully got fluids in the (00:09:53) language but in case you haven't guessed (00:09:55) I don't actually think that this is the (00:09:58) quickest way to become fluent in a (00:09:59) foreign language and here's why so (00:10:01) basically when you're taking this (00:10:02) approach you're learning new words in (00:10:04) two different ways first of all you're (00:10:06) just learning them completely (00:10:07) organically through osmosis just through (00:10:09) getting lots of exposure having your (00:10:12) kind of subconscious mind slowly notice (00:10:14) new words and then slowly infer what (00:10:16) they mean and then you kind of just (00:10:17) absorb the meaning so you're kind of (00:10:19) organically learning new words the same (00:10:21) way that you pick up new words in your (00:10:22) native language and then you're also (00:10:24) accelerating this process through (00:10:26) actively looking words up in the (00:10:28) dictionary and trying to remember what (00:10:29) they mean but for both of these (00:10:31) processes there's kind of a hard speed (00:10:33) limit built into them and what I mean by (00:10:35) this is that if you take the organic (00:10:37) process right if you're just feeding (00:10:40) your brain raw language and you're (00:10:41) waiting for it to kind of figure out (00:10:43) what new words mean then that's kind of (00:10:45) outside of your control and your brain (00:10:47) is only going to be able to do that so (00:10:49) quickly and if you take the looking (00:10:51) things up in the dictionary then (00:10:52) probably a lot of you have experienced (00:10:54) that if you just look up a word in the (00:10:56) dictionary and you don't have some sort (00:10:57) of system to help you review it then a (00:10:59) lot of the times you just forget it ten (00:11:01) seconds (00:11:02) it just goes in one ear out the other (00:11:04) and so you can come across the same word (00:11:05) an hour later and completely I've (00:11:07) forgotten that you ever looked it up now (00:11:09) of course if you continue to look words (00:11:11) up and you look the same word up enough (00:11:13) times it will eventually stick but (00:11:15) overall this just doesn't really seem (00:11:17) like the optimal way to go about (00:11:18) increasing your vocabulary if you know (00:11:20) what I mean so just to kind of review (00:11:24) what I've gone over so far if you take (00:11:26) in all SRS approach then your (00:11:28) understanding of words is going to halt (00:11:29) at the level of learning (00:11:31) you're never gonna fully acquire them (00:11:33) what's gonna happen is that your (00:11:35) understanding of the meaning of words is (00:11:36) going to be extremely superficial (00:11:37) because you're only going to be seeing (00:11:39) words an extremely limited number of (00:11:41) contexts you're not actually gonna (00:11:43) become able to understand native speech (00:11:45) or native text because you won't have (00:11:46) actually spent any time practicing those (00:11:48) things and you're gonna end up dealing (00:11:50) with having very context dependent (00:11:52) knowledge where you are really (00:11:54) memorizing the answer to flashcards (00:11:56) rather than memorizing words and as your (00:11:59) intervals on your cards grow this (00:12:00) knowledge becomes blurrier and blurrier (00:12:02) on the other hand although the all (00:12:04) immersion approach is much more viable (00:12:06) and actually at least has the potential (00:12:08) to take you to fluency some potential (00:12:10) downsides or that it might not be as (00:12:12) optimal speed wise because of the hard (00:12:15) limit of the speed at which your brain (00:12:16) can pick out and notice new things and (00:12:18) the limit of how much you can remember (00:12:20) without a sort of system that helps you (00:12:22) review all of your knowledge ok so it's (00:12:26) probably pretty obvious by this point (00:12:28) but I am indeed of the opinion that the (00:12:30) most efficient way to go about acquiring (00:12:31) a foreign language is to combine the SRS (00:12:34) with immersion and in this process I (00:12:36) think that the SRS plays two specific (00:12:39) different roles first of all it plays (00:12:41) the role of helping you create and (00:12:43) maintain mental dictionary entries (00:12:45) extremely efficiently and second of all (00:12:47) it increases the comprehensibility of (00:12:49) native media so let me explain what I (00:12:52) mean by each of these so if you think (00:12:56) about the way that a dictionary is laid (00:12:58) out you know on each page to the left (00:13:00) you have a list of all the different (00:13:02) words in the language and then to the (00:13:04) right side of each word you have a (00:13:06) definition and then maybe some example (00:13:08) sentences which tell you what the word (00:13:09) means and how it's used so if we think (00:13:12) of a physical dictionary as a metaphor (00:13:14) for our mental lexicon we can understand (00:13:17) that for any language that were fluent (00:13:18) in we have somewhere in our brain a long (00:13:20) list of all the different words that we (00:13:22) know and then for most of those what (00:13:24) each word means and how it's used so (00:13:27) when I say mental dictionary entry what (00:13:30) I mean is that you have at least just an (00:13:33) entry for that word in your mental (00:13:35) dictionary if you were scrolling down (00:13:37) the list of every word that you know (00:13:38) exists that word would show up there but (00:13:41) just because you have an entry that (00:13:43) doesn't necessarily mean that you know (00:13:44) what it means or how it's used it's (00:13:47) simply just a recognition that this word (00:13:49) exists and it roughly sounds like this (00:13:51) or it roughly looks like this and so you (00:13:53) might think well what good is it to just (00:13:55) have an entry if you don't know what it (00:13:57) actually means then isn't that not (00:13:59) really worth anything but in reality (00:14:01) creating a solid mental dictionary entry (00:14:04) in your brain and letting your brain (00:14:05) know that this word exists is actually (00:14:08) more than half of the work of fully (00:14:09) acquiring that word the first main (00:14:12) reason why having a mental dictionary (00:14:13) entry for a word is so valuable is (00:14:15) because it makes it much more likely (00:14:16) that your brain is going to be able to (00:14:17) pick that word out and notice that word (00:14:19) whenever you are immersing in your (00:14:21) target language so one good way to (00:14:23) understand this is in terms of the (00:14:24) frequency illusion so the frequency (00:14:26) illusion also known as the (00:14:28) baader-meinhof phenomenon is the (00:14:30) psychological effect where as soon as (00:14:32) you learn about something or hear about (00:14:33) something for the first time you (00:14:35) suddenly start noticing that thing (00:14:36) wherever you go so perhaps you've had a (00:14:38) sort of experience where maybe you're (00:14:40) thinking about buying a certain new (00:14:42) model of a car and as soon as you start (00:14:45) thinking about that whenever you're on (00:14:46) the road you start noticing this model (00:14:48) of car everywhere you go it suddenly (00:14:49) seems like this car is all over the (00:14:51) place and everyone has it now in reality (00:14:53) it's not that suddenly more people have (00:14:55) this car although it feels that way (00:14:57) really this car was always probably (00:14:59) decently popular just before your brain (00:15:02) was filtering that out as irrelevant and (00:15:03) now that it has become relevant to you (00:15:05) you're noticing for the first time how (00:15:07) common it was all along and so this same (00:15:09) sort of effect happens when you create a (00:15:11) mental dictionary entry for a word now (00:15:13) that your brain knows that this word (00:15:14) exists it's going to be much more (00:15:16) successful at picking that word out of (00:15:18) the sea of language that you're (00:15:19) constantly exposing yourself to and the (00:15:21) more times you successfully notice a (00:15:23) word then the more opportunities have to (00:15:26) actually acquired and this connects to (00:15:28) the second reason why mental dictionary (00:15:29) entries are so valuable and that's that (00:15:31) every time you do successfully notice a (00:15:34) word and kick out a word from your (00:15:35) immersion and then you're able to maybe (00:15:37) glean a new piece of information about (00:15:39) that word for example maybe the specific (00:15:41) context that that word is used in (00:15:43) teaches you a little bit more about (00:15:44) exactly what the word means or how it's (00:15:47) used or what the nuances or how it's (00:15:48) pronounced your brain now has a place to (00:15:51) store that new information so that you (00:15:53) don't forget it for example if you (00:15:55) didn't have a mental dictionary entry (00:15:56) for a word then even if you were able to (00:15:58) tell that a certain word probably meant (00:16:01) something based off of the context or (00:16:03) you hear how something was pronounced (00:16:04) that's probably just gonna go in one ear (00:16:06) and out the other because your brain is (00:16:07) not gonna know what to do with that (00:16:09) information it doesn't have anywhere to (00:16:10) store it but if you have a mental (00:16:12) dictionary entry and your brain draws (00:16:14) the connection and it says oh this isn't (00:16:16) just any random word this is that word (00:16:17) this is that word that I have the mental (00:16:19) dictionary entry for then it knows where (00:16:21) to put whatever new information you (00:16:23) learn about that word making it much (00:16:25) more likely that you will learn and (00:16:27) remember reg Thompson from the growing (00:16:29) participator approach use the metaphor (00:16:31) of a hook once you have a mental (00:16:33) dictionary entry for a word it's kind of (00:16:35) like there's now a hook in your brain (00:16:36) for that word and every time that you (00:16:38) learn something new about the word from (00:16:40) your immersion your brain knows where to (00:16:42) hang it and so over time more and more (00:16:44) things get hung from that hook until (00:16:45) eventually you have fully acquired it (00:16:47) and can use it yourself naturally like a (00:16:49) native speaker so basically the more (00:16:51) mental dictionary entries you have in (00:16:53) your brain then the more you're going to (00:16:54) be able to take away and acquire from (00:16:56) each minute you spend immersing okay so (00:17:01) the first big role of the SRS within the (00:17:03) larger process of language acquisition (00:17:04) is to help you extremely efficiently (00:17:06) create and maintain mental dictionary (00:17:09) entries but the second big role of the (00:17:11) SRS is to make native input more (00:17:13) comprehensible now this goes back to the (00:17:16) input hypothesis and stephen krashen (00:17:18) fundamentally what the input hypothesis (00:17:20) says is that language acquisition is a (00:17:22) subconscious process which takes place (00:17:24) when someone understands a message in (00:17:27) their target language which contains (00:17:29) some piece of language which the person (00:17:31) has not yet acquired so basically (00:17:33) there's two conditions for language (00:17:35) acquisition to happen first of all the (00:17:37) language input has to can (00:17:39) something new that the person doesn't (00:17:41) know yet although eyes there would be (00:17:42) nothing new to learn and second of all (00:17:44) the person has to actually comprehend (00:17:46) what they are hearing or reading so the (00:17:49) input has to be comprehensible so for (00:17:52) example if someone heard a sentence (00:17:54) which contained a new word but they were (00:17:56) still able to understand the sentence (00:17:58) then they have a good shot at acquiring (00:18:00) whatever that missing word was now (00:18:03) perhaps you've seen this famous (00:18:05) demonstration that stephen krashen did (00:18:06) in the 80s to demonstrate how someone (00:18:09) might acquire german through (00:18:11) comprehensible input hope it's good yeah (00:18:17) sure this is mr. Spock yeah (00:18:24) mr. Spock hot by Gordon autumn 15z Oren (00:18:30) yeah hot by Oren ok mr. Spock yeah algún (00:18:39) just NZ algún how can he feel Argan (00:18:43) Giants sigh dry algún dry out it's not (00:18:49) slick thick dry algún 9000 or dry out (00:18:55) there so as you just saw what stephen (00:18:58) krashen was doing was drawing a physical (00:19:00) picture of a face and then pointing to (00:19:02) the different facial features as he (00:19:04) explained in German what you call each (00:19:06) of those facial features so the reason (00:19:09) why this was still comprehensible (00:19:11) despite containing many words which you (00:19:13) probably didn't know was because there (00:19:15) was this visual aid which allowed you to (00:19:17) infer what all of the words meant so in (00:19:21) this way this very simple visual aid (00:19:23) that stephen krashen drew was able to (00:19:25) turn what would have otherwise been (00:19:26) incomprehensible input into something (00:19:29) comprehensible now in a very similar way (00:19:32) when you memorize the meaning of a word (00:19:34) although you have only learned that word (00:19:37) and you still haven't acquired it this (00:19:39) memorized knowledge can function as a (00:19:42) comprehensive ility aid in the same way (00:19:44) that visuals can anything that helps (00:19:47) make input comprehensible pictures (00:19:49) knowledge of the world realia etc (00:19:52) helps language acquisition so let's say (00:19:55) that you read a sentence which contains (00:19:57) a word which you have learned but not (00:19:59) yet acquired well if you consciously (00:20:01) recall the meaning of the word and then (00:20:03) through that contest thinking you're (00:20:05) able to intuitively understand through (00:20:08) mental ease the meaning of the full (00:20:10) sentence well now you have a good shot (00:20:13) and actually subconsciously acquiring (00:20:15) that word which before you only knew so (00:20:18) in this way although learned knowledge (00:20:20) can't directly transfer into acquired (00:20:22) knowledge it can indirectly transfer by (00:20:26) acting as an aid which makes input more (00:20:28) comprehensible so basically although (00:20:33) using an SRS in isolation is not very (00:20:36) effective at all because it just leaves (00:20:38) you with superficial knowledge about (00:20:40) words which slowly fades over time when (00:20:42) combined with ample amounts of immersion (00:20:44) it actually becomes an extremely (00:20:46) powerful tool because it's extremely (00:20:49) efficient at creating an extremely large (00:20:51) amount of mental dictionary entries very (00:20:53) quickly which in turn allow you to (00:20:55) notice and take away more from your (00:20:56) immersion in addition to helping you (00:20:58) memorize at least the basic meaning of (00:21:00) all of those words you make mental (00:21:02) dictionary entries for which again in (00:21:04) turn allow you to comprehend more of (00:21:05) your input again in turn allowing you to (00:21:08) acquire even more and this all kind of (00:21:10) creates a positive feedback loop which (00:21:13) will allow you to take away so much more (00:21:15) from your immersion than you would have (00:21:17) been able to otherwise (00:21:18) so again all the real acquisition action (00:21:21) is still happening in your immersion but (00:21:24) the prep work you do in the SRS allows (00:21:27) that immersion action to play out much (00:21:29) much more quickly now one of the main (00:21:32) features of the mass immersion approach (00:21:33) is that from day one you were going out (00:21:35) of your way to immerse yourself in (00:21:37) target language content which is first (00:21:38) of all real and authentic and second of (00:21:41) all interesting and compelling to you (00:21:42) personally and this is extremely (00:21:44) important because in order to make fast (00:21:46) progress at acquiring a language you (00:21:48) have to spend a huge amount of hours (00:21:50) immersing yourself in that language each (00:21:52) week and you're simply just not going to (00:21:53) put in the time immersing if the content (00:21:56) that you're immersing yourself with (00:21:57) isn't interesting and compelling to you (00:21:59) and I really think that is the SRS (00:22:01) allowing us to quickly and efficiently (00:22:02) build up database of mental dictionary (00:22:05) entries (00:22:06) with the comprehensive bility boost we (00:22:08) get from memorizing lots of basic word (00:22:10) meanings which really make jumping into (00:22:12) authentic native material from the start (00:22:14) a truly viable option without these (00:22:16) benefits from the SRS authentic content (00:22:18) would probably just be too (00:22:19) incomprehensible to efficiently learn (00:22:21) from towards the beginning of the (00:22:23) learning process and in this way it's (00:22:25) really the SRS which allows us to bypass (00:22:27) the process of dealing with graded (00:22:30) readers or material design for children (00:22:32) and other boring stuff that a lot of (00:22:35) people end up forcing themselves through (00:22:36) at the beginning of the language (00:22:38) learning process now earlier in this (00:22:40) video I talked about how one of the (00:22:42) downsides of the SRS is that it can lead (00:22:44) to creating context dependent knowledge (00:22:46) where you end up memorizing the answer (00:22:48) to flashcards instead of the meaning of (00:22:50) words and as the intervals get bigger (00:22:52) and bigger things tend to get blurrier (00:22:54) and blurrier so where does that fit into (00:22:56) this process of using the SRS to aid (00:22:59) immersion well to a certain extent I (00:23:01) think that this problem is kind of (00:23:03) unavoidable although if you're doing (00:23:04) enough immersion then it really (00:23:05) shouldn't be too big of an issue either (00:23:07) basically the experience of memorizing (00:23:10) the meaning of a word in the SRS and (00:23:12) then sometime later coming across that (00:23:13) word in your immersion and not being (00:23:16) able to recall what it means is a super (00:23:18) common experience that you're bound to (00:23:19) have all the time but the thing is after (00:23:22) you go through that experience of you (00:23:24) know reading a book coming across the (00:23:25) word and going what the heck I know I (00:23:27) have a card for this I always get that (00:23:29) card right how come I can't remember the (00:23:31) meaning and then looking it up in the (00:23:33) dictionary (00:23:33) having the aha moment of oh of course (00:23:35) how can I forget once you go through (00:23:37) that experience then the memory for that (00:23:40) word is going to go from context (00:23:42) dependent do context independent and (00:23:44) from that point on you're probably not (00:23:46) going to have too much trouble (00:23:47) remembering the word when you come (00:23:49) across it in your immersion and so (00:23:51) really I would just think about it as (00:23:52) that this is all part of the process in (00:23:55) order to really activate your knowledge (00:23:57) of a word you're gonna have to come (00:23:59) across it a few times in different (00:24:00) contexts you might have to look it up a (00:24:02) few times in context and that's just (00:24:04) what it takes to make a memory go from (00:24:06) context dependent to context independent (00:24:08) but really you should only have to do (00:24:10) this one or two times and so it (00:24:12) shouldn't be too big of an issue in the (00:24:13) long run (00:24:14) hey I'm editing the video right now and (00:24:16) I just realized that I didn't really (00:24:17) make it clear (00:24:17) that although it's true that a lot of (00:24:19) the knowledge you built in the SRS will (00:24:21) end up being context dependent and so (00:24:23) you'll have to look upwards in the wild (00:24:24) once or twice after learning it in the (00:24:26) SRS in order to have that knowledge (00:24:28) transfer from being context dependent to (00:24:30) context independent this won't always (00:24:32) happen a lot of times the knowledge just (00:24:33) transfers automatically and when this (00:24:36) does happen you normally only have to (00:24:37) look it up once two times as a maximum (00:24:40) and so the process of using the SRS to (00:24:43) very efficiently build very strong (00:24:45) context dependent memories and then (00:24:47) having these transfer over through (00:24:49) immersion is still going to be much much (00:24:51) quicker than trying to just build (00:24:53) memories in immersion the first time (00:24:54) without ever using an SRS now as for the (00:24:57) other problem of memories of words (00:24:59) getting blurrier and blurrier over time (00:25:01) as intervals get larger and larger well (00:25:03) this ends up not really being an issue (00:25:05) in reality because if you're regularly (00:25:07) immersing enough then immersion alone is (00:25:10) going to be enough to maintain memories (00:25:12) for all the words which you regularly (00:25:14) come across and if you don't regularly (00:25:16) come across a word in your immersion (00:25:18) then yeah your memory of it is going to (00:25:20) get blurrier and blurrier but that (00:25:22) doesn't actually matter because if a (00:25:24) word never shows up in your immersion (00:25:25) then you probably don't need to know it (00:25:27) in the first place and this is precisely (00:25:29) why we created the retirement add-on for (00:25:31) Anki which automatically deletes or (00:25:33) suspends cards after their interval (00:25:35) surpasses a certain date because once (00:25:37) the interval gets big enough then either (00:25:39) you should be seeing it often enough in (00:25:41) your immersion where that alone won't (00:25:43) retain your memory of the meaning of the (00:25:45) word or you never see it in your (00:25:46) immersion in which case you probably (00:25:48) never needed to know it in the first (00:25:50) place (00:25:50) and you happen to have just learned a (00:25:51) super uncommon word now the last thing i (00:25:54) want to talk about in this video is how (00:25:56) earlier in this video I talked about how (00:25:57) if someone we're gonna try to learn a (00:25:59) language without an SRS just through (00:26:01) immersion (00:26:02) then they would be learning words in two (00:26:04) basic ways first of all they would pick (00:26:06) up a lot of stuff just organically (00:26:07) through osmosis but then they would also (00:26:10) be learning additional words through (00:26:12) actually stopping to look things up or (00:26:13) asking other people what words mean now (00:26:16) although I think that this style of (00:26:17) learning is less efficient than using an (00:26:19) SRS to quickly build mental dictionary (00:26:21) entries I still wouldn't neglect this (00:26:24) type of learning simply because there's (00:26:25) a limit of how much time you can spend (00:26:27) on the SRS each day because it takes (00:26:30) time to make (00:26:31) it takes even more time to review old (00:26:33) cards and any time you spend on the SRS (00:26:35) this time you can't spend on immersion (00:26:37) and so realistically you're only going (00:26:38) to be making a limited amount of new (00:26:40) cards each day so any new words you (00:26:43) learn through osmosis or through looking (00:26:44) things up while immersing in addition to (00:26:47) whatever cards you made in the SRS is (00:26:49) kind of just free additional knowledge (00:26:51) if you know what I mean so I would (00:26:52) really try to avoid falling into the (00:26:54) trap of feeling like the time you spend (00:26:56) on the SRS is your real learning and (00:26:58) once you finish that then while you're (00:26:59) immersing you can just kind of zone out (00:27:01) because you already put in your work for (00:27:03) the day really the way I would think (00:27:04) about it is that whenever you are making (00:27:06) contact with your target language that (00:27:08) is an opportunity to learn something new (00:27:10) and the difference between really paying (00:27:12) attention while you immerse and kind of (00:27:14) zoning out you immerse makes all the (00:27:16) difference really the quality of your (00:27:18) active immersion is the single most (00:27:20) important factor which is going to (00:27:22) determine the speed at which you acquire (00:27:24) the language (00:27:27) [Music] (00:27:37) [Music] (00:27:41) you