Comments on: Chinese characters and words that refuse to stick: Killing leeches

By: Skritter Review: Boosting your Chinese character learning | Hacking Chinese

Skritter Review: Boosting your Chinese character learning | Hacking Chinese — Sun, 28 May 2023 10:56:31 +0000

[…] error checking and follow-up – One of my favourite features in Anki is leech detection (although I think the term comes from SuperMemo). The program keeps track of what you get wrong and […]

By: Lew Proudfoot

Lew Proudfoot — Wed, 29 Jul 2020 17:20:48 +0000

My Anki leach count is set at five. Every Sunday (well, almost every Sunday), I get all the leaches together and write flash cards for them. For characters I keep missing, I write the character AND the story down again, and study the etymology again. Then I go through the flash cards, using a variant of the Leitner system, but
I go through today’s cards several times during the day, not just once.
For similar characters, I write all the characters on a single index card, usually the bigger ones, and post them where I will see them.

At 67, I don’t remember as well as I did at 27, so I use everything I can. And I agree, being lazy is more work. If a former leech comes up again, I make another card, and often hold the card up and say, “you again!” Putting more emotion into it helps.

One weakness I have is that I continue to add in new cards even when I am having trouble with a lot of leeches. I find it is better for me to not add cards for a week, or two, or three, and deal with the things I need to learn first.

By: asd

asd — Sun, 10 Nov 2019 01:42:56 +0000

In reply to Daws. Ok boomer

By: Olle Linge

Olle Linge — Thu, 24 Jan 2019 10:48:58 +0000

In reply to Daws.

I’m not sure I understand what you mean. The whole point of the article is that you should take decisive action against vocabulary that you keep forgetting, instead of just hammering away at them to no avail. That’s not giving up on them; I would say it’s the exact opposite! At the end, I do say that sometimes giving up is an option, but only if the vocabulary item in question is very rare or not useful, in which case you probably shouldn’t have added it in the first place. I think either you misread the article or I don’t understand your comment!

The reason an algorithm should alert you to the fact that you have failed something X times is because it can be hard to notice in very large decks used over months and years, or at least it is for me. If you really don’t like the function in Anki, it’s just a preference setting anyway.

By: Daws

Daws — Thu, 24 Jan 2019 09:14:57 +0000

Wait, so you have difficulty with a certain word and the answer is to give up and essentially throw the card away? That’s ridiculous. If anything that means you need to spend more time on it, or/and get a prompt to change whatever you have on the card to make it more memorable. Maybe the accompanying image just doesn’t do it for you. But at no point should a program just stop trying to teach you it. This aspect has been annoying the heck out of me on anki and I wish they would just stop it. I should decide, not their algorithm.

By: Rob

Rob — Tue, 14 Oct 2014 15:19:24 +0000

In the case of really bad leeches, I use a weakness of mine (feeling the need to vindicate myself after criticism) to my advantage: when I study I am usually around some Chinese friends and I will say the word aloud and say how I keep forgetting it. One of the recent ones in my memory is 浮, and they will look at the card and say something like “Seriously? You mean like in 浮動?” Even if I did not know the word they suggested, I just learned an example and got my pride taken down a notch, haha. I rarely forget it again.

These articles are very helpful, by the way. I had been on a plateau for a while and I feel like I am finally progressing. I have a shaky foundation and have been relearning some things that were never firmly in my mind.

By: Olle Linge

Olle Linge — Tue, 09 Jul 2013 15:12:47 +0000

In reply to Nathan. I'm not sure we have the same definition of the term "leech" here? I'm talking about vocabulary that drain energy and/or time and that you have to deal with if you plan on learning large volumes of words. Of course, if you have a program that identifies leeches for you, one solution is to ignore them and learn those words when they appear again or when you really need them.

By: Nathan

Nathan — Fri, 21 Jun 2013 12:47:33 +0000

My “leeches” are in fact the distractions. I find something in the course of a lesson that interests me…I look it up, see the origin and construction, see another word that is interesting, etc and then go down a “curious trivia” exploration of CHinese…almost none of which will stick and be more useful than sticking with what I am studying. And, as an old Scoutmaster, I know that the worst place to add leeches is wandering around in the swamp!

By: Chinese character challenge: Towards a more sensible way of learning to write Chinese | Hacking Chinese - 揭密中文

Fri, 17 May 2013 12:51:42 +0000

[…] Dealing with tricky vocabulary: Killing leeches […]

By: Luke

Luke — Sat, 09 Feb 2013 06:13:35 +0000

My biggest leech is 拱.

My mnemonic for it is:
a giant puts his fingers together to create an ARCH that the people can cross on

This one is particularly infuriating because I always seem to remember it for a month or so, then forget it (this has happened 18 times over now – and my leech threshold is 6, so it’s already gone through 3 leech suspensions!). Clearly my mnemonic doesn’t have enough emotion in it. Also, I find this character doesn’t come up very often when reading (and I read a lot), so that might have something to do with it.

And with that, I’m now sufficiently energized to go kill this leech once and for all!