resetting Next Repetition after editing card

[mason...@gmail.com]

This has been a tremendous program. Thanks to the developers and the user community support.

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I have been using the program for foreign-language vocabulary acquisition. I will frequently add a word with a single definition that I will memorize. Some time later, I will edit the card, to add another definition, a grammatical note, etc. For some of these cards, I can see the next repetition is weeks or months away--but, since I added the new definition, I would really need a new repetition within the next few days.

Is there a way to reset "Next Repetition" or to re-score an individual card after I edit it to sooner memorize the new material on the card?

Thanks again!

[Francesco Ariis]

On Tue, May 06, 2014 at 12:36:32AM -0700, mason...@gmail.com wrote:
> Is there a way to reset "Next Repetition" or to re-score an individual
> card after I edit it to sooner memorize the new material on the card?

Probably not the answer you were looking for, but I would advise keeping
separate bits of information in different cards.
Example:
+ in Japanese 切る (kiru) means "to cut" (card 1)
+ the same verb 切る (kiru) is an exception verb (a verb ending in
-iru or -eru which is not an ichidan verb) (card 2)

What I am stating is nothing new, see point 4 in this article [1] by
Piotr Wozniak, developer of SuperMemo.

There /are/ cases when messing with the score could be useful, though.
As an example: it happened to me to add a card with incorrect information.
Upon realising the error (minor but nonetheless present), the only way to
reset the score was to delete and re-add the offending card.

[1] http://www.supermemo.com/articles/20rules.htm

[Peter Bienstman]

Hi,

This is not implemented, but feel free to request this feature on our Uservoice site, so that people can vote for it.

Peter

[mason...@gmail.com]

Thanks Peter! My solution so far is to use copy and paste to make a new card and delete the old (or, more frequently, retype the card to solidify memory).

Hi Francesco.
I do not necessarily agree with all the research on memory, though I am certainly interested in the research. I do not know what people are trying to memorize, but I have always found cloze deletion and particularly mnemonic devices to be of no personal help in memorization. School experience has taught me that, when it comes certainly to the memorization of vocabulary, perhaps I'm an outlier. But, if there is no effort on my part to memorize, my recall is terrible (for example, trivial knowledge like the names of actors and actresses is extremely difficult).

As for my use of the program, I can offer many more examples from German (where I am a beginner) than Spanish (where I am only adding more advanced vocabulary cards). In learning a language, you will often learn a number of prepositions. Some lessons later, you will find that particular cases (genitive, dative, accusative) govern an individual preposition. As these parts of speech are some of the most difficult for a reading knowledge, I've found it beneficial to go back and edit the card to make it clear that memorization requires an understanding of the case(s) triggered by the preposition.

There are also "word families" in German. Say I come across "die Arbeitenlosigheit" (unemployment) and I didn't immediately recognize it. I will edit my "arbeiten" card to include that and any other members of the word family that strike me as worth writing at the time, even if they are fairly clear in context (and in my opinion not worth their own card): der Arbeitgeber, der Arbeitsnehmer, arbeitenlos, and die Arbeitenlosigheit...And if I cannot recall any word in this word family, I will mark it a "1". For me, a reading knowledge would require fairly immediate recognition of all words in the "word family" represented on the card.

I have seen much advice on how to make cards on the SuperMemo site. I would encourage my method for any involved in an "accelerated" course where reading knowledge and not speaking/writing the language is one's objective.